by Tracey Ward
He raised his hands innocently, backing up. “We’re just talking, man.”
“Right.”
“What? She said she’s not your girl.”
“Doesn’t mean she’s looking to get syphilis,” I told him, coming to stand next to Jenna. “Get away.”
He laughed as he left and when I looked at Jenna, she was smiling. Laughing.
“Can’t leave you alone for two seconds,” I grumbled, pulling off my gloves and tossing them onto a nearby table.
She shrugged. “It’s the tattoos. You boxer types love them.”
I stepped in close to her, my body nearly touching hers. Her face immediately fell serious. “It’s your eyes,” I told her softly. “They’re trouble.”
“They’re gray. They’re boring.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“Thank you,” she breathed, her cheeks flushing pink.
How a girl as gorgeous as Jenna could be flattered and embarrassed by a simple compliment was beyond me. She should have been used to them by now. Bored with them. Instead, she blushed with every single one, and I loved it.
Put Jenna and Laney side by side and ask anyone off the street who was more attractive, and I guarantee you that most would pick Laney. She was traditional. Safe. She was the embodiment of an ideal that had been fed to all of us guys for our entire lives, but Jenna was something different. Her beauty wasn’t as obvious. It wasn’t in the immediate sum of her parts. It was deeper than that. You didn’t see it right away, you had to spend time with her. You had to hear her laugh, get her jokes, make her smile, and then it’d come on you slowly, like the sun rising in the east. It was natural and powerful, a combination of a hundred different things that came together in a slow symphony you heard with your heart.
Or maybe that was just me. Maybe that’s how I saw her because I loved her, but did it make it any less real? I didn’t think so.
“So you’re not my girl, huh?” I asked, surprising her.
“I thought that’s what we agreed on,” she replied quietly. “No labels or expectations. Just us being us.”
“That is us. I’ve always thought of you as mine.”
Her chest rose and fell rapidly. “Me too,” she whispered.
“You always thought of yourself as mine or the other way around?”
“Both?”
“Good.” I slung my arm around her shoulders, pulling her to me and holding her there firmly. It was mean to do it. I was slick with sweat, I’m sure I stank of it, but instead of slapping at me and running away, she wrapped her arms around my waist and hugged me back.
“Careful,” she teased, nodding to a familiar group of girls standing by the door. “Your groupies will be mad.”
“Screw ‘em.”
“Isn’t that the idea?” she asked dryly.
“Not anymore,” I laughed, squeezing her tighter before letting her go. “Hey, I gotta take a shower and then I’m taking you to dinner. We’ll celebrate.”
“Where are we going?”
I started backing away toward the locker room. “I’m thinking somewhere fancy.”
“So Denny’s then?”
“You know it,” I grinned. “I’ll have to wear a shirt and shoes.”
“You take me to the nicest places.”
“I’m a baller!”
“But what are you going to order when we get there?”
“An omelet.”
“Oh, Kellen,” she mourned dramatically.
“Moon Over My Hammy!” I shouted, throwing my arms up into the air triumphantly. Because, yeah, I remembered my order from Denny’s and that was a friggin’ win for me. Even before the accident, that would have been a milestone.
“I’m so proud!” Jenna beamed.
I hurried through my shower, throwing my clothes on and running my finger through my wet hair carelessly. I took a quick look in the mirror before I headed out and I couldn’t stop smiling, but it wasn’t about the fight. It didn’t take a lot of soul searching to figure out who it was about.
I’d won the bout despite my injuries, but it had been ugly. It should have been a simple win but I felt like I’d had to really scrap for it, and maybe that wasn’t so bad. A new challenge could be good for me. Being forced to take a new perspective was kind of the order of my life right then, so going Southpaw didn’t sound as daunting as it would have six months ago. Now it felt like a punch I could roll with.
I had my footing back. It was time to move forward.
When I stepped out of the locker room, I was immediately hit with a wall of groupies. My stomach lurched when I recognize one in particular.
“Great fight, Kellen,” Laura purred, running her fingertip down my arm.
I kept walking, my eyes straight ahead on Jenna. “Thanks.”
“We’re having some people over tonight,” Chelsea told me, trying to step in my path. The sight of her gave me chills. “You should come by. You remember my address, right?”
I quickly stepped around her. “Yeah, I’m busy tonight. Thanks though.”
“That’s okay,” she persisted, falling in step next me. “We’ll be up late. At least I will be. You should come by whenever.”
“Can’t make it. You guys have fun.” I locked onto Jenna, hurrying my pace to get to her. To get away from the girls. “Are you ready to get out of here?”
She smirked at me, her face amused. “Are you sure you don’t want get her number? Go to that party?”
“You’re funny,” I answered drolly as I opened the door for her.
“You already have her number, don’t you?”
“Had. Past tense.”
“What? Had her number or her?”
I cast her a sideways glance, telling her I wasn’t playing this game.
“Oh, come on!” she exclaimed with a smile. “We said us being us. This is us. You wouldn’t be shy about telling me. Phone number or her?”
“Both,” I answered reluctantly.
“And the other girl?”
“That’s enough sharing for today.”
“You dog,” she teased, poking my side. “What happened to ‘those aren’t the kind of girls I mess with. They’re the kind that want to see guys fight over them’ rant you once gave me.”
I fought a grin, remembering that afternoon. I’d been so full of it. Noble intentions and all, but two nights later I’d been in bed with a groupie and out her window before dawn. “It was more of a credo,” I told her.
“Pretty long credo. A credo is usually confined to a few words. Live for love and honor. Fight the good fight. Drive it like you stole it.”
“Fuck her like you hate her.”
Her eyes went round with surprise. “Whoa, okay, yeah. I mean, I’m not going to crochet it on a pillow for you, but if that’s how you live. Is that your next tattoo? ‘Cause I don’t know how I’m going to make that beautiful.”
“You’d find a way, and no. Those were dark days. They’re past tense, like the girls.”
“Were they between Laney?”
I stopped immediately, turning to face her. “What are you asking?”
“You know what I’m asking,” she replied stubbornly.
My jaw clenched. “You’re asking if I ever cheated on Laney?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
My heart beat wild in my chest, the familiar anger that came with the accusations rising to the surface. “Why would you ask that?”
She shrugged, looking way. “I wanted to know.”
“You already did know. If I had cheated on Laney, I would have told you. You’d be the only person I’d tell.” I paused, not wanting to talk about this, but it was already there between us. There was no avoiding it anymore. “This is about the kiss in the bathroom, isn’t it?”
Her face softened. “Yeah.”
“I broke off the engagement within hours of that.”
“But I didn’t know that was going to happen, and I still let the kiss
happen.”
“I attacked you.”
“Don’t make excuses for me,” she warned me sharply.
I nodded, knowing I couldn’t make it right by taking all the blame. She’d never give it to me. “Okay.”
She stared at me for a long time, and I started to itch. I was getting worried as I watched her emotions flash through her eyes. Guilt, remorse, confusion. Resolve.
“Jenna, is it something you can’t handle?” I asked her directly.
“What do you mean?”
“The timing of that kiss. Is it something you can’t get past?”
She hesitated only for a second. It was enough. “I don’t know.”
“Fuck,” I swore vehemently. I ran my hand over my hair roughly and dropped my chin to my chest. I stared at the cracks in the pavement under my feet, the sunlight casting slanted shadows over them, making them look larger than they were. Uglier. “I fucked it up before it even started,” I berated myself.
“Kel,” Jenna said gently.
I shook my head, turning to pace up and down the sidewalk, unable to look at her. To be near her. “Here I thought I was doing this right,” I railed. “We’ve been taking it slow, putting distance between us and the engagement, I’ve been getting my shit back together. I’m taking the firemen’s test next week—“
“You’re going to be a fireman?” she asked, stunned.
I couldn’t answer her. I couldn’t stop. “But it doesn’t matter because I couldn’t keep it together for two more hours. Four years I’d been thinking about what it’d be like to kiss you again and I couldn’t wait two more fucking hours.”
“Stop, wait,” she pleaded. “Talk to me about this.”
“I’m no good at that.”
“Look at me,” she demanded firmly.
I stopped pacing and put my hands on my hips to still them. I took a deep breath before looking at her, trying to stay with her but dying to run away. To hide.
Her mouth set in a firm line of determination, Jenna stepped forward and put her hand over my eyes.
I went still. “What are you—“
“Shut up,” she scolded. “We’re backtracking. Talk about the firefighter thing.”
“Jenna, why are—“
“Nope, no questions. Jenna’s not here. Can you see her? No, because she’s not here. You’re alone. Now talk.”
“I’m not a toddler,” I said impatiently into the darkness of her palm.
“You take instructions like one,” she snapped. “Talk.”
I breathed slow and even, waiting for her give up and pull her hand away. It was pointless and I should have known it. If there was anything both Monroe girls intrinsically were, it was stubborn.
“I’ve been looking into becoming a firefighter,” I explained.
I didn’t tell her I was doing more than looking into it. That I had already signed up for an EMT certification course and I’d applied twice to get into an academy, both times falling just shy of the mark. I should have told her, but I didn’t. I was too proud. Too irritated and wounded that I had failed. I needed a win under my belt before I’d tell her anything.
She didn’t reply to what I gave her. She wanted more.
I sighed. “I think it’s something I’d enjoy. Something I’d get satisfaction from.”
More silence. More patience.
More sharing. More agony.
“It’s physically challenging,” I continued, “which I like, but it’s also helping people. The nurses in New York, they told me the first responders to the accident were firefighters. They’re trained EMTs. If they hadn’t gotten there when they did, I’d be dead. They saved my life.” I paused, not sure what else I needed to say. “Can I have my eyes back now?”
“Not yet. Not until we talk about the kiss.”
I exhaled sharply, the heat of my breath rebounding off her skin and coming back to me smelling of vanilla and sunlight that lit up the dark and painted it in her image.
“I messed up,” I confessed. “I’m sorry.”
“We messed up,” she told me clearly, “and I think we’re both sorry. But I can’t move past it. I think that’s why I was so willing to take things slow. It’s smart, yeah, and the right thing to do, but it’s also because I’m worried. I don’t want to start us off on a lie.”
I swallowed hard. “Do you want to start us off at all?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation, “but we have to come clean first.”
I gently pulled her hand away from my eyes, blinking as she came into focus in the bright light, just the way she had when I’d first woken up in New York. I’d been so glad to see her face, a part of me had been convinced it was a dream. I felt that way now. Like she was an illusion, one that could vanish at any moment and I had no way of stopping her.
“This will not go well,” I warned her reluctantly.
“I know.”
“She was never going to like us being together, but knowing there was even a second of overlap…”
“She’ll go insane, yeah,” Jenna confirmed. “I know. But just because it’s difficult, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s right.”
I nodded, already feeling bile in the back of my throat. “Tell her together or alone?” I asked, honestly thinking it’d be easier to do it alone. I could slip inside. I could shut down, and Jenna wouldn’t have to see it.
“Together,” she said adamantly. “I think it’s important there are witnesses. Less chance we’ll end up a Lifetime Original Movie that way.”
I chuckled darkly, leaning down to kiss her. I lingered for just a second too long. Just a moment that I stole before I stepped away and consigned myself to the fact that this was happening. It was happening and it could go very, very deeply wrong.
If it did, I wanted to have that kiss, that moment, to remember forever.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
One Month Later
I leaned my head against the back of the couch. “We’re telling Laney tomorrow,” I told the ceiling.
“Ah, the big day,” Ben mused dramatically. “How are you feeling?”
I paused to consider instead of giving a default, bullshit answer, just like he’d taught me. “Nervous. Annoyed. Pissed.”
“Who are you pissed at?”
“Myself. Jenna.”
“Does she know you’re angry?”
“Yeah. I’m sure she does.”
“And how does your anger affect her?”
I sighed, lifting my head. “I think it makes her sad.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
I scowled at him. “How far are we taking this? Do you want to know how I think you feel about my feelings? Maybe how Dan and Karen feel about the way I feel about how Jenna feels about the way I feel?”
Ben grinned faintly. “I see the anger.”
“Yeah, it’s hard to miss,” I muttered, looking away.
“How do you think Laney is going to take it?”
“Badly,” I laughed bitterly. “That girl could take a compliment badly. She’s all drama. It’s like she binges on it for breakfast.”
“Do you think maybe you’re exaggerating her character to justify the angry reaction you believe she’ll have, thereby alleviating some of your guilt for what you did, telling yourself it’s not that what you and Jenna did was all that bad? It’s just Laney being dramatic. It’s simply the way she is.”
I looked at him sharply, staring for too long in silence.
He waved my attention away, unaffected. “Sorry. My mistake, but sometimes I like to sneak a little therapisting in now and then, just for fun. Helps me keep my license. You were saying?”
“What are you saying?” I asked irritably.
“You know what I’m saying.”
“I’m transferring my guilt onto Laney, meaning I have guilt, meaning I know I did something wrong.”
“Bingo was his name-o.”
“I get why we’re telling her. That’s not my problem. My problem is t
elling her. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not good at sharing. Open and honest is not in my wheelhouse.”
“You could write her a letter.”
“You could take this seriously.”
Ben laughed, putting his pad and pen down on the table next to him. “Trust me, I am. In fact, I’m about to take our relationship in my hands and risk it all by saying that I think we need to talk about some of the untouchables.”
My back stiffened. “Why?”
“Because you’re not good at sharing, and I’m willing to wager that the reason for that is hidden in the things we don’t talk about. Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“So may we talk about some taboo topics?”
“No.”
He put up his hands. “Your choice.”
I stared at him long and hard, never flinching. Neither did he.
We ended the session five minutes later, and I wondered how much longer I could keep dodging my demons.
***
“I thought you said I’d never have to see him again,” Laney complained angrily, crossing her arms over her chest. I saw the engagement ring flash on her finger. She had it on the opposite hand, but she was still wearing it.
“I never promised that," Jenna reminded her, sitting next to her on the couch. “I said you wouldn’t see him any more than you see Sam.”
“Still too much,” she muttered, glaring at me.
“Trust me, I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here,” I deadpanned. “Probably less.”
“That’s impossible. And why are we here anyway? You said you had something important to tell me. Does Kellen have a VD, ‘cause that doesn’t surprise me at all.”
“Nice.”
“Stop talking!” she shouted at me, her face turning red.
“Both of you stop talking,” Jenna said tiredly. “At least to each other.” She paused, her eyes going tight. I wished I could do it for her, I had no problem saying it, but she’d insisted it should be her. “Laney…”
“What, Jenna?” Laney demanded irritably. “The sooner you say it, the sooner I can get away from him.”
“I kissed him,” she blurted out, the words tumbling from her mouth uncontrolled. It killed her to stay it and she looked like she might cry.
