Brutal Game

by Cara McKenna

  He locked up and headed for the stairwell, hiked all the way up until the steps went from carpeted concrete to clanging metal, ending at the heavy door that led out onto the roof. It was never locked, though tonight it was ajar to boot. He pushed it out, welcomed a cool breeze on his face.

  It smelled like spring. Like spring and…menthols. He glanced upwind, to the frayed folding lawn chair propped at the building’s far corner. A tumble of wavy auburn hair moved with the wind, seeming to snatch at the blue smoke drifting in Flynn’s direction. He crossed the roof.

  “Heather.”

  She whipped around, peering at him over the back of the chair. “Mike, Jesus. You fuckin’ scared me. What’re you doin’ up here so late?”

  He sat on the ledge opposite her, planting his elbows on his knees. “Could ask you the same thing.”

  “New Year’s resolution—no more smoking indoors. I figure I’ll smoke less if I have to come all the way up here.” She had a glass of wine in one hand, ashed her butt with the other. “Plus the landlord’s been on my ass.”

  “You know it’s March, right?”

  “It was too cold to start in January.”

  He rolled his eyes but couldn’t hold back a smile. “Good for you.”

  “Now you. What’re you up here for?”

  “I dunno. Just needed some space.”

  “Laurel sleeping over?”

  He nodded.

  “Get your ass off that ledge. Makes me fucking itchy.”

  He moved to sit on the roof itself, back against the short wall.

  Heather took a drag, eyes narrowed at him. “You two all right?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “You think?”

  “She’s fine. She’s just about over it. You know, the pregnancy and all that.”

  “The miscarriage.”

  He winced. “Yeah. That.”

  “And what about you?”

  Flynn shrugged. “I’m glad she’s feeling better.”

  “You’re such a lousy fuckin’ liar.”

  “It’s true.” He was glad Laurel felt better. He just still felt like shit himself, was all.

  She sipped her wine. “For real—why’re you up here, Mike?”

  “I dunno. Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Is one of you pissed at the other?”

  He shrugged again, as good as nodding to someone who knew him as well as his sister did.

  “Who?”

  “Me. At her. Not pissed, though. Just… Fuck if I know. Annoyed, maybe.”

  “About what?”

  “Just… I dunno. That she’s over it, and it feels like I’m stuck back where we were two weeks ago. And annoyed because she still has no goddamn idea what she would’ve done about it, if the pregnancy hadn’t ended.”

  “Why’s that annoying?”

  “Because how the fuck do you not know? How do you lose a baby that way and not realize afterward what you felt about it?”

  “Because miscarriage is fuckin’ confusing as shit,” Heather said, and took another long pull off her cigarette. “Take it from me. I had three—two babies I wasn’t ready for and another I really goddamn wanted. You feel everything, no matter what you think you should be feeling. You feel guilty and sad and responsible, every fuckin’ thing.”

  “Laurel said she felt relieved.”

  “Of course she did. It made the decision for her. I don’t blame her—it’s bound to be a shitty-ass choice to make. So what did you feel?”

  “Sad.”

  “And relieved?”

  “No, not really. Just sad. And a little angry.”

  “At Laurel?”

  “No, of course not.” And was he actually angry at her now? Not really. What he felt was betrayed, only it wasn’t. He felt left behind. He still felt lost, and she was busy finding normal again. Better than normal, even.

  “So what’re you really angry at, then?” Heather demanded.

  He huffed a big, noisy breath, annoyed all over again at this interrogation. “Like I even know… Just mad she had to go through that. Mad that she got her decision taken away from her.”

  “Mad she didn’t get to decide.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Mad that fate made the call, and she was helpless to do anything about it.”

  “Sure.”

  Heather smiled in the dimness and a car honked down in the street. “You feel helpless.”

  “Maybe,” he allowed, rankled.

  “Of course you do. And of course that fuckin’ hurts. Every other thing in your life, you get some say in it. Even in the pregnancy—Laurel would’ve let you speak your piece if you’d been willing to. But then losing it? That, you had zero control of.”

  He made a face, thinking she was on to something but not happy to admit it.

  “You couldn’t protect it,” Heather said, marking the thought with a stabbing motion of her glowing butt in his direction, squinting with triumph or maybe just from the smoke. “That’s your currency in this life, Mike. You’re the strong one. The one who takes no shit, and takes care of the people you love. That tiny little speck in her belly—you couldn’t protect that.”

  “I don’t even know if I wanted her to keep it, necessarily.” That was true, despite what he’d told Laurel in the heat of the moment.

  “No, but that doesn’t matter, see? Even if Laurel had decided to get an abortion, that was still in your control, because you gave her your blessing, whatever she decided, right?”

  “Yeah. I suppose.”

  “But neither of you got to decide. It just went poof. And that stole away your power.”

  He nodded, grudgingly accepting that Heather might have him pegged. He didn’t like thinking that anybody had a better handle on his shit than he did, but her words had loosened something that’d been knotted up inside him.

  It wasn’t the baby he was mourning, was it? Heather was right. It was the control he felt robbed of.

  So what did you do? Fucked your girlfriend like a stranger you couldn’t give two shits about. That wasn’t his way, not even with an actual one-night stand. Flynn might be a sick fucker, but he was a gentleman, in his way.

  Not tonight, I wasn’t. Tonight he’d been the sort of man he’d be more than happy to punch in the mouth.

  He leaned forward, gesturing for Heather’s cigarette. “Gimme a taste of that.”

  “No fuckin’ chance.” She sucked the final gasp of life out of the butt and crushed its corpse under her sneaker, tar paper grinding. She drained her glass and stood, stretching. “The thing is, Mike, all this shit you’re going through? That’s how kids work. From the second they’re conceived, you’re pretty much fucked.”

  He laughed, just a little hum of a thing, but it felt good. Another couple tangles came loose in his chest.

  “All bets are off with kids,” Heather said, “whether they’re Kim’s age or they’re a little blob of cells. Hell, you’re basically my kid and you’re fuckin’ thirty-three and I still can’t sleep on weekend nights, knowin’ you’re playing chicken with brain damage in that goddamned basement—”

  “I got it.”

  “Anyhow, the little cell-blob decided for you. You want kids someday, get used to havin’ fuck-all control. Second you start carin’ about somebody on that level is the second you hand all your ammo over to them, throw out your arms, invite ’em to take aim straight at your heart.”

  She offered a hand to help Flynn up but he shook his head. “Gonna stay up here a little while longer.”

  “Suit yourself. She know where you are?”

  “I left a note.”

  “She know you’re pissed?”

  “Yeah. Probably.” Flynn was unpracticed at hiding his feelings; he said what he thought, never censored himself. That little speech he’d made after the sex couldn’t have been all that reassuring.

  “She finds that note, she’s gonna start worrying,” his sister said. “Maybe start wonderin’ what she did wrong, as us foo
l-ass women are programmed to do. Don’t make her worry a minute longer than she has to.”

  He nodded.

  She tousled his hair in that way he hated, that way he’d miss like oxygen if she was somehow gone tomorrow. “Night, kid.”

  “Night.”

  He watched her go. He ought to move to the chair, but the roof felt right under his ass, cold and hard and awkward. All the things he’d been to Laurel, tonight.

  She’s gonna start worrying. Yeah, probably. Being a dick on occasion was one thing, but tonight had been something else entirely. It’d be selfish to stay up here, wallowing, knowing if she woke he’d only wind up hurting her more.

  He got to his feet, feeling old and achy, feeling every hit he’d ever taken and every hour he’d ever labored in his muscles and bones and heart, and deserving every pang. He crossed the roof, scanning the city, feeling as determined as he did lost as he hauled the door open and stepped inside.

  Two flights down, he unlocked the apartment as quietly as he could, toed off his boots and shed his jacket and sweater and jeans. As his eyes adjusted, he looked to the bed. The note sat where he’d left it atop his pillow. Laurel had moved though, turned over, her pale arm slung across the dark bedspread. He should have been here, should have felt the sweet weight of that arm as it sought him in the dark.

  Too fucking bad. He couldn’t fix that lost chance, not any more than he could’ve fixed things when she’d lost the pregnancy. If control really was what he valued, it was the present he ought to be focused on.

  He crept around the bed, grabbed the note and crumpled it into a ball, small and hard as a marble, and tossed it in the trash under the sink. He used the bathroom and washed his hands, ran a wet washcloth over his face. The fan sounded so loud, his thoughts so quiet at long last.

  The sheets were warm as he slid beneath the covers on Laurel’s side of the bed.

  “Hey,” he whispered, seeking her body, his chest meeting her back.

  “Mm.” A pause. “You’re freezing.”

  “I needed the can.” Not a lie, thankfully.

  “You smell like cigarettes.”

  He didn’t reply, grateful she was half asleep.

  “Want me to budge over?”

  Though he was wedged on a narrow sliver of mattress, he said, “No. Stay right here.” He wrapped his arm tight around her, warmed through when her hand covered his at her heart.

  She said nothing for a long time, but he could tell from the subtle tension in her body, she wasn’t asleep. Finally she whispered, “You back?”

  She didn’t mean back in the apartment. He knew precisely what she meant.

  “Yeah, I’m back.”

  “Good.”

  “Sorry I left.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Just don’t go away again.”

  “I won’t,” he promised. “Now get some sleep, honey.”

  12

  With the help of his sister’s smoke-scented wisdom, Flynn slowly came to accept that maybe it wasn’t so sad and pointless, the way things had happened with the baby. Like maybe surrender was just the price you paid when pregnancy and kids entered the picture. He was pretty useless at surrendering, but the thought was comforting in its way. It became his first step toward moving on.

  He and Laurel saw each other less than usual the next couple weeks, but not infrequently. If he woke up angry at the world on a given morning, he let her know he needed space that night. He’d finish work and toil in the gym for twice as long as usual, pound his angst into the bags or sweat it onto the bench, mop it away with a towel. He tried not to take it to bed with him. Mostly succeeded.

  It was a warm Monday afternoon at the start of April when he noticed the biggest change—he’d gone an entire workday without thinking about any of it. A long, laborious slog of a day spent tacking drywall in Fort Point, an industrial vent droning nearby and making conversation with his coworkers impossible, infinite opportunities to ruminate and dwell…and yet he hadn’t. He’d thought about a thousand other things—baseball, a beef with his boss, the taxes he couldn’t put off much longer—but not the lost pregnancy.

  He called Laurel on his way to the gym to ask if she wanted to hang out that night, but it went to voicemail after a single ring. “Hey, it’s me. Calling to see if you wanna stay over tonight. Lemme know.” He pocketed his phone and cut down the alley beside the bar, exchanged a curt nod of greeting with a fellow boxer as he emerged from the side door. Flynn caught it just as it was about to swing shut and headed down the steps.

  He felt the buzz of his phone as he was shedding his jacket and checked the screen. Laurel. “Hey, hang on a sec.” The reception downstairs sucked.

  “Sure,” came her crackly reply.

  He headed for the stairwell, trotting back up and out into the alley. “Okay, I’m good. Had to get out of the dungeon. You get my message?”

  “I did. Sorry I missed you—I was on the subway.” Her voice was hitching slightly.

  “You walkin’ someplace?”

  “Yeah. Anyway, I’d love to hang out.”

  “I could pick you up about seven,” he said, eyeing the sky. He was in a tee and the hairs on his arms were prickling in the cold. It felt like rain, but he didn’t care. His own forecast was fair, at long last. “I was thinkin’ maybe we could swing by the grocery store on the way back, grab a rotisserie chicken or something.”

  “Yum. I could make mashed potatoes.”

  “It’s a plan.”

  A pause. “You sound different,” Laurel said slyly. “You have a good day?”

  “Nothin’ special. Just feeling more like normal, I guess.”

  “Glad to hear it. And you look nice in that shirt.”

  He frowned, lost.

  A laugh came through the line. “Look up, Flynn.”

  He did, spotting a redhead in jeans and an olive jacket heading his way, a familiar purple umbrella under one arm. He smiled and switched off his phone. “On the subway, huh? What the fuck’re you doin’ here?”

  She slid her own phone into her purse as she reached him and leaned up for a kiss. “Coming to see you.”

  “You’re lucky I’m so predictable.” The first raindrop fell, hitting him on his bare biceps. “Should I grab my shit? You got other plans for me?”

  “I do, but they won’t take long. You can still torture yourself as scheduled.”

  “You got my curiosity piqued, honey. What’s up?”

  “Firstly, I have news.” And good news, to judge by the smile she was failing to hold in.

  She’d had a second interview at that biotech place a good week and a half ago. After all that silence, she’d begun insisting they must not want her, but he’d kept shushing her, reminding her it took a while to check references. And that they’d be retarded not to hire her.

  “That company call you back, finally?” he asked.

  “They did indeed.”

  “And?”

  She didn’t say anything, just smiled a mile wide and nodded so hard her hair bounced.

  “Laurel, that is fucking fantastic.” He hauled her against him, jabbed in the ribs by her umbrella but not caring. He rocked her back and forth, probably squeezed the life half out of her, but he couldn’t let go. He just wanted to smell her hair and memorize the smothered laughter warming the base of his throat. Fuck, she’d waited a long time for this.

  He let her go, grinning as he took her in, almost like it was the first time. “Holy shit. You really did it, huh?”

  “I guess I did.”

  “When do you start?”

  “A couple weeks.” She was glowing, practically hovering off the asphalt. He didn’t think he’d ever seen this version of Laurel. He wondered what he could do to make her acquaintance more often.

  “I’ll go in and fill out some paperwork before then, but my official first day is April seventeenth.”

  “Jesus, fuck the chicken—lemme take you someplace nice, tonight.”

  “No, no. I want exactly what yo
u said. It’s so dreary out, let’s hunker down inside.”

  “Your call. But you’re getting a party, whether you like it or not. Second I tell Heather the news is the second she’ll start callin’ to ask what your favorite dessert is.”

  “I’ll look forward to that.” Laurel changed then, her smile suddenly more shy than exuberant. Little droplets of rain were gathering in her hair, shiny like dew. Flynn could feel them dampening his tee and spiking his eyelashes. He reached for her umbrella, ripping the Velcro strap free and popping it open to hand over.

  “Thanks.” Definitely shy. No mistaking it.

  “You got somethin’ else to say?” he asked.

  She pursed her lips, took a breath in, a breath out. She set the umbrella down. It lolled in the breeze, collecting the mounting rain. He was about to stoop and grab it when she blurted, “I do. I have something else to say.”

  “All right. Better make it snappy if that purse is real leather.”

  “I have something to ask you,” she clarified, looking not at his face, but at some nowhere spot on his chest.

  “Shoot.”

  She dropped down, kneeling.

  Flynn’s head gave a shake, a little spasm of surprise. It wasn’t the first time she’d dropped to her knees before him, but for one thing they weren’t in his apartment, and for another she was on one knee, not two. His eyes grew wide. “Whoa.”

  Laurel cleared her throat officiously. “I kneel before you as a woman with her shit finally together,” she said, her hair wet now, gathering in long, slick waves, sticking to her cheeks. She tucked them behind her ears and met his stare. “I know you would’ve taken me as a woman with her shit still falling apart, but that’s not how I wanted to do this. And you don’t always get your way.”

  “Honey,” was all he could think to say.

  She reached into her jacket pocket, then there in her open palm sat a ring.

  “Michael Flynn,” she began, voice breaking. She composed herself, blowing out a breath. “Will you marry me in approximately two years?”

  A noiseless laugh jerked his shoulders and a smile spread across his lips. “You know I will. You sure you’ll be ready by then?”