Doomsday Love: An MMA & Second Chance Romance (10 page)

Mom was speechless, but she wasn’t devastated.

God, she had no heart whatsoever.

Shaking my head, I twisted around and stormed down the staircase, rushing out of the house and not stopping until I threw myself into the drivers’ seat of my car. Heaving a sigh, I looked towards my home.

From the front I could see my bedroom window, a big room with French doors that led to a spacious balcony, bay windows, and an excess amount of sunlight that bathed me warm every morning.

The room could have been considered my own personal loft. It was my safe haven…but only when
she
wasn’t around.

Our home, it was nice and elegant, the one material thing I actually loved other than my shoes. Built with creamy stones, gray slate tiles that lead to the front door, and large windows that made the view in any room breathtaking, it was simply amazing.

It was the only good thing that came out of Dad taking over Roscoe’s Waffles.

But inside that house was a lot of ugly. A mother who seemed to care more for herself than anyone else. And my father, always so oblivious. Always working to maintain her happiness at the expense of everyone else’s.

Why did he fall for mom? Surely there had to have been a sweeter side to her? One that hooked him—made him fall headfirst.

My memory is hazy sometimes, but I do remember when Mom was different. I remember certain things, like when I was five and helped her make blueberry pancakes.

And when I was six, she and Dad taught me how to ride a bike in front of the house. They were around a lot more back then.

But then I turned seven, and it all went downhill for us. Especially Mitchell. She was harder on him. Demanding. Rough.

Something happened in that year when I was between six and seven years old.

Mom’s smiles had been replaced with frowns and looks of disapproval. It was if she could never be pleased—never satisfied. It was as if someone or
something
had stolen her happiness right away from her, replacing it with a reverberating chill—a wrath to be cast on anyone that surrounded her.

I sat in my car and wondered what happened. I wondered as I put the transmission in drive and circled the roundabout driveway, seeing Mom standing in the hallway window, watching as I left.

* * *

O
nce I got
to Kylie’s, the air was thick and humid, the skies scattered with gray bundles. Rain was coming.

I walked through her front door, and when she met up to me, she snatched the bottle of aspirin right out of my hands.

She looked just as bad as when I left her. Mangled hair now up in a bun, red eyes with dark circles beneath them that were going to be a bitch to conceal without makeup. Her face was pale, as if she’d still been vomiting the contents from last night.

I felt for her.

When she got to the kitchen and popped open the bottle, she downed the pills, chugged down some apple juice, and before we got down to cleaning, we sat in the living room, letting the medicine kick in before getting to work.

“This spur of the moment party totally ruined the house,” I noted later, as we cleaned.

“Yeah.” Kylie tossed a beer can in the full bin by the door. The glass rattled when the can made its landing, making my ears ring. She winced, as if the sound was sharper for her. I was sure it was. “Never doing this again, I tell you that.”

My smile stretched. We’d gotten most of the living room and kitchen done. All that was left was the front lawn and then the backyard. Unfortunately, it had already started raining. We had to wait.

All that was left inside was the white and red streamers on the floor (our school colors), and the bins that we were going to take to the dump or a recycling plant once we’d recovered a bit more.

Kylie walked to the kitchen and took out two bottles of water. She tossed me one and then sat on the sofa.

I sat with her, gulping from my bottle, the cool water running down my throat.

“So my mom wrote a book about me,” I said.

Kylie frowned. “About you?”

“Well, about a fairy version of myself,” I corrected, pretending to be amused by it.

“Uh… what?”

“Yeah. The fairy’s name is Jenny and apparently all the stories are going to be about how disobedient she is, and how she should always listen to the mama fairy.”

“What a load of bullshit!”

“Right? She was so pissed when I called her out on it at the brunch. I mean, who does that? Why would she name it after me, knowing people would automatically know it was me she’s talking about? She said I was being ridiculous, but if you ask me, that was a total bitch move on her part. So glad you called because I really needed to get away from her.”

“Wow. Ugh.” Kylie waved a hand. “I can’t even. That day I met your mom after cheerleading practice, I seriously wanted to flip. She judged
everything
I wore, like girls my age are supposed to dress like her, in fucking polyester business suits.” Kylie sat forward. “I’m sorry, Jen, but your mom is a prude. She doesn’t realize how great of a person you are because she’s too busy trying to tell you what to do, what to wear, what to eat, how to fucking breathe.” Kylie stood and went to pick up a few streamers. “I don’t know how you do it, baby love.”

I laughed at the name she called me. “It’s called surviving. In that house you kinda have to. Don’t, and you might… end up like… Mitchell.”

Kylie stopped cleaning for a brief moment. She was halfway down to pick up the red streamer but stopped, adjusting her body upright. I dropped my head before she could meet my eyes.

I heard her sigh, and then she moved forward, picking up my hands and squeezing them as she sat. “Let’s not talk about her anymore, okay? I don’t like when you get upset and it makes you remember your brother in a sad way.”

I nodded.

“So… last night.” Her eyes went all wide and sparkly like they always did when she was ready to gossip. “Drake… the dance. I saw you! I remember! What was that about?”

“Oh, you’re asking me, Mrs. ‘
it’s just really hard to accept right now’
.” I teased her, busting out in a laugh as she blushed.

Kylie’s laughter chimed off the walls. “Well, shit, Jen. He was fucking hot. Did you see!? I couldn’t pass that up. It was the perfect opportunity to play the sad girl.”

“I think he’s into you. He asked about you this morning.”

“This morning?” Her eyebrows drew together. “You saw him?”

“Oh, yeah! I saw them when I was at the brunch. After my mom pissed me off, I went out to the hallway and saw all three of them. The twins and… Drake. Oh my God.” I gasp.

“What?”

“I didn’t even tell you. I gave him my number this morning.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” I groaned, pressing the palm of my hand into my eye sockets. “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I think I was still kinda tipsy this morning. I wrote it on a scrap sheet of paper and put it in his front pants pocket. I got so close—oh my God, so close to his dick.” I could feel my face flaming red.

“His
dick
!?” Kylie was shocked, and rather proud. I could tell by the rapid smile that she wore. “Holy shit, Jen!”

“I didn’t meant to, but I felt it.”

“Did it feel big?” she asked, her big eyes making me feel uncomfortable yet oddly embraced.

“I—I don’t know. I couldn’t really tell. But I felt the edge… maybe the tip. I don’t know.” I held out my hands, an innocent plea. “I’ve never actually touched one before!”

“Well, what did he say when you gave it to him?” She had long since dropped my hands, chest forward, eyes trained on me, trying to get every sweet and juicy detail.

“He kept saying he wouldn’t text me, like he was positive. He said it twice, but I gave it to him anyway. Then, before I left, I saw him crumple the paper and toss it in the trash.” I snapped my fingers. “Just like that.”

Kylie’s brows narrowed. I could tell she was ticked off. “Are you fucking kidding me? He threw it away?”

I didn’t say anything right away. I let my head hang in shame for a minute. “He acts like…like something’s wrong with me.”

“Oh, please. There’s nothing wrong with you. He’s a fucking prick, Jenny. I told you. If anything, there’s something wrong with
him
. God, he’s such an asshole.”

“He used to be nice.”

“Yeah, you told me you hung with him in fifth grade during recess, but, honey, that was a long time ago. Things change. You were kids back then. We’re practically adults now.”

“I know.”

I glanced up at Kylie’s sympathetic face, her eyes glued on me. “Don’t let that bastard get you down. He’s the dumb one. Missing out on a hottie like you.” She gave me a sweet grin and I had no choice but to return it. Kylie, always making me feel so special.

There were so many reasons she was my best friend, and her accepting me and not ever judging was one of the main ones. I could be myself around her—talk about anything. We spoke our minds freely, goofing at the wrong times, filling each other in on our every day lives.

“But back to Oscar… what did he ask you? About me?” she urged.

“He just asked if you were okay… how you were feeling and stuff.”

“Oh.” She pouted a little. “Lame. He could have asked me himself if he’d given me his number.”

“He didn’t give it to you?” I asked, rather surprised.

“Nope. Said he was too busy to text me. Said he’d never really get the chance to talk to me and it would end up with me being frustrated. He also said that I got lucky last night by him coming to the party. He wasn’t supposed to be here… something like that.”

“That was a shitty thing to say.” I frowned.

“They are all shitty. All so
fucking
shitty. But at least he gave me some sort of reason—a terrible one, but a reason.” She shrugged and sighed, all hope seeping through the open windows. “He told me while we were dancing to call him Wildcard, not Oscar.” She looked into my eyes, inquisitive. “Do you know what that means?”

“Um… no. Never heard of it.”

Kylie stood and picked up her bottle of water, peeling away at the plastic label. “Let me ask you this…”

“What?”

“Do you think he fights, too? Do you think that’s why he said that to me—that he wouldn’t have time? ‘Cause they aren’t in school either—the twins.”

“Maybe,” I said. And I thought on it. It made sense. They were his cousins, all without much guidance. They liked to work out and were prepared to fight Trace. I was certain they were always prepared to fight.

I wouldn’t have been very surprised to know they all fought for money. You are the company you keep, after all, and Drake hung with his cousins twenty-four-seven. They even worked part-time jobs during the day together.

“Hmm… you know, I wanna tell myself to stay away, but something about that is drawing me to him even more. They are bad, Jen, real bad. And I should be trying to stay away from that right? I should avoid him like the plague but… now I want to find him again. I want to talk to him. I have so many questions. I want to get to know him, but I don’t know.” She paused. “Is that bad?” she asked, nearly whispering the last question.

Her eyes were focused on me, and when I caught the hopefulness in her eyes, that familiar spark, that longing, I knew. I knew exactly what she was feeling.

“No,” I said. “It’s not bad, Kylie. It’s human.” And it wasn’t bad because I’d wanted the same thing from Drake since I was ten years old and swinging on the playground.

K
ylie
and I finished cleaning when the sun was nowhere in sight.

Mom rang me four times. When I didn’t answer her, Dad called. I ignored both.

Flopping on top of Kylie’s peach and gray comforter, a soft spell of breath fell through my lips and I stared up at the ceiling.

Kylie had gone downstairs to take more aspirin. Her hangover was much worse than mine. I actually felt much better now. There was still an aggravated feeling at the front of my head, but it was easy to ignore when I focused on something else…like Kylie’s flat ceiling and the roundish-jagged looking chandelier she bought from Ikea.

My phone buzzed beside me and I groaned, snatching it up and expecting Mom or Dad to appear on the screen.

I was wrong.

It was an unknown number, one I’d never seen before. For the briefest moment, I felt my heart skip a beat as I sat up straight. There could only be two reasons for this number. A collect call or…
him
.

“What’s up?” Kylie asked as she walked through the door. She looked at me oddly, taking note of my shocked expression.

My eyes widened as I lifted the phone, pointing at the screen. “I’ve never seen this number before,” I said softly.

She frowned. “Okay…” She didn’t get it. It took a while for it to register to her. When it finally clicked in, her eyes went as wide as china plates and she rushed in my direction. “Oh my God! You think it’s him?!”

“Yeah. I think so.” I realized then that I didn’t know how to react. Should I answer? Should I ignore it? Should I pretend I never got the call if I ever happened to run into him again? Because I was certain I would see him again.

“Well, answer!” Kylie urged, demanding with a wild flap of her hands. “Hurry!”

“Okay, okay!” I looked at the screen, the strange number, and then answered. “Hello?”

“Told you I wouldn’t text you,” he said. I caught the laugh in the bass of his voice. I liked the sound of it. Smooth, but with a rough edge.

I held my breath, feeling Kylie’s eyes on me, knowing he was listening to me mildly hyperventilate. “I… I thought you meant—”

“That I wouldn’t talk to you at all?”

“Yeah,” I murmured. “I saw you crumple my number. I saw you throw it away. You seemed upset that I even gave it to you.”

“I was, at first.”

“You went back for it?”

He scoffed. “Get the fuck out of here. No. I remembered it.”

“So you just wanted to pretend that you weren’t going to call or text?”

He stopped talking for a few seconds, sighing as if he were fed up. “I want you to leave me alone,” he said bluntly. I swallowed hard, losing that moment of glee I’d gotten when I knew it was him calling. I didn’t say anything, so he continued. “I can’t focus on more than one thing right now. My life is already complicated.”

“No one’s asking you to focus on me,” I said, pushing off the bed and walking towards Kylie’s window. I knew she was still listening, even though she’d turned on the TV and was picking at the chipped paint on her fingernails.

She wasn’t paying attention to the TV; her face was pointed towards the wall across from her, one ear pointed in my direction, the other at the TV.

“Yeah, but I already know that I will. I got caught up thinking about you—” He stopped himself and I really wished he would have finished. “Like I said this morning and last night, things are different now. I’m not a good guy or someone you should be looking to for friendship. You know what I am. I’m a fighter. All I know is violence and blood.”

“Oh.” I cringed after he said the word
fighter
. I knew what he was, how dangerous he was, and yet I didn’t give a single damn. “So you called to tell me to leave you alone?”

“Pretty much.”

“What a jackass,” I heard Kylie hiss behind me. I didn’t turn to look at her. I was too embarrassed.

“Fine.”

Drake didn’t say anything right away. The line went silent for so long I thought he’d hung up. But when I lifted the phone the seconds were still rolling, which meant he hadn’t.

“I just don’t get what you see in me,” he murmured.

“I told you. There’s more to you than you let people see.”

“And that’s enough to want to get to know me? The
real
me? Because the real me isn’t good. Fucking far from it, Jenny.”

“I know you believe that, but I don’t. I can handle your bad.”

“Can you?”

“Yes,” I said, finally annoyed. “Yes, Drake, I can. You said things changed. Yes, they have, and what you fail to realize is that I’m not ten anymore. I’m eighteen. I’m older and I know what I want!”

“You shouldn’t want me, Jenny.”

“But I do,” I whispered. I clung to the phone, begging for him to just let me in, open up like he did eight years ago. Trust me, for once.

But I was holding onto nothing because in a matter of seconds the line was dead and the screen was blank.

He’d hung up.