by Emilia Finn
I stomp on my captor’s foot, and cry out when my shoulder hurts from the movement, but then I’m gone, torn from the guy’s grasp and left dazed and dizzy when Jamie dives at him the way a lion might pounce on a fleeing meal.
I stand just three feet away and watch on as Jamie belts the shit out of the guy who copped a feel. Maybe the guy’s end goal was honorable – save the girl – but his boob grab wasn’t accidental. Nor was the squeeze, or the erect dick against my back.
Jamie’s fist slams against the guy’s jaw. Blood drips to the floor, his, his opponent’s, and all the while, I stand on the sidelines like some kind of brainless twit.
I started this mess. I wanted to escape and run back to my brother.
While Jamie is busy, my gaze shoots to the door to find my path clear. No one stands between me and the exit; not one single person. And in my pocket sit the SUV’s keys, which I swiped from Jamie back at our table.
I’ve still got it. I can still pickpocket like a pro.
And now’s my chance to run.
It would take me a single second to swipe a wallet, get some credit cards for gas money – I already have a car. I could be gone before Jamie even surfaces from his fight.
But then Rodney catches my eye.
He stalks forward, pausing only to grab a barstool. He tests its weight. Its strength. He lifts it high above his head while things fly everywhere behind him, and then he crosses the last ten feet with the intention to swing it down and knock Jamie the hell out.
“No!” I duck in as the chair swings down, take a hit on my bad shoulder, but I ruin the guy’s shot and shove him back.
Jamie’s head whips up when he hears my shout. Fist suspended in the air, his other hand holding Boob Guy’s collar, he straddles the man’s hips, but jumps to his feet in an instant.
His only goal is to protect me. His ability to fight and keep watch of me is insane. But he manages it.
He jumps up lithely like a cat, pulls me away from Rodney, and tucks me under his arm, and then he makes a move to steamroll forward and beat Rodney up.
It’s what he does.
He’s fighting because I made him.
He’s bleeding because of me.
“Jamie, no!”
Using his forward momentum, I clutch to his left hand – his bad arm – and continue dragging him through the bar. Past brawlers, past one guy who breaks a beer bottle and turns to his opponent with a feral glint in his eyes, past the server who brought us our Cokes, while she hides behind the bar and holds the phone to her ear.
“She’s calling the cops,” I try to shout above the noise. “We have to go!”
I drag him to the door, then through it, and duck under another pair of fighters as they swing into the parking lot and slam to the dusty ground.
Once we’re free of the oppressive bar, and in the fresh air outside, I break into a run and drag Jamie in my wake. He’s heavy, too heavy, despite the fact I know he can run fast. I drag him, grunt with exhaustion when he tries to drag me back, then I slam into the side of our SUV, and release his hand so I can fumble in my pockets and search for the keys.
“I’m gonna—” Jamie spins back around. “That guy who grabbed you, I’m not done with him yet.”
“No!” I find the keys and frantically hit the unlock button, then I spin and run at Jamie’s back.
He’s already cleared twenty feet by the time I catch up.
I launch myself at his back, grab on with both arms and legs, and I squeeze. My legs around his hips. My arms around his throat.
I know there’s a chokehold that would work in seconds, but I don’t know the move. I don’t know the pressure points. So all I manage to do is cut off his air and force him to grunt and grow larger with adrenaline.
I press the side of my face to the side of his. Sweat transfers from his skin to mine. Our breaths race, but sync. Our bodies touch from top to toe.
“Don’t go back inside.” I try to slow my breathing. My words. My heart. “The cops are coming, we have to go.”
“He grabbed you, Q. He wasn’t protecting you. He was gonna take you someplace and use you.”
“But I’m right here.” I reaffirm my grip, and rub my cheek against his. “I’m right here with you. Turn around. Go back to the car. Drive away with me.”
“He was going to hurt you.”
“I know,” I murmur. I try to calm myself, try to calm him, but my pulse beats faster when police sirens wail in the air. “You saved me. You made it all better.”
“You made me watch McGrady kiss you,” he groans. “You made me watch.”
“I’m sorry.” I reach up and run a hand over the hair that hangs over his eyes. I brush it back, and stroke his fevered skin. “I didn’t want him to kiss me. I never wanted that.”
“He was going to hurt you too.” Jamie’s voice cracks. “He was gonna use you up and kill you, Q.”
I nod and hate that he’s probably right. “I believe you.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you by taking you away from Will. I’m trying to save you.”
“I know.” I press a gentle kiss to his temple.
For every second we touch, every pass of my hands over his hair, his cheek, his chest, his steps slow, and his breathing comes back to reasonably normal.
“If we’re standing here when the cops arrive, it was all for nothing,” I tell him. “They’re gonna pick me up, take me to the station. And who knows, maybe they’re on McGrady’s payroll.” I press another kiss to his temple. “Let’s get back in the car. Drive away from this place before the cops arrive.”
“I can’t leave,” he groans. “I can’t let that guy live.”
“I hurt my hand.” It’s not a lie, but it’s definitely a manipulation. “Jamie, I hit someone, and I think I broke my hand. I need you to take care of me.”
“Your hand?” He reaches up and takes my hand in his.
I remain wrapped around his back while a couple of guys brawl in the dirt no more than twenty feet away, but Jamie takes my hand and studies it. It really does hurt. It throbs with pain. But it’s not broken, I’m certain of it.
He turns it over and studies my knuckles with wild eyes.
“Take me to the car,” I coach in a quiet voice. “Please hurry.”
Jamie
Reality
I move between rage and relief. Pain and elation. In a shitty hotel room somewhere in the middle of a shitty state, I walk laps into the worn-down carpet, and pass Quinn as she sits on the end of the lumpy, queen-sized bed.
She cups her hand, and lets her head droop, because she knows she fucked up. She knows she’s in trouble.
“Okay… I didn’t mean for that to go down the way it did,” she begins. “I swear I didn’t mean to incite a riot.”
“What if they’d beaten me unconscious, Q? What if you’d gotten exactly what you wanted? I would have been unable to protect you, and that dude still would have gotten his hands on you!”
“I’m sorry.”
“What if you got away and drove your stupid ass back to your brother, only to find he’s already moved, and McGrady was lying in wait?”
She sighs and lets her head drop lower. “I’m sorry.”
“What if someone killed me with one of those pool cues? It only takes one bad swing, a smack to the temple, and I’d be dead. Would you have called my mom and told her it was your fault?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean for it to get as big as it did.”
“I’m trying to help you!” I snap. “I’m trying to save your fucking life, Q. I’m trying to save Will’s too, but you’re fighting me at every turn.”
“I’m fighting you because you never ask my opinion. Because you think you get to dictate my every step.”
“I need to dictate,” I shoot back. “You weren’t getting shit done on your own. You were wearing McGrady’s dead wife’s clothes, riding in his car, and if you didn’t make it to his bed yet,” Please god, don’t tell me if you
did, “then you were heading there fast. Dammit, Quinn. I’m trying to help you.”
Enraged, she surges to her feet and meets me toe-to-toe. “I’m not a vapid little girl who will do as she’s told, Jamie. I demand to be an active participant in my own life.”
“Sure. Tell that to McGrady when he has a gun pressed to your temple!”
“I was taking care of what needed to be taken care of! I was getting things done.”
“Yeah, and now you’re in a run-down hotel on the side of the freeway, with the guy you hate, and a sore hand. And I’m standing here with a raging headache, because I got hit too many fucking times this week. All because of you.” I spin away from her and restart my pacing. “I work and live in a fight gym, Q, but still, you’re the reason for more hits to my head in one week alone than I’ve ever received in my entire lifetime.” I spin back to her. “I’m just trying to help you! But you hold this bullshit grudge and bad attitude. Why? What did I ever do to piss you off?” I storm toward her. “My crime was loving you! For wanting you like I want air. I’ve done nothing wrong, Q! In all these years, I was good to you, I was loyal, I was honest. I loved you, and showed you how forever could be, if only you’d give it a chance.”
“Jamie, I—”
“And in payment, you’ve lied, stolen, had me beat to shit every chance you get, and the first time I see you after four of the longest years of my fucking life, you have some other asshole touching you. Kissing you. Kissing, Q!”
“I didn’t want him to kiss me!” she snaps back. “Did it look like I was enjoying his hands on me? Because I can tell you, it was gross.” She half turns away, and throws a hand up. “Fine, I lied to you. Get used to it. I don’t even know my truths anymore. I said mean things to you? Get used to it. I’m an unwanted child with low self-esteem and no family base except for the one you took me from. My default setting is to be mean. I stole from you. Get over it. I steal a watch and buy a meal. You just go back to your mommy and get a new watch.”
She turns back to me. “We are not the same person, Jamie Kincaid. We are not even in the same stratosphere. And that,” she pokes my aching chest, “is why you’re wasting your time on me. We are not suited. We have no future. You’re going through a phase where you wanna slum and know what it’s like to be with someone like me. And I was once a little girl who dreamed of marrying a prince. We’re each other’s fantasies, but we’re also each other’s fish, constantly swimming in the wrong direction.”
“I just want you to be safe,” I plead. “I want you, your body, your soul, your fucking heart, but I can’t have any of those if you’re in danger.”
“You can’t have any of those,” she inserts quietly. “Full stop. Because my body belongs to me, my heart belonged to you, and somewhere in the last four years, we both lost it. And souls are like fantasies and dreams. Only the privileged can afford them.”
She looks up with watery eyes. “I’m sorry I got you hurt. I’m sorry I’m always making you mad. I’m sorry that I can’t be the fantasy you spent four years thinking about. But I’m not sorry for wanting to keep my brother safe. You cannot, and will not, make me feel bad for doing what I need to do to keep him safe. So this,” she reaches up and touches a tender spot on my jaw, “is going to keep happening. I’m going to keep trying to get away from you, because I need to take care of my brother.”
“I’m trying to help you take care of him,” I murmur. Gone is my rage, my frustration, my fear. Now I’m simply resigned, exhausted, and wondering if she’s right and this is a losing battle. “You think he’s in danger, but I left him with Soph. Of all the people on this planet, Soph is who will fix this for him. And to help her and Will do what they have to do, I’m taking care of you. I’m doing my best, Q. I’m just…” I shake my head and turn away. “I’m doing my best.”
“Jamie—”
“I’m going outside for a bit.” I stop with my hand on the doorknob, and look back over my shoulder. “You’re probably gonna escape through the bathroom while I’m not looking, and I’m gonna chase you because my job is to make sure you keep living. But maybe give me ten minutes to rest first.” I pull the door open and sigh. “I’ve never been so fucking exhausted in my life.”
Stepping outside into the darkness and warmth of a summer night, I close the door behind me, and catch sight of an old picnic bench on the dirt just fifteen feet away. The moon is full tonight, bright, so I dig my hands into my pockets, and head in that direction until I sit on the table and rest my feet on the bench seat.
My entire body aches. My feet, my knees, my stomach and chest. My arms sing, and not just the one with the bad shoulder. My head rings, and my back is in turns tingly and furiously ablaze beneath my skin. I’m bruised from head to toe, and yet, my heart still manages to shout above all the rest and remind me that there is a pain worse than a strike to the head.
I once told Quinn to keep her hands up when fighting, because the head is the only part of our body that won’t heal easily. It was a lie then, and it’s a lie now. I’ve taken a dozen smacks to the chin tonight, but none of them hurt even half as much as the ache I’ve held in my heart since the day Quinn and her brother sped out of my gym parking lot and out of my life.
For four years, I’ve walked around with this pain in my chest. With this sense of nothing, because without her, I had no reason to smile. I’ve dedicated years to teaching my fighter how to win, because he wants it more than I do. I don’t want to hold a belt above my head and smile for the cameras. I don’t want to celebrate such a menial success, when in private, I can barely breathe.
I don’t want to take the win away from someone who wants it more, when winning wouldn’t even make me feel good.
To my right, our room door opens, and light spills out onto the concrete footpath, then it closes again, and where the light was, now stands Quinn.
It makes my heart bleed, because even if I’m pissed at her, I still can’t help but catalogue how pretty she is. How her long legs make me want to weep. How her long torso makes me want to curl up in bed and rest my cheek on her belly. How her limp arm makes me want to make it all better.
Even angry, I can’t help but love her.
After a silent moment, she steps off the concrete and onto dirt in blue jeans and a white tank. Her hair is wet, her face clear of all cosmetics. Cicadas chirp around us, and the warmth in the air means, despite the shower she obviously just had, it’ll take only minutes before she’s sweating and struggling to move in denim.
“Can I sit with you?” She stops by the corner of the bench and keeps her gaze down.
“I figured you’d be in someone’s truck by now.”
She scoffs under her breath and climbs onto the bench without my invitation. “Maybe later. I needed a shower first.” She sits so close that our thighs touch, and her shoulder rests against my arm. “I needed a reset, because maybe I can admit that I brought a bad attitude on this trip.”
Inside, I laugh a little, I guess. But on the outside, I simply rest my elbows on my knees, and my chin in my hands. “Can I get a minute alone, Q?” I tilt my head a little, so I can catch her eye. “I need time alone.”
“Are you having an existential crisis? Finally realizing I’m not as awesome as you thought I was?”
I look back to the front, close my eyes, and sigh. “Realizing that maybe we’re just two fish, swimming in opposite directions. And I’m exhausted. So if you could just—”
“I’m sorry about tonight.” She leans closer. Closer. “Truly I am.” She wraps her arms around mine, and rests her cheek against my shoulder.
It’s like old times, but… not.
“It’s okay. We’re both out, we’re alive, and soon…” I sigh. “Give me, like, twenty minutes, then we can go back to you being the jerk, and me being the idiot who can’t take rejection.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be who you need,” she whispers so her breath glances off my aching jaw. “I would if I could, because despite my mean words, you’re kin
d of the jackpot, Jamie. I’m sorry we can’t just… fit.”
I nod and let my head drop lower. “Yeah. Same. Can you leave me alone for a b—”
I hiss when she wraps her arm around my back.
She was going for a hug, but stops as the pain slices through my stomach, and I fail at hiding it.
“What…?” She pulls back and stares at the side of my face for a moment. Then, with frantic hands, she sits further back on the bench, and yanks up my shirt. “Jamie!”
“Leave it alone.”
“What the hell is this?” She shoves my shirt up until it sits at my shoulders, then she runs the tips of her fingers along fiery hot lines on my back. “Are these…?” Her voice cracks. “No way. Get the hell inside!”
She shoves me off the table, and steers me to our room, and just a second later, slams the door, and spins back to me. “Take your shirt off.”
I can’t help it. I can’t help the smile that crosses my face. “The irony hurts more than my back does.”
“Shirt!” She crosses to the mini kitchen, shitty as it is, and snags a pot from beneath the sink. Filling it with tap water, she plops it onto the mini, two-burner stove in the corner and begins boiling water.
When I do nothing but stand at the end of the bed, she storms in my direction and slams her palm to my stomach until I buckle and sit. I drop down with a grunt, but there she is; her hips could be in my hands, if only I reached out. Her tits in my line of sight, if only I could bear to look up.
“Dammit, Jamie.” She reaches down like I’m a small child, and yanks my shirt over my head. Tossing the filthy fabric to the floor, she shoves me back, and tugs my shoulder to indicate for me to turn over.
From a bar fight, to a fight involving matters of the heart, to this. I lay on my stomach, my shirt gone, my back exposed, and Quinn climbs on top of me to sit on my ass.
