Fight for Her #2

by JJ Knight

  Jeans that need to go.

  I’m feeling zero pain now and roll her over, shucking her pants in half the time she took on mine. I pause over a pair of siren-red panties. These deserve a bit of attention.

  There isn’t much to them. Tiny elastic straps holding on to the barest triangle of fabric. I lean down and fit my mouth over it, breathing against the satin. It heats up, and Maddie inhales sharply. I keep a tight seal, releasing another blast of air. Now it’s hot, and Maddie writhes against my mouth with a groan.

  God, I love every sound she makes, every shift of her body.

  Her hands go to my head to clutch me, push me into her. My tongue fits into the groove, even with the panties between us. I work my way along it with nipping bites, knowing the panties will soften them.

  “Parker,” Maddie says, her voice strained.

  I can’t let her go, can’t let her think of anything but us, what we are together. I want her to scream. To weep. To hook into our connection. Every day. As often as I can. It’s all I’ve got to offer her right now.

  Every bite incites a thrust of her hips up to me. With a low growl, I grab the thin band and yank the panties out of my way. She’s so wet and hot and swollen. I use both hands to spread her open as wide as she can go, diving into the warm flesh of her body.

  Her breath is fast and she lets go of my head, clutching fists full of sheets instead. We work together, her hips moving with me, my hands beneath her, cupping her so I can lift her into my face.

  I can almost feel her heartbeat against my lips, so strong and urgent is the rhythm.

  “Parker, it’s coming,” she says. But I don’t need her to tell me, I know it. Her muscles are pulsing, and I carefully tease her over the edge. When she gets there, her thighs embrace me, and no doubt the neighboring rooms are roused from sleep as she cries out, words indecipherable, her body rippling with pleasure as she comes back down.

  I don’t even care if we do anything else right now, I’m so relieved she’s here and open to me. But when I pull away, she grabs my shoulders to pull me on top.

  I slip inside her with ease. Her eyes are squeezed shut as I work over her. The dizziness that went away during the hours in the hospital threatens to return as I feel lost in the blurred space. I close my eyes to the fractured visual and feel her with my body. Maybe it’s true that other senses are heightened, because I can sense every pore in her skin, the tickle of the tiny bit of hair cushioning between us, and the gentle slope inside her body that I’m filling.

  I drop down so I can bury my face in her hair, smelling shampoo, something floral, and the underlying scent that is Maddie.

  Her legs lock together around my back. I want to stay like this forever, inside her, surrounded by her. I don’t want to think about anything beyond this moment.

  But the pressure’s building up, and when Maddie starts to go again, her body tightening around me, I relent and fall into her. When her voice is in my ears, I realize, shit, condom. I take it down, force myself into control as she convulses, cries out, and falls back flat on the bed.

  After a moment, she asks, “What’s wrong?” Her breathing is still coming fast.

  “Condom,” I manage, ready to withdraw and find the damn thing.

  “I’m on the Pill, Parker,” she says quietly. “Not going to let anything happen again.”

  I shove aside what that could mean, anyone else there might have been, and drive into her. It doesn’t matter. She is mine now. And I am not going to let her go.

  She grabs my sides, moving me against her, working me faster. I allow her to control me, to say when and how fast and how hard. Then I’m beyond it and wrap her long hair around my fist. I hold on tight and unleash, flooding into her, and she gasps at my intensity, my need of her, the long guttural sound I make.

  As soon as I’ve come down, pain rushes at me, furious and needling. I open my eyes, but the world is turning too hard. I have to roll away, lie flat, try to manage the tilting room.

  “Rest, Parker,” Maddie says. “I should have let you be.”

  I yank her close to me. “It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

  I’m not afraid of what’s happening. It’s not my first concussion. Won’t be my last. It’s worse, sure, but everything is going my way now. I’m not going to let this stop me.

  Not on your life.

  Chapter 4: Maddie

  I plunk into a seat on the subway Monday morning, my thoughts full of Parker.

  The car rocks back and forth as we speed along beneath the city. I’m glad Anton’s deadline for the new ready-to-wear line is over. We have a breather for a few days before we’ll gear up for the reveals and fashion shows. I need a break to figure out what the hell is going on with Parker.

  Obviously we connect physically like we always have. Just thinking about the last few nights makes me shiver. Parker has no idea how much I’ve avoided entanglements since I took off four years ago. There has been literally one guy since then, and I cut that off after a couple months, too disappointed and underwhelmed to let things progress.

  We pull to a stop and a young couple gets on, looking a lot like they are still partying at seven a.m. rather than getting up for a Monday workday. He’s tattooed to the hilt, wearing a T-shirt with cutoff sleeves despite the chill. His hands are in the girl’s back pockets, forcing her close. She clings to him as the car jerks into motion.

  He kisses her and nuzzles her jaw. I have to look away. I’m sure they look a lot like Parker and I did back in the day. We were so damn wild. Out all night. Drunk. Wandering the streets of East LA like we owned them.

  When I glance back, the girl sees me and rolls her eyes. I know what I look like now. An adult. Tailored pants and crisp collar beneath a suit jacket. She is not impressed by how trendy my bag is, or that the studded blue shoes I’m wearing haven’t even been released to the buying public, a perk of working for a designer with friends in haut couture places.

  I can even hear her nickname for me. Corporate whore. Or something like it.

  I used to be just like her.

  Life changes. Your hotheaded fighter boyfriend gets destroyed in a fight. You have a baby without him. The most conservative uptight member of your family, the one you always made fun of at family gatherings, is the only one to take you in.

  So you adapt.

  I’m not sorry. I’m living a dream. When I started taking fashion design at a junior college, it was a whim, really. Getting into the Fashion Institute of Technology was just a random lucky strike. Calvin freaking Klein went there.

  Then an internship, then an actual job. It’s a grunt job in a way, but Anton himself decided that I had a good eye for fabrics, so it isn’t the worst. His assistant sends me the sketches, and I look for patterns and textures that would fit each style. He likes the way I can shrug off criticism. When he rejects every single option I give him, it only makes me want to work harder, be more gutsy and avant-garde.

  The couple gets off a stop before I do. I think of Parker again and almost check my phone for a message, but remember I can’t get them down in the subway. I’m worried, but I have to believe him when he says he’ll be fine. At least for now.

  But maybe I can find a place for him here. I can’t help but hope that this awful loss will make him see he can’t fight forever. He would have no idea what to look for, where to search for work here. But I do. I know exactly where to start.

  As I ride into Grand Central Station, a homeless man wanders the car, his hands cupped together, hoping for change. Gray hair streams from a stretchy black knit cap. His green army-surplus coat is streaked with grime.

  I dig through my purse, looking to see what I have. Most of the people in the car ignore the man, examining the ads in placards over the windows or staring at their phones.

  But a few shoot me disapproving looks as I drop money into the man’s hands.

  I don’t care. They don’t know anything about me. And even though I’m clear on the other side of the country, in Man
hattan instead of LA, and even though I know this man has no relationship to me at all, still I give him money.

  Because somewhere out there, begging on some other corner in the world, is somebody I once knew very very well.

  My father.

  Chapter 5: Parker

  My vision doesn’t go back to normal.

  Brazen finally calls me from LA to ask what the hell is going on. I was supposed to have been back days ago.

  Thing is, I never told him I got that last-minute match in New York. Or that Panther stepped in as trainer and coach.

  I’m in a world of hurt in every direction.

  I hold the phone two inches from my ear. Brazen’s really riled. I set the phone on the bed a minute and wait until the squawking stops.

  I pick it back up. “I had an accident down here,” I say. “It’s screwed up my eyes. I’m seeing a specialist.” I glance over at the indistinct lines of the bedside table where the eye doctor’s card has sat since the hospital visit.

  Brazen is quiet a moment. “How bad is it?”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “Two days.”

  He sighs. “Lemme know how it goes. I’ll stick Max Out in your slot next weekend if you’re not back.”

  Damn. Right. I have a match in LA in seven days.

  “All right. Thanks.”

  I’m sick of these four walls. Maddie has to work. Lily is at preschool. Thankfully it’s Friday and Maddie has already told me I can spend Saturday and Sunday over at her house. Her aunt Delores is going to love that.

  I slide down the bed and finger the card. I should at least call the eye doctor. Better than sitting around here.

  But no matter how I squint, I can’t make out the number. I fling the card across the room. I’m getting used to the limited sight enough that I can pace around. I snatch my jacket and decide to go for a walk. Not far. Just to get some air.

  The coolness calms me down. I think of Max Out taking my match and losing another purse. I’ll be okay a while since I sold the Porsche, but hell, I’ll have to do some sort of work.

  The bright light sparkles in the haze of my vision. I’m doing all right, I realize. I can see the red stop sign at the corner, and if I had to walk into a shop, the doors are pretty clear. Distance is a lot better than close-up.

  I realize my balance isn’t perfect when I step off the curb and have to catch myself. And the headaches come back if I don’t take anything for them. I spot a bench in front of a grocer’s and sit on it. How bad are things, really? Maybe I’m just fooling myself. Maybe this time I’ve screwed something up for good.

  A man comes out of the store, about to stroll by, then stops. “You were fighting down at Panther’s the other day, weren’t you?” he asks.

  I don’t recognize him, but I’m not sure I would even if I could see. His face isn’t clear, but the riot of orange-red hair sets him apart. “Yeah, sure,” I say. “You were there?”

  “I teach the kids.” He shifts the bag and extends an arm. “I’m Drew, but the kids call me Pinball.”

  I approximate where his hand ought to be, glad for his bright blue jacket. I reach and manage to clasp it dead on. “I’m Parker, or Power Play.”

  He stands over me a second. “You going to be fighting here?”

  “Did a match a couple days ago,” I say, although I’m not sure if I should mention it.

  “You kill ’em?” he asks.

  “Gave as good as I got.”

  He sets the bag on the bench and sits down. “Can I ask you something?”

  I scoot over to make more room. “Sure.”

  “I don’t have my kid at Panther’s. Crazy, I know, since I work there. But there’s a gym over in Bayside that has real fighters training. Panther’s great, but he’s a wrestler, you know?”

  I shrug. I’m not sure what he’s getting at.

  “Well, the groups are getting sort of big over there,” Pinball says. “And I was wondering if you were thinking of taking on training work, or if fighting took all your time. I don’t know. I just do weekend unofficial stuff. Not like you. I looked up some of your fights. You’re the real deal.”

  Sounds like he wants me to take a job. “What are we talking about? Kids?”

  “No, no, not the young kids. The ones getting serious. Ones winning the basement brawls who want to try and get real fights.”

  “Why aren’t you doing it?” I ask.

  “They want real guys, real fighters. I’m just a bantam-weight wannabe.” He laughs. “They won’t hire me. But my boy? He’s got potential. He outweighed me at sixteen.”

  “And you want the best for him,” I say.

  “That’s right,” Pinball says. “You got a kid, right? That little girl? You know how it is.”

  I nod.

  “Say, what’s your number? I’ll have Steam call you.”

  “He the one who runs the gym?”

  “He manages it. The owner is some rich guy.”

  “All right.” I rattle off my number.

  Pinball picks up his bag. “This is great. Super great.”

  When he’s gone, I lean forward and brace my elbows on my knees. It’s a nice break, maybe finding some work out here, but I’m not kidding myself. I can’t do anything until I figure out what I’m doing, or where I’m going, or when my eyes will go back to normal.

  Monday. I’ll deal with everything on Monday.

  * * *

  Saturday isn’t half-bad. Delores lights out of the house like a bottle rocket when she realizes I’m hanging around. Me and Maddie and Lily, we all mess around doing a whole lot of nothing, probably like all the other families kicking back on a weekend.

  If Lily notices my trouble seeing things or getting around, she doesn’t say. We practice punching, her little pink gloves pummeling my chest. At one point when we’re sitting on the sofa pushing buttons on a pretend laptop, she touches the cut on my face and asks if I fell down.

  Maddie looks up from a toy she’s gluing back together. I know I have to handle this just right.

  “Remember when I was inside that wire cage with a helmet on?” I ask Lily. “When you and your friend came?”

  She nods.

  “Well, I did that again, without the helmet on.”

  “Did you forget?”

  “No, sometimes when we’re punching, we don’t wear them.”

  She touches my forehead. Her black hair is in pigtails, the ends rolling up in a curl. I’m glad I can see at least that much.

  “You should always wear a helmet,” she says soberly.

  I grab her hand and kiss her fingers. “I will do my best to remember.”

  Maddie resumes her gluing. Hopefully my answer has gotten her approval.

  When Lily runs off to her room for more toys, Maddie asks, “How’s your vision?”

  “I think it might be a little better.” I pick up a picture book Lily brought earlier. “I can read this.” Of course, the type on the cover could go on a billboard. But it’s something.

  Maddie holds the toy bumper of a broken car in place as she waits for the glue to dry. “I asked around at work yesterday, and there’s a couple openings in my building.”

  My fingers tighten on the book. “Oh?”

  “One’s a security type of position. Thought it might interest you. We could commute together, if the hours are right.”

  I try to picture myself in a rent-a-cop uniform and flat-topped hat. All I can manage is “Okay.”

  “Did you call that doctor?”

  “Couldn’t read the card. I should have had you do it.”

  “I’ll call on Monday.” She hesitates. “You want me to fill out the application for you for that job?”

  My stomach turns a little. But I say, “Sure.”

  She sets the car on the table and a piece immediately falls back off, clattering on the wood surface.

  I’m glad for the distraction. “You need a different kind of glue,�
� I tell her. “Nonporous.”

  Lily runs back in, holding a pile of dolls. “We can change their outfits!” she says, dumping the whole collection in my lap. “You do the baby!”

  Maddie coughs to cover her laugh. “See, I can tank your big bad fighting career in a single shot.” She slips her phone out of her pocket and snaps a picture. “I gave you a pass on the clown outfit, but this one is going viral.”

  Funny thing is, this time I don’t care.

  Chapter 6: Maddie

  Every once in a while, I glance over at Parker and Lily and have to say to myself — he’s really here.

  In the first weeks after I left LA four years ago, I would see Parker everywhere. A delivery man would arrive with a box, and it would take several seconds of blinking to see the real person and not Parker’s face.

  I pictured him on park benches, in booths at restaurants, walking toward me on the sidewalk. My life became one long hallucination, each new image another disappointment to shake off.

  He didn’t come for me. I don’t know why I expected him to. I was the one who left.

  Plus, we were both desperately poor. He was barely getting by on fight money. I was living with my mother, trying to go to community college.

  We were so careless. It had been my job to keep going down to the clinic to pick up free condoms or pills. Parker was just too busy, too unreliable. But I wasn’t consistent either. I knew it was stupid. I was stupid.

  But when the inevitable happened, I felt changed. Even though girls around me got pregnant all the time, and their boyfriends either stepped up or ditched them, I didn’t connect what was happening to me with what they had gone through. I had this strange sense that I was different. That this was just part of my happily ever after.

  The news was barely a blip on Parker’s radar at the time. He was amused by my popping belly. It certainly didn’t slow him down in the sex department. I was the same girl, just a little broader in the middle, maybe a little more weepy.

  He only came to one prenatal visit at the clinic. I had hoped seeing the baby on the sonogram and finding out the sex would get him to tap into reality. I was beginning to wonder if the baby would be born and still nothing would change. I’d live with my mother, and him with those three fighters, till death do us part.