Low Sided

by A. J. Downey

  “What are you even doing up, anyway?” I asked, changing the subject. “You should be resting.”

  “I couldn’t take lying down anymore.” He chuckled and winced.

  I rubbed the back of my neck and nodded tiredly, that made sense.

  “Anyway, you need anything else?” Glassjaw asked, peeling off some bills and handing them to Mace.

  “No?” I asked a little dazed and still waking up.

  Both men chuckled and I felt myself turn red. Of course, he wasn’t asking you…

  I lurched into the bathroom and shut the door, bracing myself on the edge of the sink and sighing at my reflection.

  I looked wrecked. Like, damn.

  I ran water in the sink and waited for it to both clear and get warm before scrubbing my face. I needed a shower; some fresh clothes, but I didn’t want or need as much of an audience as I had out there for that. I mean, Mace I was comfortable with… Glassjaw could suck it. I was still mistrustful after he tried to strong arm me. First impressions, they were a lasting one.

  I used the bathroom, washed my hands again, brushed my teeth, and without anything left to do decided I had better quit stalling and get out there. When I emerged from the bathroom, it was to silence. I peeked around the corner into the living room to find Mace on my couch, alone, a new phone in his hands.

  “You got a Wi-Fi password, and what’s your network?” he asked.

  “I can’t afford groceries, and you expect me to have Wi-Fi?” I laughed and he grinned.

  “Shit,” he muttered, and I chuckled some more, coming into the living room.

  “Oh, wow.”

  There was a small television hooked up to a video game console on the floor across from the couch. I hadn’t been at an angle to notice it before.

  “I rob the free Wi-Fi from the ice cream shop downstairs. They don’t mind,” I told him. “Gets sketchy during business hours with everyone connecting to it, but in the evening after hours, it’s fine.”

  “Excelsior exclamation point?” he asked.

  “Yeah, that’s the network.”

  “Password?” he asked.

  “Here.”

  He handed me the controller and I entered the password and handed it back.

  “Cool, thanks,” he said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Here.” He handed me his phone. I blinked at the screen.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Groceries. Order whatever you want or need, stock up, have it delivered.”

  “Oh, it’s alright. I can—”

  “Raven.” He stopped me with his even tone that brooked no argument. I blinked and held very still, not sure what to make of all of this. “Order whatever you need,” he said gently when I said nothing at all.

  “Got anything you want in particular?” I asked softly.

  “I’m starving, so whatever is quick.”

  “I, uh… it says it takes up to two hours for delivery. I can run downstairs and up the block to the noodle place. They’re cheap and easy.”

  He held up the cash that Glassjaw had handed him.

  “Take it,” he ordered and again, it brooked no argument.

  I handed back his phone and didn’t take it. Not yet anyway.

  “Let me grab a two-minute shower and get dressed. I’ll run to the noodle shop, come back here and order groceries while we eat.”

  “Efficient. I like it.”

  I smiled.

  “You don’t have to do all of this, you know,” I said, turning back from the doorway to my bedroom.

  “You saved my life,” he said plaintively. “I owe you a fuck of a lot more than just some food.”

  “I’m uneasy taking anything from—”

  “Me? The club?” he asked.

  I swallowed hard. “The latter. You do know you all have a reputation.”

  “Yeah, and it’s well earned,” he agreed matter-of-factly. “But you’re not on the receiving end of the bad. You made yourself a friend of the club for what you did. The club takes care of its friends.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means get your shower, sweetheart. It means, I buy you dinner and groceries for the week and we sit down and either play a game or watch some movies until you have to go to work tonight.”

  “I don’t work tonight. It’s my night off.”

  “Even better.” He smiled, and pain edged his expression.

  “You need something?” I asked, and he smiled a little bigger.

  “Food,” he said.

  I startled a bit.

  “Oh! Right. Sorry.”

  “No need to apologize,” he said to my retreating back as I gathered clean clothes and my towel and went into the bathroom once more.

  I tried to keep my shower brief but the hot water against my back was so sweet, it was hard to resist its siren’s call. A cloud of steam preceded me out of the bathroom and I sighed, toweling my hair and padding barefoot back into the living room. Mace paused whatever he was playing and looked up.

  “Feel better?” he asked.

  “Yeah, sorry I took so long.”

  “You don’t have to apologize for that.”

  “Shouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes,” I said. “Noodle shop is fast.” I sat down on the floor to put my socks on, and he smirked.

  “I’m a big boy who’s used to taking care of myself,” he said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked with a slight laugh.

  “Means that when you went in to shower,” he held up his phone, “I ordered up the food to be delivered. I just went with the generic stuff.”

  “Generic?” I asked.

  “Yeah, the shit you actually recognize on the menu – beef round eye number one or whatever. Times two.”

  “Oh!” He’d ordered for me too. “You guessed right,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he replied as there was a knock at my door.

  I got up and went over, took the food from the driver as Mace called out, “Thanks, man!” and I shut and locked everything up.

  “I’m not used to all of this,” I said with a nervous laugh as I went past him. He caught my hand. I looked down at him and he up at me and there was something in his brown gaze. Something heavy.

  “You did a good thing,” he said, and he swallowed hard. Emotion skated behind his gaze and my discomfort eased in the face of it. “You’re still doing it by letting me recover here for a couple days. Let me thank you with a meal or two, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I said a little startled when he shook my hand when I didn’t respond right away. His hand was gentle, and warm where it wrapped around mine lightly and it sent a current of… of something through me. Something pleasant. Which was unexpected.

  He nodded and let me go. I turned the corner into my little kitchen to fix our soup, my mind a million miles away and racing.

  When I returned to the living room, the console was on the menu screen and Mace was looking uncomfortable.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “I will be, just need some food in me and maybe some of the good Tylenol.”

  “You sure you don’t need something a little more substantial than Tylenol?” I asked and he took his bowl from me.

  “Maybe later when I go to bed. That shit knocks me out and I would rather use it sparingly.”

  “Makes sense,” I said and sat down on the floor, putting my back against the old, worn couch.

  “What kind of movies you like?” he asked me, and I lifted a shoulder in a shrug.

  “Never really watched a whole lot,” I said. “Never really been my thing.”

  “That’s not helpful,” he said with a chuckle and I smiled.

  “I don’t know, thrillers? Mysteries? Drama?”

  “You asking me or you telling me?” he asked with a laugh that ended on a groan.

  “Shit, sorry.”

  “Stop apologizing.” He rolled his eyes. “You don’t have anyt
hing to be sorry for.”

  I blushed and turned toward the television that looked so out of place in my barren living room and said, “Habit, I guess.”

  He grunted and spooled over to a streaming service, opening it up. He scrolled through and we went back and forth, looking through different selections until we landed on something that looked tolerable to the both of us.

  I would be lying if I said it wasn’t nice, watching something over noodle soup in the comfort of my own living room.

  When I finished my bowl and set it aside, his phone appeared over my shoulder with the grocery app open.

  I chuckled and took it, perusing selections, asking what he might like for dinner later. We talked food, and I made some picks and handed his phone back to him. He handed it back to me at least twice telling me to get more than that.

  “You got a microwave?” he asked when I handed it back for what I hoped was the last time.

  “Yeah, why?” I asked.

  “Popcorn,” he said, and I smiled.

  “Okay.”

  He made a few additions and put the order through, and I tried not to think about the cost. I’d been trying to ride the line between being conservative with his money and still buying enough that he would be satisfied. I picked up some staples, sure, but had gone a little buck wild in the produce section with fresh fruits and vegetables.

  I was relieved he seemed satisfied this last time with what I’d picked. I didn’t want to be insulting, but I didn’t want to spend his money, either!

  It was just another example of how I couldn’t win for losing, I guess.

  “Hey.” I looked up from my vacant staring at the television and back over my shoulder. “You good?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I just… I don’t feel like I really did anything that anyone else wouldn’t do and I don’t like taking your money,” I said honestly.

  “Even after that ass whoopin’ of the ages, you still give humanity way more credit than it deserves,” he said with a charmed sort of smile.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “I’d like to believe people are basically good,” I muttered with a lift of my shoulders and I would… but an uneasy feeling almost like heartburn rose in the center of my chest because I had been through it, and I knew the truth… people weren’t basically good anymore. Far from it. Which is why I almost felt like I had to be, to balance some of the scales.

  Do no harm, but take no shit… It had been my mantra when I first started out but somehow, somewhere along the way, I’d lost sight of that last bit.

  I sighed unhappily and got up to take the dishes into the kitchen and to generally clean up. I heard Mace grunt and the springs of my worn couch groan in relief as he heaved himself to his feet.

  “You okay?” I called out.

  “Ready to lie down, maybe take a nap,” he said, and I nodded without looking, washing up bowls and utensils at my sink.

  “I don’t suppose I could get you to maybe lie down with me,” he said and I jumped slightly and turned. He was leaning heavily in the doorway to my kitchen, and he looked… vulnerable. Something in his eyes that wasn’t something I could speak on. I mean, it was one of those things that was there, that you knew it when you saw it. That called to your heart and my heart? It answered with an almost longing of its own.

  I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d gotten.

  “You’re sure?” I asked softly, hesitating, a moment of my own vulnerability answering his. I was unsure. I wasn’t anything to be wanted. I could put on a veneer of awesomeness when I worked, but here in my own apartment, with him standing there battered and bruised looking at me looking at him, asking for…

  I didn’t really know what he was asking for, to be honest. It definitely wasn’t sex. Not in his condition.

  “If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t be asking,” he said with a crooked smile.

  I nodded, and scraped my bottom lip between my teeth, dried my hands on the dish towel, and for no reason at all other than my own nervousness, made sure the drain board was over the lip of the sink, letting the dishes air dry in the little rack.

  Mace held out a hand to me and I took it. He gently led me back to bed and I spotted him as he eased himself down onto the mattress on the floor.

  “I wish you had a frame for this,” he said with a slight chuckle.

  I smiled and told him honestly, “Me too. You okay?”

  “I’m good, just everything hurts.” He laid down on his side with a weary sigh and I went around and laid down too, facing him, several inches of mattress between us as we faced each other.

  “Somehow I always pictured myself rescuing some damsel in distress like some white knight,” he said and closed his eyes, pain marring his face.

  “Yeah?” I asked softly.

  “Yeah, never thought I’d be picked up by some warrior queen.”

  I snorted. “I’m no warrior and I’m certainly no queen,” I murmured.

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” he said and fixed me with a look I couldn’t quite identify.

  I laughed a bit nervously, blushing a bit furiously, unused to and unsure what to do with compliments the likes he was paying me. I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel good – it did. I just didn’t know how to take a good compliment and always felt so undeserving of them.

  He reached out and touched the side of my face, stroking his thumb over the skin of my cheek. He leaned forward and I froze as he pressed his lips lightly to my forehead.

  I sucked in a sharp breath and positively melted from that warm press of his soft lips against my skin. Which was so confusing!

  “Thanks for getting involved,” he murmured, and his breath was warm and sent tingles along my scalp and down my back.

  God, that felt so nice.

  He pushed some of my hair behind my ear and looked me over, while I looked back. We lay like that silent, just taking each other in until a loud knock at my door made us both jump and him wince.

  “Oh! Oh, I’m sorry!”

  “It’s fine. Groceries,” he grunted, and I reluctantly pushed myself to my feet.

  “Rest,” I told him and went to the door to accept the delivery.

  There was a lot more than what I thought I ordered, and it had gotten here super fast! I had no idea what I was going to do with all this food, but I had better figure it out.

  5

  Mace…

  I listened to her move, almost whisper quiet, putting things away. She was different here in her home as opposed to how she’d been in the bar. Quiet, reserved, almost tired. It wasn’t a physical tired. It was almost a weariness of the soul. I could relate entirely too well. Mine stemmed from loneliness, hers was something different. How, I just couldn’t put my finger on yet.

  It wasn’t a mystery I was in any kind of hurry to unravel. I had time. Nothing but time, really. Prison had done one thing for me; it had instilled an almost superhero-like level of patience. An appreciation that anything and everything could and would come in due time.

  I had no desire to go back into the system, and I admit to having similar feelings of frustration as the first time I’d ever been caged or locked up. Except instead of concrete and metal bars, the prison I was in at the moment was a prison of my own body. One of pain, and new limitations imposed by injury.

  It rankled me and left me feeling restless with nowhere for that restless energy to go. Add to it, I just couldn’t fucking get comfortable, no matter how hard I tried. My mood was swiftly starting to deteriorate.

  “Here.” I startled and looked back over my shoulder where Raven kneeled behind me. She handed me some pain pills and held onto a glass of water.

  “Thanks,” I grated, a bit ashamed to admit I needed the drugs.

  “You shouldn’t wait so long between doses,” she chided gently, and I sighed after swallowing the pills down.

  “Addiction runs in the family,” I told her. “I’d rather not go there.”

  “Ah.” She made a sound of understanding, but
it sounded like that understanding ran deep, just from that one syllable alone.

  “You got an addict or three in your family tree?” I asked, and she smiled and stuttered a bit of a laugh at my bad poetry.

  “Something like that,” she confessed.

  “Then you know,” I said and grunted turning to settle back down.

  “I know,” she said quietly and rose as noiselessly as she’d arrived and departed the room. She was in a nice pair of athletic leggings and an oversize tee with the neck cut out, so it hung artfully off one shoulder, the cotton midriffed so she was modest, all the important bits covered, but damn.

  She was lithe, graceful on her feet, and the long shining fall of her light bronze hair begged to have my hands in it. I wanted to revel in her, bring her silky hair to my nose and breathe her in deep. Her scent was something else, too. Rich, deeply herbal, and natural. She was the goddess Persephone, all rich earth and green growing things, and I wanted to know her – but I didn’t know how.

  Shit, she didn’t owe me anything, and me? I owed her everything. Everything… She’d saved my ass from being a permanent cripple, or worse – dead. I was well aware of that fact with how deeply everything ached, the bruises feeling like they were bone-fuckin’ deep.

  I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to, really. Not while she was awake. Instead, I lay with my eyes closed and just listened. Listened to her put things away and listened as she tried to puzzle out where to put some things in her tiny-ass kitchen. I smiled to myself. I’d loaded her up on the non-perishable shit. She’d picked a lot of health food stuff – lentils, quinoa, and oatmeal.

  She baked her own bread, at least I thought so. She’d ordered a couple different types of flour and yeast. I wasn’t sure what the difference was between the dry stuff and the nutritional stuff, but she’d gotten both.

  She went fairly liberal on the fruits and veg, and I didn’t up her quantities too much with it just being her here. I wouldn’t be here any longer than I needed to be, so there wasn’t much sense going overboard to feed two for too long.

  “Mace?”

  I jolted lightly; I’d started to drift without meaning to.

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “Your friend is here, with clean clothes,” she murmured, and I looked up.