Fierce

by L. G. Kelso

  "Everything all right, Tor?"

  "You better be looking away," I snapped. My hands flew to my ass, trying to cover up whatever the underwear didn't. The cord finally lost momentum and the curling iron came to a stop.

  Figures Trevor's present would try to kill me. I darted back into the bathroom. I left the door open a sliver, and looked out.

  Max stood with his eyes closed, as I had asked.

  "It's okay, Max. Could you do me a favor?"

  "Yeah?" he asked as he squinted with one eye before opening them both.

  "There's an orange dress somewhere over there. Can you bring it to me?"

  "Sure. Wait, a dress?" He cocked his head to the side.

  "Yes."

  I held the door open only an inch with my foot as I reached for the curling iron of doom and attempted to do something with the mess on my head.

  The door nudged slightly, and I gave myself a sizzling iron hickey on my neck.

  This thing was begging to go in the trash. I swore and yanked it away from my skin.

  "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize… Wait. What are you doing? You know there's more room in the lockers. And no one's even in the guy's room right now if you want all that space."

  "No. I'm fine. And thank you." I took the material he held through the small slot.

  "No problem. What exactly are you doing?"

  "I have a date with Trevor." I closed the door, decided to forget my hair, and slipped into the dress.

  I came out a few minutes later. Max leaned against the desk, flipping through a magazine. He looked up, and his eyes swept over me. The pages continued to flip between his fingers.

  "What's this?" He held one hand up, fingers splayed and palm toward him, and made a circular motion in front of his face.

  "Makeup? Oh, come on, Max. You know what makeup is."

  "You just don't usually wear it."

  "Does it look bad?"

  "No. No. It's just different."

  I wasn't convinced. I wanted to crawl back into the bathroom, but instead, I turned in a slow circle like I saw girls do on TV. "Does this look bad?"

  "No."

  Another page turned, but his eyes still rested on me. Narrowed eyes, pinched skin between them, furrowed brow.

  "I look that bad? What the hell, Max?"

  "No. You look great. You look beautiful, but I don't follow why you're wearing all that." He flipped a page.

  "I have a date, remember?" I folded my arms over my chest and shifted my weight.

  "Yeah, so?"

  "So, what?"

  "I thought you didn't like the color orange? Or frills?"

  "You were listening when I said that?" I asked. My arms relaxed a little. A good half of the gym got a mouthful a few days ago about my distaste for frilly things.

  "Of course," he answered.

  "I don't really like them. But Trevor likes them."

  Max tossed the magazine on the counter. It slid across the surface with the momentum and tumbled off the other side.

  "So, you just suddenly woke up and were like, oh, orange and frills, I now love you." His hands moved by his face as he spoke, and then tightened into balls at his side.

  "Why are you being so weird about this?"

  "I'm not the one being weird about this."

  After throwing my things in my bag, I reached over the counter, keeping my eyes away from him, and grabbed my purse from the nook in the desk.

  "Don't you have plans with Nicole?" I asked.

  He didn't answer, but he stopped moving his foot and his entire body stilled.

  That was a new one for him.

  "Have a nice date," Max said, his tone flat.

  I glanced at him, out of the corner of my eye. His jaw flexed.

  What had him in such a piss-poor mood?

  "Is he at least taking you somewhere nice?"

  I didn't look at Max. I didn't want to see his reaction.

  "The Terrace." I headed toward the door.

  "See you tomorrow, partner?" Max asked.

  "Of course. Jeff wants us here early. Partner." I did a half-ass wave over my shoulder as I left.

  Twenty minutes later, I arrived at the Terrace Elegante. Trevor had asked to pick me up, but I couldn't have him pick me up from the gym, so I gave him some BS. He sat at a table, and I realized that I had taken longer than planned.

  His eyes lit up as he took in the dress. With the orange hues of sunset, my dress almost matched his hair, turned to a burnt red in the glow.

  "Wow, Tori. You look absolutely exquisite."

  I smiled, or I tried to anyway, as I sat next to him. I took in the setup of the place. We were on a soft bench with the table in front of us. Other similar furniture scattered the deck, each table somewhat private and each sitting covered with something fluffy.

  It was beautiful in a relaxed way.

  Realizing that my envy had turned to the furniture, I decided I desperately needed food and hydration, or I'd be loony soon.

  We ordered, and Trevor ordered me a glass of wine even though I said no. I needed to hydrate, not dehydrate. However, Trevor gave me a weird stare, and I remembered that I couldn't clue him into my current plan to fight again. Not only would he make some scene and remind me how I wasn't dateable, but then I would also the need to kick his ass.

  After drinking a full glass of water, I sipped my wine and ate as Trevor talked about his classes and his impending graduation.

  I hadn't thought bullshitting would be so hard, but it was proving to be a bitch by the time I had finished only a quarter of my food. Even though I had only announced my plan and had started prefight training a week ago, boxing had started to become everything again long before that. I just hadn't realized it until now. I talked about school and classes, but I didn't have anything beyond that. My comments on Leah were minimal. She was still singing and "getting her hair did" weekly, as she said.

  My minimal interaction didn't seem to bother Trevor. He didn't even notice. He just nodded along and looked at me like a puppy.

  It was kind of awful.

  Scrap that. It was really awful.

  The waiter cleared our plates away once we had finished. Trevor leaned back and took my hand in his.

  "Tori, I've really missed you. Thank you for coming with me tonight. It looks like you've been doing great. I really do miss you. I'm sorry about before. I overreacted. I just got worried. I don't like the idea of you being back in that stuff."

  "Why?" I shifted in my seat. My hand felt too big in his.

  "I don't want you to get hurt. I don’t want you around those barbarians."

  He leaned in, before I could answer, to kiss me. As his lips neared mine, I frantically tried to decide what to do. See, here was one of those break someone's nose or walk away dilemmas. Not that I really wanted to hurt Trevor, because I didn't, but the insult stung. I settled on placing a flat but firm hand on his chest and pushing him away. "Barbarians?"

  "You know what I mean. Fighting…it's barbaric. Caveman-like."

  "Are you telling me I'm caveman-like?" My hand stilled against his chest. My fingers dug into his shirt to keep me from throwing an elbow to his face.

  "No, of course not. You don't do that anymore."

  "So, I was caveman-like?"

  "Come on, Tori. Don't argue with me on this. You know it's true. Something is wrong with someone who wants to hurt someone else. Something is wrong with someone who wants to be in the position to possibly get hurt. It's animalistic and visceral and unevolved. All brawn, no brain."

  "Sex is animalistic and visceral and you don't seem to have any problem with that."

  Trevor's cheeks turned as burnt red as his hair. For whatever reason, his blushing wasn't nearly as adorable as Max's.

  "Sex is…human nature. Humans have evolved past fighting being human nature. And I think during sex. I'm thinking about you and—" he started.

  "You do zero thinking during sex. Your penis does it for you. And fighting is not any of those
things. You have no idea."

  "Jeez. Come on, let's not fight over this."

  "Why do you even want me here, Trevor? To fix me? There's nothing wrong with me. Nothing you can do to make better. In fact, all you do is make it worse."

  I pulled my hand back, ready to stand, when he grabbed my arms and pulled me in for a kiss.

  Trevor's lips were just a breadth away.

  Max. God, girl, stop thinking about him.

  Wait. Max?

  Movement out of the corner of my eye distracted me. A white T-shirt. An arm with words and numbers inked on it.

  Trevor's lips pulled away. "What?" he stammered.

  An arm wrapped around my waist. My butt came off the seat; my feet lifted. I had to curl my toes to keep the strappy shoes on as he lifted me over his shoulder. A strong back, muscles flexing under the light material, became my view.

  "Sorry, but this is an intervention." Max's voice calmed a part of me that had been frantic a few seconds before, but sent another kind of charge through my nerves.

  "W-w-what is happening here?"

  Leave it to Trevor to still be sitting, or so I guessed from the lack of noise, when some guy comes up and grabs his date.

  "Do you want to stay here? Do you want to kiss him?" Max whispered, pulling me so I slid down his front. My toes graced the ground.

  I shook my head.

  "All right, then." He offered me his hand, and I grabbed it.

  I took a step, and then pivoted back toward Trevor. "Sorry, but, this isn't going to work."

  That made him jump up. "I'm sorry for what I said. I take it back. You look so beautiful tonight, and I want to get to see this every day."

  I laughed. No one would ever see this dress again. "I'm not going to change."

  "So, you're going to ditch me. Right now. For this idiot?"

  Max's eyebrow quirked as he studied Trevor, but he didn't say anything.

  I couldn't help it. "I can't change how you feel about it, Trevor, and I can't change how I feel either. I'm done trying. I'm tired of feeling ashamed because of what I did, or do. When everything comes together, it's absolutely beautiful. You just don't see it."

  I turned, and Max followed. Trevor stayed silent.

  "Those shoes look awful," Max said. "Do you want me to carry you down the stairs?"

  "Are you implying something about my ability to walk in heels?"

  "I'm not implying anything. I'm saying it. I've seen your lack of ability to walk in heels. Don't want you with another sprained ankle."

  "Fine." I lifted my arms and Max scooped me up.

  People stared as I laughed, and Max carried me—what was happening?—down the stairs and out of the restaurant.

  "Okay, you can put me down now." I half-slid and half-tumbled out of his grasp in my spastic attempt to get my feet on the ground. Yanking at the bottom of my dress, I realized I had probably flashed half of the street.

  Grace had never been my thing.

  "Come on. There's a much nicer place over here." He offered his hand and I took it.

  Holding Max's hand and walking proved ridiculously difficult. I couldn't watch where I headed, because I was too busy staring at his hand, with my hand tucked neatly into it, and my shoes jacked my normal ease of movement. Somehow, I followed without eating concrete. He pulled me around a building, and for a moment, I thought we had entered an alley with no exit, but he made a sharp turn.

  I stopped, surprised, as we entered a beautiful courtyard nestled between two buildings. I regretted stopping, because his hand slipped from mine, but the sight was too stunning. The scent of blooming flowers overpowered the stench of alley urine.

  "I had no idea this was here."

  "Me neither. Until a few nights ago. I was on a run and found it."

  "You run in dark alleys at night?"

  "No. I was avoiding some drunks. I didn't want to get into a fight with them."

  He sat down on a wood bench, and I sat next to him.

  "Max, did you seriously just physically take me away from my date?" I rested my weight on my hip and angled myself so I faced him.

  "Were you enjoying the date?" He shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked at a rock near his foot.

  "That's not the point," I answered.

  "It was an intervention."

  "How did you know I needed an intervention?"

  "He doesn't see you for you. Yes, you look beautiful, but if that's what makes him come crawling back, he doesn't deserve you." He slouched his shoulders forward.

  "Is that why you were grumpy? Why you're sulking? Because I wore all this?"

  "You can wear whatever you want."

  "Yes, I can. So is this why you had major PMS earlier?"

  "I do not have PMS. I have the wrong parts for that."

  "Fine, then you have I-have-a-penis-syndrome. Now talk." A breeze blew into the courtyard, and my skin chilled. I scooted closer to Max. His jeans scratched against my bare skin above my knee. More goose bumps erupted.

  "Tell me you're wearing that for you? Because you wanted to? Because you like it?"

  Why couldn't I lie to Max?

  "I don't like it, but what's wrong with that? I wanted him to like it."

  "Everyone wants appreciation. Appreciation is good. But you deserve appreciation for you. For how you look every day, whether you get dressed up or not. If you do get dressed up, do it for you. Not for some punk who doesn't deserve your appreciation." His words were quick, and with each one, his accent slipped in more and more.

  "You seem a little stressed about this."

  He grunted.

  "You're right," I said. "I know that I shouldn't change for someone who couldn't change for me. And for the record, I really do hate frills." I pulled at the frilly fabric that draped down the neckline of the dress.

  Night was falling and leeching the sunlight from the sky. In the narrow courtyard, tucked between a building and an apartment complex, only a hint of golden light drifted down.

  "I didn't want to impress him," I said.

  His head cocked to the side, and his eyebrow arched.

  "Seriously. I just wanted to be accepted by him."

  "You're an adult. If someone doesn't accept you for you, well, fuck them."

  Dang. This really riled him up. It was getting harder and harder to understand what he was saying. He kicked at the gray rock again. This time it skidded across the dirt trail and hit a turquoise pot. The pot's plant had just started to bud and turn green.

  "If you haven't noticed, I don't exactly have a line of guys waiting for me. Unlike you."

  "I have a line of guys waiting for me? I hate to break it to them, but they're going to be waiting for the rest of their lives."

  I smacked him in the shoulder, and he finally grinned. "You know what I mean. Fighting attracts women to men for whatever reason. Not so much the other way around."

  This time he didn't come back with some witty quip. Instead, his face turned serious.

  "I know being a female in this sport can be hard. Well, I don't know since I'm not one, but I've seen it. I gather Trevor doesn't like the fact you could kick his ass?"

  "Most guys don't."

  He shrugged. Finally, movement. Seeing him sit so still freaked me out. "It seems like you have a lot of guy friends. Obviously, they're okay with it."

  "Friends is the key word, Max. It's one thing to be one of the guys. It's another to take one of the guys home to Mom."

  "I'd take you home to Mom." His words sounded serious, too serious for someone who had bailed on me for his ex. His knee, perfectly still a moment before, bumped into mine.

  Dammit. There was no breeze for which to blame the chills that ran through my body.

  "Sure, pal," I said.

  "Really, pal." He licked his lips, and his jaw clenched. He pulled his hands out of his pocket and popped his knuckles. "If you haven't noticed, you do have a line waiting for you."

  "Oh yeah." I forced a laugh. His face stayed serious.
Why was he doing this? If his phone rang and it was Nicole, would he bolt again? I grabbed the first thing I could think of.

  "I'm hungry," I said.

  Because that wasn't totally obvious.

  "Didn't you eat?"

  "Yes. But I'm still hungry. Want to grab some food, pal?"

  Jeez, what was I doing? Besides making myself look like a total pig?

  I didn't want to be a friend, to be a pal, to be one of the guys. But he had Nicole, and that was probably for the best. Although, I wasn't sure why it was for the best. Maybe it meant that I would freeze again, and that I would end up walking away from all of it.

  "Then let's go get some food," Max said. "Are you cold?"

  I followed his gaze to the goose bumps running across my partially exposed thigh. He reached out, and rubbed his hand over my skin. His touch made the bumps worse. My skin wasn't cold, it hadn't been cold, and now it burned. The prickles spread, shooting down my legs, crawling up my back.

  This was going to make me go batshit crazy.

  His hand stilled and tightened against my leg. The tips of his fingers edged around my tensed quadricep. I could almost feel his touch on my neck, my back, my thigh from practice earlier that day; ghost hands making the storm of heat and chills wreack havoc on me.

  I wanted to feel it again. I wanted to have his skin pressed next to mine, his biceps under my hand—but for more than training.

  The chills hit me hard. My body spasmed—sexy, right?—and my elbow clipped Max in the side.

  "I'm starting to think you can't go more than an hour without hitting something. You okay?" he asked, his voice low and throaty.

  Any minute Nicole could call, I reminded myself. He would run off again, otherwise why would he have left last time?

  "Fine. Just got the chills. So, food. I don't want to go in this dress. In fact, I'd really like to get out of it," I said.

  Max's face fell as some of the last golden light snuffed out, and a surprising ache erupted in my chest. He stared at me for another second, his dark eyes searching mine, before pulling his hand away and looking at his lap. His jaw flexed as he swallowed. My leg felt naked.

  "The gym is a few streets over. You have any extra clothes there? I have a shirt if you need it."

  "That sounds perfect. I have some sweatpants."