In the Ring (BOXER Book 1)

by Rie Warren

  The last time I’d been home was the day I said goodbye. Da had thrown books at me, shoes, glasses, anything he could reach. He even followed me outside so he could shout about his oldest son deserting his family.

  Maybe the whole time I’d been growing up he’d been pissed because he had me pegged. If Ma knew, it wasn’t much of a stretch that he did, too. He was uncanny like that. Smart as a tack, but too intent on his drink to make anything of himself.

  All along, all these years, I thought I’d been hiding myself.

  Maybe they all knew I was gay.

  Maybe it shouldn’t be such a big fucking deal.

  Even asleep—passed out, rather—Da was a handsome devil. Liam Senior was dashing and charismatic when he wanted to be. It was part of his addictive personality. You wanted his attention, when times were great and he showered praise. The flipside was you never expected when he’d turn dark or knew what would trip him over the edge. It made him even more dangerous.

  Good-looking people could be so ugly inside.

  The kitchen was unaltered except Ma had put up new curtains. Hand-embroidered yellow daisies decorated the white fabric. I set the Mr. Coffee in motion and gazed out back. The same Impala sat on cement blocks with weeds rising up to the tires.

  Fuck this.

  Leaving the coffee percolating, I pulled off my shirt and strode outside. Rusty and slow to start, the lawn mower still worked well enough once it got chugging along. The early morning neighbors burst up from opposite sides of the leaning wooden fence like jack-in-the-boxes as soon as I cut off the engine. They gawked at me as if they couldn’t believe their eyes.

  “Look at you, Liam! We thought the devil himself had chased you right out of Cincinnati,” Maeve, forty-something and still flirty, called out.

  Grizzly-looking Niall on the other side pitched over a Ziploc packet of seeds. “Tell your ma there’s more of them zinnias she likes so much.”

  And across the narrow dirt alley old Mrs. Killian sat on her back porch, wearing the same housedress from 1945, I swear. She smoked from a fancy cigarette holder as she pushed back and forth on her wooden rocker. At least a dozen stray cats slinked around her ankles and along the bannisters of the porch. She merely squinted at me, like she always had.

  Inside the house, I listened for any sound of movement from upstairs—welcome sounds—or the front room—where the asshole slept. Everything remained quiet regardless of the noise I’d made cutting the grass. I cleaned up at the sink and put my shirt back on.

  After grabbing a mug of coffee, I set to work making phone calls from the yellow landline that hung on the kitchen wall. The freakin’ cord was twisted worse than a kinked-up Slinky and always had been, ever since I could remember.

  Fuck Google. I turned to the old network, the true and trusted people I remembered. I made calls to roofers, landscapers, glaziers, painters. Maybe Ma wasn’t gonna take my money and move—maybe she couldn’t—but I was done letting my family live in squalor.

  Half an hour later, Conor careened into the kitchen only to turn sheet-white when he saw me. I hung up the phone, inspecting my little brother while he stared at me like I was a ghost.

  At fifteen-years-old, he was somewhat in the middle of the Shaughnessy brood, and worse off than I’d been at his age. Bookish, nerdy, gangly . . . I bet the girls thought he was cute. Maybe even the boys, too. The times were changing.

  “Coffee?” I gestured to the Mr. Coffee that was the one thing that still worked.

  “Liam?”

  Behind his glasses—thank fuck he knew enough to wear them—his big eyes turned shiny. Then he launched himself at me.

  I wrapped him up in a hug. God, he’s skinny.

  I tapped my knuckles against the back of his head. “I wasn’t dead, ya know?”

  “No. Yeah. I know that.” He disentangled from me. “Because like vampires can rise again, sometimes demons, angels . . . that stuff.”

  He stopped talking with a blush and sat down at the table.

  “What the hell are they teaching you in school?” I laughed.

  Before Conor could answer, warm arms and long legs with a tentacle-like hold twisted around me. Saoirse. The doorbell rang, and I made my way to the door with my little sister the limpet stuck to my leg. The reddest hair ever seen curled around Saoirse’s face, and that was about all I could make out of her.

  I pulled lightly on her curls. “Sash.”

  “Liam?” Green guileless eyes beamed up at me.

  “There are St. Lawrence donuts behind this door.” I’d had the roofer pick them up on the way over.

  She fell off me like I had a contagious rash and plopped to the floor. I forgot sometimes Sash was only ten. And she’d roll over for pastries just like me. Unlike other Catholic families with kids born bam-bam-bam, the four of us were widely spaced.

  Da had done a disappearing act for a year after both Mary-Kate and I were born, leaving Ma to the child-rearing and money-earning. Then there’d been the losses. I often wondered if Da was the cause of those miscarriages. When he was around, he’d always wanted his hands on Ma one way or the other. Until I got old enough to take the beatings. At least I’d done something for my mother.

  I carried the box of donuts down the hall. Sash leaped up and tried to snatch the carton as she scurried beside me. In the kitchen, Mary-Kate stood from her seat at the table. In two years she’d become graceful, beautiful, a knock-out. She had the black tresses and the green eyes. The best of both our folks, but her gaze, it was haunted.

  At just-turned eighteen, she’d been through more than she should have.

  “Hey, sis.”

  Instead of greeting me, she took the donuts and placed them on the table. Our brother and sister grabbed at them. Coming up behind M-K, I pulled her into my arms. She ducked her head away from the kids, discreetly wiping her eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I should come back more,” I whispered to her.

  “What for? These luxurious surrounds?” Her voice was brittle and wary, but she slumped in my arms.

  “For you guys.”

  “It’s okay. I’d leave, too,” Sash said, busily devouring the jam filling from two donuts she’d broken in half.

  Fucking hell.

  While Mary-Kate reached for a napkin to blow her nose, I sat down and gave a low wolf whistle that made her and the kids smile a little.

  “Christ, sis, I hope you’re keeping the boys at bay.”

  “And when do I have time to let boys chase after me?” she said with an adult air she was way too young to possess.

  “What about that Gavin kid?”

  She shot me a quelling glare.

  The commotion finally woke Da, and he appeared in the doorway. Everyone immediately shut up and dropped their heads. They ate much more slowly, as if the delicious donuts turned into wallpaper paste in their mouths.

  I stood to face him.

  “So the loser returns home.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Unhappy Families

  “I’VE WON ALL MY fights.” My jaw set hard.

  Da diluted his coffee with a healthy dose of whiskey, took a drink, and slammed the mug down.

  Mary-Kate took that as the signal to whisk the kids upstairs.

  I called out after her, “Pack some bags. We’re spending the weekend in style.”

  When I turned back to Da, he snickered. “In style. I bet you homos know all about that fancy shit.”

  “So that’s been your problem this whole time?” I leaned against the counter, crossing my arms over my chest. “You think you know all about me and my life and what I do in my spare time?” I was not gonna be scared off by him again. “I’ll tell you what I do in my spare time. I work. I do it to survive. And when I’m not fighting, I’m training to win the next one.”

  “Taking a punch in the face is one thing. Taking cock up the ass is another.” His mean mouth slashed across his face. “You’re not a man. You’re a pussy for other men.”

  “What the
fuck would you know about being a man?” I lowered my voice, steeped in anger. “You don’t support this family. Ma does. I do. Mary-Kate raises them. You’re nothing but a middle-aged wannabe with no dreams and no hopes of ever amounting to anything, not even the simplest things like being a good husband and a decent father.”

  He blanched.

  Good.

  “Take your approval and shove it up your ass sideways ’cause I don’t need it.” I leaned over him, my father, unafraid for the first time. “None of us do. Not since I’m making money, and I will find a way to make sure you don’t suck the bank account dry, you worthless piece of shit.”

  I stalked down the hallway.

  “Leaving so soon?”

  “Yep. But I hope you’re prepared for other visitors. This house is gonna be made right-side up. Don’t bother the men at work. That’s something you wouldn’t know anything about.” I held the front door open and shouted up the stairs. “Yo! Get a move on.”

  Mary-Kate, Conor, and Sash hustled out in front of me with backpacks tossed over their shoulders. Not a single one of us said bye to Da.

  He slung more mud at us as he stood on the stoop, eyeing my in-style ride. “Yeah. Take the damn little bastards! They’re probably not even mine, anyway.”

  #

  The noise level in the SUV almost surpassed the ringside ruckus at a fight as if Da’s presence leeched all life and his absence meant party time.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Awesome ride!”

  “I’m really hungry.” Sash rubbed her tummy.

  “We’re going to stay in a motherfucking—don’t tell Ma I said that—flashy hotel, and you can eat any damn thing you want, anytime of day or night.” I gripped the steering wheel.

  They whooped and hollered and pounded on the armrests. For the first time since I’d crossed the city limits, I relaxed.

  The younger kids’ eyes almost bugged out of their heads when they saw the massive suite at the Marriott in Covington. They pressed their faces against the windows overlooking the Ohio River, but Mary-Kate acted like she’d been treated to such luxuries all her life—as she should be. Their reactions to things I’d taken for granted triggered an ache inside me. I had no rights over them. I couldn’t get them out of their shit homelife.

  We ordered room service, divvied up bedrooms, and the concierge took care of the details. He called me Mr. Shaughnessy the entire time while Sash giggled like I was an old man all of a sudden.

  After they devoured everything but the silver platters our meals arrived on, we went to the indoor pool following a quick detour to buy new bathing suits. We spent the afternoon lounging, horsing around in the water, being a family.

  Someone recognized me, and that someone told somebody else. The fans were respectful enough not to cause a mob scene, but they approached me poolside for a handful of autographs.

  One woman in particular sat right next to me on my chair. Her hand fell to my knee with a tight squeeze while I signed her beach towel using the Sharpie she produced from nowhere. I flinched at the contact and sent her away with a very firm “no thanks” in reply to her whispered invitation to meet her at her room later.

  Mary-Kate removed her sunglasses and batted her eyelashes at me. “Ooh, Liam, can I have your autograph please?”

  “Cut it out.” I scowled at her.

  Then I jumped off my chair, grabbed her in my arms, and tossed her into the water with a roar of laughter.

  I was still chuckling beside Conor when she snuck out of the pool and slipped behind me, using all her negligible weight to push me in. And I let her. It was her turn to laugh when I spluttered to the surface.

  The next morning, I took them shopping at the Apple store. iPads all around. I showed them how to message me and FaceTime while they rolled their eyes because, of course, they knew what they were doing way more than I did. I’d already set up Wi-Fi at the house, the bill to be direct-debited from my account.

  “You have to keep them hidden from Da because—”

  “He’ll hock ’em,” Sash said, breaking my fucking heart again.

  We spent the rest of the day at Newport on the Levee. Movies, the aquarium, more shopping. We ate every contraband food item Michael ever forbade from my diet. We dropped coin in arcades, listened to street music, and stuffed our bellies.

  Returning to the suite well after sundown, I watched last week’s episode of Game of Thrones with Conor. We shared our affinity for all things dragon-lore. I followed that up with a Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives marathon with Sash. We both salivated over the grease pit goodness.

  I watched Mary-Kate with an eagle eye to make sure she really was okay, although I figured she probably wasn’t, no matter how good she was at hiding her feelings.

  Finally, late on the last night when the other two had crashed out, M-K sat on the sofa and leaned against me. I exhaled a breath I’d been holding inside for years.

  “Hey, sis. You still got that boyfriend? Someone new I need to beat up for you?”

  She shook with quiet laughter and then said in an even quieter voice, “What about you? Boyfriend yet?”

  Going completely still, I stared at her.

  “It’s not like we don’t know. Da’s a dickhead, but we don’t care.”

  I didn’t say a word, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me whole.

  “It’s that Michael. The trainer, isn’t it? He’s fucking hot.”

  “He has a partner. I’m not gay. Let’s forget about this already.” I shifted away from her.

  So the coming out thing was easier said than done. It didn’t matter that Ma seemed to know, and I didn’t give two shits if Dad did, but what if the rest of them looked at me differently?

  M-K sidled right back over to me. “Oh my God, it is him, isn’t it?”

  I shook my head until my eyes blurred.

  “You have it so baaad.” M-K flicked my forehead.

  I retaliated with tickles, because making her giggle was one way of shutting her up. But when she was finally drained, she continued to look at me with a pleased smile.

  “I don’t know what you think you know, sis, but I cannot come out.”

  “Of course you can.” She pulled a file from her purse and went to work on her nails as if our conversation wasn’t one of the biggest I’d ever had. “You just did to me.”

  Later that night, I considered retrieving my iPhone from the glove compartment to see if Michael had called or texted me, but I couldn’t stand the disappointment if he hadn’t. And I didn’t want to deal with the fallout from our kiss—which he thought was the worst mistake of his life—if he had.

  The next evening was like a funeral procession when we headed back to the house. At least I’d managed to do one other good thing while I was in town. Friday afternoon, Mary-Kate and I had gone to a bank where I’d had papers drawn up and ready for us.

  M-K’s hand had trembled when she held the pen and peered at the legal documents thrust in front of her.

  “Sign on the line, sis,” I urged her.

  “Why?” She’d kept studying the words, which detailed the amount in what would be our joint bank account, strictly intended for her, Conor, and Sash’s use.

  “Why do you think? Da guzzles it all away, and Ma lets him. You’re of age now, and I need you to help me do this.” I’d grasped her hands. “The college funds are set up for you guys already, and so is my will. I need to make sure you have what you need, and this is the only way to do it right now.”

  Mary-Kate had signed the papers that set the bank account in motion for whatever they needed, whenever they needed it.

  Afterward, she hugged me and whispered, “Thank you, Liam. Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

  She’d drawn back, grinning. “Yeah, me too. I mean, wha da fuck?”

  Family dinner was disastrous, even with the flowers I brought Ma and the house looking a million times better than it had a couple days ago. The meal wa
s gloomy in spite of the fact she was all dressed up and she’d set the table with the good china from the cabinet.

  Ma made all my favorites, which she served while Da muttered his usual cutting remarks about how she spoiled me, how I was good for nothing . . .

  I didn’t want to ruin all her work or see her face strained to keep the tide of tears at bay, so I sat and ate and said nothing, becoming tighter and tighter inside myself. After two hours too long, I said my goodbyes, knowing I’d never stop worrying about my mother and the kids.

  I was glad when Da followed me out to the front stoop. He announced his presence with the door banging loudly behind him.

  Swiveling around, I got in his face. “You listen to me, you bastard. You can take it out on me all you want. Just remember, I know how to defend myself now.”

  Fear scuttling across his eyes, he reeled back.

  “You touch any of the others, ever fucking again, I will own your last dying breath, Da.” I bared my teeth. “And I’ll enjoy it.”

  #

  I had one more demon I needed to exorcise before I returned to my life. The devil called lust. The one that went by the name of Michael Fairweather. As incognito as possible, I drove to a hole-in-the-wall hook-up bar three counties over and off the beaten track.

  The only thing getting beaten inside the Blowhole was a whole lotta cock.

  The place was dark, small, nondescript. Men gathered in corners. They grinded together on the dance floor. They fucked in the back hallway. The air sweltered with hot male musk as the noise of murmurs and moans took over my senses.

  I ordered a beer and slugged it back. My old battered Reds cap pulled low, I scanned through faces in search of someone capable of getting me off.

  It didn’t take me long to pinpoint the man I wanted. He looked nothing like Michael. He had longish hair that was dark brown, sharp features, a nice lean body that could probably withstand a rough, wild ride.

  I danced with him just long enough to make my interest known. His eyes sparked with desire, and he nodded at my suggestion. In the restroom, filled with the noises of low groans and loud grunts, we found an empty stall and closed ourselves in.