Knockout (2 page)

“Are you any good?” Kellen asked, lifting his soda again.

I was about to tell him that yes, I was very good but also that I hated it, but I never got the chance.

“God, Jenna, could you be louder?” Laney demanded, storming into the kitchen.

The second Kellen saw her, he snapped his can to the table and stood up. I looked at him in surprise. He hadn’t stood up when I came in.

Laney also stared at him in shock. He stared back, a different kind of grin building on his face. He took in her short blond hair, her curvy figure and the full swell of her chest. I knew in that moment that I was forgotten. That I didn’t exist in the room anymore when his dark blue eyes latched onto her chocolate brown ones. Laney was two years older than me, only two years younger than him, and even though later I would grow up to be something of a beauty myself, I wasn’t there yet. I wasn’t what Laney was. What Kellen wanted.

“Hi,” Laney breathed, smiling easily at him.

“Hi,” he replied. His voice sounded deeper than before. He offered her his hand across the table. “I’m Kellen.”

“I know,” Laney said, bumping into me to get close enough to shake his hand. Her armpit hovered over my head, grossing me out and making me worried her deodorant was going rub into my hair. I ducked down, curling into myself to avoid it. “I’ve seen you around school. I’m Laney.”

“You go to Weston?”

“Yeah. I’m a Sophomore. You’re a Senior this year, right?”

“Yeah, but I might graduate a semester early.”

“God,” Laney laughed, “why?”

“I’m in an accelerated program.”

“You’re in Higher Focus? The classes with all the gifted kids?”

Kellen grimaced at the word ‘gifted’ but he nodded. “Yeah, it’s how I ended up at Weston High. The schools in my neighborhood were too easy. Now I’m just serving my time, waiting to get out.”

Laney chuckled. “Like prison?”

“Let’s hope not.”

“But if you get out early you’ll miss out on all of the good stuff.”

He looked at her skeptically. “Like what?”

“Like Prom and graduating with everyone else. What happens if you graduate early? They hand you your diploma and you go home? No parties? No fun? You like fun, don’t you, Kellen?”

“Ugh,” I groaned.

Laney scowled down at me. “Don’t you have homework to do?”

I glared back up at her. “Yeah, so do you.”

“I already did mine. I just finished. You better do yours before mom gets home and finds out you’ve been slacking.” She turned to smile at Kellen. “We should leave her to do it. She gets distracted really easy. Do you want to come wait for my dad in the living room with me? We could watch TV?”

He looked uncertain again. I wanted to warn him about sitting on the couch, basically telling him don’t, but then he was up and following Laney. She was already heading out of the kitchen toward the living room, confident that he would be close behind. And why wouldn’t he be? Hang out in the kitchen with a little twerp while she did her homework or chill on the couch with a hot, viable girl his age? No contest. I wasn’t even mad.

“Use a coaster,” I warned quietly, watching him take his soda can off the table. “My mom will go ballistic if she finds water spots. She’s crazy like that.”

He stopped to look down at me, his eyes smiling. “Thanks, Nonpareil.”

“No problem, Rocky.” I told him dryly.

I went through a lot of trouble in school. I always had a really hard time with math and science. English was alright because I didn’t mind reading, but what I really loved was art. Guess what art is – an elective. And you can only choose it so many times while English, science and math are crammed down your throat every second of every day. On top of that, I was forced to pick up a foreign language too. Mom was thrilled when I told her I had chosen French.

“I speak a little bit of it,” Kellen told me one afternoon.

I was sitting on the floor in the living room with my books on the coffee table. Kellen was on the couch waiting for my dad again with the TV tuned to a football game but the volume on mute. I had told him I could focus if he turned the volume up, but he waved me away. I had also offered to go to the kitchen so he could have the room to himself and listen to the game like a normal person, but he said he liked the company. I gave up.

“Really?” I asked hopefully.

“A little. My mom knew more. What are you trying to do?”

“I have to write a letter. I don’t write letters in English so I don’t know how I’m supposed to write one in French.”

Kellen slid down the couch onto the floor beside me. I melted a little having him so close. I heard from Laney that he was the shit at Weston High. He was the guy all of the girls wanted to get with and the guy that all the guys wanted to be. Laney said it was because he was so hot and yeah, that was probably a huge part of it because no doubt
about it, the guy was gorgeous in the worst possible way. The haunt your dreams for the rest of your life kind of way. But I thought it was mostly because he was so confident. Nothing phased him. No one scared him. He was a man in a room full of boys and the boys knew it. The girls
really
knew it.

When he settled in next to me his broad shoulder bumped against my bony one. I inhaled deeply. Yeah, that’s right, I sniffed him. Creepy? Yes. Worth it? You have no idea. He smelled so good. A faint cologne, laundry detergent and Old Spice body wash.

French had just become
very
interesting for me.

“Okay, it looks like you’re trying to do it sentence by sentence when it’d be easier to write it all out in English and then translate it,” he said as he looked over my paper. “It also looks like you’re doodling.”

He was right. I had gotten frustrated and zoned out. My extremely stunted letter was surrounded by an intricate design of curling and coiling vines, full waxy leaves and spiky barbed wire breaking in and out of shadows.

“If you spent half as much time on your studies as you do on doodling, you’d be through college by now,” I said in a high, nagging voice.

Kellen grinned at me. “Your mom?”

“Yeah,” I admitted glumly. “Don’t tell her I did that. It was mean.”

He intentionally bumped my shoulder, knocking me lightly to the side. “I’d never sell you out. Let me help you knock this out so you don’t have to worry about a lecture later, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks, Kellen.”

I went to tear the page out of my notebook but he reached over and pressed his large hand on top of mine to stop me. What I did was stop breathing.

“No, don’t toss it. We’ll write the letter in the blank space in the middle. It’ll look gothic and tragic. Perfect for French.”

“It’s just a doodle. Mom would want me to throw it away.”

He shook his head, taking his hand away. “Don’t throw that away. It’s killer.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, of course. You’re really talented.”

My art teacher had said the same thing, but I thought it was his job to say that to everyone. Even the girl who drew a picture of what was supposed to be a dog but really looked like a rabid badger. An A for effort and all that. No one else had ever told me I was any good at drawing but I still did it because I loved it. It centered me. It made me feel level and calm. Everyone needs that thing that takes them out of themselves and gives them a break from their world for a while. Drawing was that thing for me.

For Kellen I knew it was boxing. He’d been doing it since he was eight years old. He’d signed up the day he was old enough, following in his grandpa’s footsteps but with a lot more talent and way more diligence.

The fight that he got into, the one that had landed him in our house meeting with my dad, had been for a girl.
For
her, not over her. Dad was working on getting him off light with some community service. It helped that the girl had come forward and spoken to the judge. She explained Kellen had come to her rescue against a group of bullies, an act of chivalry that softened the old man’s heart. But Kellen had still used his fists to get his point across instead of words and there wasn’t much my dad could do about that.

He had become completely attached to Kellen though and he was working hard to get him as much slack as he could. I knew that he was really worried about an assault charge landing on Kellen’s record, something that would slam a lot of doors in his face for years to come. He was a crazy smart kid who knew how to play his cards right and that could land him at an excellent college, setting him up for a future far brighter than his past had been. My dad didn’t want to see that all disappear because of one impulsive moment.

“Hey, Kellen?” I asked hesitantly. I wasn’t sure if the question I wanted to ask was an okay one to bring up. I didn’t want him to get pissed and stop talking to me altogether.

“Yeah?”

“You said your mom ‘knew’ more than you. Is she…”

“Yeah, she’s dead,” he said plainly.

“Oh,” I replied awkwardly. “Sorry.”

“Thanks.”

“I shouldn’t have asked. That was stupid.”

“No, seriously, it’s fine,” he assured me, and it sounded like he meant it. He wasn’t pissed and he wasn’t sad. If it was something that upset him, he was good at hiding it. “It happened when I was nine. I’m good with it. It is what it is.”

“So it’s just you and your dad?”

He shook his head. “Nah. It’s just me and whatever foster parent I’m earning checks for at the moment. I never knew my dad.”

“Sorry.”

“Stop it,” Kellen
ordered.

His tone surprised me. I’d never heard him anything but happy and calm
. This was darker. Angry.

“Stop what?”

“Stop apologizing. You didn’t do anything wrong. Unless you’re apologizing for my life because you feel sorry for me and if that’s what you’re doing then I want you to stop that shit too.”

“I’m sor—“ I started to say reflexively before catching myself. “I mean, I was apologizing for being nosey. I don’t feel sorry for you.”

“Good. Who are you writing this letter to?” he asked, changing the subject and his demeanor with it. He instantly looked relaxed again.

“I don’t know yet. Anyone, I guess.”

“You should write it to your boyfriend. Love letters sound better in French.”

I shook my head, feeling oddly frustrated. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“I’m glad.”

“Why?”

He grinned. “Because you’re too good for boys your age.”

I frowned at him. “Are you going to help me write this letter or are you going to feed me lines all night?”

Kellen laughed his full body laugh. It vibrated through him and into me where our shoulders still touched, leaving me tingling.

“Alright, Nonpareil. Let’s get down to business.”

Kellen had me write the letter to an imaginary boyfriend. I fought it but it turned out most of his recent experience with French was of the romantic type. I didn’t ask why, though I kind of knew. Rough guy from the wrong side of town in a school full of Laney’s and he knew how to spout French poetry? You do the math. Here, I’ll help you out.

Kellen Coulter = Panty Dropper

“Don’t sign it ‘Love, Jenna,” he told me when we were finishing.

My shoulders slouched. I was exhausted. Even with him helping me, this sucked.

“But I already know how to say it,” I whined. “We could be done.”

“You shouldn’t just learn the language. You should learn to like it or at least appreciate it. You’ll hate having to take the classes less if you find something interesting about it.”

“What should I sign it then? Sincerely? Devotedly? Eternally and Sappily Yours Forever?”

Kellen shrugged, a grin on his lips. “You can if you want, but I was thinking you should go with ‘Il vous manque de moi.’”

“You are… something of me?”

“You are missing from me. It’s a way of saying ‘I miss you’.”

“A pretty way,” I mumbled, writing it down.

Kellen chuckled as he reached for the remote control. “Every time.”

I elbowed him in the stomach.

“He’s asked if he can take her out on a date,” dad told my mom, popping a grape in his mouth.

I was at the kitchen table sitting beside my dad as we snacked and waited eagerly for dinner, watching my mom move around the kitchen like two hungry
wolves.

“It’s about time,” mom laughed, stirring the pasta on the stove.

“You’re okay with it?”