by Callie James
CHAPTER TWELVE
Peyton
I had StudentBodyforHire.com set to go live Monday after school. Adam and I loved turning mundane things into big events and planned a big go-live celebration in my room. He even planned to hijack a bottle of cheap champagne from his foster parents’ pantry to add to our little carpet picnic. But none of that happened because Sam showed up late to school—seventh period late—sporting a black eye.
Everything took a downward spiral from there.
After he ignored my questioning stares during Ms. Campbell’s Dickens review, he had the nerve to stop by my locker and say, “Hey,” in that cute, flirty tone that made my knees weak.
I refused to look at him. “Hey,” I said with a shaky voice, stuffing two books into my book bag.
“What?”
When I wouldn’t meet his gaze, he placed a hand against the locker next to mine and shifted into my line of vision, making ignoring him impossible.
I looked down at the book bag I was holding. “Sam.”
“I told you,” he said, his voice dropping low so no one else could hear. “I had to work. You got my texts. What’s the problem?”
He’d been considerate enough to text me first thing, letting me know he’d be late. I had no idea how late until he texted to say he couldn’t study at lunch and showed up later, just before the review.
As soon as Shelly Watson closed her locker next to mine and left us alone, my gaze pivoted to the bruise circling his eye. Imagining anyone hitting him made me want to lash out in an equally violent retaliation. I didn’t know what to do with the horrid feeling, and since I expressed frustration, anger, and sadness the same way—through tears—I looked like an emotional spaz blinking rapidly to keep the tears back. “What happened to your eye?” I slammed my locker shut and dropped my book bag on the floor.
He shrugged. “A fist.”
“Whose fist?”
He glanced over my head, and I followed his gaze to see Adam and Ryan approaching us. His gaze pivoted back to mine. “Can we talk later?”
“What if I want to talk now?”
“I have to work.” He turned without so much as a goodbye then and headed toward the student parking lot.
I stood rooted to the tile, slack-jawed and staring at his back until he pushed through the outside doors.
“What happened?”
Ryan’s voice snapped me out of my stunned silence and I noticed him and Adam standing next to me. “Nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like he took the news well,” Ryan said.
“What news?” Adam asked.
I glared at Ryan. Daddy had been grilling me for a week about Sam’s faded bruises and I had no explanation. For extra fun, the Guerra name had sounded familiar enough that he’d perused the local online papers and found out Sam had been the boy three years ago who’d hospitalized his own uncle. Due to Sam and Savanna’s ages at the time, much of the case was inaccessible to the public, which left Daddy with just enough information to have a total freak out and ban me from seeing Sam again. My mother thankfully came to Sam’s defense but an argument quickly ensued. When things went from bad to worse, Ryan pulled me upstairs where we listened for another thirty minutes until doors slammed and the house settled into a divorced quiet.
When Sam walked across the parking lot and out of sight, I turned to Adam. “My dad doesn’t want me to date Sam.”
“Tell him you study,” Adam said with a shrug, surprising me by sounding reasonable. “You wouldn’t be lying.”
“I wish it were that easy,” I said. “But I’m not supposed to see Sam at all. In any way. Until hell freezes over.”
“It’s the hospitalizing his relatives thing,” Ryan elaborated.
Getting angrier, I handed Ryan my keys and slung my book bag over my shoulder. “Go ahead to the car. I’ll catch up.”
“Pey-ton,” Ryan said, sounding exasperated, but I ignored him and headed for the parking lot.
Sam had the Impala running and the driver’s window rolled down when I approached his car. The walk hadn’t cooled me off even a little. I stopped abruptly by his door and dropped my bag, waiting for him to quit scowling at the Impala’s hood and apologize, or at least notice me. When he didn’t, I shifted a step and propped my hands on my hips. He responded by revving the car and frowning at a ticking sound coming from under the hood.
Several people watched us, and since I didn’t want another video of me shared on social media any time soon, I waited for idle mode to avoid yelling. When he finished revving the engine, I asked, “Is that what you do to other girls when you don’t like the conversation? You walk away?”
“I don’t date other girls,” he said, finally looking at me. “I date you.”
“Oh, right,” I said, clutching my elbows under his hard, untrusting stare. “I feel special, too. You walked away from me back there as if I’m just anybody.”
“You’re not just anybody,” he said, “but I don’t talk about my personal life with an audience, Peyton. Even for you. Now get in.”
Did he just command me? I arched my eyebrows and he rolled his eyes, turning to look out the windshield. Did he really think I would follow orders? Seriously? Not in a million, trillion....
“Get in, please,” he said, still staring out the windshield.
I guess he really hadn’t dated much before, because even saying please, his statement sounded like he expected me to jump to attention. “Adam and I have plans. We’re going to—”
“Peyton.” He looked at me. “Get. In.”
My mouth parted. He hadn’t raised his voice or said anything mean. But something in those dark eyes and resolute tone told me if I didn’t go with him now, this relationship would take ten steps back. It had taken me three years of debating and a dire situation to work up the courage to approach him the first time. I rubbed my elbows, still not moving in a pointless effort to prove something to one of us. A ridiculous gesture because I desperately wanted to go with him.
Dropping my gaze, I grabbed my book bag and walked to the back of the vehicle. Ryan and Adam waited by the Lexus, and I gave them a wave to indicate I’d see them at home. Ryan shook his head and opened the driver’s door. When Adam hesitated, I showed him my phone so he could see I had it before turning and getting into Sam’s car.
“Fine. I’m in,” I said, looking at Sam. “Now tell me who hit you.”
He put his arm over the seat and turned as he backed the car out, then slammed it into drive and took off down the road. I snapped my seatbelt closed, giving him three full blocks to answer me.
“Why did you tell me to get in the car if you’re not going to talk to me?” I asked.
“I’m talking to you,” he said.
But beyond those four words, he didn’t. “You told me you work nights at a gym,” I said, prodding him to continue. “Doing maintenance stuff and closing for your boss, Jonas.”
“That’s right.”
He sounded annoyed, which only made me mad. I shut my mouth and faced front, determined to stay mute until the end of time. I watched a mom-and-pop convenience store pass out of view. Several homes. A tree lot. The closed lumber mill. I’d never known anyone so private that he needed to leave the city any time we discussed something personal.
If only I could let things go. “You did go to work last night, right?”
“I said I did, didn’t I?”
Wait. He’d been the one who’d insisted I go with him, so why was he being so evasive? I faced front again and folded my arms across my chest. After three more minutes of silence, I turned to stare at his profile. “Are you going to give me a real answer or not?”
His hand tightened on the steering wheel. “Yes, I worked last night.”
“Then what aren’t you telling me? Because none of this makes sense. How could you get a black eye between then and now? Did you really work at the auto shop today?”
“Yes.” His gaze slid to mine, and for several seconds, I thought I saw guilt.
But he turned away quickly and pulled into the Rice Bowl XO’s empty parking lot, the exact spot where he’d parked last night.
He killed the engine without looking at me. “I need you to hear me out. Okay?”
This was so unfair. Why couldn’t he be a normal boyfriend with a normal life? Given the constant bruises, his loner status, and the terrifying rumors about him, I doubted normal would ever come into play. “Are you in a fight club?”
He snorted. “No.”
“A gang?”
He shot me a get-serious look “No.”
“Is that the truth?”
“Listen, I may not have been forthcoming about what I do at the gym, but I’m definitely not lying to you about this.”
“Definitely not lying?” I repeated. “What does that even mean? That you sort of lied before?”
“I didn’t lie to you, Peyton. It’s just … I didn’t tell you everything either. I gave you a version of the truth.”
A version of the truth? “Well what version did I get?”
“I close the gym six nights a week. That much is true. But it’s not my primary job there.”
“What’s your primary job?”
“I assist with training.”
“Training,” I echoed, having prepared myself to hear he collected bad debts for Jonas by breaking kneecaps. In comparison, training didn’t seem so bad. “Training people to do what? Body building?”
“Partly.” He looked out the windshield and cleared his throat. “And fighting.”
“I’m sorry.” I cleared my throat. “Did you say fighting?”
He nodded, keeping his expression neutral, his body relaxed, except for his white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel that told me he wasn’t. “My main is boxing. It’s what I teach.”
“Your main?”
“My strength. My specialty.”
“So, you’re telling me you’re a …boxer?”
“I train people how,” he said. “It’s not a big deal.”
He was nineteen and not even out of school. How could he be a boxer? “Sam, would you please be honest with me?”
“I am being honest,” he said, turning to me.
“Then how does a person get a black eye training someone to box if you aren’t actually boxing?”
“You don’t know much about fighting, do you?”
I already felt duped; I didn’t need remarks like that to make me feel stupid, too. “No, I don’t,” I said, “and I wanted to keep it that way.”
He looked exhausted as he rubbed his forehead. “Please don’t make this something it isn’t.”
“By this, do you mean us?”
“No, not us.”
I turned my whole body to face him, took a deep breath and tried to appear calm. I’d keep an open mind. Give him a chance to explain. “Tell me how you assist someone with boxing.”
“Oh, you know.” He shrugged. “I show them how to throw the different punches. Watch their footwork. Wear the mitts. Catch the hits. Tell them what they’re doing right or wrong. That sort of thing. My part is guidance, quick reflexes and observation. There’s not much to it.”
I couldn’t grasp that anyone would voluntarily do this. “Do you owe Jonas money or something?”
“What?” One side of his mouth quirked upward as if I’d made a joke. “No. Jonas pays me.”
I studied his face and bad eye, my stomach knotting at the thought of someone hitting him. Hurting him beyond a bruise. Hitting him hard and often enough, that he’d eventually have scars so horrid, the color would drain out of my brother’s face one day while describing the sight of it to me. “If it’s all quick reflexes and observation, then why do you have a black eye?”
His mouth pulled into that rare, full grin I adored. “Every once in a while, one gets by me.”
“One gets by you?” I waited for more. Some kind of enlightenment. A clarification beyond boxing that would explain how training at a gym could leave scars like that on his body. Scars I couldn’t even ask him about because I wasn’t supposed to know. “I’ve seen movies, you know. People wear protection. Headgear.”
He looked out the window. “Not all the time.”
“You’re not telling me everything.”
“Well why don’t you just tell me what you want to hear?” he said, turning to me. “Then I can repeat it back to you since you’re obviously not interested in the truth.”
My eyes began to water and not because of his smartass tone. The truth was, he wasn’t wrong. I’d thought I wanted the truth, but when images of gangs, initiation rituals, and fights that included knives and broken bottles passed through my head—much too often lately—I had to wonder if I was truly ready to hear it. I couldn’t fathom him in danger or getting injured. Tears welled whenever I tried.
Like now.
“Peyton.”
I turned to stare out the windshield and blinked rapidly, too late to stop the tears slipping over my eyelashes. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, mortified as I choked back a sob and pushed my face into my hands.
“Goddammit,” he said under his breath.
Hearing him swear, I attempted to muffle all sounds of crying until my shoulders shook. Images of horrendous scars I’d never seen kept materializing in my imagination. The more I tried to be cool, the more emotional I got. Some days I hated my hypersensitivity to harsh realities. I wanted to be tough, like his sister. Someone he could respect. A strong, streetwise chick who didn’t cry if her boyfriend took a beating. A girlfriend who thought it a turn-on to make out with a badass who had battle scars. Instead, I’d become a bawling spaz, overcome with emotion at the sight of her boyfriend’s black eye.
What a loser.
“Stop,” he said softly, sliding across the seat before I could apologize again for being ridiculous. His arms wrapped around me and I buried my face against his collarbone, humiliated. “I’m sorry. I was being a dick.”
I shook my head. “It’s not you,” I whispered before making a sniffling, gurgling sound that only made me cringe and cry more.
“Mi amor… stop.” He pulled me closer. “Then what? Why are you crying?”
“Because I’m a stupid girl,” I mumbled into my hands, but the words came out garbled and incoherent. I shook my head, loathed at how weak I must have looked.
“I’ll need you to repeat that,” he said with a barely suppressed laugh. “But not in Urdu this time.”
I smiled, despite feeling childish and stupid. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“At least give me a shot at it.”
I wiped under my eyes and pulled back to look at him. “I really care about you, Sam.”
His thumb brushed my chin that wouldn’t stop trembling. “I care about you, too.”
“I can’t pretend this doesn’t bother me.” I stared at the blue mark circling the corner of his eye. “You have a new bruise every week and you don’t care. How can you not care what happens to you?”
“It’s not every week.”
“Last week you had two bruises.”
“That was two weeks ago. You make it sound dramatic.”
If he’d seen how Daddy went off the deep end any time Mom defended Sam, he wouldn’t say that. He’d understand why I needed him to be normal. “Well your eye looks dramatic.” I brushed two fingers over the swelling. “It has to hurt.”
“It doesn’t.”
He didn’t flinch but I knew he had to be lying. I turned to the window, watching drops of rain pelting the glass. We’d only been dating a week. I had no right to make demands. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Sam, would you quit if I asked?”
“No.”
Of course not. He barely knew me. He didn’t owe me anything. My chin wobbled and I looked away. “Okay.” I sniffled. Wiped under my nose. Noticed the rain coming down harder now. Everything outside was soaked and small puddles were growing. “We have to … we have to think about this.”
“Think about what?”
Clearly,
Sam and I wouldn’t find a middle ground on this, and as I fought the urge to bolt, I realized Adam had been right about me. I had control issues. My life felt tied to Sam’s now. Inexplicably tied to him and this weird, violent life he led that made me want to run.
“Peyton?”
“I don’t think I can do this,” I blurted, looking down from his dark, intense eyes. “It’s not your fault. I knew you did something violent … and I thought I could handle it. But I … I can’t. I shouldn’t have said yes when you asked me out. It’s not your fault. It’s mine.” I shoved my fingers over my mouth, knowing I’d likely continue rambling apologies for another thirty minutes if he let me.
The sounds of rain coming down heavy against the car filled the silence. Panic tightened my stomach. I thought back to what I’d said, what sounded like a break-up. Did I just break up with him?
God, I had.
Seconds ticked by and I had to fight my peacemaking instinct to smooth things over by taking everything back.
“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re seriously talking about breaking this off because I have a job that sometimes causes a bruise or two? Did I hear that right?”
“When you put it that way, it sounds unreasonable.”
“It is unreasonable.”
I scrubbed my face, overwhelmed. Whatever this was between us, it was way too much. Too much passion. Too much intensity. Too much everything. I couldn’t handle it. I needed the sanctuary and solitude of my bedroom. I needed time away from him so I could think.
Twisting out of his hold, I reached for the door handle and his hand circled my wrist. “Peyton, stop. Just … stop. You’d get soaked. Besides, I’m not letting you get out in the middle of nowhere.”
“This isn’t nowhere.”
“It’s hell and gone from your house.”
“I’ll call Adam. Or Ryan.”
“No, you won’t. I brought you out here. I’ll take you home. Quit overreacting and talk to me.”
Tears blurred my vision.
“Dammit, Peyton,” he said. “This isn’t a big deal.”
“To you.” I sucked in a breath, imagining red lines radiating from white, raised scar tissue. Lines that extended six to ten inches across his chest and stomach, that looked hideous and painful. “You could get seriously injured, Sam. How can you be so blasé about this?”