The Landry Family Series: Part Two

by Adriana Locke

  I glance at the clock on the wall. “Mom, would it be terrible if I left early tonight?”

  “Typically, yes. You know I think we should be the last to leave.”

  My heart sinks.

  “But,” she whispers, “I heard you had a sore throat and just couldn’t take it anymore.”

  I kiss her cheek. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Get out of here before your daddy sees you.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Camilla

  He’s not answering his phone, so that means he’s at the gym. It’s the only time he doesn’t answer me or at least quick-text me back.

  Still in my yellow dress and heels, I navigate my car onto the dimly-lit road that leads to Percy’s. There are people on the street corners, looking at me like they’ll stick a gun in my window if I slow down too much. So I don’t. Actually, I get a little heavy on the accelerator.

  A calendar flips through my head and I realize Dom fights in a couple of days. He’s stopped talking about it, other than to infer he’s generically training. There are no reports of the date or his opponent or what tactics he’s going to use or how much he hates Bond. He’s just slowed down from any casual mention at all.

  If he’s going to fight, I’m going to be there with my pom-poms in the air. Maybe I can get Ford to teach me a thing or two before then. Just the basics, like Mom said.

  I pull to the curb and cut the lights and ignition and scan the parking lot for any creepers. It’s not well-lit but it’s better than the roads. There are lights on inside and my car is parked next to his. There’s one other small compact car by the door.

  Hopping out and dashing to the front as best I can in heels, praying it’s unlocked, I pull it open.

  There are no chimes like at a regular business to alert the workers someone has walked in. Some of the lights that hang from the ceiling are on and some off, making the room a bit moody.

  Glancing around, I don’t see signs of anyone. I don’t hear anything either. I’m about ready to call out his name when I see a shadow in the ring in the back.

  With a wide smile, I dart in that direction but slow when it’s not Dom’s voice I hear. Instead, I hear one I vaguely remember.

  “Does that feel better?” It’s a woman’s voice that’s cooing through the room. It’s her voice, Red’s, the one from The Gold Room the day I walked into Nate’s office and saw her sitting with Dominic.

  My blood turns to ice. Suddenly, I can hear everything, see everything, almost taste the feeling in the room.

  Her giggle cuts through me like a chainsaw. “Hold still and I’ll put some of this on it.”

  “There’s no way to get it on where it hurts with the bandage.”

  “Should I take it back off? Man, I’m bad at this nursing thing.”

  “Yes, you are,” he laughs.

  The warmth of his chuckle, the easiness of it ringing through the air, pelts me. I almost gasp.

  “Bond gets you with that hook every time,” she says. “Have you thought about throwing a left hook on the inside when he throws wide?”

  “Yeah, I have. I’m impressed, Hannah.”

  “Well, don’t be,” she flirts. “I heard Percy telling someone a few days ago. I just borrowed the lingo.”

  “Well, he told me that too. Apparently I should remember it more often.”

  She giggles again and I want to puke.

  My stomach sinks that she knows this part of him, that he’s impressed by her knowledge of whatever it is they’re talking about. Fighting. Punching. Things that are foreign and beyond me.

  Then she giggles a third time and I realize I may have more of a fighter in me than I expect. I want to place a punch right in the middle of her face. My hands clenched at my sides, my nails pressing into my palms, I step farther in the room so I can see them.

  She’s sitting in the middle of the ring next to him. A bandage is wrapped around his chest, and by the way it’s fastened, I can tell he didn’t put it on. Someone else did. She did.

  I take a deep breath and know I’m probably not going to handle this with a smile.

  “Hey, Dom,” I say as sweetly as I can manage.

  I’ve never seen someone’s head whip around so quickly. His eyes are wide as he struggles to his feet, grimacing in pain. I don’t look at Red, but she’s looking at me. Her smirk smacks the side of my face, her taunt, also inaudible, is there. I feel it.

  “What are you doing here?” Dom asks, babying his side.

  “I left the event early. Maybe, again, I should’ve called.”

  My teeth grind against each other, my hands trembling at the fury of imagining her hands on my man.

  “You know what? I’m sorry,” I say, “I did call. That’s how I knew you were here. You didn’t answer.”

  “He was training,” Red interjects, looking at me like I’m an annoyance.

  “You—” I start, but Dom cuts me off.

  “Hannah, thanks for your help tonight.”

  “Anything for you.” Her eyes are on mine as she places her hand on his shoulder and lets it fall down his arm. “Need anything else, Dom?”

  “You have about three seconds to get away from him,” I seethe.

  “And what are you going to do about it?”

  “She’s not going to do anything about it. Just go, Hannah. Okay?”

  She stands in front of him, her hands on her hips. “I still have this cream …”

  “I swear to God …” My body quakes as I look at Dominic.

  “You,” she says as she climbs out the ring a safe distance away from me, “need to leave him alone. He’s injured and has a fight in a couple of days. Don’t be fucking his head all up.”

  “Hannah, enough,” Dom orders, his voice gravelly.

  “You need to leave him alone,” I glare.

  “Why? Because you’re his little goody-two-shoe girlfriend and you said so? Let me give you a little piece of advice. If you gave a fuck, you’d have been here timing his rounds and wrapping his hands and not off posing for pictures like the mindless idiot you are.”

  “Excuse me?” I start around the ring but am stopped when Dom’s voice booms through the room.

  “Hannah. Enough,” he growls. “You wanna play a little game, that’s fine. Cam is smart enough to see it for what it is. But if you’re going to tread into disrespecting her, calling her names, that’s a level you don’t want to get to. Trust me.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Put a show on now for the girlfriend. Fine. See you later.”

  I stand on one side of the ropes, Dom on the other, while Hannah whistles and rummages around up front taking her sweet time. A couple of long minutes later, the door slams. And we’re alone.

  Just having her gone dissolves some of the fire, but in its place, is a singe of hurt.

  Maybe some of what she said is true. Maybe he thinks that too.

  “What are you doing here, Cam?”

  “I’d ask you the same thing but I’m not sure I want the answer.”

  He blows out a breath like the fate of the entire world lies in it. “You know I don’t want you here. Not at night and not alone.”

  I don’t respond.

  “Oh, stop it,” he sighs.

  “Stop it? Really? You’re going to say that to me when I walk in here and see that? Her touching you and cooing like a baby? It’s …” I force a smile. “It’s beyond frustrating.”

  “I needed help with the bandage,” he sighs. “She was the only person here.”

  “Conveniently.”

  “Whatever, Cam. I’m banged up here. Forgive me for taking care of myself. Isn’t it you that’s always preaching that?”

  “Yes,” I gulp.

  My insecurities flare and I know it’s an ugly reaction. It’s one I’m not used to, poise and confidence coming fairly easy to me. But now neither are really present.

  “Let’s say you walked in to Mallory’s yoga studio one night,” I say, my voice starting to shake, “and I’m there, alone,
with Barron Monroe.”

  “Who the fuck is he?”

  “Just a guy I’ve known my whole life,” I shrug.

  His jaw pulses as he envisions this situation.

  “Let’s say Barron is helping me with a pulled muscle. It’s just some muscle rub on the back of my thigh—where I can’t reach. No big deal.” I let that sink in. “How’s that working for you?”

  “I’d break every bone in his fucking body,” he seethes.

  “Oh, but Dom,” I say innocently. “I couldn’t reach.”

  His eyes narrow as his chest rises and falls.

  “That is the equivalent of what I just walked into only I didn’t throw in how I didn’t want you there—right or wrong,” I add as he starts to object. “It’s about how it makes me feel, Dominic.”

  His head drops forward. “I just feel sorry for Hannah. She’s not a lot different than me, really.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  “But you don’t know her. Not that I think you could be friends because I don’t,” he grins. “But I can’t just be hateful to her, Cam. I don’t have it in me. But that doesn’t mean I want her or think of her in any way other than a girl that really has nothing to go on.”

  His face falls, his jaw loosening up, and he sits back down on the mat. “I saw you on television. I thought you looked beautiful. But I see you now and realize … you’re even prettier in person.”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I’m not. Well, maybe I am,” he mutters. “Nothing happened with Hannah, Cam. Nothing will ever, ever happen with her. She legit helped me fasten this thing around my waist because I might’ve cracked a rib tonight. I don’t know. It just hurts.”

  “You can’t fight with a cracked rib.”

  “I’ve fought with cracked ribs before.”

  “If it splits and punctures one of your organs, you could die.”

  He almost smiles. “I could. But I won’t.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  His arms are draped over his bent legs, his black mesh shorts riding up on his thighs. He looks so long and lean and sweaty and sexy, and I wish I could pretend I didn’t see Hannah touching him. I wish I could erase it from my mind.

  “How did the event go?” he asks quietly.

  “Fine. Raised a lot of money. Goal achieved.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Then why don’t I feel better about it?”

  “Get up here,” he grins, patting the mat next to him.

  A part of me screams to stay the course, be mad, keep the distance, but for my good and his, I need to touch him. To make sure he’s okay.

  My heels are off and I’m slipping under the ropes before I can heed the devil on my shoulder’s warning. Sitting next to him, I lay my head on his shoulder. “I’m still very, very angry,” I warn. He pulls me closer and I take a deep breath. “I have something to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “It doesn’t matter one way or the other, really, but I’d want you to tell me.”

  “Cam …”

  “Barron Monroe asked me to Paris tonight.”

  “Paris as in France?”

  “Yes.”

  “Some asshole asked you to Paris?”

  “Yes.”

  He shakes his head like he can’t believe it. “I’ll kill him.”

  Shrugging, I blow out a breath. “You could’ve been there. Bet he wouldn’t have asked me then.”

  “I definitely don’t think those are my people. I think they’re the kind of people that get my kind of people sent to prison.”

  “Well, I think that about your kind of people.”

  “What?”

  “I have a thing against trashy gym whores that put their hands on my man, okay?”

  “It wasn’t like that, Cam.”

  “It was enough like that that I want to break her in half.”

  He bursts out laughing, pulling my head into his chest. It’s damp with sweat and probably ruining my make-up, but I don’t care. As a matter of fact, I cuddle as close to him as I can and breathe him in, touching his back lightly until he jumps from pain.

  “I’m not kidding,” I say. “I have moves now, remember?”

  “Oh, I remember,” he chuckles. “You better work on that before you go throwing punches.”

  “I hate her.”

  He looks me over. “She’s not bad. She’s just … different.”

  “She’s a whore.”

  “Maybe she is. She’s been fucking Nate off and on, so you could ask him his opinion. I don’t know. You know why? Because I don’t care.” He stands and offers me a hand. When I place one in his, he pulls me to my feet. “The only girl I care about is standing in a beautiful yellow dress right in front of me. And despite the fact that I am semi-annoyed that she can’t listen to save her soul and showed up here at ten at night alone, she’s all that matters to me.”

  “Really?” I say, fighting the corners of my lips from tugging up just yet.

  “What else would matter?”

  “Dom, seriously, she better never touch you again. I mean it. I’ll go crazy. Rich girl crazy. We have tons of avenues of destruction at our hands.”

  “Noted.” He bends down and puts his lips on mine. I don’t kiss him back at first, trying to hold out long enough to make my point. Then his tongue licks along my bottom lip and I can’t help but return the gesture. “Now that’s settled—”

  “Oh, it’s not settled,” I resist. “I hate her. You have to understand the depths to which I’d like to see her eaten by a host of fire ants.”

  His laugh washes over me and makes me smile even though I don’t feel like it. “Fire ants?”

  “It’s all I could come up with.”

  He moves to the side and winces, almost dropping to his knees in pain. “Fuck.”

  “What can I do for you, Dom?” I say, rushing to his side.

  Sucking in a breath, he stands back up slowly. “Nothing,” he hisses. “I just have to wait ‘til it goes away.”

  “You can’t fight like this. You could get seriously injured. This is no joke.”

  “I’m fighting. That’s the end of it.”

  Taking a deep breath, I try to remember I’m playing the role of supportive girlfriend, not naysaying nag. But when his face pales and he doubles over again, gripping his side, a gleam of sweat dotting his forehead, I can’t help but want to protect him.

  “Dom, I’m serious. There’s no reason for you to risk this. You have to think about your health here.”

  “I have to think about paying my rent that just went up. I have to think about buying groceries and feeding Ryder until Nate gets himself back together. I have to think about making sure The Gold Room doesn’t go to the tax sale this year and sock a little away to buy a few things for Christmas. This is my way of not having to do it again.

  “This money is my rainy day fund, Cam. Without it, I’m more paycheck-to-paycheck than I already am. I’ve counted on this for years now, like a bonus I get every six months or something. Don’t think I don’t know I can’t keep doing it …” He looks at the floor, embarrassment written all over his face.

  Instantly, I feel bad. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize …”

  “It’s hard for you to think about things like this. It must be. You were just at a place where people were giving their money away, offering trips to Paris. I’m destroying myself so I can keep a roof over my head if I get laid off at some point.” He smiles a broken, wobbly smile. “I don’t blame you for thinking the way you do. You’re right, actually. But sometimes being right doesn’t fix things.”

  “Can I at least come watch you?” I ask, my hand on his forearm on his Joey tattoo. “Let me be there. I want to be.”

  “There’s no way.” His response is immediate and with a flourish of finality.

  “Why?”

  “Imagine the wildest, most about it people you can think of. Now put them all together in a room where the purpose is figh
ting. What do you think you have?”

  When I don’t answer, he does it for me.

  “Mayhem. You have mayhem.”

  As if the conversation is over, he climbs out of the ring, taking a few seconds to recover from the movement in his ribs. He helps me out, kisses my forehead, and after I slip on my heels, he leads me out the door.

  Twenty-Nine

  Dominic

  Dominic

  She comes out of her bathroom wrapped up in a giant white towel. Another is wound around her head like a turban. She smells fresh and clean and looks like my Cam all stripped of the fancy shit that I love, but that’s not her.

  She’s this: simple and sweet and innocent. She’s everything I’m not and I want to protect that about her. Yet just by being with me, it brings out things in her that shouldn’t be.

  Hateful, like she was tonight when she saw me with Hannah. Damn, that makes a man feel good to see his woman want him, only for her, that bad. But she shouldn’t even fuck with the idea of being second to someone else. Not even for a moment. It’s impossible.

  Careless, like she is when she shows up in places she shouldn’t be.

  Conflicted with her family because they think she can do better.

  Sitting on the edge of her bed, I look up at her. I know I’m switching into fight mode. It happens a day or two before fight night every time. I’m touchy, cross, more than a little ill-tempered. It’s exacerbated by the text that sits on her phone a few inches away—a text that offers all the things I can’t provide.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asks, going into her closet. She rummages around and comes out a few minutes later in the yellow number I love for bed.

  “You got a text,” I tell her as she climbs onto the bed. I don’t move, just sit facing the doorway. “I was lying there and it went off. Thought it was mine and picked it up.”