by Mj Fields
He gives me a questioning look.
“Are you still willing to be my muse?”
After a few moments, he nods. “You drop the past, you can use me.”
I know the smile shining inside of me is bright. I allow it to heat me, making me feel good about being here. I hope that, in the process of writing fiction, using Michelangelo, he will see what I have learned as it should be—his reality. I’m drawn to him and want him to find the light he is, the good he is inside.
He stops in front of a store and looks through the window. “Wanna stop in here.”
“Okay,” I say. “Should I go?”
He pulls his hand out of his pocket and takes one of mine. “No, come with me.”
My hand feels tiny in his. Even though we have shared intimate moments, this... this hand holding feels like something more.
He doesn’t let go once inside the little shop as he walks to the window where he peers over the foot-tall barrier.
I look to see what it is that caught his intense stare. It’s a book.
He reaches over and grabs it from the display, and the woman behind the counter says, “That’s for display.”
“I need it,” he replies.
When she looks up from her own book and sees him, her mouth gapes slightly and she nods.
“Are there anymore?” I ask, knowing that a man like Angelo isn’t one for shopping or being told he can’t have something he clearly wants.
She continues looking at Michelangelo as she nods. “Shelf... Shelf in the back.”
I squeeze his hand, the one still holding mine. “Come on.”
He follows me as I pull him through the little store that now seems even smaller with him in it and grab the same brown leather bound book.
I look up at him, and he sighs. Then I shake my head in response. “Now we can put that back in the display.”
He nods and starts to let go of my hand. It takes me a minute to release his, and when I do, I look at it, expecting something to have changed.
Fiction. Grrr...
Once he pays for the book, he hands it to me as we walk out of the store. “Should work just like the other.”
I smile as I shake my head. “I love this one—it’s beautiful—but I still need the other one, too.”
He shakes his head in a definite no, then puts his massive hand on the small of my back, pushing me slightly forward as we walk along the riverbank toward the hotel.
He seems... lighter and less off putting, until someone approaches again. I don’t like it. I know it’s a wall, one created by the lie he holds in his head about himself.
I reach over and link my arm through his, which causes his steps to falter. I almost feel like I shouldn’t have done it, but it feels right. Then I think better of it and start to pull back, but he holds his elbow closer to his body, keeping it there.
Once at the entrance, he opens the door.
“Will you come up?” I ask as we continue to walk through the lobby.
He looks down at me as he slowly pulls his hand out of his pocket, releasing my arm, and nods.
“Should we take the stairs?”
He shakes his head. “You ride the elevator.”
“I can go with—”
I stop as soon as he gently takes my face. Then he leans in and says, “Take the elevator,” before he kisses me.
His kiss is gentle and soft, not hungry and controlling like they normally are.
When the bell chimes, signaling the elevator door is opening, he breaks the kiss then strokes his thumb across my lower lip. “Your ride’s here.”
I don’t even bother opening my eyes as he again settles his hand on my lower back and guides me inside.
When I open my eyes, he is standing on the other side of the doorway, looking at me with an almost sadness in his eyes, as the doors close in front of me.
Chapter Fourteen
Angelo
As I stood with her outside the hotel elevator, I knew I wasn’t going to take the stairs to meet her up on the eighteenth floor. Instead, I walked out of the hotel, my stomach in knots. More than anything, I wanted to do exactly what she asked, but I can’t.
Her life had been spared, and as illogical as it may seem to most, I don’t want to become something that destroys her. My hell need not touch her beauty.
I force myself to walk out of the hotel, knowing damn well that the woman—Tatum—is the first person, who didn’t know me before I took his life, who didn’t judge me. She is the first person in all the madness that I have been surrounded in who cares about me. For that, I am returning the favor by walking the fuck away from something I damn sure want.
It isn’t fucking easy.
I jog back to the gym, hoping for a trainee to come in, one who isn’t scheduled, so I can escape this new kind of pain.
Tatum. Fucking legs for miles, and dammit, I want her like I have never wanted anyone. I want her so fucking badly that the mere thought of her has me hardening. I want her so badly that I know damn well I need to walk, jog, run the fuck away.
The gym is busy with Tatiana’s girl group, and Jagger is fucking around with Buck in the cage.
I tape up my hands then climb in.
“I got this.”
He smirks like he knows something. As much as I would like to tell him he doesn’t know shit, I refrain.
I pull off my sweatshirt and toss it over the ropes, stretch my neck, and then my arms.
Buck smirks. “Your head in the game, or on pussy?”
“What do you know about pussy?” I ask as we tap fists.
“I get laid plenty,” he says, jabbing at me. “Would be a fuck of a lot more if you and Jagger would let me take my fight to the street like I been saying.”
“You want to train here, you keep it legal,” I reply, blocking his attempts.
“This coming from an ex-con?” He swings again.
I sweep his legs, and he falls flat on his ass.
“What the fuck, man?” he snaps as he jumps up and swings.
“They’d eat your ass alive out there,” I tell him. Then I show him by tapping the left, then right side of his face.
“Bullshit,” he snarls, swinging and missing me completely.
I sweep him again. “That bullshit?”
He pops up and plows into me, trying to knock me down.
“Hey!” Jagger yells as he walks back toward the cage. “That’s enough.”
I push Buck off, and he comes at me again.
“Think I can’t take you? You’re fucking wrong,” Buck hisses.
“You learn to lose all that attitude so you can defend yourself without getting hurt, you may last more than five years in a legit fighting ring. You keep that shit up, you’ll be done in a year, asking your momma your name while she’s wiping your ass,” I tell him, pushing him off again.
“What the fuck do you know? You ain’t fought nothing but fuckers in a steel cage half your size,” he grumbles.
“Might be true, but you’d be calling someone Daddy if you ended up in there.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Now go take your shit out on the bag.”
“This is some bullshit, man,” he smarts off as he climbs between the ropes. “No idea why I even put up with you motherfuckers.”
“ ’Cause you ain’t got money to pay a trainer, young buck.” Jagger laughs. “Keep your disrespectful shit up, he’s gonna wash his hands of you.”
“Fuck you, man,” Buck sneers at him.
“That’s enough,” I tell him as I climb out.
I know Jagger is just taking my back because I look at Buck the way Shaw once saw Jagger and me, but I don’t want Buck’s shit out there like this. I still need him to back off Jagger. He can’t disrespect my partner. It’s not how this works.
I remember when I couldn’t find control inside, always feeling a constant rage. One I could never explain.
I never told anyone anything more than that I should have killed the fucker long before I did. Locked up,
tucked away, it wasn’t rehabilitation, reform, or a transition for a young man who made a mistake. Nope, it was my own school of hard-knocks, run by men who were the darkest of the dark.
What I learned? Keep to myself, watch out for myself, and fight for myself harder than I ever fought anyone else.
Buck stays at the bags for the rest of the day, alternating between the heavy bag and the speed bag until closing.
“You good?” I ask as he comes out of the locker room.
He lifts his chin and walks toward the door. “See ya.”
“Yeah, see ya.”
After locking the door, I decide to follow young Buck’s lead by taking out my aggression on the bag, which is a whole different animal than rage.
An hour turns into two, and when I am damn sure I will drop due to exhaustion, without so much as a shower, I kill the lights and take the stairs, calling it a night.
I wake up fucking exhausted from lack of sleep. I didn’t take one of those fucking pills, and I regret it in a big way.
I throw on clothes and my tennis shoes before heading out for a run I am already dreading.
My feet pound pavement, my heartrate increases, my exhausted body fights itself first for sleep and now for the opposite.
I carry the curse of the dammed.
As I move, I decide I can’t hit the coffee shop since there is a chance I might run into her, the apple from the garden of Eden. Whatever we have going on is a tale told countless times, one that never ends well.
Fuck it. Fuck her.
When I get back to the gym, I stop and take my pulse before entering. Looking through the windows, I see Buck is already here. His back is facing me, and Jagger is tearing him up.
Half of me wants to turn right the fuck around and walk away, but where the fuck would I go? I have responsibilities, ones I never asked for, yet here I am, knowing I should be grateful. Hell, most of the time I am. Just not today.
I walk in and all goes quiet. Then Buck turns and looks at me, with a black eye and a cut over his forehead.
“What the fuck happened to you?” I ask.
“Well, because he knows everything there is to know...” Jagger starts to explain with a pissed off expression I haven’t seen in a long damn time.
“Wasn’t like that,” Buck interrupts. “It was me, or it was them, and I fucking chose me.”
“Shouldn’t have been there in the first place!” Jagger yells at the top of his lungs.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you, motherfucker.” Buck pokes Jagger in the chest.
Jagger straightens up, his fists clenching. Then, like God Himself is intervening, Tatiana walks out of the door from my apartment, stopping him from doing exactly what it is I know he wants to do—knock the boy down. He needs it, but Jagger won’t. His promise to her. He won’t fight again.
For a split-second, I am pretty fucking happy to see her. I sure as fuck don’t want Jagger to lay Buck out, even if he is damn deserving. Not for Buck, but for Jagger and the man he wants to be. Then my ease is quickly squashed when I see who is walking out of my apartment hallway behind Tatiana, holding a fucking book in her hand. The fucking book. My fucking book.
“Hey, Angelo, your friend”—Tatiana pauses and smiles—“left her book here yesterday and stopped by to grab it.”
Tatum nods. “Thanks so much, Tatiana.” Then she walks toward the door as if she isn’t taking something I told her she can’t have.
“Tatum,” I say, trying to remain calm, but she has the fucking book. The book with my words in it. She doesn’t know what it contains. The piece of me that lies inside those pages. She holds it in her hands like it’s any other journal, when it’s not.
When I walk toward her, Jagger tells Buck to hit the bags, and Buck being Buck tells him to fuck himself.
“Tatiana, take a walk, babe,” Jagger growls.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Tatiana says, her voice stern, which is out of character.
“Go with Kid’s friend,” he says, not looking at her.
“I’d rather go with you.” She walks between the two men with their chests puffed out.
I hear the door chime and turn just in time to see Tatum skating out. However, my attention is drawn back to Buck, who is not backing down.
“Your old man wants a piece of me,” Buck says to Tatiana.
My blood is now boiling. Buck is being an ass; Jagger is about to make a mistake that will piss his old lady, the calm to his storm, way the hell off; and Tatum has my fucking words.
As much as I would like to go after her, this place needs my attention.
“I got this, Jagger,” I tell him, gripping his shoulder. “Buck, get your ass in the cage.”
“No, fuck—”
“Now!” I yell then turn to Jagger. “Take a walk, man. Go with Tatiana.”
Once they leave, I turn to Buck and point at the chair. “Shower, then get back out here.”
He’s a mess. Dirt in his wounds, and dried blood on his face, his clothes, in his hair. He needs to get cleaned up before I put shit on his wounds. Then we need to talk, something I am not fond of, but Buck lacks control, and it’s getting worse.
“I thought you wanted me in the cage,” he hisses.
“Changed my mind. Now go.”
After his shower, he comes out clean, changed, and looking not just physically whipped, but emotionally.
“Sit.” I point at the chair.
He does, without the lip this time.
After putting liquid bandage above his left eye and on the bridge of his nose, I put antibiotic ointment on his scrapes, and then sit across from him.
“You need to stay away from whatever it is you got into last night.”
His jaw tightens, and his eyes narrow. I know that look—anger and determination.
“You need to listen to me, Buck.” I pause, not wanting to fucking talk about it, but lately, things seem to be getting at least bearable.
Christ, it’s her. She’s the lately. Fuck.
I continue, “Don’t know what’s going on, but you aren’t a kid. You aren’t, and you need to think about the consequences of your actions. You end up dead, you have people who will miss you. You end up killing someone, you won’t survive prison. You need help, someone you care about needs help, you ask for it.”
I wait for him to say something. He doesn’t.
I nod, stand, and walk away as I tell him, “Ask Buck; we’re here for you.” I can read him. There is more to the chip on his shoulder than simply his lack of maturity.
“Why?”
His question stops me dead in my track. It also makes me cringe, because the answer... the fucking answer scares the hell out of me.
“We give a shit about you.” I pause, thinking about Shaw and everything he gave me and Jagger. “Someone gave a shit about us once. Legacy is about giving that back to others. Now go home, get some sleep—”
“Can’t go home, man. There is no fucking home!”
I look back when his voice cracks. He physically shakes, and I can see the torment haunting his eyes. Buck is always either pissed or hyped up. Those are his two emotions. This is new, and it’s fucking raw.
“Go upstairs. Get some sleep.”
When he doesn’t move, I know it’s because a kid like him doesn’t want to be seen as one to take a handout.
“Now! Then we chat about you getting your shit together so you can maybe work here with Jagger, Tatiana, and I.”
He scowls. “I don’t need charity.”
“Good damn thing”—I point at the door—“because I don’t do charity. Now go get some sleep; you’ll be useless without it.” I then turn around, putting my back to him.
I know how hard it is to accept any help. At the same time, I need to make damn sure he fucking knows he is wanted and needed here.
Jagger and Tatiana are back and manning the desk, which is a good fucking thing, because I need to take out this frustration on something to quiet the rage t
hat is increasing.
I hit the heavy bag, left then right then left again, while I think about what I want to do to whoever it is that messed up his face and to him for putting himself in the situation, whatever it was.
And then there is Tatum and that fucking book. No sense in going after it now. She wanted it bad enough to come here and get it after I walked away and broke a promise to her while keeping one to myself, then I am damn sure hope she reads it.
Fucking embarrassing.
She wants a muse. A man who looks like the guys on the covers of those fucking books; books she doesn’t even want to read, yet she is now writing.
Her words, they get me all sorts of worked up.
For the first time since I can remember, I bared myself in the words I put down, in this crazy game of Mad Libs we have been playing. I got too involved. I want nothing more than Jonathon and Annie to be me and Tatum, yet I can’t do that to her. I’m damned.
Doesn’t she see that I’m tainted? In the world of saints and sinners, I am so far removed I’m death walking, while she wants to live again.
I deserve no life. Maria, she deserved the world. It was taken because I waited too long. The end result is always the same. I would kill the fucker, anyway. Even today, draining the life from his body isn’t what haunts me at night. It’s my sister, it’s my father’s loss of his children, and it’s society’s judgment.
They labeled me a monster, and I am one. I feel no remorse for taking his life. Never have and never will.
Tatum keeps trying to see beyond that. In that journal, in those words, I gave her just enough for her to find hope. Hope for her, hope for me, when there is no hope.
Every pound on the bag only has my skin crawling more with the need for her to see she needs to walk away. I’m tainted. I am the damned.
When I’m done beating up the bag, I walk over to the desk and grab a premade shake from the fridge and swallow it down.
“Where did little fuck go?” Jagger asks.
“He’s upstairs. Gonna stay here for a while. We need to give him some work.”
“So, we’re rewarding him for his bullshit?” he snarls.
I turn and look him in the eyes. “We’re keeping him safe. Both of us agree he has a shot at something you and I never did. He gets killed or falls with the wrong kind, he never will.”
