Wrecked (12 page)

“I don’t
really get close with them, though.”

I blinked.
“What? Who?”

“The girls
who watch me fight. I don’t really get close to them.”

Why would
he need to? I wanted to say there was no point since he could sleep with
whichever girl—or girls, apparently—he wanted, but I managed to bite my tongue.
Instead, I kept it simple. “Yeah, I noticed you like to keep on the down-low.
But why not get close to them?”

“I don’t
know, it all feels like bullshit. Like they just want to sleep with me so they
can say they’ve slept with a cage fighter. I don’t know, girls are
complicated.”

“I have to
admit, sleeping with a cage fighter is not one of my fantasies.”

He
chuckled. “Yeah, you seem different.”

My face
heated. I put my head down and the hood on my sweatshirt up as if I was cold,
hoping he wouldn’t notice. He’d mentioned before that he thought I was
different and a weirdo but I didn’t know what he meant exactly. “What do you
mean?”

“I don’t
know, you just seem different.”

“Like I’m
not complicated?”

He
scoffed. “I didn’t say that. If anything, you seem even more complicated!” He
chuckled lightly. “Maybe that’s one reason why I find you so interesting.”

“I guess
I’ll take that,” I replied, musing his response.

Finally,
we were at the front of the line. I ordered a banana split and Hunter got a
milkshake.

“Together
or separate?” the cashier asked, smiling at Hunter. She wore her hair back and
had horn rimmed glasses.

“Together,”
Hunter said before I could speak.

I wanted
to argue with him, but I didn’t want to make a scene and hold everyone else up,
so I just glared. He seemed oblivious as he gave the cashier a twenty-dollar
bill and got his change back. We spotted a couple leave their table in the back
and we dashed to take it before anyone else could.

“You
shouldn’t have done that,” I said once we’d sat down.

“Done
what?”

“Paid for
the two of us like we’re a couple. I told you, we’re just friends.”

“What?
Friends can’t buy each other ice cream? I just wanted to do you a little favor
after you came to the hockey game with me on such short notice.”

I thought
of it more as him doing a favor to me by inviting me, but whatever. “Fine. I’m
getting it next time, though. I know you’re purposely trying to build up my
debt to you.”

He
chuckled. “You’re reading ulterior motives into my chivalry. I like that
though. You’re being honorable and you’re also trying to keep me honest.” He
sipped on his milkshake. “It’s cute.”

My cheeks
flustered from the compliment. I opened my mouth to protest but he spoke first.
“I do love this place though.”

Calming
down, I took a bite of my banana split and my brain took a brief trip into
flavorland. It was every bit as good as I remembered. “Yeah, Clyde’s is
definitely one of the highlights of this town.”

“So,” he
said. “I feel like you know all kinds of stuff about me, but I don’t know that
much about you.”

I
shrugged. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, you
know I like training and fighting. What do you like to do when you’re not
learning about new sports?”

“I don’t
know. Watching trashy shows on TV, hanging out with my suitemate Daniela . . .
I guess the latest thing I enjoy doing is drawing.”

“Drawing?”

“Yeah, I’m
in a class for it right now. It’s my favorite by a longshot.”

“That’s
cool. If I recall, you do have an active imagination—cats and all.” He grinned.

“Dude, I
totally saw that cat! I swear I wasn’t making that up.”

“
Sure
,”
he said, giving me a wink and taking another sip of his milkshake.

“You’re
really giving me a hard time about that aren’t you?”

“If I was
really giving you a hard time, you’d know it,” he teased.

“
Sure
,”
I said with a smile, mimicking his sarcastic remark. I couldn’t help but admire
Hunter’s ability to turn an objection into a flirtatious suggestion. I took
another bite of my delicious banana split, half-wondering if I could keep my
guard up around him the longer I spent with him.

He smiled,
apparently pleased by my comeback. “So what do you like to draw?”

My mind
flew to the drawing of the hammer I had been doing the previous week in
Muller’s class. “Lots of stuff. I don’t know.”

“The only
art I know anything about is tattoos. Do you draw any designs like that?”

My brows
shot up as I scrambled to decide whether I should tell him about the tattoo of
his
I had been sketching out last week. I kind of wanted him to roll up his sleeve
so I could see how close I had come. “I think I’ve tried a few designs like
that before.”

“Do you
have any, by the way?” he asked.

I shook my
head. “Nope. Virgin skin over here.”

He cocked
an eyebrow and my face grew hot. “That’s not what I meant,” I said shrilly. I
reached over the table to smack him on the arm.

He caught
my hand before it could find its target. I gasped at both his quick reflexes
and the warmth of his touch.

He
squeezed my fist gently. “I have a lot of practice at that, ya know. MMA
fighter and all.”

I tried to
pull my hand back but he held on.

“How are
your hands, still cold?” he asked, bringing his other hand around mine and
bringing them to rest on the table.

My chest
tightened and I felt my face getting even warmer. “I don’t know,” I said. “Can
I have my hand back please?”

“It’s
feels like ice. Don’t you want to warm it up, just for a minute?”

I looked
down and steadied myself. “No, I think I’ll be okay.”

He let my
hand go and shrugged, leaning back. “Alright, just trying to help a friend
out.”

“It was
appreciated,” I said quickly then dug into my ice cream.

“So we
were talking about your drawing,” he said after a minute. “If you don’t do tattoos,
what kind of artist do you want to be?”

I looked
up from my banana split, glad to have some time to think. What
did
I
want to be? I didn’t really know. The furthest ahead I would allow myself to
think was the end of the semester. Getting to the end of the semester intact
would be an accomplishment.

“I don’t
know,” I said. “Still figuring that out. I’m really just focused on the present
right now, to be honest.” I had another bite. “What about you? What do you want
to do? Did you always dream of being a cage fighter?”

He scoffed
and looked down, then over my shoulder, eyes unfocused. I looked back but saw
nothing that could have caught his attention, so I turned my gaze back to him.
“Earth to Hunter,” I said, waving my hand in his face.

As if
coming out of a trance, he blinked and shook his head. “I’m focused on the
present too. Just this minute, I think it’s pretty great, actually.” He smiled
warmly.

Hunter and
I finished our desserts then we got some root beer floats as an after-dessert
dessert. I had a good time hanging out with Hunter. We laughed and teased one
another a lot. It wasn’t until I got back to my dorm at two in the morning,
drunk on root beer floats that I realized I hadn’t thought about my past the
entire night. That damn immovable stone hadn’t been anywhere in sight. For a
few hours, I’d felt like a normal college girl hanging out with her guy friend
on a Friday night.

Being
friends with Hunter certainly had its perks, but I knew I needed to be careful
that we stayed just friends. He’d teased me about being jealous of other girls
and I’d emphatically told him I wasn’t jealous. But when I thought about it
further, I realized I might’ve been lying.

THE FLYMAN

I’d gotten in trouble. I was
eight years old and it was Christmas morning. Dad had just started at Anderson
& Partners PLC, though I didn’t know its name at the time. We weren’t
wealthy by any means, but I was a kid and I didn’t care. All I knew was that I
was loved. Mom and Dad got along great those days. We were happy. We were a
family.

I opened
Mom’s present first. It was a baby blue dress with sequins on it and it was the
most beautiful dress I had ever seen. She had to help me put it on and
afterwards I gave her a big hug and danced around the living room pretending
that I was Cinderella. Then I opened Dad’s gift.

If I
thought Mom’s present was amazing, Dad’s was better. It was a giant box of art
supplies. Maybe it was too much, but I didn’t think it at the time. There were
over a hundred crayons, a set of colored pencils, a packet of pastels, acrylic
paints in small containers, and even watercolors. I was so excited that I
forgot to even thank Dad for the present.

“Lorrie,
you have to be careful not to get any of those paints on your dress or the
carpet okay?” Mom said.

I nodded,
only half listening to her. Dad handed me a sheet of paper and I set to work
right away with the crayons. I drew us as a family. Mom, Dad, and me in my
little blue dress.

The next
morning, I thought it would be a good idea to redecorate the walls. I mean,
they were so bland and white, I figured that my art would only improve them.

Mom was
furious and Dad supervised me as I scrubbed the pastels and paint off the wall.
For some reason though, they never took that art set away from me. But I was a
good daughter, I learned my lesson and never painted on the walls again.

It’d been a few days since
the hockey game, and Hunter and I had maintained regular contact via frequent
text messages. It was basically a continuation of the back and forth teasing
and joking we did in person. I was glad for the banter, but it was sometimes
distracting while trying to concentrate during class.

It was the
third Thursday since the semester started, and I sat at a table in the back
corner of the Wheatley Library cafe aptly called Husk Cafe. There were a
handful of people sitting around, reading the campus paper, or fooling around
on their laptops. It was still too early for people to be studying for midterms
and if they really wanted to study, they’d be up in the stacks anyway. The cafe
was for socializing and having coffee.

The girl I
was sketching kept playing with her hair and I had to redo my sketch a few
times. My pad was smudged with charcoal and eraser shavings. After she changed
her position for the hundredth time, I decided to move on to a more cooperative
subject.

Just as I
was looking around the cafe, I spotted a familiar face waiting in line. Gary
turned and waved at me. I gave him a small wave back. He looked younger in the
afternoon light of the cafe but still looked just as ripped in a maroon v-neck
sweater and jeans. After getting his drink, he headed over to my spot. I put my
sketchpad and materials back into my bag.

“Hey
Lorrie, good to see you!”

“Hi Gary.”

“Whatcha
up to?”

I shrugged
and pointed to the coffee in front of me. “Not much, just hanging out.”

“Mind if I
join you? I gotta run to a class in a few minutes, but I still got some time.”

“Sure, of
course.”

“How’s
life?”

I
shrugged. “It’s okay. Studying, drawing—the usual. Not too much else going on.”

“Hey I
never asked you the other night, what year are you?”

“Sophomore.”

“Ah, right
before the shit really starts to hit the fan. Let me tell you. Sophomore year
is all rainbows and unicorns, but once junior year hits, all of a sudden you
need to decide what you want to do with the rest of your life. And don’t even
get me started on senior year.”

I laughed,
“Wow, you’re really making me look forward to the year.”

“Hey, no
problem, that’s what I’m good for, that extra boost of motivation.” He took a sip
of his drink before continuing, “I heard you and Hunter went to the hockey game
a few nights ago.”

I narrowed
my eyes. What had Hunter told him?

“Oh,” I
said, trying to keep my voice as neutral as possible, “he told you?”

“Yeah, I
had to bail on him last minute because something came up at my frat house. Glad
you were able to make it though. Hunter really loves those hockey games. If he
hadn’t found somebody else to go with him he would’ve really been pissed at
me.” Gary laughed. I could tell why Hunter was friends with him.

“What
happened at your frat? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,
yeah, everything’s fine. I’m the social chair of the house which sounds pretty
cool, but really it means I have to take care of whatever bullshit that comes
up.”

“Isn’t
that the president’s job?”

“Yeah, but
our president was outta town, and a lot of the other guys on the board were
already out partying. I swear, sometimes I think I’m the only responsible
person there. Anyway, a toilet was clogged up and the idiot sophomores didn’t
know how to fix a toilet or call a plumber, that was the emergency that ruined
my night.” He looked at me. “I mean, no offense to sophomores. You’re much
smarter than those clowns anyway.”

I smiled.
“None taken.”

“Don’t get
me wrong, I love Phi Kappa Delta and the brothers are all good guys, even the
younger ones, but some of them just need more life experience.”

I chuckled
shaking my head in disbelief. “Nobody there had any idea how to fix a toilet?”

Gary
shrugged, “Who knows, hopefully the older brothers can set a good example for
them. Anyway, enough about my
shitty
night. How was your date with
Hunter?”

I froze,
did Hunter tell him that it was a date? “It wasn’t a date,” I said icily.

He held
his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean it that way, sorry. I just meant to
ask if you had fun at the game.”

Unclenching
my fists, I relaxed a bit. I guess I was getting a little too sensitive about
that topic.

“It was
fun, I guess. It was my first hockey game so there was a lot to take in. I
think I’ll have to watch a few more to really get the rules.” I didn’t want to
keep talking about my time with Hunter, so I changed the subject. “How do you
know Hunter?”

“We met
freshman year, but we only became friends during our sophomore year. Hunter
started coming around the gym more often and we’d train and spar together. I
don’t know anybody that works as hard as he does in the gym.”

“Do you
guys ever have to fight each other?”

“Naw, the
league wouldn’t make us do that, and we wouldn’t take those fights anyway. Not
to brag, but I’m a pretty good fighter myself. If they put the two of us into a
ring together, one of us is bound to get hurt. Besides, if there’s one person I
don’t want to ever face in the ring it’d be Hunter.”

Gary
nodded and started getting up. “Hey, I gotta head to my class soon. I guess it
was a good thing I had a
crappy
night then, if that meant you had a good
one. Sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to call it a date. I know you and
Hunter are just friends.”

“It’s
okay. I guess I’m just a little sensitive about that. It must’ve looked like a
date to a lot of people huh?”

Gary
looked pensive for a second and then filled his cheeks with air. After he
exhaled, he said, “Look Lorrie, you’re a cool girl and I like you. I know it’s
none of my business to tell you what to do, but I wanted you to know that you
should be careful around Hunter. If you guys are just friends, then it’s all
good, but don’t let his charm get to you.”

“What are
you talking about? Why are you saying that?”

“It’s no
secret that Hunter’s a hit with the ladies, and I just don’t want you to get
hurt that’s all.”

“Are you
saying I’m not good enough for him?”

“No,
Lorrie, not at all. I just know that by the way he treats you, he would never
want to hurt you.”

“If he
would never hurt me why are you telling me this?”

“Hunter .
. . Hunter doesn’t always do things that make sense. There was another girl and
. . . well . . . Look it’s really not my place to tell you the details.
Whatever you do with him, just know that he’s got a lot of baggage okay? He’s
all swagger and tattoos on the outside, but the real Hunter is more . . .
complicated.”

“Whose
team are you on anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be
helping
him get laid?”

That got a
laugh out of him. “I guess you can call me the referee. Trust me, I know Hunter
and I know that you’re not just some other girl to him. I don’t want to see
either of you hurt.”

I nodded
cautiously. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks Gary.”

“Yeah, no
problem. Take care Lorrie, I’m late for class. I’ll see you around.”

After Gary
left, I just sat there looking outside for a while. What had that been about?
Whatever it was, he didn’t tell me that offhand. With the things he did for his
frat house, it was unlikely that Gary was the irresponsible gossiping type. If
he told me to be careful about Hunter, he must’ve really thought it through.
What had he meant that Hunter was complicated?

I mean, it
didn’t really surprise me. Hunter was cocky and flirty, which was to be
expected given the attention he got, but some of the things that Hunter said
made it clear he wasn’t just some dumb musclehead cage fighter. Hunter had told
me his parents were druggies . . . was that why he was complicated? And who was
the girl Hunter had a history with? Thinking about it made my heart ache with
jealousy, but I quickly talked myself back to my senses. Hunter and I were
friends. I had to stop getting jealous every time I heard him linked with a
girl.

I supposed
that Hunter didn’t have a lot of female friends without benefits, but that
didn’t suddenly mean that he was in love with me. Even if he was, so what? I
could admit that I was attracted to Hunter without acting on it. Like Gary
said, Hunter already had some baggage, add my baggage on top of that and it’d
be a recipe for pissing off airport security.

Gary may
have been trying to be helpful but he just raised more questions than he
answered. I took my sketchpad out again to distract myself and spent the better
part of an hour sketching the campus view just outside the cafe windows. A
light layer of snow covered the bare trees that stood in a row by the walkway.

When the
sun was starting to set, I decided to head back to my room. It would get too
dark to sketch anything outside soon and I had to do some reading anyway. The
campus was shades of orange and purple as the sun hung over the west side of
campus.

I was
halfway back to the dorms when I passed by the campus health center. I almost
didn’t notice him at first, but then when I looked again I recognized Hunter,
wearing a leather jacket and black jeans. He was walking out of the doors of
the health center, he stopped to hold the door for another student leaving
behind him.

“Hey,” I
said, waving to him.

Hunter’s
eyes brightened when he saw me.“Lorrie!” He flashed me a smile and raised an
eyebrow “You stalking me?”

“You wish.
Just heading home. Everything okay? Why were you in the health center?”

“Huh? Oh
yeah. Had some injuries from a fight last night, they patched me right up.”

He didn’t
look injured, but maybe the injuries were under his clothes or they were
internal or something. His eyes did look a bit sunken and his gorgeous face
didn’t have its usual brightness.

“Oh my
god, are you okay?”

Hunter
waved away my concerns. “Come on, don’t fuss over me or I’ll stop telling you
about my fights. It’s no big deal. What are you doing right now?”

“Uh . . .
heading home?”

“Want to
watch a movie with me?”