Perfectly Unmatched (8 page)

“I’m really sorry. I was just venting about the night. Akos didn’t really hurt me, and I really, really want you to stay out of it, okay? He’s...he’s a rough guy, and he’s not going to back down if he’s confronted. I promise you, it’s taken care of.”

“Of course,” he soothes, and I don’t believe his voice for a second, because I can read the rage still jabbing in his eyes. “I would never do anything stupid,
Benelli. And please know how much I enjoyed dinner. I really hope to do this again with you. Soon.”

He swallows so hard, I can see every tendon in his neck stand out,
then he takes two solid steps backward, his hands still stuffed in his pockets.

I inch into the doorway of my aunt’s house when he whirls back.

“Wait.” He stares down at the ground and breathes deep, his shoulders rising and falling. “In answer to your question from before, no, I was never a ladies’ man. Never. I was a bullied, smart-mouthed runt. I never had the arrogance or cruelty that’s the birthright of guys like Akos Miklós. And I know guys like Akos are appealing to girls, even though I have no clue why.” He holds a hand up when I try to interrupt, tell him he’s wrong, tell him I can’t stand Akos and guys like him, but he shakes his head and I keep my lips buttoned, mostly because I want to know what he’s going to say next.

“We barely know each other, and we probably only have a few weeks together this summer before you make the single biggest decision of your life. As a friend, I’m begging
you, please value yourself in this decision. Please...please choose wisely.”

He leans forward, so close, our lips could skim,
our breath hitches and mingles in the space between us. I can smell him, books and ferocious man, two smells I never imagined co-mingling, but now realize have combined to create my new favorite smell in the world.

He puts one hand up, close to my face, his body leaned inches from mine, then whips back, fast, turns on his heel, and walks away.

A few blocks from my house he turns and gives me half a smile.

I wish so hard that I could see the other half of that smile back in place, the wish morphs into an ache.

I’m scared shitless of that bastard
Akos Miklós. He’s got a good four inches and eighty pounds of hulking muscle on me. I’m not a fighter. Never have been, never will be. The best I can do if I have a serious opponent to defeat is talk him into the ground.

But this isn’t some schoolyard showdown. And
Akos’s tiny brain probably can’t handle a complex argument, which means that I have to pull back from what I know I can do and hedge my bets on what I can probably maybe do.

Emphasis on probably.

Double emphasis on maybe.

My father was a quiet, stern man, and he let me be who I was without reservations. His father was a sadistic, overbearing drunk who did things like throw me into the lake to ‘teach me’ to swim when I was a toddler. I hold out my hands and look at the scar the exact shape of a half moon on my lower palm. That was another of my grandfather’s little survival-of-the-fittest tests.

I was two. I reached out to touch the side of a woodstove, so hot it was glowing orange.

I remember howling with pain. My parents were furious with my grandfather.

He said, “That’s how they learn in the animal kingdom.”

My parents avoided him as much as they could, but my father’s sense of filial duty was deep-rooted. When my mother made the mistake of bragging that I took the lead in my posh school’s production of
Oliver
, Grandpa snuck me to the lot in the back of the woodshed, strapped old boxing gloves on my hands, and proceeded to beat the piss out of me.

I remember his lined, sweat-soaked face, his green eyes gleaming with a psychopathic delight, spittle collecting at either side of his mouth as he nodded, bobbing and weaving before he delivered the occasional rough punch to the side of my head.

“That’s a boy! Take it like a man! That’s it. No pantywastes come from my genes.” He threw punches that I ducked and a few that I couldn’t, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

What did the Allies learn from World War II? Never back down when you’re faced with an aggressor.

Never.

Grandpa was a bully, but he taught me to use my hands to fight, and, though I’d never dusted his mostly abusive lessons off and given them a go in the real world, now is the time to use my brawn over my brains.

No matter that my brawn is significantly less spectacular than my brains. I have no choice except to use what will work best in the situation.

I know, deep in the marrow of
who I am, that I have a twisted, shithead pinch of bloodlusting bully that can, hopefully, help me give Akos a lesson he won’t soon forget.

I just wish my rousing internal battle cry would
tame the knocking of my knees.

Whenever I feel particularly nervous about standing him down, I bring to mind the slow slide of
Benelli’s jacket. There was a second where I sucked my breath in as, inch by gorgeous inch, she exposed more of that perfect caramel skin.

And then there was the ring of bruises made by
Akos’s fingers grabbing too violently against her skin.

I would have stood up for
any
woman who’d told me she’d been mistreated. Any person, really. I don’t just read about heroes in the pages of books and then cower on the streets of life. I read about them and then get the incredibly stupid idea that I can slide those heroics into modern life and brandish all that bravado in the real world.

And I’ve done it.
Verbally. Many times. But verbally won’t cut it tonight.

It’s not hard to guess where
Akos might be. There’s only one place in town that serves some kind of underground bootleg vodka that’s locally distilled and has a ridiculous proof percentage.

The bar is already screamingly loud and slightly out of control. There’s an abundance of pushing and yelling disguised as dancing and conversation, all layered over the ear-drum thrashing music. The jostling dance floor is a frenetic anarchy and the bar is a cloying thrust of arms and flirtations. Navigating this bar is like looking into the Strait of Messina and attempting to successfully pass between Scylla and
Charybdis.   

As a student of Odysseus, I know the value of running into the six-headed monster and having some chance of defeat rather than being sucked into a whirlpool that spells out certain death. So I head to the bar and order the searing local vodka that will probably melt my stomach lining and down it, then immediately order a second. I grip
shotglass number two tight in my hand and watch, waiting.

Five minutes go by, then ten, then fifteen. Finally
Akos stumbles off the dance floor, his arms around two young women, one blonde, one dark-haired, both scantily clad and full of giggles.

I wonder if
the have any idea what a hot-headed, abusive monster they’re clinging to.

I down the shot and do not whimper, although I’m half sure I’ve lost three-quarters of my esophagus. Despite the loss of pieces of my vital organ, there are positives to chugging such a strong brew. I’m already unsteady on my feet and full of piss and vinegar.

I stumble the length of the bar and swipe a hand on Akos’s shoulder.

I wish this could be big and heroic and impressive, but it’s too loud and I’m only slightly drunk enough to go through with this. Once my buzz abates, I’m going to lose some of my backbone.

I focus on the memory of Benelli, on her skin, purpled with bruises from his hand, and adrenaline whips my backbone into shape.

“
Akos!” I yell above the hubbub of the bar. “I have something to say to you. I think we best take it outside.”

He looks at me with bleary eyes and snorts. “Say it here, schoolboy.” He pulls the two girls closer, nuzzling one alabaster neck,
then another, before he adds, “Tonight wasn’t a great night for me. I’m just trying to unwind.”

“It didn’t look like it was such a great night for
Benelli either, mate. I would think a man would know better how to treat a woman he takes on a date.”

I know exactly how a gazelle feels when he’s attracted the attention of a hungry tiger. My instinct is to run.

Run like hell.

Run like the devil’s chasing me, because that’s practically the case.

But a man proves his courage by defying even the strongest instincts.

Even the ones that make his calves twitch.

Akos’s eyes glow with an evil, furious light, but he takes a few long, angry breaths, his nostrils flaring like a bull’s that’s been hooked one time too many.

And I fear I’m much more likely to end up gored or trampled than brandishing my sword before the final, dramatic, bull-annihilating
estocada.

“You spoke to
Benelli about our date?” he asks, his voice quiet but very clear, even in the raucous bar.

“No. Yes. She didn’t say your name, but I knew that she had been planning a date with you. And she didn’t say anything about you. I just saw the bruises you left on her.” My rage is making me feel more in-control, and the possibility of stabbing my sword into his heart suddenly feels well within reach.

“I didn’t mean to do that.”

Those words could have played out so many ways. He could have been forlorn, dejected at physical harm he caused without meaning to. Or embarrassed at
his own lack of control. Or truly repentant for hurting a creature as lovely and refreshing as Benelli Youngblood.

Instead he seems flippant, defensive, and dismissive, and I don’t much like the tone of his remark.

“You owe her an apology, and I’d demand one in person, but I don’t want her to have a single thing to do with you.” The space between us accordions, first expanding to include his whispers to the guy behind him and his winks to the two girls, then contracting until his face is only an inch or two from mine.

“I won’t apologize for a misunderstanding her stubborn bullshit brought on.
Benelli is a big girl. She can handle her own dates. You should back off, Professor, because, trust me, you don’t what to bite off more than you can chew where I’m concerned.”

It’s like I can watch his muscles bulge and grow, like his veins are peppered with some kind of intensely potent rage-based natural steroid.

“If you want to talk a big game, that’s fine. But if you think you can stand behind your words, we should take this outside,” I suggest, searching for the lowdown burn of the alcohol in my veins to fortify my bravado.

One of the girls has her hands intimately spread over his thighs and they’re creeping up every second.
Akos curls his lip, clearly reluctant to leave this romantic entanglement, but we’ve attracted the attention of a few other guys in the bar, guys he works with and socializes with on a regular basis. There’s no way he can let them see him get trounced by a scrawny foreign professor.

He pounds the flat of his hand on the bar and gets a fresh shot, which he tosses back without a hint of a wince,
then he booms something in Hungarian about
ambulance, professor,
and
blood.

There was a good deal more, but, luckily my Hungarian really is atrocious. Or else I’d probably lose my resolve.

We stumble out of the bar into the warm, peaceful summer night. A ring of interested patrons forms around us, and any of them who are offering vocal support are offering it to the town’s golden son. I am, of course, nothing more than an interfering outsider.

Part of me wants to make a stirring oration that will let them know I’m not, in fact, just looking to screw things up and herald a riot. But I don’t.

First of all, I don’t speak enough Hungarian to do more than order a sandwich or ask for directions...directions I wouldn’t even have the capacity to understand once they’d been given.

Secondly, this is not the time for fighting with my words. It’s the time for fighting with my fists. And feet and knees and forehead and anything else I might scrounge up or find lying
around. Expecting a guy like Akos to fight fair is like expecting a cornered snake to coil up calmly.

Akos
makes a huge show of shrugging out of his jacket, rolling up the cuffs of his sleeves, raising his arms over his head like some kind of ancient gladiator, and eliciting the startlingly blood-thirsty cheers of the surrounding crowd.

I’m in way over my head. Way, way over my head.

Just when the first tendrils of doubt and dread work their way through my alcohol haze, someone bursts through the crowd.

“Stop this!”
Benelli screams, whipping both arms out at her sides, her breath gasping in and out of her mouth. “Stop! Are you crazy?”

The question is clearly directed my way, although, by general societal rules,
Akos is the one with a less firm handle on what’s sane and right.

“
It’s fine, Benelli.” I walk over to her and put both hands on her shoulders. “I know you asked me not to, but a guy like Akos doesn’t understand anything but violence.”