Brawler (19 page)

Jenna and I lasted one hour in the bridal shop. Just one. It was longer than I expected us to last, especially after they forced me to wear a black satin blindfold so I wouldn’t see the dresses on the bride. If I wasn’t there to see the dresses, why was I there? I never got an answer on that.

By the end of our hour, Jenna and I were both drunk off free champagne, I’d fallen asleep, and Jenna had started falling over in her seat giggling. Finally we left Laney behind in the store to try on her dresses while we got some fresh air and pulled our shit together. She was glad to see us go.

Jenna lifted a bottle of bubbly from the bridal shop as we were being ushered out and suggested we drink it in the park like the vigilantes we were born to be, and it was turning out to be the best time I’d had in a long, long time. I hadn’t spent more than ten minutes alone with Jenna in at least two years and I’d forgotten what it felt like. How incredible she was and just how much I absolutely missed her in every way.

“So, I have a question,” Jenna said, handing over the champagne.

I smirked before taking a pull off the bottle. It was warm but I didn’t care.

“Is it how long do I think we have before we get ticketed for drinking in public?” I asked her. “‘Cause I think it’s not long.”

Her long, thin fingers cut through the air, batting down my concerns. “No, screw that. I’m untouchable. What I’m wondering is why are you here?”

I snorted at the obvious. “Because sitting on the grass in the park with you eating cheese fries is better than being blind in that boutique.” I took another drink, frowning. “What was I doing in a store labeled ‘boutique’ anyway? I should forfeit a Man Card immediately.”

She grinned. “The guys at the gym will never let you hear the end of it.”

I felt a pinch in my chest like a sucker punch to my left ventricle.

“I don’t go to the gym anymore,” I muttered around the ache.

She stared at me, her face as shocked and pained as I felt. “I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it. I quit.”

“Why don’t you work-out anymore?”

“No, I still work-out. Running and all that.” I paused, taking a deep breath. “I quit boxing.”

Her jaw and French fry dropped to the ground. “You what?!”

I nodded tightly, feeling the tension everywhere. I hadn’t talked about it with anyone but Laney and Dan, and only in passing with him. His face when I’d mentioned it had been a mixed bag of confusion and worry. I’d immediately run away from him and the reality of my decision.

“When?” she asked softly.

“A few months ago.”

It felt like years.

“Did you get hurt? What happened?”

I chuckled dryly, wishing I had. Wishing I had a better reason. “Laney didn’t like it. She never has. She asked me to quit because she said she couldn’t take it watching me get hit like that.”

“You don’t get hit very often.”

“I try not to, but she said it scares her. She cried and I felt like shit so…” I took a breath, not sure what else to say. It all sounded so flimsy. Like I’d given it up without a fight. But once you got used to doing that, it started getting easier. “I don’t know. What else could I do?”

She frowned, avoiding my eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Yeah, me either.”

It was bullshit. We both knew what I could have done – I could have told Laney no. Plain and simple, problem solved, but I hadn’t. I was the only one to blame for the situation. I hadn’t had the balls to just once say a single, simple word that could have changed everything so many times.

No, I don’t want to take you out on a date, because we have nothing in common.

No, I don’t want to get back together, because we never last longer than an erection.

No, I won’t come pick you up from that party, because I’m in love with your sister, we’ve crossed a line, and I’m terrified that if I leave this house with things as they are, she and I will never be able to be okay again.

No, I won’t marry you, because I don’t love you and us getting engaged won’t fix that.

No, I won’t quit boxing, because it’s the only thing that keeps the demons at bay.

No, I won’t forgive you, because you slept with another man and what we have has never been worth salvaging.

“That wasn’t what you were asking, was it?” I asked Jenna, grasping for the bottle of champagne and a chance to get out of my own head.

“What do you mean?”

“You weren’t asking why I was here in the park with you.”

She hesitated. “No.”

“You meant why am I here in New York with her?”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to see the bride in her dress before the wedding,” she teased weakly.

I sat up from where I’d been lounging on the ground, turning to face her. I got in close. Closer than I probably should have. “I didn’t see anything, remember?” I asked as I offered her the bottle in my hand.

She jerked it from me playfully, grinning. “You know what I mean.”

“I’m not so much interested in seeing the dress as the price tag.”

“Why are you worried? I thought dad was paying for it.”

She wrapped her lips around the top of the bottle to take a long hit, then offered it back to me. My eyes were locked on her lips glistening with the bitter bubbles of the champagne. My hand accidently brushed hers, the feel of her fingers against mine giving me a warm burn in my stomach like I’d taken a hit of the good stuff.

“Just because we’re not paying for it doesn’t mean I think she should spend as much on a dress as most people do on a car.” I pressed my lips to where hers had been and took a drink. I shook my head as I swallowed. “This wedding stuff, Jen… it’s so insane. I had no idea.”

“I think a wedding is only as expensive as you make it.”

I chuckled, handing the bottle back. “Isn’t that the truth? She wants doves. Why? Are we keeping them and naming them? No, we’re supposed to release them when we walk out like we’re John fucking Woo.” I shook my head in disgust. “We’re basically buying throw away birds.”

“Would you feel better if you ate them afterward?”

“A little, yeah! At least we’d get something out of it.”

Jenna pursed her lips, thinking. “I think Laney sees it as getting a memory out of it. A great photo for on the wall to look at and remember the day. She’s not the type to spend the money just to show she can.”

“No, I know that. I wouldn’t be marrying her if she were that girl. I get that this is a dream for her. It’s something she’s thought about her whole life and she wants it to be perfect. I just don’t understand a little girl sitting in her room dreaming of doves.”

I reached out to take the bottle from her. I hadn’t planned it, I was too buzzed to really plan anything, but I blatantly wrapped my fingers around hers to take it. I was looking for that feeling again. That burning rush that came with the feel of her. That slow comfortable warmth she’d always given me.

“What about you?” I asked her. “What’s your aviary fantasy?”

She chuckled, shaking her head. “Weddings and doves and puffy white dresses? I don’t know. That’s never been me.”

“What is you, then?”

She frowned slightly, looking disappointed. “You’ve known me for years. You don’t know?”

I did. Better than I knew anyone or anything.

“You,” I said slowly, examining her face, “you are an old dance hall.”

“An old dance hall?” she laughed in surprise.

“Yeah.” I smiled as I pictured it. Jenna in a thin white summer dress swirling around her long legs, her hair loose and wild, her tattoos on display, face happy and glowing in the fading evening sun. Soft but strong. Feminine and real. Rough in all the right ways that made her honest. “Or a recovered warehouse. Maybe a waterfall or the redwoods. I’m not sure, but I know what you’re not. You’re not the Waldorf-Astoria or a ballroom or the top of the Eiffel Tower. You’re a backyard BBQ by the pool with a beer in your hand and a dress that weighs less than you do.”

She nodded in agreement, a small smile tugging at her lips. “I could be into that.”

“No orchestra or place settings.”

“No ten tier cakes.”

“No ice sculptures.”

“No tuxedos.”

“No, stop,” I said, cringing. “You’re killing me.”

“Not a tux fan?”

“Who is? It’s too confining. I always feel like I’m going to rip the seams in the shoulders.”

“Then I say don’t wear one. It’s your wedding too, you know?”

I chuckled doubtfully. “You wouldn’t make me wear one, huh?”

“Nope.” She looked me over critically, her head cocked the way she got when she was thinking about a painting she wanted to do.

I smiled at her scrutiny. We didn’t look at each other like this anymore – fearlessly. It was a little unnerving. There were things I should hide from her, things that I’d been hiding for years, but I didn’t now. Not anymore. I was coming out of the basement after living there for too long and her eyes were like the sun on my face for the first time. I felt a little reckless, a little wild, and maybe even a little free.

“I’m thinking…” she mused softly, “the jeans that you’re wearing right now ‘cause they’re your favorite and you’re comfortable in them—“

“What? These old things?” I asked wryly.

“Well and your ass looks great in them.”

“Really?” I laughed, feigning shock.

“Pft! As if you didn’t know. As if that’s not why they’re your favorite.”

“Guilty. What else. These jeans and…”

“A suit jacket. Unbuttoned, of course. And that T-shirt. It suits your eyes.”

“So you’re saying if I put on a suit jacket right now, you’d count me ready to be married?”

Something in her carefree expression faltered, like a cloud crossing over the sun. “What you’re wearing doesn’t make you ready to be married,” she answered softly. “If a guy is happy and sure that waiting for me at the end of that aisle is where he wants to be, I don’t care what clothes he has on, ‘cause his eyes are all I’m going to see.”

Her cheeks immediately flushed as though she were embarrassed by what she’d said, and I knew it was about me. I knew that hidden in that subtle pink hue of her skin was written everything we’d set in motion that night four years ago, and she hadn’t left it behind any more than I had. It was there and tangible between us, more full and real than it’d ever been.

“I’m marrying the wrong sister,” I said, deep and deliberate.

She looked at me in shock, but my heart was steady and even, the constant sucker punch to my system forgotten. In its place was her face and the unerring love I felt for her. The last thing I had held onto that was mine. The last piece of me that I hadn’t buried and I hadn’t had the strength to give up on. The part of me that was Jenna.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” she whispered shakily.

“I know.”

“Take it back.”

“No.” I wouldn’t, because it was honest, and to take it back would be to lie. And I’d never lied to Jenna.

“Why?” she breathed.

“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” I confessed helplessly, feeling the ground drop out underneath me, sending me into a freefall.

“What do you mean? You’re marrying my sister, that’s what you’re doing.”

“Am I?”

“Are you?” she shot back.

“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head and feeling dizzy. “There’s so much momentum.”

I didn’t know how to explain to her that I’d been caught in a tide for years, one that had been pulling me farther and farther away from myself. From her.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“We’re buying a house. Did you know that?”

“No.”

“Yeah,” I spat disdainfully. “We’re buying a house and we’ve been buying all this new furniture for it. Filling it with stuff to start this life and I’m working my way up in your dad’s firm and I’m on this track, this bullet train to this place but I don’t know where it’s going and I don’t know—“

I don’t know how to get out.

“Kellen.”

I jumped up, staggering slightly. I was out of control. This couldn’t happen now, not like this. Not while I had a fiancé down the street trying on wedding dresses. This was wrong. It was off. It was Timing, that raggedy old bitch. She’d never been kind to me.

I reached down to help her up, carefully avoiding her eyes. “We should get back,” I told her, fighting for calm. “Laney will wonder where we are.”

Jenna let me help her up, but she refused to let me go. “Hey,” she insisted softly, tugging on my hand.

I knew she wanted an explanation both for what I’d said and what I’d been about to say. And I had one. A good one. I just couldn’t give it to her.

Not yet.

“Don’t tell anyone what I said, alright?” I asked her. “It’s the alcohol and stress of the wedding. Nothing else. Okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed, her face veiled in doubt and worry.