Playing with Fire_Shen

by Shen, L. J.

  “I didn’t take her out. I helped her out.”

  “Funny, I don’t remember you having a Superman complex.”

  “Once every full moon I feel charitable. Sue me, Braun.”

  “Bullshit, St. Claire. You’ve got your eyes set on this chick, and we both know why.”

  That really did it. I slammed my fist against the table.

  “Do you have a point? If so, please get to it in this century.”

  It was just a fucking meal. Texas spent more than half of it shooting daggers at me with her arctic blue eyes and silently praying a bomb would land directly on the diner.

  “I think you’re interested.” He wore his shit-eating grin. “Tell me she doesn’t bone you up.”

  “She doesn’t bone me up,” I said offhandedly. “Even if she did, I’d never touch her.”

  Texas was attractive, but so were eighty percent of the girls on campus. And they came without the drama, complications, and detonated self-esteem. Bonus points: they didn’t work with me. Hooking up with someone I had to see four times a week was a big fat no.

  Not to mention, she almost certainly sucked in bed.

  “That’s what worries me.” East scratched his smooth jaw. “Don’t get her hopes high then watch them crash and burn. If you start giving her special treatment, she’ll get ideas. You feeling me?”

  Texas was too screwed-up about her scars to consider getting laid. That much was obvious. He had nothing to worry about. She was the one woman I couldn’t get into my bed on campus, and despite my competitive nature, I was fine with that.

  That was the thing about being on the fence with the whole life situation. I stopped caring and pursuing things I otherwise would have wanted and cared for. Life no longer had a taste, and a pulse, and colors.

  Nothing charted anymore, and pleasure and pain were replaced with an overall numbness.

  “It’s all under control.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my arm. “She’s not my type.”

  “You don’t have a type. You hate everyone.” East balled his sandwich wrap and threw it in my face. I caught it midair. Killer instincts. I threw it back at him, getting his eye.

  “Exactly.”

  “St. Claire. Wait up,” a small voice squeaked behind me.

  Feminine footsteps thudded behind my back. I didn’t break my pace or turn around to see who it was, on my way to the campus gym. I’d never had my ass whooped in the ring, and I planned on keeping my unchallenged record intact.

  Despite the vote of no confidence from East and Reign, I worked hard and was fully capable of annihilating Appleton with an arm tied behind my back.

  “Geez, what’s with you?” the voice behind me puffed.

  Texas had never sought me out on campus before. She wasn’t the kind to try to hang out just because we worked together, and it was fresh to have a girl who wasn’t dazzled by my status, battle scars, or anger issues.

  She fell into step with me, her fists shoved into her hoodie’s pockets. Her winter attire looked out of place in the scenery of cropped shorts and short skirts. She wore the same ragged, gray ball cap, her long, blonde hair cascading all the way down to her lower back.

  “You’re ignorin’ me.” She squinted.

  I didn’t answer, still walking. It was important to distinguish we weren’t BFFs. Just because I’d done her a solid last night didn’t mean I cared. I was willing to lend a hand when she needed help, but we weren’t going to sing “Kumbaya” by the fire or get matching Taylor Swift bracelets. East was right. I had to make sure she knew I wasn’t interested, in the improbable case she had any ideas.

  “Would you stop walkin’?” She threw her arms in the air.

  “Eventually,” I said with a biting tone. “When I reach my destination.”

  “Where to? Hell, I’m hopin’.”

  “Why go to hell when I can enjoy the same fine weather at the food truck, with an added bonus of your whiny ass?” I wondered aloud.

  The air-con I’d brought didn’t make much difference, but I stopped working shirtless, because Texas couldn’t look at me when I had my shirt off, and I was tired of her talking to my boots whenever she addressed me.

  It wasn’t like me to banter, especially with chicks—especially with chicks I had no interest in watching taking my cock into their mouths—but for some reason, this girl brought the high school kid out of me. She was never above an immature, sarcastic remark, always down for a few verbal jabs, and I guessed both of us didn’t care about impressing each other.

  “Because you’d be a guest of honor there,” she hissed.

  See? Snarky with a capital S.

  Then, out of nowhere, a sharp little elbow jammed into my ribs, exactly where I had a welt from last Friday’s fight. I instinctively stopped, not because it hurt—even though goddammit, it actually did—but because I knew she knew exactly what she was doing, and that was a jerk move. Especially after I’d saved her ass yesterday.

  She punched me in the kidneys, where she also knew I had a bruise. Then she hurled herself in front of me, blocking my path.

  “What the fuck?” I inquired flatly, eyeing her like she was something I had to throw into the recycling can but was too lazy to pick up.

  She flattened her lips, glowering. She looked like a five-year-old trying to be tough. I half-wished she’d take off the ugly-ass ball cap and show her face.

  How bad could it be?

  Pretty bad if they called her Toastie.

  She examined my torso over my shirt, then went for my arm, punching it.

  “Cut it out.”

  She punched my other arm.

  Then my abs.

  The little shit was trying to fight me.

  In the middle of campus, with people strewn about on benches and the lawn, looking on. Everyone at the Student Union Building was glaring at us through the floor-to-ceiling window.

  She swatted my chest and stomach. Sarcastic and insane. The latter was a new, unwelcome development.

  I picked her up by the back of her hoodie, like a mouse from a tail, until her feet were above the ground. She was as light as a feather and just about as threatening. She kicked the air, trying—and failing—to punch my face. It was comical, seeing her going at me with everything she had and still not getting one shot in.

  A curious audience clustered around us like a pre-cum stain on a teenager’s underwear. I despised being watched. Could only tolerate it if people paid for the pleasure to see me in the ring. But she’d just made sure we were Friday afternoon’s main event.

  I took everything nice I’d thought about Texas back.

  She was a massive pain in the ass.

  “Let me down,” she rustled, her balled fists shaking in my face.

  “If I do, will you behave like a lady and not like a rabid animal?” I arched an eyebrow, speaking slowly and condescendingly to rile her up even more.

  “You patronizing ass!” she spluttered.

  “Wrong answer.”

  “You’re such a jerk!”

  “Bzzz. Wrong again.”

  “Screw you!”

  I was growing impatient and bored. “Is that an offer, Texas? There was no need to be that aggressive. All you needed to do was ask,” I drawled.

  Texas was like the city of Troy. Her walls were high, thick, guarded, and not worth the conquest. Slipping in wasn’t an option, and fighting my way through just to get laid went against my agenda toward women.

  “You will never have me, St. Claire.”

  “Hold, I’ll try to get over the heartbreak.” I raised a finger and let a beat of silence pass between us. “Done. Now, if I put your ass down, will you eloquently explain why you’re acting like a badger on meth?”

  She folded her arms over her chest but nodded. I let her down. Everybody was looking at us from a respectable distance. They knew better than to get close and openly eavesdrop. I refrained from pointing out we were the center of attention. If I hated an audience, Texas goddamn loathed it.
/>   Which was why it seemed downright nuts for her to major in theater and arts.

  Either way, I couldn’t run the chance of having her pass out. Something told me I wouldn’t resist the urge to step over her and walk briskly to the gym without looking back.

  “Listen.” She let out a breath. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful—”

  “But you’re about to …”

  She snarled my way. “I swear to God, St. Claire, if you tell someone about last night … about Grandma Savvy …”

  “Say no more,” I sliced into her words again. “I won’t.”

  She eyed me skeptically. “Promise?”

  “I don’t promise shit. Ever. That’s a principle,” I said firmly. “I have no plans to air your dirty laundry. But I’m not going to carve it out in my forehead to pacify your ass.”

  “That’s a nice visual.” She nibbled at the side of her lower lip. “You sure you’re not open to that?”

  I held back a grin. She was a weirdo. A curiously infuriating one at that. With an ass worthy of a poem by one of the twenty-first century’s finest poets, Lil’ Wayne.

  “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  There was silence. The charged kind. I glanced around, ready to be over with the conversation. “You’re still here. Why?”

  She took a deep breath, sloping her chin up. The sun was directly on her face, her silhouette burning like wildfire against the sunset, and I had the chance to see as much as I could of her scar. It wasn’t just that her skin was darker around the area—somewhere between purple and pink—but the complexion was different, too. Raw and bumpy. The flesh stretched thinly across her bones, struggling to keep it all together.

  She was right. That part of her wasn’t pretty.

  “I’m all ears.” I leaned a shoulder against the red-bricked building of the Bush Art and Library Building.

  “Stop helpin’ me. I don’t want your pity.”

  “You don’t have my pity,” I clipped.

  “There’s no other reason for you to go out of your way to be nice to me.”

  “Again, I’m not being nice to you. What makes you think I’d act any different if Tess or Hailey or Lara were in your situation last night?”

  I may have made up the last couple names. I didn’t know a Hailey or a Lara, though I was sure there were plenty of girls with those names attending Sher U.

  Remembering chicks I rolled between the sheets by name wasn’t my virtue. Face, maybe. Ass, probably.

  “You’re awful to everyone.” Her eyes burned intensely. “I want you to be awful to me, too. Otherwise, I don’t feel like your equal.”

  It felt like she pinched the back of my throat. Not that I wasn’t awful to people—I know I was—but her constant crave to be normal threw me off guard.

  In that moment, I wished I could smack some sense into her. Unfortunately, it was a firm red line I would never let myself cross. Because Grace Shaw sure deserved a few good spankings.

  I leaned into her face, plastering my best see-if-I-give-a-shit smirk.

  “Get it into your head, Texas: I’m not a good guy. I’m not here to save you. I’m not on some quest to make you get out of your shell and come out of this experience a stronger person or some other Dr. Phil bullshit. Just because I don’t kick you when you’re down doesn’t mean I’m a standup guy, and you’d be wise to remember that. That awful enough for you?”

  She stared at me, her face marred with disgust. Nothing I hadn’t seen on my parents’ faces a thousand times before. Just another Friday. Which reminded me—I had a fight today and needed to get my ass in gear. I grabbed her by the arms, picked her up, moved her away from my path like she was a traffic cone, and marched to the gym.

  “You’re a monster!” she bellowed behind me, her voice taut with anger.

  I pushed inside the gym’s door, ignoring her.

  She wasn’t wrong.

  Kade Appleton was not a fucking walk in the park, that was for sure.

  Unless that park was in Chernobyl.

  He continually broke the few rules we had in the ring in his quest not to have his ass handed to him, which resulted in my being more beat up than I’d ever been the entire three years I’d been doing this gig.

  I’d be lying if I said I minded. The floor was jam-packed with people crammed together, like worms pouring from rotten meat. Beer sloshed from red Solo cups all over the sticky concrete, which was filthy with blood, dust, and sex juices. The place hadn’t been this crowded since I started attending Sher U. There was cheering, yelling, and whistling. Chicks sitting on guys’ shoulders to get a better view.

  At some point, the guys who sold the tickets ran out of stamp ink to mark those who’d paid. They had to doodle on people’s hands with Sharpies. Max was on cloud nine. I could practically see the flashing pictures of him in a Hugh Hefner robe running through his Pornhub-infested brain.

  It was a bloodbath in the ring. I’d popped Kade’s nose in the first ten seconds with a mean uppercut to get people riled up, then kneed his face to make every blood vessel in his mouth gush like a fondue fountain. He’d managed to bust my lip and eyebrow open by getting two solid shots to my face minutes after. The mat beneath us was slippery, squeaking with every movement we made.

  Reign and East were behind me, shouting unsolicited advice. My eyes stung with blood and sweat, and I was pretty sure I spat out a tooth ten minutes into the fight. I swayed, bumping into one of the cardboard boxes that marked the ring.

  Kade and I circled each other. We were entering our fifth round. I’d never had a fifth round in my amateur fighting career, but Appleton was no spring chicken. I didn’t find his size or technique challenging. I was just as good a wrestler and boxer as he was, and he figured it out when I cracked his rib before we even finished the first round with a kick that sent him flying like a kite.

  Which was why he shoved fingers into my eyes, jabbed me below the belt, and tried other third-grade bullshit to slow me down.

  Injured or not, I could still massacre the motherfucker.

  “St. Claire! St. Claire! St. Claire!”

  The chants vibrated the mats under my feet. Kade zeroed in on my face, his eyes already sporting two shiners. He had a face not even a mother could love (unless she was blind), with a nose that had been broken in the double digits, bug eyes, and nonexistent lips. His neck was as wide as some streets.

  We were on opposite sides of the makeshift ring.

  Max blew the whistle. “Fifth round! Make it count, gentlemen.”

  We approached each other in guarded stances. I dodged a few easy swings, ducking and bouncing on the balls of my feet, before going in for the kill. I sent a perfect right hook to the side of his head, knocking his lights out. I watched him falling down on the mattress Max stole from the college gym, his body bouncing on top of it.

  He lay there, eyes shut, knocked out. The crowd exploded. I spun on my heel, gliding a hand over my bare chest to wipe off the sweat and blood. Reign cupped my cheeks, screaming in my face in ecstasy.

  Max wobbled into the ring and took my arm, flinging my fist in the air.

  Roars. Claps. More whistles. Not one to bask in attention, I was already halfway out of the ring when I heard a voice behind me.

  “This is bullshit!” Kade’s manager, a meathead called Shaun, blazed between the boxes, pointing at me. “Kade wasn’t prepared.”

  “No shit.” I plucked a bottle of water from a random girl who offered it to me, taking a gulp and splashing the rest on my face. “Next time I’ll be sure to email him my game plan.”

  Easton elbowed me.

  “The fifth round didn’t start before you threw in that last shot!” Shaun bellowed, kicking something between us out of his way. His smoker’s breath skulked into my nostrils when he jabbed his finger against Max’s chest. “Pippy Longstocking over here didn’t whistle.”

  “Umm, bro, I did whistle.” Max positioned himself between us. “And Kade made a move toward West first. He tried to t
hrow in at least a couple punches before the KO happened.”

  Shaun wasn’t having it. Neither was Kade. As soon as Appleton swung up on his feet, he began shouting in my face, claiming he’d been set up. That Max hadn’t blown the whistle, that I’d ambushed him. Throwing excuses around, seeing which one might stick.

  An interested crowd molded around us, eager to see if we were about to start a second, free-of-charge fight.

  Rather than hang around and argue to death with these suckers, I told Max I’d meet him in his “office” upstairs and cordially suggested Kade should go to hell where he belonged, and get a hearing aid and a pair of glasses on his way there, if he truly believed anything about the fight wasn’t kosher.

  Max’s office was what was supposed to be the management floor in the mall that never came to be.

  “You’re not getting away with this.” Appleton made a slashing motion at his throat. “Consider yourself a dead man walking, St. Claire.”

  “Dead or alive, I still rode your ass tonight, and I’m not the one limping out of here.”

  I cut through the mass of people cheering and slapping my back. The random chick who’d handed me water waved at me, smiling and batting her lashes at me. She had long blonde hair almost down to her ass, and her smallness reminded me of a certain infuriating little hick.

  “Legal?” I breezed past her, not stopping. Her friends thrust her my way, giggling into their palms.

  “About to turn twenty on August sixth!”

  No need to get specific. My ass is not about to get you flowers.

  I jerked my head upstairs.

  “Really?” she squeaked.

  “No talking.”

  “Okay. Sure. Totally.”

  That was three fucking words, but I let it slide.

  “This ends here,” I warned.

  “I know. You’re West St. Claire. Duh. My name is—”

  I gave her a cutting look. She wasn’t getting it.

  “Sheesh. Okay.”

  Half an hour later, Max came upstairs, shaking his head and apologizing. I sent the blonde back down. I was pretty much out of it during our hookup, although I did remember going through the motions, showing her something of a good time.