Ringside Read online

  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. br />
  “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.

  I batted his fist away easily.

  “Dude, did you really think that’d work?”

  He came at me again. I blocked him. A punch from the other side – blocked. Upper cut – dodged.

  Callum breathed in rough and hot through his nose, hunching his shoulders like a bull.

  “It’s a dance,” I reminded him. “You’re trying too hard. Boxing is a waiting game.”

  “I just want to hit you,” he said, obviously not listening to a word I was saying. “I’ve never hit you. It’s pissing me off.”

  “It’s because I’m faster than you.”

  “I’m bigger. If I could land a hit you’d be in trouble.”

  I smirked. “Maybe you’re right and maybe you’re wrong, but you’d have to be able to hit me to find out.”

  He came at me again, fast and angry, throwing his entire body into the move. All of his weight, all of his frustration. All of that emotion that threw a man off balance and sent him tumbling into the mat face first when his target magically disappeared.

  And I was Houdini in the ring.

  Callum stumbled from the force of the missed hit, dancing on his toes and his fingertips toward the edge of the ring, but I was impressed when he didn’t topple over. He got his footing again at the last second, turning around to look at me with a face sheened with sweat and fierce, determined eyes.

  Callum wasn’t a bright guy. He was big and loud and pretty oblivious. Not dumb exactly but not insightful. Not pensive, and that was his problem. In boxing you had to look ahead. You had to have the foresight to see the move your opponent was going to make, counter it, and simultaneously set yourself up for your next move. Offense or defense? Advance or retreat? The sport demanded you to be two steps ahead of not only your opponent but yourself.

  Callum wasn’t native to that thought process. He wanted his size to matter more than it did and maybe in MMA it would matter, but that wasn’t the game we were playing. He was playing checkers to my chess, and even though the two were played in the same forum, they were not the same game. Not even close.

  “Stop trying to kill me,” I told him impatiently. “Slow down. Wait for an opening.”

  He wiped the back of his arm under his nose, snarling, “You don’t give openings.”

  “That’s because I’m good at this.”

  “I’m gonna get one on you.”

  “Oh yeah?” I put my hands down, stepping out of my fighter’s stance. “Show me.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re playing with me.”

  “No, I’m not. You wanna hit me? Hit me. But take your time, think it through, and do it right. Don’t rush at me all excited for the kill. Plan your move. See it in your mind, make it happen.”

  Callum eyed me suspiciously. Finally he advanced on me, slower than before but still too fast. It was better, though, so when he lifted his arm to hit me I didn’t move. I didn’t flinch. I let him connect his glove with my face and knock my head to the side, but as he did it I lifted my left hand. I took advantage of that opening and I got him solidly in the side under his arm.

  He let out a grunt, crumpling on his right side and hobbling back a couple steps.

  “Fuck you,” he grunted.

  “I said I’d let you hit me,” I reminded him, circling the outside of the ring slowly. “I never said I wouldn’t hit you back.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Do you want to keep going?”

  “It’d be rude to leave now.”

  “Why?”

  He smiled, bouncing on the balls of his feet and waiting for me to circle around in front of him again. “Because I owe you, asshole.”

  I nodded, slipping out of the driver’s seat and letting autopilot engage. I let the animal eagerly take the wheel, take the ring the way I loved to do when the energy inside me built to an unbearable degree. When my palms itched with anxiety, with anger uncontainable and undeniable. I’d feel solid when I left tonight. I’d feel like myself, like a man in his skin breathing and living without a thin wire of fear laced through my veins, electric and volatile. I’d be able to look in the mirror, to look at Jenna, to look to tomorrow.

  I just had to let the animal play first. I had to run around the ring chasing Callum, tagging him, tapping him, amping him up with all the energy I was trying to escape. He’d take it from me and he’d make it right. He’d leave it there on the floor in a way I never could. The way a healthy person should.

  My busted right hand burned inside my glove, itching to be used and punishing me when I did, and still I didn’t let up. I took every pinch of pain and I put it back in the dance. I gave it to Callum on his cheek, his shoulder, his gut, and he took it all. He stayed in it with me until we were panting and spent, the animal slipping happily back into its cage – sated. Calm. Happy.

  And as I tapped gloves with Callum, a smile on both of our beaten red faces, I finally felt the same way.

  Chapter Three

  Jenna

  “So you were in Fiji last week?”

  The guy in the chair shook his head, a small grin playing on his lips. “Nah. Africa.”

  I paused, pulling the gun away from his arm and silencing it. “Hold on. Africa last week and Fiji the week before?”

  “Yeah.” He frowned. “Wait, I think. No, Fiji was the month before. Australia. I was in Australia two weeks ago.”

  “How do you keep it all straight?”

  “Obviously I don’t.”

  I laughed as I sat forward again, kicking the gun back on and pressing it to his skin. “I bet they have an app for that.”

  “I have an agent for that. Let him take care of it. I just get on the plane when they tell me to. As long as I have my board and a wave to surf it on, I’m not picky.”

  “Did you win the competition?”

  “Which one?”

  “Any of them?”

  He grinned again, his green eyes bright with amusement. “Most of them.”

  “He took Fiji and Australia,” his girlfriend clarified proudly.

  She sat in a chair not far from us watching as I tattooed his brown, bare chest. I had worried when they first walked in. Guys who brought their girlfriends in to watch them get a tat made me nervous. Usually the girls were there because they insisted on it. Because they didn’t want to let their man out of their sight, and the second they saw me – a woman – prepping to get up close and personal with him, asking him to remove his shirt, they were livid.

  Luckily this girl was chill. She sat back calm and easy in the chair I’d brought in for her, smiling at me and talking to me. Making eye contact. Joking around and not showing an ounce of jealousy. It didn’t take long to understand why. The surfer under my needle was nuts about her. He smiled every time she spoke. He glowed every time she laughed.

  “We took Fiji and Australia,” he amended.

  I glanced at her just in time to see her roll her eyes. “I’m still not sure how you got me on that plane. I said one event a year.”

  “I’m very persuasive.”

  “That you are, Lawson Daniel,” she agreed affectionately. “That you absolutely are.”

  Lawson’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, sighed lightly, and looked over at me with an apologetic face. “I hate to be a dick, but can we stop for a second. It’s my agent. I have to take it.”

  I nodded amiably, lowering the gun to the tray and standing up from my stool. “Yeah, of course. I could use a drink of water any
way. Take your time.”

  I closed the door behind me when I left, snapping my rubber gloves off as I cruised down the hallway. I needed a drink for sure, but I didn’t need water. My legs were Jell-O underneath me, my back moaning with a dull ache from hours hunched over bodies and ink and colors that swam together in front of my tired eyes. Kellen was right – I was tired. Bone dead tired. I needed a beer and a nap ASAP, but my day was only just beginning.

  I’d barely slept last night. I’d lain awake alone in my bed staring at the ceiling, still seeing red numbers marching across my vision. I still tasted Kellen’s mouth on my lips, on my tongue. I still felt him close to me. So close, so deep inside my body and soul, but so far away. Distant as the dullest star in the sky. Brilliantly beautiful and impossibly cold.

  He wasn’t always like that. If you took away the sex Kellen was any other guy. Better than. He had secrets, but we all did. His were darker than most but he was a good man. An intelligent, funny, caring man who I loved with all my heart. Who made me feel loved with every look, every touch. But when you got in close you started to see the cracks in his armor. You could feel the cold wind rushing out from the fissures, chilling you to the bone. It scared me sometimes. I wasn’t scared of Kellen, but I was afraid of what was going on inside him. This huge, impossible thing that I couldn’t fully understand and I knew I couldn’t stop. I wanted to help him, to heal him, but I was at a loss as to how.

  Kellen had let me in on one session with his therapist a couple of months ago. Just one. It had been rough for everyone in the room, Kellen especially. He’d opened up only barely about the sexual abuse he’d endured as a kid. I didn’t know the details, I didn’t think anyone did, but I knew enough to understand why he went dead eyed during sex. Physically he loved the feel of it, but mentally he couldn’t handle it. It hurt him to be inside that moment, to see it through to the end. Sex had been dirtied for him at such a young age that I wondered if he’d ever be able to face it head on. Could he ever be with me and stay with me or would he always check out? Was I selfish to want that part of him? He gave me so much every day, more than he’d ever given anyone, and still I wanted more. I wanted this last piece. Was that wrong? Should I love him as he was, as I always had, and let it lie?