Brawler (32 page)

I flexed my hands, gripping them hard until the right one ached. “I grew up in the foster system in L.A. because my mom died when I was a kid. She was my only family. It was just her and I in a tiny apartment on the wrong side of The Strip. We didn’t have much. Most of what we had was left over from my grandpa. He was a low talent boxer who drug her to Vegas from Ireland when she was only seven, right after her mom disappeared into thin air. My dad…” I sat back hard, taking a deep breath as my anger flared at the thought of him. At the thought of his stupid name, and his money, and his pity, and his worthless ass that was never there for either of us when we needed him most. “That son of a bitch was never around. I never met him. All I have of him are my eyes and a bank account full of dirty money. He opened the account in my mom’s name. Dropped large sums of money in it every month to help her with me, but my mom refused to touch it. Even when things got hard.”

I hesitated, standing on the edge of remembering things I desperately tried not to think about. “She started getting sick when I was eight, right when I started boxing. I wanted to be like my grandpa because I didn’t understand yet what a piece of shit he’d been. As she got sick she had to stop working as much. Money got tighter but we always managed to stay afloat. Even when she quit entirely and moved us out here to California. She started staying in the hospitals longer and longer. She started shrinking. She was pale and fragile. By nine years old I was bigger than her. I weighed more.” I rubbed my hand over my mouth, clearing the sweat that was forming on my lip. “She was wasting away in front of me and I couldn’t stop it. Then one morning she didn’t wake up.

“I was alone after that. I went straight into the foster care system. It wasn’t bad at first, but I was a kid crying every night. People didn’t know what to do with me. I got picked on for being a baby and I started lashing out. I started fighting. I was good at it. Better than my grandpa ever was. I got in trouble for fighting. Families wouldn’t take me in because I was considered violent. I started being put with different types of families. People more prepared to handle my aggression.”

“People who were aggressive themselves,” Ben guessed quietly.

I nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. I took beatings in those homes. A lot of them. I learned to dish them out and I learned to take them but I hated it. I always hated it. It’s why I fell in love with boxing. It took all of that anger and violence and it structured it for me. It organized it until I could deal with it and I didn’t feel like I was drowning in it. Once I figured that out, I stopped fighting back. I took the beatings.” My throat constricted as my stomach rose. “Along with everything else,” I croaked.

I shot out of my seat, my legs too tense to take it anymore. The doors were rattling, the animal was snarling, and the entire cast of my disgusting, perverted life threatened to break free and devour me. Devour her.

“I can’t talk about this with her here,” I snapped at Ben, as though it had been his idea. “I thought I could, but I won’t do it.”

“Why not?” he asked calmly.

“Because it’s fucked up,” I said, thinking it was obvious. “It’s ugly and I won’t let it anywhere near her. You can put a pin in it and maybe someday you and I will talk about it, but I’m never discussing it in front of her.”

“Kellen, are you afraid of her judging you? Of seeing you differently?”

“I’m afraid of tainting her with it!” I roared, losing my shit. “She’s perfect and I’ve ruined that.”

“You haven’t ruined her, Kellen.”

“I’ve been inside her,” I seethed, my eyes burning down at him with so much contempt and self-hatred that I couldn’t believe he didn’t cower. “I’ve held her. I’ve kissed her. Everything that was done to me, everything that I’ve done, has been done to her now.” I drug my hands through my hair, pulling and yanking until it hurt. Until sections came out in my hand by the root.

It was that old feeling. The feeling of wanting to escape my skin. To shed it entirely just to get away from it, to know what it was to be clean for the first time in my pathetic, worthless life. The animal fought and snarled inside of me as the memories banged their doors open, pushing and pulling at us both with bony, ragged hands. His rage beat them back, it held them at bay, but it couldn’t last forever. The room was getting cold. My back began to ache.

I couldn’t stay this close to the surface without getting ripped to shreds. I began to sink slowly, unwillingly. Inevitably.

“We need to talk about this,” Ben said firmly. “This is why we’re all here, Kellen. This is the root of the way you approach sex. Why you use it to distance yourself from people. You’re using it to take control, make it your choice, but you’re unable to feel anything in connection to it because you’re afraid of the emotions that go with it.” He paused, waiting for me to respond, but I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I was gone. “You’re afraid of sex, aren’t you? It stirs fear inside you. Hate. Anger. The violence you work so hard to keep in check. Which is why you shut down. Why you choose to feel nothing.”

I shook my head slowly, unable to stop the rhythmic movement that rocked me back and forth on the hard floor in the cold and the dark where I was calm. Removed.

“When you had sex with Jenna, what did you feel?” Ben insisted.

“Pain,” I answered reluctantly. “It hurt more than anything else.”

I stared into the darkness at the doors that lay open and the demons that leered and licked at me greedily.

“Because you were trying to connect with her,” Ben explained. “Kellen, the fact that you felt anything at all is a breakthrough. Even better that it wasn’t anger. What else did you feel?”

“Grateful,” I heard myself murmur, giving life to feelings I didn’t realize I’d felt. I’d been too scared, too consumed. Nothing else had seemed to matter.

“Why grateful?”

“Because I knew… I knew if I fucked it up, she’d still be there.”

“You’ve been left a lot.”

“Yeah.”

“But you’re not worried Jenna will leave you?”

“No.”

The words were coming out of me on their own. They didn’t need me. They were the truth and it was what I’d always promised her.

“Why not?”

“Because she loves me.” I said as I sat down slowly. “She loves me the way I love her.”

“And how do you love her, Kellen?”

I closed my eyes and I saw her there. The little girl at the table, the young woman by my side, the angel in my arms. I’d loved every one of them in a different way at a different point in time, and they’d all loved me—“

“Completely,” I whispered.

I’d never told her I loved her before – never let her know I was
in
love with her – and even though it was a messed up way to do it, it was my way.

It was our way.

“My dad didn’t give me the money for my tattoo parlor, did he?”

I paused, my ice cream coated spoon nearly to my lips. I stared at the ocean, at the sun setting over it, and I debated how to handle her question. In the end, I opted for blatant honesty. Or as close to it as I could come.

I shook my head, avoiding her eyes and investing myself in my ice cream.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” she pressed. “You did it with the money your dad gave your mom.”

“We never touched it. It sat in a bank account for my entire life building every time he gave us more, which was every month. He was some high roller that came through the casino she worked at. He didn’t have a family and he didn’t want one but he told her he’d always take care of her. I didn’t know about it until I was eighteen. Your dad helped me manage it. I’ve invested some and it’s been building. I give to charities a lot. I paid for college with it. I offered to pay for school for you and Laney but your dad wouldn’t let me.”

“Thank God!” she cried, mortified by the thought.

I chuckled. “Your dad is doing just fine. He didn’t need my help, but I wanted to give back to you guys somehow for everything you’d given me. And money was all I had.”

“It’s not all you had,” she reminded me, playfully bumping my shoulder with hers. “You were my tutor, remember? You had knowledge.”

I smiled at the memory. “I guess that’s true.”

“Thank you,” she said, suddenly serious.

“You’re welcome. You didn’t need my help that much. You’re smart, Jenna. You just needed focus.”

“No, not for the tutoring. For the shop. I’m going to pay you back.”

“Like hell,” I laughed.

“I mean it.”

“Me too.”

“Kellen.”

“Jenna.”

She gave up for now. “Can I ask another question?”

“Go for it.”

“Why’d you ask Laney to marry you?”

I opened my eyes wide. “Going for a tough one, huh?”

“I’m striking while the iron is hot.”

I sighed as I put down my ice cream and leaned back on my hands. My palms immediately sunk into the cool, soft sand, my fingers being buried quickly. I stretched my legs out as I considered her question, easing some of the residual tension built up in them from the session. It’d only ended an hour ago and I was still raw from it. I was still trying to come out of the dark entirely. It wasn’t always easy.

Jenna stretched her legs out next to mine, the incredible length of them reaching out almost as far as mine. I nudged her bare foot with my own gently, enjoying the simple thrill of touching her in any way.

“I love your body,” I mumbled, staring at our feet side by side.

She laughed skeptically. “There’s a lot to love.”

“You’re so hung up on your height.”

“It’s hard to miss it.”

“I know. It’s one of the things I love about the way you’re built. You’re tall. You’re strong. But you’re so fucking graceful too. Like a whisper.”

She blushed at the compliment, making me grin. I knew she had hang ups about her height and the way she was built. She constantly compared herself to her sister, but she didn’t see it clearly. She didn’t see that there was hardly anything similar between them. Nothing worth comparing.

Both of the Monroe girls were graceful. I’d noticed it about them immediately, but that’s where their similarities ended. Laney was like a sports car. She was fast, she was fun, she was put together in this perfect, glossy package that made you glad to be a man. But Jenna… Jenna was beautiful like the desert. Like the ocean. The kind of rough, raw beauty that made you believe in God.

“I love the way you’re built, too,” she said softly.

“Because I’m so big and tough?”

“I wasn’t talking about your body. It’s beautiful, but it’s not even the best part of you.”

That was not what I’d always been told.

“What is?” I asked her.

“Your mind.”

I tapped the spot on my scalp where my hair had grown over the scar from the accident, sand dusting down my arm from my palm. “It’s not what it used to be,” I said disparagingly.

“You know what’s really sexy to me about you in the ring?” she continued, ignoring my tone. “It’s how fast you are. And yeah, that’s your body and your muscles and hours and hours of training, but what it really comes down to is your mind. It’s how fast you can react, plan, implement. You’re playing an elaborate game of chess out there and you’re doing it on fast forward. It’s amazing to watch.”

I stared at the sea as the sun slipped closer to its surface, setting it on fire. It rolled in and out lazily, unconcerned that it was burning. It just kept right on going, and it would continue on even when the fire was out and the sun was gone and the night had fallen, sending the world away so that it was alone and cold and constant.

“I asked Laney because I was copying a pattern,” I said suddenly, answering her earlier question. “I didn’t know it then, but I was following after your dad. I’d idolized him. That’s why I wanted to be a lawyer. It’s why I wanted to marry Laney, even if we obviously didn’t work. But then that kiss with you, how I felt about you… I don’t know. If you’d been eighteen, I think things would have turned out differently. I wouldn’t have stopped it. But I also don’t know if we would have survived it. I probably would have run in the end. I wasn’t ready to see what I was doing to my life. To see that it wasn’t mine. But then the wedding started closing in and I gave up boxing and I couldn’t ignore it. I hated my own life. I wasn’t enjoying my job, I wasn’t in love with Laney and what finally opened my eyes to all of it was the accident and the couch.”

“The brown couch?” she chuckled. “The one you decided you couldn’t stand?”

“Yeah. Laney swore up and down that before the accident I said I loved it. Maybe I did. I still can’t remember buying it, but when I saw it I couldn’t imagine ever liking it. That was the last straw for some reason. The second I saw it I knew I was breaking things off with her. That’s why when I saw you in the bathroom I couldn’t stop myself. I was so fed up and just fucking done. I wanted you, I’d known that for years, and when I saw you there… I lost it. But what really got me was when I woke up from the coma. You were the first face I saw. You were exactly who I needed. It should have been Laney, but it was you. That moment clarified a lot of things for me. That’s when I owned up to exactly how I felt about you.”

She sighed shakily, whispering, “Wow.”

I grinned. “What?”

“You just told me a lot. Like
a lot
a lot.”

“It’s not as much of a win as it seems like,” I warned her. “I just talked about all of this with Ben in our last session. You should have seen him trying to help me sort through it all.”

“Sounds like therapy is working then.”

I nodded tightly. “It is.”

“What is it?” she immediately asked.

“What is what?”

“What’s bothering you about therapy?”

I sat up straight off my hands, brushing them clean and feeling her body close to mine. On my weak side. “I’ve got a long way to go. I wanted to have my life back before I started anything with you. I wanted a job lined up and to give you and Laney a chance to be okay again.”

“I can wait. I told you I would.”

“You already have been for years.”

She grinned sadly. “I’m very patient.”

I looked at her seriously. “I’m not. I’m done. You already know about the job, among other things. I don’t want to wait anymore, Jen.”

She blinked, her expression hesitant. Hopeful. “Are you asking me to be your girl, Kellen?”

“I’m asking you to let me try to be your man,” I answered decisively.

She sighed, grinning. “I think I can do that.”

“It won’t be pretty.”

“I don’t like pretty. I like real. I’ve never asked you for roses and sonnets or chocolates. I know who you are and all I’ve ever wanted is you.”

Fuck, if she wasn’t amazing. If she wasn’t the only woman in the world who could ever make it feel okay to be me. All of me, even the broken bits. I wasn’t whole, I probably never would be, but when my lips brushed lightly against hers and she breathed against me, into me, I felt something even better.

I felt fulfilled.

“What does Dr. Phillips think of this?” she asked. “Does he think you’re ready?”

“He’s been telling me that if I could make it through a session like today with you there then he would consider me ready, so that’s what I’ve been shooting for. I would never have let Laney in that room so I guess he’s right. He wants me to contact my dad to get some closure. I’m not ready for that yet. Not by a long shot. He also asked me to try to find some of my family on my mom’s side. Get that sense that I’m not alone in the world, I guess.”

“That makes sense.”

“Does it?” I asked doubtfully. I didn’t see it if it did. “I think it’s stupid. I’m not alone. I know that.”

“But family is different. They’re your blood. You should know them if you can. Do you know where any of them are?”

“Ireland.”

“You found them already?”

I glanced toward the parking lot, feeling exhausted. Cagey. “Yeah. I found some cousins. I have an aunt. Two uncles.”

“I thought your mom was an only child.”

“From that marriage, yeah. But my grandpa was married once before. My grandma was his mistress who he left his family for. Then she left him and he left Ireland.”

“When are you going to go?”

“To Ireland?” I laughed incredulously. “Never.”

“Seriously?! You have family out there and you won’t contact them?”

“I already did. They want me to come meet everyone. I’m just not going.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I don’t know those people.”

“Do you know how you get to know people? You meet them. In person.”

I didn’t answer her because there was nothing else to say. I wasn’t going. I wasn’t flying across the world to find a group of people I’d never met just because we all came from the same sperm as one drunk, piece of shit who’d left us all with nothing.

“Wouldn’t you like to watch the sunset over your mother’s ocean?” Jenna asked me quietly.

Dammit.

I breathed in deeply, my chest filling painfully, then deflating like a balloon that had been burst.

“Will you go with me?” I asked her.

“I’ll book our tickets tonight.”

That night Jenna and I had sex. I didn’t try to stay afloat. I went under into the dark willingly, but not until after I spent a half an hour kissing her, holding her, touching her, and making a memory of every breath she took. I took off my shirt but left my pants on, making it clear she couldn’t touch me anywhere my skin wasn’t already exposed. She agreed, and the fact that she understood why was a little unnerving for me. I was embarrassed and more than a little humiliated, but I quickly put it out of both of our minds as I stripped her bare and venerated her until she was writhing, sweating, whimpering, and quietly crying my name into the night. I was there with her for that at least. I felt it with her, and even though there was no magical, soulful connection that separated it from any other time I’d been with a woman, I made it different simply by trying. By
wanting
it to be different, because it was her. It was Jenna.

It’d always been Jenna.