Beauty and the Barbarian

by Nikki Winter

  “I didn’t call…for several days.”

  “Are you pleading your case or arguing against it?”

  Michael smiled and came around the desk. He caught her chair by the arms and turned it while dropping into a crouch in front of her. “I just want to make sure we’re okay. I don’t like it when we’re not okay.”

  It was the way he tangled his fingers with hers, staring boyishly, that reminded her of an eight-year-old searching for forgiveness after breaking their mother’s favorite vase while running in the house. Earnest and sweet had been two things that Michael seemed to broadcast with ease. And at least he gave enough of a fuck to show up and apologize without excuses and bullshit platitudes. At least he gave enough of a fuck to chase her.

  Nala was wrong. She had to be wrong. Otherwise that meant Mackenzie was in over her head and God forbid that happen. She had separated herself from Ashleigh quite nicely and despite what her friend thought, the cord had been severed already. The only thing linking the two now was the sweet-faced child currently terrorizing the counselors of her summer camp program.

  Pushy and sometimes high-handed? Yes, Michael could be those. But he could also admit when he was wrong. He could lower himself enough—sit his ego aside—and tell her he was sorry without truly knowing if she’d forgive him. Three years and Ashleigh still hadn’t acknowledged what he’d done to them; even when Mackenzie had taken ownership in her part.

  “So I was thinking,” Michael said, completely oblivious to Mackenzie’s thoughts, “that you and I could attempt movie night again. Sans the World War II repeat of course.”

  “That sounds—”

  Jingle! Jingle!

  Mackenzie stopped and pushed away from Michael’s hold to reach for her phone.

  Ashleigh: Do you think I could get through TSA with this?

  Beneath the text was a picture of him standing next to an ungodly sized teddy bear. There were few things in this world bigger than her ex but this thing was huge. The fact that he was taking a selfie with it while pressing his lips to its face? It only made her snort.

  Mackenzie: If you explain that you’re romantically involved and you don’t want to leave him behind…

  Ashleigh: What’s this ‘him’ shit? Who said it was a boy?!

  Mackenzie: There’s a golf cap…and a vest…and a bow tie…

  Ashleigh: I’d like to think it’s been dressed ambiguously, thank you.

  Mackenzie: Because golf caps are so popular among women?

  Ashleigh: Sexist! That is sexist! I’ve seen Marissa wear golf caps!

  Mackenzie: Why did you think mentioning her would help? Why would that EVER help? My sister is an avid fan of MANY strange and trauma inducing things. Not to mention, SHE’S A HARD CORE LESBIAN!

  Ashleigh: I reconsidered…but then I hit send and it was already out there in the universe…

  Another snort slipped out.

  Mackenzie: If you can manage to get it here without being approached by others interested in the plushie lifestyle, I think Ari will love it.

  Ashleigh: Who said it was for Ari?

  She frowned.

  Mackenzie: You didn’t get it for the bear lover?

  Ashleigh: Oh no, she’s got a box full of things already on the way. But this, I was looking at this for YOU, plums.

  Her brows took flight.

  Mackenzie: Ash…

  Ashleigh: Training. Gotta go.

  And then he was gone. With the bear. The giant bear that he’d considered buying her for some unknown reason that hadn’t been explained. Well this just got a lot stranger.

  Michael suddenly grunted, reminding her that he was in the room. He stood and she finally looked up from her phone, feeling strangely guilty.

  “Would I be wrong to assume that was Ashleigh?” he asked. “Because the way you smiled…”

  She shrugged. “He sent me a silly picture of him and a teddy bear that he apparently thought about buying for me instead of Arista, which I find strange.” Instantly, she knew that had been the wrong thing to say from the way Michael’s expression turned from cool indifference to irritation.

  “You’re buying each other gifts now?”

  “No,” Mackenzie replied calmly. “No, we’re not. He saw the bear and picked it up and apparently decided it would be good for me. Why? I’m not sure. I don’t even think he made the purchase.”

  “So tell him you don’t want it.”

  “It’s a teddy bear, Mike. A teddy bear. Not a tennis bracelet or—”

  “You think I care?” he demanded. “You think I care what kind of gift he gives you? Mackenzie, I wouldn’t give a fuck if it were a gum ball machine ring—”

  “Language.”

  “—I still wouldn’t be comfortable with it because it came from him. As a matter of fact, I’m not comfortable with any of this. If he’s not contacting you concerning Arista, then I have to wonder what his real motive is here. I have to wonder how happy you would be if I were still friends with any of my exes.”

  She stared, and then she couldn’t help it, she burst out laughing.

  “You think this is funny?”

  “Yes!” Mackenzie practically shouted. “Because for some unforeseen reason, you think you can tell me how my relationship with Ashleigh should and shouldn’t go! I have never given you a reason to not trust me.” She stood and spread her palms out wide. “I’m not a goddamn kid you’re dropping off a daycare, Michael. You can’t tell me what cookies I can have or what boys I’m allowed to play with. You know why your small scenario of being friends with one of your exes isn’t comparable here? Because Ashleigh and I have a child together. A. Child. Her comfort is important, her knowing that her parents can talk without shredding the skin off of each other is important. He’s going to be a part of my life until one of the three of us dies. Do you understand that? The man you are so intent on hating and posturing against, is going to be around until someone literally expires. He’s in perfect health. I’ve been given a clean bill and Arista is a young, resilient, forty-eight inch link that is going nowhere any time soon.” Taking a step towards him, she held his gaze when she added, “But if you keep acting like a controlling, obsessive asshole, you can go. Far, far away from all of us.”

  He stood there for a moment before straightening his jacket sleeves. “Well, I guess that reminds me of my place, doesn’t it?”

  Mackenzie didn’t reply.

  Michael cleared his throat. “I’ll call you…whenever.” Turning, he walked away and left her debating if she’d been telling the truth at all.

  That picture stared back at her from where her phone sat on her desk and for the third time in the last few days, she found herself snarling to Ashleigh’s face, “Your. Fault.”

  Six

  “Here.”

  Ashleigh took the ice stuffed cloth waved in his face and pressed it to the eye damn near swollen shut. His fault. He’d gotten in the middle. By now he knew not to get in the middle but he had. Because he couldn’t watch it again without saying something, doing something. It wasn’t in him anymore, the ability his siblings seemed to have—the one where they pretended they couldn’t hear glass breaking and hands meeting flesh. So he’d moved. He’d broken it up and found himself challenged.

  Feeling all six feet and six inches of his height, he’d drawn up, thinking this time would be different. Suddenly, he’d found himself staring dazedly at the ceiling while his father stood over him, his chest tutted out, proud of the fact that he’d just knocked his eldest son on his ass for even thinking to stop the abuse directed to Ashleigh’s mother.

  Dana had tsked off to the side, chastising him softly. “Don’t get in the middle, Ash. Never get in the middle.”

  She’d shoved Matthew away, back towards the bedroom while he bellowed about, “Teaching the little red bastard why he should mind his own fuckin’ business!”

  A hand not too much smaller than his own had reached out then and Hayden pulled him to his feet. Ashleigh hadn’t said a
word, just moved past his sister and brother, snatching his keys off the holder by the door as he went. Before he knew it, he was roaring down the road and soon after, sitting numbly on the back porch of the person currently moving his hand out of the way so she could hold the ice properly to his bruise.

  “How many times does this have to happen before you quit trying to interfere?”

  He winced when she pressed in harder. “It’s the drinking. If he stopped…”

  Mackenzie released a sigh and grasped his face to turn it towards her. “He could stop tomorrow and the devil still wouldn’t release that man.”

  Ashleigh tried to pull free, but she held fast.

  “Your father isn’t a victim of alcoholism, baby. He’s an abuser of alcoholism. He uses his sickness to shoulder off the responsibility of his actions. There are many people I know—that you know—who wrestle with that same demon every single day and they win. Matthew Thyne doesn’t want to win, Ash. Matthew Thyne likes his demons.”

  He closed his eyes and she swept cool fingertips over his temple. “Don’t let me become that,” he begged her softly. “Don’t let me get there.”

  Mackenzie pressed her forehead to his. “You’re not him. You’ll never be him. That isn’t in you. I know you. I see you. And that isn’t in you. Understand?”

  Ashleigh nodded, breathing deeply until his heart rate slowed considerably and his equilibrium returned. “I don’t want to go back there…not yet.”

  “So stay,” a soft voice, one with a bit more age, said from screen door. “Stay for dinner and when you’re ready, go back.”

  The pair turned to look at Mackenzie’s mother. Carla’s expression was gentle, the only thing he’d ever seen from the woman. Even when her husband made it a point to let Ashleigh know that he wasn’t trusted with every glare and every off-colored remark regarding something about an elephant shotgun and a steel slugger.

  The reception had been mixed from the day he was introduced to the Rogans and nothing would seem to change that. But the last six months of his life had been some of the most incredible ones he’d experienced. Threats of being shot down like big game on the Savannah or no, Ashleigh could think of nowhere else to run at times like this one.

  “I don’t have to, Miss Carla,” he started. “I can just—”

  “You can just bring your oversized self in here and wash your hands,” she cut in, opening the door and holding it. “Then help Maurice set the table so he can keep the grumbling to a minimum tonight.”

  “Ain’t grumbling, woman!” Mackenzie’s father called from the dining room. “And I don’t recall saying the boy could partake in my food!”

  Carla’s lips twitched before she snapped, “Maurice Rogan! You’ll quiet down if you want that cherry pie for dessert!”

  There was a pause and then… “Which pie we are we discussing, Carla Rogan?”

  Mackenzie gagged.

  “Maurice!”

  “No need to get fussy! It was just a question!” Footsteps sounded before the rather wide frame of Mackenzie’s father filled up the door. He jerked his head. “Well c’mon, boy. Since the women insist on mollycoddling you and whatnot.”

  Ashleigh got to his feet and helped Mackenzie up. With a smile, she went in first, stopping long enough to sweep a kiss across Maurice’s cheek. “Thank you, Daddy.”

  The older man grunted and eyed Ashleigh. “We got enough to fill this particular tank? Or is he gonna turn on us and the local wild life once he’s cleaned out the fridge?”

  Carla slapped him on the shoulder. “Maurice!”

  “Still don’t understand why you’re getting so fussy.”

  Scoffing, the woman started off, only stopping when she got a startling smack to her behind that made Maurice grin at her gasp and Ashleigh look down at his shoe-laces.

  “Inside,” the man barked. He really only seemed to have one tone when addressing Ashleigh. “You’re letting out all my good central air.”

  He went to do as he was told and halted when a strong hand grabbed his jaw and moved his head into the light. There was another grunt. “Eh. You’ll live.” That hand withdrew and Maurice told him in a low tone, “But the next time this happens, don’t step in. You let the right people do that. Instead, you come here.” The older man poked him in the chest. “And it don’t have to be just you, understand?”

  For a moment he couldn’t speak. When he finally could, Ashleigh bobbed his head and answered, “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m sure I can kill and skin something large enough to feed that other boy and the surprisingly dainty girl that your people managed to produce.”

  “Maaauuurrriiiccceee!”

  Rolling his eyes at his wife’s tone, he shouted back, “What? I’m being nice! Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to be nice?”

  When he walked off, Ashleigh followed, grateful that he could pretend—for just a little while that—

  Lids parting at the sound of his phone dancing over his desk, Ashleigh jerked upwards from where he’d been resting on his folded arms. He sat up and stretched, waiting to hear the pop of joints realigning themselves before he rubbed his palms against his eyes. Another day, another dream. Again centered on Mackenzie. Inescapable Mackenzie.

  His phone buzzed again and he grinned when her name scrolled across the screen. That grin faded as he read the text message she’d fired off.

  Mackenzie: I don’t know what you’re doing, but stop it.

  Ashleigh frowned and started to ask her what, exactly, she thought he was doing but thought better of it. He dialed her instead.

  Three rings and her weary voice sounded over the line. “Yeah?”

  “Would you like to tell me why I’m one foot inside of the doghouse?” he questioned, leaning back in his chair. “We were friends this morning and again this afternoon.”

  “You’re calling me at odd hours and buying me things, Ash,” Mackenzie blurted. “I didn’t know we were those kind of friends.”

  His brows dipped. “You don’t want me calling you?”

  There was a sigh. “That’s not what I said. You’re just…you’re acting differently.”

  “As opposed to what?”

  “As opposed to the polite and strained distance we both know and love,” she answered. “You’re telling Arista that you miss me—”

  “Which I do.”

  “—You’re snap shooting yourself with large stuff animals—”

  “I thought you would like it.”

  “—And it’s causing problems,” she finished in a strained voice. “I can’t…I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know what you’re doing, but you have to stop.”

  And it’s causing problems.

  He lingered there for a moment and queried, “That guy? Is it causing problems with that guy?”

  “His name is Michael Frost and yes, it is!”

  “Don’t care what his name is,” Ashleigh smoothly rejoined, irritation making him rap his knuckles across the wood under his hands. “Don’t even care that it’s causing problems. You know what I care about, plums?”

  “Stop calling me that. How many times do I have to ask that you stop calling me that?”

  As if that would happen. He’d been doing so from the first time he laid eyes on her and it would never stop.

  “I care,” he continued, ignoring her request, “about you. I care about Arista. I could give a fuck—”

  “Language.”

  “—About how he feels. About what he thinks. And do you know why, plums?”

  “Why?” she gritted out. “Why don’t you care? Because it doesn’t benefit you? Because it rakes you that I’m with someone else? Why?”

  “Because,” Ashleigh drawled, “Mackenzie Annalisa Julie Rogan, I’ve been trying to get next to you since the day I almost caused you a spinal injury in the hall.”

  Out. In. The. Universe. He’s said it. He’d handed it over; let the words take flight. Those dreams—those visions of her—wouldn’t release him. He could
n’t rid himself of her and he didn’t want to. Selfish. It was so goddamn selfish to assume that he could hold a door open for her while she walked away from him and then shove his way back into the little bit of space she’d allotted. He didn’t care. Ashleigh didn’t care. Because he couldn’t shake her. He couldn’t shake the insatiable need to come after her with everything he had in him.

  “I don’t think we can be friends anymore,” Mackenzie told him softly. “I think the lines are blurring. And it’s my fault. Because I haven’t made them clear.”

  Ashleigh’s knuckles tapped relentlessly now. “Stop shouldering things, Mac. Stop making excuses for others. Stop trying to tell me that we can’t be friends, that I can’t still have you because of that guy who isn’t even half of what you need.”

  “And how would you know? Where have you been for the last three years to tell me what I do and don’t need? Why is everyone trying to tell me what I should do and who I should be with? Why does it seem like what I want doesn’t matter?”

  Good. She was angry. Anger he could work with. Impassive or cool Mackenzie was different. That Mackenzie was too composed, too rooted in logic to get a read on. But if she was upset—emotional—then that meant there was a conflict happening. One that he’d unknowingly stumbled upon.

  “What you want matters to me more than you’ll ever know,” Ashleigh finally retorted soothingly. “But, plums, I think you’re afraid to admit what that truly is.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Are you sleeping alone tonight?”

  “Of course I am,” she whispered fiercely.

  “Then I’m not wrong. I’m not wrong at all.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Did I ever let you sleep alone?” he prodded. “If I had any control over the circumstances, did either of us ever face a bed alone?”

  Silence.

  “Michael Frost, as you insist on me calling him, isn’t there because you. Don’t. Want. Him. There. Not for a lacking of trying I’d assume. Any man with eyes, hands, and a hetero perspective would try where it concerns you. He’s pushed. And you’ve dug your heels in, convincing the both of you that it’s due to concerns about what Arista does and doesn’t see happening in your home. But Arista climbed between the two of us many a morning and there was never a concern. We were no more married than you and Frost are now. And yet…”