Hard Knox

by Nicole Williams

  “I think it’s possible, yes.”

  “Funny thing. Beck pretty much said the same thing about you.” Beck blamed Knox, Knox blamed Beck. No big surprise, I guess. Those guys took male rivalry to a whole new level.

  “Of course he blamed me. I’m the scapegoat for everything that goes wrong on campus. I’m the easy answer, the one a jack-off like Beck Farrell wants you to believe. But here’s the thing.” Knox tapped my temple. “Why is Beck trying to get you to believe it’s me when you know it’s not? Why’s he trying so hard to sell you on the wrong man when the right one’s obviously still out there?”

  I let out the groan I’d been holding in all night. I’d had enough testosterone and pissing contests for this lifetime. “Because he really thinks it’s you.”

  “Or he just wants you to believe it’s me to set you off the trail of who’s really responsible.”

  “Or maybe you’re trying to imply it’s him or one of his friends to set me off the trail that leads to you.” I hadn’t meant to raise my voice. I hadn’t even meant to say those words, but something about Knox pulled raw, unfiltered words and emotions from me. I still had yet to decide if unabashed honesty was a perk to our relationship or a downside.

  “Dammit, Charlie,” Knox seethed.

  I’d heard that phrase directed at me so many times over the course of two months, I barely flinched anymore. “Knox, no, I’m sorry. I know it’s not you. I’m confused and frustrated, and I kind of want to beat the shit out of someone right now—preferably the person responsible for hitting me with a double dose of Rohypnol.”

  Like that, his flare of anger extinguished. Scrubbing his face with one hand, he pulled me close to him with the other. “I know the feeling, believe me. If you really need to beat the shit out of someone, I’m here for you, whenever, for your shit-beating pleasure. No questions asked.”

  I leaned my forehead into his chest and let him support me. I didn’t like showing weakness, but those who fought not to show it still felt it. It was a relief to have someone I could lean on when the weakness worked its way to the surface—someone to lean on when I was my most vulnerable.

  “I don’t think I’d feel any better after beating you up, Knox. I’d feel worse.”

  “Eh, I don’t know. I’ve got an endless list of people whose lives have been vastly improved by taking a solid swing at me. Don’t discount it until you give it a try.”

  “I’m not going to hit you.”

  One arm slid around me, then the other. When they tightened, I felt was like he was supporting all of my weight. It was almost like gravity and the rest of the world held no sway over me when I was in his arms.

  “Maybe you should.”

  “If the day ever comes when I hit you, it’ll be for a good reason, Knox Jagger—a damn good one.”

  “Until that day then,” he whispered around a sigh.

  “Until that day what?” When I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend we weren’t smack in the middle of frat party hell.

  His arms cinched tighter. “Until that day, I’m just going to hold on to you like I’m never going to lose you.”

  “You’re not going to lose me.” As if I needed to prove it to us both, my arms went around him. They could barely wind all the way around, but they made it far enough that my pinkies could knot together.

  “You must not be looking at the same stars I am then.”

  For a moment, my breath stopped. “What do you mean?”

  Even before he said the words, my pinkies locked together tighter. “You know what that means.”

  I wanted to adamantly disagree. I wanted to stomp and shake my head and rage that I didn’t know what he was talking about, and if I did, I didn’t agree with him, but I didn’t play the part of the fool with the wool over her eyes. I was used to being the realist, the one who didn’t shy away from the truth or mask it in lies. Like Knox, I knew that sustaining a relationship for the rest of our lives, or even the rest of the year, was like fighting a vicious current. Sure, we could fight it for a while, but eventually, we’d succumb. Eventually our holds on each other would be ripped apart by reality, fate, providence, the stars, and the rest of the world. Two people like us weren’t allowed to be together—not in this lifetime or the next.

  Saying the words was too much like admitting defeat though, and I was still a long ways from beaten. So instead, I said, “You’re right, you know. He’s not going to come in the same room as me if you’re with me. So if we’re serious about figuring out who the son of a bitch is, I should come to the next one of these alone—alone as in you not storming in wearing a jockstrap and an expression that could give a person nightmares for the rest of their life.”

  Knox’s hands slid up my back to clamp around my shoulders. “That’s the best idea I’ve ever heard.”

  “Really?”

  He blinked. “No. Not really. In fact, that might be the worst, most disastrous idea I’ve ever had the displeasure of hearing.”

  “This coming from the guy who, to save time, thought sliding into a jockstrap was better than ripping a sheet off some bed and tying it around him?”

  Knox’s tight smile was all the reaction I could get out of him. “I say we stop this ghost hunt, cut our losses, and get back to living our joyful, purpose-driven lives.”

  If I hadn’t been staring at him, I wasn’t sure I would have believed those words had just come from his mouth. After all the sacrifices, time, and suffering through frat party after frat party, he wanted to wash our hands of the whole thing? Not in this lifetime. “I’m not quitting.” Crossing my arms, I stepped away from him.

  “Why? Because your life’s threatened?” Knox threw his head back in exasperation. “Why would you quit?”

  “Come on. We’ve been over this a million and one times. I want to be a journalist. I am a journalist. If I start leaping into trenches whenever danger aims my direction, I’ll be writing two-paragraph columns, stuffed on the second-to-last page, discussing what Farmer Bob says the heavy rainfall’s going to do for the potato crop in 2015.” The longer I went on, the more veins popped through Knox’s forearms and forehead. It was almost like my words were boiling his blood. It was truly a sight to behold, but not one that would shut me up. “If at least a few people don’t want me dead or seriously injured, I’m not doing my job properly. And look around us.” I did a spin with my arm thrust out. “This is college, frat parties, and tiny white pills—not mobsters with guns and twitchy trigger fingers.”

  He stepped back into my space, his face right up in mine. “That ‘little white pill’ is just as deadly as a gun. Just as lethal as the bullet fired from it.” His voice was so close to shaking, I backed up another step. Again, he closed the space and spoke. “So why don’t you stop acting like we’re swimming in the criminal kiddie pool so we can have an adult conversation about it?”

  I concentrated on the breath I was pulling in before responding, because right then, my knee-jerk reaction was ‘Fuck you.’ “Sometimes I can’t figure you out, Knox.” I took another slow breath before continuing. “One minute you support me on this. The next minute you want me to duck and run. You’re not the one who’s been drugged. Twice.” I thrust two fingers in his face, my voice rising. “You’re not the one who’s been on the ugly side of this, so stop pretending and let the expert make the calls.”

  As fleeting as a burst of lightning, pain cut across his face, but just like so many of the vulnerable moments I’d witnessed, it was over so quickly I found myself questioning if it had even happened.

  “Still haven’t fallen off that I’ve-got-everyone-all-figured-out pedestal, have you?” His words were so cool, so close to being frigid, I backed away from him.

  “You first,” I threw back, glaring at him like it wasn’t Knox in front of me anymore, but myself.

  Wrapping his arms around his head, he tipped it back to glare holes into the ceiling. “Damn, Charlie. Sometimes I can’t decide if you’re the angel someone put in my life to m
ake it better or some device of the devil here to take away the last few pieces of my soul.”

  I didn’t realize a tear was forming in the corner of my eye until I felt it ready to spill. I swiped it away before he could see it, before he could see his words had made me cry. “I feel the exact same way about you. Minus the angel part.” The venom in my voice took me by surprise, and it certainly took Knox by surprise.

  “That’s fine. Good. Hate me. It would be a hell of a lot easier for me if you hated me.” Knox was still staring at the ceiling, but his voice was so quiet that I could barely make out each word. “Hate me now. Get some practice. We both know you’re going to hate me one day, so it might as well be today.”

  This time, I couldn’t get to the tear before it fell. Those words, coming from him, weren’t just the ones that made me cry. They were the ones that broke my heart. “Knox, I’m sorry. Again. I can’t seem to stop apologizing to you tonight, but please, stop. I don’t hate you, and I won’t hate you in the future. I could never hate you, so please don’t ask me to.” I didn’t try to stop the next tear. “I can’t. I won’t.”

  “Why, Charlie? Why can’t you? Why won’t you just hate me and make this easier on us?” He wouldn’t look at me, and I wasn’t sure if that was making this harder or easier.

  “You know why,” I whispered.

  “You keep giving me that answer, but I’m not so sure I do know why. I’m not so sure I know a fucking thing anymore.”

  Closing my eyes, I searched for the right thing to say. Knox and I had been dodging this topic for months, and in that time, I hadn’t come up with the right words. I knew it should have been as simple as admitting the way I felt about him and as simple as him admitting the way he felt about me—if he felt anything—but if it was that simple, we would have figured out a way to bridge the topic before. With every second that passed, Knox seemed to grow more and more agitated, spinning slowly with his hands laced behind his neck. He continued to glare at the ceiling as though it had done him an entire lifetime of wrongs.

  “Knox . . .” I moved toward him, not sure how to ease the pain I felt flooding him, but I knew I couldn’t just watch him suffer.

  My fingers were so close to curling around his arm that I could feel the heat rolling from his skin when he tipped his head back, his mouth opening as a shudder ran down his body.

  “FUCK!!!” His scream filled the room, the entire house.

  Again, all eyes were on us as Knox whispered the same sentiment. This one, for whatever reason, chilled me more than the scream had. When his head tilted forward again, something in his eyes forced another tear free from mine. I wouldn’t have believed a man could be so broken and still be standing. It brought on a whole new meaning to Knox’s nickname.

  “I’ve got to get some air. Come with me?” His words were labored, like the pain was dicing him to pieces from the inside out.

  Grabbing his hand, I led him toward the door. If air was the one thing he needed, that was something I could help with. This time, it was me shoving through the crowd, clearing a path for him. This time, it was me swooping in to save him, although I didn’t have a clue what I was saving him from. From his demons? From the ghosts that so clearly haunted him everywhere he went? From his past? From his fears? I suppose Knox’s list of what he might need saved from was as lengthy as mine.

  We’d just cut through the last of the crowd when the gatekeepers, with a few fewer jockstraps hanging off their arms, tried to block our path. I kept right on barreling forward, about to break through their stiff-arms if need be, when the body I’d been guiding decided to take the lead. Knox cut through the blockade as if he were gliding through water.

  “Hey, Jagger-Meister!” one of the guys shaking his arm called as Knox led me down the stairs. “The rule is if you want your personal effects back, you have to surrender your jock at the end of the festivities.”

  Knox kept going, like his clothes, wallet, and the hundreds of dollars in it weren’t worth a thing to him. I stopped, pulling on his arm to do the same.

  “Five hundred bucks could buy you a better day tomorrow,” I said with a smile, hoping to lighten his mood if only fractionally.

  “I can assure you, no amount of money, or anything else, could make tomorrow a better day for me.” The pain had been stripped from his voice, but it was still etched in his expression.

  “Come on, Knox! We were planning to auction yours off to raise money for some new sports equipment for the inner city schools. We’ve already got yours bid up to four hundred and fifty bucks.” One of the guys on the porch clamped his hands together in a prayer-like fashion. “Come on, man. Think of the kids.”

  With an exasperated sigh, Knox reached under his toga, and in a motion that was so seamless he had to have had plenty of experience stripping himself, the jockstrap was sling-shotted at the praying guy. It landed smack in his face.

  “For the children,” Knox said, shaking his head.

  One of the other guys tossed a plastic bag down at Knox. I assumed it contained his clothes. “Thanks, man. You have no idea how happy you’re going to make some young lady.”

  “Whatever, Morris.” Instead of rifling through his bag to retrieve a pair of boxers, he slung the bag over his shoulder. I guessed commando was the plan. “You and your boyfriends have fun passing that around and snapping it against each other asses, but here’s a free tip—if you boys are hoping to actually fill that thing, make sure to have a few boxes of tissues close by. And the next time you think about stopping me when I need to get somewhere, I’m going to staple one of those to your forehead, you got me?”

  Morris raised his hands and backed away up the stairs. “Got you, Jagger-Meister.”

  “And stop with the Jagger-Meister already. I’ve got enough nicknames, and that one’s just plain stupid.” Taking my hand, Knox led me away from the frat house at a pace that was somewhere between a jog and a run.

  “What’s your problem, Knox?” I asked, pulling against him to slow the pace. “Besides your normal problems.” Knox was rarely chill, but lately—today especially—he’d been full-throttle touchy.

  When he glanced back and saw I was struggling to keep up—somewhat because of the pace, but mainly because my toga didn’t allow me to take anything but short shuffles—he slowed down. So much it was almost a crawl. “I hate this time of year,” he admitted, kicking a rock from our path with his bare toes.

  My brows came together. “Can you be more specific? Are we talking you hate winter, February, or Valentine’s Day? Or all of it?”

  “The day.” He cracked his neck to one side, then to the other side. “I hate the day.”

  “Why?” I was thoroughly confused. Tomorrow was Valentine’s—well, I guess technically today was Valentine’s—but I wouldn’t have assumed Knox despised it. “It’s not like your relationships come with flowers, cards, and chocolates responsibilities.”

  His jaw tightened. “I don’t hate the day because of the flowers and faking-love-to-get-fucked thing. I hate the day because of something that happened on that day.”

  I could tell how difficult each word was to get out. I sensed he’d rather bolt than explain anything else to me. I could tell he was silently praying I’d leave it alone and move on . . . but I also realized he knew me too well to hope I’d let it be.

  “What happened?” I tightened my hold on his hand just in case he decided to bolt.

  He picked up the pace, but he didn’t leave me behind. His hand stayed just as solid in mine as mine was in his. “My worst nightmare.”

  I shouldn’t have asked. I shouldn’t have pushed any further. “And what is Knox Jagger’s worst nightmare?” I couldn’t not ask.

  He broke to a stop, turning to face me. “Charlie, don’t.”

  “I kind of already did.”

  His eyes closed, his forehead creasing. “I warned you not to ask questions you didn’t want answered, and believe me, this is one you don’t want answered.”

  “And you
told me you’d answer any question I had for you. I don’t remember there being stipulations to that blanket statement.” We were alone now, nothing but the sound of our breathing filling the night.

  “What you’re requesting isn’t an answer to a question. You’re asking me to tear myself open and expose every last secret I possess.” Knox crossed his arm, the lines on his forehead frozen.

  “Maybe it’s time you let go of those secrets for once. Maybe it’s time you stop being the Hard Knox who won’t open up to anyone, himself most of all.”

  His smile was so sad I felt another tear threatening to form. “Yet a guy who’s earned that nickname isn’t likely to open up because someone asked nicely. I wish I could tell you, I wish I could share everything I keep locked inside, but I can’t. Please, please, try to understand that.”

  I wanted to wrap my arms around him and shelter him from the whole world. I wanted to take all six-foot-plus, two hundred pounds plus of the notorious Knox Jagger and protect him. It was an odd feeling, but it came naturally. “This is the last question I’ll ask about this tonight. I promise,” I added when he gave me a doubtful look. “Why can’t you tell me? Why do you feel so strongly that you have to keep it to yourself?” I refused to think about Neve and Beck’s warnings about Knox. I refused to believe that the anguish and guilt I saw scouring him was because he was in any way connected with me getting drugged.

  He exhaled, staring into the dark night as though he wanted to escape into it. “Because some secrets are so black they create darkness in every life that knows of them. I won’t allow the same darkness that’s in my life to enter yours, Charlie.”

  I processed his words before forming my own. “So you’re not keeping this all to yourself for your benefit, but for mine? Is that what you’re saying?” I stepped closer until Knox’s and my bodies were nearly touching.

  “Yes, that’s what I’m trying to say, although I’m not doing a very good job, judging from that confused expression.” Very carefully, like I was made of cards, Knox skimmed the crease running between my brows.