by Ember Leigh
Klay would ask him why he hadn’t quit yet. Ask him how he wasn’t sick of showing up every morning by nine. Then he’d show him some weird sex chat he’d gotten into. It was always the same.
Cobra ground his jaw, staring at the cracked asphalt. Shouts drifted toward him on the breeze. Angry undertones coming from a neighbor. Angry enough to make his stomach wrench.
He pulled out his phone again, swiping to the message thread with Gen.
COBRA: Thanks for covering my ass. You didn’t have to.
He didn’t expect a fast response if she was at the gym. But the dots popped up that showed she was typing.
GEN: I sincerely hope everything is okay.
Her concern bled through the screen, dribbling into his parched being. He didn’t deserve her kindness. But it was hard to tear himself away. Her kindness made him want to open up, and maybe that was worst of all.
COBRA: Can we hang out later?
GEN: Absolutely. What do you want to do?
Cobra leaned back in the driver’s seat, contemplating the slice of blue sky visible between the side of his decrepit building and the mangled palm tree shooting up out of a thicket of weeds and engine junk.
COBRA: Meet me at Clutter’s Park after work. I’ll be waiting for you.
Cobra slammed his door shut and started the car again.
Chapter 18
Gen eased into a parking spot near the bluff at the intersection of Imperial Avenue and Sheldon Street. Cars stretched ahead of and behind her, lining the sides of the road. Clutter’s Park. She’d never heard of this place, and upon seeing it, couldn’t imagine why Cobra might have asked her to come here of all places.
People lingered near a chain link fence, a few sat on park benches, while others played chess at small tables along the sidewalk. The fence overlooked a highway. Gen clutched her purse strap to her shoulder as she stepped between cars, feeling a lot like the butt of a joke she didn’t understand. Maybe Cobra had lied to her. Maybe she’d gotten the address wrong.
And then she spotted him. Bent over, elbows pressed to the tops of his knees, jet black hair tousled and overgrown. His haunted gaze cast out past the chain link fence. His broad shoulders stretching the back of his T-shirt tight made her breath evaporate. For a moment, she couldn’t move. Didn’t want to break his reverie, wherever he was inside his head.
She’d seen a new side of Cobra earlier that day. And even though it threatened to break, explosive and jagged, in her face, she wanted to see more of it.
Gen straightened the black Holt polo tucked into her black shorts. She’d come straight from work, eager to meet him as soon as humanly possible. Cobra glanced her way as she approached, his hardened expression melting into something softer.
“Hey, there.” She nudged his ankle with the toe of her flat.
“’Sup, Red?” He jerked his chin to the empty spot on the bench next to him, his dark gaze drinking her in. She plopped down, tucking her purse between them.
“So this is Clutter’s Park, huh?” She looked around, still trying to figure out what the main attraction was. “There isn’t even grass here.”
Cobra nodded, his gaze back on something far away. “I know. Look.” He pointed across the highway below. In the distance, airplanes were taxiing. Enormous, bloated jets rumbling down the strips of concrete. A moment later, one lifted into the air. She gasped.
“Where is it going?”
A grin glimmered on Cobra’s lips then disappeared. “Who knows? Probably to China. That’s LAX. The airport. Clutter’s Park is the best place to watch all the planes taking off and landing.”
Gen sat in rapt silence for a few moments, watching as other jets screeched to a landing or revved up to make their transition into the sky. It was dizzying. Fascinating. Awe-inspiring. She tipped her head back. Searching the clouds as she sent up her prayer. Bethany, do you see this? There’s a whole world out there that I’m going to explore. In your honor.
Because, with any luck, she’d be on one of those planes in a few months’ time. Just as she thought to mention her travel idea to Cobra, he asked, “Have you ever been on a plane?”
“No.” Her voice came out weak, barely there. “My family doesn’t believe in air travel. Or much of any travel. We only went around the county to spread the good word. Have you?”
Cobra shook his head. “Never.”
“Your parents wouldn’t let you either?”
His face tightened. “Nowhere to go. Nobody to go with. No money to take me there.”
His words fell heavily between them. The same throbbing energy from that afternoon in the lounge returned—she could feel something painful struggling to unearth itself. She grabbed for Cobra’s hand, cupped it with both of hers as if studying it.
“Why did you leave work today?”
Cobra stiffened, but he didn’t move his hand. She looked up at him. Something unknown swirled in his eyes, but it wasn’t all pain. Something desperate to connect shone through, too.
“I got a call,” Cobra said, slowly moving his gaze back out to the planes. “From someone who shouldn’t be calling me.”
Questions popped up inside her like weeds in spring. She nibbled at her lower lip. “Who was it?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
His words were final. The slamming shut of a door to that area she could only glimpse for the briefest of seconds. “Okay. So why did you choose to come here, of all places?”
Cobra took his hand from hers, smoothing his palm over his chest. Then his hand dove beneath the collar of his shirt, fishing out a chain with a simple ring dangling from it.
“This.” He showed her the silver ring. She leaned close to inspect it. There was nothing spectacular about it. “This was my stepdad’s ring. Not his wedding ring. Just one of the rings he used to wear. We would always come here and watch the planes.” Cobra sniffed, stuffing the ring back inside his shirt.
Silence sizzled between them as her gaze darted from his T-shirt back to the planes. It was getting hard to contain her curiosity. “What happened to your stepdad?”
Cobra leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees like how she’d found him. “Nothing good, that’s for sure.”
She blinked. “What does that mean?”
He shook his head. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
She crossed her legs under her on the bench, watching as an Air Canada jet began its climb toward the clouds. “Well, you kinda brought it up. Did he pass away?”
“Genevieve.” The acid note in his tone surprised her almost as much as the fact that he’d used her full name. Like getting scolded by a parent. He sent her a hard glare. “What part didn’t you understand? It’s not like you’re sharing everything about your own damn family. I don’t wanna fucking talk about it.”
“Well, I will share,” she said, “if you want to hear it.”
Cobra’s jaw flexed but he didn’t say anything.
“I really want to know more about you, Cobra.” She swallowed. “I want to know everything about you. You’re really interesting. Like, honestly, the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”
He scoffed. “You haven’t met many people. At all.”
His words hurt a little, but she didn’t let it stop her. She was getting close to something important. She could practically taste it. “Yeah, but I don’t need to meet everyone in the entire world to know when I’m interested about someone.”
Cobra shook his head.
“I’m not asking these questions to be mean. It’s how I show I care.” She reached for his hand again, and he let her take it. But he didn’t loosen or relax. He leaned back against the bench, tension thrumming under his skin.
“Okay. So tell me the worst thing about your parents.”
Cobra was challenging her. It was laced in his tone. Gen ran her thumb over his knuckles, studying the scars there. She swallowed a knot in her throat, knowing exactly what to say. One of the instigators for breaking free. Running to L
A. Leaving everything—everyone—behind. “They think I killed my cousin.”
Cobra didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink. “Did you?”
“Yeah.” Gen gnawed at the inside of her lip. She’d been driving the car. The accident had almost taken her life too. It wasn’t her fault though. “I mean, I technically did. I was the one behind the wheel in the crash that got her killed.” The sticky, briny wave of guilt crashed up and over her again, as it always did. She set her jaw, trying to avoid tears. Trying to avoid the condemning tone of her father’s voice in her memories, telling her that her sins had been the cause.
Cobra looked down at her, something soft creasing the pain in his features. “You didn’t kill her.”
“My parents believe I did.” Gen sniffed, wiping away a tear that had spilled. “Or rather, they think my sinful, evil nature got her killed. The devil doing his work through me. And even one person thinking something like that is your fault is…enough. Right?”
“Were you drunk?” Cobra smirked. “Wait, I think I already know the answer to that question.”
“You do know the answer. I wasn’t drunk. I was taking a curve. I don’t even know how it happened. It was late at night. The oncoming car was just suddenly in front of me.”
“They weren’t drunk?”
“They were. But they came out fine. They had a bigger car, anyway. My cousin died on impact.” Gen swallowed another knot of emotion. Her parents had insisted she pray hourly for forgiveness—from God, from Bethany’s parents, from the community at large. And she had. She prayed by the minute, even. But repenting didn’t stop her community from banning women from getting behind the wheel. Repenting didn’t bring Bethany back. Repenting didn’t make anybody happier. Least of all Gen.
“So you made the list because of her,” Cobra said.
“Partly for Bethany. Even though she would have never done anything on it.” Gen laughed a little. “It’s in her honor.”
A few moments of silence drifted by. Cobra placed his other hand over top hers. “You don’t have an evil bone in your body, Red.”
“Tell that to my family,” she muttered.
“They don’t know what evil is.”
“Oh yeah?” She scoffed. “They think they do. And it’s me.”
“I could give them a few lessons,” Cobra said.
She frowned. “You’re not evil either.”
“Well, my mom is. And I came from her.”
The air between them became a vacuum suddenly, bottoming out so that all that remained was the clunky fragments of meaning. Gen squeezed his hand. She had all the information she needed…for now.
Cobra stared determinedly at the planes for a while. Then he turned to squint at her. “Why’d you cover my ass?”
“Because I didn’t want you to get in trouble for leaving work.” She traced small patterns over the top of his hand. He stared at her fingers with a look halfway between angry and flattered.
“You don’t have to worry about me. If I get fired, I get fired.” He took his hand away again, resting his elbows on his knees. “It won’t be the first time, and definitely not the last.”
“But why get fired for something silly like that?”
He sent her a look that made her feel dumb. Like she knew nothing about this world. And really, she didn’t. “Gen, you don’t get it. I’m not gonna last at this job.”
“But you’re doing so well. Why wouldn’t you last?”
He smirked. “It’s not what I do. You don’t get it.”
“You’re talented. You’re advancing. You’re training me.” She furrowed a brow, searching out his gaze. “So, you’re just gonna disappear one day and leave me in the lurch? You’re my trainer. You can’t do that.”
Doubt shimmered on his face for a moment, but then his hard mask slid back into place. “Travis would get you someone else. It wouldn’t be a big deal.”
“I don’t understand why you’d walk away from a job that you enjoy,” Gen muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. There was something sulky and black in his mood that she didn’t like. “You say you’ve been poor your whole life, and making ends meet was hard. Then you’d get yourself fired from a place that helps lift you up.”
“It doesn’t matter how much money I make,” he countered. “I’ll always be poor. You can’t escape it by adding a few zeros to your paycheck.”
“That’s ridiculous.” She shook her head. His opposition to success infuriated her. “If I thought like you, I’d have never left my community. I’d still be in central California slinging water from a well and praying for my one true God-given spouse to grant me the sanctity of children.”
Cobra glanced at her but didn’t say anything. She could tell he was listening, though.
“Your past doesn’t dictate your future,” she went on, passion thrumming through her. This was what she’d counseled herself with over the past year. The only way she’d been able to hedge the judgment and disappointment and snark radiating from her community. “Sure, it influences it. But you’re in control. I’m in control.” She looked around, pointed at a Chinese jet lifting into the sky. “We could be on that plane, you know. We could go buy a ticket tomorrow and leave.”
“Maybe you could,” he muttered.
“No, you could too. And that’s what you don’t get. You don’t have to be the same person you’ve been for the last twenty-some years. You can be whoever you want to be.” She leaned back against the bench, feeling the wind go out of her sails. She couldn’t convince him to take control of his life. To not get fired even though it was as habitual for him as waking up.
Cobra swiped his thumb over his knuckles a few times, then looked back at her. A sparkle returned to his eye. “All right, Red. So I could get on a plane to China with you tomorrow. I’d do it, too. Only because I’m afraid of what you might do if I didn’t.”
She laughed in spite of herself and slapped his shoulder. “Oh, stop.”
“You chewed me out,” he said, a grin overtaking his lips. He leaned back, slinging his arm over the back of the bench.
“You needed to hear it,” she said, trying not to soften under his magnetic heat. She needed to stay firm. To make her point. So that he got it.
“Heard. Noted.” He cinched his arm around her shoulders, yanking her closer. “Now I need to hear you say, ‘fuck it,’ and then I think the lesson will stick.”
She giggled into his shoulder. Burying her mouth in his T-shirt, she said, “Fine. Fuck it.”
Cobra nodded, squinting toward the runways. “A little muffled, but I’ll accept it.”
Chapter 19
A week blurred past on a conveyor belt of work, dinner dates with Gen, and texts to say good night. He itched for her like that one time he’d gotten poison oak on his only trip to the woods with Carla and his stepdad.
Nothing sated him. Except he had an idea of what might get him close.
“What are you doing tonight?” Cobra nudged Gen with his shoulder as he fell into step beside her. She was on her way back to the offices, clutching some file folders to her chest. She looked so cute when she worked, her polo shirt perfectly pressed, her long ponytail without a hair askew. It made him never want to leave this place, so he’d never miss a chance to see Gen.
“Waiting for you to tell me what we’re doing,” she said, nudging him back.
He smirked. They slowed to a stop outside of her office door. She reached for the doorknob and looked up at him.
“Your place?” He pushed at her hip with his hand. He was eager to get out of work for the weekend, but he could have crawled up the walls with how badly he wanted to cross the line with Gen. It was time—every part of him felt it.
“Okay. Bring your pencils.” She winked, then slipped into the office. He smiled dopily at the door for a few moments before snapping back to reality.
It was three o’clock. He still had two whole hours to get through before he even had a chance at Gen.
Cobra returned to the weigh
t room. The crowd was light this afternoon, unusual for Friday at Holt Body Fitness. At just over three months here, he already had a hang of the rhythms. Could sniff out the bad seeds like Travis had trained him; could tell when to intervene when a male weight lifter got too close to the female weight lifters.
The routine was…nice. Cobra smiled as he pushed into the weight room, assessing the room with grateful eyes. It was more than nice, actually. It was a relief.
Cobra got to work wiping down equipment and straightening up before launching into his own regimen. In his short time under Travis’s wing, his own physique had drastically improved. His abs now popped, when before they were dull indents in a mostly shapeless torso. His biceps raged. Thighs made of rock. All due to daily practice and a slightly better diet. Looking better made him feel better.
Amazing what a week could do for one’s outlook. Cobra grunted through his pull-ups, mind wandering to Gen in the space between reps. He would have walked out and never looked back last Thursday, if not for her. And now here he was, slinging pull-ups like he owned the place.
And what if he could own a place like this someday?
He dropped to the floor with a huff. Thoughts like that were crazy. Or were they? He rested his hands on his hips, considering the pull-up bar.
Six months ago, he wouldn’t have let himself consider something so outrageous. Entrepreneurship, business ownership, any level of success? Not possible for him.
But now he could at least consider it.
Gen beat him to clocking out by five minutes. He smirked at her through the glass walls of the workout room as she sauntered toward the front door. A laugh burst out of him as she ran into Travis head-on. Her cheeks flamed as she apologized to him. He could perfectly imagine what she was saying, and how she was saying it. Travis just laughed and strutted away.
The ride to Gen’s apartment took forever. Traffic was slower than normal, and he spent enough time with his arm dangling out the window that he got a suntan up to his elbow. When he made it to her apartment, a thought struck him as he raced up the stairway as usual: he was getting used to this place. Rounding the third flight of steps, the distant smell of disinfectant in the stairwell, the way the last door kind of stuck in his grip.
