The Derby Girl

by Tamara Morgan

  “Whitney—lay off, okay? I said I’m coming. You have to let me do this on my own terms.”

  “Don’t freak out at me because you’re acting like an antisocial bastard.” She didn’t budge from where she stood, boxing him in, pinning him down. “I’m trying to be your friend here. That’s what you asked for, isn’t it? For us to be friends again? For all your talk of wanting to start your life over and be part of this new Pleasant Park venture, you sure haven’t changed much.”

  She was wrong. He was a different person than the one she knew over a decade ago. Hell, he was a different person than he’d been two months ago. Two weeks ago. Every day seemed to be a lesson in Another Reason Why Jared is a Terrible Human Being, and he was doing his best to learn each one.

  That didn’t mean he enjoyed it. That didn’t mean facing his demons in the mirror every day got any easier—or that he relished the thought of having an audience behind him the entire time.

  “I’m going outside for some air,” he said firmly. “And I’ll be right back.”

  Whitney threw her hands up in a gesture of exasperation. “Fine. Quit. Throw it all away. As I recall, that seems to be your favorite method of coping with things.”

  Anger surged through him, tunneling his vision and concentrating all of his red-hot energy in a pinpoint near the center of his brain. He could almost feel the tick of the countdown starting, of the timer pushing him closer to the edge. This wasn’t the same situation as the one they’d shared so many years ago—this wasn’t a replay of his biggest shame.

  He was here, wasn’t he? He was trying.

  “What could you possibly know about that? When have you made any effort to understand what this is like for me?” He clamped his jaw tight, fearful of what he might say next, of damaging their tenuous friendship beyond repair.

  Maybe it was cowardly of him to seek solace in the tiny bit of air offered outside those doors. Maybe he was a selfish bastard who didn’t deserve any of the good things in his life. But he knew himself well enough to realize that if he didn’t get a grip on his temper right now, there was a likely chance he might say something he’d regret, ruin everything he’d been working so hard to rebuild.

  He was doing the best he could. Why couldn’t anyone seem to understand that?

  Nodding up toward the stands, he gritted his teeth and said, “Go back to your boyfriend, Whitney, and please leave my relationship alone.”

  He could tell she wanted to say more—when had Whitney ever not wanted to say more?—but something about the sight of the back of Matt’s head transformed her. It was just a normal head as far as he could tell, maybe even a little on the large side, but Jared felt a pang, watching the way her face relaxed into a smile, the way all her aggression seemed to ebb out that easily.

  Matt did that to her. Love did that to her.

  And Jared, knowing it was the last thing on earth he deserved, roiling with a blazing aggression he doubted would ever fully go away, wanted that same thing for himself so much it had become a physical ache.

  Chapter Eleven

  “So, this one time when Jared and I were dating...wait. Is it weird if I talk about when we were dating?” Whitney’s mouth remained open, her sentence halted momentarily.

  Her boyfriend, a cute younger man named Matt who clearly doted on her, pushed her jaw closed. “Yes. It’s weird. Stop.”

  Gretchen gripped her beer bottle. “No. I want to hear all the sordid details.”

  She wouldn’t rest until every single one of Dr. Jared Fine’s failings were paraded in front of her, all of them marching on their mutated, evil little feet. Granted, the pair of them hadn’t exactly had the relationship discussion yet, and lord knew she wasn’t about to bring out all her ex-boyfriends for his inspection, but come on. Once dating a coworker and close friend was kind of a big deal. As was walking out of her roller derby bout for no reason.

  “Hit me with it. What did he do?”

  Whitney sighed. “What didn’t he do? If we’re talking seven deadly sins here, he’s got a backlist catalog for each one.”

  “For all of them?” There were some pretty dark ones in there. Didn’t one of them include putting Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in a box?

  “All of them,” Whitney repeated firmly.

  Behind her, Matt shook his head. For such a soft-spoken, mild man, he sure had a commanding way about him. “No, Whitney. Absolutely not. This isn’t a conversation we’re having when Jared’s not here to defend himself. And I refuse to let you be the one to tell her—”

  Whitney turned to face her boyfriend. “I wasn’t going to tell her that one. I’m not a total idiot. I was just going to mention that time his professor didn’t include his name on a paper they coauthored for the Plastic Surgery Review.”

  Gretchen’s ears perked up. “Wait. I don’t want that one. I want the secret one.”

  There was no use pretending she didn’t love a man with some blackness in his soul, but there was a fine line between the dark, twisty cop with a past and the serial killer he hunts in his spare time. A very fine line.

  “I remember that paper.” Across the table, a glossy wood-grain surface littered with their beer bottles and a bowl of peanuts deemed inedible by all five of them, John—the massage therapist at New Leaf—spoke up. “Jared worked on that with him for, what, an entire year? Squeezing it in between classes? I don’t think he slept more than three hours a night that whole time.”

  “I don’t think he sleeps much more than that now,” Kendra said.

  John nodded. “I know. I suggested herbal remedies once. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “So what happened with the study?” Gretchen asked. These friends of Jared’s were easily sidetracked.

  “Well, when he found out that Dr. Winters took credit for the whole study without mentioning him even once, he disappeared for a week.”

  “I don’t think I was there,” Kendra said, frowning. “How did I miss it?”

  “And what did she miss?” Despite the fact that her entire body ached, Gretchen found herself leaning over the table. Normally, in the post-bout haze of limp limbs, pounding adrenaline and the euphoria of an incredible win, she fell into a kind of stupor.

  She’d been sort of hoping this particular stupor might lead to the good doctor’s hands dipped in hot oil and a full body massage. To start.

  So much for that particular dream.

  It wasn’t that she couldn’t take a hint where men were concerned. She could. If he didn’t call within a week after you met, he wasn’t interested. If he texted you the same night with adorable medical advice, he was. If he walked out in the middle of a sort-of-date, he was an ass. If he brought his friends all the way into the city to watch you play roller derby in the first place, he was...what, exactly?

  “From what I recall, he spent the entire week searching through the study for some kind of flaw that would invalidate the results.” Whitney patted Matt’s hand in an effort to keep him from interrupting. He seemed like much too nice a guy to enjoy this kind of dirt slinging.

  Too bad. Gretchen liked slinging dirt. She wanted to sling a fistful of it right into Jared’s smug, grouchy, gorgeous face.

  “It took the whole week because he’d worked on the study himself. It’s like asking a lawyer to find a loophole in their own contract,” she added.

  Gretchen just nodded. Jared’s friends had a way of making her feel completely stupid and totally accepted at the same time. Their casual references to medical terms she could never pretend to understand, their shared collegiate past—these people were her peers in terms of age but seemed vastly superior in terms of everything else. Even Matt, who she understood to be a kindergarten teacher, had a quiet way about him that made her feel like an unruly teen.

  But they were nice. Normal. And despite the fact that Jared ha
d been just as rude to them when he apparently walked out, they were still able to laugh and joke at his expense. Horrible people didn’t have awesome friends. It was some sort of life rule.

  “So, he finally finds a way to invalidate the study. A technicality,” John said. “We’re talking minutiae here—apparently one of the test subjects was a cousin of a lab technician who’d worked at the facility in years past.”

  “Jared lodged a complaint with the magazine, with the school board, with the FDA—pretty much anyone who mattered. Even though that sort of thing happens all the time, Dr. Winters was forced to issue an retraction and formal apology.” Whitney laughed. “And if you think Jared is a little stiff, than you have a tiny idea of how bad this other guy was. He pretty much lived on top of the pike up his ass. He failed half his class every year just for the fun of it. Being forced to admit defeat just about killed him. He resigned a few months later.”

  “That sounds terrible.” Gretchen looked in wonder at the group of friends. Only Matt seemed to share her horror at the thought of destroying a career over a disagreement—and even he just shook his head sadly, accepting the table’s collective flaws as the price of love. “He really took it that far? Who ruins a man’s life as an act of revenge?”

  “Me. I do.”

  Everyone turned to face the gruffly controlled voice approaching their table. One look at Jared, and it was clear he wasn’t exactly pleased to find them talking about him.

  Boo freaking hoo.

  “It was a rhetorical question. I’m learning quite a bit about your vast array of flaws.” Gretchen turned her attention to her drink, though she didn’t dare lift it to her lips. She was afraid her irritation—a messy white-hot thing—would show in the shaking of her hands. Or in the bottle’s untimely arrival at Jared’s head.

  Jared cleared his throat. To Gretchen’s dismay, the sound acted as a kind of signal to his cohorts that he wanted some privacy. Moving as one, all his friends stood and pushed back from the table, finding interest in everything except making eye contact with her.

  For a moment, Gretchen wished she’d passed on the offer to join them for drinks after the game. She could have gone home like a sane woman, licked her wounds in private, put a block on her phone and swilled cheap scotch with Gran.

  But it was only a moment. Gretchen had never been one to back down from a good fight.

  “Thanks so much for coming out, you guys,” she said, ignoring Jared and his icy disdain. “I’ve never had my own cheering section before. Most of the other girls have their husbands and families there to watch, but mine’s never showed much of an interest.” That was an understatement. Janice would sooner chew off her own arm than bump elbows with a heavily mustachioed, tattooed stranger. Or a hundred of them.

  “Next time we’ll paint our faces,” Kendra promised.

  “And we’ll make Honey Badger shirts,” Whitney said. “Tight, see-through ones. When’s the next bout?”

  Gretchen couldn’t help but smile at their enthusiasm. “We have an away game next month, but I’ll get you a schedule if you want.”

  “We’d love that,” Matt said firmly. He even went so far as to give Gretchen a hug. As he got closer, he leaned into her ear and whispered, “Stay strong and don’t let him win. This lot can sense fear. In fact, they feed on it.”

  And with that mysterious pronouncement, the four of them left, leaving her alone with a stupid clod of a man she had no intention of allowing to feast on her.

  “I’m sorry,” Jared said the moment he was left alone with Gretchen, the pair of them almost head to head in the middle of the pub.

  There were a million different things—better things—he could have said. In fact, he’d practiced several of them on the way over here. I lost track of time. I’m an ass. I’m scared. I sometimes think leaving the discomfort and isolation of the jungle was the worst mistake of my life. Other times, I know it was the best.

  Every single one of those words lodged in his throat—and his impotence infuriated him so much more than he thought possible. This wasn’t how tonight was supposed to go.

  “Are you sorry? Really?” Gretchen loomed close, looking in his eyes with a directness that heated his blood. “You sure as hell don’t look like it.”

  As she struggled to get her completely justifiable emotions under control, he took a moment to appraise her appearance. The only thing she’d changed out of was her shirt, which had been replaced by an even tighter tank top, if such a thing was possible, and her skates, which had been exchanged for a pair of clunky boots. The ripped fishnets, smudged makeup and tangled pigtails were hot, especially when matched by a smoldering fury that blazed just beneath the surface.

  There was nothing he could do about it. He wanted to plug into that fury—pun absolutely fucking intended—and rip the fishnets with his teeth.

  “Don’t smirk at me like that, Jared.” She lifted a finger and pushed it into his chest. “I’m glad you think this is some big joke, but you made me look like an idiot out there tonight. I actually made a few of my teammates stick around to meet you. Imagine my surprise when I sauntered up to the bleachers to find a bunch of your friends looking guilty.”

  “I already apologized.”

  “Oh, you apologized. How nice.” She was shouting now. Jared had never been much of an exhibitionist before, but he couldn’t bring himself to care that people were turning to stare. Let them. The indignity of their censure felt just.

  “I didn’t mean to be gone that long,” he said by way of explanation. “I do that sometimes. I start moving in one direction and don’t know how to stop.”

  She jabbed her finger harder, right in the center of his chest where the heart lodged firm. “I’m not talking about you walking out on the bout. Jesus, Jared—no one forced you to come to the thing in the first place. I’m talking about all the rest.”

  “What rest?” He knew his flaws. Cataloged them regularly. Atoned for their existence whenever he could.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said bitterly. “Maybe the fact that you’re acting like an entitled ass, sauntering in here like I’m the one who should be asking you for forgiveness. Or maybe that you put your friends in a really embarrassing situation, forcing them to babysit me while you’re off God-knows-where. Hey—it could even just be that you’re a jerk in general and I take personal offense to that kind of behavior. Your friends had a lot of stories to tell, Jared, and they weren’t very pretty.”

  No. None of his stories were.

  Gretchen wished Jared would say something. Do something. Anything, just so long as he stopped staring at her as if he wanted to devour her alive. A more obstinate, condescending man had never existed before—and lord help her, that could only be a boon to the world, if all obstinate, condescending men looked quite like that.

  “This is where you defend yourself,” she said. “This is where you say something so I don’t walk out the door and never speak to you again.”

  He kissed her.

  Gretchen was a good thirty seconds into the embrace before she realized what was going on. Jared had each of her upper arms in a tight grip, almost as if he wanted to shake her or twirl her over his head or do some other Hulk-style move to show how strong he was. But he did nothing except hold her firmly with his bulldoglike tenacity—nothing else with his hands, anyway. The rest of him was quite busy, what with the lips and the tongue and the intense, focused pressure of what had to be Gretchen’s first honest-to-goodness punishing kiss.

  Except she didn’t think it was her he was punishing.

  The low growl that escaped his throat was almost a cry for help, and the distance between their bodies—you could practically fit a whole person in there—was maintained by Jared’s tense form, so rigid it seemed painful.

  He pulled away just as sharply as he’d dived in. Gretchen’s breath came in short,
panting bursts as she stared at him, looking for clues. Other than his own heavy breathing, he gave nothing away.

  “You’re an asshole.” She touched her lips, the action almost involuntary, and she was surprised to find that they didn’t come away bloodied. “A big one.”

  “I know.”

  “There are psychopaths out there who are nicer to their friends. Even while they’re carving them into pieces.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “You know what the worst part is?” She didn’t wait for him to do another one of those mind-bending agreement things. “You like it. For reasons I can’t understand, this whole acting-like-a-jerk, making-people-feel-like-crap thing gives you a sense of fulfillment. And you don’t even care how it affects other people.”

  “No.” He finally stepped forward to breach the gap between them. “I do care. I care so much it scares me.”

  Gretchen had to look up to meet his gaze, but she did it, refusing to kowtow to him—but the posturing was all for show. Because even though she knew he was still an asshole, and would remain one for the indefinite future, she forgave him. She didn’t know how he did it. Maybe it was the pain that reflected in his eyes, the way his mouth twisted in a measure of distaste that seemed entirely self-directed. It might have even been the way he looked like a lost child trapped in a man’s body.

  “Then why don’t you act like it for once?” She tilted her head up even more. “Instead of stomping in here like the world owes you a favor, you could start by being contrite.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “Mean it.”

  He lifted a hand to the back of her neck, gripping her with a strength that sent thrills down her spine. “My whole life, I’ve acted without thinking, let my anger get the better of me. I run when I should stay, give in when I should fight. I can’t seem to do any better.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  His grip tightened, and he used his free hand to grab her hip, pulling her close. “You already called it, Gretchen. It’s because I don’t try hard enough.” His voice was so low this time, she felt rather than heard the apology in it. “Sometimes, I don’t think I know how.”