The Good Fight (Time Served Book 3)

by Julianna Keyes

  “She’d tell you even if it weren’t,” I return. “And it’s not.”

  “And she’s not a gym member.”

  I try not to laugh. “No, Jade. She’s not a gym member. Now get out.”

  * * *

  “Come in, come in. Please, be our guest.”

  “Shut up, Rian.”

  “Tonight I am Maître d’ McConnell.”

  “Tonight you’re a fuckwit. Get out of here. If you mess this up for me, I’m going to be pissed. I mean it.”

  “You think I can’t tell you mean it? Look at the suit, big guy. Is that a holdover from Wall Street?”

  It is, but I’m not about to admit it. Rian was waiting for me at the door when I entered Mache 42 tonight, ten minutes early for my date with Susan. We’ve got a secluded table in the far corner, complete with candlelight and champagne on ice. As per my request, Rian even had his top-notch pastry chef make a special dessert inspired by Susan’s horrible coffee concoction.

  I shaved twice today, once this morning and again an hour ago, after my second shower of the day. Despite the showers my palms are clammy and I feel nervous sweat between my shoulder blades, something I haven’t felt in a long time. I guess I haven’t looked forward to anything in a long time.

  It doesn’t make sense, I know. I’ve seen her naked. Watched her come. She’s had my dick in her mouth. I’ve seen her at home, at work and in this very restaurant. But tonight is different. This date means that Dr. Susan “I don’t have time for more” Jones is making time for more. She’s making time for me. And I’m not going to fuck it up. I got permission from Rian to hang out upstairs when we’re done eating, and we can polish off the champagne and watch the sun go down and the stars come out. It’ll be romantic as fuck. Then if I’m lucky, things will only continue to improve, and we’ll head back her place or mine and do all the things we didn’t do on Sunday, and all the things I’ve been imagining in the three days since.

  Three very long days.

  “This is your table,” Rian says, leading me to the far corner of the restaurant. Every other table is full of well-dressed diners, and though it’s packed in here, there’s something subdued about the atmosphere, something sophisticated. Something I can’t find in Camden.

  “Thanks.” I take the seat that puts my back to the wall and run my hands over my thighs, anxious. Susan’s not due for eight minutes, and I try not to notice the other diners eying me, wondering why Chef McConnell is being so attentive. “You can go now,” I tell him. “Everybody’s watching.”

  “They’re waiting to see if your date prefers me,” he says.

  “Ass.”

  He laughs. “All right, I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if you need anything. Dietary restrictions, free bottle of wine, tips on sex positions from this decade.”

  “Will do. Hold your breath.”

  He’s still grinning when he saunters back to the kitchen, and I exhale nervously and check my watch. Five more minutes. I hope she remembers the way. She’d followed me last time, rapping and eating candy—what if she got lost?

  The server comes over and fills two of the four glasses on the table with ice water, and I shoot him a cursory smile then flip open the menu, trying to appear busy. Everybody’s attention has wandered back to their own meals and dinner companions, but I still feel like they’re watching me. Waiting. Wondering what woman chose to come on a date with the guy so big he barely fits at the table.

  At 8:01 my nerves are fully on edge, and by 8:10 I’m alarmed. I’ve checked my phone a thousand times, but there are no new messages and I don’t have Susan’s number.

  Rian comes out at 8:15, smile in place, though the concern in his voice is genuine when he asks if there’s a problem.

  “I don’t know,” I say through my teeth. “She hasn’t called. Did she call the restaurant?” Maybe she lost my number.

  “No, Blake would have said so.” Blake is the manager. He’s walked past the table half a dozen times in the past fifteen minutes, as though that will make Susan appear.

  “Maybe she’s stuck in traffic,” I say. It feels pathetic and unconvincing, and even more so when Rian agrees.

  “That’s probably it. You want something to drink while you wait? Beer? Tequila?”

  I shake my head, though I’d love a drink. Anything to quell the sick feeling building in my stomach. “I’m fine.”

  “A snack? We’ve got some—”

  “No,” I interrupt. “I’m good. Thanks.”

  Whatever he sees in my face convinces Rian to back off. “Okay. I’ll be in the kitchen. I’m sure she’s on her way, man.”

  He leaves and I study the menu some more, and by 8:30 I’m as familiar with the dinner options as every one of the servers. The bottle of champagne is now just floating in water, the tiny candle in the center of the table has burned down to almost nothing, and when I blow it out, it’s a signal to everyone secretly watching that I’ve been stood up.

  Back rigid, I’m about to stand when I feel my pocket vibrate. I snatch out my phone, heart pounding when I see an unfamiliar Chicago number on the display. It’s a text from Susan.

  Oscar, she writes. Sorry, can’t make it tonight. Watching very rare surgery—big deal for hospital. Thanks.

  And that’s it.

  Sorry.

  Thanks.

  A giant fuck you tucked in between.

  My face is hot when I stand, and Blake, who is approaching for the umpteenth time, freezes midstep. I jerk my head to warn him off, then do my best to ignore the stares of everyone in the restaurant as they follow my lonely, rejected exit.

  I’ve never been so fucking angry in my life.

  I’m parked a few blocks away, and manage to wait until I’m out of sight of the restaurant before I wrench off my jacket and tie, undoing the strangling buttons at my throat. My phone is buzzing but when I check the display it’s Rian, calling, hanging up, and calling again. I turn it off.

  The only person I wanted to hear from tonight is now the last person I want to talk to. She’s made herself perfectly clear.

  I’m done.

  I hurl my things into the passenger seat and will myself to calm down before I drive. It’ll be close to ten before I get to Camden, but Titan’s doesn’t close until eleven. Plenty of time to find a fight.

  * * *

  I’m pretty sure a stampede of elephants is running circles around my bed. If I stay completely still, maybe they’ll get tired and go away.

  “Oz! Oz! If you’re in there, you’d better open this door! I’m getting a crowbar! I don’t care if you’re mad! And I’m calling 911!”

  The words filter through my consciousness, and finally I realize there are no elephants. What there is is the creaky spin of the ceiling fan above my bed, a bottle of ibuprofen on the nightstand, and half a bottle of water. And my nightmare receptionist doing what she does best and making my life harder.

  “Oz!” Tiny fists pound on the window next to the bed and I jerk upright at the sound of Jade’s shrill voice, then curse viciously and clutch my throbbing head.

  “Fuck off, Jade,” I mumble into my hands.

  “Oz! I couldn’t find the crowbar but I got a brick, and I’m throwing it through the window if you don’t open—” It’s the broken, terrified note in her voice that has me forcing myself out of bed and over to the window. The curtains are drawn over the glass and the air conditioner, and for the first time, I regret buying a one-story bungalow instead of an apartment in a high-rise with a concierge who could keep away the riffraff.

  Jade yelps when I fling back the curtain, then covers her mouth in horror at whatever she sees. True enough, there’s a brick clutched in her hand. She’s fucking crazy, but at least she shows up, whether you want her to or not.

  I glance down to make sure I’
m dressed. No shirt, but I’m wearing boxers, not that she can see that low, anyway. “Go away,” I order, pointing to the front of the house. She must have scaled the fence to get back here when I didn’t answer her pounding on the front door.

  “What did you do?” she demands. The words are easy enough to ignore, but the tears in her eyes are not.

  “Nothing,” I say, forced to raise my voice to shout through the glass. I glance at the clock on the bedside table. Ten o’clock in the morning. I’m usually in the office by nine. “I’m not coming in today,” I add, pointing out the obvious. “Go to work.”

  “Let me in.”

  “I’m not doing that.”

  “Let me in or I’m calling Sheree to come check on you. She’s a nurse.”

  Fuck nurses. Fuck doctors.

  The splitting pain down the back of my skull suggests rethinking that mantra, but I snatch up the ibuprofen and swallow three dry. “I’ll be fine,” I say, shaking the bottle for emphasis. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “You’ll see me right now, Oscar Hall. Go open the front door or I’ll use this brick. I don’t care if you fire me. You look like shit and you probably have a concussion and you went to sleep like an asshole. I heard about the fight last night. What the fuck were you thinking?”

  Uh-oh. The brick’s trembling in her hand. I felt no fear stepping into the ring with Lupo Aguilar last night, only the sweet anticipation of being able to take out my anger and frustration and resentment on someone my own size. He’d been in a mood too, and we’d pounded the shit out of each other for an hour until Oreo blew the whistle and ordered us apart.

  Despite Jade’s annoying concern, I’ll be fine. The cuts and bruises she can see aren’t exactly what’s hurting the most.

  Speaking of which. I snatch up my phone, still turned off, and wait for it to power up, then scroll through my missed messages. A dozen calls from Rian, two dozen from Jade, none from Susan.

  Bitch.

  I toss the phone on the bed and gesture for Jade to go around to the back door. I drag on a shirt, hissing when my ribs and wrist scream in protest, then pad out to the kitchen to let her in. Today she’s wearing flip-flops and a long cotton dress that’s belted at the waist, her dark hair twisted into a knot at her nape. I can’t see a scrap of makeup on her face. Uh-oh. This means Jade’s...worried. And the last thing I want is her terrifying version of TLC.

  One of her brothers is in jail and the other took off for parts unknown, but I knew them both growing up, and every time they got in a fight they regretted it. Jade would nurse them back to health, whether they wanted it or not, and they were always sorrier after the fact.

  “You look like shit,” she announces. “Why the hell would you fight Lupo? You know he’s good.” Without waiting, she opens up the freezer and yanks out a package of frozen Brussels sprouts, thrusting them into my hand. Then she starts poking and prodding my face, making everything hurt ten times worse.

  “Jade,” I protest, swatting away her hand. “Stop. That hurts.”

  “You should have thought about that last night,” she scolds. “You’re thirty-four, Oz. You can’t do shit like this.”

  “Please go to work.”

  “I’ll go when I’m convinced I won’t come back here tonight to find you dead on the floor.”

  “I don’t have a concussion. Oreo looked me over.”

  “Oreo has one eye, ass hat. And you’ll know you’re okay when I say so.”

  “Fuck.” I sit up straight when she tries to pull off my T-shirt. “Jade!”

  “What?”

  “Knock it off!”

  “Let me see your chest. I know he got you in the ribs.”

  Lupo’s a solid fighter, same weight class, but five years younger. Five years faster, and desperate to make it out of Camden, same as me. Unlike me, he’s probably smart enough not to come back. Lucky for me, he’s cocky, which levels the playing field. However bad I look, he’s equally messed up.

  “Everybody gets everybody in the ribs,” I say, clutching the hem of my shirt to prevent her from lifting it. “They’re not broken. I’d know.”

  Jade sits down and looks me dead in the eye. “What happened last night?”

  “Sounds like you heard already.”

  “Before you showed up at the gym looking to kill somebody, idiot.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Oz.”

  “That’s it, Jade. Nothing. I had a date. Got stood up. End of story. You tell anybody, you’re fired.”

  She studies me. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “That you can’t find a good woman. That you’re too dumb to pick Sheree.”

  “Sheree doesn’t interest me.”

  “And this does?” She gestures to my banged-up face and I look away, the first pinpricks of shame making their appearance.

  “Please go to work. I’ll be fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She stands. “Text me every hour. If you don’t, I’ll be back here faster than you can say ‘Jade, put on some clothes.’”

  “You look nice today.”

  She flips me the bird and walks out.

  * * *

  I sit at the kitchen table until the Brussels sprouts have thawed, the icy drip of condensation trickling down my thigh to form a pool on the floor, ignored. Eventually I push to my feet, wincing with every step as I make my way to the bathroom. I avoid my reflection and brush my teeth, the toothpaste stinging my lip where it’s split in two places.

  Things aren’t any better in the shower. I don’t remember much about getting home last night beyond collapsing into bed, and I guess I didn’t clean up at the gym, because the water swirling the drain is stained pink from the dried blood. The shampoo hurts my hair, the soap hurts my skin, the hot water hurts the muscles it’s meant to soothe. The cold water hurts more but I stand beneath it until I absolutely can’t take it, and that’s when I rub a circle in the fogged up mirror and curse at what I see.

  When I returned to wrestling after my mom and sisters were killed, my coaches made me work out by myself. They made me run laps, lift weights, go through routines, flat out refusing to let me touch anybody else. And this is why. Because I make bad decisions when I’m angry, and I’m lucky that this is the result of last night’s lapse in judgment. It’s less about concern over what happens to me, and more about what happens to the other guy. Because the other guy can get hurt, whether you intend to hurt him or not. That’s a lesson I learned the hard way.

  I refuse to go down that path right now, so I dry off and use the towel to clean the puddle of water off the floor, then stride naked back to my bedroom. What I’d really like to do is sleep for the rest of the day, but the white sheets are stained with all manner of blood and sweat and yellow smudges I hope is medicine, so instead I strip them off and chuck them in the washer, then dutifully remake the bed, trying to keep my mind occupied.

  It doesn’t work. At noon I make a sandwich and sit with a beer in front of the television, watching sports highlights from the day before. I don’t even care that much about sports outside of fighting, but it’s the best of my limited options. I obey Jade’s order and text every hour, just to keep her away, then I listen to the first of Rian’s messages before deleting the rest. I can’t take his pity. More so, however, I can’t take his company, and the most recent text message threatens a visit if I don’t reply, so I suck it up and call him.

  He answers on the first ring. “Oz.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What the fuck, man?” His voice is shrill, and I cringe. He was worried.

  “Sorry, Ri. Rough night.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  I exhale noisily. “She texted. Blew me off for some work thing.”

  A pause. “That sucks.”
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  “Yeah. Anyway, I’m sorry about just taking off. Let me know what I owe you for the dessert and whatever, and I’ll send the money.”

  “Dude, I don’t want your money. I called you all night. What’d you do when you left?”

  Rian saw me at my worst in college. He doesn’t need me to tell him what I did. Still, I say, “I went to the gym.”

  “Alone?”

  I feel like an ass admitting, “I didn’t fight alone.”

  Another pause. “How’s the other guy look?”

  “I don’t remember. Same, probably. It’s fine. He’s fine. I’m fine. There was a ref. We were just letting off steam.”

  “Right. Steam.”

  “Ri.”

  “Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight? Eat with me in the kitchen. Chef’s table. There’s a yearlong wait for that thing.”

  It hurts when I shake my head. It feels like someone smashed up a million light bulbs and stashed the pieces in my skull. “No thanks. I can’t show my face there again. Especially not when it looks like this.” I try to laugh, but it falls flat.

  “Jesus, Oz.”

  “I’m kidding. It’s not that bad.”

  “You want some company? I could drive out there.” Rian’s got a nice house in Evanston, a pricey suburb outside of the city. Very much the opposite of Camden.

  “No. Thanks, though. I’m not up for it. Another time.”

  Rian sounds doubtful. “Right. Another time.”

  “I appreciate you calling. And everything you did to help last night.”

  “You’re welcome. And if Dr. Jones ever comes in here, I’ll spit in her food.”

  “That means a lot.”

  “That’s what friends are for.”

  * * *

  I doze off and on for the rest of the afternoon, waking up in panicked starts when I remember to text Jade. She brings me dinner at seven—chicken soup and empanadas—staying long enough to shine a penlight in my eye to make sure my pupils react properly, something she read about on the internet.

  “The last thing I need is a doctor, Jade.”