“I take it you’re gay then,” I told him.
“I guess,” he replied.
“You ever checking me out or thinking about me naked?” I asked him. He smiled at me in response and shook his head.
“You’re not my type,” he replied.
“Fuck you. I’m everybody’s type,” I answered with a smile. “As long as you ain’t doing either of those things, me and you don’t have a problem.”
He nodded at me but still looked tense.
“You’ll keep it to yourself?” he asked me. Scraping my hand over my unshaven chin thoughtfully, I leveled with him.
“Look mate, I’ll be honest. I’m not keeping secrets from my wife. That being said, Em would take them to the grave.”
He nodded in acknowledgment, and I watched the relief wash over his face as I promised to keep quiet.
“Seeing as we’re getting everything out in the open at last,” I said to him as his nervousness came back. “Who’s your new boyfriend?”
“Mind your own business,” he told me with a wry grin.
Chapter 5
“Why the fuck are we looking at this shithole, Con?” Tommy asked me, as he climbed out of Liam’s truck. Kieran and I already stood in front of a run-down old house. The windows were mostly cracked, and the small front garden was so overgrown with weeds that you’d need a flame thrower to actually get inside the place.
“It’s not a shithole, arsehat,” I said defensively. Tommy kicked at the rotten fence and his foot went straight through it.
“I beg to fucking differ,” he argued back with a smirk. I frowned at him menacingly and, as usual, he ignored me. He never did have any sense of self-preservation. “It’s probably full of druggies and squatters,” he added.
“Will you shut the fuck up?” I said, angry that he was pissing all over my great idea. “I want to buy it for me and Em to live in.”
Like some kind of comedy duo, he and Liam tilted their heads to the right, obviously trying to picture it as habitable. “I guess professional boxing doesn’t pay as well as I thought,” muttered Tommy. I sighed deeply, reminding myself that Em didn’t like it when I gave Tommy a slap. Even if he deserved it.
“I know it looks a bit banged up, but the houses around all look well-kept. It’s in a nice street, close to the gym, and there’s a good school nearby.”
“Why do you care about schools?” Liam asked.
“Shit, wait. Is Em pregnant?” Tommy chimed.
“What? No!” I added, as they bantered.
“Can you imagine how big their fuckin’ kid will be!” Tommy said, ignoring me. Kieran didn’t reply. He was too busy laughing at Tommy pushing my buttons.
“Right, that’s it!” I announced, as I lunged for Tommy. “No one makes fun of my kid.” The slippery little fucker dodged out of my way and hid behind Liam.
“So Em is pregnant then?” Liam asked, seriously.
“No.” I sighed. There was a bit of me that couldn’t wait to see her belly rounded with my child. It was too early yet though. “I just meant that it’s a good place to call home, and there’s a nice school nearby, if and when we do have a kid.”
“Can you afford it?” Kier asked looking at the sales particulars I’d given him.
“It’ll take everything we’ve got saved, but it’ll be ours outright. There’s no way either of us will get a mortgage for a long time, and it’s cheaper than anything else I’ve found ’cause it’s a repossession.”
“Why’s it so banged up?” Liam asked.
“Apparently the old owner didn’t like the idea of the bank taking his house, and he fucked the whole place over with a baseball bat. Inside is worse than the outside.” They all looked horrified, like that could even be possible.
“Don’t worry, mate,” Liam reassured me, with a pat on the back, “by the time we’re done with it, it’ll be Buckingham Palace.”
I grinned, picturing it in my mind all finished and seeing Em’s face as I carried her over the threshold of our first real home. “Listen, I know you guys all have jobs and your own training to worry about, but do you think you could give me a hand with the labor? There won’t be any money left to pay anyone, and I’m going to need help with this.”
“I’ll redo the central heating for five minutes alone with your wife and one of her chocolate cakes,” Tommy volunteered. Kieran, punched him in the arm for me.
“What? It would’ve hurt a lot more if he’d done it!” he said in response to Tommy’s wounded expression.
“It’s a good buy,” Liam told me. “Property is a good investment so at least you know your money is safe. Plus you’ll save rent on your crappy place. You do realize though that you could have the same size place with much less hassle if you bought flat.”
I looked up wistfully toward the house. “I know,” I answered, “but I don’t want a flat. I want a place that’s mine from the roof to the foundation. I want a home.”
Kieran nodded, knowing exactly what I meant. I spent what I guess would pass as my childhood bouncing between the haven of Kieran’s ma’s house and the pit that was my alcoholic mother’s house. Em’s shithole flat was the nearest thing I’d had to a home, but that was only because she was there.
Liam looked over the house with a careful eye, and I hoped he could see the potential that I could. Of all of us, he was the most experienced in construction. When I’d worked full-time, I did mostly carpentry. Kier was a general builder like Liam, while Tommy worked in plumbing and heating with his dad.
“We’ll need to find an electrician,” Liam pointed out. “This place is definitely going to need a rewire.”
“How about Big Joe? I’ve worked with him before, and he’s bloody good. I hear he’s looking for a new gym as well since Joe’s burned down. If we could talk Danny into letting him train at our place, he’d probably give us a good deal on the electrics,” Kieran suggested.
“Wait, didn’t Tommy fuck and dump his sister?” I asked.
“Who’s Big Joe’s sister?” Tommy said. Though I wasn’t sure a first name would help him pick her out of the sea of women he’d slept with.
“Evelyn. Wasn’t that the redhead you met in Brady’s? The one who acts like you’ve got some nasty venereal disease whenever you see her, which you probably have,” Kieran told us helpfully.
“Wait. I didn’t fuck her, and I don’t have VD.”
“Yeah, try telling John that when we’re doing up Con’s house together,” Liam chuckled.
“Fuck. Can’t you find someone else?” whined Tommy.
“We’ll see,” I told him, though I liked the idea of working with someone who would keep Tommy’s mouth in line. “If you didn’t sleep with her, why does she hate you?” I asked.
“None of your fucking business,” he returned.
Now I was intrigued. Usually Tommy didn’t give a crap who knew his business. This girl must be special if he was clamming up. I shrugged like I wasn’t interested. I’d just ask Em about it later. She’d get it out of Tommy soon enough.
* * *
An hour later everything went to shit. I’d stopped by our place to grab a snack before going to collect Em from the cafe. Out of habit I emptied the mailbox but as soon as I saw the brown padded envelope I knew it was another gift from Frank. It was addressed to Em but I tore it open anyway. Out fell a polished wooden box and I opened it to see a diamond ring that looked pretty fucking expensive. In with it was another typed note that simply read:
I WAS SAVING THIS FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY
I never made it up the stairs. Slamming the box shut I headed straight for the police station.
* * *
“Tell me you’re fucking joking,” I said to the pale-faced policeman opposite me.
“Please don’t swear, Mr. O’Connell. We’re on the same side you are, but there really isn’t anything we can do. The hallmark on the ring tells us who made it, but we’ve telephoned the company and they sell thousands of these rings every year. They keep track of
sales but not who purchased each individual product. We can test the box for fingerprints, but given that Mr. Thomas’s fingerprints didn’t appear on the letters you’ve brought it, it’s unlikely that we can trace this back to him.”
“So he can just get away with harassing my wife like this?” I shouted.
“If you can get some proof that the harassment can be traced back to Mr. Thomas then we can assist you in taking out a restraining order, but that’s really all we can do. I pinched the bridge of my nose as I tried to refrain from telling him to go fuck himself.
“Can you test it for prints anyway, please?” I said finally.
“Of course,” he agreed, taking the ring box back. “I’ll let you know if we find anything.”
I walked out of the station and called Kieran from my new phone, a perk Em had insisted on after my title win.
“Can you do me a favor and give Em a ride home from work tonight? I need some time in the ring,” I asked him.
“No problem. I’ll see you later,” he agreed and hung up. There was no way Em was finding out about Frank’s latest stunt but fuck knew I needed to hit something if I had any chance of hiding this from her.
* * *
The thump of the bag echoed across the nearly empty gym. I’d been smacking the shit out of this thing for over an hour but it wasn’t working. I was still as pissed off and as pumped up as when I started. To calm my rage, I needed the satisfaction that only the crack of knuckles across flesh would give me. Ignoring the gloves by my side, I stuck with the dirty wraps I’d found at the bottom of my locker. They didn’t smell too good but they protected my knuckles at least. I needed Kieran or Liam to spar with me to take the edge off but the place was empty. Heath Earnshaw chose just that moment to walk out of Danny’s office. He’d do nicely.
“Earnshaw,” I called out. “You got a sec?” He looked shocked, if not a little bemused, that I was talking to him.
“Do you have any training gear with you?” I asked.
“Sure,” he replied. “Why?”
“Wondered if you fancied sparring?” I asked innocently.
“Sure,” he replied. “Just let me change, and I’ll be there.” I shadowboxed patiently while I tried to calm down.
He wasn’t gone more than five minutes, but as he strolled confidently toward the ring, everything about him, from his tanned skinned to his all-American perfect white teeth got on my nerves. Even his training gear looked new and expensive compared with our raggedy old stuff.
“How long you been boxing?” I asked as we danced around the ring.
“Since I was about ten. My old man taught me.”
“He anyone I would’ve heard of?” I asked curiously.
“Nah. He never did it to compete. He just wanted me to be able to take care of myself. I won a few amateur titles when I was a teenager but I was never good enough to go pro.”
I started out with a few combinations to test his mettle. Kieran was a better sparring partner because he could read me. We’d had a lifetime of training together, and he often knew what punch I’d throw before I did. This guy wasn’t half bad though. He picked up the pace, and we were throwing a few combinations back and forth when a rogue left hook clipped me with more force than he’d intended. It was unexpected and knocked me off my feet.
“Sorry,” he said good-naturedly, offering out his hand to help me up. When I shook my head in refusal, he looked a little worried.
“Don’t sweat it,” I told him with a calm I didn’t feel. I jabbed at him a couple of times, and he responded in turn with a couple of his own combinations. Our friendly banter of a few minutes ago was ancient history, and the tension between us was palpable. It was wrong to blame him for what pissed me off but my rage had no sense of direction. I guess it was in me to hide it from Em, but everyone else lately was fair game. Twenty minutes into our session and I’d made it clear that he was out of his depth. We’d passed what could respectively be called sparring long ago. For the most part, Earnshaw just kept his guard up, jabbing at me when he could, while I used him like a human punch bag. He knew what I was doing, and although the look on his face was murderous, he didn’t call me out on it.
“If the job is a bit out of your league, Earnshaw, there’s no shame in admitting it,” I taunted him. I was basically asking him if he’d had enough. Hell, I was practically daring him to quit. I’d smacked him around a fair bit already but he looked me straight in the eye when he told me to go fuck myself.
“If you’re too chicken shit to take on major professional fighters, there ain’t no shame in that either.”
Fuck him. I’d show him exactly how out of his depth he was. Dancing around, I deftly dogged a predictable combination and delivered a right hook with the force of a freight train. The hit connected, and I felt a momentary swell of relief. If I could just do that enough times, maybe I could purge the anger and frustration that stayed with me constantly. I didn’t much care about Earnshaw. Not when his eyes snapped shut, not when he flew through the air completely unconscious, and not when he landed with a smack against the canvas. I cared about what happened next.
Chapter 6
“No,” cried Em from across the gym. Kieran stood in the doorway behind her. Both of them ran across the room and climbed into the ring, but it was Earnshaw they went to and it fucking burned. Kieran checked his vitals while Em looked at me accusingly.
“What have you done?” she whispered.
“What have I done?” I asked, shocked. Watching Em kneeling next to him felt like betrayal. “He shouldn’t be here, Em. If he can’t handle a simple sparring session, how’s he going to handle world-class title fights?”
“He’s not here to fight world-class fucking fighters, he’s here to promote your career.” The fact that she was shouting at me should have made me pause. Em rarely raised her voice, let alone swore. Unfortunately for me, I was on a roll.
“Nobody made him get in the fucking ring with me. It’s not my fault if the stupid bastard doesn’t know when to quit.”
“Bullshit! You’ve been spoiling for a fight for ages and you should never have let him get in the ring with you. This is on you, O’Connell, and you don’t have the balls to admit it. You don’t even give a shit whether he’s okay or not.”
“Why are you taking his side? I’m a fighter. This is what we do!” I shouted, feeling more and more pissed off by the second.
“It’s not about taking sides, you arsehole. It’s about right from fucking wrong. And don’t you ever call this fighting. Stick any label you want on it but you’ve just bullied and beaten a guy who’s done nothing more than try and impress you. That’s not the man I married,” she answered, her eyes welling up with tears.
“Maybe this is exactly the man you married,” I said quietly and turned my back on all of them.
* * *
“Well, you properly fucked that up didn’t you,” Kieran said smugly as he sat his arse down on the bench next to me.
“You’re not supposed to swear in church,” I answered softly.
“I drop a quid in the collection box for every time I swear. Me and God have an agreement about it,” Kieran replied. I chuckled because I was pretty sure he was serious.
“How did you know where I was?” I asked him.
“After Em’s kidnapping I figured that this was probably your bolt-hole for when things go to shit.” He waited patiently for me to get my shit together and talk to him.
“How’s Earnshaw?” I asked, scared now to know the answer.
“He’s gonna have a headache tomorrow, but he’s fine. You knocked him old cold but he came round a few minutes after you left.”
“Em still pissed at me?” I asked with my head in my hands.
“She loves you, Con. Of course she’s still pissed at you.”
“I fucked up big didn’t I?” I asked him.
“It was a fuck up of epic proportions. Seriously, I think this might be it for the both of you. Don’t sweat it. Romeo and Julie
t weren’t meant to be either.”
“You’re an arsehole,” I told him, “and you’re enjoying this.”
“I’m not the one who knocked out his manager and yelled at his wife. I’m pretty sure the arsehole of the year trophy belongs to you. And, yes, I’m enjoying this immensely. You making Em curse was entertainment value enough.”
“What am I going to do?” I asked him.
Surprising the fuck out of me, he answered me seriously.
“Think about what she said. This shit with Frank has been fucking with your head since Em was kidnapped. You need to talk to her about it. Get it off your chest and tell her everything. Stop acting like a hard arse and let her in. You’re gonna lose her if you don’t.”
I nodded, as I thought about what he said.
“Do you think I should crash at yours tonight? Give her some space and speak to her in the morning?”
He laughed in my face. “I know fuck all about marriage, Con, but common fucking sense tells me that you not going home to her tonight is the worst idea ever. Man up and go make nice with your wife. And whenever the urge strikes you to argue back with her, bite your fucking tongue. Unless you’re saying sorry or I love you, you’re basically just ringing the bell for round two.
* * *
Everything I meant to say went straight out of my head when I walked through the door.
“Arsehole,” was the first thing Em said as she smacked me on the chest, then surprising the fuck out of me, threw her arms around me.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so fucking sorry,” I blurted out, as I wrapped my arms around her, holding her as tightly to me as I could.
“What’s going on, O’Connell?” she mumbled into my chest.
I took a deep breath, knowing that she needed to know where my head was at. But it went against the grain to do anything but protect her and make her feel safe.
“I’m scared, Em,” I told her.
“Of what?” she asked.
“Of losing you. I promised I’d protect you and I couldn’t have fucked that up more royally if I tried. Now I’m doing it again. Frank’s finding ways to get to you that I can’t stop. I’m pissed off and frustrated and I’m hurting anyone in my line of fire because I can’t hurt Frank.”
The Aftermath Page 5