by Tracey Ward
I chuckled as I folded a pair of jeans and laid them inside my suitcase.
“Do you have plenty of fresh underwear? I don’t want you getting in an accident and have to worry you’re wearing soiled underwear. I’d be mortified. Do you hear me, mister? Mortified!” he cried shrilly.
“Are you done?” I asked.
“You can’t go to meet Jesus in tighty dirties.”
“I don’t wear tighty anything. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”
He came to stand in the doorway to my bedroom. “What are you insinuating?”
“First of all, kudos for the double word score. Didn’t know you had that kind of vocabulary.”
“Thank you,” he said with a small bow.
“Second, I’m insinuating that you have an insalubrious preoccupation with the contents of my pants. Always have.”
“Always will,” he shot back.
I stood watching him, waiting.
He pinched his lips together, his face going red as he held it in as long as he could. “Fuck you, where’s a dictionary?!” he shouted, leaving the room.
“Look it up on your phone!”
“What was the word?” he called back. “It was something about lube. Is it a sex joke? Should I look it up on Urban Dictionary?”
My phone beeped with a new text message. It was from Jenna.
Running behind. So sorry! Pick me up at the shop?
What’s happened at the shop?
More staffing crap.
I frowned, feeling annoyed for her. She had a high turnover rate on tattoo artists lately. The shop was gaining a lot of popularity and the notice gave the newbies a big head. They got all puffed up and proud of their work and bailed to go work at bigger shops for more money, completely ignoring the fact that Jenna had given them their shot. They weren’t loyal the way she had been to Bryce, and I wasn’t the only one getting pissed about it. Bryce had told me the other day he was starting a Shit List and all of Jenna’s ex-employees were on it.
In the So-Cal tattoo scene, you didn’t want to be on Bryce’s bad side and some young, fresh idiots were about to find that out.
Do you need any help? I asked her.
No, thnx.
I shook my head in disappointment. She knew I couldn’t stand texting shorthand. ‘thnx’. Really?
:P
Emoticons. Really?
lol U R the worst. C U soon!
That text was followed by a stream of emoticons with all different faces that made my phone go insane in my hand.
I laughed as I texted back, I love you, midstream in the madness she was sending me.
“It’s weird seeing you happy,” Callum commented, standing in the doorway again.
“Trust me, it’s weird being happy.” I zipped my suitcase closed before going to my dresser to grab my passport and ticket information. I paused, my eyes falling on the small black box that had rested on my dresser for the last month. Waiting.
“How’s the job going?” Callum asked.
I flinched inwardly at the question. I’d been taken on full time as an EMT after Baxter over at Hermosa hadn’t called me back following our meeting at the firehouse. I figured it was because they didn’t want me, but word on the street was that no one had filled that open slot over there yet. I didn’t know if they had decided not to take anyone on at all or if they hadn’t found the right person. No one did, and all of us volunteers who were itching for an opening into a full time slot were watching and waiting with breath held tight.
I took a deep breath now, grabbing the paperwork for the flight to Ireland and turning my back on the box. “It’s good. I like it.”
“Is it gross?”
“Not yet, but I’ve been warned.”
“You’re gonna touch shit at some point, aren’t you?”
“Being an EMT there’s a good chance I’ll touch a lot of bodily everything. Thank God for gloves.”
“How much longer till you’re ready to apply to firehouses?”
“Fourteen months,” I replied, not bothering to tell him I’d been looked at by Hermosa already. I didn’t want to tell anyone anything until I had a job locked down. “I’m counting down the days.”
“Me too. I want to ride in the rear. Pet the Dalmatian.”
“This is starting to sound weird.”
“Kellen, let me touch your fire hose.”
“And we bypassed weird and went straight to gay. Good on you.”
“You better hurry your ass up if you want to make that flight.”
I flipped through my carry on one last time, making sure I had everything I needed. When Callum left the room, I looked over my shoulder at the ominous black box. It stared back at me.
I picked it up, holding it in my right hand and spinning it absently the way I did every single day until my knuckles began their familiar ache. Sighing, I moved to put it back on the dresser.
My phone beeped again, another message from Jenna coming in and lighting up my screen. It was simple and to the point. Straightforward and honest, genuine the way only Jenna could be.
I♥ U 2
I stared at it for only a second. It only took me that long to decide.
I moved the box to my left hand – my strong hand – and slipped it into the pocket of my jeans.
“You ready?!” Callum shouted.
“Yeah!” I called back, grabbing my bags and my phone, hurrying through the door. Feeling like I was already flying. “I’m ready.”
***
The boarding call for our flight rang out cacophonously on the intercom overhead.
I didn’t move. Neither did Jenna.
The world around us slowly pushed into action – men, women, and children gathering their bags and making their way toward the growing line for the plane. People shuffled across my vision, blurs of color and life, but I never looked away from her. Even when I couldn’t see her I watched her. Her long legs, long hair, long fingers full of elegance and art that was poured across her skin in brilliant swatches of color beneath her clothes. She drew most of her own tattoos. She only let Bryce ink them for her, her trust earned long ago and never tested. Never tempered. Not like ours. We’d been through the fires, Jenna and I. We were stronger than steel, possessing the kind of faith in each other that could only be born of pain, and I worried I’d given more than I received. I’d broken the cardinal rule of boxing and breathing.
In life and in the ring you never dish out pain you aren’t willing to take.
I wished I could go back and do things right by her. I’d take all of it. Every hit I’d landed against her heart, every scar I’d left on her soul. Every doubt I’d put into her mind. But life isn’t like that, it’s not fair, and I knew that better than anybody.
Still I wanted it. I wanted it for her because I wanted everything for her.
The line was thinning. Time was running out and we needed to board soon. Still she waited, never pushing. Never pressing just in case I changed my mind and decided to run.
I was famous for that. For running.
I smoothed my sweating palms down my thighs, rubbing the moisture on my jeans and shifting in my seat. The small box in my pocket poked against my side, nudging me sternly.
When the final call came in for our flight I rose to go stand beside her.
Then I knelt.
“Jenna.”
When she looked down at me her mouth fell open in shock. When I pulled out the small black box she nearly choked.
“Kel, what the hell?” she whispered shakily.
Looking into her cool gray eyes I felt suddenly calm. Sure. It was like that moment in the ring when you know the bout is won. The bell has yet to ding, but you know. You feel the shift of fate in your favor and you breathe a little easier because it’s done. It’s yours.
And more than anything I needed her to be mine. I needed to know she was with me forever. Before I could go on this trip to meet my mom’s family, before I could face Ben in our next session and hear a
gain and again how I needed to find closure with a dad I’d never known, I needed to know Jenna was all in. Despite everything we’d been through - all the bullshit, all the missed chances and bad timing, my own cowardice and every fault that lived inside my bones - I had to know she was still with me. That I was allowed to feel jealous, feel possessive and protective. That she was mine to defend and worship for the rest of my days.
“I was planning on doing this in Ireland,” I explained calmly. “I wanted to wait until we were overlooking the ocean or somewhere beautiful. I was going to do it the right way and surprise you.”
“You’re surprising me,” she assured me shakily. “You’re shocking the shit out of me.”
I smiled at the curse. At the pure piss and vinegar of her that I had always admired. “I thought there were ways I was supposed to do this, but I don’t think there are. Not for us.” I opened the box to show her the ring but her eyes never left mine. “I can’t promise I’ll always tell you everything, but I’ll never lie to you. I can’t promise that I won’t run away, but I will always come home. I’ll always be faithful, I’ll always be there when you need me, and I will always, always love you. Jenna, wil—”
She dropped to the ground, pushing the ring aside and throwing her arms around me. “Yes,” she whispered happily. “Yes, yes. Fuck, yes.”
I held her hard. I was probably hurting her but she only held me harder, pressed her body against mine until I could barely breathe. I was drowning in her and it was the sweetest death a son of a bitch like me could ever hope for.
We needed to get up. We needed to board our plane and get going, but right then what I wanted to do more than anything was hold her. To feel her, tall and slender and bursting with life and everything I’d ever wanted. Everything I never thought could be mine because she was pure grace. She was perfection.
She was poetry.
Chapter Sixteen
Jenna
I was drooling.
I knew it the second I shifted in my seat, my face coming up off Kellen’s shoulder just a breath. Just far enough to register the cold air on my saliva slicked cheek. To see the darkened pool of gray on Kellen’s hoodie.
“Shit,” I muttered.
Kellen moved, his face turning to look down at me. I didn’t dare look back.
“Good morning, Sunshine,” he said softly, laughter lilting his deep voice.
I groaned in disgust.
I sat up and quickly wiped at my mouth uselessly.
Who was I trying to hide it from? Dude knew I was drooling. Hell, he was wearing it.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Dandy.” I grimaced at him. “Sorry about your hoodie.”
“Don’t sweat it. Your spit is probably the least objectionable fluid that’s ever been on this thing.”
“That is a really troubling statement.”
He shrugged. “I wear it to the gym. Spit, blood, sweat; it’s seen it all.”
“And you wear it out in the world?”
“It’s my favorite hoodie.”
“How often do you wash it?”
“It’s clean.”
“How often?”
“A lot,” he said defensively. “For someone who went full Niagara on it you’re being pretty judgmental. Don’t worry, you spit on a clean surface.”
“I didn’t spit on it!”
“Right, that’s right. You sprung a slow leak on it as you sawed logs for the better part of an hour.”
I gasped – full soap opera, baby daddy reveal gasped. “I do not snore!”
“You snore like John Goodman on Ambien.”
“You fart like a diesel engine backfiring.”
Kellen snickered, trying to contain his laughter, but it was pointless. People all over the plane were turning to look at us. Glare at us.
“I’m beginning to think this is not a First Class conversation,” I spoke out of the side of my mouth.
“First Class needs to calm its tits.”
I burst into giggles, burying my face in Kellen’s shoulder before screeching and jerking back. I’d pressed my forehead into the cold wet of my own drool.
“Karma,” he scolded lightly.
I smiled, raising my hand to push my wild hair from my face. A flash of light on my left hand caught my eye.
I paused to look at it. To process the ring on my finger. To relive the memory that felt like a dream my mind made up while I was snoring away on Kellen’s shoulder. That alone – being with him the way we were, the way we were always meant to be – felt illusory enough, but this… this was something else entirely. This was a dream inside a dream. A movie inside a movie.
This was a duck shoved in a turkey’s ass.
“Do you like it?” Kellen asked gently.
My smile softened. “I love it.”
“Sam helped me pick it out.”
“She knows her stuff.”
“Yes, she does.”
Kellen laced his fingers through mine, the stone on my hand pressing between his large fingers. It was his right hand – his weak hand. His battered, broken hand that somehow he still boxed with. Not like before because nothing could be like it was, but that didn’t mean he did it with any less vigor. With any less passion and purpose, because you could break Kellen all day long and he’d still come out swinging.
“Are you nervous?” he asked carefully.
I didn’t look into his face. I knew it would give me nothing. The mask would be in place but what I could read, what he was telling me in his tone and the delicate feel of his palm against mine, was that he was scared.
“No,” I swore soundly. “I’m not. Are you?”
“No.”
“But not being nervous makes you nervous, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
I rotated our hands, catching the light in the stone. “You can take it back at any time.”
“I don’t want it back.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to feel safe.”
Tears stung the backs of my eyes, pricked by the tender honesty of his words. It was the simplest of things to want but the desire behind it was so complex I knew I’d never fully understand it. I could see it, I could view the labyrinthine twists and turns that made up his emotions, his history, but I’d never navigate that maze. I wasn’t sure he would either.
But I’d never stop trying. I’d never stop talking, never stop struggling to guide him out and up. Even though I knew it was a losing battle I’d never stop fighting it because I promised him. Because I loved him.
I turned my face toward his, my eyes on the ground, unseeing and unfocused. He leaned his head down until his cheek rested against my forehead and his breath blew warm and steady across my face.
“I’ll be your home, Kellen,” I vowed in a whisper. “I’ll be your friend and your family, and I’ll be here. Unmoving as stone. Constant as gravity. Eternal as the stars, and when you lose your way I’ll bring you back. I’ll bring you home to me.”
He didn’t move and he didn’t answer, but his breath against my face changed. It became short, shallow, and I knew he was struggling with something. Some emotion he felt ill equipped to feel, and I stayed carefully still as he worked his way through it. As he squeezed my hand tightly, took a shuddering breath, and kissed my forehead; light and lingering.
“Mon amie,” he breathed unevenly. “Mon amour. Ma nord.”
My friend. My love. My north.
***
Customs was a pain. It almost made me want to try to smuggle something through just to make it more exciting. I didn’t tell Kellen that, though, because I was pretty sure it would freak him out and he was already on the edge. Had been ever since we touched down in Ireland and it got worse the deeper into the airport we traveled.
Being in Ireland, prepping to meet his family – it was all tethered to his mom, and while he had a lot of love for her, he also harbored doubts. He had questions about so many things, most of which centered around his d
ad, and while the man was alive and Kellen could contact him at any time, he didn’t. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t, not ever. While he had love and doubts about his mom, he had nothing but anger and resentment about his dad.
Kellen’s phone buzzed in his pocket as we scooted two steps forward in an unending line.
“It’s Owen,” he said blandly. “He’s here. He’s waiting at baggage claim.”
“He’s one of your uncles?”
“So I’m told.”
“Do you want to perform a DNA test before we get in the car with him?”
“Wouldn’t hurt,” he grumbled, stuffing his cell back in his pocket.
“I forgot to bring a swab.”
“Damn.”
“Looks like we’ll have to trust him.”
He smirked, moving a step forward in line. “Yeah, because I’m so adept at that.”
“How about I’ll trust him and you trust me?”
“You want me to trust him by proxy?”
I laughed. “You still sound like a lawyer sometimes.”
“Is it sexy?” he asked, nudging me roughly in the hip. “Does it do it for you?”
“I like it when you sound like a fighter better.”
“You mean when I’m talking about running and my weight and BMI and bench pressing?”
“No. I like it when you talk like you can’t lose, even when you know you can.”
“You like that, huh?” he chuckled.
“I love it. I love that side of you. The part that can’t quit, that never lets up. Never lets go. The part that goes up against the ropes and keeps on swinging.”
He looked at me heavily. “That’s a pretty angry part of me. A pretty big, angry part.”
“I know. And I love it,” I reaffirmed. “I love it because it’s you, Kel.”
His eyes stayed with me until the line moved again. We moved forward with it, silent and steady.
It took almost forty minutes to get through Customs. Not uncommon but still a pain in the ass. Kellen was quiet through most of it, only taking a break from his anxious hand flexing to chuckle when I reminded him of our last family trip to Greece three years ago.
“What do they think I’m going to sneak out of this country?” Mom had complained as we cruised through the airport. “The stench? The heat?”