She shook her head. “Sorry, Garth. If I liked hanging out on the sidelines, I would have been a cheerleader.”
“Fuck the cheerleaders—”
“You certainly did back in high school.”
I was fighting two battles: one with my fists with the Masons and one with my words with Josie. “I’m not asking you to stay here because I want to keep you on the sidelines forever. I’m begging you to stay here so I can keep you safe.” How was that not clear? Five moderately to severely drunk guys were looking to turn me—and anyone else who got in the way—into their human punching bag.
“We’re waiting, Black. But we’re not going to wait much longer.”
Josie’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Why don’t you go buy a fruity drink and make out with a guy like we all know you want to, Finn?”
A few of the Mason boys’ mouths dropped open, Finn’s mouth clenched closed, and Colt tried not to smile. Me? I laughed. Hard.
Lifting his finger, Finn took a few steps our way. I braced, ready to pounce on him if he came another step closer. “As soon as I’m done teaching this piece of trash some manners, I’m going to hold you down and sew a red A on that cheap farm-girl dress of yours, you ungrateful, cheating little—”
Yep. That was it. My rage containment threshold. Letting out a grunt of outrage, I drove my shoulder into Finn’s stomach and tackled him to the ground.
“Are we finally going to fight?” Finn yelled at me, dodging my first fist. He didn’t dodge the second one quickly enough. He grunted when my fist cracked the same spot he’d hit Josie.
With the reminder he’d laid his hands on Josie, a whole new level of rage bubbled to the surface. Phase two of Garth Black losing his shit. “No, I’m going to fight.” I cracked him in the other cheek. “You’re going to lay there and take it.” Before I could get in a third punch, Finn’s brothers piled on me. A couple grabbed my arms, and the others pulled Finn off of the ground. He was barely up before he came at me, throwing a solid fist into my stomach. And then another. And another. I lost count a few punches later. When I curled over and coughed up a bit of blood, Josie came charging toward us. Well, she came charging for Finn.
The guy had her by a hundred pounds, and she was coming at him with nothing more than sheer determination and gusto. If I wasn’t so terrified of what would happen next, I would have been bursting with pride. Right before she got to Finn, Colt leapt in front of her, stopping her from going any farther. She tried ducking around him, but he dodged in front of her. She tried again, and she almost got by him. Finn was back to turning my insides into gelatin when I sighed.
“Jesus Christ, Colt. Hold her back and keep her out of this,” I said.
Josie flashed me a glare like I’d betrayed her. If betraying her meant keeping her from getting any more hurt, that was what I would do. When Josie made another run at Finn, Colt didn’t hesitate. Cinching his arms around her, Colt dragged her away from his four brothers and me. That was the first positive mark in Colt Mason’s corner. Josie struggled, and I’m pretty sure she stomped down hard on his toes, but Colt was a strong enough guy. I had a beating from him to attest to that.
Okay, Josie was safe. Time to kick some ass.
As Finn was winding up for another round of Liquefy-Garth-Black’s-Internal-Organs, I jumped off the ground and kicked out just in time to send Finn and his fists flying backward. The sudden motion surprised the Mason boys holding my arms, so I was able to twist my arms free. I didn’t waste any time pouncing on Finn. I might not have had any issues with the Mason brothers—other than Colt dating Josie—but after what Finn had said and done . . . They’d just secured the number one spot on my most hated list.
The two of us rolled across the gravel, each landing hits as we struggled to gain the upper hand. Finn was a big guy—bigger than me even—but I was a bigger badass, so that made us about even. Even through Finn’s and my grunts and curses, I heard Josie crying out, yelling out, and finally, cussing us out. I’d lose the fight right then and there if I could go back in time and keep Josie from seeing it, but since time travel wasn’t a skill I’d honed yet, I hit harder and hoped it would be over soon.
Finn and I were a pretty even match, but his three brothers threw themselves at me as soon as I managed to pin Finn. Boots flew, fists connected, and before I knew it, I was on my back, curling into myself and hoping at least a few of my vital parts were still intact when they were done. My dick being the most vital of them all. I made sure to cup both hands over that piece of my “vital” parts.
Josie’s screams of protest quickly changed to pleas to stop. She hollered her lungs out begging them to stop, threatening to call the cops, promising she would kick all of their asses. Then her shouts turned to sobs as their kicks and hits only picked up speed. I was close to passing out, no longer able to feel what parts of my body were and weren’t working when her weeps turned to choking whimpers. That right there—hearing Josie falling apart and being unable to fix it—was the most painful blow I’d been dealt that night. I’d no sooner convinced myself of that and then Finn grabbed the baseball bat. Shit, that would hurt like a mother.
His first swing hit me in the lower back, his second a bit higher. By the time he’d moved on to his third and fourth, I was passing out. His brothers yelled at him to stop. Their hits and kicks had stopped as soon as Finn took the bat to me, but from their voices, they were scared of the same thing I was: Finn wasn’t going to stop swinging until I’d stopped breathing. It took all three of them to pull him away from me. Even then, he was still swinging that bat.
“Colt! We’re out of here, man. Get your ass in the truck, and let’s go.” One of the twins, Dufus or Dipshit, called out.
As the trio continued to wrestle Finn toward Colt’s truck, he never stopped glaring at me. “Don’t mess with me. Don’t mess with my brothers. Don’t mess with our women,” he ordered. “After tonight, you’ll have learned your lesson.”
I was beat to shit, more broken than put-together, and I had to spit blood before I could say something, but I wouldn’t let Finn think he’d beat me. He hadn’t. I hadn’t come so far mucking through life’s shit it only to be beaten by a few pairs of fists, a baseball bat, and Finn Mason. “You call that a lesson? Come back over here, and I’ll show you a lesson.”
It was true—I really didn’t know when to shut my mouth.
Finn lunged against his brothers, but his adrenaline was fading since he wasn’t using me as a human piñata. His brothers had no problem tossing him into the back of the truck and keeping him there. “I’m going to kill you, Black!”
I blew a kiss his way. “Have fun with the boys, sweetheart.”
That sent him into another fit of rage, making his brothers look like they were considering using the baseball bat on him.
“Colt! Today!” one of his brothers shouted.
Colt finally let go of Josie, and as soon as he did, she spun around, slapped him so hard it echoed, and raced toward me with a look of terror. From the looks of it, she must have thought I was about to die—or was already there. Once she reached me, she fell to her knees and draped her arms around me. Actually, it was less of a drape and more of a grab.
I grimaced. “Hey, Joze? You know I love you touching me, the more desperate the better, but right now . . . less is more, baby.”
Her arms instantly loosened. “Oh my god. Please don’t die. Please. Don’t. Die.” She was such an emotional wreck, it looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She wound up going with the latter.
I managed a smile, despite it hurting like hell. “Okay, fine. I won’t.”
Colt was heading for his truck, glancing at us like he wasn’t sure what had happened or what to do about it. Just when I was sure he was going to keep on walking, he paused. His whole face lined as he studied Josie and me spread out over the gravel. “You want me to call an ambulance or something?”
Josie shot him another glare.
“Or something,” I huffed, slowly rolling onto my
back. I stretched out one limb at a time, one inch at a time. Nothing felt broken—at least no bones were. Colt slid his phone out of his pocket. “Thanks, but I’m good. If I called an ambulance every time I got in a fight, I might as well just buy the company because it would be cheaper.”
Colt shifted. “You sure?”
“Just get the hell out of here!” Josie shouted at him, eyeing the bat.
“We’re good. Do as the lady says.” In my state, I wouldn’t have been able to stop Josie if she did decide to pick up that bat and take swings at a flock of Masons.
“Okay.” Colt nodded and started for his truck. “I guess I’ll see you . . . around?”
Josie snorted and wiped at my face with the sleeve of my jacket she still had on. I stroked her cheek. It was still swelling and already bruising. Another flash of rage.
“Colt?” I didn’t wait for him to acknowledge me. I knew he heard me. “Tonight, you were my ally because you kept Josie out of all this. Come tomorrow”—I managed to lean up on my elbows to look him straight on—“you’d better steer clear of me. If I run into you, I’m treating you like any other Mason who did this to her.” My eyes scanned her face before shifting back to his. When Colt inspected her face, his eyes closed in a wince. He nodded once before leaping into his truck and peeling out of the parking lot faster than they’d peeled into it.
“Man, Josie. I don’t know who took it out of me more tonight—you or the Masons.” I cupped her other cheek and worked up another smile. It was done. The Masons had done what they’d wanted to, were gone, and we were both okay. I might need a good night’s sleep and a few Tylenol, but I’d had it worse. Unlike other fights, I hadn’t had anyone to sit beside me afterward, stroke my hand, and look like they were suffocating in their concern for me.
Concern . . . it was a fairly new concept to me. One I was sure was overrated and a bunch of bullshit. As I laid there spread over the gravel, blood pooling in my mouth and every square inch of my body throbbing in pain, I realized how nice it was to have someone concerned about my wellbeing. Someone concerned about me. Someone cared whether I was still alive come morning, and that gave my life a meaning and purpose that had been absent. She depended on me, and for right then, she wanted me in her life. It was a sobering reality. One that would take a while to figure out.
“Say something. Please,” she sniffled, wiping her nose with the same sleeve she’d used to wipe my face with. It was dotted with blood. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to fucking do right now.”
“It’s okay. I’m okay.” She looked as close to hysterical as I’d ever seen Josie, and despite the pain coursing through my body, seeing her so undone caused the most pain. “Why don’t you help me up and over to my truck so I don’t get blood all over yours, and then let’s just get back to your place and figure out the rest when we get there. Sound okay?”
“Are you sure you don’t need to go to the hospital? You look bad, Garth. Really, really bad.” She bit her lip as a tear slipped from her eye.
That tear was like another baseball bat slammed into my back.
“No hospitals. They’re sick of me anyways even if I actually needed one. Which I don’t.” She looked like she was about to start screaming for an ambulance. “Just get me back, get me to bed, and I’ll wake up tomorrow good as new.” Nothing I was saying was calming her down. If anything, every word seemed to be working her up more. Gritting my teeth, I sat up so I could be face to face with her. Maybe that would reassure her I wasn’t about to be drug off to hell after taking my last breath. “Look at me, Josie. In the eyes.”
She sniffed and shook her head. “I can’t. They’re swelling shut.” She choked on another sob but managed to keep the rest of them back.
That explained why I couldn’t see anything more than a sliver of her. “Hey, hey,” I said, trying to soothe her with my words, my hands, with anything. “Where’s that brave girl who just issued the slap heard around the country? Where’s my strong girl who just took a swing at a guy twice her size?”
She fretted with my shirt, laying the rips and tears back together, buttoning the buttons that had come undone. “A lot of good me being brave and strong did to save you.”
I adjusted my head until the sliver I saw of her was her eyes. Mine might have been swelling shut, but she could still stare back at me. “You have no idea how much good you’ve done to save me, Josie Gibson. Don’t you ever doubt that.”
Josie let those words simmer for a moment, then she rolled her shoulders back, wiped her eyes, and wove her arm through mine. “Let me help you up.”
“Thanks”—I shoved off the ground, letting her guide me up—“because I don’t think I’m capable of doing it on my own.”
When I was up, Josie wrapped one arm around my waist and lifted my arm over her shoulders. “Was that you admitting you need help and actually accepting it?”
“It just might have been,” I admitted, shuffling beside her as we made our way to my truck. Being vertical and moving doubled the pain, but Josie’s arm around me, supporting me the whole way, dulled it somewhat. When we made it to the passenger door, she opened it and guided me inside. After shutting the door, she hurried around to the driver’s side and leapt inside.
Firing the engine to life, she glanced over at me with an expectant look. “Buckle up, buttercup.” That made me laugh. Which made me wince. “I’m serious. I’m not putting this truck into drive until you put your seatbelt on. We didn’t make it this far for you to die all because you refused to buckle up.”
If she wasn’t so dead serious, I might have laughed again. I reached for the belt and snapped it into place. I attempted something that was meant to be a Happy? expression, but given my face probably looked like a team of plastic surgeons had gone to town on me, I don’t know what I managed. It made Josie smile. So fuck the rest. Making her smile, that was my new life calling because really, what else mattered?
“Thank you.” Shifting the truck into drive, she peered over at me. “Buttercup.”
I snorted. “After taking that beating from the Masons, I feel like a damn buttercup.” God damn, where was a morphine drip when I needed one?
“I’m sorry, Garth. I should have seen that coming. I shouldn’t have been so stupid. I know what those boys can be like when they get together. Then mix alcohol . . . and you into the tornado, and that’s like the perfect storm right there.” Josie pulled out onto the highway slowly, carefully. The last time she’d driven slowly was when she was never. She really was worried fate was about to deal us an unfair hand.
“Don’t apologize for them. If you spend your whole life apologizing for other people’s actions, you’re going to wake up and realize you didn’t get to do anything on your own to apologize for. Live your life. Don’t waste it apologizing for others.”
Josie glanced at me from the corners of her eyes, keeping both hands firmly on the ten and two position on the steering wheel. It was kind of cute how careful she was being. Concerned. There was that word again. “You just took a few hits to the head, and you’re capable of that kind of profoundness?”
“Was that profound?” One of the few serious questions I’d asked in twenty-one years.
“Deeply.”
“For me, right? Deeply profound for Garth Black, who is known for being so deep he dries up the instant the temperature rises above eighty.”
Josie rested her hand above my knee. Gently. “Deeply profound for anyone. I know you want to deny it, but I know there’s a whole lot more to you than a big, black hat and an even bigger ego.”
“I don’t know, Joze.” I covered my hand with hers, but when I noticed it was caked with both dried and fresh blood, I pulled it back. I’d made a big enough mess already.
“But I do.”
“Yeah, you sure do,” I whispered, twisting in my seat to stare at her. My eyes were swollen, my body wrecked, my brain weary, but in that moment, I needed to do only one thing. One thing I needed to say. I knew that even if I
wanted to keep it back, I couldn’t. Besides, I’d been holding it back for long enough. “Josie?” I cleared my throat and reached for her hand again. Yes, I might cover it in blood, but I’d clean it for her later. I’d fix my mess.
“Yeah?” she asked, her eyes focusing on something in the distance. I was opening my mouth to finish what I’d been meaning to say for years when she groaned. “Ah, crap. The lights are all still on.” She looked at me. “My parents are up.”
The disappointment of biting back what had literally just been on the tip of my tongue was painful, but how could I follow My parents are up with what I needed to say? Yeah, I couldn’t. I had to close my eyes to focus and shift gears. Josie’s parents. Up. Late. Me. Her. Blood. “Do you want me to sneak in or something? I could just wait outside until you all go to bed and then sneak in.”
“What? No. Way.” She snapped her head back and forth, slowing the truck a bit as she headed up the driveway. “I’ve got to get you inside, cleaned up, fixed up, pain reliever’ed up, and to bed. That’s the priority, not evading my parents and their questions.”
I took a breath. I hadn’t been planning on explaining any of the night to the Gibsons. The drive-in earlier or the gas station parking lot later. “What do you want to tell them?”
Josie’s hand reached for mine. “The truth.”
I smiled right before I frowned. “I’m not sure telling your parents that you and I are together right after I walk through the door looking like a herd of cattle ran me over is the best timing.”
“I want to tell them. I’m sure now.” As we approached the Gibsons’, she parked right outside the front door to give the newest member of the gimp club a break.
“You’re sure of me now?”
“I’m sure of us now.”
That right there was all the fix I needed. Josie looking me in the eyes and admitting she trusted me enough to give us a chance. I’d been waiting for that moment for a while. It left me speechless. Josie opened her door and rushed over to help me get out, but I clenched my jaw and slid out on my own. I didn’t want the minute before Josie told her parents that I was her man to involve her having to wait hand and foot on me because I’d taken a serious beating.
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