Wildcard (Stacked Deck Book 1)

by Emilia Finn

  “Choose your words carefully, Benjamin. Because you know I’ll come there and strangle you for being an asshole.”

  “You’re playing dumb,” he seethes. “You’re pretending he’s not trying to get closer to you, and you disrespect me by telling me I’m wrong and overreacting.”

  “Oh, so like how Nora was up in your space every single day of tenth grade?” I hate myself. I hate everything about myself right now. “Just like that?”

  “Nora was my friend!”

  “So it’s cool for you to have a female friend, but lord help us all if I happen to speak to a guy that isn’t you. This feels like déjà vu, Ben. Like how you got pissed because Knox and I were training together.”

  “He was checking you out, too!”

  “But did I fuck him?” My stomach drops. My heart aches. “I’m not a whore, Ben. And just because someone has a penis doesn’t mean I’m gonna touch it. You just assume that I’m okay with Nora being back, and I’m the asshole if I say anything, because something bad happened to her. I’m the monster, and she gets the sympathy hugs from my boyfriend. But did I say anything? Did I throw down the gauntlet and rip you apart for being a friend to her? When I was blindsided with her being at your house, did I say anything?”

  “It’s not the same, Evie.”

  “No, the same would be if Reid or some other guy was in my room right now while I make this call. Perhaps we could video chat, and I’ll pan the camera around and show him, rather than warn you and give you a second to prepare.”

  “If that fucker is in your room right now, then shit’s about to get crazy. You’re mine, Evelyn. I worked for you. I earned you. I fucking deserve you!”

  “I thought I earned you too,” I snap back. “But I guess I have you on timeshare with Nora. Go to sleep, Ben. I’ll talk to you another day.”

  I hang up and try not to feel bad about the words he’s shouting into the line. Something about no, and stop. I feel like the asshole, because I was so determined not to mention Nora. I was so adamant to be a grownup and not use her as a weapon.

  Because mentioning her gives her all of my power. Showing that she’s a threat to me is a bad move on my part. My best choice is to pretend she doesn’t exist, but did I do that?

  No.

  “Fuck.”

  I toss my phone down and tear off my clothes. I throw them into a pile on the little shelf inside the shower cubicle. I step forward, crank the shower on until the water slices over my body, then I pretend the moisture on my cheeks is shower water, and not tears from Ben-Effing-Conner.

  Ben

  Goodbyes

  The younger version of me would tear my room apart. I would throw shit around, and swear until my mom came in and smacked me down for teaching my sister bad words.

  But I’m more mature now. I’ve grown since I was that younger asshole, so when Evie hangs up on me, I very gently lay my phone on my bed and step back. I lift my hands over my head, and breathe through the panic that swirls in my stomach.

  She’s my best friend. That’s what this comes back to.

  If I remind myself of our friendship, rather than obsess about our relationship, then I know everything will be fine.

  She said she was going to shower, so I give her time and work through the anger that roars in my blood.

  Anger. Anxiety. Grief.

  Evie and I have fought before. Of course we have, because we’re both opinionated and have an inability to admit fault. Push two people evenly matched in stubbornness together, and it’s inevitable there will be fireworks.

  Over the years, before we were together, I had nothing to lose by fighting with her. If anything, I prodded her and prayed for a reaction. Because fighting was better than not talking at all.

  I have something to lose now, so I need to be more tactical in my approach, but beneath the bubbling panic I feel for our relationship, I have to remind myself of the friendship.

  A friendship like ours can weather any kind of storm.

  I back away from my bed, but I can’t release my phone from my sights until I’m through my door and into the hall. It almost feels like I’ve been working out. My breath comes heavily, my adrenaline is spiked and my heart racing. I walk through the hall and into the kitchen to find my mom and Oz kissing by the fridge.

  A couple years ago, I’d have shot him for that, but now I simply… open the fridge and slam the door handle against his back.

  The bottles inside the door rattle, and Oz’s quiet laughter grates on my nerves while he continues to hold my mom close. “Problem, Sasquatch?”

  “Fuck you, Pig. Don’t talk to me.”

  My mom used to get mad at me for telling my cop stepfather to fuck himself, but she long ago gave up. It’s almost a term of endearment around here now.

  Not this time, not in this moment, but usually.

  “Stop kissing my mom in the kitchen. It’s inappropriate.”

  “You’re right, kid. I should probably take her to the bedroom, right?” He steps back and pulls her in the direction of the hall. “Come on, Angel. Discretion is advised.”

  “No! Fuck.” I snatch the juice from the fridge and slam the door again. “Don’t take her — just… stop.”

  “Ben, honey?” Mom escapes her husband’s hold and follows me as I grab a glass from the cabinet. “Are you okay?”

  “Yep. My life is wonderful.”

  Oz laughs. “Pretty sure that was sarcasm.” He looks to Mom. “Right? I’m not sure if my senses are on point.”

  “Oscar…” She shakes her head. “Hush.” She steps in my way when I try to go back to the fridge. “Baby? Did something happen?”

  “Nothing I can’t fix.”

  “Legally?” she asks. “Or should we ask the cop to remove himself from the room?”

  “Legally.” I move around her and toss the juice into the fridge. “It’s okay, Mom. Everything will be fine.”

  “Is it Evie?” she prods. “You miss her?”

  I sip my juice and will the stinging from my eyes. “It’s always Evie,” I admit. “When I’m happy, it’s because of her. When I’m sad, it’s because she’s so far away. When I’m worried, it’s because I’m worried about her. Everything is about her.”

  “Whipped,” Oz coughs.

  I actually love my stepdad. Like, a lot. I think he’s perfect for my mom, and an amazing role model for a delinquent teen that insisted on making trouble back in the early days of us being back in town. But sometimes, I want to deck him.

  “Dude. No.” I take my juice and consider my timeout over. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Wait, baby.” Mom jumps forward and grabs my arm. Swinging me around, her blue eyes plead with mine. “You’re okay?”

  I nod. “We had a fight. First time since she’s been gone, and it’s messing with me.”

  “It’ll be okay,” she whispers. “You know that, right?”

  “Yeah. I’m going to make it better now. I just needed juice first.” I lean in and press a kiss to her cheek. “Goodnight, Mom. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Goodnight, baby. Say nice things.”

  My lips quirk up into a smile as I walk back into the hall. “I’ll try my very best. I promise.”

  I stop in the bathroom on my way back to my room, because once I climb into bed, I don’t intend to get out again. Evie is my first stop when I wake, and my last stop before I sleep. And some prick named Reid won’t change that for us.

  No way in hell will I fuck this up.

  I take my juice to my room, chug the last mouthful, and drop the glass onto my bedside table, then I stare at my phone and pray this doesn’t go to shit.

  We’ll either talk, and my stupid ass will make it worse. Or we’ll talk, and I’ll fix it.

  Or… the third option is that she won’t take my call. And that’ll be the first time ever.

  Picking it up, I shed my clothes and climb into bed in my underwear. I pull the covers up and flip the light out, then I dial and wait.

 
“Hello?”

  My breath comes out on a fast exhale when her timid voice penetrates my senses. “Evie. I’m sorry for being a dick.”

  “And I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.” She snuggles into her blankets. I know the sound of everything she does now, from moving her head on her pillow, to fluffing her blankets. “It’s not like what you thought,” she whispers. “It’s just a gym.”

  “I love you.” I turn to my side and close my eyes. “And I trust you. You’re my best friend, and I forgot that for a sec. I don’t want to fight with you.”

  “I don’t wanna fight either. You’re the only good thing I have that I brought here with me. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You won’t.” Instead of Evie and some dude I don’t know flashing through my mind, I picture her stuffed dog. Puppy. That was his name, because that’s as creative as she could be when she was two and the proud owner of a smelly stuffed animal. “You didn’t bring Puppy with you?”

  “I forgot him at home,” she whimpers. “I left him there by accident.”

  “I’ll mail him tomorrow,” I declare. “I’ll go over to your place and pick him up, then I’ll ship him express. You’ll have him again soon.”

  “I won’t go back to the gym,” she whispers. “I can keep running, and I’ll stay away.”

  “Evie, it’s not–”

  “I want to,” she cuts in. “Because I don’t want a stupid gym making us weird. I can run, and maybe I’ll find one of those chain places while I’m out. I can lift and maintain my fitness, then when I get home, you and I can get extra sweaty and earn it all back. We could work overtime,” she whispers. “Ya know, all alone in the gym once everyone else has gone home.”

  I barely hold the groan that slides up my throat. “Evie…”

  “Have you ever been into the ladies’ room of the gym?” She laughs to herself. “Of course you haven’t. You’d be dead. But, ya know, those rules don’t apply when it’s just me and you there. We could work out…” she pauses to build the tension. “And then we could wash the sweat off.”

  My dick grows at the imagery she puts in my head. We’ve trained together a lot over the years, but not since we officially got together, and never after saying shit like that. “Evie… Stop.”

  “Have you ever touched yourself while thinking about me?”

  “Fuck.”

  MARCH

  “Let’s go, Ben!” Aiden Kincaid’s voice booms inside my exhausted brain while one of their heavyweights pins me to the floor and tries for the submission. “Spin out of it, Ben! Fuck. Why are you laying there?”

  “I’m trying.”

  Our bodies slick together. We slip on sweat, and grunt when we think we have a way out, only for sweat to sabotage us.

  “Bridge!” Aiden rattles the cage. “Bridge, Ben! Fuck. Flip him, then switch it out.”

  “I’m trying!” With a battle cry of sorts, I lift two hundred pounds of muscle with my hips, force my grappling partner off balance, and when he shoots his hands out to catch his weight, I snap his weightbearing arm down and spin us so I have the mount.

  I rain fists down over his guard out of habit, though we both know I’m not trying to hurt him.

  “That’s it. Good, Ben! Get up and start again.”

  This is my life now. January rolled away from us like it never existed, and February was torture, because Evie and I were finally together for a Valentine’s Day, but we couldn’t be together.

  I checked flights in secret, but mere minutes before hitting the buy button, Aiden Kincaid announced a fight camp that was compulsory for the paid fighters.

  Aka: Me.

  Instead of spending the day with my girl, instead of even speaking to my girl, I was stuck in some off-grid camp with no phone reception, but with a lot of beady Kincaid eyes following me every step I took.

  Did you send her flowers? they asked. Yes, I did.

  Are you salty you couldn’t call her on your first Valentine’s Day? they asked. Yes, I was real fucking salty.

  Was she mad I couldn’t call? No, because she’s her daddy’s girl, and he was the one who declared the camp.

  If I was a more cynical man, I might wonder if they’d spoken to a certain computer hacker they might know, found out I was almost at the buy-now page, and then handed down the orders.

  Ben would not be seeing their baby girl out of state, where he could spend the night without their supervision.

  Though of course, that’s just speculation, and I’m not about to toss unfounded accusations around unless I want a beatdown.

  I’m just five weeks out from my next fight, and though I know Evie can’t make that one either, I still find myself feeling bitter about it. It’s a two-hour flight to the arena for her. Two fucking hours, and our whole outlook would be different. We’d have something to look forward to.

  But instead, my own fucking girlfriend has to buy the pay-per-view like regular folks, and when I win – I have no doubt that I will – I won’t have her body-slamming me in congratulations.

  July is coming, and we have that to count down to, but it’s so fucking far away that it makes me sick.

  “Ben!” Aiden’s booming snap brings my eyes up. “Focus, or go home. If you go home, then you break contract and owe me a fuck ton of money.”

  “So then I can’t go home.” I roll my eyes and push up to my feet. “I’m here, coach. Relax.”

  “Sasquatch.” Mac stands outside the octagon, watching me work, but he says my name now on a cough. “Stop.”

  “Yeah, Sasquatch.” Aiden stalks forward with a dark glare. “Stop. Or go. Whatever the fuck you wanna do, but you need to get your head in the game. You’re wasting my time.”

  “I’m here!” I throw my hands up. “I’m right fucking here. What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to train like a champion! At the moment, I may as well send Mac in, faulty heart and all.” He tosses my best friend under the bus with no thought for how his callous words feel.

  Aiden is on the side of the committee – no pro fighting for the kid with a defect. All of the older Kincaids are on that side of the argument, and it pisses us off that they refuse to budge on something they know nothing about. If they threw their weight behind us when we approach the committee, the outcome could be vastly different to the current stance.

  “Train, Ben. Or fuck off.”

  “What is your problem today?” I smart back. “What did I do to piss you off so much?”

  “You’re not here,” he glowers. “Your head is somewhere else, and it pisses me off that today ain’t the first day you’ve been like this.” He turns away. “Maybe you’re not cut out for this.”

  “Not cut out?” I shout. “I bust my ass every single fucking day for this! I’m the best fighter you have, but I have one bad day and you threaten to boot me?”

  “One bad day?” he asks. “Or a bad year?”

  Four years, I correct him in my head.

  It’s Evie.

  It’s always Evie.

  “Everyone’s lives would be better if you didn’t send her away.” My words bring his steps to a halt. “She’s miserable. I’m miserable. Bean is miserable. Tina’s miserable.” I grab the cage and try to swap my anger for something else. “You’re miserable, coach. I swear, you’ve gotten progressively angrier with every day that passes. There’s a decent business school an hour away. She could go there, and come home every night.”

  “Whose home, Ben?” He turns back and shows a violently grinding jaw as he faces me. “Whose home would she come back to? Yours, or mine?”

  I frown. “Did you send her away because you were scared that she and I would want to be together? Did you seriously sign her up for four years away from everything and everyone she loves just to stick it to me?”

  “No.” He turns fully toward me and starts forward. “I sent her to school because she needs the independence and ability to have something to fall back on when she’s older. She’s seventeen right now, and h
aving time away from the only bubble she’s ever known is good for her. Fighting doesn’t last forever; you know that, and I know that, and I’ll be damned if she becomes a housewife with no way out.”

  “She’ll never not have a way out! She is a fucking Kincaid, she never has to work a day in her life to be able to eat.”

  “Having cash in the bank isn’t the same as having the knowledge that you can survive, even if you’re alone. I don’t have a problem with you, Ben. I actually like you, and I’ve seen you and her over the years. You treat her the way she’s supposed to be treated, I know you do, but everything I do, I do for her. For her future, for her well-being. Someday, I won’t be here anymore. Fuck knows my daddy was long gone by the time I was her age, so I’m building her up now, just in case someone comes along later and begins chipping at her.” He turns away from me and heads toward the hall. “If you love her the way you claim you do, then you’ll understand our actions. And if you don’t, then you don’t deserve her, and you won’t keep her.”

  I finish my session on my own. I have no coach, no grappling partner, and I even tell Mac to give me space before I blow up at him about shit he didn’t do.

  I love Evie more than any man has loved a woman, but Aiden lays on the guilt that implies my unhappiness with her absence is a bad thing. Like I should go on with my life and be happy she’s so far away. Like I can’t grieve the fact she was a part of my everyday life for so long, only to be callously torn away and told to get over it.

  I finish up in the weights room and pile the plates onto the bar to make myself hurt. If I can’t fight today, I’ll gain muscle. Then tomorrow, my kicks will be harder, my strikes more lethal, and just maybe, I’ll earn a scrap of approval from the man I one day hope to call my father-in-law.

  Fuck Aiden for making me feel like I’m not good enough.

  I count my reps, and try to push everything out of my head. Everything that isn’t the two hundred pounds sitting on my shoulders. Even Evie, I force away. Because she’s as miserable as the rest of us, and I know part of it is my fault.