by Emilia Finn
It’s funny that, even knowing Grace is this town’s biggest gossip who thrives on attention, she’s kept her trap shut about the pregnancy so far, just as I asked. The deal was that I would be here, completely and utterly in – we would even be a couple, since that’s what she wants so much – but in exchange, I demand discretion. Not forever, but long enough for me to figure my shit out. To talk to my mom and dad, to talk to Emma, and the rest of my family.
Long enough for me to get my bearings again and finish mourning what I almost had.
Em and I were together, in love and unbreakable. But before we were done, before we’d even had a chance to breathe and enjoy what we had, Grace came along and tossed us on our heads.
Apt, I guess. EmKat was always supposed to be for looking, for loving. Not for touching.
“Come around,” Luke instructs.
We both wear grappling gloves, mouth guards, shorts, and nothing else. We’re both sweating, though I’m not sad to see the worst of the summer gone. Soon, the weather will cool, and somehow, that change of season feels important in the craziness that is my world.
Luke is still our loud one, our crazy daredevil, the death-defying, law-breaking half of our duo, but lately, I’m starting to wonder if his antics are getting more obnoxious as an attempt to keep the spotlight on him and away from me.
It’s no secret in our family that I’ve been quieter than usual lately. More introspective. More reserved.
“Hands up,” he coaches when I get caught up thinking about my problems, rather than the fists close to my face. “Let them drop, and I’m gonna clip you, stupid.”
“I got it.” I skip around and throw a jab that taps his jaw. Hard enough to let him know I’m still in this fight, but not so hard that it hurts. “Tag.”
“How’s Grace feeling?” It’s funny that he can hate my girlfriend – ugh, my girlfriend… gag – with every fiber in his being, but he’s not unfeeling. He’s not a robot. And she’s carrying his niece or nephew in her stomach, which means, just like me, he’s forced to hop on this train, or he risks missing out. “I heard her puking this morning.”
I glance around the training room – it’s mostly empty, but for a couple guys skipping in the far corner – then back to Luke, and continue to spar.
The least I can do this year is use my time wisely and prepare for the upcoming tournament. I’m stepping into the heavyweight division, and hell, that’s a competitive fucking division. Winning is hard-fought, and to be the guy with the belt above my head will mean taking it from someone else… someone I care about.
“Rob?”
“Yeah, sorry. Morning sickness is kicking her ass right now. But usually, she gets that first-of-the-day puke up, then she’s pretty fine for the rest of the day.”
“She’s not, like, officially moving in with us, right?”
I snort and skip around to clip him on the jaw. “No. I’ll probably get a house or something early next year before the baby arrives.”
“You’re moving out? The fuck!” He swings his gloved hand out and smacks me on the side of my face. “I didn’t tell you to move out.”
I roll my eyes. “We can’t really raise a baby in our apartment, but you don’t want Grace to move in, and I’m not gonna be a part-time dad.” I jab, hard and lightning-fast. “What other option do I have?”
“Going back to sophomore year,” he grumbles and whips his leg out to kick my thigh. “Not going to prom with her.”
“Yeah, well, I would if I could.”
“How did this even happen, huh?” He uses my distraction to drop his weight, barrel forward, and slam his shoulder into my gut until we crash to the canvas floor. My brain is still up there, standing six or so feet away, but my body is laid out on the canvas under Luke’s weight. “How did you forget to wrap it up, huh? Rookie mistake.”
I bring my hands up, guard up, and absorb his dozens of blows. “I wrapped it,” I pant past my mouthguard. “Every single time. But I guess shit just happens sometimes. I wasn’t careless.” I bridge my hips up and send him sprawling forward, then when his weight is off-balance, I snap his arm down to break the way he braces himself, roll us, and take mount. “Nothing is a hundred percent except abstinence.”
“And abstinence is lame as fuck.” He guards up the way I did, but under his arms, I see his smile, the purple from his mouthguard. “You got unlucky.”
“Yeah I did. Story of my fucking life.”
“Rob?”
From fighting, panting, even smiling a little while I beat on my brother, to snapping my head up at EmKat’s gentle voice. I resemble a meerkat, sitting on Luke’s hips, my chest heaving from exertion, but through the fence of the octagon, I see her.
It’s not like I haven’t seen her in the last few weeks. Em’s life and mine are so unbelievably intertwined that I can’t go a day without catching sight of her long, blonde locks. Her long legs. Her taunting smile. But though I’ve seen her around, I’ve remained a coward, ducking whenever she’s near, running when I can’t stick around to chat.
Today, she looks different. Harder. Less tolerant to my running away.
And more, she’s wearing her workout gear.
She’s no Evie or Bean, she’s not a pro fighter, but she is a fighter. She was taught by the best, raised by a champion. It’s logical some of it would rub off on her.
Meandering forward while I remain on top of Luke, she threads her fingers into a pair of grappling gloves. One, then the other. She’s wearing booty shorts and a sports bra – enough to make me hard, enough to force me to roll off my brother or risk making shit weird.
Dropping to my back with a thud – eyes on the sky, eyes off Em’s toned stomach and perky fucking tits – I swallow and shake my head side to side.
“Luke.”
He lays out beside me, chuckling softly under his breath. “Little Bit.”
“I’m tapping myself in. I wanna talk to Fart.”
“Yep.” Luke pops up to his feet like his middle name is Jackie Chan. From flat to standing, from fighting me to making space for our best friend, he pulls his mouthguard out and fists it in his hand, then leaves me.
“Traitor.”
He chuckles and opens the cage door to let Em in.
Of course he puts on a show of being the gentleman. He takes her hand, and bows like a total douchebag, which – thankfully – elicits the sweetest giggle that I’ve missed for weeks, then he switches places with her so he steps out of the cage and closes the door with an ominous click.
“Be gentle with him, Em. You’re pissed, but he’s fragile.”
“If by gentle, you mean shove a stick of dynamite up his ass until he takes my fucking calls, then sure.” She grins for me, but there’s no kindness in her eyes. I suspect she already has the dynamite somewhere, ready to blow me to shit. “Rob. Get up. Now.”
“Nope.” I close my eyes and stay exactly where I am. “Too tired.”
“There a reason you’re not returning my texts?” She makes her way across the cage, stopping right beside me – I know, because she digs her fucking foot into my ribs.
I grunt out at the contact, the dirty shot, but I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t look at her. I can’t look into her eyes and acknowledge that it’s all over.
“Robert fucking Fart. You will answer me, or we will spar. Your choice.”
“I’m done for today.” I roll away and up onto my elbows and knees, then without looking at her, I push to my feet and leave my eyes on the ground. “I have stuff to do, errands to run or whatever, so I’m just gonna—”
Em swings out and slams her fist into my gut so that my breath explodes on an exhale that blows her hair back. “Nope. We’re sparring.”
“Emma!” I lift my hands and guard my face. I have no intention to spar with her, but ingrained habits die hard, and she just took the first shot. “I’m not sparring with you!”
“Yeah,” she jumps onto the balls of her feet and bounces, “you kinda are.” She jabs again,
aiming for my jaw, but hitting my hands, since they’re in the way. “Why aren’t you taking my calls? I had no clue I was so easily ignored.”
“Busy.”
She jabs again, but this time, I sweep her hand to the side.
“You’re on my to-do list.”
She barks out a loud laugh. “Bet I am.” The room is all but empty, so she follows up with, “I was on your to-do list for a few weeks, right? That was fun. Best orgasms of my life.”
My heart thrums with nervous energy. “Don’t be so fucking crass. You’re better than that.”
“Nope, I’m really not.”
She has all of my attention on her top half; her hands, her eyes. So when she swings a leg out and slams a kick down over the side of my thigh, she succeeds in bringing the fucking pain.
“We were something, Robert. Something really important. Then you ran off with a floozy, and word on Main Street is that you’re a couple. I’m not settling for that nonsense. Not until you give me answers.”
“She’s my girlfriend.” If I say the lie often enough, eventually it’ll feel alright. Right? “That ‘floozy’ has been important to me since high school, so I’m gonna ask nicely that you don’t speak badly about her.”
“Uh, no. She’s a fucking slut, gossip, two-timing cuntbag who uses you because you were always way too good for her. She knows you’re the best guy she’ll ever hook, so she’s gonna use whatever she can to keep you coming back.” She smiles and clocks me on the jaw. “Oops. Did my mean words about your girlfriend hurt your feelings?”
She runs at me the way Luke did; head down, shoulder to my gut, but she’s not two hundred and fifty-odd pounds, so while her shoulder manages to crush my lungs and push all of the oxygen from my body, she can’t topple me the way Luke can.
I slide my arms around hers, and dig my hooks in. If this was a pro fight, I’d put her in a choke and end it all here and now. But this isn’t competition, it’s Emma, so I skip around instead, leave my hooks in place, and spin her around so her back is pressed to my front, and her arms are pinned high above her head.
“Don’t talk shit about Grace,” I growl by her ear. “I won’t tolerate it.”
“Why?” she pants and tries to break free of my hold. “Do you love her?”
“Yup. She’s my girlfriend, and I’m committing myself to her.”
“Which all sounds so gallant and romantic,” she hisses. “Except your cock is hard and pressed against my ass.”
She uses my shock to spin out of my hold and twist around in fight stance. Hands up, feet shoulder-width apart, she bounces on the balls of her feet, and sneers. “If I’d known you always wanted to fuck me, I would have made a move years ago.”
“Emma, stop it.” I look around the gym, search for people hoping for a little gossip, then glance back to my best friend. “You need to stop being so fucking crass.”
“Why? I like it.” She lifts her leg, angles her heel out, and slams it down onto my thigh. “It makes you hard, Robert. It makes you so fucking hard that even when you go home to her, you’re gonna touch yourself and think of me.”
“I said stop it!”
The guys who are skipping glance across the training room at my shout. They know who I am, who Em is; they know she and I have been joined at the hip since forever, so me shouting at her isn’t really mentionable behavior.
“I’m considering heading out to Piper’s Lane tonight.” She rotates her arms, smiles, and challenges me when her words – her threat – filters through my brain. “Fast cars, guys who’ll cheer when they find me there without a bodyguard. Ya know, I’ve always wondered what my life would be like without you always standing over me, keeping the guys away.”
“You will not go to Piper’s Lane tonight,” I declare on a venomous hiss. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not?” she taunts. “If I go, maybe you’ll follow. And if you don’t, then you don’t care.” She darts in, fast as a snake, and clips me on the jaw. “Either way, we get a little forward progress in this thing we started last month.”
“What we started was wrong.” I fucking lie, because the truth – that what we want, we can’t have – hurts too much. “You promised a moratorium. We had it, and now it’s done. Back to best friends.”
“Yeah, except we’re not even friends anymore! Last I checked, my best friend used to take my fucking calls.”
“I’m busy!” I step in, purely because of muscle memory, and have to consciously stop my arm from jabbing out. Twenty-odd years of learning to fight, a guy’s body does what it does without his conscious thought. Now, I’m standing inside a fucking cage with gloves on and sweat on my chest; I have to make sure I don’t hit back. “I told you I needed a minute. I told you to go away and give me that minute.”
“I went away! I gave you your minute. But now I’m back.”
“You didn’t go away! You’ve texted me every single fucking hour since you left my apartment.”
“Oh boo-freakin’-hoo!” She taps my jaw, and skips around to make me follow. “I had no clue a text was so insanely impactful on your day-to-day life. Luke doesn’t seem to have trouble finding the time to reply.”
“So go and be his best friend! You want him so much, take him.”
“You say that like it would be cool if it was his dick I rode. Which is kinda tempting, I guess. Identical twins and all that. If I wanted him,” she growls, “I would go to him. But lucky me, I got saddled with you for a best friend. And it was all so perfect for so long, but I guess at the eleventh hour, you decided to show off how much of a prick you could be. And here I was, thinking that Luke held the market share on being a douchebag.”
“Just go away, Emma.”
Thoughts of her and my brother together somehow hurt more than the thought of Grace taking my baby and never letting me see it. It hurts more than the thought of Emma kicking me in the nuts and spearing me in the gut with a flag that declares she was here first.
The thoughts hurt, so I do what I do best, I guess. I dismiss her.
“Leave me alone, Em. I’ll call you when I’m good and fucking ready.” I turn away and head toward the door of the cage, undoing my gloves as I walk, and tossing them down, one by one. “I don’t have time for you right now.”
“I hate you,” she whimpers at my back. “I never thought that would happen, but here we are, and I’m bleeding for you. It makes me hate you.”
“Suits me.” I don’t turn around. I can’t bear to see her face. “I hate me too. As always, we’re the perfect pair.”
“My daddy taught me how a man should treat a woman. He showed me every damn day of my life what to expect, and what to tolerate.”
“No shit?” I smart bitterly. “Good for him.”
“My best friend, walking away and telling me he’ll find time for me later, isn’t it. That’s not how mutual love and respect works.”
“Nope. It’s not. And yet,” I push out of the cage and move onto the steps that lead to the floor, “I have nothing else to offer you right now. Our timing was off, EmKat. Grace’s timing was fucking perfect, apparently. She wins, you and I lose, and now I have to go, because if she gets word you and I were together, she’s gonna get pissed.”
“So what if she gets pissed?!” Emma barrels toward the cage door. She’s fury on feet, rage and heartbreak rolled into one. “So fucking what? She’s not your happily ever after anyway!”
“I don’t get the happily ever after, Em! And I can’t afford for her to walk.” I snatch up my training bag. My water bottle. My wraps, tossed haphazardly onto the rubber flooring. “Right now, at this point of my life,” I sigh and shake my head, “my loyalty is with Grace. It has to be. And no matter how much I love you…” Finally, I look up. I will forever see her like this – standing over me with a quivering jaw and tears in her eyes. “I have to bump you down a step and make room for Grace up top.”
“You’re bumping me for Grace Risotto?” Her voice cracks, and her chest heaves.
; Seeing her in so few clothes doesn’t turn me on anymore. Beneath them, her heart is breaking, just as surely as mine is.
“You’re bumping me, your EmKat… for her?” Her lips shake with the beginning of the end. “I don’t believe it. I was gonna be your forever. I’ve been waiting.”
“I don’t believe it either. But it’s the way it has to be.”
I zip my bag and stand tall again, then swinging the strap over my shoulder, I push my shoulders back and meet her eyes. If I’m going to break us both, then the least I can do is look her in the eyes.
“I’m sorry, Em. I swear I am. It was never supposed to go down this way.”
“So don’t let it be this way.” She pushes through the fence and jogs down the steps, and when I turn away to leave, she grabs my wrist and swings me back until our chests slam together. “It’s all about choices, Rob. We always have the power to make a choice.” Fat tears escape her bright blue eyes. They pool for a minute in her lashes, but then they fall and slide over her cheeks. “Choose me, Rob. It was always gonna be us. Haven’t you been paying attention?”
“I wish I’d known,” I choke past the grief in my throat. “I wish I knew you wanted forever. I would have chosen differently.”
“You have the power to choose now!” she snaps. “Dammit, Rob. Now is your friggin’ chance.”
I nod, slow and full of grief. “I’m choosing. And it hurts me, I swear it does. But my choice can’t be you.”
I pull my hand away from hers, break that electrical current, and as her face falls, tears following, I walk away.
I choose my child. I have to.
To be a man, to be who I was raised to be, I have to choose my child.
Maybe later, when my world isn’t as messy, maybe Em will forgive me, and maybe she’ll accept me and that baby as a package deal. Though, knowing Grace is part of that deal means Emma will likely kick me in the face rather than co-parent.
Basically, I lose no matter what I choose.
Jack
Mermaids, and Mistakes Forgiven