by Kata Čuić
Luke winces when he re-enters, catching the tail-end of their mom’s threat. He waits until she’s discussing dinner options with my mom before scratching the back of his neck. “Man, you better tell her soon.”
“We thought dinner might be a good time,” I admit, checking to be sure no one is eavesdropping. “That way we can tell them all at the same time, so no one will feel like the last to know.”
“That’s suicide.” Luke shakes his head. “They’ll come at you as a unified front.”
The twins join our little powwow in the kitchen.
“I can hear it now,” Chris starts. “You’re too young; you’re moving too fast.”
Derek finishes his twin’s sentence as usual. “You need to put medical school first. You won’t have time for anything else. It wouldn’t be fair to Jason.”
Jason beams at this. “Your mom really does love me.”
“Yeah, well our mom’s gonna neuter you.” Melissa glances over her shoulder at the parents as she joins us.
Ever since Jason’s week-long stint in the hospital, our siblings have circled the wagons, juggling their own schedules, the distance, and giving up their social lives to help us through his recovery.
It’s been a long, hard road. Follow-up visits with the orthopedist, hours upon hours of grueling physical therapy, and worst of all—interrogations and Wellbridge judicial board hearings.
I have never in my life seen Jason moved to tears, but he was the day character witnesses showed up to testify on his behalf. More than just my friends. People suddenly came out of the woodwork to defend this man who became a symbol of rising above.
“I dunno. She might go easy on him. I really thought she was going to burn down the entire campus when he got kicked out of school.” Luke shakes his head at the awful memory.
Melissa agrees with her brother. “If the police didn’t press any criminal charges, I still don’t understand why Wellbridge expelled you.”
“They have a zero-tolerance policy,” Jason explains again, his voice monotone. “Everyone involved was expelled.”
“Except Emma,” Chris helpfully points out.
Derek punches him in the shoulder. “Shut up, dude. You already know she feels guilty about it.”
If Hayleigh Adams was expelled in spite of her parents’ money and clout with the administration, it’s nothing short of a miracle I wasn’t reprimanded in any way.
Melissa shrugs. “Well, you shouldn’t feel bad. You’re the only one with any brains. Your involvement kept a lot more people from getting hurt.”
Jason tugs me to him, kissing the top of my head. “Don’t start with those teary eyes. We’ve been over this a million times. To win, I had to lose.”
“It’s not fair,” I sniffle, burrowing into his sweaty shirt. For moments that felt like an eternity after the police broke up the fight, I wasn’t sure Jason was going to make it. His most disgusting manly traits are far better than seeing the aftermath of what the Phi Kappas had done to him. “You shouldn’t have had to lose everything just to be free of Hayleigh.”
“Life’s not fair. You know that. And here, I was going to lead in with your brains, and the fact you’ll keep me alive to announce our decision. If you start with that stupid girly crying now, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself when you’re stuck paying exorbitant rent for a studio in the big city.”
I pull back enough to glare at him. “Gee, you make me sound like your pity project.”
The insufferable asshole just smirks at me.
We all jump when Dad claps his hands. “Let’s go eat!”
“I think they took it surprisingly well.” I kiss his bare chest to soothe his frazzled nerves. In spite of the long day and overwhelming exhaustion, the boxes stacked everywhere, and our mattress sitting on the floor, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than tangled up with Jason. Our bodies fit together easily, a reflection of our merged lives.
“How do you call your father giving us a few months, tops, taking it well?”
I prop myself up to smile at him. “He didn’t threaten to kill you, did he?”
“He didn’t exactly give us his blessing, either.”
“Is that important to you? To have his blessing?” Beneath his gruff exterior, Jason conceals a vulnerable heart, desperate for belonging and validation like anyone else.
“I don’t need it, but it would be nice. He obviously doesn’t approve of me boning his daughter on the regular, in spite of his weird jokes about it.”
“Do you really think your mom approves of me sucking you off as a medicinal treatment for pain?”
“Hey,” he laughs. “No one knows about that.”
“If my dad is thinking about us having sex, then so is your mom.”
His gaze bounces around the room that contains the sleeping and living areas, plus the kitchen. The only doors are to the hallway of the apartment building and the bathroom. “Maybe they think we’re just sharing a mattress to sleep because rent is so expensive.”
“Sure. Because your plans always included moving to Boston.”
He smirks. “I’ll have you know, I was accepted to Boston College for the master’s program in English. We might have been roommates, anyway.”
“Really?” He’s never mentioned being accepted to any master’s programs before, though he was the first person I told about my acceptance to several medical schools.
“Really.” He pushes some limp hair away from my face. “I figured you’d need someone to watch out for you, so you wouldn’t get sucked into the wrong crowd and blow your shot at an awesome future.”
“You applied to schools in Boston…for me?” As much as that idea is romantic, it’s also heartbreaking. What was he going to do? Watch me date man after man who isn’t him? Love me from afar but never confess his feelings? The horrible images of a future that might have been make me cling to him tighter, grateful for our reality.
He returns my embrace easily. He’s gotten so good at cuddling, which is surprising because I could barely sleep next to him in bed while his broken ribs were healing. “I applied to a couple of different places to keep my options open. Since I got accepted to them all, I had my pick. It seemed like the best choice to start adult life with a friend, so Boston College won out.”
A grin spreads across my lips. “You consider me your friend?”
He swats my ass. “I don’t consider you an enemy.”
“Touching.”
His chuckles rumble beneath my cheek.
“I don’t understand how you’re taking this so easily. You had plans. And they’re just…gone.”
“The way I look at it, things could have turned out much worse. I could be in jail. Or dead. I can’t remember if I’ve actually said this before, but thanks for calling the cops when you did. Knowing you’re about to take a beating and seeing your life flash before your eyes are two very different things. I’m not sure how much longer I could have held out.”
The organized fights were nothing like the mob that attacked Jason. It was revenge on their parts, with no chance of a fair fight. “I hope that ended your bloodlust for good.”
He nods, then presses a hand to his face, likely feeling the ghost of pain he was in for weeks.
“Do you think we could have done anything differently? To keep it from ending the way it did?” Fantasies about all the different ways it could have turned out still make up the bulk of my daydreams.
“The answer is still no. Why do you keep asking the same questions over and over again? Even if the answer wasn’t no, what’s done is done. It’s in the past. Let it go.”
“If I had followed your orders and let you go, we might not be here right now.” I grimace. “Then again, you might have also not had your face beaten to a bloody pulp.”
He cups my face in his hands, pulling me to him for a quick kiss. “Let’s travel that path, then, shall we? If you had accepted I was with Hayleigh, and there was nothing more you could have done to stop the fighting ring, wh
at would have likely happened?”
When I stare at him with a deadpan expression, he continues. “I’ll tell you what would have happened. The rest of the spring semester would have played out the same as fall semester. I would have fought every weekend until graduation. Kieran would still have dropped out. Rosie would still have felt guilty for selling me out to get her life back. Hayleigh would have turned me loose as soon as I wasn’t a boost to her popularity, probably the second we took off our caps and gowns.”
I cut him off. “You don’t know that. Your relationship might have developed into something real.”
It’s his turn to pin me with an expression of disbelief. “It was never real. It was never going to be real. Now, let me finish.”
I flop back on my side of the mattress. “Fine.”
“You would have still moved here for medical school. I would have still moved here for the master’s program.” He rises up on his elbow to peer down at me. “And I would have come knocking on your door, begging you to forgive me and let me have me a second chance at this.”
I find that so hard to believe, a scoff escapes my lips. Jason has his pride. “That’s my point! I should’ve just left well enough alone instead of coming up with my crazy scheme to end it!”
“No.” His fingers caress my cheek in a surprising show of gentle caring. “Those are the things that were likely to happen. What about the things that could have happened but were impossible to predict? What if someone else had killed themselves after a particularly nasty, true reveal from Hayleigh? What if, instead of Phi Kappa being banned from campus, they yoked someone else to be their fighter after me, and that vicious cycle continued for years? What if Hayleigh actually demanded that I fuck her?” He shudders at that last question.
“I couldn’t leave you with her,” I whisper. “She never deserved you.”
“Thank you for getting me out of that. I don’t think I could have gone through with actually sleeping with her, then she would have exposed you. Since you’d already confessed, I had no reason to stay.” He leans over to press a kiss to my lips.
“Wait a minute.” I push him away to study his face. “All those what if’s sound an awful lot like you’ve been fantasizing about it as much as I do.”
“Honestly, I wish I had your gift for imagining every different scenario.” He shakes his head and frowns. “The night of your Jell-O party, the solutions became so obvious I wanted to kick my own ass. All I had to do was make myself a loser again. Without me winning fights, neither Phi Kappa nor Hayleigh would have a reason to want me anymore.” He grins at me with a hint of self-deprecation in his smile. “Why didn’t you think of that?”
“How could I?” My gaze roams over his handsome face, his muscular arms boxing me in on both sides, his strong body hovering over mine with the sheets tangled around our legs. “You’ve never been a loser to me. I love you.”
“And because I love you, I’m going to give you an ultimatum.” His dark eyes turn serious. “No more thinking about this. No more daydreaming about all the ways it could have been different. You’ll drive yourself mad. It’s time to start fantasizing about the future.”
“And what if I disobey? Are you going to spank me?”
“No,” he laughs. “That would be a reward. You like it too much. Besides, you don’t need me to get off. That vibrator I bought you is still going strong. I really picked a winner.”
The pride in his voice makes me laugh. I picked a winner, too. “I prefer getting off with you, and you know it. You’re the best I’ve ever had.”
He rolls his eyes. “You’ve only been with one other person. Hardly a sizable enough data pool to make that determination.”
“So? You’ve only been with one other person, too.”
“And you are by far better.” He gathers me to him with the kind of dirty gleam in his eyes that makes my heart race with anticipation. “The reality of having you is also far better than anything I’ve ever fantasized about.”
“Maybe it’s time to make some new fantasies, then.”
He smiles against my lips. “I like the way your mind works.”
“So, you admit there’s nothing you can do to punish me for my mind working the way it does?”
“I didn’t say that,” he mumbles as his tongue traces a path down my neck to the valley between my breasts.
I thread my hands through his thick hair, holding him against me. “What are you going to do to me, Villain?”
“Every time you talk about what happened, or if I even catch you staring off into space thinking about it, you’ll be deprived of coffee and Danishes for a month.” He sucks a nipple into his mouth with enough force to make me gasp.
In retaliation, I reach between us to fist his erection. “If you do that, then I’ll be forced to talk about fantasies of wedding gowns, babies, white picket fences, and a dog. You won’t last a month under those conditions.”
He scoots up, situating himself between my legs and pulling my hand away to grind against me. A smile spreads across his face that lights up the dark room. “If you do that, then I’ll have no choice but to enact the most heinous revenge imaginable.”
I wrap my arms around his neck, even as a hint of suspicion gives me pause. “Like what? Run away and leave me to pay this ridiculous rent on my own, after all?”
“No.” He rubs his nose against mine. “I’ll make all your fantasies come true.”
My cackling laughter destroys the silence. “How is that revenge?”
“I didn’t say it was revenge against you.” His face grows somber. “Everything that happened this past year should have torn us apart. The others are still off, God knows where, living in misery. But, you and me? We won. Our life together is the best revenge of all.”
“Jason?”
“Yes?”
“That sounded a lot like poetry. If you’re not careful, you’re going to turn into my hero instead of a villain.”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
I follow his lead. He doesn’t find it quite so annoying anymore.
Truth: A life well lived is the best revenge of all.
The text is simple. An address I’m not familiar with and explicit instructions to meet him after my pediatric rotation is done for the day.
Even though I’m exhausted and have hours of studying ahead of me before I can think about sleep, not going never crosses my mind. I splurge for an Uber instead of taking the bus because… he’s waiting for me.
The drive from the hospital to his location isn’t terribly long, but I quickly realize I’m unfamiliar with this part of Boston. Ivy-covered buildings are replaced by middle-class Brownstones, then by empty storefronts and increasingly more dilapidated houses. Shacks might be a more appropriate term.
Just as I’m beginning to worry he’s changed his mind about fight clubs being a cliché way to vent typical human frustration, the car pulls up to the curb. We’re here.
Part of me feels I should tip the driver simply for putting himself in harm’s way by bringing me to this obviously dangerous part of the city, but he speeds away as soon as I close the door. I didn’t even get to thank him for his services. The sound of his tires squealing as he turns the corner makes me not regret that. He sure is eager to get out of here but has no problem with dropping off a lone woman.
The building doesn’t look like anything special. Crumbling brick crowns the rooftop, and trash litters the sidewalk. What appears to be a heavy metal door is propped open with a large stone which looks like it might be a piece of the pothole-filled road. A new text alert jars me from my daydream of finding him shirtless, sweaty, and covered in blood.
Hero: Come inside when you arrive. I’m already here.
Sucking in a deep breath for courage, I follow instructions. The air smells distinctly moldy, and dust particles float across my field of view, giving the space an otherworldly quality, which resembles a lesser circle of Hell. The room spans the length of the building. With no furniture or other fix
tures, it’s impossible to tell what it might have been before it fell into such disrepair. The sound of dripping water draws my attention to the back corner, where another door is propped open by a long piece of wood.
With every ounce of focus on that portal, I trip over more garbage on the floor I hadn’t seen.
“Babe? Is that you?” His head pops through the doorway. When his eyes meet mine, my heart doesn’t cease to pound. It beats harder, faster.
I must stare a beat too long because he narrows his eyes. “This isn’t the best neighborhood, in case you hadn’t noticed. Get your fine ass back here with me where I can protect you.”
I may be having a cardiac event because definite palpitations flutter in my chest. How this man can bring me to my knees by mixing devotion with such a biting tone never fails to astonish me. Once again, I obey his command.
He wraps an arm around my shoulders the moment I clear the threshold and spreads his arm to showcase the foulest kitchen I’ve ever seen. The excitement in his voice makes no sense. “Well? What do you think?”
“Do you want the truth, or do you want me to lie?”
He pins me with a glare. “That better be a rhetorical question.”
I glance at our surroundings once more, trying to figure out why we’re here. This is the kind of place that would make Jason retch under normal circumstances. A skittering shadow in my periphery suggests cockroaches are the only inhabitants. “It’s vile. If your boss sent you here to gain firsthand knowledge of what can happen if you fail to run a kitchen to his exacting standards, I think he’s officially crossed the line into the Gordon Ramsay territory of abuse.”
Jason barks out a genuine laugh. “What Mitch doesn’t know absolutely would kill him, but he doesn’t need to know since this place is going to be ours.”
“What?” I gape up at him.
Since we moved to Boston shortly before my first year of medical school, Jason has worked his way up the ranks at one of the trendiest restaurants in Back Bay. He started as a busboy. Instead of viewing the menial labor as penance for the sins he committed at Wellbridge, he was grateful for the opportunity to get his foot in the door at the then up-and-coming hot spot. He’s gained as much knowledge about the restaurant industry in the past four years as he would have about English literature in a grad program. And he’s never once considered it anything but a solid back-up plan for his dreams of the future.
