Tate matched. The corner of his mouth leaking blood like a busted pipe. His left eye looked bruised already. His right cheek puffy and red.
We both took heavy breaths, pushing at each other, ready to keep going.
“You done running your mouth yet?” I asked.
“You done running from your fucking problems?” Tate asked.
I pushed off him and swung another fist. It wasn’t my best punch, but I caught him in the jaw. Enough to knock him back and make him turn. He reached for his jaw. He left his ribs exposed and I wasn’t ready to stop just yet. I plowed with a heavy fist into his side. Tate let out a growling groan sound, but made a quick turn and came up with a fist and got me good. My head snapped back so hard that I thought for sure my neck was going to break. Instead, everything spun for a second as I took a few cheap swings to keep him from hitting me again.
For whatever reason, someone finally decided to come outside.
The door opened and Prick took one step out, looked at me and Tate, and jumped into action.
“Come on,” I called out.
I turned to face Prick and put my fists up.
“Jesus Christ, man,” Prick said. “What the hell are you doing?”
“We’re not done yet,” Tate said.
He tackled me at my right shoulder and drove me against the building again. I lost my breath for a second time, but managed to throw an elbow and hit Tate hard enough to knock him back.
That’s when Prick got between us, putting his back to me, which was a big risk because I would have loved to have punched him in the back of the head and watch him fall.
“Holy shit,” Prick growled. “You two are fighting each other now? How many fucking people do you fight with, Tate?”
“Only the ones I love,” he growled and broke away from Prick.
He turned his back and shook his right fist, obviously in pain.
I looked down at my hand and it was mangled up.
“Who else did Tate fight?” I asked.
“None of your business,” Prick said. “I thought you were fired. What are you still doing here?”
I stepped forward, ready to take him on. “Keep running your mouth, Prick. Come on… I dare you.”
“Prick, go back inside,” Tate said. He stood with his back to both of us.
“Tate,” Prick said. “I’m not leaving you like this. You and Sawyer tried to hurt each other… but you and Axel look ready to kill each other.”
“Sawyer, huh?” I asked. “Fighting all your best friends?”
“Prick, I said to go the fuck inside,” Tate ordered.
“Fine,” Prick said. “I’m not responsible for this shit.”
Prick went back inside and Tate finally turned around. He wiped blood off his lip and looked me dead in the eyes.
“Sawyer too?” I asked.
“Maybe I’m bad at showing my feelings,” he said.
I laughed. “No, this feels about right. We were never going to hug each other and say goodbye, were we?”
“You’re not going anywhere, Axel,” Tate said.
“What?”
“You’re not fucking fired.”
“I believe I heard you fire me, Tate.”
“Is this what you want? You want to get fired? You want to get out of here?”
“I don’t know what the fuck I want,” I said.
That was probably the first real piece of truth and heart I had spoken in a long time.
Tate closed in on me. He clamped a strong hand on my shoulder.
“I know,” he said. “I see it in your eyes, Axel. I thought if I rattled you by firing you, you’d wake up. That didn’t even work. What’s going on, man?”
We stood there, beaten by each other. Bloodied by each other.
Close like brothers though.
Fighting one second, hugging the next.
“It’s because of your ex-wife,” Tate said. “Isn’t it?”
“That’s the problem, Tate.”
“What?”
I spoke the second piece of truth. “I don’t want her to be my ex-wife anymore.”
Thirteen
*PRESENT DAY*
SHELBY
1.
“How is it?” I asked, sitting at my kitchen table, every few seconds looking at the pack of cigarettes, desperately wanting one.
If Stacy hadn’t called when she did, I would have been outside, smoking by now.
“It’s beautiful,” Stacy said. “It’s everything I hoped I would find. It’s such a small town. Nobody knows me. I know nobody.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Okay, so I stopped at this little restaurant and just asked the waitress about a place to stay. She put me in touch with this fisherman who rents out his beach house when he’s gone.”
“Wow. That’s crazy.”
“It’s amazing, Shel. Here… listen…”
Stacy went quiet and I heard the rushing of waves. That comforting sound of the ocean. I shut my eyes and pictured myself there. Any place seemed better than Hundred Falls Valley. My tattoo was itchy, but looked perfect, and the last time I saw or heard from Axel, he was gently kissing me and quickly pulling away. He’d left me hanging in so many ways, and I was mad at myself for letting that happen.
But whatever. It was a moment between us.
“Did you hear it?” Stacy asked in a super happy voice.
“I heard,” I said. “It sounds beautiful.”
“I’ll send you some pictures. This is amazing. There’s this deck right off the kitchen and it just overlooks the ocean. I mean, it’s not like a swimming type of ocean though. There are a lot of rocks. But it’s quiet and peaceful. It’s just perfect. I wish you were here.”
“Ah, you’re having fun,” I said. “You need this. So badly.”
“So do you, Shel. I know something is bothering you. I won’t pick a fight over the phone, but I know. I see it in your eyes. And if it has anything to do with me… because of Den…”
“Stacy, listen to me carefully right now,” I said. “This has nothing to do with you. I swear on it.”
“So something is wrong then.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t say you didn’t…”
“What?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “You never said you were okay though… right?”
I took a deep breath. “You’re out doing this for yourself, Stacy. To clear your mind and find yourself. You’ve been through a lot, and look at the outcome. I’m so sorry that Den passed away. I want you to focus on that. Not that he’s gone, but…”
“I know,” Stacy said. “I know. That’s why I’m here. But I’m worried about you. I can’t stop thinking about it. And you have to know that I know you’ve been smoking.”
My eyes looked at the cigarettes. “So?”
“You were trying to hide it from me.”
“Stacy…”
“That’s what I mean,” she said. Her voice cracked a little. “Why would you hide that? It’s because you’re tying that to guilt or worry or something. Is it because of Axel? No, don’t answer that. I don’t want to get into that again.”
“It’s a little of everything right now,” I said. “But I’ll be fine. I promise you. Okay? It’s going to be fine.”
“Are you sure? I’ll come home. You can come out here.”
I took my eyes off the cigarettes on the table and looked at the magnetic calendar on the fridge. There was a black dot on the fifteenth of the month. For good reason. Anyone who saw it would probably think it was something to do with my time of the month, but it was far from that.
I swallowed hard and felt tears fill my eyes.
“I’m good,” I said. “Stacy, I’m good. Just go and do your thing.”
“Can I say one thing before I hang up?”
“Sure.”
“I stand by what I told you last time.”
“And what’s that, Stacy?”
“He’s
still here,” she said. “Den isn’t. You know?”
“I know,” I said. “Love you, sis.”
“Love you right back.”
The call went dead.
I stood up and walked to the fridge. I stuck my thumb to the black dot on the fifteenth and wiped it away. Yeah, it took the dot away, but big fucking deal. That meant nothing. I would still have to go…
I turned and looked at the table.
Cigarettes.
A cellphone.
I approached with caution, knowing I needed to make a choice.
Funny thing though, was that one was deadlier than the other.
I chose the worst of the two evils, placing my hand onto my phone.
To send a text message.
Hey. It’s me. Obviously. I have a question about the tattoo. Are you busy?
It was a complete and total lie.
But it left butterflies in my stomach.
Nothing wrong with a little lie… if it brought Axel back to me… right?
2.
“No, this looks great, Shel.”
Axel looked up at me, eyebrow raised, ready to call bullshit on me needing to get the tattoo checked.
Of course the tattoo was great. Axel did it. He was a master at tattooing. I did what he’d said to do and it was healing just fine.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Yeah. What was wrong? Did you feel pain or something? I mean, I’m not a doctor, but I’ve seen infected ink before. And you know we don’t use shit ink or anything like that…”
“I know,” I said. “I wasn’t suggesting that. I just… thanks for taking a look.”
“Yeah,” Axel said. “Everything else okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. I pulled my foot off the coffee table and hurried to stand up and walk away from him.
What did you do, Shelby? Why did you text him to come here?
I rushed into the kitchen and opened the fridge.
The leftover beers from the last time he was here were still in the fridge.
“Want a beer or something?” I asked.
“Yeah, that sounds good,” he said.
I got two beers and shut the fridge. My eyes went to the calendar. I looked right at the fifteenth. The black dot gone, but not forgotten. It still mattered.
“You know what?” I said. “I’m not in the mood for a beer.”
I put one back and turned to find Axel standing at the entrance to the kitchen. Leaning against the door frame, arms crossed. Head tilted to the side. Staring right at me.
That’s when I lost my breath.
It took me right back to when I had that stupid blue dress. The only dress that my father could afford for me. I knew he’d spent more on Stacy’s dress, but that was okay, I’d always made my peace that Stacy was his real daughter and I was his stepdaughter. He loved me though. He took care of me. That was fine with me.
But I remembered wearing that dress and seeing Axel looking at me from across the street. Leaning against a crooked stop sign pole with the same look on his face as right now.
“Not in the mood for a beer?” Axel asked. “Are you sick?”
“No,” I said quickly.
I hurried to the cabinet next to the fridge and opened it. I saw the bottle of vodka and knew it was trouble. The worst kind of trouble stood behind me with good looks and smoldering eyes. Either way, I was screwed.
“Going for the bottle,” he said. “So that text had nothing to do with your tattoo, huh?”
I spun around and put a bitchy look on my face. I unscrewed the cap on the vodka bottle and took a healthy drink. It burned as if fire and ice had a demon child, scratching from the back of my throat to boiling in my stomach.
My lips popped off the bottle and I held myself steady.
But for as strong as I believed I was… I could only do that for so long when I was near Axel.
3.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Axel said, shooting a hand out and grabbing the vodka bottle just as it was about to touch my lips again. “Why don’t you balance that out with another drink.”
“Beer?”
“Water.”
“You’re coming to my apartment and telling me how to live?”
I was feeling really good.
“I just don’t want you to end up getting sick.”
“What if that’s what I want?” I asked.
“So you want to drown yourself in vodka and end up puking?”
“Let me ask you, Axel, if I did that… would you hold my hair back? Like you used to do?”
His hand opened and he let the bottle go.
I took the drink I planned on taking and watched as he eased away from my side of the kitchen table. We were in a heated game of war with me closing in on actually winning.
I put the vodka bottle on the table.
I flipped my next card.
It was a ten of hearts.
Axel flipped his card.
Eight of diamonds.
“I win,” I said.
Axel slid the cards to me.
“This is my last card, Shel,” he said. “You might pull this off.”
“Maybe,” I said. “You put your card down first.”
“Okay,” Axel said with a laugh. He flipped his card and slapped the table. “King. I’m about to make a comeback.”
“Not a chance,” I said. “Watch.”
I flipped my top card and it was a queen.
Our eyes locked right away, going back to that other night when the whole king versus queen thing kicked up.
“So…,” I said.
“So…,” Axel said with a grin.
“Take your cards.”
“Oh, hell no, Shel. I’m not going down that road again. You win.”
“No,” I said. “It’s the right way to play.”
“Yeah. And then you’ll throw it in my face and show me a tattoo you got that I never knew about.”
I laughed. “You’re like a baby sometimes, Axel. Do you act like this around everyone?”
“I don’t think it matters, the way I act around everyone else.”
“Other than losing your job, right?”
“For the record, love, I never lost my job. Me and Tate worked it out.”
I didn’t need to ask what that meant. I noticed that Axel’s face had a little bruised look to it.
My mind shifted gears to something else.
“You called me love again,” I said. “That’s like three or four times.”
“You’re keeping count of it?”
“Do you call anyone else that?”
“No.”
“Not even your dumbass one-night stands?”
Axel grinned and turned his head. “You’re something else, Shel. You get a little vodka in your system and you get all chatty.”
“What? I’m asking a question. You tell me about yours and I’ll tell you about mine.”
I saw the way his face instantly changed. The look of jealousy that spread across it.
“I don’t give a fuck about yours,” he said. “I didn’t come here for that shit tonight. You want to do that? I don’t.” He stood up from the table. He pointed to the cards. “Those are yours. You win. Congrats.”
For a second, I thought he was going for the door. My mind snapped sober for a minute because I knew he’d had way too much to drink to be driving. Not only did he drink the rest of the beer from the other night, I gave him a bottle of whiskey I had sitting around in my cabinet. There was no way he was going to try and do something stupid like drive home right now.
I jumped up and charged for the door, not realizing that Axel wasn’t going toward it. Which meant I crashed into him as he walked by the table, actually going toward the living room. I bounced off his rock hard shoulder and flew back, letting out a yell.
“Jesus, Shel,” Axel said as he somehow managed to get an arm around my back and kept me from slamming into the table.
With a quick pull, my body was against his.
My hands resting on his chest, again, just like back at the tattoo shop.
“You can’t leave,” I said. “You’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk, love,” he said. “You’re drunk. I’ve been drinking. And I don’t plan on leaving.”
“Oh. Okay. The way you jumped up… I was just messing with you. It bothers the hell out of me to imagine you with another woman.”
“Does it really?”
“Yes. It crushes my heart, Axel. There were so many women that all but threw themselves at you for so many years.”
“And I never thought to look even once at them. My eyes always looked in the same fucking spot, Shel. Right into your eyes.”
“Kind of like right now…”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
It felt like someone had turned the temperature up to ninety-nine degrees.
I expected my mouth to go dry like it had done before around Axel, but that didn’t happen. My lips tingled with a sense of need that was almost embarrassing.
“You won that hand,” I whispered. “You know that, right?”
“Sometimes it’s not about actually winning,” Axel said. “Sometimes it’s just about actually being there for the moment.”
My heart split into pieces.
My fingers curled, digging a little into his chest.
He was so hard. Everywhere.
Whether he meant it or not, I could feel everything.
“It took you all these years to realize that?” I asked.
“Do you want to go down that road right now?”
“No. I don’t want to even look at the fucking map, Axel.”
“Good.”
Axel lowered his mouth to mine.
This was a much different kiss than back at St. Skin. His lips weren’t gentle, almost shy, flirting and kissing with the soft intent of goodbye. This kiss was hard, his lips hitting mine, taking control, my mouth opening as his did. His tongue flicked against mine and I began to melt like snow during springtime, groaning into his mouth when I thought the groan was simply in my mind.
Fucking drunk…
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