Redemption

by Shey Stahl

  And then he waited for the retaliation of my words, but they didn’t come.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  There was a certain amount of significance behind his words. Though I knew they were coming, they rendered me speechless. I couldn’t help my voice from trembling when I asked, “What?”

  He swept his trembling hand across the back of his slick neck and then suddenly, his fist slammed into the wall next to him, his glowering eyes fixed on mine. “Did I fucking stutter?”

  I jumped back at the sound his anger and fell back against the far wall where my bag was. “I… uh….” I couldn’t finish my words.

  Destry closed his eyes, shaking his head. His breathing was heavy and uneven, his body taut and motionless. “I… uh…. That’s not a goddamn answer. That’s a cop-out.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you.” I reached inside my bag for the article I printed and held it up. “But if you would just read it—”

  Anger replaced the disbelief in his eyes. I always knew there was a wicked side to Destry. But in that moment between us, I knew I hadn’t even begun to see it to the destruction he was capable of. I wondered how often others saw this side. Had Stella?

  His eyes narrowed at the paper I held up, and then away. Turning, he picked up the bar on the bench beside him that had at least two hundred pounds on it, raised it over his head like it weighed nothing and threw it. “Goddamn you! I fucking… I—” He paused, huffing in breaths and expanding them just as quickly. “Get out!” His hands went to his hair, pulling. “Leave!” And when I didn’t, it set him off. “I can’t fucking believe you,” he snapped flatly, desperation turning to anger. “You, of all people.”

  “Destry… I’m your friend,” I pleaded, holding my palms up after dropping the paper on my bag. “If you’d read it, you’d understand.”

  “Fuck you.” He turned to face me, shaking his head. His body trembled with so much anger he couldn’t stand still. “I never asked for you to be my friend.” He started to walk away and then stopped suddenly. “And you can tell that no good piece of shit you work for, the next time I see him, I’ll do more than break his goddamn jaw. I’m going to kill him.”

  He kept his eyes on mine as if he was challenging me to reply.

  I didn’t know how to reply.

  Timidly, I stood there, unable to move my feet and walk away from him. “How long have you known?”

  “Three days.” His gaze was fixed on the ground as he spoke.

  “And last night, you knew?” A silence spread over us as I waited for him to answer.

  He gave a tip of his head, his anger harsh. “Yep.”

  “So you slept with me anyway?”

  An arrogant smile surfaced. “You were willing. Who was I to deny you?”

  As much as I didn’t want to admit it, he used me for his own pleasure. A little taste of the pain I caused him. “You’re a bastard.”

  “Maybe so.” He gave a bitter laugh. “But you’re the one who used me first.” He tore his eyes away from mine and turned to walk away but stopped abruptly. Spinning around to look at me before he got to the door, he leveled me with dark eyes, his breathing heavy, his anger slow, silent, but so strong. “Are you still meeting him?”

  I said nothing.

  “What are you going to do?” he pressed. “So what, are you gonna fuck him? Be his fuckin’ groupie for a night?” His face turned puce with infuriating anger that briefly overpowered the slur.

  When I said nothing in return, he stepped closer with nothing more than harsh breathing for a moment. Wounded blue eyes fringed by dark lashes settled on my face, studying me with an unnerving intensity. “Why’d you write it?”

  I swallowed but still said nothing.

  Tipping his head, his hand rose and lifted my chin. “I asked you a fucking question and I expect a goddamn answer, Tallan. No bullshit. Tell me the truth. If you’re even capable of that.”

  When I attempted to speak, my voice cracked around the words. “I wanted people to see there was more to you than the perception they had of you?”

  He blinked slowly, the scowl remaining. “And that was?”

  I wanted to touch his face, hold him, make him see that I didn’t do it to hurt him. “That you threw the fight on purpose.”

  He dropped his eyes to the ground. “Did you get your answer?”

  Tears rolled down my cheeks. “No, but it doesn’t matter.”

  Drawing in a heavy breath, his eyes glazed with an emotion I couldn’t place. “Destry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you and I should have told you I’d considered writing the article from the beginning. I just… I didn’t know how to.”

  “It’s pretty fucking easy,” he snapped, raising his eyebrows in disbelief. “It’s not that hard.”

  “But it was. I knew once I said something you’d think I was using you to write it.”

  “You were!”

  “I wasn’t. I hired you before I even knew Marcus wanted me to write the article.”

  “And that’s when you should have said something. The fucking moment he brought it up.”

  “I know, and I’m so sorry I didn’t.” I reached from him, trying to convince him with my touch that I hadn’t wanted to use him.

  His eyes followed the tears down my cheeks. “We’re done.”

  My breath caught with a new wave of tears and I backed away from him. Reaching inside my bag, I slung it over my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Please read it,” I said, handing him the article and the remaining three hundred I owed him for being my personal trainer.

  I walked out of that basement, hurt and humiliated. But there was no doubt I deserved those feelings.

  A knockdown occurs when a boxer gets hit and touches the floor with any part of his body other than his feet, is being held up by the ropes, or is hanging on, through, or over the ropes and cannot protect himself or fall to the floor.

  The next morning, I called Destry, hoping to apologize. Again. He didn’t answer.

  There was an envelope, though, slid under our door with the money I’d given him last night, but no note. I stopped by the bar, hoping maybe he’d read the article and would talk to me.

  Danny was at the bar, his attention on the sports highlights playing on the television. “Hey, Tallan,” he noted, his eyes drifting to mine. “Destry isn’t here.”

  I fidgeted with my bag on my shoulder. “Have you seen him?”

  “Not since last night when he broke about a thousand dollars worth of liquor and then left.”

  Shit.

  “I’m sorry. That was because of me.”

  Danny’s eyes softened. “I figured as much. Women bring out the worst in us Stone men.”

  Ha. No, gambling does, Danny.

  “Okay, well, if you see him, tell him I’m looking for him.”

  “I will.”

  My heart ached thinking about never seeing him again, or having the ability to make him see my intentions behind what I did. As I walked home that morning, I realized I might never have the chance.

  I wanted to force him to see me, make him listen to me, but I knew he wouldn’t give me the time of day. The truth was, I couldn’t and didn’t know how I would ever move on from this. It was so much different than when Silas left. Maybe it was because I was older and my heart had already been broken once. That was my first crack.

  Now it was splitting in two.

  A complete break.

  When I returned to my apartment, I decided that I was either going to sit in front of the television and cry all day, or bake. I decided to bake.

  My favorite?

  Peach pie. I made it all year long too. My favorite was in the summer with fresh peaches, but canned peaches worked just fine. I dug out my stash I’d canned last summer and went to work.

  As I made it, I thought about when I first learned to make pie with my mom when I was seven. She explained in detail every process, from picking the ripest peaches, kneading the dough, to the baking. I vividly remem
bered being enthralled in every word she said, knowing someday, I would be doing this very same thing. Hopefully for a daughter of my own. Only now, as I repeated the steps to myself, I found a different meaning in the process of finding the perfect peach.

  Had you ever watched a peach fall from a tree?

  Deep in the heart of summer, so ripe, so pretty, soft, juicy, and delicious. When ready, the peach lets go, free falls from the branch and into the dirt beneath it.

  From there, the gentle hands that found it decided how it would end up. Peach crisp, pie, cobbler, jam, and any other sugar-sweet or salty treat—the peach let go and fell. It had no choice in what happened once it fell. But it did. It trusted that whatever happened to it next, was meant to be.

  I wasn’t sure how I would end up when I met Destry. Pie, cobbler, jam, or maybe even crisp. But I fell from that tree into his hands, ready to be made into something.

  There I was, elbow deep in peaches and pie crust when Jared came out of his room and smiled. He set his gun on the counter along with his bullet proof vest as he buttoned his shirt. “Rough night?”

  He knew me so well. “You could say that.” I didn’t look up and then showed him my pie. “Peach pie for breakfast?”

  “You know the way to my heart.” He laughed. “But it’s noon. Hardly breakfast.”

  “Right.” I stopped what I was doing and gave him a look. One he knew. Me, defeated and broken again. “If I can’t find anyone to marry me by the time I’m thirty, will you?”

  Jared smiled and sunk down at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal. “Arranging marriages now?”

  “More like backup plans.” I put my hands back in the pie crust and took the fork to get the crust the way I wanted it, flat and smooth.

  He took a bite of his cereal, milk dripping down his chin as he glanced over at me. “I don’t want to be a backup plan.”

  “Would you marry me?”

  The look on his face, the one of amusement, said a lot. “Are you asking me?”

  “No.”

  He turned back to his bowl and the paper now in his hand. “Well, there’s your answer.”

  When the crust was ready, I put it in the oven to brown it and then took my bowl of peaches and cinnamon over to the table. “Jared, why does this shit always happen to me?”

  “Probably because you didn’t tell him about the article.”

  “Peach mush.” I fisted the peaches in my hands letting the slimy mess slip through my fingers. “This is what I feel like!”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Say what?”

  “Nothing.”

  Jared stared at me, attempting to understand how my situation was related to peaches. “Did you see this going differently?”

  “No.” I sighed, leaning my head against the wall. “Deep down, I knew.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  It took me a moment but then I spilled my guts to my best friend. “I’m frustrated. I had this plan. I had a plan for a lot of things in life and nothing has ever turned out the way I wanted. I can’t make a fucking relationship work, and I’m sick of this shit I write about.”

  Jared, as usual, wasted no time in telling me how it was. “That’s something you have to change, Tallan. You want to write for magazines instead of blogs and newspapers, but you never submit anything. You’ve talked about writing a novel, but have you ever made the effort to do so?”

  All valid points. I did enough to get by and when it didn’t work out, I thought it was the world’s way of letting me know happiness wasn’t in my future.

  He leaned forward. “You are the only one who can change the way your life is going.”

  “And how am I supposed to do that?”

  “Fuck if I know. I’m a patrol cop and can’t even keep a steady fuck buddy.”

  “We’re quite the pair.”

  Pulling me against his chest, he pressed his lips to my temple. “If we’re thirty, and we’re still fucking this shit up, I’ll marry you.”

  I laughed into his chest. “I’m still not letting you in my booty hole.”

  His bottom lip protruded as he let go of me. “It was worth a try.”

  After Jared left, I watched the pie baking in the oven, trying to figure out how to get my life from resembling peach mush. I didn’t have an answer, at least not one that made sense. I’d been knocked down.

  Pushing with or using the bottom side of an open glove where the laces are to rub the face of an opponent. Lacing can cut the face.

  Wednesday was the day of the concert. I spent most of the day trying to talk myself out of going but then eventually decided I needed to do it. At least I’d have my answer as to why he left without warning and maybe an indication as to why I couldn’t make a relationship work.

  With my dress on, I stared at myself in the mirror when Jared appeared behind me, leaning on the doorframe still dressed in his uniform.

  “Am I going to have to cut you out of it?”

  “You tell me.” I turned to face him, my hands smoothing down the side of the dress.

  Jared’s eyes slowly made the trip over my body and with a grin said, “I think we should renegotiate our friends-with-benefits situation.”

  “That ship sailed, dude.”

  He shrugged, letting out a low whistle. “It’s a shame we never worked out.”

  “Such a shame,” I agreed with a laugh, wiping the tears in my eyes.

  “Why are you crying?” He stepped forward, wrapping his arms around me.

  I laid my head on his chest. “I don’t know. I guess I’m nervous? Or angry at myself for how things ended with Destry and me.”

  “I’m going to be a big brother,” Jared admitted. “I don’t want you going to that concert without me. I’m not comfortable with it. Something doesn’t feel right.”

  “Jared.” Pulling back, I touched my hand to his cheek, attempting to ease his discomfort. “I’ll be fine. I’m going to talk to him and then I’m leaving. I’m not staying for the concert.”

  Chewing on the corner of his lip, he sighed and tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Have you heard from Destry?”

  The mention of his name sent my heart thumping wildly in my chest. “Nope. He left the money I paid him under the door and he’s basically disappeared.”

  He tipped his head to the side, frowning. “Yikes.”

  I stepped around Jared and down the hall. He followed. “He’ll never forgive me.”

  “Did you give the article to Marcus?”

  “No. I told him I wasn’t ready to submit it.”

  When I reached for my purse, Jared sighed again and ran his hand over his jaw. “Call me if you need me.”

  I forced myself to breathe evenly. “I will. I promise.”

  He hesitated by the door, as if he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how.

  I shook my head, laughter falling from my lips. “Go ahead, tell me I’m an idiot.”

  He gave a tight smile and opened the door. “You’re an idiot.”

  “Thank you.”

  When I stepped out the door, the weight of what I was about to do hit me. Something deep down gnawed at me, a little voice that begged me not to go.

  When I was eighteen, I loved Silas more than anything else in the world. Five years later, my heart still held a place for him, but that space was confined to a past memory. As if I had been filling a void. But that’s all it was. A scar to a previous injury. It didn’t hurt anymore. Not like this gaping whole I had in my chest from Destry.

  When I agreed to meet Silas, I thought maybe this one night could be what my life was missing. Help me move on and give myself a chance at finding happiness.

  But six weeks with Destry had changed that. I no longer needed closure from Silas. As the cab pulled up, I second-guessed myself. I thought about running to Destry, forgetting all about tonight. I didn’t know why I chose to get into the cab, but I did. Maybe deep down I did need the closure.

  Power punches are hooks, strai
ght rights or lefts, uppercuts, or stiff jabs. Power punches are solid punches to the chin, head, or body that inflict damage.

  I didn’t take into account the traffic getting to the concert. Strangely enough, this was the first time Silas Cade had returned to Seattle for a concert. Everyone wanted to see him because of that. Hometown famous rock star returning home.

  Last night Silas told me to meet his assistant at the entrance and she would take me back. By the time I got to the Key Arena, the opening band was already on. Rachel—the assistant he told me about—was there waiting for me when I arrived.

  With a smile that struck me as fake, she handed me a pass I placed around my neck. “You’re Tallan Spencer, right?” I nodded. “You’re late.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  Isn’t she pleasant as all hell?

  She gave a nod, waving at me but never offering her hand. “I’m Rachel Mattis. I’m Mr. Cade’s assistant.”

  Mr. Cade? How formal.

  I took one look at her slim body and knew Silas had probably slept with her. She was that typical bony super-model thin I constantly saw hanging off him in photographs.

  Rachel took me through doors, down a long hallway and through two more sets of doors. Equipment was scattered around the area. People talked to men in ripped jeans hanging on to barely legal women with half their asses hanging out.

  It was a rock concert and I was completely out of place.

  A man to my right was staring at me, his ripped black T-shirt hanging off him and a tattoo on his face. Classy. When I looked at him, he gave me a once over and then winked.

  My attention went to Rachel when she knocked on a door. My heart was in my throat, my hands shaking when I realized the person behind that door was Silas. I had second thoughts right then.

  Rachel gave me a nod and then pushed the door open. “Go ahead.”

  My feet would barely move.

  When I did walk in, Silas was there with his feet up on the table in front of him staring at his cell phone in his right hand. In the left was a glass filled with a honey-colored liquid over ice.

  My heart pounded, thumping like a drum kicking against my breastbone, but this wasn’t the feeling I thought I would feel. It was more of dread than excitement.