Knight: The Wordsmiths Book One

by Harlan, Christopher

  29

  Knight

  I feel like someone is pushing a power drill through one of my temples. Jesus. I don’t remember my head hurting this bad in a long time. I did this to myself. I think I remember. Right. I got into a fight with that creep and Everleigh got mad at me just for trying to look out for her, and I decided to come home and make friends with all of the leftover liquor I had in my house. The last thing I actually remember is breaking open that bottle of Jager I have in the cabinet. After that it’s kind of a blur. All I know is that the bottle is sitting next to me half empty, and I feel like I just went the distance with a world class boxer.

  I can’t believe it all went down like that. I was just trying to defend her, and this is the thanks that I get. If she can’t tell that person is a dangerous creep who’s obviously stalking her, then I’m not sure what we’re doing together. I hate to say that, and it breaks my heart to even have that thought, but I can’t help it. It’s been an entire day since that happened, and no text. I thought I’d hear from her in the few minutes after I left, but it’s been a full twenty-four hours and nothing. God, I feel like total crap right now.

  Demons come back to visit at our weakest moments. It’s like they’re always there, just hovering on the periphery of our lives, even at the times when we’ve convinced ourselves how happy we are and how well everything is going. And then all it takes is one fight, one disaster, one tragedy, and our old friends come knocking at the door, waiting to throw our lives into total chaos. I haven’t gotten wrecked like I am right now since I was recovering from my divorce. I guess self-destruction lies just on the other side of love.

  Suddenly I hear a knock on the door—a pounding to my ears even though it’s probably just a normal knock—followed by the calling of my name. “Mike! Mike you in there? It’s us.” It’s Colton’s voice, I can hear it clearly, and it sounds amplified because of the headache I have. I don’t want to yell back because I feel like if I do my head will burst like a scene from some B-horror movie. I get to my feet, my body aching, and take a few steps towards the door. “Mike!”

  “Hold on,” I say, not raising my voice too much, but projecting it enough so that maybe he’ll stop screaming through my walls. I open the door to see Colton and Grayson standing in my doorway looking borderline panicked, and before I can even say another word to them they rush through the doorway and hug me.

  “Where the hell have you been, man? We’ve been texting and calling since yesterday.”

  “Why?” I ask, puzzled at this whole situation.

  “Why?” Grayson repeats. “First of all, we had a Facebook live video we were all going to do together to promote the anthology, remember?” I actually didn’t remember. But there isn’t much that I recall after leaving Everleigh’s house yesterday and hitting the liquor cabinet. “But besides that, we were worried. You never disappear. We called and texted about thirty times. We thought something had happened to you.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am. I’m okay.” I can hear the tone in my voice—defeated, bitter, feeling a little sorry for myself, but I can’t help it.

  “Okay is the last word I’d use to describe your right now, Mike. You look like a warmed up bag of shit.” Leave it to Colton to tell me the unfiltered truth. “You look like you looked last year. What’s going on? Is it that girl you’re seeing?”

  “I don’t even know if I’m seeing her anymore.”

  “So it is her,” Grayson says. “Mike, you can’t keep acting like this every time you have a girl mess with you. What happened?”

  I explain the situation to them both as Colton makes a pot of coffee to help sober me up. I tell them everything in as few words as my pounding head will allow. Me going to her place, encountering that douche, getting into a fight, and her telling me to take a hike. They just sit and listen, but I’m starting to judge myself a little, especially the part that came after all that. “Okay, now that I said that all out loud I can hear how bad it sounds. I might have thrown me out also.”

  “The good news is that parts of it sound much worse than others.” Grayson is trying to be comforting, but that’s not what’s happening at all.

  “Oh, great,” I say sarcastically. “So none of it sounds good.”

  “Fuck no,” Colt jumps in. “It sounds like you fucked up some little guy in an apartment hallway because he wouldn’t answer your stupid questions, and then you went full blown alcoholic on yourself, and here we are!”

  “God, your honesty stings sometimes,” I tell him. “But I think it’s what I need. I don’t like how I feel or how I acted at all. That’s not me. Not the real me.”

  “You’re a hothead, dude. You’ve always been a hothead. Remember that time in college you wanted to brawl with that guy?”

  “He called me a dick in class!” I yell.

  “You were being a dick in class. He was right. And you were ready to get thrown out of school and jeopardize your future ‘cause you couldn’t control yourself. Leave the brawling to me.” Gray looks at Colt and rolls his eyes.

  “Stop it,” he says. “You’re not brawling anyone either. Jesus you’re too into your book. I think you need to change the theme a little.”

  “Shut up, man, I’m being serious. We’re here for Mike. This shit can’t keep going on. I’m sorry, I know you’re a grown-ass man and I can’t tell you what to do, but we can’t have this as business partners, and you can’t have this if you want to have the kind of success you say you want. Real shit right now. I love you, brother, but you’re fucking things up.”

  I just look into his eyes as he lectures me, but it’s a lecture I need. If he were anyone else I’d shut my ears to everything he was saying, get super defensive, and maybe even physical. But from a guy I consider my brother they’re sobering words—literally—and I try to soak them in. “You’re right. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m fucking things up, and I can’t have that. The Wordsmiths can’t have that.”

  “So what are you going to do about it? Don’t tell me you’re not going to do shit like this anymore. I already know that. Tell me how you’re going to fix things.”

  “I like the tough love, Colton. It’s a nice kick in the ass.” He doesn’t smile when I smile. He doesn’t respond at all. He just keeps looking at me like a parent waiting for their kid to answer them. “Alright, no joking around, I get it. First thing I’m doing is throwing out all of my booze. I only drink at home, I’m not really a bar guy anymore.”

  “On it already!” It’s Grayson. He’s in my kitchen searching all of the cabinets for bottles and gathering them in a large black plastic bag. “I got you, don’t worry. Keep going.”

  “Yes, sir. And take it all. I don’t need any of that shit lying around. But besides that I need to make amends with Everleigh. I haven’t heard from her and I’m really worried that I’ve ruined things. It’s been like a day.”

  “Text her, then,” Colt says. “Tell her you fucked up and beg her forgiveness. It was an extreme thing to do but not necessarily a deal breaker.”

  “True,” I say. “I don’t know why I was waiting for her. I need to take action. It’s not like me to be passive. I really like this girl. I’m falling in love with her. That’s the truth. I can’t lose her.”

  “Then don’t.” Grayson steps out from behind my kitchen counter. “Don’t. Make it right. That’s what men do.”

  “Alright,” I say, jumping up. “Enough of this bullshit. Enough talking. You’re both right, and it’s time to get my shit together. Thank you. Both of you. This shit won’t happen again. I’m sorry it’s happened at all.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear,” Colt says. He takes a step towards me and we hug. “Go get that girl.”

  I am.

  I’m not just going to clean my shit up.

  I’m going to go get Everleigh.

  30

  Knight

  Showing up at her place isn’t the kind of thing I would normally do, but I didn’t think that this was a text o
r call kind of situation. I’m returning to the scene of my fuck up, twenty-four hours later, only this time I’m here for redemption. I don’t see Everleigh’s car in front, but that doesn’t mean anything. Spots in this part of Queens are few and far between. It’s not that I want to surprise her, but I don’t want to give her time to think of reasons not to see me. It’s too important, and I have some apologizing to do.

  I walk into the same lobby where I beat the fuck out of that guy, only now it’s empty except for me. I walk up to her door and stand there for a second. I’m not even sure what to do or say. I’d rehearsed what I was going to say in my head on the drive over here, but now that I’m here I feel frozen, and I just stand there.

  “Are you just gonna stand there, or are you going to knock?” I hear Everleigh’s voice behind me, and I turn around right away.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey. I didn’t expect you,” she says.

  “I know. I was doing a surprise attack. I’m sorry.”

  “It wasn’t a bad thing. I’m happy to see you, actually.”

  “Really? I was worried that you were going to tell me to take a hike.”

  “I’d never tell you to take a hike, Michael. I mean, I’d never do it outside of you beating my ex bloody right in front of my door. Other than that.”

  “We’re golden.”

  “You wanna come in and talk?”

  “I’d really love that.”

  I can’t tell exactly what she’s feeling, but she doesn’t seem too angry. Thank God for small miracles. She motions for me to sit down on the couch and I feel like I’m about to get another lecture, but that’s not how she begins the conversation. “I want to apologize,” she says, and my heart sinks.

  “What? You want to apologize to me?” I’m shocked.

  “I overreacted. Actually, we both overreacted. You to him and me to you. Jeremey is the ex I told you about, and I know that I didn’t paint him in a very good light. I know that you were just trying to look out for me—to protect me, even. But that was not okay.”

  “I know it wasn’t. And you’re really kind, but it’s my turn to apologize now.” I take a deep breath and consider what I’m about to say. “I need you to know that no matter how you described him, or how much of an asshole the guy may be, I had no right to beat him up like that, and that isn’t on you, it’s 100 percent on me.”

  “Thank you for saying that,” she says. “I think I needed to hear it.”

  “Well, I heard a few things that I needed to hear from Colton and Grayson yesterday afternoon, and it made me consider some of the decisions I’ve been making recently.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like my anger. Like my drinking. I didn’t really tell you this before because I’d convinced myself that I was past it, but I have a tendency to drink too much when I’m under stress.”

  “Oh,” she answers, and I’m not really sure how to interpret it.

  “Yeah, I’m not a full fledged alcoholic, but my father was, and I used to drink to excess all the time. I’d kicked it for a while, but for a year after my divorce I was basically on one long bender. I was depressed and angry, and I turned to the bottle to try to forget everything that had happened. That’s really why I didn’t get much done, but eventually Colt and Gray helped pull me out of it and I basically stopped drinking. Until. . .”

  “Until?”

  “Yesterday. I was so worried that I’d lost you that I freaked out and went a little crazy.”

  “Like, how crazy?”

  “Like Colt and Gray had to wake me up out of a drunken stupor ‘cause I’d blacked out. That kind of crazy.”

  “Michael!”

  “I know, I know. It was shitty of me, but I was really screwed up, and I thought I’d hear from you. Why didn’t you text me yesterday?”

  “That’s why you drank? Michael, I’d never cut you off just like that, no matter how mad I was. I just hate violence and I needed time to figure out what was happening with Jeremey. I wasn’t breaking up with you.”

  “Then why didn’t you text?”

  “Because I was at court,” she says.

  “Court? For what? Are you in trouble?”

  “No, but Jeremey will be if he ever tries to come within 50 yards of me again. I was at court getting a restraining order against him.”

  “Is he that bad?” I’m here to apologize for being overprotective and violent, but as she’s telling me about this I start to get really concerned.

  “Not in the way you think. I mean, I don’t think he’d do anything crazy, anyhow. He was always a little verbally abusive and very controlling, but he never touched me.”

  “That’s when you were together,” I say, still concerned. “What about now? What does he do with his control issues now that he can’t have you? Maybe he’s capable of more than you think.”

  “He left some creepy notes under my door. That’s what he was doing when you found him here. I took them straight to a judge with Harley and Rowan and asked for a restraining order. I texted him from court and he promised to back off. I honestly don’t think he’s a dangerous guy, just a bad guy.”

  “Is there a difference?” I can see the concern in her face. I don’t want to make her doubt her intuition about this guy, but I can smell danger a mile away. “That’s rhetorical. I guess if you say he’s safe then he’s safe. But at least I feel better about you not texting me.”

  “Jeremey was only part of the reason,” she tells me. “I could have texted you also. I thought about it. But I honestly didn’t know what to say. You scared me. I hate violence, and especially when it’s brought literally to my doorstep.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t say it enough.”

  “I know you are. I can see it in your eyes. But it’s not just that I was scared.”

  “What else, then?”

  “Michael, you have to understand—I spent years in a relationship where I was controlled. I can’t stand that feeling. I’ll never allow myself to be in a situation like that ever again.”

  “I’m not trying to control you, Everleigh, I hope you know that.”

  “I do,” she continues. “I know you’re not Jeremey. But it felt very controlling. I’m a big girl, and I don’t need protection that I don’t ask for. When you took away my ability to deal with Jeremey myself—however noble or protective your intentions were—it still felt like you were taking away my ability to run my own life. I know that’s not what you meant.”

  “No,” I say emphatically, realizing that I messed up even more than I thought. “Never. And I’m sorry. For everything. Can we just. . .can we just move on from this? Did I mess things up beyond repair?”

  I almost don’t want to look at her after I ask, so I look at the floor instead. I don’t know what I’m expecting when I ask that, but I’m terrified of the answer. I can’t imagine what I’d feel like if I lost this woman—she’s become everything to me. I hold my breath in anticipation of her answer.

  “No,” she says. “Of course not, Michael. It’s never beyond repair. You think I’d just throw what we have out because of a little fight? I was just angry and scared. But we’ve talked and things are good. I can’t imagine my life without you right now.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.” The smile on my face is unmistakable and large. I can feel my cheeks pressing upwards and my mouth parting just slightly. I probably look like a fool in love, but that’s exactly what I am.

  “Come here.”

  I rise from my end of the couch and sit next to her. As soon as I get close to her body I feel excited, not only because that’s how I always feel when I’m close to her, but because I’m so happy. It’s been a rough couple of days. But they fade away quickly as I’m sitting here, and the bliss of the previous days comes flooding back to me. My finished book, my story for the Wordsmith anthology, and my relationship with Everleigh—all of it becomes this entity that I can feel inside of my chest, warming me and making me smile uncontrollably.

&nbs
p; We start to kiss. Really kiss. Something comes over me that I’ve never felt before, and something I don’t even try to fight. It’s like there’s a caged animal inside of me, screaming to be let out—as if every drop of desire that I’ve ever had for Everleigh rushes to all of my nerve endings at once, and I know that I have to have her right then and there.

  I pull on my shirt so hard that the top buttons shoot off, and I claw at it until it’s off. My pants follow. She’s undressing almost as fast as I am, and before I know it I’m on top of her, naked and hard. I waste no time. It isn’t a foreplay situation. I use my hand to guide myself right inside of her. She’s soaking wet, and my cock slips right into her, and I thrust my hips forward as hard as I can. She screams and arches her back as I wrap my hand around the back of her head. I start kissing her as hard as I can as she plunges her tongue deep into my mouth. My hips never stop working, and as we make out I keep fucking her as fast as I can.

  There’s no space between our bodies, and she reaches around my back and claws into me as I thrust, faster and faster, until I know that we’re both almost there. I can hear it in the sounds she’s making. I can see it in her eyes. I can feel it with every clench of her tight, wet pussy. She’s close, and so am I. I feel her body explode towards me, like every ounce of strength she has is concentrated at once, and then as soon as it begins it also ends. She collapses onto the couch, and I keep fucking her for another minute until I’m ready also. Just as I get there I reach down and pull out, spraying my cum all over her stomach, my eyes rolling in my head.

  I fall next to her as we both take in as much of the surrounding air as our lungs will allow. I’ve never felt so satisfied, as if the troubles of the last few days never happened. She shifts her body towards me and snuggles up against my naked body, and I wrap my arm around her.

  “So I guess this means we’re good?”

  “Yeah,” she says, laughing. “We’re golden, Michael. We’re golden.”