by Tracey Ward
He had kept it a secret, along with the small fortune his absent father had built for him. It was money he hated almost as much as the ghost of a man who had given it to him, and paying for my dream of owning my own tattoo parlor had been a sort of cleansing for Kellen. He wasn’t good at spending money on himself. He’d rather earn it honestly, he said. He went to Law School on his dad’s dime and the fact that he’d spent all of that money only to find out he hated being a lawyer had been a sort of sweet revenge for him.
Having grown up in pure poverty he wasn’t comfortable with the two plus million dollars in his bank account. He liked the simple way he lived and I liked being a part of it in ways my mom and sister could never understand. There in his small apartment with Ikea furniture and sheets from Target I felt good. I’d grown up with the best of everything, a silver spoon in my mouth before my first breath of air, and being with Kellen surrounded by little more than what we needed felt safe somehow.
Or maybe that feeling wasn’t the apartment or the things inside it. Maybe it was the man.
I reached out and touched his arm, the corded muscles of his bicep slightly straining the gray fabric. “I know. I heard you. Every time. You don’t want me to pay you back because it was a present and giving a present back is an insult.”
He grinned, his midnight blue eyes dancing darkly. “What would your mom say if she saw you trying to hand a gift back to me? She’d be ashamed.”
I rolled my eyes. “She’s ashamed of me either way.”
“She’s coming around about the shop.”
“I know. She still hates it though.”
“She doesn’t understand it. The tattooing or the shop. It scares her.”
I nodded, my eyes on my hand on his arm. “She’s still coming around about us too,” I said gently.
I felt him sigh. I felt the push of his chest against his arm as it filled with annoyance and air, expanding and pressing his arm harder into my waiting palm. He let the breath out slowly but his body didn’t relax.
“She just needs time,” he reasoned. “Everyone needs time to deal with it.”
His voice was empty in that way it got when it was full of everything. Every piece of the world that weighed down on him. It was a heavy load, one I’d only caught glimpses of, but I knew this one. I felt it too. It was everything that had happened between him and my sister over the last decade. The on-agains and the off-agains. The empty engagement, the cheating, the lying, the hiding. Kellen’s only indiscretion in the entire relationship had been one kiss. One fire-fueled moment with me that had been a long time coming. One that detonated the end of him and Laney for good, but he still felt bad about it. A lot of that had to do with the incredible guilt I had over it, and the fact that I was adding to his already heavy load hurt my heart, but I couldn’t help it. We’d been wrong. That kiss was everything I’d wanted for years, the only truth he lived for months, but it was still wrong. And everyone knew it.
“Jenna.”
I looked up, meeting his eyes. I hadn’t realized I’d spaced out until he said my name. I hadn’t realized I was frowning.
He reached up and ran his thumb gently up and down between my brows, smoothing the scowl away until I grinned at him faintly. “It took time to make that mess,” he reminded me. “It’ll take time to clear it. I promise you I’ll make it right.”
“Laney and I are doing better,” I told him hopefully, not feeling it at all. “She’s working now. She’s happy.”
“That’s good.”
“Maybe it’ll help her forgive us.”
Kellen chuckled. “No, it won’t.”
“Come on! You can’t even pretend to think that’s true? String me along here a little, I need it.”
“Fine,” he relented with a wry smile. “I’m sure this new job will change her world. She’ll find a purpose in her life, realize what she and I had was pure shit, and she’ll move on because she’ll grow as a person and let go of the past. She’ll find a guy, get married, we’ll all live and die together in the same neighborhood playing pinochle well into our eighties, and the last words she’ll whisper to us with her dying breath is, ‘I forgive you.’”
I sank back into the couch feeling deflated. “Well you don’t have to be an ass about it.”
“I’m not good at lying to you, Jenna. Tag it in the win box.”
“Our win box is pretty empty lately.”
Kellen looked over at me with concern. “You are uncharacteristically morose tonight, you know that?”
I nodded heavily. “I do. I feel it.”
He looked away, licking his lips and shifting slightly in his seat. I felt a little bad for him right then. He wasn’t good at talking, not about feelings. Even little ones and here I sat with some pretty fucking big ones on my mind and he knew it. And he probably wanted to bolt.
“I’ll take care of the stuff with your family,” he promised me deeply, his voice strained with hesitation. “I’ll clean up my mess.”
“It’s not only up to you.”
“No, but I was the coward and I’ll take care of it.”
“You’re not a coward. You’re the bravest person I know.”
He looked at me then, intent and earnest with those dark, dangerous eyes that destroyed me every time. Then he smiled and my world went upside down. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”
I sat up slowly and kissed him. He watched me move toward him. He waited for me, his smile growing the closer I came until I wiped it away with my own.
His breath smelled like beer. Like hops and honey. I fell forward to take another taste and his hand found its way into my hair. It tangled in the messy bun I had wound on top of my head and as I slid my tongue along his lower lip he tugged at my hair, deftly freeing it from its confines. It tumbled cold and loose around my shoulders, heavy against my skin as his hands moved lightly alongside it. I sighed when his fingers found the long column of my neck. As they drifted down, dancing and tripping over my skin until my heart was racing and his breath was coming hard against my face.
His other hand touched my hip and I took the hint, immediately swinging my leg over his lap and straddling him. My tank top was gone before I could blink, his mouth disappearing only long enough for me to miss it and then it was back with a mission. He took control with his lips and his hands and I gave it to him gladly. The slightest pressure from his hand had me grinding against him, both of us moaning at the feel of the friction. I was burning up inside, already set to blow at the slightest spark because that’s what Kellen did to me. His big, gentle hands, his broad shoulders full of fight – they wrecked me and rebuilt me. They made my tall, long body feel small in the most amazing way because everything Kellen did was magic. It was breathtaking, soul crushing, and so intensely beautiful.
He undressed me slowly, taking his time the way he did when he was trying. When he wanted to stay with me as long as he could and give me everything he had. I adored him for that. For trying. For never needing me to ask. But an unavoidable moment was coming and we both knew it. As heart wrenching as it was, neither of us could stop it.
Kellen pushed me to the brink. He gave me everything but what I begged for. His fingers, his tongue, all the pressure and friction in all the right places until I was breathless and nearly out of my mind with feeling and fire. Until I was staring down into his eyes with my lips parted, my throat hoarse and full of desperation, and he was looking back with so much love and lust that I thought he’d stay. That this would be the time.
But then he lifted me up, positioned me over him, and he left me. His eyes closed for the briefest moment, just long enough for me to sink down and take him in, and when they opened they were empty. He was gone. Buried away in a dark corner of his mind where the memories couldn’t touch him and the feel of this pleasure, this body of mine that he now clung to, couldn’t hurt him. Not again. Not the way she had so many years before.
He moved with me. He breathed with me. He kissed me and held me tenderly, hi
s voice so familiar as it grunted my name. He finished with me, both of us crying out and clinging to each other as we went rigid and soft and so warm. He even held me for a moment afterward with his hands in my hair, my forehead against his, and his eyes on the floor.
To the casual observer nothing was wrong. We were fine. We were in love and we’d just made love to prove it, but what the world didn’t know, what only I was allowed to understand, was that Kellen was empty in that moment. He was on autopilot. He let his body and his brain take over and his soul checked out.
I would love to say it didn’t bother me. That I got it because I knew his reasons, and they were great, terrible reasons. He had every right to be the way he was. To do this the way he did.
But that didn’t mean I had to like it. It didn’t mean that it didn’t make me feel like every other girl he’d had meaningless sex with, dead eyed and empty hearted time after time.
It didn’t mean it didn’t cut like a knife.
Chapter Two
KELLEN
It hurt like a hangover. The fuzzy feeling of waking up and you’re not entirely sure what happened but you know you ache because of it. You had flashes, memories and moments that were crystal clear, but most of it was a blur that you witnessed underwater where you lay safe and secure from the world. Hiding like a coward. Like a kid.
Sometimes I wondered if I wasn’t still that kid, only ten years old missing his mommy and living in a strange house with cold floors and overly kind hands. Sometimes, times like tonight, I looked in the mirror and I was surprised to find a man’s face staring back at me. Square jaw, crooked nose from too many breaks. Too many beatings. Ruffled brown hair and anxious blue eyes.
I was just coming to, just getting my bearings, but I knew I should go back out to the living room where Jenna was waiting for me. Still I waited. I wasn’t ready yet. I wasn’t me yet, or maybe I was too much myself right then. Either way this wasn’t the face I wanted Jenna to see – scared and unsure. Caged and angry.
“Shit,” I cursed, bracing my hands against the edge of the sink and leaning forward. My face hovered over it, swimming in the stark white bowl and getting lost in the void.
I hated this moment. Hated myself and everything about me. Hated the animal inside who always wanted to fight. Hated the kid who always wanted to hide. I fucking loathed the man who wanted to touch Jenna. He wanted to feel her, lick her, kiss her – and he never wanted to stop. He loved her, they all did, every part of me, but it didn’t change anything. I still dove into sex exactly the way I always had – deaf, dumb, and blind.
Dr. Phillips was right – Jenna couldn’t fix me. Only I could do that, but I had no clue how.
And I had no idea how long Jenna would give me to do it.
Ten minutes later I finally stepped out of the bathroom as ready as I could be to face her. I wasn’t surprised to find her waiting for me but I was stunned at the way she was waiting.
By the door with her purse slung over her shoulder.
“Are you leaving?” I asked.
She forced a grin. “Yeah. Is that okay?”
“I thought you were staying the night.”
“I was, but I’m tired. I need to get some stuff from my apartment before work tomorrow and it’ll be easier to just go home and sleep there tonight. Start fresh in the morning.”
I nodded slowly, lifting my hand to the back of my neck. I rubbed it absently. “Yeah, that’s cool. Whatever you want to do.”
“Thanks. Yeah. I want to go home.”
“Ok.”
“Ok.” She shuffled her bag on her shoulder, her eyes on mine. I wasn’t sure what she was looking for but I saw the moment she didn’t find it. Her shoulders slumped slightly sending her bag down into the crook of her elbow. “Okay,” she repeated on a thick breath. “I’m gonna head out. I’ll call you tomorrow?”
I dropped my hand from my neck and took a step a small step toward her. It wasn’t enough. “Yeah. Or I’ll call you.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, that scowl reappearing between her brows. “Sure.”
I was fucking up in so many ways, but offering to call her had been the icing on the cake. I felt sick as she gave me a small wave, opened the door, and disappeared from my apartment.
I hadn’t kissed her goodnight and she hadn’t cared.
Yeah. I’d fucked up.
***
“You’re so stupid,” Callum laughed.
I glared at him from across the ring. He sat on the stool wrapping his hands, getting ready to spar with me, but mostly he was laughing at me. Chuckling to himself as he wound the black tape around and around, shaking his head in disbelief.
“I know,” I growled in annoyance. Both at him and at myself.
“I know you know. ‘Cause you’re smart. You’re stupid but you’re smart, you know?”
“Yeah.”
He lowered his hands, leaning back against the post behind him. “So fix it.”
“Great, thanks, man. Why didn’t I think of that?” I shook out my hands, feeling that familiar itch in my palms that said the anger was coming. It was bringing the animal inside with it. “I don’t know what to do with a girl after sex. High five? Hug her for five hours? I’m not exactly warm and fuzzy.”
“You’ve never stuck around after sex?”
“Not really. I’ve stayed in the room but mentally I’m checked out. I’m over it.”
“Dick.”
“Yeah.”
He scratched his chin thoughtfully, his fingers scraping against the stubble of his short beard. “Seriously? Not even Jenna? You’ve been in love with her for years and you don’t want to lay there with her afterward?”
“No,” I answered plainly. “I want to leave. Or I want her to leave. Or I want to turn on Sports Center.”
“They don’t like that.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’re fucked up, man.”
“Yeah, I’m aware of that too.” I rolled my shoulders, trying to relieve the tension. Trying to calm the animal. He was gunning for a fight, fueled by my own anxiety and self-loathing. “How do I fix it?”
Callum laughed. “You’re asking me?”
“I’m desperate.”
“Dude, you’d have to be to ask dating advice from me. I don’t know what to tell you other than don’t do that shit again.”
I stared at the floor, studying the pattern until I saw it too clearly. Until it became too big, too complex to understand and my head started to swim.
Callum sighed. “Look, you should be glad she gets you. She knows you’re jacked. I bet she even knows why, doesn’t she?”
I nodded my head silently.
“You ever gonna tell me why?”
I shook my head.
“Harsh,” he grumbled. Then he grunted as he stood up, his thick legs moving into my field of vision. “Fine, whatever. Keep your secrets. But be grateful she gave you an out. You didn’t want her to stay anyway.”
“Yeah, I did.” I grimaced, my stomach churning. “Or maybe I didn’t. I think I wanted to want her to stay. I don’t know.”
“Well, she did. She knew you wanted her gone so she left because she’s smarter than you sometimes. Don’t bitch because someone gave you what you want.”
“But I should have wanted her to stay.”
“You want what you want. Don’t get hung up in shoulda’s. They’re bullshit.” He punched my shoulder roughly, jarring me and bringing my eyes to his. His blunt face was smiling easily. “Let it go, man. Call her tomorrow, be your charming-ass self and be grateful you got a woman who understands you because trust me, the rest of us don’t. Would Laney have let it go like that? Would she have left you alone if that’s what you wanted?”
“No. Never. She would have chased me around the house, and out the door yelling at me to give her what she wanted.”
“Because that bitch is crazy. Jenna’s cool. Leave it at that.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Good. Now are
we gonna fight or what?”
“Box, not fight,” I reminded him for the millionth time. I gestured to his hands covered in tape and nothing else. “Where are your gloves?”
He shook his head. “Let’s go without ‘em.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Put your gloves on, Cal.”
He bounced on his feet then kicked his leg high in the air. “You never thought about trying real fighting?” he grunted.
“Real fighting like what?”
“Like UFC,” he answered excitedly. “MMA, man!”
Callum threw a couple of jabs the way I had taught him, fighting an invisible opponent to my left, then he kicked again. And again. He grunted each time and as he continued to bounce on his toes sweat was glistening on his upper lip, but he had good form. His footing was solid and his kick was surprisingly high. I was over six feet tall and he nearly hit me in the face.
“Cut that shit out,” Tim called lazily from the front desk.
Callum put his weight back home on two feet and turned to him, frowning. “What shit?”
“That fighting shit,” Tim answered without looking up from his magazine. “This is a boxing gym. Box or get out.”
“Ah, come on, Tim. It’s all in the same family.”
“Box or get out,” Tim repeated.
“MMA is huge right now. If you got an instructor in here and the right equipment you could make a mint.”
Tim turned a page in his magazine, unimpressed. “Box or—“
“Get out, yeah,” Callum interrupted. He went to the corner and picked up his gloves grudgingly. “I heard you.”
“You ready?” I asked, settling into my stance.
“Are you ready?”
I grinned. “I’m always ready.”
He threw a wild punch, trying to catch me off guard.