by Tracey Ward
I dodged around the ring, trying to wear the guy down a little. I’d faced him before and he shouldn’t have been a problem, but sitting in the driver’s seat like I was, everything felt like it was happening faster. I was having trouble keeping up and I felt almost dizzy as we swung around and around.
Out of nowhere he threw a punch at me.
I lurched back from the hit. I ran from him.
“No!” Tim shouted, angrily. “Dammit, no! Get—“
The guy hit me hard in the face, my hands coming up to block too late. He immediately followed with an uppercut to my stomach that took the wind out of my lungs and made me wince, nearly cowering.
“Hit! Him!” Tim shouted.
I couldn’t. I was already heading for the ropes, somewhere I never should have been. I should have had this guy running from me by now. Last year when we’d faced off I had taken it easy on him. Now he was working me like a red headed stepchild.
I took another hit to the face and my right hand itched violently inside my glove.
“Fucking fight, Kellen!!!” Jenna screamed.
My eyes darted to the floor where I caught a glimpse of her. She was a blur, just a flash of color, but her words hit me like a gunshot in my gut. The animal was gone or dead or asleep – I didn’t know. I couldn’t be the boxer I used to be. I had to get over it. I had to quit on the restrictions and rules and structure, the expectations that held me in place. That held me back.
I had to cut loose.
I had to fight.
I shoved the guy off me, sending him stumbling back, then roamed around him. I made him turn and spin to find me, his footing going frantic underneath him. Finally he came at me again, off balance and angry. And open.
I threw a right hook. I used my busted up hand, and it hurt just as much as I knew it would, but it also took the wind out of his sails. As he stumbled again, I shook my hand out, growling against the pain, then I launched myself at him. I landed three quick blows with my left hand and I felt the energy in my muscles when I did it. I remembered my speed. I reminded everyone in the room as well.
I raced through the ring, moving as quickly as I could, dodging and ducking, throwing that left hand whenever there was an opening. I couldn’t find my place in the ring, not yet, but I did find my pace, and today that was enough.
“Coulter, get your ass down here!” Tim shouted right as the final bell rang. “What the hell was that?”
I didn’t answer, not because I was shutting down, but because I knew from experience that the question was rhetorical. It was time for me to listen, not talk.
“You froze up out there. I know you were in that damn accident and I’m sorry, kid, but I swear to God I never thought I’d see something like this from you. You’re tougher than that. Is it the girl? Is she the one that told you to quit before?”
“No.”
“Good. If this one ever gets in your business like that, you drop her like a bad habit, you hear me? I don’t want to see another day like today again. This was years of training forgotten and wasted in one afternoon! Every guy here thinks you’re finished. They’re gonna start talking and do you know what they’ll be saying? Coulter’s lost it. He doesn’t have it anymore. Ding dong, the king is dead! Is that what you want them saying?”
“No.”
“No. No, it’s not, ‘cause you’re not done. You’re a natural. You’re born for this. Whatever’s gotten in your head and got you hesitating, get it out. Do you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Alright,” he said, his tone quieting. “Tomorrow we start again and you’re going lefty. I don’t want to hear anything else about it. Your right hand is a bust and we all know it. No use hiding it and dancing around it. Now we adapt. We lost one strength, but you got ‘em in spades. We’ll find another one.” He ran his hand over his head, turning his back on me. “Now go save your girl from Nunez.”
I looked for Jenna, immediately finding her on the other side of the gym standing next to another fighter with short dark hair and olive skin. I knew him from years ago, back when I was tearing through my fan girl phase here at the gym. As far as I knew, he was still making the rounds.
“Hey!” I called gruffly. “Back away, David.”
He raised his hands innocently, backing up. “We’re just talking, man.”
“Right.”
“What? She said she’s not your girl.”
“Doesn’t mean she’s looking to get syphilis,” I told him, coming to stand next to Jenna. “Get away.”
He laughed as he left and when I looked at Jenna, she was smiling. Laughing.
“Can’t leave you alone for two seconds,” I grumbled, pulling off my gloves and tossing them onto a nearby table.
She shrugged. “It’s the tattoos. You boxer types love them.”
I stepped in close to her, my body nearly touching hers. Her face immediately fell serious. “It’s your eyes,” I told her softly. “They’re trouble.”
“They’re gray. They’re boring.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“Thank you,” she breathed, her cheeks flushing pink.
How a girl as gorgeous as Jenna could be flattered and embarrassed by a simple compliment was beyond me. She should have been used to them by now. Bored with them. Instead, she blushed with every single one, and I loved it.
Put Jenna and Laney side by side and ask anyone off the street who was more attractive, and I guarantee you that most would pick Laney. She was traditional. Safe. She was the embodiment of an ideal that had been fed to all of us guys for our entire lives, but Jenna was something different. Her beauty wasn’t as obvious. It wasn’t in the immediate sum of her parts. It was deeper than that. You didn’t see it right away. You had to spend time with her. You had to hear her laugh, get her jokes, make her smile, and then it’d come on you slowly, like the sun rising in the east. It was natural and powerful, a combination of a hundred different things that came together in a slow symphony you heard with your heart.
Or maybe that was just me. Maybe that’s how I saw her because I loved her, but did it make it any less real? I didn’t think so.
“So you’re not my girl, huh?” I asked, surprising her.
“I thought that’s what we agreed on,” she replied quietly. “No labels or expectations. Just us being us.”
“That is us. I’ve always thought of you as mine.”
Her chest rose and fell rapidly. “Me too,” she whispered.
“You always thought of yourself as mine or the other way around?”
“Both?”
“Good.” I slung my arm around her shoulders, pulling her to me and holding her there firmly. It was mean to do it. I was slick with sweat, I’m sure I stank of it, but instead of slapping at me and running away, she wrapped her arms around my waist and hugged me back.
“Careful,” she teased, nodding to a familiar group of girls standing by the door. “Your groupies will be mad.”
“Screw ‘em.”
“Isn’t that the idea?” she asked dryly.
“Not anymore,” I laughed, squeezing her tighter before letting her go. “Hey, I gotta take a shower and then I’m taking you to dinner. We’ll celebrate.”
“Where are we going?”
I started backing away toward the locker room. “I’m thinking somewhere fancy.”
“So Denny’s then?”
“You know it,” I grinned. “I’ll have to wear a shirt and shoes.”
“You take me to the nicest places.”
“I’m a baller!”
“But what are you going to order when we get there?”
“An omelet.”
“Oh, Kellen,” she mourned dramatically.
“Moon Over My Hammy!” I shouted, throwing my arms up into the air triumphantly. Because, yeah, I remembered my order from Denny’s and that was a friggin’ win for me. Even before the accident, that would have been a milestone.
“I’m so proud!” Jenna beamed.
&n
bsp; I hurried through my shower, throwing my clothes on and running my finger through my wet hair carelessly. I took a quick look in the mirror before I headed out and I couldn’t stop smiling, but it wasn’t about the fight. It didn’t take a lot of soul searching to figure out who it was about.
I’d won the bout despite my injuries, but it had been ugly. It should have been a simple win but I felt like I’d had to really scrap for it, and maybe that wasn’t so bad. A new challenge could be good for me. Being forced to take a new perspective was kind of the order of my life right then, so going Southpaw didn’t sound as daunting as it would have six months ago. Now it felt like a punch I could roll with.
I had my footing back. It was time to move forward.
When I stepped out of the locker room, I was immediately hit with a wall of groupies. My stomach lurched when I recognize one in particular.
“Great fight, Kellen,” Laura purred, running her fingertip down my arm.
I kept walking, my eyes straight ahead on Jenna. “Thanks.”
“We’re having some people over tonight,” Chelsea told me, trying to step in my path. The sight of her gave me chills. “You should come by. You remember my address, right?”
I quickly stepped around her. “Yeah, I’m busy tonight. Thanks though.”
“That’s okay,” she persisted, falling in step next me. “We’ll be up late. At least I will be. You should come by whenever.”
“Can’t make it. You guys have fun.” I locked onto Jenna, hurrying my pace to get to her. To get away from the girls. “Are you ready to get out of here?”
She smirked at me, her face amused. “Are you sure you don’t want get her number? Go to that party?”
“You’re funny,” I answered drolly as I opened the door for her.
“You already have her number, don’t you?”
“Had. Past tense.”
“What? Had her number or her?”
I cast her a sideways glance, telling her I wasn’t playing this game.
“Oh, come on!” she exclaimed with a smile. “We said us being us. This is us. You wouldn’t be shy about telling me. Phone number or her?”
“Both,” I answered reluctantly.
“And the other girl?”
“That’s enough sharing for today.”
“You dog,” she teased, poking my side. “What happened to ‘those aren’t the kind of girls I mess with. They’re the kind that want to see guys fight over them’ rant you once gave me.”
I fought a grin, remembering that afternoon. I’d been so full of it. Noble intentions and all, but two nights later I’d been in bed with a groupie and out her window before dawn. “It was more of a credo,” I told her.
“Pretty long credo. A credo is usually confined to a few words. Live for love and honor. Fight the good fight. Drive it like you stole it.”
“Fuck her like you hate her.”
Her eyes went round with surprise. “Whoa, okay, yeah. I mean, I’m not going to crochet it on a pillow for you, but if that’s how you live. Is that your next tattoo? ‘Cause I don’t know how I’m going to make that beautiful.”
“You’d find a way, and no. Those were dark days. They’re past tense, like the girls.”
“Were they between Laney?”
I stopped immediately, turning to face her. “What are you asking?”
“You know what I’m asking,” she replied stubbornly.
My jaw clenched. “You’re asking if I ever cheated on Laney?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
My heart beat wild in my chest, the familiar anger that came with the accusations rising to the surface. “Why would you ask that?”
She shrugged, looking way. “I wanted to know.”
“You already did know. If I had cheated on Laney, I would have told you. You’d be the only person I’d tell.” I paused, not wanting to talk about this, but it was already there between us. There was no avoiding it anymore. “This is about the kiss in the bathroom, isn’t it?”
Her face softened. “Yeah.”
“I broke off the engagement within hours of that.”
“But I didn’t know that was going to happen, and I still let the kiss happen.”
“I attacked you.”
“Don’t make excuses for me,” she warned me sharply.
I nodded, knowing I couldn’t make it right by taking all the blame. She’d never give it to me. “Okay.”
She stared at me for a long time, and I started to itch. I was getting worried as I watched her emotions flash through her eyes. Guilt, remorse, confusion. Resolve.
“Jenna, is it something you can’t handle?” I asked her directly.
“What do you mean?”
“The timing of that kiss. Is it something you can’t get past?”
She hesitated only for a second. It was enough. “I don’t know.”
“Fuck,” I swore vehemently. I ran my hand over my hair roughly and dropped my chin to my chest. I stared at the cracks in the pavement under my feet, the sunlight casting slanted shadows over them, making them look larger than they were. Uglier. “I fucked it up before it even started,” I berated myself.
“Kel,” Jenna said gently.
I shook my head, turning to pace up and down the sidewalk, unable to look at her. To be near her. “Here I thought I was doing this right,” I railed. “We’ve been taking it slow, putting distance between us and the engagement, I’ve been getting my shit back together. I’m taking the firemen’s test next week—“
“You’re going to be a fireman?” she asked, stunned.
I couldn’t answer her. I couldn’t stop. “But it doesn’t matter because I couldn’t keep it together for two more hours. Four years I’d been thinking about what it’d be like to kiss you again and I couldn’t wait two more fucking hours.”
“Stop, wait,” she pleaded. “Talk to me about this.”
“I’m no good at that.”
“Look at me,” she demanded firmly.
I stopped pacing and put my hands on my hips to still them. I took a deep breath before looking at her, trying to stay with her but dying to run away. To hide.
Her mouth set in a firm line of determination, Jenna stepped forward and put her hand over my eyes.
I went still. “What are you—“
“Shut up,” she scolded. “We’re backtracking. Talk about the firefighter thing.”
“Jenna, why are—“
“Nope, no questions. Jenna’s not here. Can you see her? No, because she’s not here. You’re alone. Now talk.”
“I’m not a toddler,” I said impatiently into the darkness of her palm.
“You take instructions like one,” she snapped. “Talk.”
I breathed slow and even, waiting for her give up and pull her hand away. It was pointless and I should have known it. If there was anything both Monroe girls intrinsically were, it was stubborn.
“I’ve been looking into becoming a firefighter,” I explained.
I didn’t tell her I was doing more than looking into it. That I had already signed up for an EMT certification course and I’d applied twice to get into an academy, both times falling just shy of the mark. I should have told her, but I didn’t. I was too proud. Too irritated and wounded that I had failed. I needed a win under my belt before I’d tell her anything.
She didn’t reply to what I gave her. She wanted more.
I sighed. “I think it’s something I’d enjoy. Something I’d get satisfaction from.”
More silence. More patience.
More sharing. More agony.
“It’s physically challenging,” I continued, “which I like, but it’s also helping people. The nurses in New York, they told me the first responders to the accident were firefighters. They’re trained EMTs. If they hadn’t gotten there when they did, I’d be dead. They saved my life.” I paused, not sure what else I needed to say. “Can I have my eyes back now?”
“Not y
et. Not until we talk about the kiss.”
I exhaled sharply, the heat of my breath rebounding off her skin and coming back to me smelling of vanilla and sunlight that lit up the dark and painted it in her image.
“I messed up,” I confessed. “I’m sorry.”
“We messed up,” she told me clearly, “and I think we’re both sorry. But I can’t move past it. I think that’s why I was so willing to take things slow. It’s smart, yeah, and the right thing to do, but it’s also because I’m worried. I don’t want to start us off on a lie.”
I swallowed hard. “Do you want to start us off at all?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation, “but we have to come clean first.”
I gently pulled her hand away from my eyes, blinking as she came into focus in the bright light, just the way she had when I’d first woken up in New York. I’d been so glad to see her face, a part of me had been convinced it was a dream. I felt that way now. Like she was an illusion, one that could vanish at any moment and I had no way of stopping her.
“This will not go well,” I warned her reluctantly.
“I know.”
“She was never going to like us being together, but knowing there was even a second of overlap…”
“She’ll go insane, yeah,” Jenna confirmed. “I know. But just because it’s difficult, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s right.”
I nodded, already feeling bile in the back of my throat. “Tell her together or alone?” I asked, honestly thinking it’d be easier to do it alone. I could slip inside. I could shut down, and Jenna wouldn’t have to see it.
“Together,” she said adamantly. “I think it’s important there are witnesses. Less chance we’ll end up a Lifetime Original Movie that way.”
I chuckled darkly, leaning down to kiss her. I lingered for just a second too long. Just a moment that I stole before I stepped away and consigned myself to the fact that this was happening. It was happening and it could go very, very deeply wrong.
If it did, I wanted to have that kiss, that moment, to remember forever.