by Lane Hart
Except for Linc.
He's my unexpected, cool glass of lemonade helping me survive purgatory. He can't pull me out of its depths, but he keeps me company while I wither away. I still miss Jude almost more than I can stand. The first few days I was here I kept hoping he'd show up, and with some grand gesture like in a romantic comedy, he'd beg me to give him another chance.
Now I know that's never going to happen, and it fucking hurts. Page was right, my decision the night before the fight drove us further apart, and was apparently too much for Jude to forgive. All I can do now is try and move on. Try and start my new life here.
"Climax," Linc says, and I can hear the smile in his voice even though I can't see him.
"Fake," I answer, pushing my sunglasses up on my nose while I lounge on an inflatable island, complete with blow up palm tree in his in-ground pool.
A splash of cool water covers me from head to toe, cooling me off and taking my breath at the same time. "Seriously?" I ask.
"Seriously. It's a real place up near Asheboro."
"Okay, next."
"Penistone."
"Fake."
"Correct. Although, there is a city by that name in the United Kingdom."
"Ha! Give me another one."
“Efland.”
“Real,” I say after a few seconds deliberation.
“Correct. Lizard Lick," he says, swimming shark like circles around me. All I can see is the white, plastic covered cast on his arm held above the water, serving as his fin.
"That is so damn fake," I respond. "Now you're not even trying."
Another cool wave of water washes over me.
"No," I say, removing my glasses to shake the water droplets off of them. "There is not a fucking city in North Carolina named 'Lizard Lick’."
"There most certainly is." He laughs. "It's just twenty minutes from here. I can take ya to it one day, so you can take a picture with the sign. They even had a reality TV show about a repo company from there."
"This is the strangest state ever."
"Gotta love the dirty south. Speakin' of dirty, while you were in the shower this mornin’ I checked out a few pages of the book you're readin' on your Kindle."
"You didn't!" I exclaim. "You nosy bastard!"
"I think we should have story time where you read aloud, you know like they do for kids in libraries, except ours would be with your porn. Ooh! Or you could enable the text to speech feature and we can listen to it say 'hard cock' and 'fuck' in that funny little robot voice."
"Whatever," I say with my cheeks burning.
"Don't be embarrassed, doll. Everyone has needs. Some of us are just needier than others and prefer regular porn. Several hours a day."
"I'm a cock-blocker, aren’t I?" I cringe knowing it's true. "In just a week I'll finally get out of your bachelor pad, so you can go back to big pimpin'."
"Nah, screw the hoes. I'm gonna miss having ya around. Ya sure you can't just commute?"
"Spend an hour each way in bumper to bumper traffic every single day? I don’t think so."
The sound of crunching gravel at the front of Linc's house silences us both. "Expecting company?" I ask.
"No." Heading for the steps he climbs out of the pool, letting the water pour off of his muscles like a commercial for men's cologne.
“Ooh, maybe it’s my textbooks!” I suddenly remember, trying to use my hand in the water to paddle my way to the steps.
“Oh yeah,” he says. “Don’t worry, doll. I’ve got it.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jude
Linc's house isn't anything like I was expecting, although I'm not sure what that was. I definitely wasn't expecting a huge, beautiful lake house in the middle of fucking nowhere, on an unpaved road with chicken cages across the street.
"Took ya long enough," the blonde asshole says when he walks around the side of the house. I haven't even made it to the porch yet because I've been hesitating.
The jackass is dripping wet in nothing but army green boardshorts like he's been swimming. I can't help but wince when I notice the plastic-covered cast on his arm.
"What the hell are you talking about?" I ask when he comes a few steps closer. He doesn't look pissed which is...surprising. He just stands there with his good hand on his hip smirking.
"I was wonderin' when you'd show. I dunno if you're fucked because you waited too long, or if you were right to stay away until she calmed down."
"You're not going to try and kick my ass or yell at me to get off your property and leave her alone?" I ask, since I wasn't expecting him to be so damn calm.
"She sure as hell might, but ya got me at a disadvantage," he says, holding up his bad arm. "Although, ya look like you haven't slept or ate nothin' in about three weeks, so I still might be able to take ya."
"Are you two...have you..." My mouth feels like it’s suddenly filled with peanut butter. I can't force the words out because once I do there will be an answer, most likely one I really don't want to hear.
"Fucked? Eloped? Killed each other yet?" he offers with a chuckle. "No to all three."
I swallow down the relief, even though I'm not entirely sure I'm convinced. It just doesn't seem possible. "So you're telling me you’ve never..."
"No. Never. We kissed once, about a week after she got here. Now I know what it'd be like to kiss my own sister," he says with a shudder.
"But that text-"
"Wasn't from me. One of the pricks in our suite sent it. I offered to explain, but Sadie said to forget it."
"You just sleep together?"
He laughs and nods. "Yeah, and she's a damn cover hog. She steals 'em all, but then she kicks 'em off on the other side of the bed, so they're outta reach."
"Yeah, she does," I agree, trying to rub out the ache in my chest. Sleeping without her after all the nights with her in my arms has been hell.
"She misses you, even if she won't admit it to herself or to anyone else."
"So did I get my books?" Sadie asks when she comes skipping around the house. She skids to a halt and pulls off her sunglasses when she finally notices my truck and then me. Seeing her after so long is like a shock to my cold, dead heart. Making it worse, she isn’t wearing anything but that damn skimpy ass black bikini. Her hair is pulled up in a messy bun like I always loved, and she's still soaking wet, clutching a towel in her hand.
To know another man has been seeing her like this, so damn beautiful, every single day, not only that but is fucking sleeping with her every night, is so painful I can’t breathe. I miss watching her sleep, seeing her hair fanned out over my pillow. Even worse, I miss having her reach for me in the night, needing my arms around her.
“Jude?”
My eyes close and I shiver at the sound of my name on her lips, just like every other time. Now I know the sensation is similar to her fingernails trailing down my spine, over my griffin while I'm deep inside of her. God how I've missed her hands on me. My hands on her. Our mouths on each other…
"Wh-what are you doing here?” she asks, wrapping the towel around herself and crossing her arms defensively over her chest.
“I don’t know,” I respond honestly.
“Oh,” she mutters, her shoulders sagging at the same time she blinks her big green eyes when they water.
“I don’t know anything without you, Sadie. I can’t think. I can’t sleep. I miss you so fucking much it hurts and I’m just…lost.”
“Ha! That's ironic since you didn’t even want anything to do with me a few weeks ago!”
“You’re right, and I’m sorry! I’m sorry I was too stupid and too blind to realize what was right in front of me! But I do now. I have ever since the first time we were together. You took more than my virginity that night. You stole my heart and my soul right out from under me.”
"Virginity?" I hear Linc mutter but ignore.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” she asks, now with tears running down both of her cheeks.
“Because
of the last twenty days. Because I didn’t want to lose you. But I thank God every day that your dad picked me for you. He manipulated us. He’d already scheduled the fight before he asked me to take you to prom. He’s known about us the whole damn time and get this, he actually wanted us to end up together.”
“What?” she asks.
“We snuck around all those weeks for nothing. He knew you were staying with me. He misses you like crazy too.”
“Oh,” she says quietly, clearly thinking about all the trouble we went to, hiding from him and the guys at the gym.
“Please give me another chance, Sadie. I’ll do whatever it takes to be with you.”
“You owe Linc an apology,” she says quickly.
“What?” I ask in confusion, turning to the man who's currently leaning his forearms on the porch rail, silently watching the show.
“You broke his freaking arm!”
“No he didn’t,” Linc responds before I can. “I mean, yeah he did, but not viciously. I shoulda tapped. I thought ya knew that.”
“Oh.”
“Did you really think I’d do that shit on purpose? Yeah, I was pissed and thought he’d fucked you, but I’m not an asshole.”
“I-I didn’t…we haven’t…” she starts stuttering.
“I know.”
“Oh.”
“Come on Sadie! You’ve got to give me more than ‘Oh.’“
“I’ve decided to go to school here so….I mean...long-distance would never work.”
“I know it wouldn’t.”
“Then what do you want, Jude? Why’d you come all the way down here?”
“Because I want to be with you.”
“But…”
“Wherever you are.”
“Oh.”
“I think he’s tellin' ya that he’s willin' to move here,” Linc explains to her in his lazy southern drawl that cuts the ends off most verbs and combines multiple words together to save time.
“You are?” she asks.
“Yes! I'll move wherever you go. I just won a shitload of money beating this asshole to become the Welterweight Champion of the World. I can do whatever the fuck I want. And what I want is to be with you. For the rest of my life,” I tell her, pulling out the ring box from my pocket. “I know you’re really young, and just getting ready to start college. So this isn’t an engagement ring. It’s a promise ring. I promise you that you’re my first, my last, and the only woman I’ll ever love.”
“I…I need some time,” she says. "You can't just wave a ring and make what you and my dad did magically disappear."
My shoulders slump in defeat as I slide the ring box back into my shorts. I guess it could be worse. She could’ve said, "Hell no, leave me alone asshole, and I never want to see you again."
"Okay," I agree. "I'm willing to wait forever if that's how long it takes."
"You can crash here if ya need a place to stay," Linc offers, shocking the shit out of me. Sadie too apparently.
"He can?" she asks.
"Yeah, there's plentyahroom." He either said there's plenty of room or some foreign word I've never heard before. I'm not real sure but I'll go with the former.
"Okay, thanks," I tell him before she tries to change his mind.
The three of us stand there in awkward silence for a few minutes. The thought of sleeping under the same roof with her while she sleeps in his bed threatens to smother me to death. I force air through my lungs, knowing I need to suck it up and deal with it just for a chance to be near her.
"Well, I dunno about ya’ll but I'm starvin'. I'm gonna change and run pick us up some supper. Italian?" he asks looking between the two of us.
"Sure, that's fine with me," Sadie responds.
"Me, too." I can't remember the last meal I'd eaten, so this "supper" of his sounds pretty damn good. I'm weak as hell just trying to stand on my two feet after the long drive.
Linc goes inside the house, leaving me and Sadie in the front yard.
"I guess I'm gonna go back to the pool," she says before turning to walk away.
I'm still standing in the same spot in the yard when Linc comes out dressed in dry clothes and shoes.
"You can have any of the empty bedrooms," he says, pulling out his car keys. "There's extra shorts in the pool house and I'm sure they'll fit."
"Thanks," I mutter. "And I really am sorry about your arm. I didn't want to win that way."
"Don't be. It's my own damn fault. I was too cocky to submit," he says with a shrug. Then he climbs into his truck, a Toyota Tundra identical to mine, except his is lime green, and drives off down the gravel road. Okay, so maybe Linc Abrams isn't half bad now that I know he's not fucking my girl.
I walk up the steps, heading inside to look around the two-story house. There are several bedrooms upstairs. The master bedroom is the only one that has more than the standard furniture in it. Sadie's girly shit is scattered around the two dressers, curling irons and makeup or whatnot. I have to force my eyes to look in the direction of the bed. It seems larger than a damn king size with a big olive green comforter. Thinking of him and her in it has my jaw about ready to crack from the grinding pressure I'm putting on it. But looking closer, my heart squeezes with hope.
The MMA teddy bear I sent Sadie at school is on the bed like she's been sleeping with it. She must have picked it up from her house when she went to get her stuff. She would've trashed it if she hated me and had given up on me, right? Then I notice a DVD case for Dirty Dancing and The Matrix beside the television, and a Macklemore and Beatles CD next to the stereo, not that I'd seen many CDs lately. Everyone downloads and listens to music on their phones. Unless Sadie hasn't ever replaced hers, the one that I broke. I need to get her a new one.
So, are these all things that remind her of me or is it just wishful thinking on my part?
After I order her replacement phone to be overnighted, I go back downstairs, deciding to bring my things in from my truck later because right now I just want to be near her. I walk through a huge, open living room, and keep going until I find a door that leads to the backyard. Sadie's on a big round float in the pool with her sunglasses on, so I can't tell if her eyes are open or not. God, it's so damn good to just be able to see her again, and hear her voice.
I go inside the small pool house that has a single bathroom and piles of floats and shit to change into some shorts, so I can get even closer to Sadie. It's hot as fuck and humid as hell in this damn state so it’ll be nice to cool down too.
When I walk back outside and climb up on the diving board to jump in, Sadie gasps and takes her glasses off.
"Holy shit! Your ribs are showing!" she exclaims.
I look down and...what do you know? They were. Not to mention I had to pull the damn drawstring tight and tie it in a knot to make sure the shorts stay on. Which shouldn't have been a problem since Linc and I had fought at the exact same weight three weeks ago.
"I, um, decided to move down to lightweight," I reply before diving in. The water is cool and refreshing. I can feel my tired, aching body relaxing already. Surfacing, I wipe the water from my eyes and stretch across a long float that drifts by.
Okay, so the first part of this journey has gone better than I ever expected. Sadie isn't screwing Linc, and he didn't tell me to leave. Now I just need to accomplish the final step in Operation Get Her Back, convince her to forgive me.
…
Sadie
I'm not going to cry. I am not! It's been three days since the last time I cried and I won't end my record now just because Jude looks like the poster child for a Feed the Children campaign. Not only that, the darkness and bags around his eyes are worse than mine, and I've never seen his hair so long. I guess I've had it better than him because I've had Linc constantly trying to cheer me up and distract me, while Jude...I don't know what he's been doing or who he's been with. Has he slept with other women, thinking I'd been screwing Linc?
Oh God, I can’t get any air in my lungs. I think I'm hypervent
ilating.
"So is this what you do every day?" he asks, breaking the silence. Up on my float I can't see him, which makes it easier to talk. I can't bear to look in those warm, dark eyes I've missed so much.
"Pretty much. Sometimes we go over to his family or friends' houses and hang out, or visit his gym. But yeah, we're lazy."
"Huh."
"W-what have you been doing?" I ask hesitantly.
"Nothing," is his short response.
"Nothing?" I ask.
"Yep. I haven't been to the gym even once." Wow. Jude, the man who spent at least six hours a day in the gym, hasn't been training? He hasn't been eating or sleeping either apparently.
"What's their gym like here?" Jude asks after a few minutes.
"Like ours, but a little smaller. Probably only twenty or so fighters. Some seem to have really great potential. They teach classes to kids and to the public, too. Like kickboxing for beginners and jiu jitsu. Linc's been leading the Tuesday and Thursday ten to thirteen-year-olds kickboxing class since he can't train."
I've been tagging along to the classes to observe, but instead of distracting me from Jude, they only make me think about him more. How he said he'd like to teach younger kids, so he'd probably love working with them in the gym too.
"It's sort of funny how those little guys are more upset about Linc losing his title than he is."
"What's his recovery look like?" Jude asks.
"Up in the air. In about six more weeks the doctor said they'll take the cast off and see how it looks. He's adjusted pretty well. At first he needed help with almost everything." I had to drive him everywhere the first two weeks before he got the hang of driving one-handed. Of course I had to help him dress and I prepared most of the meals for us, too. I didn't mind doing whatever he needed me to do since it made me actually feel helpful instead of like I was just squatting with nowhere else to go.
"So there's something I've been puzzling over and can't figure out," Jude says. "What the hell was the picture of him in a green dress about?"
I giggle at the memory of Linc in his Link costume. Whenever I least expect it, he still breaks it out to make me laugh. "That was him trying to cheer me up. It's Link's costume."
