Brawler (26 page)

After my first therapy session, I hit the gym. It was still a little early, I was still pretty weak, but it felt amazing. Just stepping into Tim’s felt like coming home. The colors, the sweat, the shouting – all of it wrapped around me in a warm hug that left me smiling like an idiot for hours. I showed Tim my hand and told him what had happened to it. He listened intently, nodding occasionally but never saying a word.

Finally he told me, “We’ll deal with it. Now, grab a rope and jump as long as you can. Let’s see how weak you are.”

No pity. No apologies. That afternoon we found my basement and we started rebuilding from there. It was a completely different kind of therapy, one that made me feel whole even though I was running on empty.

The session with Ben had been draining and a little soul crushing. It was definitely something I’d needed and I had made a follow up for two days from now, but I was still nervous about going back. He’d promised we would only talk about the things I was comfortable with, but I still worried. So much of my past was wrapped up with my present that it didn’t seem likely I’d be able to avoid the topic for long.

Then there was Jenna. I hadn’t called her and she hadn’t called me and it was the fallout from that fateful night all over again. I vowed that this time I wouldn’t suffer the same knee jerk reaction and start digging my grave blindly, not stopping until I passed through the center of the earth and landed upside down in China without a passport or a clue as to how I’d gotten there. With no idea how to get home. I wouldn’t run to the bottom of a bottle either. In my head I wrote her texts and called her a hundred different times, but I never knew exactly how to say what I meant because communication had never been a part of my skill set, but I was hoping Ben could help me with that. I just needed a little bit of time.

When I got home that night, I took the stairs up to my apartment even though I was exhausted. I’d need to go to bed soon, right after I showered and ate dinner, probably from the new Teriyaki place down the block that delivered and had—

“Oh, shit,” I muttered, freezing on the last step.

There at the end of the hall, leaning against my apartment door, was Laney.

“I don’t have a key,” she told me coldly. “I’ve never had a key to your place. Not even when you were up at Cal.”

“I know.”

She arced a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “So it was deliberate.”

“What does it matter now?”

“It matters because you’re a dick.”

I shook my head, gripping my keys hard in my hand as I made my way slowly toward her. “Here we go.”

“You know it’s true. You never let me in.”

“You never asked.”

“We were engaged! I shouldn’t have needed to ask.”

“It was never how we were. Why would that have changed?”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Why are you here?”

She stepped back from the door, gesturing to it. “Are you going to open it?”

“Not until we’re done talking.”

“You want to have this talk out here in the hall so all of your neighbors can hear it?”

“No, I wanted to have it last night outside when we were alone, but you walked away.”

“I didn’t think you were serious.”

“Well, I was. I am.”

She rolled her eyes. “Can we go inside already?”

I put my keys in my pocket, crossing my arms over my chest. “No. We have a routine, one I don’t feel like engaging in anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Yeah, act like you don’t know how we solve all of our problems. It’s adorable.”

“What? By fucking? Yeah, and it works.”

“Does it?”

She glared at me. “First time I’m hearing you complain, baby.”

I bristled. “Don’t ever call me that again.”

“You’ve been so weird since the accident,” she snapped.

“I’ve been weird since the engagement, you just never bothered to notice.”

“Oh, now it’s my fault!”

“It’s no one’s fault, it’s…” I rubbed my hand over my eyes, feeling my pulse pound behind them. “It’s over. That’s all. There’s no final score.”

“Dad said you’re quitting the firm,” she accused.

“Yeah.”

“What are you going to do instead? Be a boxer?” she asked sarcastically, gesturing to my workout clothes.

I dropped my hand angrily, looking at her hard. “I’m getting back into it, yeah, but not as a profession. I’ll do something else, something that lets me have free time to do it.”

“Like what?”

I didn’t answer her. Partly because I didn’t know, but mostly because I didn’t feel like it. It wasn’t her business, just like it wasn’t my business whether or not she went running into the arms of the other guy.

She rolled her eyes again, shifting her purse on her shoulder. “God, you’re impossible. You’re ruining your life, you know that right? You could make serious bank working for my dad, but you’re going to walk away from that because you just don’t feel like it anymore? I won’t do this with you. It’s stupid.”

“It’s good we broke up, then.”

She glared at me hotly. “You’re seriously doing this? After all this time waiting for you to set a date and now with the wedding months away, you’re honestly doing this to me?”

I sighed deeply, keeping my cool. “Laney, we shouldn’t get married just because we’ve come this far.”

“This is so humiliating,” she whispered, closing her eyes tightly.

“I’m sorry,” I said gently. “I care about you. I never set out to hurt you, but I’m not ready to get married to anyone right now. You and I haven’t been good for each other from the start. We were easy, that’s all. Easy doesn’t make it right.”

She shook her head, opening her eyes, and I wasn’t all that surprised to find them dry. She lifted her hand, flashing the ring at me that she’d picked out. “I suppose you want this back,” she said scathingly, grabbing it with her other hand to yank it off. “You can give it to the next girl you screw over and lie to for years.”

“Keep it. Wear it. Sell it. Do whatever you want with it. It’s yours.”

“Oh is it?” she asked sarcastically, dropping her hands. “Thank you so much, Kellen. The money from this will probably buy me half a burrito on the way home. You’re so generous. Such a great guy!”

She stormed past me, her designer heels snapping loudly on the hardwood floor. The rock on her finger flashed in the fading evening light with perfect twenty-four thousand dollar clarity.

I was happy to see it go.

***

A couple days later found me at the gym again. I spent the entire afternoon there slowly running through my workout routine. I was dedicated to finishing it, no matter how long it took or how many breaks I had to take. So far something that had taken me a matter of three hours was going on six and half. I had made it through the run, the jump rope, and was working on the bag, but that’s where I was stalling out. My hand hurt like a son of a bitch every time I threw a punch, and I refused to pull any. Every hit my left hand landed, my right hand did the same. It slowed me down and drug the painful experience out, but I was going to finish. I had to finish.

When the cast came off, the doctors had told me that was it. It was healed. If it hurt to fight with it, that’s just how it was going to be. I could have surgeries to re-break it and try to get it to heal better, but the odds of it doing anything other than slowing me down even more were slim to none. It was what it was, and it was all but busted.

"You’re hesitating.”

At the sound of her voice I grabbed the bag, halting it in its swing.

“You saw it?” I asked, not turning around.

“The entire gym can see it,” Jenna answered matter-of-factly. “Your right hand still hurts, doesn’t it?”

I opened and closed my aching hand slowly, surveying the room as I turned to face her.

It had always amazed me how much Jenna looked like she belonged there in that gym miles and millions of dollars from her home. Her long hair was swept up in a ponytail to expose her shoulders and long neck. Her tattoos were open and out to the air, her skin a beautiful cream canvas for the work she loved so much. She was wearing simple clothing; dark jeans and a white tank top. Worn out purple Converse. Smoky shadow and thick black eyeliner traced the contours of her round, gray eyes.

My blood flew through my veins at the sight and sound of her. It wasn’t until then when she surprised me with just her voice that I realized that the way she used it had changed since she was a kid. She spoke a little lower. A little rougher. Almost husky, like her laugh. It was such a natural kind of sexy, one I wasn’t accustomed to. One that burned me from head to toe, inside and out.

People were watching her. Watching us. Listening. Guys with their eyes on her body and other competitors who were wondering if I still had it after the accident. “It’s healing,” I told her loud and clear.

She stepped in close. “Is that true?”

“No,” I answered softly. “It’s as healed as it’s ever going to be.”

“How bad does it hurt?”

“Enough.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m not going to quit,” I told her solidly.

She smirked. “No joke. I meant how are you going to adjust? Can you go Southpaw?”

“I don’t know. It’d be tough.”

“Tougher than fighting through the pain? One bout and everyone will know your right hand is weaksauce. You gotta flip a bitch, go left handed. Anyone who knows you will be thrown by it.”

“Are you my coach now?” I asked with a grin.

“I’ll gladly start charging.”

“I think you make plenty.” My trip to the tattoo parlor had shown me just how lucrative being a good artist could be. The girl was pulling down easily a hundred dollars an hour.

“Not half as much as you.”

I tugged at the tape on my hands roughly. “Twice as much as me now.”

“I heard you quit.”

“Yeah.”

“What are you going to do instead?”

I snorted. “Laney didn’t tell you?”

“No, because
you
didn’t tell
Laney.
She said you wouldn’t answer her.”

I nodded, avoiding her eyes and the question.

“What then?” she insisted, unflinching.

I groaned, putting distance between us. I’d recently poured my soul out to Ben, then Dan, and I’d had to break up with Laney twice. My ability to share my thoughts and feelings had never been strong, and it was tapped as shit now, but I owed her better than this. Better than me at my worst.

“I’m not sure yet,” I said finally.

“You have no idea?”

“I have some,” I answered vaguely. “I’m working on them. Feeling them out.”

“Okay,” she said amiably, letting it go. She bent down and picked up a pair of punch mitts off a nearby bench.

I cringed as eyes all around the room watched her move. With her tattoos and the streak of blue in her dark hair, they probably thought she was a gym whore. Just one of the girls looking to score with an alpha. It made me hate every guy in that room.

She put the mitts on, then lifted her hands. “Let’s go.”

“What are you doing?”

“This is next right? After the bag?”

“How do you remember that?” I asked, amazed by her memory of my workout.

She laughed at me. “I was only here for every bout, Kel. I watched your warm-ups. I’ve watched you work out a couple times. It’s called paying attention.”

“I don’t know if I pay attention to anyone that closely.”

“What’s my favorite color?” she asked, shaking her hands to encourage me to get going.

I settled into my stance, imagining her bedroom. “Purple.”

“Favorite band?”

I threw a hit at one of her mitts.

Punch.

“
Sublime
.”

“Favorite food?”

Punch.

“Chinese.”

Punch.

“Noodles and teriyaki chicken,” I clarified, picturing her with the meal in front of her the way I’d seen countless times over the years, sauce painting a thin stripe down her chin.

Punch.

“How do I like my popcorn?”

Jenna on the couch next to me watching a movie, wearing her favorite fleece pants with the hole in the left pocket. “Dry and salty.”

Punch, Punch.

“What’s—“

“You giggle in your sleep sometimes,” I interrupted, spinning us around.

She followed me, moving her feet in time with my turn. Like dancing.

Punch.

“You drive with your hands at 3 and 11 instead of 10 and 2.”
Punch
. “You only turn the volume to odd numbers.”
Punch.
“When you draw or paint, you stick the tip of your tongue out the corner of your mouth.”
Punch. Punch.
“But when you tattoo you chew on your bottom lip.”
Punch.
“Your sister drives you crazy but you love her.”
Punch.
“You’d give up anything to see her happy.” I stopped, standing up straight and dropping my hands to look at her evenly. “Even something you want.”