Broken Lion

by Devon Hartford

  Either way, a year from now, my life was going to be way different from what it was at the moment. Brigid and I would be that much closer, and my knee would be ready to rock.

  I was looking forward to it.

  Chapter 27

  BRIGID

  “I did a little digging on your boyfriend Lion Maxwell,” Donald said pettily.

  “He’s not my boyfriend, Donald. We’re just friends,” I growled.

  Not officially. Not even theoretically. Lion was a man I was friends with who I’d once had crazy amounts of incredible sex with. Sure, the sex stopped only a few weeks ago, but it was ancient history as far as I was concerned, almost like it never happened, which absolved me of all guilt. I wished things were different, but I could deal. Although we’d made a commitment to be together a year from now, that didn’t mean anything until it actually happened. As far as Donald was concerned, it meant Lion and I were just friends. That was all Donald needed to know. As far as any medical ethics committees went, there was nothing to talk about.

  “Did you know that your friend is a two time felon?” Donald expected me to be shocked.

  “Yes.” I rolled my eyes.

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  At the moment, we were at his parents’ house in Beverly Hills in the spacious backyard. I was here to pick up Daniel. The modern Tuscan style house with its columns and brick driveway and red tile roof was large by any standards. By LA standards, it was palatial, a sprawling complex. The Wrights had done well for themselves in the insurance business.

  I took a moment to consider my words before responding, and I watched Grandpa Ronald playing tennis with Daniel on the Wright’s backyard tennis court. Ronald was lecturing Daniel on how to improve his backhand.

  “You’re starting your swing too late,” Ronald grumbled, exasperated. He had the same annoying tone of superiority and disappointment I’d heard frequently from Donald during our marriage.

  “I’m trying,” Daniel groaned.

  The back and forth exchange of Ronald’s complaints and Daniel’s frustration had been going on for ten minutes and it was driving me crazy. I wanted to say something, but nobody told Ronald Wright what to do. Every time I had tried in the past, he would smile at me and act like I was speaking a foreign language he couldn’t understand. It was a very effective tactic.

  Meanwhile, Daniel wasn’t having any fun on the tennis court, unlike when Lion taught him things.

  Years ago, I’d grown used to Ronald and Donald’s annoying know-it-all approach to life and accepted it as the norm. At times like this, I thought of them as Ronald McDonald, the biggest ass-clown in town. I’d also dubbed Donald the Frown Clown because it was his most frequent facial expression. But now, hearing both Wright men parading their arrogance in my face at the same time was suddenly incredibly irritating.

  “Well?” Donald said. “Aren’t you going to say anything about your felon boyfriend?”

  I wanted to say, Why don’t I invite my prison boyfriend to come over here and make you his bitch? While he’s at it, he can give your dad lessons in reaming someone. Oh, wait. Your dad is already an expert at that. I smirked briefly before saying, “It was ten years ago, Donald.”

  “Once a criminal, always a criminal.”

  “That’s not true. He served his time.”

  “And you think that didn’t have an effect on him?”

  “Of course it did. But that doesn’t make Lion a bad person. He learned from his mistakes.”

  “But did you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I snarled.

  “It’s supposed to mean you’ve probably got your head buried so far in your work you’re missing what’s in front of your face.”

  “Oh, what? Like you?” We both knew it was true, but I wouldn’t admit it when he was lecturing me.

  “No, Brigid. I was thinking about our son. And the influence this criminal is having on him.”

  “What influence?”

  “The one where he took our son to a shooting range? Or were you not there for that? You’re not leaving our son alone with the criminal, are you?”

  “Stop calling him that, Donald. And, I was there at the shooting range. It was perfectly safe.” Once I saw how Lion walked Daniel through all the safety precautions step by step, I was okay with it. Donald was trying to find petty reasons to criticize Lion. “And he’s not a criminal. He was a criminal.”

  He sneered, “Is there a difference?”

  I sneered back, “Are you a child?”

  He frowned his Frown Clown frown. “You don’t have to go name calling, Brigid.”

  “I wasn’t. It was a serious question. Are you a child?”

  Confused, he chuckled. “I don’t see your point.”

  “Please answer me, Donald,” I said calmly. “Are you a child? I should say, are you still a child?”

  “No. I’m an adult.”

  “But you were a child. At one point.”

  “How is that at all relevant?”

  “It’s relevant because you used to be a child. Now you’re not. You’re an adult. Lion used to be a criminal. Now he’s not.”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “It’s not? Prove it.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, then deflated. “I’m not going to play your logic games, Brigid.” One truth in our marriage: I could always out-argue Donald and he knew it.

  “It’s not a game, Donald. Lion changed. He’s not the person he was back then. Look at how many kids he helps for free. I don’t see you out in the world donating your time to charity.”

  He smiled smugly. Donald was generous with his family and friends, but he didn’t do anything actually charitable that I knew of. “Charity has nothing to do with the people you’re exposing our son to.”

  “It does when the person in question is charitable and a good person.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not going to argue with you, Brigid.” Good, because you’re already losing. “But I don’t think you should allow our son to spend time around Lion Maxwell. Is that clear?”

  “Do you want me to pull him out of karate class?”

  “Maybe we should.”

  On the tennis court, Daniel hit the ball straight into the net. Ronald shook his racket in the air. “No, Daniel! Not like that! You need more wrist! Like this! More! Wrist!”

  “I was using my wrist!” Daniel moaned.

  I scowled and mumbled to myself, “Maybe we should have your dad teach him karate.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing. You know Daniel loves karate. He’s already made so many friends at the school. You know how hard it’s been for him to make new friends in the past two years.” Since the divorce, hint, hint. “And you want to pull him out because of some nonsense concern? None of the other parents have a problem with Lion.”

  “Maybe they don’t know he’s a felon.”

  Maybe no one knows you’re an asshole except me. No, anybody who knows you knows you’re an asshole. Except maybe yourself. “That’s because it’s a non issue to everyone except you, Donald.”

  “Maybe they don’t know.”

  I suddenly tensed up. “Do you plan on telling them?”

  He shrugged but smiled with superior joy.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  He smiled even bigger.

  “You would sabotage someone’s livelihood because you’re jealous?”

  “I’m not jealous.” Denial from an adult was always so charming.

  “Lion isn’t hurting anybody, you know.”

  “Except for the men he’s put in the hospital in his fights.”

  “Come on, Donald! Every MMA fighter knows what they’re signing up for.”

  “Who said anything about MMA fighters?”

  I froze. Did he know about Lion’s fight at Universal Studios? If he did, Lion was in big trouble.

  His eyes bored into mine. “What aren’t you telling me, Brigid?”

&nbs
p; I stared back. If I said one wrong thing, he would know I was lying. Time to make something up and lie my heart out, for Lion’s sake. I suddenly remembered Lion’s YouTube documentary. “All those fights happened when Lion was a teenager.” It was possibly true, but I didn’t really know one way or the other.

  “But they were violent.” Was he still talking about Universal Studios or not?

  No time to think. Keep attacking. I scowled, “You try growing up with no parents and no mansion and no money and let’s see how nice you turn out.”

  He couldn’t argue with that and he didn’t.

  I wasn’t waiting for him to think of a counter argument. “Back to the subject of Daniel and karate class. It would be a mistake to pull him out. If you do, I will make it clear to Daniel that it was your idea. See how you like being the bad guy for a change.”

  Another Frown Clown frown from Donald. “Fine. Keep Daniel in the felon’s class—” I rolled my eyes at his use of the word felon. “—but I don’t want Daniel around Lion outside of class. Do you understand, Brigid?”

  “So now you’re telling me who I can and can’t be friends with?”

  “If the person in question is a bad influence on our son, I will.”

  “Oh really. Then I hope you don’t have any female friends I might not approve of.”

  “Why is that, Brigid?” His tone was slightly menacing.

  “Because, Donald, if they don’t meet my requirements, then I will most certainly be telling you not to be friends with them.”

  His face soured. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Oh, I would,” I growled. “So, tell me, Donald. Do you have any women friends I should know about?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  I laughed. “Please, Donald. Don’t be so blatantly hypocritical.”

  “What?”

  “We are not going to have a double standard. If you want to run background checks on the people in my life, I will need to run background checks on the people in yours. So you either tell me who you’re associating with, or I will hire a private investigator to follow you and find out for me.” The nice thing about being a doctor was I did have money for such things, but I immediately regretted saying it. I didn’t like to threaten anyone and I was provoking Donald and I knew it. I didn’t want to escalate things. I wanted to defuse them. The glory of getting divorced was it meant you didn’t have to fight with your spouse unless you chose to. I chose not to.

  “Now wait a second, Brigid.” He was angry.

  I heaved a sigh. “Forget I said that. I’m not going to hire anyone. And I won’t tell you who your friends can or can’t be. But you won’t tell me who my friends can be either. Agreed?” Being mature was usually the most effective solution to any argument.

  He grimaced. “You’ve changed, Brigid. For the worse. You were never this disagreeable.”

  “Of course I’ve changed, Donald. You divorced me. Did you think you’d get everything your way afterward? Forget I said that. I’m doing my best to work with you here. When it comes to Daniel, what’s best for Daniel comes first. Not what you want and not what I want. But no man is going to tell me how to live my life, especially not my ex-husband.”

  Donald had nothing to say to that.

  Finally.

  Chapter 28

  BRIGID

  “This is better than Disneyland?” Daniel asked doubtfully.

  “I was wondering the same thing,” I chuckled.

  Lion laughed. “Trust me, guys. Yosemite is one of the coolest places on earth. And it’s practically in our backyard. By this time tomorrow, you’ll be asking me why you didn’t go camping here sooner.”

  I had never been camping before. Neither had Daniel. I had told Lion as much when he suggested it. He’d said that was the perfect reason for us all to go. Since he had been camping and we hadn’t, I told him he’d have to figure everything out. True to his word, he showed up at my condo this morning before the sun came up with a car full of camping gear. Daniel and I had piled into his Range Rover, still half asleep.

  Five hours later and here we were, driving into Yosemite Valley. The view was breathtaking. Tall majestic mountains climbed up on either side of the valley. Lush green trees in every direction stood tall. So different from the strip mall and asphalt vibe of Los Angeles.

  “Where’s all the smog?” I joked. “The sky is absolutely blue.”

  “Clean air and high altitude will do that,” Lion said, satisfied.

  With the windows rolled down, the fresh scent of the outdoors was intoxicating. “I could get used to this.”

  We slowed to a stop at a stop sign on the narrow road and Lion looked at me, that adorable grin on his face. “Me too.”

  I knew he was talking about more than the clean air.

  “Me three,” Daniel giggled from the backseat.

  We parked in the lot for Camp 4, which Lion explained was the heart of the rock climbing world back in the day. Campers and climbers still came here every year to scale the infamous El Capitan, Half Dome, Glacier Point, Church Bowl, Knob Hill, and so many others. They also came to tackle any of the hundreds of bouldering “problems” as they were called.

  “What is bouldering again?” Daniel asked.

  “That’s when you climb on big boulders without ropes,” Lion said.

  “Are we going to be doing that?”

  I said, “Not without ropes, we aren’t.”

  “Don’t worry, Brigid. We won’t do anything dangerous.”

  After we parked, we got in line at the campground kiosk to register with the ranger. We lucked out and got one of the last available campsites for the day. Lion suggested we set up camp before we did anything else, so we carried all the gear from his Range Rover to the campsite. Other people were already set up, or in the process of setting up.

  Lion unpacked a dome tent and started assembling the pieces. He got Daniel involved with the process. I watched while Lion showed him how it all went together.

  “Are we all sleeping in that little thing?” I asked.

  “Nah. This is my tent. I brought another one for you guys.” He held up the red vinyl bag. He and Daniel set that one up too.

  “Do I get my own tent too?” Daniel asked.

  Lion smiled at him. “You and your mom are sharing this one, Dan the Man.”

  He groaned. “Do I have to sleep in the girls tent?”

  “You wanna trade, bud? I’ll sleep in the girls tent with your mom, you can sleep alone in the guys tent?” Lion winked at me.

  Daniel and I both blurted, “No!”

  Lion laughed. “Sounds like you two are bunking together.”

  “But Mom is so boring!”

  “I’m not boring!”

  Lion chuckled. “Your mom is gonna feel all alone if you make her sleep by herself. Maybe you oughta plan on sleeping with her to protect her.”

  “From what?”

  “From any bears that might attack during the night.”

  Daniel brightened at the idea. “Bears?”

  Was Lion kidding?

  Lion nodded seriously. “Yup. There are black bears all over the park. That’s why we have to put all our food and toiletries in these metal food lockers.” Lion pointed. The lockers were brown painted steel boxes set into the ground and placed all over the campground in rows.

  “Bears!” I gasped. “You didn’t say anything about bears. Are we going to be safe in these flimsy tents?”

  Lion winked at me, “If Daniel protects you, you’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t know…” I said, worried.

  “Relax, Brigid. The only thing the bears want to eat is our food. They don’t want to eat you. The lions on the other hand…” He smirked at me.

  “There are lions here?” Daniel gasped, excited. “Where?! I want to see one!”

  I smirked back at Lion. “Why don’t you explain it to him.”

  “I was joking, bud. I’m the only lion here.”

  Daniel grimace
d, “That’s boring.”

  I sneered at Lion. “Did you hear that? Lions are boring.”

  “I wasn’t the one who made the rules.” He gave me a long look.

  For a second I thought he was pouting about our “friends only” agreement, but his playful grin was proof he took it all in stride.

  After everything was set up, we had a quick snack. Daniel was antsy to watch the climbers who were on the big boulder in the middle of Camp 4. Lion said it was the Columbia Boulder, which had the world’s most famous bouldering problem, a route called Midnight Lightning. The start was marked by a white painted lightning bolt near the bottom of one corner of the big granite rock.

  “I wanna do that!” Daniel said while watching some climbers, both men and women, work their way up the rock like it was nothing. “Those guys look like Spider-Man!”

  “Pretty much,” Lion said.

  It was true. To get past the overhanging ledge ten feet off the ground, the climbers all did variations on a difficult move that looked a lot like a Spider-Man pose with legs spread wide.

  “I don’t know, Daniel. It looks pretty hard.” Unlike the climbing gym Lion took us to in Burbank, there were no colorful handholds and no belaying rope. In fact, I couldn’t see any handholds at all. Unless you considered a ripple in the rock a handhold.

  “Lion, can you do it?” Daniel asked a few minutes later when the other climbers were all resting.

  “We’ll find out,” he grinned and sat down, unzipping a small knapsack and pulling out rock climbing shoes. A minute later, he stood at the base of the boulder.

  Earlier, the climbers who’d managed to complete the route finished in a few minutes. It wasn’t a long climb. They made it look easy. Those who hadn’t finished usually dropped off while attempting the overhang, landing on a big foam pad placed in the dirt below. I knew Lion was a good climber, but I wasn’t sure how good, especially with his torn ACL.

  “Can you do it with your brace on?” I asked.

  “I should probably take it off.” He unstrapped it then belted a chalk bag around his waist and went to work. The first attempt, he dropped to the mat after only making it halfway. When he landed, he rolled dramatically right off the landing pad and into the dirt.