Playing with Fire_Shen

by Shen, L. J.

  Me, twisting on the floor, gargling on my own blood like it was mouthwash.

  I kept telling myself that if I lost, I wouldn’t have to go to bed every night worrying about what Kade Appleton and his asshole friends may or may not do to Grace. She was my Achilles’ heel. No matter how I turned it around, Kade needed his pride restored, and me? My ego wasn’t worth half as much as Grace meant to me.

  Everything had moved in slow motion. The excited chants around us had dissolved to panicky cries for Max to end the fight. But no matter how much I prayed to a god I wasn’t sure was even up there for Kade to throw a knockout and put me out of my misery, the final blow never came.

  At some point, I considered manufacturing a KO, but I didn’t trust my own abilities to look passed out. Still, I didn’t fight back. Didn’t pretend to try. It wasn’t a fight. It was me letting Appleton have his way, my punishment for defeating him.

  Kade shoved me to the mat and wrestled me, trying some Jiu-Jitsu move that made it look like he wanted to eat my ass. There, when we were flush against each other, I finally grated through a bloody mouth.

  “Just finish the job. You know I threw this shit before I walked in the ring, why are you dragging it?”

  “I’m well aware of that, St. Claire.” He threw me back a partly toothless grin. “But winning is not enough, see. First, I’m going to humiliate you.”

  I woke up in the ICU the following day.

  I glanced around, gradually coming to, and found that I’d been hooked up to an IV drip, with my pulse monitored, and was wrapped in bandages with a casted hand …

  My eyes shifted downwards. I was wearing a hospital gown. I’d never worn one before. Let’s just say I didn’t think powder blue was my fucking color.

  “Good mornin’, sunshine!” Easton’s voice sounded way too loud and cheerful for the occasion. The door flapped open, and he sauntered in. I closed my eyes, refusing to deal with his bullshit before I had a strong cup of Joe.

  “Fancy seeing you awake. You gave us quite the scare last night.”

  “Why are you talking like you’re eighty?” I croaked, trying to swallow some of my saliva. Bad idea. I had no saliva whatsoever. My throat was drier than Max’s hookups. I grunted.

  East sat beside me on a nearby stool, and I heard more shuffling around the room. He wasn’t the only one here, but opening my eyes to see who entered the room wasn’t on my agenda.

  “You almost died last night,” East pointed out.

  “Thanks, Captain Obvious. Don’t you have any other places to be? Maybe stand next to the Hudson and let tourists know that it’s wet, or go to Alaska and point out the chilly weather?”

  “Oh my God, he didn’t only lose a tooth. His sense of humor got whacked, too.” Reign exhaled dramatically from the other side of the room.

  My heart sank at his voice. Who the hell was I expecting to be here?

  Grace. I’d been expecting Grace.

  “Your parents are on their way, and I don’t want any goddamn lip about it,” East warned. “They dropped a kebab when they heard what happened to you.”

  My first instinct was to bite his head off for telling them. Then again, he didn’t have much choice. How else would he explain my taking a lengthy trip to the hospital?

  Which brought me to my next question.

  “What did you tell the hospital staff?”

  “Bike stunt.” Reign plopped on the bed beside me. “Which was easy to believe, seeing as poor Christina was trashed by Kade and his minions shortly after the fight.” He tsked. “Hope you weren’t counting on a joyride, because your bike ain’t feeling very joyful right now.”

  I grumbled, my eyes still closed.

  “According to Max, Appleton is a happy camper now, so at least we know he’s not out and about trying to cause more shit,” East offered me the glass-half-full. Of piss.

  “Hunky-dory.”

  “Who is being eighty now, eh?” East cracked a can of Coke and brought it to my lips, not bothering with a straw. Asshole. I took a slow sip, letting the liquid burn a path down my throat. It felt good.

  “What’s the verdict?” I finally opened my eyes and motioned to my face.

  “Broken nose, three broken fingers from before the fight, two cracked ribs, and an indefinite amount of bruises.” East counted with his fingers.

  “Isn’t that against the HIPAA rules to give non-family members personal info?” I frowned.

  “Oh, the medical staff didn’t volunteer this information. I just have two working eyes,” Easton deadpanned.

  “Even that wasn’t enough to make us drag your ass to the ER,” Reign confessed from my other side. “But then you decided to take a long-ass nap on the ground after the fight, and we couldn’t wake you up for ten minutes. Easton insisted it was a concussion. Finally, Tess, AKA my girlfriend, to whom you were a jerk, made the executive decision to call an ambulance. Good thing she did, because apparently some of your inner organs got hella swollen. Still hatin’ on my girl?”

  “Always,” I managed to rasp. He laughed, flicking my ribs. I let out a curse.

  “Where are your boundaries? I just broke the bastards.”

  “That’s for sleeping with my girl.”

  “In that case.” I swiveled toward him, grabbed his wrist and twisted it until it almost broke. Reign let out a cry. “That’s for calling my girl names.”

  We were acting like twelve-year-olds, but if there was a time to act this way—it was now, when I could blame the painkillers.

  “For the last time, St. Claire, she is not your girl anymore.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  My eyes drifted to Easton. I didn’t have to spill it for him. He knew damn well what I was asking.

  Where is she?

  Was she coming for me?

  Did she know what I’d done?

  Why I’d done it?

  East’s throat bobbed. He looked away, busying himself by removing snacks he brought for me from a plastic bag and putting them on my nightstand.

  “We’re trying to reach her. I’m sure she’ll pick up soon.”

  “Yeah,” Reign added in a cheerful tone. “It’s the weekend. People are not exactly sitting around staring at their phones.”

  “She’s going to come.” Easton patted my hand.

  “On your face. Many times. You’ll see. Chicks love it when you take a punch for them. You almost died for her,” Reign pointed out. “That’s worth at least a couple blowjobs, right?”

  I closed my eyes, falling asleep, wishing I’d never wake up.

  West

  The next time I woke up it was late evening.

  My parents were in the room, their silhouettes wrapped together, engulfed by the darkness. They stood by the window, embracing each other, exactly as I saw them on the snow the morning Aubrey had died.

  The familiar lump in my throat thickened. For a moment, I was tempted to pretend I was still asleep. But if Grace Shaw taught me one thing about this world, it was that running away from your issues was a bad idea, and it always came back, biting you in the ass.

  I righted myself on the hospital bed, making a show of clearing my throat.

  They turned around simultaneously. Mom didn’t gasp or cry. Her eyes traced my face like fingers, touching me softly. Dad—who looked a decade older than he had the last time I saw him almost five years ago—flinched, like he was the one who’d taken Appleton’s blows.

  “Son.”

  One word, and it sounded like it came from the bottom of the ocean, echoing everywhere in my body.

  My parents looked worn-out—and had lost about twenty pounds between them. I barely recognized them, and yet I recognized that I was a huge part of why they were the way they were.

  Dad was the first to rush toward me. He leaned over the hospital bed, his whole body brushing mine, giving me the gentlest, least touchy hug I’d ever received. We hadn’t hugged in half a decade.

  “You can go ham, Pops. It’s your one and only
chance at a hug I can’t escape,” I muttered. I felt his warm body quaking against mine as he tightened his grip. He was laughing and crying at the same time. When he stood up and stepped away, it was Mom’s turn.

  I ran my eyes over both of them, flashing them a crooked grin.

  “Got all worried when I didn’t send money this week, huh?”

  It was so shitty and yet so classic me to say something like that. Neither of them winced or apologized. Mom’s eyes were hard on mine. Something had changed since the last time she saw me. I saw in her expression more of the mom she was before Aubrey died. Determination lit her eyes, coupled with a promise to give me hell if I misbehaved.

  “We’re here to tell you we’re not going to let you kill yourself over what happened to Aubrey. We get that you are upset. We are upset, too. We’ll always be upset. We’ve lost our darling girl. But by God, West Camden St. Claire, we are not going to lose another child. Not to grief. Not to guilt. Not to anything. Ever again. You will outlive us, and you are going to goddamn enjoy it.”

  Her spine straightened, and she looked me in the eye with a ferocity that gave me fucking chills.

  “I hate myself.” The admission fell from my lips with a croak. “A whole fucking lot. And I don’t see how you don’t.”

  “It is not your fault.” Dad took my hand. I looked away. The possibility of crying was getting too real to risk eye contact. “Even if it was—we’d still love you, still forgive you. Could you have done things differently? Yes. But you didn’t. You did not commit a crime, West. The consequences of your bad decisions just happened to be exceptionally tragic.”

  “I broke my promise to Aub.”

  “We all break our promises sometimes.” Mom took my other hand, and now I had nowhere to look, because my parents were everywhere. I could no longer avoid them. Ghost them. Dodge them. Pretend I could silence them with a check.

  “It was never about the money.” A warm tear fell from Dad’s face onto my arm. “We never wanted you to pay our way out of this thing. At first, we thought maybe it was your own way to deal with the grief, to quiet the demons. By the time we knew better, it was too late. You were far away, and we didn’t know how to find our way back to you.”

  “We were a mess,” Mom interjected. I turned to look at her. She was crying, too. “The period we went through right after Aubrey’s death—”

  “You had every right,” I interrupted, my voice thick with emotion.

  Don’t cry. Don’t you dare fucking cry.

  It had been so long since I’d let myself feel, that I wasn’t sure I could even if I wanted to.

  “No. We had no right, Westie. We still had you to think about, to take care of. Instead of considering the consequences, we let ourselves slip into depression.”

  “You don’t slip into depression. It grabs you by the foot like Pennywise and drags you down a deep, dark sewer full of shit. Depression is never your fault. So don’t apologize for that.”

  I couldn’t hold it any longer. My eyes and nose burned, and a hot tear slid down my cheek. I wiped it with my palm quickly.

  “We love you, Westie.” Mom dropped her head, burying it in my shoulder. “We love you so, so much. We never wanted the money. We just wanted to talk to you. We want our son back, and we refuse to get a dime from you from this point forward. When Easton told us what you’ve been doing to help us pay our loans, you know what I did?” she asked.

  Quickly disowned your son for being so goddamn stupid?

  “I slapped Easton in the face for never telling us. For never warning us. You’ve been risking your life every Friday to help us. Please forgive me for not knowing what you went through in the last five years.” She grabbed my cheeks in her palms. It hurt like hell, but now wasn’t the time to point it out. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’m willing to work hard to show you what it means to me.”

  Another traitorous tear rolled down my cheek.

  I opened my mouth and said the two most liberating words in the English language.

  “You’re forgiven.”

  Grace

  The sun had dipped below the tall trees by the time I parked my pickup at the hospital parking lot, and it was almost completely dark. The traffic was insane, there had been two car accidents on the way, and most of the roads were blocked due to festivals. Each moment away from West sent me into the arms of despair, and I was so sick with worry, all anxiety about Grandma Savvy’s first day at Heartland Gardens had magically disappeared.

  West was awake when I got there.

  Tess was the first to greet me, throwing her arms over my shoulders. “Grace! I’m so glad you’re here. He just woke up.” I patted her back awkwardly, shell-shocked. There was something weird about being on good terms with her again after everything that went down, but if I’d learned one thing from the moment I met West, it was that even though forgiveness is the underdog in the battle of feelings, it should always win.

  Easton and Reign were plopped on a narrow seat outside West’s room, napping in positions that couldn’t be comfortable. Tess took a step back, scanning me. “Easton said he asked about you.”

  Exhilaration bubbled in my gut, but I made myself swallow it down.

  “Is he in a lot of pain?”

  Tess nodded slowly. “I haven’t gone in yet. Didn’t think he’d appreciate seeing my face after everything that happened. But Reign and Easton say he’s looked better. Go. He’s waiting for you.”

  I pushed the door open just as his parents were leaving. I recognized his mother immediately. A petite woman with striking, dark features. She wrapped her arms around me in a recharging hug.

  “Grace. Thank you for coming to see Westie.”

  “Of course.” I rubbed her arm, smiling nervously. “I came as soon as I could.”

  “I prayed every night that you two would work things out. I’m glad you did,” Caroline said. I grimaced, because West and I were as far as geographically possible from being worked out.

  West let a low groan from the depths of his room. His parents blocked his figure, so I couldn’t see him.

  “That’s enough, Mom.”

  Caroline did an exaggerated eye roll that made my heart surge, because if she could joke about it, maybe he didn’t look as bad as he sounded.

  “Take care of my son.”

  She kissed my cheek and left.

  Closing the door behind me, I spun to face him. Heat crawled up my neck.

  He looked horrible.

  His nose was misplaced, his eyes swollen and purple, and it looked like he’d been stitched together five times over, bunched into a West I hardly recognized and was a far cry from the flawless Adonis I’d known.

  An urgent need to look away took hold of every fiber in my body, but I soldiered through, training my eyes on him.

  He loved you at your worst, knowing what you look like. Now it’s time to prove you love him as he is. Scars and all.

  “How do I look?” He gestured toward himself with his casted hand, giving me a humorless wink.

  “Alive,” my voice broke mid-word. “Which is more than I could ever wish for, everything considered. East told me on the phone you showed up trashed and didn’t even put up a fight. What the hell were you thinkin’?”

  With every step I took into the room, my muscles had loosened. His friends had already brought him Coke, snacks, flowers, and an iPad. I hadn’t had time to buy anything to bring to him. I’d driven straight from the nursing home to the county hospital, which was even farther away from Austin than Sheridan. Heck, he didn’t even know Grandma Savvy was in Heartland Gardens. So much had happened in the short time we’d been apart.

  “I was thinking I needed to protect you at any cost.” His jaw tightened. “Even if part of the price was getting my heart broken.”

  I took a seat in front of his bed, my eyes never wavering from his face.

  “I knew after Kade sent people to raid the food truck, that if word got out I had a girlfriend, you’d be a target,” W
est explained.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I choked, careful not to touch him. If I started, I’d never stop. I’d hold and kiss and drown myself in him, never coming up for air.

  “Bringing the authorities into it was out of the question. My illegal fight scene would have come up, and everyone would have gotten screwed. They wouldn’t have just thrown my ass in jail, but Max, East, and Reign, too.” His eyes searched my face, looking for clues as to what I was thinking. “I decided I’d do whatever it took to keep you safe. At first, I tried to cancel the fight, like you’d asked. Told Max I was out at Reign’s party. Max called Shaun, but he had none of it. See, for Kade, it was a pride thing. So I figured I’d throw the fight, let the asshole get his moment in the sun, and get this nightmare over with.

  “But I underestimated just how crazy Kade Appleton is. He nearly killed me before the fight. Had me attacked at the food truck and thrown off my bike on my way home from yours. It wasn’t about money anymore. I wanted to lose so he wouldn’t hurt those around me. Still, I couldn’t dump all this bullshit on you. You had Grams to take care of, a caregiver to find, and Professor McGraw’s threat hanging over your head. I never planned not to tell you, Tex. I just wanted to do it on my own terms.”

  He took my hand in his. His skin felt wrong. Cold and dry, clay-like. His mortality crashed into me like a wrecking ball.

  He could have died.

  He almost had died.

  “Well, suffice it to say, things didn’t work out the way you wanted them to.” I sniffed, brushing my thumb over his knuckles. “You humiliated me beyond belief, West. You took the promise you made me and crushed it into dust in front of everyone we know.”

  He screwed his eyes shut, drawing a breath. The scars from that day were rawer for me than anything I’d worn on my face and arm. Because the person I loved the most made them.

  “You said you were my girlfriend, and you were. Fuck, part of me is pathetic enough to hope you still are, and all I could see was Kade Appleton’s little rats running back to him and telling him about the pretty blonde that had my balls in a grip. I knew you’d be a target. I needed to throw him off your scent. To make sure he stayed far away from you. And the only way I could have done that was to make you straight up hate me that week and ensure you stayed the hell away.”