by Tracey Ward
“Since always,” he said, scooping mashed potato into his mouth. “She vomits when she sees them.”
“Not with your mouth full, Dan, honestly,” mom complained. “And no, I don’t care for needles.”
“Is that why grandma took both of us to get our ears pierced?” Laney asked.
Mom’s brow pinched. “No, she did that because you girls were too young, she never liked me and she knew it would make me angry. And it did.”
“She liked you just fine,” dad told her dismissively.
“Dan, she told me on our wedding day that it wasn’t ‘too late’, that I could still ‘save us all the trouble and hit the bricks’ before the ceremony.”
“She thought you were a flight risk. Once we were married and you obviously weren’t going to cut and run, she warmed to you.”
“I’m never getting married,” Laney muttered glumly.
“Of course you will, honey,” dad said consolingly. “You already bought the dress.”
“I can’t wear that when I get married.”
Dad scowled at her. “Then why did I buy it?”
“I bought it to marry Kellen,” Laney told him impatiently, getting annoyed. “I can’t wear it to marry anyone else. It’s haunted.”
“It’s $20,000.”
“Tell Kellen! Or have Jenna tell him since they’re such great friends,” she said sarcastically, looking at me hard.
“You say it like an insult but it’s the truth,” I told her. “One I’m happy with.”
“He’s a jerk.”
“He’s a good guy.”
“He sucks.”
“Then why are you so upset you’re not marrying him?”
She pinched her lips together in frustration. “I’m not upset I’m not marrying him. I’m upset because I’m humiliated. Every single person I know thought I was getting married. Now every time I see any of them, I have to explain that it’s not happening. Do you know painful that is?”
“No,” I admitted, feeling the weight of the guilt again.
“It’s the worst.” She turned to dad, her tone softening. “And I tried to return the dress, I did, but they had already started the alterations.”
“There’s always eBay,” I suggested.
“That’s insane.”
“Said the girl with the haunted $20,000 dress in her closet.”
“Maybe Jenna can wear it,” dad offered. Poor guy. I could see it in his face – that white dress was made entirely of dingy green dollar bills in his mind.
“She can have it,” Laney said flippantly.
“She doesn’t want it,” I argued. “First, we’re not the same size. And second, no.”
She glared at me. “What’s wrong with my dress?”
“Technically, it’s dad’s dress.”
“White isn’t his color,” mom disagreed. “He’s an autumn.”
“Why don’t you take it?”
“Me?” mom asked, her face confused. “What am I going to do with a wedding dress?”
“You could get it died black or something. Use it as a ball gown. You have all those charity benefits that are formal dress. Wear it to one of those.”
“Or many of them,” dad muttered.
“I suppose I could,” mom mused. She looked hesitantly at Laney. “You really wouldn’t want to save it? Wear it when you finally do get married?”
“Finally get married?” she exclaimed.
“Jenna,” dad whispered, lifting his plate and looking pointedly at mine.
I nodded quickly as I grabbed my plate and made a dash for the kitchen, close on his heels. I could hear mom trying to talk Laney down behind me.
Dad and I finished our dinner standing at the island in the middle of the kitchen. He turned on the TV that mom hated and we silently watched the ending of some zombie flick playing on one of the major networks. It was ridiculous because of course all of the swearing and violence were cut out and once you’ve done that to an apocalypse film, what’s left? A lot of nonsensical crazy, that’s what.
“Ali, look at me. Really look at me,” the guy said, his voice quivering slightly. “I’m fine. Listen to my voice. I’m still me. I’m not hurt. Please don’t shoot me.”
“But…”
The girl’s hand shook, slipping the barrel of the gun over the guy’s temple.
“Huckleberry,” he said firmly.
She dropped the gun and scurried backwards, slipping over blurred out zombified corpses as she went.
“No, no, no!” she cried. “My God, I could have killed you. Jordan, I’m so sorry!”
“What the hell is happening in this movie?” I asked dad.
He shrugged. “It doesn’t make any sense? Huckleberry? Is it a zombie adaptation of Huck Finn?”
“I don’t know. Does she love him or hate him? Why was she going to kill him?”
“Not a clue.”
“This is stupid. Why are we watching this?”
“I thought you’d want to. Aren’t you into all of this? I thought you read these comics or something.”
“Zombies? No. I’m more of a vigilante justice, superhero type.”
“Batman?”
“Right. Batman, Green Hornet, V, Iron Man, Hawkeye.”
Dad chewed on that for a second, his eyes going out of focus as he thought.
“None of them have powers, do they?”
“Nope,” I said, snagging his empty plate and taking it with mine to the sink. “All regular people who made themselves extraordinary.”
“Why them?”
“Why them what?”
“Why do you prefer the regular guy heroes?”
I swirled the dishes under the hot water, thinking about it for the first time.
“I don’t know. I guess because they’re smarter. They have to be. They don’t have this innate ability to rely on. They kind of have to make their own luck. They have to work harder to be what they want to be. Superman and Thor, they were born that way. Batman and Hawkeye, they made themselves into what they wanted out of sheer force of will.”
“You like an underdog.”
“Who doesn’t?” I turned to face him, feeling anxious but like I needed to get it off my chest. “Hey, dad, I haven’t said it yet because I’m still not comfortable with it, but thank you.”
He frowned. “Thank you for what?”
I glanced nervously at the kitchen door. Laney and mom were still in the dining room talking softly.
“For the help. With the shop. I can’t believe Kellen asked you for me, I’m still a little mad about that, but I’m glad he did because I never would have asked and now that it’s happening, I know it’s what I really want to do.”
“Jenna, I don’t know what you’re talking about. What shop?”
“The tattoo shop. I haven’t said thank you yet, so thank you.”
Dad shook his head. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Suuuuure,” I said, dragging the word out and giving him an exaggerated wink. “Right.”
“No, honestly, I don’t know.”
“Wait, what?”
“We’re not burning it!” mom shouted from the dining room.
Dad groaned as he slipped off his barstool.
“Hide the matches, Jenna,” he called over his shoulder, leaving to go put out fires, both real and metaphorical.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Two Months Later
“Come on, Kellen!”
“Keep moving! On your toes!”
“Wear him down! You got this!”
I stood silently beside Kellen’s coach and another one of his students as they shouted at him in the ring. I didn’t say anything because it wasn’t my job and because it wouldn’t matter. Kellen didn’t hear any of it. I knew that and I think they knew that, but when you were bursting with energy and excitement at these bouts, you didn’t remember it. You were like the guys in the ring. You were all instinct and their instinct on this side of the rope was to yell.
I watc
hed as Kellen moved around the ring gracefully, staying buoyant on the balls of his feet but always holding his stance to make sure he never faltered. He couldn’t risk taking a hit and falling back against the ropes or falling down entirely. He didn’t want to win the fight for the guy.
“Come on,” I breathed, my hands pressed together against my lips. “Throw that punch. Get it over with.”
He was avoiding hitting the guy, that much was obvious. He hadn’t taken a hit yet but neither had his opponent and it wasn’t because they were so evenly matched because they weren’t. Not by a long shot. Kellen had this guy dead to rights, had for years, but he was hesitating. He was holding back and I didn’t think it was because he was worried throwing a right hook would hurt. I think it was because he understood that the second he did, the entire room would know it had hurt. They would all know that Kellen Coulter had a weak spot and that was something he could not stand.
“They’re gonna know. Just do it. Just land it. You still got him.”
The smaller boxer got tired of waiting and lunged at Kellen. I watched in shock as Kel backed up, stepping away from the guy instead of hitting him as he should have. A year ago, the other guy wouldn’t have made such a bold move and if he had, Kellen would have made him pay for it. Now he ran from him.
“No!” his coach shouted, his face turning red with rage and strain as he slapped his hands down on the outside of the ring. “Dammit, no! Get at him!”
It was too late. Kellen took a hit to the face that he wasn’t able to block, then an uppercut to the abdomen. He nearly crumbled under the blow. It was painful to watch.
“Hit! Him!”
He didn’t. He let that other guy back him nearly to the ropes. He finally blocked him but he didn’t retaliate. I didn’t understand how this was better. How people not knowing his hand was still jacked was better than thinking he’d lost his edge. His skill entirely.
He took another hit to the face.
I couldn’t take it. I shoved past his coach until I was at the edge of the ring with my face nearly in the ropes and I shouted at the top of my lungs.
“Fucking fight, Kellen!!!”
His eyes met mine for the briefest moment. His face was coated in sweat, pulling his hair down onto his forehead and plastering it in chunks over his eyes. I saw his nostrils flare. I saw his face go hard. I saw him snap out of it.
He shoved the other guy off him, throwing him off balance and getting the breathing room he needed. He moved quickly around the ring, making the guy chase him and wear himself out. It was to Kellen’s advantage that the guy thought he’d lost his mojo. He ran right into his space again. He ran right into Kellen’s fist.
Kellen finally threw that fateful first punch. The first time he used his injured hand in the ring for real and I felt it with him when the blow landed. It hurt. It was so obvious to the entire world that it hurt. He couldn’t use it again right away, but he didn’t have to. He’d shocked the guy and rung his bell something awful, giving him the momentary opening he needed to use his left hand to further the damage. He went at him hard, making quick work of his sides, stomach and then face. The punches weren’t as strong or powerful as his right hand used to be, but they were thrown with that dangerous quickness Kellen was famous for. He wasn’t his old self, not by far, but he was finding out who he was now. So was the guy taking the blows.
And who he was, was still amazing.
He won the bout. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t by the large margin it would have been last year, but it was still a win. The second the bell was rung we knew it. We didn’t wait for the scores to be tallied and tell us. Kellen immediately headed for his corner, jumping down through the ropes and coming to stand in front of his coach as he berated him in a quiet, vicious voice. He nodded solemnly as he listened to every word. He didn’t argue because he knew.
“He’s got a lot to work on,” the other student told me.
I hadn’t realized he was standing beside me watching Kellen and his coach until he spoke. He was a shorter guy, at least by my giant standards, with short cropped black hair and perfect olive skin. He was probably a year or two older than I was, his body cut like Kellen’s and he had the warmest brown eyes I’d ever seen. I was a little surprised that a guy so boyishly charming was a boxer.
“He knows that.”
The guy chuckled, looking back at his stern faced coach. “If he didn’t before, he does now.”
“Are you fighting today?”
He was dressed for it but I hadn’t seen him warming up at all. His hands weren’t even taped.
“Didn’t you hear? I already won.”
“I didn’t see your fight, sorry.”
“That’s ‘cause I didn’t. I was the only one to sign up in my class. I’m a winner by default.” He put up his hands in mock celebration.
I grinned. “You don’t sound happy about it.”
“I came to play. You get all riled up and excited for this shit and then you stand around all day. Sucks. I’d rather lose a genuine fight than win by doing nothing.”
“I can understand that.”
“Is he your boy?”
I glanced at him, surprised. “Kellen?”
“Yeah. Is he your man? Are you dating him?”
“No, we’re just friends,” I said instinctually. It was a reflex, like Kellen’s moves in boxing. Muscle memory taught from years of repetition.
“How can any guy manage to stay just friends with you?”
“Um,” I stammered, feeling stupid and oddly confused.
I wasn’t about to explain the inner workings of Kellen Coulter and I to a stranger. It wasn’t something I was good at talking about even with Sam. It wasn’t something I was sure I understood entirely myself. It was more of a feeling. A down in your gut certainty you couldn’t begin to question, like gravity and the douchebag content of Axe body spray.
Some things simply were.
“Hey!” Kellen called gruffly. “Back away, David.”
“We’re just talking, man,” David said, raising his hands innocently and taking a step back from me.
“Right.”
“What? She said she’s not your girl.”
“Doesn’t mean she’s looking to get syphilis. Get away.”
I smiled as David backed away slowly with his hands still in the air, looking like an old time bank robber in a silent film. Kellen quickly filled the space in front of me left by his exit.
“Can’t leave you alone for two seconds,” he said, pulling his gloves off and tossing them onto a nearby table full of them.
“It’s the tattoos. You boxer types love them.”
“It’s your eyes,” he argued, his voice low. He took another step closer until he was almost touching me. “They’re trouble.”
“They’re gray. They’re boring.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“Thank you,” I breathed.
His being this close, it was getting to me. I knew he was doing it on purpose.
“So you’re not my girl, huh?” he asked suddenly, his eyes sharp on mine.
“I thought that’s what we agreed on. No labels or expectations. Just us being us.”
“That is us. I’ve always thought of you as mine.”
I blinked, surprised. I took a deep breath and whispered, “Me too.”
He grinned. Yeah, he was doing this on purpose. “You always thought of yourself as mine or the other way around?”
“Both?”
“Good.”
He slung his arm around me and hugged me tightly to his side where it stank of sweat and man and his skin slid slick across mine. It was gross. But did I complain? No. Why would I? I was home.
“Careful,” I cautioned, nodding in the direction of a group of girls who were watching us. Well, they were watching Kellen. “Your groupies will be mad.”
“Screw ‘em.”
“Isn’t that the idea?”
He laughed, squeezing me tighter. “Not anymore. He
y, I gotta take a shower and then I’m taking you to dinner. We’ll celebrate.”
“Where are we going?”
He began slowly backing away. “I’m thinking somewhere fancy.”
“So Denny’s then?”
“You know it. I’ll have to wear a shirt and shoes.”
“You take me to the nicest places.”
“I’m a baller.”
“But what are you going to order when we get there?”
“An omelet.”
“Oh, Kellen,” I said, feigning disappointment.
He threw his arms up high over his head and shouted loudly, “Moon Over My Hammy!”
The entire gym looked at him like he was insane. And he probably was, but it was adorable just the same.
“I’m so proud!” I called after him as he disappeared into the back to hit the showers.
I made a point of waiting near the door, far away from the other fighters but most of all I avoided the other spectators. The other girls. The gym whores were in full force, making the rounds and chatting up the guys there to fight. Some women were there with men to cheer them on, the same way I was there with Kellen, but there were always a few there to see the fighters. To see if they could get close to them the same way you saw women hanging around the stands behind the dugout at a baseball game. Major or Minor league, some women just wanted to be close to the athletes.
I was more annoyed than ever by their presence because Kellen had always been a crowd favorite. When he walked out of the locker room freshly showered, his brown hair slightly spiked and wet, his T-shirt straining across his chest and his heavy gym bag slung effortlessly over one shoulder, they gravitated toward him. I held my place by the door and I waited.
“Great fight, Kellen,” a brunette told him, swooping in, dragging her fingertips over his arm and stepping back coyly.
She was either stupid or full of shit. It’d been a terrible fight. Ugly and ill won.
“Thanks,” he said curtly.
“We’re having some people over tonight,” a girl with caramel hair said. “You should come by. You remember my address, right?”
“Yeah, I’m busy tonight. Thanks though.”
To his credit, Kellen never stopped walking, even as they flocked around him.
