by Izzy Sweet
“I’ll fucking kill him,” Emmett snarls.
And I don’t doubt for a second that he won’t do exactly that. Shit. Before I can even come up with an argument about why that’s a bad idea, a very bad idea, Casey says, “Me too.”
Fuck my life.
The last thing I need is these two getting involved in all the drama surrounding me.
Especially Casey.
Emmett must realize this too because he gives a little shake of his head as if he just realized what Casey said, then he asks with a bit of awe, “You took him down?”
“Yeah,” Casey says, puffing his chest up with pride.
Emmett grins. “That’s my boy.”
My ears must be deceiving me, and I must have hit my head harder than I thought because there’s no way he’s encouraging that little boy toward violence….
But fuck me if the two of them don’t seem to share a moment. Like they’re truly bonding or something.
And I’m so damn disturbed by what I’m seeing, I start to unconsciously pull away from Emmett.
Only to have his arms lock around me and pull me back.
“Two hits, huh?” he asks, his face growing serious once again as his attention returns to me. “Should we call the doc?”
That’s the last thing I need. A doctor and probably a police report that will make the headlines.
“No,” I blurt out a little too forcefully and then take a second to suck in a deep breath as Emmett’s brows shoot up with surprise.
“I mean,” I say slower and more carefully, “it would be a waste. It looked worse than it was.”
Damn it all, now I’m downplaying what Tristan did for the sake of keeping this from blowing up even bigger than it already is.
I just can’t stop myself from digging myself deeper and deeper into this hole of shit.
And Emmett doesn’t look like he’s buying it for one second.
“Honestly, I’m fine,” I add, wishing he’d just let me go and drop all of this.
Because the longer I stand here in the safety of his arms, the more tempted I am to stay here and indulge myself in his protection.
What I wouldn’t give to have someone standing beside me, fighting my battles with me…
Emmett’s expression grows so skeptical I’m almost certain he’s going to call my bluff.
But before he can, I hear Chase call out from behind us, “Yo, what are you doing to my sister, Emmett?”
Chapter Seven
Emmett
“Yo, what are you doing to my sister, Emmett?” Chase asks loudly from behind me, and I can physically feel the tension in his words.
Tension with a hint of violence, like I’m stepping on his turf or something.
“Checking her for a concussion, meathead,” I growl out to Chase without looking over my shoulder to see his reaction.
My hands are still holding the sides of this incomparably beautiful woman standing before me. Bree isn’t that tall, and the way she has to look up into my eyes makes my gut clench.
Those fucking eyes, a man could get lost in them and never desire to find a way out.
“Why the fuck are you checking her for a concussion?” he shouts and runs up to us.
Reaching up with her small hands, Bree pulls mine down from the sides of her face. After shaking her blonde locks at me, weariness fills her eyes.
“I’m fine!” she squeaks out. “I only fell on the ground.”
Chase grabs tightly onto my shoulder as he asks, “This fucker pushed you down?”
Anger flows through me as I smack his hand away and face him. “I didn’t do shit, Lurch.”
“Look, guys!” Bree shouts. “It was nothing! Just a misunderstanding!”
Her eyes are now full of pleading as she tries to smooth out her clothes.
Turning to face Chase, she says, “Nothing happened, okay?”
“Then why is the little man here checking your eyes and face for a concussion?” he asks, and I couldn’t have said it better myself.
“She tripped, I guess,” I say with a small shrug.
If this is how she wants to play it with Chase, far be it from me to stop her. Though she will be answering my questions when I get her alone. No way am I going to let some tall, lanky bitch hurt her and get away with it.
“Then why did I get to knock down some big asshole?” Casey huffs loudly.
Ah, there we go, out of the mouth of babes. Now I won’t look like the dickhead who’s snitching on her.
All three of us turn to Casey and stare at him with interest. I’m curious about what he did to take down the prick. Pretty sure, though, that Bree and Chase are wanting him to say something entirely different.
“What do you mean?” Chase asks in a growl, glancing at me with disdain and then back Casey.
“I gave a leg kick to the back of his knee. Asshole never felt it coming. Kind of messed up, though, when I didn’t stop him from taking her down,” Casey says and looks almost sheepishly at Bree. “Sorry about that.”
Rolling her eyes with a smile, it’s like she forgets that she’s trying to keep whatever happened quiet. “It’s okay, you’re still my hero.”
Chase stands up to his fullest height and stares down at Bree. “We need to have a talk, if you don’t mind. Privately.”
Privately, my ass, I think, but I can’t do anything with her right now. Not with Goliath standing in my way. And not unless I seriously want to get fucked up. I accept that, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.
No, I don’t like it one fucking bit.
Wrapping an arm around her shoulder, Chase starts walking Bree as if she’s a small child to the front of the building. When they’re about halfway to the door, he turns back to give me the biggest stink eye I’ve ever seen.
“Why is he mad at me?” Casey asks in a huff.
“He’s not. We’re all proud of you for taking care of that asshole. He’s pissed I was touching his sister,” I say as I watch them walk into the building.
Bree turns her head to stare at me for a moment, and while I can’t even begin to describe the emotions on her face, just looking past those emotions makes me realize that she’s the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen.
Like straight up launch a thousand ships and go to war beautiful.
The worst part about it though is that it just about kills me to see any man, even if it is Chase, touching her.
“She’s mine,” I say quietly to myself.
“Think she has a sister?” Casey asks.
Rolling my eyes, I shake my head to clear the clouds away and focus on the person beside me. “I’m an asshole, Casey.”
“You didn’t use to be,” he says, and I can feel the hurt in his voice.
Turning to face him, I do the same thing Chase did to Bree, and wrap my arm around his shoulder to slowly walk him to the bumper of my Jeep.
Sitting on it, I say, “I’m also an alcoholic dick, if that explains anything.”
“It doesn’t. Why didn’t you pick up the phone?”
I want to ask about which time, but there’s too many to count.
The one that hurts the most is Tommy’s last message. I should have picked that one up, maybe he’d still be around if I had.
I can feel the craving for a drink starting to race through my brain, but I know right now it’s just me being weak.
Weak and fucking stupid.
In my former, healthier days, I would have caught that little bitch running away from us easily. But looking down at the small spare tire that is starting to show, I wince.
In my former days, I was a lot of things I’m not anymore.
“Because I was scared,” I say, and for the first time in what seems like forever it feels like I’m finally telling the truth.
The real truth, not the little truths I’ve been wallowing in.
“Grandma called you a lot, so did Grandpa… so did I. Didn’t you listen to our messages?” he asks, and the pain in his voice squeezes my heart.
<
br /> Squeezes it with all the fucking guilt and shame I’m feeling.
“I tried to at first, but I couldn’t get myself to call anyone back. I was hurting so much that I couldn’t… deal with life outside my own little hell,” I answer. “I want to say I would have eventually, but it’s a lie. Bear, Chase, and Dale forced me to come today.”
“Why?”
“Because they gave me two options, grow up or be forced to,” I say.
He’s quiet for a moment before he points to where the scuffle was. “What’s that?”
“It looks like a phone,” I say, and I’m hoping it belongs to that fuckhead that ran away.
If it’s his, I can use it to get a little payback and get past all these fucking emotions. Because right now these fucking emotions are killing me. Guilt, shame, despair, and fucking blinding rage that some fucking douche canoe touched my girl are overwhelming me.
“I don’t know, Little Man, go grab it for me,” I say, giving him a small shove on the shoulder.
“Don’t,” is all that Casey says to me, and instantly I know I’ve fucked up again.
That was his nickname from Tommy and me. We called him Little Man all the time.
Fuck, I miss Tommy so fucking much right now because this was his bag, his part of our team. He knew how to handle people and shit.
We’d been teased more often than I can count about being practically married.
When Casey came around and his shit of a mother ran off on a never-ending bender, I helped raise the little guy. I bought fucking diapers. I bought him clothes and toys. Fuck, I was the one who went with Tommy to the fire department so they could show us how to properly adjust the car seats.
Casey slides off the bumper and heads for the phone to pick it up. His walk is so fucking similar to Tommy’s it makes my soul die a little in remorse.
I’m a fucking shit just like his mother. His dad dies and I leave him like his mom did when he was just a baby. This kid’s got more fucking balls than I do.
I fell into a bottle and he’s been trying to cope.
Fuck it. New steps forward from today. I don’t have time to fucking drink myself into a damn stupor if I want to help Casey, make Bree mine, and beat the shit out of that fucker that ran from me.
While Casey is walking back to me, I make a quick checklist of the things I need to do. Take care of Casey, knock Bree up, beat the shit out of the douchebag, and maybe murder the fucker who started me on this fucking downward spiral.
“Sup, Little Beast?” I ask Casey when he sits back down on the bumper.
“Little Beast?” he asks with a tilt of his head.
“Yup, only Beast would take down a dude twice his size and stand up for a chick in the face of certain death,” I say with a grin.
He’s deathly silent for a long time, just looking at me with those eyes of Tommy’s. So fucking quiet and intense that it freaks me out a little.
“I’m good with that,” he finally says then hands me his phone. “It’s hers.”
“How do you know?”
He snickers at me. “Press the button and you’ll see.”
Pushing the button, I look down at the screen and laugh. “Yeah, my dear Holmes, your sleuthing seems to be correct. Somehow I highly doubt that dickhead would have My Little Pony as his home screen.”
“Who’s Holmes?” Casey asks.
Fuck.
“I’ll have to explain it some other time. I think right now we need to take this into her and rescue her from Chase,” I say as I try to unlock the phone.
“What are you doing?” Casey asks.
“Being a snoop and marking my territory,” I mutter.
It’s locked, but I figure I can go for broke and enter the one password that might work.
I push in one, two, three, and four.
“What, are you going to pee on it like our dog does?” Casey asks.
Snorting so hard that my head hurts, I begin to laugh as the screen opens for me.
“Something like that,” I say before I quickly text myself from her phone.
“Dude, you’re weird,” he says and punches me in the shoulder.
“Yeah, I know. I used to hear that a lot from…” I start to say, looking up at him, but freeze.
I want to say Tommy, but the word catches deep in my throat and leaves a solid lump.
“I know, my dad,” he says, and punches me in the shoulder again, but harder this time. “It’s okay, I’m always slipping up and mentioning him to Grandma.”
“That’s not a bad thing, though,” I say. “It’s good to talk about him whenever we can. It hurts, but it helps us keep him alive in our hearts.”
Nodding his head, he stands up from the bumper. “Hope you don’t mind me talking about him when I’m with you.”
“Not one bit.” My mouth feels dry at the thought of talking about Tommy, but we have to do it. “Whenever you need to talk, we can.”
“I guess we’ll be doing that a lot then,” he says and starts walking to the door.
Whenever and however much he needs.
I’ve got to step up. This little human being has lost more in his lifetime than most people I know, and he carries it all on those twelve-year-old shoulders.
Atlas.
He reminds me of Atlas with the world on his shoulders, and no one besides his grandparents to help share the burden.
The gym has a different smell to it this time when I walk through the doors. It smells just like it smelled all those months ago. It’s the smell that gets in my nose and wants to stick.
I fucking loved being here so much, it was my place of peace for so long.
Losing the match, and then Tommy, took this place from me.
Took my purpose.
Dammit, I never thought any of this shit would happen when I walked into the arena to fight Jamey, and it feels like the moment I tapped out because of my shoulder I tapped out on life.
Trying to get my bearings, I follow Casey over to his grandmother. I don’t know what to do, but I can feel the blood pumping through my veins. It’s like that little scuffle outside has set something off inside me that’s recharging my batteries for the first time in months.
I want to fight someone right now. I want to feel the roar come out of me.
I want to fight someone and then fuck Bree.
Shit, I’m almost bouncing on my toes as I walk behind Casey to see Helen. That’s until I see her face and how tired she looks. Her complexion is a little ashen, and the deep circles under her eyes show the pain and weariness her smile tries to hide.
Coming up to face her, I remember how big of a dick I’ve been to her and her family in their time of need. How much of a piece of shit I’ve been even though they took me in and gave me love when I needed it the most as a kid.
She and Bill were the rocks that supported my dreams. God, I’ve made a royal fucking mess of things.
“Ma’am,” I say as I stand in front of her.
Once I would have instantly gone in for a hug and a kiss on the cheek, now I stand here in some horrific parody of what we used to be.
“Don’t even start with that stuff.” Helen steps forward and wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me down into a tight, almost painful, hug.
Thankfully the gigantic lump in my throat stops me from gasping out the sob that threatens to engulf me.
Snaking my hand out, I grab Casey’s sleeve and yank him into the hug. Hugs can heal all wounds. Helen once told me that and I hope she was right.
It takes a long time for Casey to loosen his stiff body, but when he does we all hold on for what seems like an eternity and yet it’s only a few microseconds of time.
Pulling back from Casey and me, she smiles a very tired smile. “Bill’s not well enough to leave the hospital yet, but he sends his regards.”
My words come out stumbled and almost stuttering, but at least they come out. “I’m… I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch more, Helen…”
“Well, that wil
l be changing, I suspect. I’m going to need regular updates on you and Casey over the next couple of weeks,” she says and then turns to Casey. “Are your bags in the trunk, sweetie?”
“Um, what?” I ask stupidly.
What the hell is she talking about?
“Grandma, I don’t think this is such a good idea…” Casey starts to object, and I’m starting to feel like I should too.
“Nonsense, you go get your bags. I need to speak with Emmett privately for a moment,” Helen says to Casey.
Casey doesn’t move right away. The two of them stare at each other with a tension I’ve never seen before. Casey’s defiance is bordering on rebellion, but whatever the fuck’s going on, I can’t let him put any more shit on Helen.
She’s been through enough to last two lifetimes.
“Little Beast, do what your grandmother is telling you. Don’t be a dick,” I say only loud enough for him to hear.
He shoots me a look of shock, and I grin. “Hurry up, man. I need my wingman back for today.”
Casey looks like he wants to object to me interfering, but the look I give him shuts it down quick. I need to step up and there’s no time like the present.
“Whatever, you’re not going to like this any more than I do,” Casey grunts before walking away.
Shit.
Whatever is in the works, he’s probably right.
Turning to face Helen full on, I look at her for a long moment. She’s always looked far too young to me to have a child as old as Tommy was, but now those youthful looks have been taken over by exhaustion and grief.
Stepping up close to her, I give her another hug and pull back. “What’s going on Helen? And how can I help?”
She looks up into my eyes for a long time, searching for something. She can probably see that I’ve fallen on the road of depression and self-pity, but I’m hoping she sees whatever it is she’s looking for because I desperately need her to see something good inside me.
“Bill’s heart isn’t doing good, Emmett,” she says as she takes my hand and pulls me over to the chairs by the wall.
“Fuck,” I say quietly as I sit down next to her.
