by Tess Oliver
“This sonavabitch was in bed with my girlfriend.” Bigfoot’s thick fingers curled into a fist.
I stepped closer, but Barrett put up his hand to stop me. “He’s right. I was in bed with her.” He looked unsure for a second. “She was the red head, right?”
Bigfoot’s face scrunched up, and his knuckles whitened as he tightened his fist.
“Damn it, Rett,” Clutch muttered.
Barrett stepped out into the yard. “Look, I’m sorry. She didn’t tell me she had a boyfriend.” He stretched his arms out. “Take your best shot and then be on your way. Just don’t hit the face.” Barrett looked over at his brother. “I deserve it. Besides, how bad could it—”
Bigfoot didn’t hesitate over the offer. His giant, rock fist flew into Barrett’s gut. Barrett groaned and doubled over before dropping to his knees. Clutch and I stepped toward the guy, but Barrett waved his hand weakly for us to stay back.
“You took your shot,” Nix said tersely. “Now get out of here.”
The guy paused but then glanced around at the three of us and seemingly decided he should leave. He stomped off.
Scotlyn and Taylor shot into the yard and ran to Barrett. They each took an arm and helped him to his feet. “Rett, you poor baby,” Scotlyn said. “Let’s get you inside.”
Nix smiled at Clutch. “Your brother has an ulterior motive for everything. He took one to the gut, and, now, those two are going to fawn over him all morning. Never mind that he totally deserved it.”
“That poor baby has been sleeping around with other guys’ girlfriends,” Clutch said to them as they helped Barrett into the house, ignoring the comment.
I put my hand on Clutch’s shoulder. “I’m telling you, that boy is a fucking legend.”
“Yeah, that legend is going to fuck himself right into an early grave.” Clutch looked down at me. “Seriously, Dray, he won’t listen to me because apparently I sound just like Dad when I’m lecturing him. For some completely baffling, bizarre reason, he looks up to you.”
“And fuck you too, Clutch.” I turned to go inside.
“All right, all right, wait, Dray.”
I stopped and looked back at him. “What do you want from me?”
Clutch glanced through the glass door at his brother. “Rett listens to you. Just tell him not to push his luck so much.”
Nix gave me the same look as Clutch. “Fine, I’ll tell him to dial it down. But just remember, I’m not his goddamned nanny. Barrett does what he wants.”
Chapter 2
Dray
The California sun in late August was nearly hot enough to turn the sand on the beach into glass, but I pushed myself back toward the beach house at full pace. It had only been a five mile run, but it felt as if I’d been dragging a wagon load of bricks through hot tar. I’d only been on vacation for five days, but the effects of too much drink and food and too little exercise had taken their toll. I was due to fight in two weeks, and I’d decided I’d better go running or face the humiliation of climbing into the octagon with a beer belly.
Barrett had considered going with me for all of two seconds and then he’d plopped himself into a beach chair for some bikini watching. Taylor and Scotlyn had pampered him for most of the morning until Clutch had enthusiastically informed them that he had been with three girls at once. Barrett’s usual sparkle had temporarily worn off, and they’d let him fix his own sandwich for lunch. But for Barrett, it would only take one of his Hollywood smiles and they’d be back to coddling him.
It was hard not to be pissed about how easily he and Nix could win over a girl’s heart. Even though Nix had had to fight for Scotlyn, there had never been any doubt that she would be with him. Just as I’d been certain that Cassie and I would be together. I’d played the aloof asshole for the longest time, but Cassie was always there, waiting for me to come to my senses. And once I finally had, she came to her senses and left me. I had never been good enough for her, and once she’d finally realized it, she was gone.
I reached the lifeguard tower in front from the beach house. Clutch was standing in the water holding Taylor in his arms. She laughed wildly as he pretended to drop her into the waves. Her long legs kicked at the air as she struggled to stay out of the water. I waded into the water and dove under. After the long, hot run, it was shockingly cold. I surfaced near Clutch.
Taylor’s arms were wrapped around Clutch’s neck. She smiled over at me. “Hey, Chubby, did you run off that extra six pack you were working on?”
I patted my stomach. “Yep. It nearly killed me, but I’m back to abs of steel. Now I’m starved. Is there any of that fried chicken left in the fridge?”
“I think there’s some in the ice chest.” Clutch glanced back toward the shore. “Unless Barrett has finished it all.”
I trudged through the hot sand toward our chairs. The long, barefoot run had left the soles of my feet feeling as if I’d run a sander over them. Nix was sitting in a chair with the sketch pad he used to brainstorm tattoo designs. Scotlyn’s chair was empty. Barrett was stretched out on his stomach still sleeping off the night.
I plopped down in the chair next to the ice chest and pushed open the lid.
“How was the run?” Nix asked.
“Long, boring and hot. I need to get to the gym for a real workout. I’m fighting in two weeks. Tank has collected a nice purse of money for the winner, and I plan to have it.” I fished around in the ice chest, but aside from grapes and a bag of tiny carrots, there was no real food inside. “Why is there only rabbit food in this ice chest?”
Nix looked over his sunglasses at me. “Uh, I wonder. The ice chest was strategically placed between Clutch’s chair and Barrett’s towel. There was plenty of food in it when we dragged it down here.”
“Crap.” I slumped back against the chair and shielded my eyes with my forearm. “Where’s Scottie?”
“She went back to the house.” Nix’s chair creaked as he leaned forward and looked back at it. “She was acting sort of secretive. Not completely sure what she’s up to.”
I sat forward. “Maybe she’s planning a delicious lunch for me.”
Nix shook his head and went back to his sketch pad. “You really are a dreamer. By the way, I think I found a cool tattoo to cover Cassie’s name.” He flipped back through a few pages and held up the pad. “I figured that since the other fighters sometimes call you Wolverine, I could draw one. I mean the animal, not the X-man.”
“Cool.”
Nix lowered the sketch pad. “That didn’t sound very enthusiastic. I’ll think of something else.”
“No, the wolverine is fine.” Against Cassie’s wishes, I had made the stupid choice of having her name tattooed on my back. She thought it would bring bad luck. I’d ignored her warning. I had been under the crazy notion that Cassie and I would be together forever. Covering the tattoo would seal the fact that I’d been completely delusional.
“Think about it. There’s no hurry,” Nix said, finally understanding my lack of enthusiasm.
My stomach ached with hunger. “I’m going to head up to the house and find some lunch. Do you want something?”
“Nope, I’m good.”
The sand burned my feet. I picked up my pace and was relieved to reach the small shaded yard. Scotlyn slid open the back door, and her eyes widened as if I’d been on some far away adventure and she hadn’t seen me for months. “Dray, you’re here.” Years of silence had left her with the talent of showing every emotion on her beautiful face, and there was a whole rainbow of reactions going on right now.
“Yeah, I’ve been here all week, Scottie. You’re looking at me like I just landed here from another planet. What’s up?” My eyes had hardly adjusted from the bright sunlight reflecting off the white sand, but as I stared past Scotlyn into the house I saw a familiar silhouette standing behind her. My muscles tensed and I swallowed hard. Scotlyn slid past me without another word. I stepped inside.
Cassie was always tiny and petite but never vulnerable.
She’d replaced her glasses with contacts, and her hair was no longer dyed black. The light brown color suited her better. I had memorized every angle and curve of her face and seeing her now it was as if she’d never left. “How have you been, Dray?”
“What are you doing here, Cass?”
She sighed loudly. “Happy to see you too, Dray.”
“I’ve been here all along. You could have seen me at anytime.”
A sad laugh escaped her lips. “Ironic. For a year, I stood behind the counter at Freefall waiting for you to notice me. I was always there, and you always looked past me. But I’ve never looked past you, Dray.” Her voice broke. I hated it when she cried. She knew she always had me in a corner with tears. My throat tightened as if someone had punched me in the neck.
“You left me.” It was the same stupid, fucking sentence I’d been repeating in my head over and over again as if it had been tattooed on my brain. “Nothing had ever been stable in my life until you, Cassie. When you left, it felt like someone had pushed me off of a cliff.”
She stepped closer but not near enough for me to touch her. The familiar scent of her perfume filled the air, and I closed my eyes for a second trying to remember what if felt like to hold her. She’d always felt frail and perfect in my arms.
“You called it off before I left. I took the internship to better myself. It was for us, but you were so fucking pigheaded,” she broke into a sob. She wiped clumsily at a tear and shook her head. “I told myself I wasn’t going to cry. How do you always manage to make me cry?”
“I don’t mean to, Cass. I’ve never wanted to hurt you.” I stared at her and my own agony seemed mirrored in her expression. “I learned from a young age to put up my defenses early. I knew once you left, you’d be gone for good. Breaking it off was my way of dealing with it.”
“I had no intention of leaving you for good.” A sad laugh spurted from her lips. “I worked hard to get your attention, Dray, because I was fucking nuts about you.” She sucked in a long breath. “But now I know it just wasn’t meant to be. I’ve been offered a job at a prestigious magazine . . . in New York.”
This time I took an invisible punch to the gut. “So, why did you come here?” The pain of her leaving still felt like a fresh wound, and, now, she’d stung me again. I couldn’t keep the ice out of my tone.
“Because for some stupid ass reason I thought telling you in a text would be harsh. But, apparently, I’ve wasted my time. I’m done here.” She attempted to storm past me. I reached out and took hold of her arm, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at her face.
Like a heartbroken coward I stared down at the ground. “Is there someone else?” I needed to know. I found the courage to lift my eyes to her.
She bit her bottom lip, which was more response than I needed. I unwrapped my fingers from her arm, but she didn’t move.
“I have never cared about anyone like I have for you, Dray, but while I was away, I realized that everything about our relationship was lopsided.” She turned and headed for the sliding door.
“Three times,” I said quietly.
She stopped and looked back at me. “What?”
“Three times, that’s how many times you tap a pen on your chin when you’re thinking hard. Not two, never four, three times exactly— every time.” Her bottom lip trembled. I wanted to kiss her, but I’d lost that privilege months ago. “You’re wrong if you think I’ve ever looked past you, Cassie. I saw you every time.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I wish you the best, Dray.”
“You too, Cassie.”
She slid open the door and flew out onto the sand. Scotlyn ran toward her and they hugged.
I walked like a zombie into the bathroom and turned on the shower. It was another one of the coping skills I’d perfected growing up. When things hurt too much, physically or mentally, just turn the feelings off. The skill had always given me an edge in the fighting ring. I could ignore agony and push pain out of the way. When things had gotten too ugly at home, I would search for that state of nonexistence, and the nightmare of it all would seem more like a hallucination than reality. And when the pain had been too much to turn off completely, I would run to Nix’s house to escape. His grandmother’s home had been my refuge, but I had no refuge to run to this time. This pain was harder to suppress than the pain I’d endured at home. Cassie was leaving me forever.
There was a knock on the door. “Dray, everything all right?”
I opened the door.
Nix was breathing hard as if he’d run to the house, which knowing him, he had. “Cassie just told us she’s moving to New York.”
I shrugged but there was nothing nonchalant about the way I was feeling. “Didn’t expect things to turn out any differently than they have. I never deserved her.”
“Not true, Dray. Are you going to be O.K.?”
“No, but then when am I ever O.K.? My life has always been shit. How is this any different?”
“Come on, Dray, don’t—”
“Don’t fucking what, Nix? Tell me one time when my life wasn’t screwed up.”
He had no response.
“See? Told you so. I’m going to take off. I called in and listened to the needs tape earlier, and a big shipment is coming in late tonight. Could mean a few days of work. I need to be at the dispatch hall by five tomorrow morning or I won’t get a spot on the day shift. I’m going to head back to the Lucy and crash. I’ll see you when you get back to town.”
Chapter 3
Cassie
Scotlyn and I walked rather aimlessly down the beach path. Bikers and skaters raced past us as if all of them were chasing the tail end of summer before it slipped away for good. It was mid afternoon and some of the families had begun the arduous task of dragging their chairs, ice chests and umbrellas back to their cars. A little boy whined and groaned as he followed his parents, dragging his boogie board and beach towel behind him. Twice he tripped on his towel, which made him even more pissed off.
“I remember my mom used to take my sister and me to the beach, and we would be so tired, we would fall asleep in the backseat before she even turned on the engine,” Scotlyn said. Her face melted into that extra pretty, extra serene state it always did when she thought back to a pleasant family memory. Her memories were all she had to hold on to and from what she’d told me, it had been a great childhood. She smiled over at me. “What about you, Cassie? Did you go the beach a lot, or did I remember Nix saying you grew up in the Midwest?”
“Yep. My dad moved us around a lot but never to California. I never even saw a beach until I went on a road trip with some friends to San Francisco. I ended up getting a job at a book shop in Frisco, and I’ve been in California ever since. I guess that’s why picking up and moving to New York sounds so daunting. It’s an awesome opportunity, but I’m leaving behind everyone and everything.” The short conversation with Dray replayed in my head, and my throat burned with sadness and disappointment. “I’d convinced myself that I was coming here to tell Dray face to face because it was the right thing to do, but deep down, I think I was hoping that he would break open that stupid, stubborn hard shell of his and beg me to stay.”
Scotlyn wrapped her arm through mine. “We’ve all got stubborn guys, but I’m pretty sure Dray would win the title. It’s a good job opportunity. Maybe he just doesn’t want to stand in your way. I know he’s heartbroken about it. He packed up and left the beach house like his hair was on fire.”
A young girl steered her bike very unsteadily toward us, and we stepped onto the sand to let her pass. “That’s how I ride a bike,” I laughed. “I think he left because I showed up.”
“I think it’s hard for him to see you and know you’re not together.”
“I’m terrible, Scotlyn. When he asked if there was someone else, I didn’t answer. I wanted him to think there was. I know he’s been sleeping around and seeing girls, and I wanted him to be jealous.”
Scotlyn was quiet.
I looke
d over at her. “Is there someone serious in his life?” I hadn’t had the courage to ask him directly. I couldn’t bear to hear it from him.
Scotlyn shook her head. “No one serious, that I know of. He’s been hanging out with Barrett a lot, which probably gives you an idea of the sordid little turn his life has taken.” She twisted her mouth in thought. “I’m trying to think of a good word to describe their behavior but only slutty and trampy come to mind. It’s really not fair, is it? There are only words to describe oversexed women. What about men who sleep around?”
“Manwhore?” I suggested, and we both laughed.
I groaned in disappointment. “I figured Dray would end up hanging out more with Rett, now that Clutch and Taylor are together. Barrett,” I sighed,” the world’s sexiest, heartbreaking asshole.”
“That’s the problem,” Scotlyn said, “you can’t really even call him an asshole because he is truly the sweetest guy ever. I mean, I loathe everything about his lifestyle and yet he’s like that stray puppy you just want to take in and care for.”
“The entire female population will not be safe until some girl snags that boy’s heart.” It felt good to hang out with Scotlyn again. We had grown close while Dray and I were together. My photography internship with an international newspaper had taken me all around the world, but I’d I never really had time to bond with anyone. And my break up from Dray had left me with the urge to go back to my usual, semi-loner existence. But so much of Scotlyn’s world had been my world too at one time, and we would always have that common bond . . . even if I was more a part of the outer circle now. That revelation dampened my spirits.
Scotlyn, being a good friend and someone who seemed to know what people were thinking before they even said it, a skill she’d no doubt picked up when she’d lost her own voice from shock, sensed my sudden sadness. She leaned her head on my shoulder as we strolled along the path. “We’re all really proud of you, Cassie. I mean we all knew you had awesome talent, but it took courage to follow your dream. “