by T. E. Black
“From what Rook tells me, you’re a fireball. The three of us would have a blast traveling around the world together if you came too. Plus, I’m willing to bet Rook would be a hell of a lot more focused if you were by his side. This one,” he nods toward Rook, “is a worry wart. If he can’t see or touch what his mind wants to, his game gets thrown off really quick.”
“You didn’t even ask me if I was going back yet,” Rook adds again.
Luke turns away from me and speaks to Rook. “Like there is even a choice. Fighting is in your blood, Reaper. You know better than anyone else if you didn’t have a cage to stand in and wraps to cover your hands, you’d be lost. So, instead of telling me you don’t know if you’re ready to come back, just tell me when. That way, I can book the plane tickets and start kissing ass with all the sponsors.”
With a frustrated sigh, Rook shakes his head in disbelief. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Gotcha.” Luke winks. “We’ll talk about it, later.”
At least Rook is telling Luke that he needs to talk to me about it. At least that’s what I think that little save-my-man-card “later” was about. That’s what it had to be about, just the thought of the alternative threatens to crush me.
The talk we’ll have won’t mean much, though. I know without a doubt if Rook has to choose between his career and me, his career will win. Depsite what he’s said about wanting to be with me, I see the way his eyes shine when his career gets brought up in coversation.
He wants to go back.
I can feel it.
I want to believe him, because he’s told me so many times that he loves me more than fighting, but I can’t. Thoughts of him resenting me if he chooses to stay are my motiviator to not get my hopes up.
It’s not his fault if he leaves, because I understand. It’s selfish of me to want him to stay and give up his life for me. Hell, I didn’t want to give my life up ten years ago for him. So, what’s stopping him from choosing the same path?
I won’t let myself be convinced he whole-heartely means what he says until I see Luke go back to California and he’s still here in our bed.
Realizing I’ve been standing here way too long without saying a word, I brush off the emotions and gather my stuff from the apartment.
“Well, I have to head out guys. I need a shower desperately and I’m dead tired.”
“Leigh” Rook’s voice is hesitant as he calls out my name.
“We’ll talk later,” I offer in a fake, happy voice.
He gives me a sideways glance, seeming to watch for a sign that I’m lying. “You sure?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” I’m sure neither of the guys miss the slight crack in my happy façade.
Before I slip up and let them see through me, I get out of this apartment.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Rook
“She’s sure something, man.” Luke watches her walk out.
The idea of him appreciating Leigh’s ass the same way I do pisses me off to no end. I’d kill him if he ever grew balls enough to try to hit on her. He’s not that stupid, though.
“She is, and she’s mine. Keep your eyes off her ass.”
Luke throws his hands up in surrender, chuckling at my sudden anger. “Chill, dude. I was only looking. You honestly think I’d ever be stupid enough to do more than look from a distance? Come on, give me more credit that, would you?”
“Just reminding you.”
A low chuckle comes from Luke while he grins like a kid on Christmas morning. “I like this new side of you.”
Jesus. Here we go.
“New side?”
“It’s edgy. I bet the crowds will love it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m the same as always.”
Standing about a foot taller than Luke, I tower over him. I should intimidate the fucker, but he likes to bust my balls about being a bigger built guy. He’s got guts considering I could crush him if I ever wanted to.
“I think Leigh brings it out in you. You’re all protective and shit.” He turns from me, walks into the kitchen, and opens the fridge as if he owns the place. Well, jokes on him. The thing is pretty much cleaned out.
“Jesus Christ. You’re trying to get laid out, aren’t you? I haven’t seen or talked to you since the last fight. Then, you come barging into Leigh’s apartment, running your mouth about my coming back to fight, meanwhile she’s sprinting out of the damn door.”
“It’s not like I was lying when I said you were coming back,” he says, sounding worried. “You are coming back, right?”
I’m not ready to have this conversation. I’m not ready to make promises to anyone but Leigh. And I promised her I wouldn’t leave again.
Fighting is a part of me. It’s who I am—The Reaper. At least, that’s who I am when I’m with Luke.
When I’m with Leigh, I’m Rook. There’s no one crawling up my ass when I say the wrong thing. There’s no one bitching about my diet choices. It’s me and her, living in our own world and doing whatever the hell we want to, when we want to.
“I don’t know what I’m doing yet,” I hedge. He finally stops looking for something to eat and slams the fridge door shut.
“Dude. Seriously? You’re honestly thinking about giving it up? Why?”
The tick in my jaw that only comes when I’m pissed off is in full motion. He acts like the decision is so damn easy to make when he’s not the one who has something to lose.
“Leigh won’t come to California. She has a life here,” I answer honestly.
“Why wouldn’t she come with you?”
“For the same reason she didn’t come ten years ago, Luke. She’s not the kind of woman who follows a man around. She’s not the person who stands in the background. She’s the one who stands front and center. You following me?”
Luke sighs, and I watch as his shoulders slump in defeat.
“I get it, Rook. Honestly, I understand what you’re saying. But after everything the two of you have been through, why would you trust this wouldn’t blow up in your face one day?”
“I left on my own. Leigh didn’t have a damn thing to do with it. Don’t blame her for shit that isn’t her fault,” I snarl.
“Are you serious? What the hell is wrong with you? From what you said, she told you to leave. She told you she didn’t want you to stay and you should go to California. How doesn’t that shit put the blame on her?”
I laugh, but its sarcastic and cold sounding. “She put herself second and me first. She knew it was what I wanted, so she gave that to me. It was my own damn fault for not seeing what she was doing back then.”
I’ll defend Leigh until someone either kills me or cuts out my tongue. Until either of those things happen, I’ll never let someone place blame on her when she doesn’t deserve it. Hell, even if she did deserve it, I’ll still defend her until my blood runs cold.
“What the hell is wrong with you, man? I love you like family, but you’re being an idiot. If you give up fighting for her, then everything you have worked for will be for nothing. You’ll become another face on a wall somewhere, and everyone who looks at you will know you gave it all up for a woman. The fame, the fortune, the life—will all be wasted because you got pussy whipped by some chick you used to bang when you were a kid.”
“Luke, you’ve been nothing but good to me for ten years, so I’m going to give this single warning. Not another word about Leigh. Not. One.”
“I’m just saying, man. If you come back, you have to be prepared for it either way.”
His smart-ass comments are testing every ounce of patience I have. The more he talks, the angrier I get. He can’t keep running his mouth about my girl and get away with it. Something has to give, and things are about to start breaking.
In the blink of an eye, I’m moving toward Luke. With the precision of a true fighter, I reach out, snatching his small neck in my hands. His nails dig into my wrist as his breathing b
ecomes shorter by the second.
With glossing over eyes and a blush-colored complexion, I’m disgusted with myself for the first time since the night at the arena.
As he tries to get words from his vocal chords, I’m forced to think about Lauren for the first time since I admitted the truth to myself. It makes me sick.
“I need you to get out of my apartment before I do something I’ll regret for the rest of my life.” I snarl, shoving at his chest. “I don’t want to hurt you, and I can’t control it right now.”
For once in his life, he listens. I watch as he steps backward toward the door, not saying a word, which is smart of him. He’s smart for not egging the situation on anymore.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Ryleigh
Who is the jackass that said drinking isn’t the answer? Whoever he or she is, I’d like to have a word with them, because they’re wrong. Drinking is the answer.
At least it is for me.
I may have told Rook and Luke I had to get ready for work and open the bar, but what I had to do was lock myself in my office and crack open a bottle of Jim Beam before I lost my shit.
I’ve given so many lectures to so many people about drinking away their problems, but here I am doing the exact same thing.
How much of a hypocrite am I?
Blasting a slew of classic rock songs from before I was born, I drink away every feeling, every heartache, every thought of Rook.
I just know he’s going to go back.
He says he won’t, but he will.
Taking another swig out of my bottle of Jim, I feel more weight lifting from my shoulders. It’s incredible to witness the worries and emotions float away to somewhere I don’t care about.
I’m beyond wasted at this point, and there’s no turning back. Already having killed half the bottle in two hours, what’s a little more going to hurt?
“Ryleigh?”
My head is heavy on my shoulders, but I force it up and attempt to focus on the figure in the doorway.
“Yeah?” I ask with a slur.
“Jesus. What are you doing in here? It stinks like booze.”
As the person comes closer, I can make out who it is clearly, and it makes me groan in frustration.
Can’t a woman be left to sulk in her office without being bothered?
“Do you need something, Shay?”
“How wasted are you?”
“Does it matter?” I laugh, taking another swig.
She walks toward me, and once she’s standing in front me, she has the audacity to snatch the bottle from my hand and toss it in the garbage can next to us.
“What the hell, Shay?” I shout, making a grab for the bottle, but my body feels too heavy, too numb, and I topple to the floor.
“Fuck. That hurt,” I slur. She sighs and pulls my arm so I can sit up.
“’What the hell is right! What the hell are you doing in here getting plastered by yourself?”
“Forgetting,” I mumble, letting my head fall backward against the wall with a loud thud.
“Forgetting what?”
“Everything.”
“So you figured Jim would help with that?” She runs a hand through her jet-black hair.
“I’m fine,” I argue, but I’m not sure I sound so convincing.
“You are not fine! I’m getting Rook, and I’m making him take you home, or upstairs—wherever you can go where you can’t get your hands on anymore booze.”
“Don’t you dare call him! I don’t want to see him, and I don’t need his help!” I pause so I can try to climb to my feet, but I can’t even manage that. Thankfully, she grabs me under the arms and guides me to my seat. “And another thing, I don’t need anyone’s help!” Clearly I do since I can’t seem to get my damn legs to work anymore, but I keep going, “Not yours, not Rook’s, not Trent’s, not my mother’s—I don’t need any one of you!”
The words are like vomit. Before I can stop, their flying out my mouth in rapid-fire. Sober, I would regret everything I said. But wasted? I don’t give a damn.
“I’m calling Trent.” I eye her … both versions of her, in fact, and slam my hand down on my desk. The outburst at least gets her to look at me as she puts her phone to her ear.
“Don’t you dare,” I warn with murder in my voice.
“Can you come down to the bar?” she asks into the phone. “Yeah. Ryleigh’s wasted.” … “I don’t give a damn about your problems with each other, Trent. She’s your family, and she needs your help. Stop acting like a child and come help her.” She hangs up and tosses it back into her purse.
“He’ll be here in ten,” she snaps and takes a seat opposite from me.
Sure enough, ten minutes later, Trent walks into my office with a face as red as a tomato. He’s pissed off, shocker. It’s nothing new
“What are you doing, Ry?”
“Baking a fucking cake!” I laugh sarcastically.
According to the sour puss look on his face, he doesn’t find my humor as amusing as I do. That’s all right because I might as well play the part of the bad guy since everyone thinks I am anyway.
“Cut the shit,” he warns.
“What shit?” I joke again. “Oh! You mean this shit?” I make a grab for the bottle in the garbage, but Shay shoves the can away with the toe of her red high heel.
“Do you think this is funny, Ryleigh? You honestly think we don’t see what you’re doing? After all the shit we’ve been through with Trent’s drug use and drinking, you don’t think we know you’re numbing yourself right now?” One would think since she seems to know exactly why I’m doing it that she would have a bit more compassion. Nope. Not my friends. They expect me to be the compassionate one and when I’m not wearing that hat, well the world goes to shit.
I can’t help but laugh at her sudden concern for me and my health. It’s ironic. The two of them haven’t given a damn about me ever—not just the past couple of months.
“Real gum shoe detective you are, Shay. I’m pretty sure I may have even told you that’s what I am doing. However, I’m glad to see you both care suddenly.”
“Shay, let me talk to her. You won’t get through to her, and we have shit to work out anyway. She’ll apologize when she’s sober tomorrow,” Trent says, proving once again that I’m nothing more than a doormat.
A sigh from Shay, and she’s out of her seat and kissing Trent on the cheek before she leaves us alone. Dammit. I didn’t want to deal with anyone tonight, especially not Trent and our shit.
I watch as he goes to the trash can and pulls out what’s left of the bottle of Jim Beam. He slams it down in front of me and props himself up so he’s sitting beside my chair on the desk.
“Drink it,” he snaps. “You wanna drink your problems away? Go for it. Lord knows I’ve done it enough times in my life.”
His eyes challenge me to take a drink. He knows I’ll do it. Hell, he expects me to do it. So, for that reason alone, I shove it away.
“I’m good.”
“Really?” His brows shoot up in surprise. “You don’t want any at all, Huh?”
A bit more sober now than I was when Shay busted in, I watch him intensely as he traces his fingers over the label on the bottle. Seeing him touch a drink has every hair on my neck standing at attention.
I’ll kill him if he touches it.
“So, you don’t care if I drink it then?”
I know he’s casting his line in the sea right now. He’s testing me—probably trying to prove a point about drinking. But I can guarantee that if he takes even a sip of that amber liquor, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.
“I used to love drinking. God. There was nothing better than a glass of this shit right here to take off the edge after a stressful day.” He gives me a tight, all-knowing smile. “We both know it wasn’t enough for me. I added a little white powder into the mix, that was where it was at. Heaven is what I called it once.”
I eye him warily, hoping he won’t screw up his wh
ole life with one sip.
“You know what I went through, but I almost feel like you’ve forgot on a count of how plastered you are right now.”
“I don’t need a reminder,” I bite out.
“I think you do, Ry,” he pauses, looking at the bottle on the desk. “When Mom got sick, there was a part of me that wouldn’t accept it, you know? I kept thinking if I didn’t believe it, it wouldn’t be real.”
Trent knows how to break my heart. He has it perfected—mastered even. I can’t come up with a single word to say, so I just listen to him talk about Cynthia.
“It was real, Ry. The sad part was, I was too busy shoving cocaine up my nose to realize how quickly the time passed. I went to see her all the time, but being high clouded my perception of her health. I never thought she was going to die,” he wipes a stray tear from his cheek. “If I could go back—redo it all, I would’ve stopped doing coke and I would’ve spent my time with her sober. I would’ve made her proud of me, not disappointed.”
“Your mom was never disappointed when it came to you,” I reach for his arm, but he pulls away.
“You don’t have to try make me feel better. I know how you feel about me, just like I know how she felt. You think I don’t appreciate you, but your wrong. Your family to me, Ryleigh. And, you know once I put someone in that category, nothing can knock you down from it. For fucks sake, look at my brother. I’ve tried to hate him; you know that better than anyone. Yet, I still can’t seem to make my hate genuine. No matter what he does, or how bad he pisses me off, I’ll always care about him.”
“Trent, I’m sorry,” I slur, but he acts as if he doesn’t hear me.
“So, what’s it going to be, Ry? Wanna kick back the rest of this bottle? I’ll grab a little powder, and we can say, ‘Fuck you’ to our problems together? Sounds like a totally reasonable way to handle things, right? Drink and snort until we can’t think anymore. Much, much better than talking or dealing with reality.”
He picks the bottle up from the desk, licking his lips at the sight of it in his hand. I hate him for doing this. I hate him for comparing my pain to his. My actions to his. I’m allowed to have one night of weakness after ten years of holding everyone together. I hate him for drawing that line, but I’m not so far gone that I will let him do this.