North Star - The Complete Series Box Set

by Tracey Ward

  I batted his fist away easily.

  “Dude, did you really think that’d work?”

  He came at me again. I blocked him. A punch from the other side – blocked. Upper cut – dodged.

  Callum breathed in rough and hot through his nose, hunching his shoulders like a bull.

  “It’s a dance,” I reminded him. “You’re trying too hard. Boxing is a waiting game.”

  “I just want to hit you,” he said, obviously not listening to a word I was saying. “I’ve never hit you. It’s pissing me off.”

  “It’s because I’m faster than you.”

  “I’m bigger. If I could land a hit you’d be in trouble.”

  I smirked. “Maybe you’re right and maybe you’re wrong, but you’d have to be able to hit me to find out.”

  He came at me again, fast and angry, throwing his entire body into the move. All of his weight, all of his frustration. All of that emotion that threw a man off balance and sent him tumbling into the mat face first when his target magically disappeared.

  And I was Houdini in the ring.

  Callum stumbled from the force of the missed hit, dancing on his toes and his fingertips toward the edge of the ring, but I was impressed when he didn’t topple over. He got his footing again at the last second, turning around to look at me with a face sheened with sweat and fierce, determined eyes.

  Callum wasn’t a bright guy. He was big and loud and pretty oblivious. Not dumb exactly but not insightful. Not pensive, and that was his problem. In boxing you had to look ahead. You had to have the foresight to see the move your opponent was going to make, counter it, and simultaneously set yourself up for your next move. Offense or defense? Advance or retreat? The sport demanded you to be two steps ahead of not only your opponent but yourself.

  Callum wasn’t native to that thought process. He wanted his size to matter more than it did and maybe in MMA it would matter, but that wasn’t the game we were playing. He was playing checkers to my chess, and even though the two were played in the same forum, they were not the same game. Not even close.

  “Stop trying to kill me,” I told him impatiently. “Slow down. Wait for an opening.”

  He wiped the back of his arm under his nose, snarling, “You don’t give openings.”

  “That’s because I’m good at this.”

  “I’m gonna get one on you.”

  “Oh yeah?” I put my hands down, stepping out of my fighter’s stance. “Show me.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re playing with me.”

  “No, I’m not. You wanna hit me? Hit me. But take your time, think it through, and do it right. Don’t rush at me all excited for the kill. Plan your move. See it in your mind, make it happen.”

  Callum eyed me suspiciously. Finally he advanced on me, slower than before but still too fast. It was better, though, so when he lifted his arm to hit me I didn’t move. I didn’t flinch. I let him connect his glove with my face and knock my head to the side, but as he did it I lifted my left hand. I took advantage of that opening and I got him solidly in the side under his arm.

  He let out a grunt, crumpling on his right side and hobbling back a couple steps.

  “Fuck you,” he grunted.

  “I said I’d let you hit me,” I reminded him, circling the outside of the ring slowly. “I never said I wouldn’t hit you back.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Do you want to keep going?”

  “It’d be rude to leave now.”

  “Why?”

  He smiled, bouncing on the balls of his feet and waiting for me to circle around in front of him again. “Because I owe you, asshole.”

  I nodded, slipping out of the driver’s seat and letting autopilot engage. I let the animal eagerly take the wheel, take the ring the way I loved to do when the energy inside me built to an unbearable degree. When my palms itched with anxiety, with anger uncontainable and undeniable. I’d feel solid when I left tonight. I’d feel like myself, like a man in his skin breathing and living without a thin wire of fear laced through my veins, electric and volatile. I’d be able to look in the mirror, to look at Jenna, to look to tomorrow.

  I just had to let the animal play first. I had to run around the ring chasing Callum, tagging him, tapping him, amping him up with all the energy I was trying to escape. He’d take it from me and he’d make it right. He’d leave it there on the floor in a way I never could. The way a healthy person should.

  My busted right hand burned inside my glove, itching to be used and punishing me when I did, and still I didn’t let up. I took every pinch of pain and I put it back in the dance. I gave it to Callum on his cheek, his shoulder, his gut, and he took it all. He stayed in it with me until we were panting and spent, the animal slipping happily back into its cage – sated. Calm. Happy.

  And as I tapped gloves with Callum, a smile on both of our beaten red faces, I finally felt the same way.

  Chapter Three

  Jenna

  “So you were in Fiji last week?”

  The guy in the chair shook his head, a small grin playing on his lips. “Nah. Africa.”

  I paused, pulling the gun away from his arm and silencing it. “Hold on. Africa last week and Fiji the week before?”

  “Yeah.” He frowned. “Wait, I think. No, Fiji was the month before. Australia. I was in Australia two weeks ago.”

  “How do you keep it all straight?”

  “Obviously I don’t.”

  I laughed as I sat forward again, kicking the gun back on and pressing it to his skin. “I bet they have an app for that.”

  “I have an agent for that. Let him take care of it. I just get on the plane when they tell me to. As long as I have my board and a wave to surf it on, I’m not picky.”

  “Did you win the competition?”

  “Which one?”

  “Any of them?”

  He grinned again, his green eyes bright with amusement. “Most of them.”

  “He took Fiji and Australia,” his girlfriend clarified proudly.

  She sat in a chair not far from us watching as I tattooed his brown, bare chest. I had worried when they first walked in. Guys who brought their girlfriends in to watch them get a tat made me nervous. Usually the girls were there because they insisted on it. Because they didn’t want to let their man out of their sight, and the second they saw me – a woman – prepping to get up close and personal with him, asking him to remove his shirt, they were livid.

  Luckily this girl was chill. She sat back calm and easy in the chair I’d brought in for her, smiling at me and talking to me. Making eye contact. Joking around and not showing an ounce of jealousy. It didn’t take long to understand why. The surfer under my needle was nuts about her. He smiled every time she spoke. He glowed every time she laughed.

  “We took Fiji and Australia,” he amended.

  I glanced at her just in time to see her roll her eyes. “I’m still not sure how you got me on that plane. I said one event a year.”

  “I’m very persuasive.”

  “That you are, Lawson Daniel,” she agreed affectionately. “That you absolutely are.”

  Lawson’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, sighed lightly, and looked over at me with an apologetic face. “I hate to be a dick, but can we stop for a second. It’s my agent. I have to take it.”

  I nodded amiably, lowering the gun to the tray and standing up from my stool. “Yeah, of course. I could use a drink of water anyway. Take your time.”

  I closed the door behind me when I left, snapping my rubber gloves off as I cruised down the hallway. I needed a drink for sure, but I didn’t need water. My legs were Jell-O underneath me, my back moaning with a dull ache from hours hunched over bodies and ink and colors that swam together in front of my tired eyes. Kellen was right – I was tired. Bone dead tired. I needed a beer and a nap ASAP, but my day was only just beginning.

  I’d barely slept last night. I’d lain awake alone in my bed staring at the ceilin
g, still seeing red numbers marching across my vision. I still tasted Kellen’s mouth on my lips, on my tongue. I still felt him close to me. So close, so deep inside my body and soul, but so far away. Distant as the dullest star in the sky. Brilliantly beautiful and impossibly cold.

  He wasn’t always like that. If you took away the sex Kellen was any other guy. Better than. He had secrets, but we all did. His were darker than most but he was a good man. An intelligent, funny, caring man who I loved with all my heart. Who made me feel loved with every look, every touch. But when you got in close you started to see the cracks in his armor. You could feel the cold wind rushing out from the fissures, chilling you to the bone. It scared me sometimes. I wasn’t scared of Kellen, but I was afraid of what was going on inside him. This huge, impossible thing that I couldn’t fully understand and I knew I couldn’t stop. I wanted to help him, to heal him, but I was at a loss as to how.

  Kellen had let me in on one session with his therapist a couple of months ago. Just one. It had been rough for everyone in the room, Kellen especially. He’d opened up only barely about the sexual abuse he’d endured as a kid. I didn’t know the details, I didn’t think anyone did, but I knew enough to understand why he went dead eyed during sex. Physically he loved the feel of it, but mentally he couldn’t handle it. It hurt him to be inside that moment, to see it through to the end. Sex had been dirtied for him at such a young age that I wondered if he’d ever be able to face it head on. Could he ever be with me and stay with me or would he always check out? Was I selfish to want that part of him? He gave me so much every day, more than he’d ever given anyone, and still I wanted more. I wanted this last piece. Was that wrong? Should I love him as he was, as I always had, and let it lie?

  I honestly had no freaking clue anymore. I spent so long wishing for this moment when we would finally be together, but I never stopped to wonder what it would look like. As friends we’d been so easy, I never imagined it could get so hard.

  “You okay?”

  I startled. Sam was standing in front of me with a stack of clean towels in her arms, her blue eyes and tan skin reminding me of the girl in the room with Lawson. Both were beautiful California girls, beach blonds to the roots – if Sam would stop dying hers black to hide it. Both were shorter than my nearly six feet and curvy in all the places my body couldn’t imagine. Put us on the beach and these girls were surfers while I was the board.

  “You’re mumbling to the water cooler, you know that, right?” Sam asked slowly, eyeing me.

  “No. I hadn’t realized.” I sighed, rolling my head back to stretch my neck. “I must have spaced out.”

  “Because you don’t sleep.”

  “I sleep.”

  “How much.”

  “Enough.”

  A towel hit me in the face. I stumbled back, shocked. “What the hell?” I demanded.

  Sam shook her head in disappointment. “You’re definitely not getting enough sleep. I underhanded that at you. Should you be tattooing when you’re like this?”

  “Keep your voice down,” I hissed.

  “So that’s a no.”

  “I’m fine. I’ll make it through the day.”

  “We should close the store tomorrow.”

  I sighed, shaking my head. “Don’t start this again.”

  “You need a break.”

  “I need a coffee. Weren’t you making some?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, pinning the towels to her body. “We’re out of filters.”

  “Shit.”

  “We’re out of coffee too.”

  “Shouldn’t you have led with that?”

  She shrugged. “What’s the difference? Can’t make coffee either way.”

  “Yeah, but… Never mind. I’ll run to the store.”

  “You can’t,” she reminded me patiently. “You’re in the middle of a tattoo.”

  I closed my eyes and groaned. “Shit, that’s right.”

  “You seriously forgot?”

  “No.” I opened my eyes and faced her accusing stare. “Okay, yes. I forgot. So you’ll run to the store.”

  “Can’t. Benji isn’t in until two. There’s no one else here to watch the front.”

  “His name isn’t Benji.”

  “It is in my mind.”

  I leaned back against the wall. “Can we get Benji to get coffee on his way in?”

  Sam smiled, her dark makeup giving her a sinister look. “Good to see you jumping on the bandwagon.”

  “Well, if you can’t beat ‘em…”

  “Benji won’t do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s already thinking about quitting. He won’t like being made into an errand boy instead of an artist.”

  I snapped up straight on my feet. “What? Why is he quitting?”

  “’Cause he doesn’t like the vibe of the building. He thinks it’s haunted.”

  “Are you for real?”

  “No,” she chuckled, “but it’s better than his reason.”

  “What’s his reason, Sam?” I asked impatiently.

  “He doesn’t like you.”

  “I—what’d I do?”

  “Nothing. He just doesn’t like you. Says you’re boring.”

  “Well, fuck him then,” I muttered.

  Sam laughed. “You want me to tell him that.”

  “No,” I replied hotly, “you tell him I’m the shit. That I’m adorable and people love me and if he doesn’t see that then he can piss off with his floppy One Direction hair and stupid car.”

  “How is his car stupid?”

  “Dude, it’s an Avalanche. Crossovers are for pussies who can’t make a decision.”

  “Amen to that.”

  I spun around wide eyed, shocked by the voice behind me. It was Lawson’s girlfriend. Reagan? Rachel? I couldn’t remember.

  “I am so sorry you heard all of that,” I whispered frantically. “That was really unprofessional.”

  She smiled easily. “Nah, it was dead on. And you’re right. You’re adorable. Screw that guy.”

  “Benji,” Sam supplied helpfully.

  “That can’t be his real name.”

  “It might as well be.”

  The girl met my eyes, her own still smiling. “Law’s off the phone and I took it from him so he’s all yours whenever you’re ready. No more interruptions.”

  “It’s fine, really,” I assured her. “Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  The girl went back to the room, leaving Sam and me alone in the hallway.

  “You just melted down in front of a client,” she pointed out softly.

  I nodded my head, feeling numb.

  “You need to close the shop tomorrow,” she insisted. “I’ll help you get the errands done that you don’t have time to do. We’ll be off the clock. We’ll just hang out and do whatever you need to do.”

  “I’m not going to take advantage of you. I’d pay you for the time.”

  “You don’t have to pay me to be your friend, Jenna,” she replied sharply.

  Her tone stopped me. It was hard and brittle, completely unlike her.

  She avoided my eyes, bouncing slightly on her toes.

  “What’s up?” I asked gently.

  Her eyes darted to the side, then back to me. “We never hang out anymore. You never have time.”

  “We’re here together almost every day.”

  “That’s not us being friends and you know it. I’m going through—“ her words choked off, her eyes darting away again.

  “Sam, what’s wrong?”

  “I broke up with Carter,” she blurted out.

  For the second time in ten minutes I was stunned. “Why? When?”

  “Last week.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She sniffed faintly. “You have a lot on your plate with Kellen and your family and the store. And honestly I… I wanted to see if it would stick. I wasn’t sure it was a forever thing.”

  “What can
I do? How can I help?”

  “Be my friend,” she told me fervently, finally meeting my eyes. “I need her, not my boss.”

  My shoulders slumped. “Shit, Sam, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not. You’re right. I’ve been so focused on the store and Kellen, and I thought that because I saw you every day that we were good, but we’re not are we?”

  “No, we are,” she assured me, closing the distance between us and pulling me into a hug that felt so good I nearly broke down and cried. I didn’t even care that we were separated by a lumpy stack of towels. “We’re always good. I’m not doing great and I need help and I don’t talk to anyone but you about stuff. You’re all I’ve got and I’m sharing you with Kellen and that sucks.”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated lamely.

  “Don’t be sorry. I’m being selfish.”

  I squeezed her hard. “No, you’re not. You were here first. No cutsies.”

  She laughed roughly as she stepped back from the embrace. “Really? Kellen is getting pushed aside for me?”

  “Everything is. Call Benji and tell him not to come in today. After I finish this tattoo the store is closed. Tomorrow too. You and I are going to recharge. We’ll shop and talk and eat.”

  “Cheese fries?” she asked hopefully, her excitement lighting her eyes and making her my friend again. Bringing her back to me so easily it took my breath away.

  If only everyone was so easy to pull out of the dark.

  “Is there any other kind?” I asked her with a smile.

  My phone rang in my back pocket. I debated ignoring it, I needed to get back to work, but when I saw the name on the caller ID I couldn’t bring myself to silence it.

  “Kellen?” Sam asked knowingly.

  “How’d you know?”

  “Your face.”

  “Oh really? Did it light up?” I chuckled, pressing the green Answer key.

  “No,” Sam said pensively. “It fell.”

  I watched speechless as she turned and walked down the hall out of sight.

  “Hello?” Kellen’s voice called distantly.

  I blinked rapidly, remembering I’d answered the call. I quickly brought it to my ear. “Uh, hi. I’m here. Hi.”