Brutal Game (12 page)

W
ith the help
of his sister’s smoke-scented wisdom, Flynn slowly came to accept that maybe it wasn’t so sad and pointless, the way things had happened with the baby. Like maybe surrender was just the price you paid when pregnancy and kids entered the picture. He was pretty useless at surrendering, but the thought was comforting in its way. It became his first step toward moving on.

He and Laurel saw each other less than usual the next couple weeks, but not infrequently. If he woke up angry at the world on a given morning, he let her know he needed space that night. He’d finish work and toil in the gym for twice as long as usual, pound his angst into the bags or sweat it onto the bench, mop it away with a towel. He tried not to take it to bed with him. Mostly succeeded.

It was a warm Monday afternoon at the start of April when he noticed the biggest change—he’d gone an entire workday without thinking about any of it. A long, laborious slog of a day spent tacking drywall in Fort Point, an industrial vent droning nearby and making conversation with his coworkers impossible, infinite opportunities to ruminate and dwell…and yet he hadn’t. He’d thought about a thousand other things—baseball, a beef with his boss, the taxes he couldn’t put off much longer—but not the lost pregnancy.

He called Laurel on his way to the gym to ask if she wanted to hang out that night, but it went to voicemail after a single ring. “Hey, it’s me. Calling to see if you wanna stay over tonight. Lemme know.” He pocketed his phone and cut down the alley beside the bar, exchanged a curt nod of greeting with a fellow boxer as he emerged from the side door. Flynn caught it just as it was about to swing shut and headed down the steps.

He felt the buzz of his phone as he was shedding his jacket and checked the screen. Laurel. “Hey, hang on a sec.” The reception downstairs sucked.

“Sure,” came her crackly reply.

He headed for the stairwell, trotting back up and out into the alley. “Okay, I’m good. Had to get out of the dungeon. You get my message?”

“I did. Sorry I missed you—I was on the subway.” Her voice was hitching slightly.

“You walkin’ someplace?”

“Yeah. Anyway, I’d love to hang out.”

“I could pick you up about seven,” he said, eyeing the sky. He was in a tee and the hairs on his arms were prickling in the cold. It felt like rain, but he didn’t care. His own forecast was fair, at long last. “I was thinkin’ maybe we could swing by the grocery store on the way back, grab a rotisserie chicken or something.”

“Yum. I could make mashed potatoes.”

“It’s a plan.”

A pause. “You sound different,” Laurel said slyly. “You have a good day?”

“Nothin’ special. Just feeling more like normal, I guess.”

“Glad to hear it. And you look nice in that shirt.”

He frowned, lost.

A laugh came through the line. “Look up, Flynn.”

He did, spotting a redhead in jeans and an olive jacket heading his way, a familiar purple umbrella under one arm. He smiled and switched off his phone. “On the subway, huh? What the fuck’re you doin’ here?”

She slid her own phone into her purse as she reached him and leaned up for a kiss. “Coming to see you.”

“You’re lucky I’m so predictable.” The first raindrop fell, hitting him on his bare biceps. “Should I grab my shit? You got other plans for me?”

“I do, but they won’t take long. You can still torture yourself as scheduled.”

“You got my curiosity piqued, honey. What’s up?”

“Firstly, I have news.” And good news, to judge by the smile she was failing to hold in.

She’d had a second interview at that biotech place a good week and a half ago. After all that silence, she’d begun insisting they must not want her, but he’d kept shushing her, reminding her it took a while to check references. And that they’d be retarded not to hire her.

“That company call you back, finally?” he asked.

“They did indeed.”

“And?”

She didn’t say anything, just smiled a mile wide and nodded so hard her hair bounced.

“Laurel, that is fucking fantastic.” He hauled her against him, jabbed in the ribs by her umbrella but not caring. He rocked her back and forth, probably squeezed the life half out of her, but he couldn’t let go. He just wanted to smell her hair and memorize the smothered laughter warming the base of his throat. Fuck, she’d waited a long time for this.

He let her go, grinning as he took her in, almost like it was the first time. “Holy shit. You really did it, huh?”

“I guess I did.”

“When do you start?”

“A couple weeks.” She was glowing, practically hovering off the asphalt. He didn’t think he’d ever seen this version of Laurel. He wondered what he could do to make her acquaintance more often.

“I’ll go in and fill out some paperwork before then, but my official first day is April seventeenth.”

“Jesus, fuck the chicken—lemme take you someplace nice, tonight.”

“No, no. I want exactly what you said. It’s so dreary out, let’s hunker down inside.”

“Your call. But you’re getting a party, whether you like it or not. Second I tell Heather the news is the second she’ll start callin’ to ask what your favorite dessert is.”

“I’ll look forward to that.” Laurel changed then, her smile suddenly more shy than exuberant. Little droplets of rain were gathering in her hair, shiny like dew. Flynn could feel them dampening his tee and spiking his eyelashes. He reached for her umbrella, ripping the Velcro strap free and popping it open to hand over.

“Thanks.” Definitely shy. No mistaking it.

“You got somethin’ else to say?” he asked.

She pursed her lips, took a breath in, a breath out. She set the umbrella down. It lolled in the breeze, collecting the mounting rain. He was about to stoop and grab it when she blurted, “I do. I have something else to say.”

“All right. Better make it snappy if that purse is real leather.”

“I have something to ask you,” she clarified, looking not at his face, but at some nowhere spot on his chest.

“Shoot.”

She dropped down, kneeling.

Flynn’s head gave a shake, a little spasm of surprise. It wasn’t the first time she’d dropped to her knees before him, but for one thing they weren’t in his apartment, and for another she was on one knee, not two. His eyes grew wide. “Whoa.”

Laurel cleared her throat officiously. “I kneel before you as a woman with her shit finally together,” she said, her hair wet now, gathering in long, slick waves, sticking to her cheeks. She tucked them behind her ears and met his stare. “I know you would’ve taken me as a woman with her shit still falling apart, but that’s not how I wanted to do this. And you don’t always get your way.”

“Honey,” was all he could think to say.

She reached into her jacket pocket, then there in her open palm sat a ring.

“Michael Flynn,” she began, voice breaking. She composed herself, blowing out a breath. “Will you marry me in approximately two years?”

A noiseless laugh jerked his shoulders and a smile spread across his lips. “You know I will. You sure you’ll be ready by then?”

“Well, I’m not done. Michael
Paul
Flynn, will you make me the happiest woman in Boston and drive my U-Haul when I move out of my apartment and into yours when my lease is up at the end of May?”

He laughed for real at that, feeling high and confused, but also pretty fucking delighted. Rain was soaking his shirt, trickling down the hollow of his back, but it was hard to believe; it felt so exactly like a sunny summer’s day.

“Yes, I will. Now stand the fuck up.”

She did, holding out the ring. It was a thick silver band, brushed, not shiny.

“How’d you know my size?”

“I didn’t. The guy at the store said I can exchange it if it doesn’t fit. Try it on.”

He slipped it on his left ring finger but it got stuck at the second knuckle. He modeled it anyhow, angling his hand this way and that, making her giggle.

“Guess they didn’t take me seriously enough when I said you have huge hands.” She tugged it free and slipped it back into her pocket.

“How’d you know I wouldn’t prefer gold?” he teased.

“Titanium seemed the butchest choice.”

“When you put it like that.”

“Seriously, would you like something different?”

He reached out and cupped her cold, wet jaw, kissed her mouth as the rain ran down their faces. “No,” he said as he let her go. “I want whatever you pick out for me. You really wanna move in with me?”

She nodded. “Only time will tell if it feels like enough space once we’re in each other’s faces twenty-four-seven—”

“Faces and pants.”

“—but if we can swing it, it’d save a lot on rent. I mean, it’d be nice to own a place before…you know. Before a baby came along. Someday.”

“Sure.” He stooped for her umbrella, shaking the water out of it and holding it over their heads.

“Plus I want to make sure you have a chance to see what it’s like to be with me, full time. Because of my depression, I mean.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, “you’ve been awesome for as long as we’ve been together. But it’s exhausting living with someone when they’re going through mental-health crap. Trust me, my mom taught me well.”

He nodded, thinking of the years Heather had spent suffering through Robbie’s shit after he’d come home from Iraq. PTSD made Laurel’s struggles look like a rained-out ballgame.

“The meds are helping,” she added. “Plus I won’t have the job guilt nagging at me for a change. Maybe I’m worrying too much. Maybe the future’s all glitter and butterflies.”

“A future you’ll be sharing with me,” he said, cocky.

“That’s the plan, it would seem.”

“So, does anything else need to change, if you’re gonna be my old lady, officially?”

She frowned. “Like what?”

He nodded toward the bar’s side door. “You need to lay down the law about me getting punched in the head every week, maybe?”

“What, make you quit fighting? Jesus, that’d be mean. No.”

“No?” He’d been expecting such an ultimatum, if not happy about it.

“One depressed person in a couple is plenty. You do what keeps you sane.” She studied his arm, the one holding the umbrella. “And insanely fit.”

“Good to hear.”

“Were you worried I’d tell you to quit?”

“Not worried, exactly. But Heather’s always told me I better knock that shit off if I expect any rational woman to commit to my ass.”

“I don’t know what that says about me, but I don’t think I could ever ask you to stop fighting. Not unless you were getting concussed. I do like your brain the way it is.”

“You sure? ’Cause it’s got some terrible ideas about what I’m gonna do to you, later.”

“I love it all the more, then.” She paused, distracted by the motion-sensor light that had blinked on above them—the weather had brought dusk early this evening. “Well, I’ve said everything I came here to. Why don’t you finish up downstairs, and I’ll get on top of dinner, and I’ll see you whenever you get home?”

That sounded so bizarre—doing something as mundane as his daily workout with all this news to process. “Not a bad idea. I’ll probably need an hour alone for it to sink in that I’m fucking engaged.”

She laughed. “You and me both. Okay, better say bye before we drown out here. See you in a bit. Hopefully my future apartment will smell like something delicious by the time you get home.”

He gave her a kiss, both their sets of lips chilly, his hand feeling stiff and clumsy as he passed her umbrella back. “I love you so fucking much,” he murmured, letting her hear how fiercely he meant it, letting her see it in his face. “I hope you know that.”

She nodded. “I do.”

“I’ll show you exactly how much when I get home.”

Pink warmed her pale cheeks and she smiled. “I’ll look forward to that.”

He let the rain pelt him as he watched her walk away, down the alley and around the corner. When she was out of sight he punched in the code for the door and headed downstairs. He stripped off his shirt and wrung it out, laid it over a radiator to dry. As he began his warm up, jogging in place, he tried that word on for size again in his head.
Engaged.
When he got home tonight he’d open up his lockbox and slip that ring on her finger, finally. And soon enough the cat would be out of the bag.

How did you propose?
Heather would want to know.

In the middle of the miscarriage. She said no.

Well, how did
she
propose, then?

In the rain, in an alley next to a dive bar. I said yes.

He smiled to himself, thinking that was just about perfect, somehow.

L
aurel turned
at the sound of the deadbolt, a smile cracking her face wide open, too broad and goofy to possibly hide.

“Hello,” she called. She was busy at the counter, wearing pajama pants while her jeans tumbled dry five flights below in one of the building’s coin-op machines.

Flynn stepped inside, looking soaked to the bone. “Smells amazing.”

“I stole your idea—we’re having rotisserie chicken. And risotto and veggies. You look like you swam here.”

“Feels like I did.” He unlaced his boots, rain dripping from his hood when he leaned over. “But you won’t catch me complaining—if it ain’t snow, it’s fine by me.” He stripped to his shorts right there, leaving his clothes in a pile—or perhaps a puddle—by the door. And giving any neighbors across the street a free thrill, as the blinds were up.

He stopped by the counter on his way to the bathroom, kissing Laurel’s cheek with icy lips and eyeing the cutting board.

“Carrots.”

“And broccoli and zucchini.” She ran her palm over his wet hair and his cheek. “Good God, you’re freezing. Get in the shower.”

“You want your ring?”

“I can wait.” She wondered if he could guess that she’d spent a good ten minutes poking fruitlessly around in his drawers and filing cabinet, trying to find it. “Go get warmed up.”

“You make a bossy fiancée.”

She started. “Oh my God, I hadn’t even thought of that.
Fiancée
.”

“How about that? Earned yourself two fancy-ass new titles in one day.”