The Good Fight (Time Served Book 3)

by Julianna Keyes

  No acknowledgment.

  I’m by the door so I find the light switch and flip it up and down a few times, the childhood signal for simmer the fuck down that still works on adults. The men break apart, semi-confused, high on adrenaline and the opportunity to fight where there aren’t any rules to keep things civil.

  Jax, the guy from the gym, is pretty messed up for a guy who knows how to fight and was only at it for sixty seconds. I’m looking at my second broken nose of the day, and if I’m not mistaken, Romar broke his thumb, because it’s twisted at such a gross angle even I want to throw up, and I’ve seen all this shit before.

  “Enough!” Marco says, storming down the stairs from the second floor. “What the hell is going on?”

  Romar jabs at Jax and his rapidly swelling face. “This asshole won’t drop it,” he says. “You tell him—” the accusing finger now points to me “—that if they keep these trashy motherfuckers on the project, we’re walking.”

  Marco tips his head back and sighs, and for a split second, I think he might actually be rational and useful. Instead he turns to me and says, “You heard him.”

  I try not to gape. “Excuse me?”

  “Get these guys out of here. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

  “I’m an electrician!” Jax’s offended protest is muffled by the fistful of tissues he’s clutching to his face. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

  Guys from both sides start to pitch in with their own verbal volleys, and it’s like watching a flame zip down a fuse en route to the explosives. I know this would be a good time for me to step in and squash the fire that’s brewing, but I freeze. I think about that last night in August before school was set to start, seventeen years old, pumped up on testosterone and adrenaline, eager and ready for any chance to kick some ass. The sound of a back breaking is not the same as a nose or a finger.

  A shrill whistle brings me back to the present. “For the love of God!” The room falls quiet, turning angry, perplexed stares on Susan, who has stepped out from behind me to mediate. “Everybody shut up,” she says, when mouths open to protest. “Get back to work. You’re going to work on your side, and you’re going to work on your side.” The last statement is punctuated with a terrifying stare at each offending party. “Nobody’s going to say a word, and you’re all going to do your jobs. You know why?”

  A couple people actually shake their heads.

  “Three reasons,” Susan says, and now I totally get it. I understand why someone would let her cut open their brain. Because she knows she can. And even if she told me reasons one, two and three involved space monkeys, I’d nod and get back to work. She just believes in herself that much. She flicks up a finger as she itemizes. “Reason number one is because I said so. Reason number two is because you’re adults, and I don’t care who got their feelings hurt, or why, and I’m never going to care. Do your jobs and shut up. Reason number three is because you’re contracted to do a job, not part of it, not half of it, not even most of it. All of it. And you don’t, you’re not getting paid. If you talk to each other, you’re not getting paid. And if you argue with me, you’re not getting paid. Now get back to work and don’t try this shit again.”

  There’s a moment of stunned silence, then both groups turn and shuffle off toward their respective sides, only the injured Romar and Jax sticking around. Susan stomps up to Jax and pulls away the tissue from his face. It’s safe to say her stern frown is only half for the injury, half for the actions that incurred it. “Broken,” she says. “Go to the hospital.”

  “But I—”

  She ignores him and turns to Romar, who reluctantly lets her examine his hand. To her credit, no matter how annoyed she is, she’s consummately gentle and professional. “Broken,” she says. “In at least two places. Go to the hospital.”

  For once Romar makes the right decision and nods agreeably. He and Jax start out the door at the same time, then pause. “I didn’t drive,” Romar mumbles.

  Jax curses under his breath and pulls keys from his pocket. “Fine. Come with me. But don’t try to start anything.”

  They exit together as Susan, Larry and I watch.

  “Well,” Larry says.

  “That’s probably enough for today,” I interrupt, before he can ask another question, like, why is this woman stepping in between two groups of angry men while you hang back like a fucking impotent loser?

  Larry looks ready to argue, but Susan sticks her hand in his and shakes it. “Thanks for coming out,” she says, the same way you’d say, “Leave now.”

  Larry scratches his head and turns to go. “I guess I’ll be in touch.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “We’ll see.”

  He leaves and it’s just me and Susan standing by the front door, the east and west sides now occupied by men working in odd silence. I can’t meet her eye. I’m old-fashioned enough to feel like this is wrong. I want to be the man. I want to stand up for her. I want to fix things when they aren’t working. I want to fight her battles. Not the other way around. I don’t care what year it is.

  The hard glint that was in her eye when she addressed the men is gone when she looks at me, stepping closer to peer up into my face, using two fingertips to gently turn my chin so I have to look at her. “Oscar,” she says softly, seeing too much.

  I close my eyes, exhausted, embarrassed, sad.

  “Why?” she whispers.

  I shake my head, smelling her hair, breathing in the fact that she’s still here, though I can’t think of a single reason she should be.

  “You want to step in,” she says. “I can see it. You love to fight. You told me. I saw the bruises. So why not? What’s holding you back?”

  I see Anthony lying on the ground, not moving. His eyes wide open, staring up at me, confusion and understanding mingling into horrifying certainty. When Susan says my name I see his lips move, the way they had that night. The word that says all the worst things.

  “I can’t, Susan,” I say, before she can pry. Before I break down with too many witnesses. “That topic’s not on the table. Not yet.” Maybe never. I don’t know. There aren’t a lot of people left in Camden who know about that night, not really. And I don’t think I’m ready to relive it. Not with her. Not when she’s seeing me like this.

  She’s quiet and I risk a look at her, expecting to see disappointment etched on her features, but instead she’s staring out at nothing, seeing her own past hurts and regrets. Then she looks at me. “I understand,” she says.

  Chapter Eight

  “Just tell her,” Oreo says the next night. We’re in the ring at Titan’s. He’s holding up the pads while I take swings at him, not trying to knock him down, just liking the way it feels. Word travels in Camden—even faster when it’s bad news—and he knows all about the shit show at the tannery yesterday. The fact that things ran smoothly today is irrelevant. People only want to hear about when things go south.

  Sweat drips into my eye, stinging, but I ignore it and keep going. My shoulders burn, the balls of my feet ache, but I don’t stop. This is why Oreo’s so good at what he does—the guy’s in his sixties, but he’s not even breathing hard. I can’t get tired until he does. None of us can. It’s an unwritten rule. Hell, it might even be written somewhere.

  “I can’t,” I say when I gather enough breath. Then I add, “I don’t want to.”

  “How old are you?” he asks, though he knows. He knew me then, he knows me now. He was the one to kick my ass out the gym door when I considered turning down the scholarship, reluctant to leave behind my mom and sisters in this piece of crap town. And he was the one to kick my ass out the door for six weeks straight when I moved back two years ago, unwilling to believe that the one kid who’d made it out was choosing to return.

  He gives up waiting on my answer and continues. “You’re thirty-four,�
�� he tells me, as though I didn’t know. “It’s been eighteen years—almost half your life. It was a shitty thing that happened, but it was bad luck. It was kids being kids, and catching a bad break.” A pause. “For lack of a better word.”

  I stop swinging and squat down, balancing my forearms on my knees, watching sweat drip from my temples to pool between my feet. I’m breathing hard, but I don’t know if it’s the guilt or the exertion that’s making me dizzy.

  “Here.” Oreo bumps me in the shoulder with a bottle of lukewarm water, then hits me harder when I ignore him. I snatch it out of his hands if only to stop him from whacking me over the head with it, then slowly stand and walk the perimeter of the ring as I drink, ignoring his stare.

  It’s six thirty and the gym’s mostly empty, everyone home eating dinner or just getting off work. That’s why Oreo raises his voice instead of coming close enough to speak at a normal volume. “Nobody blames you,” he says. “You heard it from me, you heard it from his parents. Hell, you heard it from Anthony himself. It was an accident.”

  “It was my fault.”

  “You send a thousand men to war—is any one more guilty than the other? They’re all there. Someone dies when he’s shot four times by four different bullets—is the one that hit his heart the worst? No. It’s a war. Shit happens. Everybody walking in there knows that. And you kids, messing around, getting into trouble—shit happened. It wasn’t any more your fault than Anthony’s.”

  I jerk around to stare at him. “Don’t say that.”

  “What? You don’t think Anthony blamed himself?”

  Anthony, who’d spent the last ten years of his life in a motorized wheelchair, paralyzed from the neck down, before dying at twenty-seven from an unrelated illness. Anthony, my best friend, who got in the way when I swung a baseball bat. Anthony, who’d fallen and never gotten up again. But I’d walked away. Walked right out of this town and tried for more than a decade to pretend it didn’t exist.

  “That’s enough, Oreo.”

  “If she’s worth it, she’s not going to judge you.”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to get my breathing under control. I need a cold shower, then I need to get the hell out of here. Susan left shortly after Larry yesterday, and I haven’t spoken to her since. She sent a text this morning asking if the guys had learned to play nicely, but I didn’t reply. She was right, what she said on the roof. I say I want a challenge, but when things get hard, I run.

  I finish the water and toss the bottle back to Oreo, who catches it. He’s leaning against the ropes, watching me with his one eye, seeing far too much. Jade put two and two together yesterday, quickly deducing that the “uptight woman” who’d randomly shown up at the site had to be the one who’d gotten me riled up a few weeks earlier. Because Jade saw me at my worst the morning after the fight with Lupo, she isn’t exactly Susan’s biggest fan, and quickly spread word that I was making a huge mistake and should be dating Sheree instead. It must have been a slow day at the gym, because Oreo grilled me for details the second I stepped through the doors and refused to let me work out in peace until I spilled.

  Not that I don’t need someone to talk to about all this, and annoying as he is, Oreo’s a closed book. He’s not going to repeat anything I say, though he’s probably going to try to meddle. One of his favorite stories to tell is how he played matchmaker for that Fowler lawyer and a guy who used to train here. In his mind, he’s the only reason they found true love. And because I saw the story unfold in front of me, I can’t say he’s entirely wrong.

  “It’s not that,” I finally mumble. “It’s just...” I shake my head, my thoughts clearer now that my heart has stopped pounding. “I look like a fucking pussy when I’m around her. The night we met? That was when I sprained my wrist. She was the supervising doctor.” I may be in confession mode, but I’m not bringing up the watermelons. “Then she stood me up for dinner and I got my feelings hurt and came in here to fight Lupo, and the next time she saw me she said it looked like I’d fallen down a cliff and hit every rock with my face.”

  Oreo tries not to laugh.

  “Then at the tannery yesterday, she shows up and everything’s already falling apart, three hours in. And when Marco’s guys come back and another fight starts up, who steps in to shut it down? Not me. Not the guy who went to school on a fucking wrestling scholarship. No, it’s Susan. You can bet I heard about that today.”

  Most of the comments had been teasing, but they’d still stung my freshly battered ego. Where’s the boss? Who’s going to crack the whip if your girlfriend’s not here to do it for you? Better stay in line or he’ll sic a woman on us.

  As far as I know, these guys are ten years too young to know about Anthony, to know about that night. They don’t know I’m not afraid of fighting because I’m worried I’ll get hurt; I’m worried about who I’ll hurt. That’s why I only spar for exercise. No matches. No matter how big the guy is. It doesn’t matter that there’s no alcohol, no drugs, no baseball bats, no hard feelings. None of that matters.

  There’d been a lot of makeshift weapons used that night, so many no one could say for certain which one it was that snapped Anthony’s spine. But in my heart, in my gut, I know. It was me. Blame it on whatever you want—too much adrenaline, too much testosterone, too much time on my hands. The truth is, I liked the fight. I liked the crunch of bone and the smell of blood, the stuff that sends smart men running. Back then I never ran. I wasn’t smart enough to recognize when things had gone too far. Not until they did.

  The “incident” was ruled an accident, no charges pressed. My whole future nearly derailed in one split-second decision; Anthony’s entire future twisted horribly off track. I got a scholarship and a ticket out of town; he got a secondhand motorized wheelchair.

  When people ask what kind of idiot returns to Camden with a stupid dream about giving back and making a difference, I don’t know how to answer without it sounding like a confession. Like it’s penance for a sin that can’t ever be forgiven. But I’m trying.

  “She run the show in the sack?” The question comes from over my shoulder. Oreo’s wisely standing on the other side of the ring.

  I whirl on him. “Don’t ask me about that.”

  “I’m just saying. If she’s calling the shots in there, too, she probably already knows you’re a pussy. And who cares if that’s what gets you both off? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. What’s it called? Being submissive.”

  “Jesus.” I duck under the ropes and hop down to the floor. “I’m not having the sex talk with you.”

  “I’m just saying.” His voice follows me as I head to the locker rooms. “We’ve all got regrets. But sometimes it’s the mistake you don’t make that haunts you.”

  * * *

  A cold shower, a cold beer, and I’m back at home, sitting in the dim confines of my living room, a baseball game on mute as I contemplate calling Susan. She hadn’t tried to get in touch again after the text this morning, and I know she’s hard to reach. Plus I don’t know if we’re here yet. I don’t know if we’re at the “call me just to talk” stage, or if she even wants to be after what happened yesterday.

  I press the green call button below her name at the same moment someone knocks on the door. I don’t get up, listening to the phone ring. There’s a pause, then another knock, and with the curtains drawn I can only see a blurry shadow moving on the porch.

  “Hello?” Her voice sounds tinny through the speaker.

  I almost forget who I called. “Hey,” I say awkwardly. “Susan.”

  “Hey,” she says. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at home.”

  “Then why aren’t you answering the door?”

  I immediately get to my feet. “That’s you?”

  She hangs up and I take a second to glance around, tossing my gym bag in the closet, straightening the s
hoes clustered in the hall. I turn the lock and pull open the door to reveal Susan on the other side, silhouetted by the setting sun. She’s wearing shorts and a T-shirt, sandals that show off pink toenails.

  “Did you get a pedicure?” I ask, stepping back so she can enter. She’s the most low maintenance woman I’ve ever known; the pink nails are pretty, but out of place.

  “Yeah.” She looks around, though I don’t know what she’s hoping to find. “I had to. Some of the nurses were going out and they asked, so I had to go.”

  “Why’d you have to go?”

  “To fit in.”

  “You worry about fitting in?”

  She rolls her eyes. “I’m told it’s important.”

  I want to laugh but I don’t. “I suppose.”

  She squints at the cooler I’d stashed next to the recliner, my open beer perched on top. “What were you doing?”

  “Unwinding.”

  “Did things go any better at the tannery? You didn’t answer my text.”

  I scratch my shoulder and blow out a guilty breath. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. Par for the course, I suppose.” She eyeballs the glowing TV screen, the only light in the room. In the whole house, really. “Are you a baseball fan?”

  “Not especially.”

  “My sister fell in love with the guy who coached Dorrie’s softball team.”

  I absorb the random bit of information. “No kidding.”

  “Yeah. She took Dorrie to a lot of her games last summer.” A pause. “I only made it to one. Part of one.”

  I rack my brain for a safe reply. “Well, you’re busy.”

  She bites her lip, her profile too sexy to be standing in my living room. “Too busy to be a good mother, apparently.”

  My libido dwindles. “What?”

  Her breath shudders when she exhales. “Stephen—that’s my ex—told me today that Dorrie mentioned she might want to move back to Cleveland to live with him. Permanently.”

  For a second I don’t know what to do. Here I am wondering if we’re at the “call to talk” stage, certain she thinks I’m the biggest pussy on the planet, and here she is, driving out to the ghetto for...comfort.