Hard to Love

by W Winters

  Seth

  “The meet’s all set up.” I’ve just about finished the rundown with the guys at the far left side of what will be our bar. The brown paper is laid out on the floors and the furniture is covered in cloth. The painters are coming back tomorrow since I had to kick them out early for this meet. Club Allure is coming together, piece by piece. “We’ve got a fight next weekend, so let’s get the ring moved downstairs.”

  “The place isn’t finished,” Connor interrupts me. He’s leaning against the primed walls next to Cade, who’s in charge of the books, and Liam. Liam is Connor’s brother and looks just like him. Especially now that they’re both wearing dark jeans and dark t-shirts. Cade’s the odd one in a crisp white shirt and black khakis. The rest of these guys couldn’t give two shits about appearing professional. Cade comes from a different background though. He’s all about numbers and left a top accounting firm to come work for me.

  In another life, I’d wear suits every damn day. We don’t do that here though. The men before us who wore suits destroyed any desire I had to put on tailored clothing.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Cade speaks up, turning his head to face Connor and leaning forward so he can see him. He’s the one who came to me with the idea of a fight club.

  “You think anyone betting on the fights downstairs gives a shit what this floor looks like?” Derrick asks Connor, his question dripping with sarcasm.

  The three of those men side by side look like they could be their own Irish crew. If things were the way they were two years ago, they’d probably be dead. The Irish didn’t last too long when Michael Vito took over. The three of them are as Irish as they come. Cade comes equipped with a hint of an accent too; he’s first generation. With tats trailing up his right arm, it’s easy to tell him apart from Liam. He’s taller than Liam too, with lighter, longer hair on the top of his head. Liam looks more clean-cut. His short hair’s always neatly trimmed, as is his facial hair. Even though Cade left the business world, you’d think Liam was the one who was trying to be white collar based on how they look.

  “You two,” I say as I gesture on both sides of Connor to the other two Irish men. “You get the say since this gig is your baby. Have it here, in the basement? Or keep it where we have been?”

  “Here,” Cade says, his accent peeking out. Liam agrees with his friend. The two of them are tight, another reason they’d have been knocked off years ago. I remember telling Connor that it was on him if Cade and Liam couldn’t be trusted. I have a hard time trusting people. These two are the only two guys out of the five in my crew I’ve brought on in the two years we’ve been running this shit. I don’t like new blood, Connor, Derrick, Roman and I have been through everything together. We don’t need anyone else. Cade and Liam can be trusted though and it’s better to keep them close. So it’s just my five guys and me.

  That’s enough for now.

  “Good. I’m ready for things to start changing and the first—”

  “Yo,” Derrick says, cutting me off and leans his head to my right. The dark black glass for the front double doors was just installed and Laura’s admiring it from where she’s at the other side of the bar, still holding one door open.

  “I knocked,” she bellows when I call out her name to get her attention. She looks cute in a tight pair of jeans and a cropped top that shows off her stomach. Just the sight of her makes my cock twitch. My first instinct is to smile, thinking she’s come to surprise me, but then I see her expression.

  “Come on down,” Derrick calls out to her.

  “Give me a minute,” I tell the guys, not liking the look on her face. It’s the one she gets when she’s scared but she’s trying not to be. I know it well. I take a few slow steps toward her as she takes the shortest path across so she doesn’t have to walk the entire distance of the place.

  “It’s really coming together,” she says sweetly, greeting me with a quick peck and then saying hi to the guys.

  “Yeah, it is. We need a few more permits,” I tell her and wait. She’s got both hands shoved in her pockets when she asks if there’s a room we can talk in.

  I don’t like it. The way her shoulders are hunched in and how quietly she’s talking.

  “Everything all right?” I ask her as I place my hand on the small of her back and bring her around to one of the back rooms. Her doctor appointment is tomorrow. It’s the first thing I think of with how she’s acting. She said it wasn’t a big deal. She said her heart skips sometimes and I took credit for it. Looking at her now, I feel like a jackass for making light of it. Her exact word was “harmless.” She said it was harmless and the procedure was routine for diagnosis.

  She better not have lied to me. Maybe I should go with her.

  “Let’s just talk,” she answers and I pick up my pace.

  The small corner room, opposite from where the guys are and what will be used for storage of unopened liquor, isn’t furnished and the floors are covered with brown paper. Other than that, there’s only blue painter’s tape on the trim.

  Laura lets out a deep exhale before I’ve even shut the door.

  “What did you do?” she asks and her question comes out frantic. She sounds scared and it instantly makes my muscles coil, ready to beat the shit out of whoever’s gotten her so worked up. But then what she says hits me.

  What did I do? Relief is the first thing I feel, but then it’s quickly followed by confusion.

  “Whoa, hold up, what’s wrong?” I ask her, taking her elbow so I can pull her in, but she pushes me away, backing up to the other side of the small room. Nervous pricks run up my arm.

  “I don’t like this. I don’t like any of this.”

  With her arms crossed, she faces me from the other side of the room. I stay where I am, waiting and crossing my arms just the same.

  “What did you do?” She repeats her question.

  Speaking clearer this time, I ask, “What happened?”

  She’s stubborn. Babygirl is a stubborn broad, but she also knows I’m not going to lie to her. Which means I’m also not telling her a damn thing. It’s a rule we have in the crew; it keeps the people we love out of harm’s way. She doesn’t need to know.

  Uncrossing my arms and slipping my thumbs into my back pockets, I take a single step forward and raise my brow. Waiting.

  A look of despair mars her face when she uncrosses her arms and confesses, “Jackson came to the bar.”

  A spike of rage goes through me. Just one, a blip.

  “What did he say?” I ask calmly, evenly, although my voice is lower now. We have an arrangement, and for Jackson to go behind my back and tell Laura something that’s got her worked up… I’m going to have to have a word with that prick.

  “He said the guys you’re dealing with aren’t going to let you get away with it,” she says. Her voice cracks and it fucking shatters me.

  Another spike of rage hits me, but this one simmers. “That seems cryptic,” I tell her, keeping a poker face even though I’m already second-guessing if Jackson is talking about Mathews or if he’s referring to something else. What does he know that I don’t know?

  Nothing.

  The answer in my head is arrogant, but I can’t see how he knows something I don’t.

  “What did you do?” Her tone pleads with me as she closes the distance between us.

  The tough-girl bit falls pretty quick with her. “Please,” she begs.

  The second her hands reach my arms, I bring her in, holding her tight. It’s what she needs, and she’s quick to hold me back.

  “Please, Seth,” she whispers this time.

  My chin rests on the top of her head as her grip on me tightens. “You’re worried,” I tell her, rocking her small body and staring at the blank back wall, picturing everything that happened and at what point someone would have known it was us. Jackson can’t know. No one knows. He’s confused or he’s trying to start shit. I’ll set him straight either way.

  “How could I not be worried?” Laura res
ponds with despondency.

  “Jackson’s bluffing, saying anything he can to get to you,” I lie to her. Or maybe it’s the truth. If it was though, I don’t think I’d feel the way I do. Ice cold and like something bad is going to happen.

  I move to hold her tighter, hating the way everything’s feeling hot and numb all at once, but she breaks away, her hands on my chest as she shakes her head.

  “It’s not a bluff; he was worried about me.” She raises her voice as she speaks but it’s the emotions getting to her.

  “There’s no reason for you to worry,” I tell her, trying to calm her down by grabbing her hands, one in each of my own.

  I kiss her knuckles before telling her that I’m sorry Jackson freaked her out and that he’s just a jackass.

  She’s not in the mood for my jokes though, if her ripping her hands away from me and pacing is any indication.

  “You need to calm down,” I tell her as I square my shoulders.

  She asks with wide eyes, full of both hope and desperation, “Why don’t you just get out of all that?” When I don’t answer, she adds, “You have this bar.” Like that’s some sort of justification.

  The bar only works because we’ll do the deals here, host fights in the basement, and launder money through the alcohol sales. I struggle for a reason to give her. One day she’ll realize it all. She’s too smart not to piece it together. She’s just messed up in the head right now and unable to see it. It’s not this bar or that life. They’re one and the same.

  She doesn’t budge right now though. “Please, give it up.”

  “What am I going to do?” I ask, feeling a deep crease settle in the middle of my forehead as my lips form a straight line. “Men in the life don’t leave the life.”

  “You don’t have to keep this up,” she begs me, and I hate it. Every few months she does this. She can’t just accept it?

  “You knew who I was. There was never a question.” I have to contain my frustration so I don’t raise my voice.

  “I thought things would change!” she yells, and I know the guys can hear. “When things got better, I thought you’d stop!”

  “The guys are here.” I bring up that fact to try to get her to keep her voice down. “Don’t do this now.” Even though it’s a command, I know I’m asking her. Shit, I’d beg her not to do it in front of them.

  “When are we going to do it, Seth?” she says and her voice cracks when she questions me. Her teeth sink into her bottom lip to keep it steady and the moment she wraps her arms around herself, I wrap mine around her shoulders. My chest touches her crossed arms and then her chest when she finally relaxes.

  The anxiousness I feel seeing her broken down like this dims when she presses her chest against mine from her collar to her hips, and wraps her arms around me. Rubbing soothing motions up and down her back, I try to console her the best I can. Kisses in her hair, telling her it’s going to be all right. I don’t know what else I can do.

  She knows I can’t leave the guys; I can’t leave the life. What the hell would I do? I don’t know anything else.

  That’s the next step in this conversation. And then she tells me I can be anything. She believes it, too. My throat’s tight when I kiss her hair again, and I breathe in deep, inhaling the smell of her shampoo. It’s some floral scent.

  “I love you,” she whispers into my chest. I don’t know if she meant for me to hear it or not, she spoke it so softly, so I don’t answer. I just kiss her hair again and try to ignore that feeling in my gut that everything is all wrong.

  “I hate this shit,” I speak without thinking. I don’t even know why I said it.

  Laura takes a step back, no longer holding me and I have to straighten my expression, making sure she doesn’t see anything but confidence.

  “Hate what?” she asks, nearly breathlessly. Her eyes are larger, darker, swirling with a concoction of emotion that I can’t quite place.

  “I hate fighting,” I tell her honestly. “I hate you not being happy.”

  “I am happy,” she’s quick to tell me, ignoring all of the shit that just happened so she can give me what I want. She comes to that realization at the same time that I do, and she swallows tightly. A moment passes in silence, and then another. Reaching her hands up to my collar, she stares at the stubble on my jaw as she composes herself. “I’m just scared, Seth.”

  “Don’t be,” I say, putting every ounce of reassurance I can into my tone. “I’m right here; you have nothing to be scared about.”

  “You’re not always here, though.”

  I bite down hard on the tip of my tongue to keep from telling her I would be if she’d move in with me. Round and round we go. In a fucking circle.

  I hate when she does this shit. Sucking in a breath, I watch her staring up at me. Wide eyed, waiting for a response and not realizing how much it pisses me off.

  She’s always done this, though.

  Even when I first started walking her home from school. She still had the bruises and cut lip from Vito. I was busted up pretty good for a while too. It was only surface damage. That shit heals just fine. My pops took over along with his crew. If they were the first generation, we’re the second for this organization. His reign didn’t last long though. The Vitos weren’t going to go down in a single night. Pops knew that; we all did. So someone had to keep an eye on Laura. I volunteered.

  “You don’t have to babysit me,” I remember her telling me as I followed her down the dirt path along the field. She walked to school by herself usually, but we were engaged in an all-out war with whoever was left in Vito’s crew. No one was allowed to be alone. I stayed behind and kept my distance. Apparently it wasn’t far enough for her.

  “You don’t have to babysit me.”

  “I kinda do,” I called out since she was maybe six, ten feet ahead of me. It was turning to autumn and I remember how the breeze went by as she turned to face me. She may be small and meek and not wanting any of this shit, but there was so much fight in her. Still is.

  She faced me, the cornfield to her back, her cheek bruised. Her bookbag fell to the crook of her arm so she could open it and pull out a sweater.

  “My dad ask you to?” she asked without looking at me. She was putting all of her energy into pulling on that thin blue sweater like it was going to help her with how cold the air had just gotten. It was way too thin, but I didn’t have anything for her. Shit, I was only wearing a t-shirt.

  “No,” I answered her and licked my bottom lip. The cut there was still pretty bad and I ran the tip of my tongue over it, remembering the weekend before. She had balls. It was more than that though that made me volunteer to watch her. She looked to me. When the moment came and she was scared, she looked at me for help. That bruise on her face? I did that to her. I might as well have. As far as I’m concerned, I’m the one who put that mark on her face. A bar full of men and it took two blows before any of us stood up to Vito. Two punches to this girl’s face. Even me. Even knowing what I knew.

  I never should have sat idly by. Not when it came to her, and not when it came to all the other guys I grew up with, who Vito had knocked off one by one.

  My throat got tight and I had to clear it, shoving my hands in my jean pockets and kicking the dirt as I waited for her to get moving.

  “Your pops didn’t ask me to, no.”

  “Then why?” she bit out and when I looked up, she was finally looking me in the eyes. Could she see? All the guilt I felt? I wanted to make it up to her, but I couldn’t say that. When she looked at me, I should have stepped up. I shouldn’t have let her be the one to say no to Vito, even if I’d never said a word to her before. She shouldn’t have been the one to stand up to that man.

  I couldn’t speak so I just shrugged. “If you want me to go, just tell me.” I implied I’d leave, but I was a lying bastard back then.

  “I’d never do that,” she barely whispered and pushed the words out quick, like they were toxic and crazy. Like the thought of telling me to leav
e would be the worst sin she’d ever make.

  A moment passed, and there were so many things I wanted to say, so many things I needed to tell her, but I couldn’t say any of them. So I grabbed her arm, and directed her to walk. My hand slowly moved from her elbow, down to her wrist. I didn’t take her hand in mine; she did that. It took ten minutes of walking for her to do it. But she’s the one who did that and I’ve never felt anything better.

  It took her almost a year of going through turmoil together before she caved and finally let me kiss her. Two years have passed since then, and sometimes I still feel like I did the moment she slipped her hand into mine and let me walk her home.

  Laura’s soft voice brings me back to the present. “Seth, I just—”

  “You’re scared,” I say to cut her off when her plea breaks up the memory.

  “Shouldn’t I be?” she says, stressing the words like they’re some ultimate truth.

  “Come here.” I give her the command with both of my arms outstretched but she shakes her head. “Hey,” I say, hardening my voice and that gets her attention. “Didn’t we agree I should boss you around? Or do I need to get out whips and chains?” I joke with her about that BDSM shit. It does what it should and cracks a smile on her face.

  “That’s only for the bedroom,” she tells me and rolls her eyes, but her soft smile is still there. I motion for her to come to me and she does. Resting her head on my shoulder even though she’s focused on twirling the ends of her hair around her fingers.

  “You’re scared,” I tell her again. She’s quiet but I know she’s listening because her motions stop. “Steven Jackson knows some things, but not everything. Maybe he is scared for you, maybe he thinks something happened. I don’t know, but I can tell you,” I pause to wrap my hand around the nape of her neck and wait for her to look at me before continuing, “he doesn’t know shit.”

  I don’t know if it’s a lie or the truth, but her gaze already softens with relief. Her pouty lips drop open slightly, but I keep talking before she can say anything.

  “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about because we don’t tell him everything. Only little things he needs to know to keep him off our back.” Her eyes search mine and I don’t know what she’ll find after that half-truth leaves me.