Battlescars

by Ann Collins

  “Yeah, right, not like that.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Ha! You’re blushing and you know what that means.”

  Kayla stopped walking and put her hands to her face. The heat warmed her hands as she looked at her friend. “Okay, maybe it is like that.”

  “Oh la-la!”

  Kayla punched Jasmine playfully on the arm. “He’s got a great friend, a guy named Chester. So if you’re into older guys…”

  Jasmine seemed to give it some thought. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You had better get settled in soon and have a housewarming party.”

  “A perfect excuse for matchmaking.”

  “Exactly!”

  The girls giggled and then Kayla became serious. “Jasmine, seriously…thank you for all the times you’ve listened to me. It made a difference.”

  Jasmine nodded and put her hand on Kayla’s shoulder. “I’m still there if you need me. You know that, right?”

  Kayla smiled. Indeed, she did.

  The young women parted ways at the door. Kayla headed off toward her apartment at a healthy jog, determined to get there before the bulk of the work was done. When she finally came around the corner, out of breath from the long run, she was delighted to see Dyson and Chester hauling out a desk. The back of a moving truck was already full of odds and ends, boxes and a few lamps. The bigger furniture that Kayla had salvaged from flea markets and thrift stores was now coming out, with the help of the two men and several of their big, burly friends from the gym.

  The moment Dyson saw her, he gave her a big grin and promptly lost his grip. He barely caught the end of the desk before it hit the sidewalk. His friends immediately launched into ribbing him for being distracted, and Dyson just smiled, taking it all in stride. Kayla knew how he felt: nothing in the world could possibly upset her today.

  “Hey, you,” he said to her as he passed by.

  “Hey, yourself,” she grinned, admiring the strength of his arms.

  Over the last few weeks Kayla had become obsessed with looking at Dyson. He had gone from being handsome to the most interesting man on the planet, and now whenever he was around, she was looking. She had studied the scars on his hands, paid attention to the freckles on his shoulders and spent more than a little time exploring the shape of his mouth, with which she was becoming intimately familiar.

  Dyson put the desk down on the curb and turned to give her a quick kiss with that familiar mouth, then went back to the moving. At the same time, two big guys were carrying the mattress downstairs. When they got it to the curb, Dyson turned to look at it, then looked at Kayla.

  “We won’t need this, will we?”

  The clear implication sent a shiver of anticipation through Kayla. The men who were carrying the mattress gave her exaggerated, lecherous grins that were somehow sweet and funny, and she blushed furiously as Chester let out a laugh that was more hoot and holler.

  “Woohoo, listen to that! Somebody has plans!” Chester chortled, grabbing one end of the mattress. “Guess you kids get to sell this sucker on Craigslist!”

  Kayla was blushing so hard that she could feel the heat rising up her face, flooding her chest and lighting up her ears. The thoughts running through her head about what she and Dyson could do on a mattress – his or hers – made her blush even harder. She just knew that everyone out there on that sidewalk could tell what she was thinking, and she decided that she didn’t care a bit.

  What the hell was happening to her? She wasn’t the type of girl who ever made things known in such a public way. She was more of the subtle kind, the one who let the man make the first move, the type who believed that discretion was always best. But here she was, taking the teasing from the man who would soon be her lover, and she was actually reveling in it?

  Love is what is happening to you, she told herself. You’re in love with the man.

  She sat on the steps and watched as the men brought out a few more things, then she went upstairs and gave the rooms a final once-over, making sure it looked good enough to get her security deposit back. Fortunately Kayla had never been one to acquire many useless things, so all she had was packed into boxes and there were no little surprises on the floor or tucked away in corners. The sweep of the place took all of three minutes, and then she was back outside on the curb, smiling up at Dyson in the bright sunshine.

  “Are we ready?” he asked, and she gave him one more kiss.

  “Absolutely.”

  She climbed into the moving truck, and then they were off, Dyson’s strong hands on the wheel. His buddies followed behind them in Dyson’s car, its back seat full of Kayla’s fragile possessions. Kayla watched the world outside the window for a bit, then looked over at Dyson.

  He grinned, sensing her eyes on him. “Penny for your thoughts?”

  “I was just thinking how amazing this is. A year ago I would never have dreamed this would happen. Hell, just six months ago the thought that I would be moving in with some guy would have made me laugh.”

  Dyson snorted. “Some guy, huh?”

  Kayla reached over and patted his leg. “Some special guy.”

  “Much better.”

  She looked out the window as the city crept by. Dyson was taking his time, careful with the truck and with the things in the back. Every now and then they heard something shift, and wondered aloud what it might be. They placed bets on what might survive the trip and what might not.

  “You are underestimating my driving skills,” he pouted.

  “You’re overestimating how sturdy that furniture is,” she told him.

  They pulled up to a stoplight. Dyson pointed down the street toward a large and stately church. It occupied nearly a whole city block with its imposing size and presence.

  “My parents were married there,” he said, and Kayla smiled.

  “Your mother is the sweetest woman ever,” she said.

  Dyson had taken her to meet his mother a few days after the big fight. It meant a great deal to him, he had told her. He had never introduced any woman to his mother before, and they had both been nervous when they walked into the room. Dyson’s mother was immediately drawn to Kayla and spent the next hour talking to her about Dyson’s childhood, sometimes in colorful terms that made Kayla roar with laughter, even as Dyson blushed and shook his head in amazement.

  The two women got on so famously that Dyson’s mother had taken to asking about her every time Anne and Dyson talked. Though she sometimes didn’t remember exactly who Kayla was, she knew she was that “fun girl” who made her laugh, and that she was special to Dyson. It was more than either of them had expected her to remember from one visit to the next, and so they were both quite pleased.

  Kayla had developed a soft spot for his mother – so much that she’d offered to go visit Anne on her own since the visits were so good for the elderly woman. She always seemed more alert after each visit, and the nurses thought that increasing their frequency would be good for her.

  “Are you sure?” Dyson had asked.

  Kayla was absolutely sure. Since her mother had died she had given up on the idea of having a family, but now that she had met Dyson’s mother, she realized that he was a package deal – he was a man who came along with a sweet, kind mother who would love him, and she would love anyone that he chose to be with, too. That kind of devotion deserved something in return, and so Kayla was more than happy to help care for the woman who’d given birth to the man who was so important in Kayla’s life.

  Kayla didn’t just visit for Dyson. She genuinely enjoyed her talks with his mother. Though she wasn’t the mother Kayla had lost, she was close enough to one that the elderly lady had become very special to her. She hadn’t told Dyson this yet, and she didn’t know why. She just knew that it was a pleasant little secret, a tiny joy that she fostered deep in her heart. The thought of his mother always made her smile.

  She was still staring at the church when the light turned green. Dyson gently pressed the gas
pedal and they lumbered on. Kayla watched him as he focused on the road, carefully navigating streets as they headed to house, their new beginning, their new life.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” she said, and he smiled without taking his eyes off the heavy traffic.

  “I can’t believe you actually want to be with me,” he said.

  Her jaw dropped in disbelief. “How could I not want to be with you?”

  Dyson shrugged. “Let’s see…I got bounced out of the military under a cloud of problems. I’m a fighter who likes to punch people for a living and for fun, quite frankly. I’m a guy who sometimes drinks too much and has had too many women in my past. I don’t really have a good sense of humor.” He paused. “And sometimes I eat things that nobody else will touch.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Like what?”

  “Crawdads.” He grinned wickedly. “And have you ever tried fried crickets?”

  Kayla stared at him. “Uh…no.”

  “They’re good! I had them in Cambodia and got hooked. It became my favorite snack. Grasshoppers are good too, but they have a more earthy flavor.”

  Kayla stared at him. Who the hell was this guy and what had he done with Dyson?

  “You’re making all that up,” she finally said, and he laughed.

  “No, I’m honest. I’ll make some for you.”

  “How did I not know this about you before I agreed to share a kitchen with you?”

  He made a careful turn. “You just love me that much.”

  Kayla smiled. She and Dyson were so different in some ways that they might have been called complete opposites. But in other ways, in the ways that counted, they were very much alike. They wanted the same things out of life. They had the same kind of demons to fight. And they were both determined to be honest and open with one another.

  But there were a few places where they definitely did not have much in common. She raised an eyebrow at him. “Too many women, huh?”

  He had the good sense to look contrite. “It was before I met you. After I laid eyes on you, I was done with any other woman.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Not even a little bit of desire? Not even a little temptation?”

  “Nope.” He shook his head with such certainty that she believed him. “Why would I want someone else? That would be settling for much less than the best.” He reached over and took her hand and pulled it to his lips, kissing it once before putting his hands back on the wheel.

  Dyson had been honest about his past, and Kayla would be lying if she said it didn’t bother her. But it bothered her only because she worried that she wouldn’t be experienced enough to satisfy him. Her total of intimate moments could be counted on one hand, and none of them had been particularly satisfying.

  She shook away the thoughts, determined that what she didn’t already know, Dyson could teach her. They could create some great chemistry between the sheets if only she were open and willing to learn – and she definitely was.

  But there were other things she needed to talk to him about before they got to his house.

  “I’ve made a decision,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  Kayla took a deep breath. “I decided not to contact my father.”

  Dyson didn’t say anything for a long moment. His hands had tightened a bit on the wheel. “Okay. Why did you come to that decision?”

  Kayla didn’t quite know how to put it all into words. A part of her wanted to find her father so badly that she could almost hear his voice in her ear already. That part of her wanted to ask questions, to perhaps tell him off, to make it clear what he had done to her. She wanted to make him pay in ways that the law never could, by appealing to his sense of remorse and guilt – assuming he had the ability to feel either emotion, of course. That part of her wanted to cry and throw things and beg him to tell her why he did the things he did, even though she knew, deep down, that he didn’t have those answers for her. He didn’t even have those answers for himself.

  But another part of her just wanted to let him go completely. That part of her was the more reasonable one that said he wasn’t worth the time she spent thinking about him, and that he had had more than his fair share of time he didn’t deserve already. That part of her wanted to walk away and never look back, write him off as something from her past that was best forgotten.

  She was realistic enough to know that she couldn’t do that, however. He was a part of her, whether she liked it or not. His blood ran through her veins, and her childhood had been influenced by everything he did. Her greatest loss in life had come from him, and she had almost lost Dyson to her confusion concerning everything that she had struggled with for so many years. Her father had made her who she was, and she had to accept that fact.

  But she was the one who could now choose the direction of her life. She was the one who could choose to let his influence harm her or help her. As she looked at Dyson, she realized that she was already well on her way to overcoming the negative and filling her future with only the positive.

  “I decided to focus on better things,” she said simply.

  At that moment, Dyson stopped the truck. They looked at Dyson’s house from the street – the house his parents had bought together, the house that Dyson had grown up in – and they looked at each other. They were taking a step toward starting a life together, and Kayla realized that this moment would be one she remembered forever.

  “I love you,” he said, and she felt the flutter of happiness in her chest.

  “I love you too,” she said, and they stepped out of the truck to start their new adventure.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dyson watched Kayla as she put groceries away in the kitchen, and he looked at his house as if he’d never really seen it before. She had changed the house for him, made it brighter and more cheerful. It even seemed like more light came through the windows since she’d agreed to move in. The hardwood floors were cool under their feet as helped her with the groceries.

  Dyson had offered Kayla the spare bedroom when she’d moved in, but he’d hoped that she’d turn him down. When he saw her hanging her clothes in the space he’d cleared in his bedroom closet, the sight of her dresses and skirts hanging next to his clothes brought him unexpected joy. Now, after a month of living together, their toothbrushes shared a tumbler in the bathroom, and his things were nestled next to hers in the quaint medicine cabinet. In the living room, they got comfortable on his old leather couch while they put their feet up on her antique coffee table, a flea-market find. Dyson couldn’t remember ever being happier.

  He had been very pleased to find that Kayla was just as serious about order as he was. The sheets were folded neatly in the closets, everything in the kitchen had its place, and the bathroom was tidy, even though she’d moved all of her toiletries in. Dyson liked order, and he had been worried that they might not be compatible in terms of housekeeping. Kayla had told him that her mother always kept a very nice home, even when it was tough to do so with all the beer bottles and broken furniture that her father left in his wake.

  Dyson had kissed her and promised she would never have to worry about such things.

  He had been very worried that her concerns about her father would come back to haunt them, but so far, so good. Though she still had her moments of darkness, when she would think about the terrible things that had happened and her mood would head south faster than a spring thunderstorm rolling in, she was always able to overcome it with a little cajoling and cuddling from Dyson. He knew that he would never completely understand the things that had happened to her, and he knew that she might never tell him all the details, but they were at least on the right track to putting it behind them.

  She had become much more accepting of his work, too. Now it was just that – work. It was no longer a hobby. That had ended the night he won the big fight in front of 10,000 people and camera crews from all over the w
orld. Somehow the fact that it was a job for him now seemed to make Kayla more accepting of what he was doing. Though she still didn’t like seeing him get hurt during the fights, she really loved the moments when he won, and she especially loved the clear victories, when he handily whipped someone’s ass while she screamed her encouragement from the sidelines.

  And always, no matter what, she was the one in the locker room at the end of it all, speaking to him in her quiet way while she tended to his wounds.

  Those moments between them were very important. Dyson knew that each time she came to him after a fight, she might be reliving some of what she went through with her father. Each time she tended his wounds, she thought about other wounds she had tended, her own and her mother’s. But he knew that it was getting easier for her, and that every time she touched his bruises and cuts and marks, she was coming to believe even more firmly that those days of pain were over for her. Dyson would never lay a hand on her. He knew it, and he was confident that now, she knew it too.

  That was the cherry on top of the big, delicious sundae that his fighting had become since that fateful night.

  He had an undefeated record so far. It hadn’t been that long since the big fight that had put him on the national stage, and he knew his record wouldn’t last forever. Right now he was a fresh and new fighter, going up against people who had never fought him before or even studied what he did in the ring. But over time that would change, and he knew the day was coming when he would be the one to go down at the end. In the meantime, though, he was going to ride the wave as far as it would carry him.

  Dyson couldn’t believe how much his life had changed in such a short period of time. He was now a big name in the MMA world, and that meant sponsorships. He had always wondered how they worked, and now he knew more than he ever dreamed he would. He also knew how it felt, because every time he left the house he was wearing something that was emblazoned with a sponsor’s name. Every picture taken of him showed off the sponsors. Dyson still had to pinch himself when he checked his bank balance. There were more digits than he’d ever hoped to see in his account, courtesy of those sponsors who wanted their name all over him. For that kind of money, Dyson was more than happy to oblige.