Sunday

by Kaia Bennett

  Maybe this was supposed to happen all along. Maybe Flynn was just an exciting, painful detour on her way back to Luca. Maybe she could fill the hurt with something that wouldn’t leave when things got hard.

  Maybe…

  ***

  Shit just kept getting better and better.

  It was Saturday and Flynn was at Bobby’s “celebrating” the end of the school year. Or getting so fucked up he wouldn’t remember his name in the morning, the latter being a more appropriate description. Next week was finals week so he was going to take full advantage of Bobby’s hospitality and the kegs he had sitting in his living room.

  He hadn’t told anyone about his breakup with Gia yet, but they were going to find out soon enough. He’d been dancing with a cute Latina chick with big tits that he planned to suck on later when he saw Luca across the room watching him while he pretended to talk to some of his friends.

  What the fuck was he doing here?

  From the looks of it, he was smirking and taking in the sight of Flynn very much not with Gia. It was times like these that Flynn wished Bobby didn’t have so many fucking friends. The last thing he needed was to be re-reminded of Gia. It had been a week since he’d seen her, let alone talked to her. She hadn’t been in class since they broke up. Not that she needed to be; she probably could have passed all her finals blindfolded and hanging upside down.

  But the fact that she couldn’t even bring herself to come to a review for a big test, just because he would be there… well, that hurt more than he cared to admit to himself. Which was why he was trying to get blitzed enough to take this chick home and fuck her. As soon as he got over the sight of Luca and the cold lead-in-the-pit-of-his-stomach feeling he had induced.

  “I’ll be right back, sweetheart,” he whispered in the girl’s ear, making her smile seductively and look up at him with those doe eyes. What was her name anyway? Trish? Tasha? Trina? Something with a “t”. Unless she repeated it she was going to have to be dubbed any term of endearment he could think up. Anything but “baby”, that was.

  He went out to the front porch and lit up a cigarette, leaning his elbows against the railing. There were a smattering of people out smoking, but most were inside still trying to get tipsy and sweaty as they danced. A couple of guys were out horsing around on the front lawn; a group of girls were on the porch, soothing a chick that was sobbing and wailing about the one night stand that could have been “The One”. He sighed, shaking his head. Thank God he could hold his liquor like a champ, or he might be right over there with her.

  It may have been only a week since he’d seen Gia, but it felt like longer, like being stuck in the limbo of work, school, and apathy. He hadn’t even felt like getting laid, which was just fucking absurd. There hadn’t been a day since he was twelve where he didn’t think “Yeah, I could fuck someone today.” Not so since that fateful Tuesday night, which is why he felt like he had to drown his liver just to get up the impetus to stick his dick something.

  He was laughing bitterly to himself when he heard a voice behind him say, “Nice party, right?”

  Flynn could feel the hairs on the back of his neck bristle as Luca came up beside him and joined him in leaning against the porch. Still, he made no move to strike. What was the point? He wasn’t with Gia anymore.

  “Something I can do for you, man?” he asked without looking in his direction.

  Luca shook his head at the sarcastic question. “Nah, dude. You’ve done so much already. Can’t thank you enough.”

  Flynn’s fist clenched as he inhaled deeply on his cigarette. He wasn’t even going to ask what he meant. But it was okay; he didn’t have to. Luca was going to elaborate, and he was going to take his sweet time doing it.

  “I hear you’re off to L.A. soon. That must be real exciting—”

  “I’m sorry, did I let you think we were friends, or something?” Flynn said, turning his gaze sharply to the other man. “What the fuck do you want, pussy?” To add insult to injury he blew smoke in his face.

  Luca’s smile was slow and triumphant as he swiped the cloud away with two fingers.

  “I was just wishing you a happy trip. Oh, and speaking of pussy, I wanted to let you know that you don’t have to worry about Gia. I’m gonna take really…really good care of her for you. You won’t mind, since you’re obviously not together anymore, right?”

  Flynn licked his lips, looking out at the front lawn, but not seeing. He wondered if Luca could see him starting to shake. He wondered if he knew how close he was to losing his fucking mind. But Flynn was no fool. Even on the other side of sober, he knew that Luca was trying to bait him and he wasn’t going to play into it. Gia wasn’t worth it; he wasn’t with her anymore. She didn’t need him to defend her honor from the guy she had chosen.

  “Won’t take her anytime at all to get used to me again, me being her first and all,” Luca said, turning to his side to look at Flynn head on. In an almost conversational tone he said, “She’s a great fuck, isn’t she? She should be, since I’m the one that taught her everything she knows.”

  Flynn’s jaw clenched so tightly he felt like his molars would crack at any moment.

  “You know, she barely even cried when I popped her cherry; just shaking and moaning and calling out my name. Saying how much she loved me. After that, she couldn’t get enough, had to have it almost everyday.”

  Flynn turned to look at him, his green eyes meeting the malice in Luca’s hazel ones. They didn’t match his smile, as if his face were some patchwork quilt of emotions. He was daring Flynn, poking at the soft spot he knew he had reserved just for Gia. Luca should know how it felt; it had been his sore spot all those weeks that Gia was with Flynn.

  He didn’t speak as the other man stared him down. He just smirked, smacking his lips sardonically, as if Luca’s attempt to put a chink in his armor was paltry at best. As if he didn’t feel like he was dying inside. It didn’t help that his words rang true, that when he was with Gia she never seemed to get enough. He’d thought it was because of him, that he was the one that brought out that insatiable urge in her. Was he wrong? Was that just her nature and he had deluded himself into thinking it was because of how strongly she felt for him?

  In that moment he could almost feel sorry for Luca, almost understand all the shit he tried to pull. In a twisted way they were bound by commonality, by having lost a girl that neither one of them could seem to get over in a healthy way. A girl that neither one of them really deserved. He wondered how drunk he really was.

  “You see, there was no one before me,” Luca continued, twisting the knife in just a little deeper, “and there’s not going to be anyone after me. Before long, it’ll be like you never even existed.” He laughed walking around Flynn’s back as he said, “Have fun in L.A....pussy.”

  Luca strolled down the steps to the porch, taking his time and breathing deep as if he were soaking up how beautiful the night was. He let out a light chuckle as he headed towards his car. He was asking for a fight, begging for one, in fact. But the farther away he got, the more it seemed that tonight Flynn wasn’t going to entertain him.

  She wasn’t worth it. He didn’t care anymore. That’s what he was trying to tell himself, but the words, even inside his head, tasted like the lies they were. He couldn’t hear anything, or see anything, but Gia writhing under the piece of shit strolling onto Bobby’s front lawn. He saw her calling out Luca’s name instead of his, moaning into his ear, into his mouth the way she had for him. He saw himself thousands of miles away, unable to forget and unable to protect her. But there was one image that washed over all the others.

  Luca, on his back, begging for mercy as he stomped him into the ground.

  Yes, that was much more fun to imagine. It even brought a smile to his face. And then before long he was laughing, too. He laughed as he shook his head. He laughed as he took one more drag and then tossed his cigarette. And he laughed as he exhaled and then jumped one-handed over the railing of the porch, landing on his fee
t in the soft ground.

  He didn’t even pause; he just landed and ran straight towards Luca’s retreating form.

  Luca heard him just before Flynn came up behind him. Flynn’s fist once again caught him on the edge of his jaw as he turned to face him. One hit had done the trick. Or at least Flynn thought it did. Luca’s steps stuttered backwards, but instead of falling he was spinning around, regaining his footing just as Flynn approached to land another blow. He turned and lunged, driving his shoulder into Flynn’s stomach with all of the power he could muster, like a wrestler shooting at the lower half of his opponent’s body.

  It sent Flynn backwards, into the air, and then down on the ground with Luca holding on the entire time. All the air in Flynn’s lungs whooshed out and then refused to return, leaving his stomach hollow and churning painfully as he fought to breathe. He had Luca’s head trapped in a headlock, but the boy was throwing punches to his ribs, punches that let Flynn know just how much he held back to save face in front of Gia. It was a long, painful moment before air filled his lungs, but it didn’t take long for him to find his bearings. He knew how to take a hit and he was operating mostly on adrenaline. It was what helped him to roll Luca over onto his back.

  He let go of Luca’s head, sat up and dropped his fist into his face. He couldn’t feel anything, could barely hear as they traded blows. In fact, the only thing Flynn felt when Luca’s hand fisted in his shirt while the other pounded into his mouth and eye was raw unadulterated rage.

  He felt like a wild animal whose main imperative was to bring his fist down fast and continuously into the source of all his anger. And that’s just what he did while grabbing onto Luca’s hair as a stronghold. One punch barely hit Luca before the next landed, making Flynn’s arm look like a piston as it connected with Luca’s face.

  Somewhere, distantly, he heard shouts and screams from people telling him to stop or egging him on. But it was the sound of his hand pounding into the wet, meaty flesh of Luca’s face that drove him on. He felt arms on him, strong and sturdy and more than one pair trying like hell to lift him off of what had fast become his victim. Luca, the separate sentient entity that he’d been moments before, had quickly dissipated into a lump of beaten and bloody clay under his fists. His arms now weakly tried to bat off Flynn’s descending arm and he gurgled on the blood swimming in his throat.

  A part of Flynn was thoroughly disgusted with himself as he was lifted away. He fought the arms pulling him back. He couldn’t stop. He didn’t want to. He felt positively homicidal.

  “Not so funny anymore, huh?” He cursed and he spit and he drove his foot into Luca’s stomach as they carried him away, screaming, “Not laughing now, are you, MOTHERFUCKER!”

  Distantly he heard the desperate wheezing sounds of a person trying to breathe despite the lack of air filtering into their lungs. Still he wrestled free just long enough to kick him once more and stomp down on his ribs. He managed to graze his chin with the toe of his shoe just before Luca forced himself to roll away, and he would’ve found a way to get to him again if yet another person’s weight hadn’t barreled into him from behind.

  It made him lurch forward as they grabbed him and all his aggression was transferred to the people holding him. He brought his head back into the unseen person’s face, but he was already being dragged away. It took more pairs of hands than he could count to pull away from his target, and he howled and cursed and fought them all the way.

  He could see through the blood dripping into his eye what he had done, could see the bloody mass that was a grown man laying on the grass while people gathered around and tried to bring him limply to his feet. He had seen that kind of thing one too many times. He had seen himself looking the way Luca did right now, like a husk of his former self. He literally felt sick, spitting out the thick metallic tang of blood as it flowed from the cut in his mouth and coated his throbbing teeth.

  He’d grown up with a father that familiarized him with cuts and bruises, with the aches and pains of anger and sadness. In fact, the last night he’d spent in his father’s house had been much like tonight, only Flynn had been more like Luca. At least in the beginning.

  Flynn had come home late from a party, and his father had surprisingly been there to catch him stumbling in drunk and high. He was in the midst of getting a hellacious beating when something in him snapped. By that point he was taller than his dad and stronger. He knew he could take him, had known for a while, but never until that night had he been brave enough, or stupid enough, to fight back.

  He still felt sick when he thought about how he’d felt both freer and more scared than he ever had when his fist connected with his dad’s face. It had only been a few solid hits, just enough to get his father to release his grip on Flynn’s throat so that he could scramble out the front door, but that had been enough to make it so that they’d gone almost a decade without really talking.

  He could still feel the cold air from that night drying the blood and the tears on his face as he stumbled onto the front lawn, sobbing. His dad was was screaming behind him from the doorway that he wasn’t welcome in his home anymore, that he’d never wanted a piece of shit like him in the first place.

  His father hadn’t been all bad growing up. There had been ball games, and birthday presents, and times when Flynn saw an inkling of what it looked like to have a normal dad that loved you. But those memories were few and far between, paling drastically in comparison to all the nights that were like that last one in his father’s house. If it hadn’t been for his Uncle Ray and Bobby, he would have truly been alone in the world.

  Flynn had been in fights several times since then. There was nothing new about fighting for him in the logical sense, and not since he lived with his father had he ever been the victim in a fight. Someone started something with him; he finished it. Plain and simple. There was always a sense of righteousness behind him cracking open some guy’s skull.

  Luca had started this, but he had no idea just how far Flynn would go to finish it. Luca’s natural athleticism hadn’t been able to hold a candle to his seasoned street fighter mentality, and he had deserved to find out the hard way. But even with all of that on Flynn’s side, he felt horrified by the extent of the punishment he dealt.

  Nothing about him at that very moment felt good or righteous. He didn’t feel sane and he hated himself, truly hated himself for wanting more, for wanting to feel the flesh and bone of the other man being battered by his hands. Adrenaline and alcohol were swirling through him, doing nothing to hide the inkling of pain that would tear him a new asshole when the morning came. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to scream. Instead he shoved off the hands that were holding him and made his escape.

  “Get the fuck off me!” he bellowed, jerking his arms and twisting his body like a wild man until he was left on his own. He spun too quickly as he turned away from Luca, stumbling in the grass as he caught himself with one hand.

  Distantly he heard familiar voices asking him if he was okay while he stumbled away from the front lawn towards the direction of the house. Bobby and Max, who he was positive had helped pull him away from Luca, were trying to steady him as his feet made illogical patterns on his way back to the porch. He pushed them away, not wanting to be touched.

  His breathing was too loud in his own ears, and so was the sound of his own footsteps as he climbed the steps to the porch. He caught a wavering glimpse of Rosie, gripping the beam of the porch and staring at him with an expression of pure shock, pure fear. He saw her shrink away from him as he stared her down, and he realized that he was smiling and wiping at his bloody mouth. She would probably tell Gia. She would know by this time tomorrow what a monster he was and then Luca would finally get what he had wanted in the first place.

  Fine. Let it be that way. What did he care?

  The glare of the lights inside the house was too bright and the colors of the house were garish to his eyes. He shoved a pair of arms off of him as he headed towards the bathroom, but instinctively he di
dn’t push too hard. There were soft hands leading him, soothing hands, like Gia’s used to be. He settled into the resolve of Cherise’s guiding arms as she took him to bathroom and pushed the door closed.

  “God, Flynn,” she hissed as he flopped down on the toilet and leaned back. She grabbed a hand towel and drenched it in the sink, ringing it out lightly. He winced and hissed sharply when she touched it lightly to the cut over his eye.

  “You’re a fucking idiot, you know that? Shit. Just look at your face,” she chided like a mother as she wiped the blood away and rung it out into the sink.

  He opened his eyes and flashed her a painful, bloody smile.

  “You should see the other guy,” he said. Cherise’s dark head of hair shimmered in the light as she shook her head in anger.

  “If I didn’t love you, I’d be kicking your ass myself. What if you really hurt him?” she asked, pressing the towel a little harder onto the cut this time.

  “Ow! What the—”

  “You feel like taking an extended vacation for assault?”

  Flynn huffed and sat up, snatching the hand towel from Cherise and pressing it to his swollen lip and the cut in his mouth. Nausea swirled in his stomach, making him wonder if he had swallowed too much blood, and his hand ached from pummeling Luca as he flexed it around the towel.

  “He started it,” he said, without the least bit of irony.

  Then he snickered. It was kind of funny how he sounded like a third grader trying to explain to his mother how he got into a fight on the playground. Or at least, that’s how he imagined such a talk would go if he’d had a mother who stuck around long enough to chastise.

  “This is not cute, man. Aren’t you a little old to be fighting over a girl? And she’s yours already so what the hell are you so upset about?”

  He rolled his eyes up to hers. Even with one swollen eyelid the glance was eloquent and Cherise’s eyes widened with the nonverbal news of his break up with Gia.