by Leigh, Ember
“I didn’t bring wine this time,” she said, wrapping her arms around Lila from behind before settling into the empty space beside her. “Thought maybe my ear might do the trick though.”
Lila nodded, brushing away a spilled tear from under her glasses. “You’re good to me. I don’t deserve it.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t. I’m a horrible person.” Lila’s lip trembled as she watched Lane try to scamper up a short slide the wrong way. “Lex knows the truth, and he’ll never speak to me again. I’m surprised you even showed up.”
“Lila…” Amara squeezed her shoulder. “Tell me what happened.”
“Lex surprised me at my apartment last night. He had a bouquet of flowers. I was just leaving the house with Lane.” Lila paused, pushing her glasses higher up her nose. “Of course I freaked out when I saw him. I was so shocked I just…I couldn’t even look at him. And the stupidest part was…even there, face to face with him, I could barely admit it.” Lila buried her face in her hands, the shame coursing through her again. “I still wanted to run from it.”
“It’s a huge thing to admit,” Amara said softly.
“And overdue.” Lila groaned, wiping at more tears. “God, I wish you had a cigarette for me right about now.”
Amara laughed sadly. “I’ll smoke with you. In our minds, of course.”
“That’s good enough.” Lila squeezed her knees to her chest. “Do you think Lex will disappear?”
Amara heaved a sigh and looked out over the small park. The encroaching sunset reflected in her sunglasses, and the golden-hour hue made her look like a glorious goddess. Lila needed better influences like Amara in her past. If only she could transport Amara to five years prior. Get her to convince Lila to take a different path.
“He can’t disappear, remember.” Amara patted her friend’s knee. “He works for Trav.”
“He could quit. He could skip town.”
“Yeah, but would he?”
Lila clamped her mouth shut, thinking. “I guess not. He loves LA too much.”
“Don’t we all.” Amara sent her a wry look. “Anyway, I don’t see Lex being the deadbeat dad type.”
“I made him into the deadbeat dad,” Lila whispered, her throat clenching.
“He wasn’t deadbeat,” Amara reminded her softly. “And he won’t become one. Sounds like you just need to give him time.”
“And what if he decides not to be in his life?” Lila’s bottom lip trembled as she watched Lane clamber onto the tire swing. She couldn’t convince Lex to want to be a parent. Not after she’d made the decision on her own.
She’d betrayed him by taking the matter into her own hands. Going ahead with the pregnancy, despite their mutual decision. Now he had that same right.
The ball was in his court.
“You don’t know what he’ll decide, hon.” Amara squeezed Lila’s hands in her own. “Don’t worry yourself to death thinking about it.”
Lila’s laugh hiccuped out of her. “That’s all I can do though. It’s impossible to do anything else.”
“Well, you’re at the park.”
“Barely. Look at me.” Lila wiped at her cheek. “I’m wearing my hangover glasses. These never see the light of day unless I’m still registering a BAC. Now I just wish I had a BAC.”
“Drinking won’t help this.”
“But it sounds nice. Besides, I already have a high BSC.” Lila sniffed hard. “Blood Sorrow Content.”
Amara snorted with a laugh. “You just make that up right now?”
“Yeah.”
“So that’s two things you’re doing other than worrying yourself to death. Going to the park and making up weird acronyms.” Amara pinched Lila’s cheek. “I think you’re gonna survive.”
Lila grunted, giving Lane a thumbs up when he posed on the top of the jungle gym, looking for a reaction. Then she slumped over, resting her head on Amara’s shoulder. Amara wrapped an arm around her, patting her like the baby she was.
“Whatever he decides, you’re gonna be fine.”
“I don’t know anymore.” Lila wiped at a tear that escaped the jail-yard perimeter of her oversized glasses. “Now that Lex is back, I don’t think I can live without him.”
“You did it once before.”
“But that was when he was in a dark place. He’s grown and matured. He’s the best version of himself.”
“But you have to know you’ll survive without him.” Amara leaned in, whispering the words forcefully into her ear. “You will survive.”
Lila nodded, swallowing a thick knot. It was true. She’d survived this long without him. She could make it the rest of her life without him…if she had to.
But she wanted more than just survival. She wanted to thrive, to feel the zip and tumult of passion.
She’d spent years convincing herself that thriving meant playing it safe. Sticking to the sidelines. Finding men who were stable and boring.
Not anymore. She knew what she wanted. The only thing her heart had ever wanted
Lex.
Chapter 21
Lex adjusted his rear-view mirror, squinting at his reflection in the late morning sunlight. Like a snake charmer who’d lost track of all the damn snakes, it seemed impossible to keep hold of the wriggling tails in his life.
The concealer barely worked anymore. Plus now, he had a gash to contend with. Fights two and three had come and gone over the past week, each win chipping away at his morals, his future, his fucking sanity. There was no hiding this shit anymore. As soon as he walked inside, Travis would be on him like bees on honey.
Lex cursed, fumbling for the concealer stick. Carrying around makeup like a girl—that’s what the Kings had reduced him to. His elbows ached as he retrieved the stick from the center console. His opponent last night had body slammed him in the middle of a back-alley parking lot. For a full hour, Lex thought he had a broken rib. No way in hell he was going to the ER though. And definitely not Lila’s.
He groaned as he reassessed his broken face in the mirror. Shadows danced under his eyes. Lack of sleep, staying up trying to figure out how the fuck to fix his life. How to stay alive to know his son. How to get all these damn snakes back into their cage.
10:59. Time to get inside. He pushed open the door, moving slowly as his limbs screamed. Two fights in a week was too much. Each one drained him of every last ounce of testosterone and adrenaline. They were scaling up, getting fiercer opponents. Each time, the audience grew. Demanded more blood. Desperate for gore.
The sliding doors whooshed open as Lex approached. This was the first time he’d ever come to work dreading it, and hopefully the last. This shit had to stop.
But the Kings weren’t eager to let him go. Not anytime soon. So, what was the solution?
Solving this riddle was the only thing that mattered anymore.
Lex gritted his teeth against the pain in his knee, trying not to limp as he approached the front desk. Melanie was on the phone and barely looked his way as he walked by. Travis came out of the employee hallway a second later, phone pressed to his ear, holding folders in his hand. His gaze swept up to Lex as he spoke.
“Sure. Sure. That’s exactly what I was thinking.” Travis’s brow furrowed, looking Lex up and down. A meaty hand shot out to grab Lex’s shoulder. “Yeah, exactly.”
Lex grimaced, stilling under Travis’s grip while he wrapped up the phone conversation. A few seconds later he said goodbye to whoever he was talking to and turned his incredulous gaze to Lex.
“What the fuck happened to you?”
Lex tried to crack a grin. “I ran into a door?”
“Don’t even try it.”
Lex’s guts lurched. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” Travis pulled Lex by the arm down the employee hallway, then pushed him into the lounge area. Inside, a few other trainers stood around the water cooler. “Guys, out.”
The employees scampered away at the fierce directive. Lex braced himself for
the equivalent of a fatherly talking-to.
“Dude. Look at yourself.” Travis gestured to Lex’s face, his face wrought with confusion. “You didn’t get beat up here. So, where’d you get beat up?”
Lex shook his head, shoving his fists into the front pocket of his hoodie. “Dude, it’s fine. I swear.”
“Where did you get beat up?”
Lex ground his jaw, studying the clean lines of the tiled floor before yanking his gaze up to meet Travis’s. “It was a little thing at my apartment complex.”
Travis’s nostrils flared. “Anything I need to know about?”
A breath of air whooshed out of Lex. The blow up with Lila last week pressed at the edges of his composure. But he hadn’t decided how to talk about it yet. Still hadn’t figured out how to move forward with the idea of having a son while the Kings had him in a vice grip, drowning in their uncertain waters.
He must have stayed quiet too long, because Travis finally said, “Listen. Amara mentioned something to me. I wasn’t sure I should say anything, but…”
Lex steeled himself. It could only be one thing.
“She met up with Lila last week, and I found out because, well…we live together.” Uncertainty streaked Travis’s face as he scrubbed at his jaw. “I’m not trying to get in your business. I’m not gonna breathe a word of it. But dude, you can talk to me. Don’t let this implode inside you.”
“It’s not imploding,” Lex said carefully. No, it was absolutely exploding. All around him, the shards of the life he’d fought for. Raining jagged bits and cutting him everywhere on the way down. “I’m just trying to…figure some shit out.”
Travis nodded, looking softer at the edges. Lex picked at a scab on his knuckle.
“I don’t want to see you go off the deep end. Come punch it out here.”
Lex sniffed. “I know.” He squeezed Travis’s shoulder. “Thanks for lookin’ out.”
Travis nodded, clapping him on the back, just hard enough to make Lex wince. He’d come down hard on the asphalt last night right where he touched him.
“If anyone asks, just tell them I broke your face,” Travis said with a grin. He pushed out of the lounge, leaving Lex in a sickening silence.
He deflated, pressing his palms to the wall as he tried to settle his twisting, writhing mind. In the background, every second of every day since finding out Lila had kept their son a secret from him, he asked the question, What now?
What the fuck was he supposed to do now to get out of the Kings and back to safety?
Every day, he ignored the urge to show up at Lila’s house and start making up for lost time. He couldn’t, not when the Kings had him by the balls. He couldn’t expose that boy to this shameful stain he wore like a birthmark.
He refused to taint that boy. No way in hell he’d expose him to danger just because he wanted to look at his sweet face.
So that was the deal. No contact until he figured this shit out. No matter how long it took. He just couldn’t risk his little boy’s life. He couldn’t risk his Lila’s life. There had to be a way forward; he just needed to figure out what it was.
It was the only thing he could think about. The only thing he breathed. Everything else would fall into place once he got out. The shit with Lila. Making up for lost time. Trying to become a dad. All of that would happen.
He just needed to get out.
Lex kept up a happy face for his work day, but once he was in his car and heading back home the weight of his façade fell away like an avalanche. He was left broken and cold, heading to his empty apartment. Every cell of his body wished for the warmth of the little family he’d had for so long without knowing.
Even fractured and hurting, that little family was far better than anything he’d had growing up.
His phone blinked and vibrated in the center console, but he didn’t bother checking it. He’d fallen out of habit of keeping up with his texts. It was too hard to read what Lila sent. And the threat of Knuckles sending him a new date and location doused any excitement he had for the future.
Just focus on the now. On getting out of this. It was a teeth-clenching challenge, one that sucked every last ounce of reserve and willpower from him. Focusing on now meant tamping down a hurricane of emotion. For now, he’d just have to imagine the catharsis of roaring into the open air until his throat bled. And in his head, he could act out both versions of reality where he responded to Lila. In one version, the message said I love you. Everything’s gonna be okay. The other version: FUCK YOU.
His chest hurt when he thought about it for too long. Angry didn’t even cover it. But it didn’t come close to how much he still fucking loved her.
An infuriating cocktail of emotion. He’d broken down into tears too many times to count in the shower that week. How could he love and hate the same woman so much his organs threatened to split open?
He came back to the same exhausting question over and over again, so many times it made him weak: How could she?
How could she lie to him? How could she keep it from him? How could she even look him in the eye? How could she fucking dare?
Time wasn’t helping. The longer the clock dragged him away from the moment he discovered his son, the more chaotic his world became. Lex thought of Lila as he downshifted into the parking lot, could almost feel her next to him, sense that sexy smile on her face as her gaze dragged up and down his body. He swallowed hard. Maybe he’d get back to that someday. Maybe he wouldn’t. He couldn’t tell up from down anymore.
Inside his apartment, he scrolled through the mass of texts waiting for him. Lila still wrote daily, and part of him was glad for it. He’d deleted the first twenty or so messages without even reading them. Now at least he could stomach the words.
He paused near the couch, unable to move as a picture of his son lit up the screen. The dark tresses cresting his forehead, squinty brown eyes the color of caramel. The boy was a spitting image of Lex at that age. His throat bobbed, and he swiped it closed. He could get lost in that world too easily. Seemed better to avoid it if he might not be able to stick around.
His phone vibrated again, and this time something told him to check it. Knuckles. The fight was this Saturday, eleven p.m. A new location, one Lex had never been to before but heard plenty about. It was like the grandstand of underground matches. Huge capacity. Hidden from view.
Heaviness clung to him, an unbearable companion. He moved through the kitchen as if underwater, everything dull and distant. Dinner went by in a churn of anxiety. Lost in thoughts so thick he couldn’t even see across the room.
When a knock sounded on his door, he just stared at it. It could only be Knuckles. Nobody else would have the balls to drop by without texting or calling first. Gang life was the only realm that didn’t respect society’s weird new rules. He headed for the door, pressing palms to cool metal as he checked the peephole.
His chest seized. Lila was on the other side. She didn’t look good. Through the warped perspective of the peephole, her face was bent in anguish. His hand hovered over the doorknob. He didn’t have to answer it.
In fact, he better not. He didn’t look good either.
“Lex, open up.” Her voice was muffled by the door, but it sounded like she’d been crying.
He pressed his forehead against the door. “What do you want?”
“I just want to talk to you. Open up.”
“I don’t want to talk.” His throat bobbed. “You should leave.”
“Bullshit.” The door thudded. She must have kicked it. “Open up, Lex.”
He curled his fingers to his palms, resistance kicking up inside him like a dust storm. It was too soon. This conversation couldn’t happen now. Like hell she’d force herself on him before he was ready, too. You think I can just get over everything in a week? She was fucking nuts if she thought showing up at his door like this would help. He’d just dig his heels in. He had to. There was no way he’d tell her what was cooking under the surface. The real cause of his battere
d face.
“Lex, come on.” She sounded desperate. “Please.”
“You need to go away, Lila.” He winced after he said it. Those words never felt good coming out, even now. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d even thought those words in his entire life.
“Why? Don’t want me to see what you’re getting into?” She laughed incredulously. “Amara told me what you look like now. What are you getting into, Lex?” Her voice came out edged with fire. The tone rubbed him the wrong way. Set all his simmering resentment and anger aflame.
“It’s none of your concern,” he said through gritted teeth. God help him escape this one without flying off the handle. Anxiety licked through him, making his muscles taut. Like a cat ready to pounce. “Everything is fine.”
“Oh, yeah?” Lila laughed, a trace of scorn. “I know better than to believe that.”
Darkness descended on him, a cloud made of iron. It pushed him down an alley he didn’t want to go down, one leading straight to the past. He remembered that tone, the way she used to talk to him. Those words edged with disbelief. The hint of ridicule.
Lex grabbed the doorknob before he could think better of it and whipped the door open. Lila jolted, her gaze watery and wide as she took him in.
“Don’t say shit you can’t back up,” he growled, stepping through the threshold. “I said I don’t want to talk. Lila.”
“Jesus, Lex.” Her voice came out on the heels of a sob. “What happened to you?”
Christ, his face. The cuts looked bad, but the black eye was in the worst-looking stage. It didn’t even hurt anymore; it just hung around to scare people. He’d washed the makeup off too, making the swelling purple flesh even more unpalatable.
“It doesn’t. Matter. Now go.” He pointed behind her, toward the elevator.
Lila sniffed, her bottom lip trembling as she looked up at him. “I’m worried about you. I know this behavior. We’ve been down this road before.”
He worked his jaw back and forth. “No, we haven’t. That’s what you don’t get.”
