by Juniper Hart
Until that moment, Jordan had been fighting toward something, but now…
“You have been running yourself ragged, kid,” the trainer had said. “Go get some rest, but stay away from the beers and the casino.”
Harley had told him this on December twentieth. On the twenty-first, Jordan was in Vegas. On Christmas Day, he had lost every penny he had and owed twenty grand, but to whom, he did not know.
Somehow, in a drunken stupor, he had borrowed money from someone to make back the amount he had lost. That did not stop him from continuing his bender in Las Vegas. The week had been a haze, and he had met various people. Throughout it all, Samantha had been in the foreground of his mind.
Still intoxicated, on New Year’s Eve, he hitchhiked back to Seattle and stumbled into his apartment. There were four voicemails on his home phone. Three were from Harley, wondering where he was. Jordan didn’t know why the trainer didn’t simply text him. It took him ten minutes to realize that he had lost his cell phone somewhere in his travels.
The last voicemail was from Samantha, telling him that she was getting married and she wanted to talk to him.
Jordan could not breathe. He didn’t understand what she wanted him to do. She had made her choice, and her choice was Marco. He knew in his gut that he’d done the right thing by walking away, though that didn’t mean he didn’t wrestle with the outcome every single day.
I hope that he treats her the way she deserves to be treated always. I can’t believe I will never taste her lips again.
He turned and left his apartment, intending to head to Sky Train. Instead, he found himself in The Hole, sitting at the bar, sobbing to Sheila. He had spent the New Year’s countdown asleep in the very same booth in which he sat at that moment. Sheila had locked up around him, taking pity on him. To her, Jordan was just another lost soul who had found his way into her life, just like so many had before him.
Jordan had woken at four a.m., discombobulated on New Year’s Day. When he couldn’t figure out where he was, he continued to drink to ward off the impending hangover. He fell back asleep until noon, when Sheila unlocked the doors. That morning, he wandered the crisp streets of Seattle, wanting desperately to go home, sleep, shower, and feel human again, but he knew that he would see Samantha in every corner of the apartment. Although he wanted to run to Harley and tell him what had happened, his trainer would be incensed at his state of debauchery.
Jordan had not felt so alone since his childhood. Somehow, he felt thirteen years old again, bailing his father out of trouble.
At seven o’clock that evening, he made his way home, knowing he needed to shower and change. He was rank, disgusting. There, he found a note on his door from Harley, begging him to call.
I’ll call him tomorrow. One more day of self-pity, and then I’ll get back to training, he vowed.
But Jordan didn’t call the next day, or the one after that. He only continued to return to The Hole until he was staring at a baggie with fine white powder in his hand, and suddenly, reality smacked him squarely in the face again.
His childhood flooded him in a torrent, memories of half-conscious Lycans littering the floor of his house as he and Wren sidestepped them. In his mind’s eye, he could see Fergus selling anything of value to pay for his next fix while Caroline cried and the children pretended that everything was all right. In his ear, he could hear Wren’s accusing voice.
“You’re doing that shit now?” she shrieked.
“Mind your own business,” he growled. “It makes me feel better.”
“What’s wrong, honey?” Sheila asked, bringing him back to stare at her with shining, unfocused eyes. “Don’t you want it?”
Jordan gnawed on his lower lip and stared at the drugs again, thinking of his pack and how he had finally managed to wrangle his parents into sobriety.
I’m so close to having it all, he thought, closing his eyes. I’m not going to lose it now… am I?
But what was the point of it all when he didn’t have a mate with whom to share it all?
“I’ll put it away, Jordan,” Sheila said quickly, but his hand snaked out to stop her, his fingers closing around her wrist tightly.
“It’s fine,” he told her quietly. “Just leave it.”
A slow, happy smile formed over the witch’s mouth, and she pulled her arm back.
“Welcome to the dark side, slugger,” she giggled.
At least I’m welcomed somewhere, Jordan thought miserably.
9
January turned to February, and Jordan spiraled further and further down the rabbit hole.
The days blurred together, and although he didn’t know day from night, Sheila was there to guide him through, even if he wasn’t aware of what was happening most of the time. He had all but forsaken his apartment, moving upstairs from The Hole with Sheila, where his days were spent infused with gin and cocaine.
It had started well enough, Sheila doting on her much younger score, lavishing him with drugs and plying him with liquor in exchange for his company. She didn’t ask for much, relishing the nearness of the young wolf, and Jordan was too far gone to question her motives. It never really occurred to him that she might want something more than his drunken charms in exchange for the booze, drugs, and roof she supplied.
And at the beginning, Sheila had seemed perfectly fine to let him stay, but soon, the situation soured, and Sheila was becoming annoyed with the freeloading, albeit handsome wolf pacing her bachelor apartment above the bar.
“Don’t cha think you should stop with all this mopin’ and go do somethin’ now, Jordy? It’s been a month. She ain’t comin’ back. You need to accept that already and move on.”
“You need to shut your mouth!” Jordan had roared back. It seemed blasphemous, Sheila even making mention of Samantha. To him, they were two separate lives, two worlds apart.
Taken aback, Sheila had narrowed her dark eyes and pursed her lips.
“You need to remember who you’re talkin’ to,” she snarled back. “If it hadn’t been for me, you’d be dead in a gutter somewhere.”
“If it hadn’t been for you, I’d be training and fighting my title fight right now!”
The bottle came flying at his head before he had time to react, and it hit him squarely on his chest, shattering onto the floor. In his hazy state, Jordan could only stare open-mouthed at Sheila, whose face had contorted into a mask of rage.
“Get out of my house, you ungrateful ass!” she yelled, grabbing another bottle. Jordan had overcome his initial shock and was at the door to the shabby second floor apartment, but not before he shifted, falling onto all fours to bare his teeth threateningly at her.
“Don’t get too cocky,” he hissed through a spray of saliva. “I could still kill you with one bite.”
Sheila seemed prepared for his reaction, and from nowhere, she produced a cross of solid silver, rushing toward him in a streak.
Howling, Jordan ambled back and fought his way out of the apartment. Before he crossed the threshold, he had a fleeting sense of déjà vu, one that he had suppressed deeper than any other he’d clung to in the past. A memory of his father slinking out of his childhood home, bloodied and broken, jumped into his mind, and Jordan realized, blindingly clear, just how far he had sunk.
How hard had he worked to separate himself from that past? How much had he suffered to overcome that mess? Shame almost smothered him, and he ran down the stairwell and out the door. He vowed to himself that he would go home, call Harley, and get his life back on track.
Sheila is not wrong, he thought mournfully. Samantha is gone. I need to focus on the title. It’s all you have left now. I gave her up, and I can’t let my feelings for her ruin the rest of my life, or I’ll bring the entire pack back down again. I’m better than this. I can do this.
In a fog, he made his way back to his apartment mere blocks away. As he slowly climbed the stairs, he tried to think of what he would say to Harley about why he’d been gone for so long. Oh, and he would
have to deal with Landon and Wren, too. His mentor would smell any deceit he tried to feed him, and his sister would certainly see through any bullshit. They all simply knew him too well.
He had to get his head on straight. Jordan shook it as if to clear it, but the movement only made his vision foggier. Wracking his brain, he pulled open the door to the third-floor walk-up, and to his shock, he saw his trainer sitting outside his apartment door, a sleeping bag and pillow under his tiny frame.
Harley was on his tablet and did not immediately see Jordan. For a panicked second, Jordan considered turning back and running down the stairs.
He’s going to kill me if he sees me high and smashed!
But it was too late. Harley looked up at the sound of the door opening, and his face instantly flew through a series of expressions ranging from relief to anger.
“Where the hell have you been?” he snarled, jumping to his feet, tossing the tablet onto the sleeping bag.
“Hey, man,” Jordan mumbled evasively, trying to brush past him. Harley grabbed his arm.
“Don’t ‘hey, man’ at me! You’re fucking drunk! I have been sleeping out here for almost a week, waiting for you to come home. Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been about you? I called the hospitals! The fucking morgue!”
More embarrassment shocked through Jordan’s body. He has no reason to know I don’t need that kind of worry, he thought, shame overcoming him as he darted his eyes away.
Jordan shrugged out of Harley’s tight grip and fumbled to unlock the apartment door. The coke was making his hands unsteady.
“Jordy, did you hear what I said?” Harley thundered, snatching the keys from his shaking hands and opening the door, shoving the younger man inside with force.
“What the hell?” Jordan sputtered, though he knew he had no right to be indignant. He was acting like a brat, and Harley had every right to give him hell.
His trainer slammed the door shut and glowered, his tan face reddening with fury. “I don’t know what the fuck you have been up to or why you would do this to yourself when you are so close to getting everything you’ve worked toward. How can you throw it all away?”
Jordan could see that Harley’s anguish and confusion were genuine. After all, it was completely out of character for Jordan to lose contact. He had been on benders before, but never like this, and never for so long. He should have been training since the start of the new year, the title fight only three weeks away.
“Jordan! Say something, for God’s sake! Where the hell have you been?”
“You’re not my goddamn father, Harley!” Jordan barked back before he could stop himself. “I don’t answer to you!”
The older man’s eyes became dangerously closed slits, and even in his inebriated state, Jordan recognized the mistake he had made.
“Oh, no,” Harley hissed. “I am not your prince of a father, kiddo. I am only the person who made sure that you and your sister didn’t live on the streets when your parents couldn’t make the rent. I am only the person who fixed your eyes and teeth when your daddy was taking your money and using it for hits. I am only the person who kept you fed. I am only the person who trained you to become a champ at my own fucking expense. How dare you talk to me like that!”
What the hell is wrong with me? Jordan thought. Why am I acting like such an asshole? It felt like Samantha had done more than made him fall in love with her. Suddenly, he didn’t recognize who he was anymore without her.
“Harley—”
“I am not finished. You shut your goddamn mouth and listen to me. For weeks, I could see something was up with you. You were acting strangely, but you still stayed focused. I thought maybe I was seeing something that wasn’t there. I thought, ‘nah, Jordy knows what’s important here. He’s not gonna screw up.’ I thought maybe you were overworked, but I can see now that you were just itching to get yourself into your old habits. I may not be your father, but I think I’ve done enough for you to earn an explanation!”
Jordan stared at his longtime confidant, unspeaking, taking in the fury in Harley’s eyes. In a blink, a torrent of emotions swept through him, and he dropped to his knees as if he could no longer take the weight of all that was happening.
Shocked, Harley immediately went to embrace him.
“What happened? What is it?” Harley asked gently, his eyes losing the fire as he recognized Jordan’s pain.
“It’s so stupid!” Jordan choked, but even as he said it, he knew his agony was anything but stupid. It was the realest pain he’d ever felt.
“It certainly doesn’t seem stupid,” Harley sighed. “It’s a woman, isn’t it?” Slowly, Jordan raised his head and nodded, feeling a hot flush of humiliation color his cheeks. “Tell me all about it,” Harley said.
Jordan did precisely that. Harley sat by listening, allowing him to unleash the flood of despair he was feeling over the loss of the woman to whom he had given his soul. When he had finished, Harley put on a pot of coffee and walked into the bathroom, unspeaking.
“Aren’t you going to bitch me out?” Jordan asked, stopping to catch his breath. He almost wished that Harley would yell and scream, but his trainer did none of that.
“For what?” Harley asked, ambling back into the living room. Jordan could hear the shower running. “For falling in love?”
“For being an asshole. For ruining my career over something I should have known better than to go after in the first place. Yeah, for falling in love with a married woman.”
“Jordy, if I had a nickel for every time I made a shitty decision about love, amongst other things, you and I would be living in Maui in a mansion right now. Anyway, who said you ruined your career?”
“The title fight is less than three weeks away, Harley. I am behind. I haven’t trained in weeks. I won’t be nearly what I should be.”
“Well, if you’re done drinking yourself into oblivion, we have some work to do, don’t we?” Jordan’s head shot up, and he stared at Harley, his eyes shining with hope.
“Yeah?” he asked dubiously. “You think we can make up for lost time?”
“Yeah, Southpaw. You aren’t going down that easily. Get in the shower, have some coffee, and we’re going out to eat. Then you’re coming home, going to bed, and we start fresh tomorrow. No excuses, no more self-pity, and no more goddamn booze. Take all of that anger and sorrow and put it into your fighting. Got it?”
“Yeah, Harley. Thanks. I owe you so much, man.”
“No. You owe yourself so much. Don’t throw it away.” Harley pointed at the steaming bathroom, and Jordan headed in, bowing his head in gratitude.
I’m glad he can’t tell I’m tweaking. He may have given up on me if he knew. I won’t disappoint him. Tomorrow, I start fresh again. No more booze. And definitely no more coke.
As he stripped off the jeans he had been wearing for days, a small baggie of cocaine fell onto the stained bathroom tiles. Jordan picked it up and lifted the toilet lid, but before he could flush it, his hand clenched into a fist around it, and he instead slipped it inside the medicine cabinet. I’ll just keep this as a reminder of what I almost became, he lied to himself, tucking the drugs away.
Jordan felt as though it was the first time he had ever been in the ring.
The sights, the smells, the roar of the crowd—everything was brand new. He was riding this feeling of displacement, almost like his soul had connected with that of a warrior ancestor in an ancient arena, waiting for the lion to become uncaged for the slaughter.
He had fulfilled his promise to Harley, fueling his training with the passion and pain he had held onto for Samantha. Somehow, he pushed her beautiful, fair face from his mind’s eye, keeping his attention strictly on the title fight.
His opponent, Charlie Dane, was a southpaw like Jordan, which made the match not only more challenging but more interesting to the spectators. The arena had been sold out for months, and scalpers were outside gouging prices on coveted tickets for hundreds of dollars. Harley was yelling
his usual pep in Jordan’s ear, but he heard little of what the trainer had to say. His eyes had turned almost black in his intense excitement, and he looked about the overflowing stadium, trying unsuccessfully to calm his erratic heart rate.
His eyes rested on a petite redhead in the middle of the floor, and his pulse ceased to flow.
Sam! But the woman looked up, and when she smiled becomingly at him, Jordan’s disappointment was almost a physical blow. It wasn’t Samantha.
Of course it’s not. She’s off married to that douchebag now. I wonder if foxes can mate with mortals and if she’s pregnant already. I wonder if she is laughing at me. Well, she won’t be laughing after tonight. Tonight, I will show her what she missed by marrying that asshole.
As if a steel rod was melded through his spine, Jordan threw his shoulders back and exhaled all the venom he was tasting. Tonight, his name would become a household name. Samantha would hear it, and she would come looking for him. She would leave that idiot. She’d realize she’d made a huge mistake.
Jordan allowed himself to indulge the fantasy a while longer, ignoring the noise outside his own daydream.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Please take your seats!” A cheer boomed through the already riled-up stands, and people scrambled to get the best vantage point for their pictures.
Camera flashes and cell phones aimed at the ring as the two boxers gently danced toward the center of the ring. Although the announcer continued his spiel, once again, Jordan was overcome with the heady feeling that he was not there but in a primeval place.
Charlie “Dancer” Dane was unexpectedly handsome for a cage fighter. He seemed more like an underwear model in his shiny red trunks, with a slight build and hairless body. His nose had not been broken yet, which was odd, but Jordan had a feeling that would change that night. He was not deceived by his charming, boyish look. Despite his seemingly inconspicuous size, Charlie was a heavyweight in his own right.
Jordan was also aware that Charlie packed an overhand right that stunned the most cynical of fighting critics.