She purses her lips. “I see.”
“Good.”
“I think you’re lying,” she announces. “I think you’re embarrassed and believe pushing me away is the answer. It’s not, but you’re obviously in no condition to listen.”
I tip my head back and breathe out noisily, trying not to throttle her. Or kiss her. “Believe whatever you want, doc. The truth is, we were going to reach this point sooner or later, I just got here first. You slummed it for a bit, and I got to fuck a hot doctor. But you’re not what I want, and today proved it.”
“Today proved bad things happen to good people,” she counters. “It proved the world’s not a fabulous place all the time, and at thirty-four, you should have known that already. None of this—” she points at my various injuries, “—was necessary.”
“Thanks for stopping by, Susan.”
She catches the door when I try to close it in her face. “Don’t do this,” she says. It’s the way the light reflects off the tears brimming in her eyes that makes me crumple inside, makes everything I’m trying so hard to hold together threaten to burst at the seams, and I know I’ll never come through this in one piece if I let her in.
“Sheree!” I call over my shoulder. “Come out here for a second.”
I hear Susan’s stunned inhale, but I don’t turn to look at her until Sheree tentatively steps into the hall, silhouetted by the kitchen light. Susan’s just shaking her head, very, very slowly, like she can’t believe I’d do this. Like out of all the things that have happened today, this is the most far-fetched.
“You wanted proof?” I say.
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t even look at me again. She just stares at Sheree like she’s making a mental note she’ll never forget, then she turns and picks her way down the porch stairs in her heels, back straight, head held high. I watch her the whole way. Watch her get into her car and see her silhouette swipe one hand across her cheeks as the other twists the key in the ignition. Then I watch her taillights disappear.
Now the fight’s over.
Chapter Sixteen
I didn’t bang Sheree, if that’s any consolation. Not that she was up for it, anyway, having seen and heard what she did. In fact, she hung around another ten minutes, bandaged up the cuts that weren’t going to close on their own, gave me three more ibuprofen and told me to stop drinking. Then she left.
Alone with my thoughts, I’d tossed and turned, sleep deftly evading me, more punishment for my stupid, asshole behavior. I know what I did to Susan was wrong. Just like going to Francisco’s was wrong. But no matter how much it hurt, I wanted to do it. I wanted to feel those things. I had to. To remind myself. Because I’d gotten soft and I’d forgotten. And now I remember.
In fact, I spend the next three days remembering. Sheree tattled to Jade, and Jade and Wyatt drop by several times, doing a poor job coordinating their schedules. Every time they show up at the same time they bicker so relentlessly all my aches and pains increase.
Despite the fight, I’m really not that sore. There’s no question that I’m depressed. That I’m absolutely, fucking miserable, and it’s a mess of my own making. I can’t stop the what-ifs. What if I hadn’t gotten hit by the crate of watermelons? What if Susan hadn’t lost that bet and been in the ER that night? What if we hadn’t gone to Mache 42? What if she hadn’t stood me up? What if I hadn’t been in a pissy mood and called Francisco and bought a building because I’d gotten my feelings hurt? What if I’d done a better job of everything? What if I’d just done nothing to begin with?
I mope. I know it’s not pretty, but it doesn’t stop me from doing it. A few harsh words and even Jade is deterred from her badgering brand of TLC, though she still shoots me murderous, disapproving looks every time she comes by my house with a sandwich or loads the dishwasher or stalks around wielding a can of air freshener.
On Tuesday I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired, and midafternoon I drag my sorry ass down to the gym. I know Oreo won’t let me fight and I’m in no condition to try; I just want to be there. I just want to face everybody all at once and get it over with.
“Look who it is,” Oreo remarks, not actually bothering to look up from his paperwork when I knock on the door. He’s got a cramped office stuffed with a secondhand desk and dented filing cabinets, and as always, there’s a half-eaten box of cookies on the desk.
“Miss me?” I reply as I lower myself into one of the cheap guest chairs.
“Never,” Oreo answers. “As for that guy...” He nods at something over my shoulder and I prepare for the worst as I shift in the chair to see Lupo enter. He sprawls in the empty seat opposite me, wearing sweatpants and a wife beater, blood—and sweat-free. He either just arrived for a workout or showed up because he heard I’d finally made an appearance.
“Hey,” I say reluctantly.
He links his fingers over his stomach. “How you feeling?”
“As bad as I look.”
“Sorry about the building.”
I glance over warily. “Nothing you could do about it.”
“You either. Francisco fucks people over, man. It’s his main source of income, these types of scams.”
“He does this a lot?”
“I’m only hearing about it now, but yeah. Since you beat the shit out of him, people are coming out saying how he did something similar with a bunch of properties. Mostly apartment rentals, holding back the deposit, stuff like that. But this was big time, and they’re grateful someone finally gave the guy what he deserved.”
I shake my head. “It was stupid.”
“Of course it was stupid,” Oreo interjects. “You could have been killed. Instead you broke up with that pretty doctor and now you’re single and you look like shit.”
Lupo looks surprised. “When’d you break up with the doctor?”
I groan and run a hand over my face. “Friday. We had a fight.”
“You know Jade’s friend?” Oreo asks Lupo. “The nurse?”
“Yeah,” Lupo says. “Maybe.”
“Wyatt sent her to check on your friend here, and when the doc showed up, he let her believe they were doing more than playing doctor.”
I wince, hearing it put like that. “That’s not how it happened,” I say. “Don’t listen to Jade. She doesn’t know anything.”
“Who doesn’t know anything?”
I close my eyes at the sound of Jade’s voice. When I open them she’s propped against the corner of Oreo’s desk, holding a cookie in one hand. She’s dressed low-key today, in jeans and a tank top, her hair loose. But the look in her eye is the same homicidal glint I’ve been enduring for days.
“Go away, Jade. Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
“It’s five-thirty. I’m done running your business for the day.”
“What happened with him and Sheree?” Lupo asks.
“Ass hat here—” Jade jerks a thumb at me as though there were any question who “ass hat” might be, “—let Susan think he was hooking up with Sheree, even though when Sheree got there he was drunk and disgusting.”
I blow out a breath. Somehow I’d managed to avoid thinking about how insulting that must have been for Sheree, who hadn’t done anything to deserve it.
“It was a bad day,” I say lamely.
“And all the days after?” Jade counters. “When life continued but you stayed home to pout?”
“I was recovering!”
“Why don’t you ask this guy what happened?” she replies, ignoring my defensive argument and nodding at Lupo.
“What happened?” I ask reluctantly, not ready for more bad news. If he’s not training because he got hurt or arrested—
“A scout came by,” Oreo answers when Lupo just flushes and studies his toes. “He’d seen some of Lupo’s fight videos online
and dropped in to see him in person. He’s heading to L.A. next month to try out for their club.”
My mouth drops open. “No kidding?”
“For real,” Lupo says.
“If you can get out of Camden, get out,” I tell him. “And stay gone.” I pretend not to see Jade flinch.
“Ah,” Oreo says, fixing his one good eye on something over my shoulder, outside the office door. “Speaking of getting out.”
“Is that my cue?” I ask, hoping I’ve endured enough and am now allowed to leave.
“You had a baby?” Jade shrieks, the sound threatening to split my eardrums. Still I follow everyone’s googly-eyed gazes to see Dean Barclay, my former sparring partner, approach, a miniscule, red-faced baby in his oversized arms. He’s almost as big as me, but darker and meaner looking, though it’s hard to be intimidated by a guy with a pink cloth draped over his shoulder and a gurgling little girl in balloon-patterned pajamas tucked into the crook of his elbow.
“Hey,” he says, propping his shoulder against the doorframe, cradling the kid against his chest. Our eyes meet and he nods, smiling faintly when Jade scurries over to peer at the baby.
“How old?” she asks. “And did you—Oh my God, you got married.” Her jaw drops and she stares at his left hand where it cups the baby’s tiny ass, a silver band on his fourth finger.
“A year ago,” he says. “Ava’s two months.”
“‘Bout time,” Oreo says, standing and rounding the desk. “Let me see. I want to make sure she looks like her mother and not you.”
Dean’s smile turns into a reluctant grin as he slides the baby into Oreo’s tracksuit-clad arms, and though the guy has no kids of his own, he holds this one like he’s been doing it his whole life. When he lived here Dean and I fought from time to time, though never with any animosity. Then he hooked up with one of the lawyers working in Camden to sue the factory that poisoned its workers, and sometime after he’d packed up and moved to the outskirts of Chicago to start fresh. And start a family, apparently.
“Did you do that?” Dean asks Lupo, flicking a thumb in my banged-up direction.
“One-handed,” Lupo answers, straight-faced. “While wearing Oreo’s eye patch.”
Jade laughs and I flip off Lupo. “You’re not in L.A. yet,” I warn him.
Oreo fills in Dean on the Green Space debacle, but it’s obvious the guy’s too far gone over his kid to be mad at the world anymore. He’s not spewing baby talk or anything like that, but he’s different, somehow. Happier, for sure. That’s what getting out of Camden does for you. And maybe love had a little something to do with it, too.
“I have to go,” I say, though I think everyone knows I have nowhere to be. “Congrats on L.A.,” I say to Lupo. To Dean I add, “And on the baby.” I look at Jade. “I’ve got nothing for you.”
She makes a face at me but says her goodbyes and follows me outside. “I don’t need a babysitter anymore,” I tell her. “Really. I’ll kill myself if I have to deal with you.”
“You’ll try to kill yourself anyway,” she counters.
I can’t argue with her, given my behavior these past few days. “I’ll apologize to Sheree. Just don’t follow me home.”
“Relax,” she replies. “I have plans. But first I want to show you something.”
I sigh, because I know she won’t stop until she’s shown me whatever it is she feels she has to show me. “What is it?”
“It’s not far,” she says, steering me away from my car. “Just a couple blocks.”
Dread and despair fill me as we approach the remnants of the Green Space. In a handful of days they’d knocked down everything and carted away the rubble. Now it’s just a flat, dirty space with a tall fence barricade plastered with “No Trespassing” signs.
“This is it?” I ask when she stops in front of the locked gate. “You wanted to remind me it was gone? I hadn’t forgotten, Jade.”
She crouches and pulls away a fallen sign from the bottom of the chain link fence. There, behind it, is a single seedling with a tiny green jalapeno pepper, no bigger than my fingertip. It must have survived the wrecking ball and floated over here, scrambling for whatever shot at life it could find.
Jade meets my eyes and smiles, no trace of her usual awfulness in the gesture. “I think it’s a sign,” she says seriously.
I scratch my temple and look away. I don’t think I’m ready for anything symbolic right now. “It’s just a plant.” But my heart’s not really into the argument. Not when it’s beating like it’s got a hummingbird trapped inside, determined to break free.
“It’s a survivor.”
“It’s a jalapeno.”
“It’s a second chance.”
I grunt as I straighten, the crouched position hell on my knees and bruised hip. “It’s too soon.”
“Lupo’s going to L.A. because you helped him train.”
“We sparred maybe a dozen times.”
“And Dean’s got a baby that I don’t think he stole.”
I crack a smile, though it fades when Jade wrenches up the loose corner of the chain link fence and begins scraping at the dirt around the plant with her nails, digging it out. “And this,” she says, gnawing on her lip as she works until she’s cupping the straggly little thing in her palm and standing to face me, the plant extended like an offering, “is a good omen.”
“It’s going to die, Jade.”
“Not if you water it, Oz.”
“Jade.”
“Not if you give it plenty of sunlight, and talk to it each day.”
“Stop.”
“I won’t see Rian if you grow this plant.”
I take it. “Deal.”
She smirks. “And you start another Green Space.”
“Go break up with Rian.”
“Do it right this time. Don’t do it because you’re having some sort of weird midlife crisis
—”
“I’m thirty-four!”
“Find a building that’s actually for sale. Make a plan. Have a fundraiser. I’ll help.”
“More time with you is the last thing I need.”
“We can communicate by text.”
I stare at her. “You’re serious about this.”
“Of course I am. You think I don’t get metaphors? That wasn’t just a building. It was hope.” She points at the scraggly plant in my hand. “And it’s not all dead. Not yet, anyway.”
“Fine. Stop being meaningful and go break up with Rian.”
She shrugs. “He already broke up with me.”
“What? When?”
“A couple days ago. He said I came with too much drama.”
“He was just being nice. It’s because you’re fucking irritating.”
She looks unperturbed. “Maybe. Now go grow that thing.”
* * *
It’s a mocking jalapeno. It sits on the window ledge over the sink in my kitchen, and every day a tiny wedge of sunlight beams in, finding that three-inch pot. Though it’s only been four days, I swear the pepper has doubled in size. Maybe it’s supposed to be inspirational, but it annoys me. When I’m making dinner, it annoys me. When I unload the dishwasher, it annoys me. Come in to get a drink, it annoys me.
But it’s still there.
I sigh and stare at the stack of invitations looming in front of me. We’re going to have a fundraiser for a new Green Space. I found a potential location, an old bookstore that’s sat empty for a few years. It’s only one level, but so are the buildings around it, which means the roof gets plenty of sunlight. I paid to have some renderings done, a more organized reimagining of the Green Space, if I’d taken the time to plan things properly instead of just diving in. Now it’s something people can visualize, something they can invest in. Not just emotionally, but fi
nancially, too. I hope.
We’re renting the space for an evening so we can have a fundraiser, and after we do our due diligence and confirm it’s suitable for a new garden, we’ll go from there. For now, it’s first things first. Which means inviting people to our fundraiser. Jade compiled a list of invitees, most of which have been contacted by email, but she’s got forty paper invites she insists will impress our biggest potential donors.
I’ve been signing my name for an hour, fingers cramping as I try to hold the tiny card so I don’t smudge the ink as I write, and I’d gotten all the way to the bottom of the pile, prematurely patting myself on the back for getting the job done, when I read the address on the last invitation.
Dr. Susan Dufresne.
Not Jones anymore. Jade collected all the contact information—and was paid handsomely for her time—and this envelope is addressed to Susan’s attention at the hospital. This is the name listed on the website. I know because I checked.
For ten days I’ve done everything in my power to put Susan out of my mind. To forget every detail of these past months, all the good parts, all the bad, all the in-between. And I can’t. She sneaks in at every opportunity. I think about her at home, at the gym, in my car. I think about her when I watch TV, when I try to grill something for dinner, when I lie in bed each night, alone.
I want to see her and I don’t. And as I push the card around on the table, the last one in need of a signature, I realize it’s really not up to me. This is an invitation, and even if she gets it on time, she’ll probably just set it on fire. I’m the one who slammed the door on this relationship, and no amount of overpriced stationery can undo what I did.
I sigh and pick up the pen. It’s a silly gesture, but what’s the harm, right? I stare at the blank line at the bottom of the invite, the space I’ve been scrawling O. Hall nonstop. O. Hall because it’s a tedious task and I didn’t want to write my full name forty times. But now I stare at the paper and I know I can’t write O. Hall for Susan. She deserves more than that.
I was Oscar when I left, but I was Oz when I came back. Susan’s the only one to ever confuse the two. But is she the confused one, or am I? Because I can’t decide who I am anymore. I liked Oz because he represented all the good things, all the potential and promise of my bright new future. Scholarships and awards, promotions and corner offices. New cars, pretty women, fancy restaurants, tailored suits. But I haven’t been that guy for a long time. Sure, I have a corner office, but it’s in a shitty building. I had a pretty girlfriend, but I fucked that up monumentally.
The Good Fight (Time Served Book 3) Page 28
