Brawler (29 page)

“Oh, come on!” she exclaimed with a smile. “We said us being us. This is us. You wouldn’t be shy about telling me. Phone number or her?”

“Both,” I answered reluctantly.

“And the other girl?”

“That’s enough sharing for today.”

“You dog,” she teased, poking my side. “What happened to ‘those aren’t the kind of girls I mess with. They’re the kind that want to see guys fight over them’ rant you once gave me.”

I fought a grin, remembering that afternoon. I’d been so full of it. Noble intentions and all, but two nights later I’d been in bed with a groupie and out her window before dawn. “It was more of a credo,” I told her.

“Pretty long credo. A credo is usually confined to a few words. Live for love and honor. Fight the good fight. Drive it like you stole it.”

“Fuck her like you hate her.”

Her eyes went round with surprise. “Whoa, okay, yeah. I mean, I’m not going to crochet it on a pillow for you, but if that’s how you live. Is that your next tattoo? ‘Cause I don’t know how I’m going to make that beautiful.”

“You’d find a way, and no. Those were dark days. They’re past tense, like the girls.”

“Were they between Laney?”

I stopped immediately, turning to face her. “What are you asking?”

“You know what I’m asking,” she replied stubbornly.

My jaw clenched. “You’re asking if I ever cheated on Laney?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“Okay.”

My heart beat wild in my chest, the familiar anger that came with the accusations rising to the surface. “Why would you ask that?”

She shrugged, looking way. “I wanted to know.”

“You already did know. If I had cheated on Laney, I would have told you. You’d be the only person I’d tell.” I paused, not wanting to talk about this, but it was already there between us. There was no avoiding it anymore. “This is about the kiss in the bathroom, isn’t it?”

Her face softened. “Yeah.”

“I broke off the engagement within hours of that.”

“But I didn’t know that was going to happen, and I still let the kiss happen.”

“I attacked you.”

“Don’t make excuses for me,” she warned me sharply.

I nodded, knowing I couldn’t make it right by taking all the blame. She’d never give it to me. “Okay.”

She stared at me for a long time, and I started to itch. I was getting worried as I watched her emotions flash through her eyes. Guilt, remorse, confusion. Resolve.

“Jenna, is it something you can’t handle?” I asked her directly.

“What do you mean?”

“The timing of that kiss. Is it something you can’t get past?”

She hesitated only for a second. It was enough. “I don’t know.”

“Fuck,” I swore vehemently. I ran my hand over my hair roughly and dropped my chin to my chest. I stared at the cracks in the pavement under my feet, the sunlight casting slanted shadows over them, making them look larger than they were. Uglier. “I fucked it up before it even started,” I berated myself.

“Kel,” Jenna said gently.

I shook my head, turning to pace up and down the sidewalk, unable to look at her. To be near her. “Here I thought I was doing this right,” I railed. “We’ve been taking it slow, putting distance between us and the engagement, I’ve been getting my shit back together. I’m taking the firemen’s test next week—“

“You’re going to be a fireman?” she asked, stunned.

I couldn’t answer her. I couldn’t stop. “But it doesn’t matter because I couldn’t keep it together for two more hours. Four years I’d been thinking about what it’d be like to kiss you again and I couldn’t wait two more
fucking
hours.”

“Stop, wait,” she pleaded. “Talk to me about this.”

“I’m no good at that.”

“Look at me,” she demanded firmly.

I stopped pacing and put my hands on my hips to still them. I took a deep breath before looking at her, trying to stay with her but dying to run away. To hide.

Her mouth set in a firm line of determination, Jenna stepped forward and put her hand over my eyes.

I went still. “What are you—“

“Shut up,” she scolded. “We’re backtracking. Talk about the firefighter thing.”

“Jenna, why are—“

“Nope, no questions. Jenna’s not here. Can you see her? No, because she’s not here. You’re alone. Now talk.”

“I’m not a toddler,” I said impatiently into the darkness of her palm.

“You take instructions like one,” she snapped. “Talk.”

I breathed slow and even, waiting for her give up and pull her hand away. It was pointless and I should have known it. If there was anything both Monroe girls intrinsically were, it was stubborn.

“I’ve been looking into becoming a firefighter,” I explained.

I didn’t tell her I was doing more than looking into it. That I had already signed up for an EMT certification course and I’d applied twice to get into an academy, both times falling just shy of the mark. I should have told her, but I didn’t. I was too proud. Too irritated and wounded that I had failed. I needed a win under my belt before I’d tell her anything.

She didn’t reply to what I gave her. She wanted more.

I sighed. “I think it’s something I’d enjoy. Something I’d get satisfaction from.”

More silence. More patience.

More sharing. More agony.

“It’s physically challenging,” I continued, “which I like, but it’s also helping people. The nurses in New York, they told me the first responders to the accident were firefighters. They’re trained EMTs. If they hadn’t gotten there when they did, I’d be dead. They saved my life.” I paused, not sure what else I needed to say. “Can I have my eyes back now?”

“Not yet. Not until we talk about the kiss.”

I exhaled sharply, the heat of my breath rebounding off her skin and coming back to me smelling of vanilla and sunlight that lit up the dark and painted it in her image.

“I messed up,” I confessed. “I’m sorry.”

“
We
messed up,” she told me clearly, “and I think we’re both sorry. But I can’t move past it. I think that’s why I was so willing to take things slow. It’s smart, yeah, and the right thing to do, but it’s also because I’m worried. I don’t want to start us off on a lie.”

I swallowed hard. “Do you want to start us off at all?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation, “but we have to come clean first.”

I gently pulled her hand away from my eyes, blinking as she came into focus in the bright light, just the way she had when I’d first woken up in New York. I’d been so glad to see her face, a part of me had been convinced it was a dream. I felt that way now. Like she was an illusion, one that could vanish at any moment and I had no way of stopping her.

“This will not go well,” I warned her reluctantly.

“I know.”

“She was never going to like us being together, but knowing there was even a second of overlap…”

“She’ll go insane, yeah,” Jenna confirmed. “I know. But just because it’s difficult, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s right.”

I nodded, already feeling bile in the back of my throat. “Tell her together or alone?” I asked, honestly thinking it’d be easier to do it alone. I could slip inside. I could shut down, and Jenna wouldn’t have to see it.

“Together,” she said adamantly. “I think it’s important there are witnesses. Less chance we’ll end up a Lifetime Original Movie that way.”

I chuckled darkly, leaning down to kiss her. I lingered for just a second too long. Just a moment that I stole before I stepped away and consigned myself to the fact that this was happening. It was happening and it could go very, very deeply wrong.

If it did, I wanted to have that kiss, that moment, to remember forever.

One Month Later

I leaned my head against the back of the couch. “We’re telling Laney tomorrow,” I told the ceiling.

“Ah, the big day,” Ben mused dramatically. “How are you feeling?”

I paused to consider instead of giving a default, bullshit answer, just like he’d taught me. “Nervous. Annoyed. Pissed.”

“Who are you pissed at?”

“Myself. Jenna.”

“Does she know you’re angry?”

“Yeah. I’m sure she does.”

“And how does your anger affect her?”

I sighed, lifting my head. “I think it makes her sad.”

“And how does that make you feel?”

I scowled at him. “How far are we taking this? Do you want to know how I think you feel about my feelings? Maybe how Dan and Karen feel about the way I feel about how Jenna feels about the way I feel?”

Ben grinned faintly. “I see the anger.”

“Yeah, it’s hard to miss,” I muttered, looking away.

“How do you think Laney is going to take it?”

“Badly,” I laughed bitterly. “That girl could take a compliment badly. She’s all drama. It’s like she binges on it for breakfast.”

“Do you think maybe you’re exaggerating her character to justify the angry reaction you believe she’ll have, thereby alleviating some of your guilt for what you did, telling yourself it’s not that what you and Jenna did was all that bad? It’s just Laney being dramatic. It’s simply the way she is.”

I looked at him sharply, staring for too long in silence.

He waved my attention away, unaffected. “Sorry. My mistake, but sometimes I like to sneak a little therapisting in now and then, just for fun. Helps me keep my license. You were saying?”

“What are
you
saying?” I asked irritably.

“You know what I’m saying.”

“I’m transferring my guilt onto Laney, meaning I have guilt, meaning I know I did something wrong.”

“Bingo was his name-o.”

“I get why we’re telling her. That’s not my problem. My problem is
telling
her. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not good at sharing. Open and honest is not in my wheelhouse.”

“You could write her a letter.”

“You could take this seriously.”

Ben laughed, putting his pad and pen down on the table next to him. “Trust me, I am. In fact, I’m about to take our relationship in my hands and risk it all by saying that I think we need to talk about some of the untouchables.”

My back stiffened. “Why?”

“Because you’re not good at sharing, and I’m willing to wager that the reason for that is hidden in the things we don’t talk about. Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“So may we talk about some taboo topics?”

“No.”

He put up his hands. “Your choice.”

I stared at him long and hard, never flinching. Neither did he.

We ended the session five minutes later, and I wondered how much longer I could keep dodging my demons.

***

“I thought you said I’d never have to see him again,” Laney complained angrily, crossing her arms over her chest. I saw the engagement ring flash on her finger. She had it on the opposite hand, but she was still wearing it.

“I never promised that," Jenna reminded her, sitting next to her on the couch. “I said you wouldn’t see him any more than you see Sam.”

“Still too much,” she muttered, glaring at me.

“Trust me, I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here,” I deadpanned. “Probably less.”

“That’s impossible. And why are we here anyway? You said you had something important to tell me. Does Kellen have a VD, ‘cause that doesn’t surprise me at all.”

“Nice.”

“Stop talking!” she shouted at me, her face turning red.

“Both of you stop talking,” Jenna said tiredly. “At least to each other.” She paused, her eyes going tight. I wished I could do it for her, I had no problem saying it, but she’d insisted it should be her. “Laney…”

“What, Jenna?” Laney demanded irritably. “The sooner you say it, the sooner I can get away from him.”

“I kissed him,” she blurted out, the words tumbling from her mouth uncontrolled. It killed her to stay it and she looked like she might cry.

Laney scowled with disgust. “Why?”

“No,” I said firmly, my eyes on Jenna, “
I
kissed
her
.”

“What do you mean why?” Jenna asked Laney.

“That doesn’t matter, Jen,” I told her. “It matters that we told her that it happened.”

Laney eyed me suspiciously. “
When
did it happen?”

Jenna’s face fell. It honestly collapsed, like a building going down after a blast. She’d thought admitting our sin would be the worst part, but no. This… this was going to be so much worse for her and I wished again that she had let me take care of it alone. I would have done anything to spare her this, and I realized as I looked at her in turmoil that what I could have done to spare her was keep my shit together a little longer. No matter what she thought, I knew that
I
had done this. I’d done it to Laney, but what mattered to me was that I’d done it to Jenna.

I was the worst kind of asshole.

“Four months ago,” Jenna confessed quietly. “The night you two ended your engagement.”

Laney glared at Jenna with such fire that I nearly stood up to intercept the heat. I’d taken it before, I knew that look, but the fact that she’d turn it on her sister amazed me. They weren’t the closest of friends, but I knew that under normal circumstances, Laney loved her sister very much.

You’d never know it by the way she was looking at her now.

“So what?” she asked calmly. “You two hooked up minutes after he ended it with me? We were talking about it until two in the morning.” That was an exaggeration – her signature move to strengthen her case. I’d talked to Dan and Karen until midnight and left soon after. “Did he go running to you immediately after that? He couldn’t wait to move on to the next girl? To my own sister?”

“It was before,” I confessed, pulling her eyes to me. Giving Jenna a break. Doing what I could to make it easier for her. “I kissed her at your parent’s house before we split. It was right after we fought.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Laney exploded. She leapt off the couch and backed away until she hit the wall. She stared at me darkly, her face a quivering, indignant mass of red rage. “You son of a bitch!”

She took two quick steps, then slapped me hard across the face.

I could have avoided it. I wasn’t so far gone that I didn’t have the reflexes to outstep Laney’s anger. I’d been shadowboxing that shit for years, but I didn’t bother. As long as she was angrier at me than at Jenna, it was alright. I would take that hit.

My head snapped to the side, and with it I snapped down into the darkness. It was lonely in there. I missed the animal, but I breathed calm and even and I went numb alone there in the cold. I dove so far down I couldn’t even feel the heat on my face from her hand.

So she slapped me again.

“Laney,” Jenna exploded angrily.

“Nothing?” she demanded harshly of me. “No reaction? You don’t want to hit me back? You don’t want to defend yourself? You don’t want to tell me ‘Stop, listen, we can explain?’”

“No,” I heard myself say.

“Of course not. Because that’s not who Kellen Coulter is, is it? Do you know who he is, Jenna? Do you know what you’re getting yourself into? I’m sure you think you do but you have no clue what being with him is like. Do you want to know? Because I’ll gladly warn you.”

“No,” Jenna said, her voice as dead and distant as mine.

“Too bad,” Laney spat. “Being with him is like being alone. Look at his face right now. This is what you get when things get hard. You get nothing. Nothing!” she shouted, bending down to get in my face. I didn’t flinch. “See? He’ll bail on you every time. You think you’re different because you’ve been his friend, but it won’t matter. He doesn’t know how to love people. He’ll do to you exactly what he did to me and you won’t have my shoulder to cry on. Someday you’ll beg him for more than the nothing he’s giving you and he’ll give you the best sex of your life until you forget your own name, but a few days later you’ll be crying, remembering what you really wanted and you’ll realize you never got it. Not even close. He’s a hollowed out, cold, heartless bastard and if you think anything different then you don’t know him half as well as you think you do.” She reached down and jerked her purse up off the table. “But you’re welcome to find out, bitch.”

I didn’t know when she left. I didn’t know if I was still there. I was deep in the darkness of her words and myself and the ugly with the demons scratching at the doors. They whispered unintelligible truths, echoing Laney’s words again and again, the chorus growing louder into one strong voice that howled in the hallways and corridors of the cathedral in my mind, preaching all of the terrible things I’d done. Of all the untold honesty I couldn’t bring myself to talk about, to think about – to relive. I knelt on the cold hard floor that both hurt and chilled me, and I stared up at the idol of injustice that I had built. That I had worshiped and served for so many years because it was all I knew. It was the sky of my world. The dark goddess of my nightmares that haunted me in waking and in sleep.

I felt it when Jenna knelt in front of me, but I couldn’t see her. She pressed something cold to my aching face and I winced against the tender feel of it. Against the kindness. It burned worse than the strike against my skin.

Like holy water on a devil.

I heard her breathing. It was faint, like wind rustling through trees. The ocean coming to shore. I listened to it, closing my eyes and my mind, riding her tide in and out.

I smelled her scent. Warm and sweet.

I felt her nearby. Strong and gentle.

She went to pull away, but I reached out blindly, latching onto her and pulling myself up and out until I could see her face. Her eyes. Her heart and soul.

I pulled her forward slowly so she knelt between my knees and I hovered over her, staring down at her. Into her.

Then I fell.

I kissed her slowly. My hands took hold of her face as I pulled her forward against my body. I ran my tongue along the line of her lips, tasting her breath and her skin. My hands delved lower to her shoulders, dipping her back until I was the only thing holding her up. Until she was vulnerable, and still she stared back at me with eyes full of pure, blind trust that had never wavered, no matter how many mistakes I’d made. No matter how many I had yet to make.

I kissed her cheek lightly, moving to her ear, then back into her hair, burying myself in the dark tendrils and reminding myself to breathe. She shuddered in my arms and I turned to stone around her, holding her. Protecting her.

“Kel?” she whispered shakily.

“I have to know,” I murmured against her skin.

“You have to know what?”

I drug my mouth along her neck, breathing hot over her cool skin before I slid my tongue along the ridge of her collarbone. I traced with my mouth where my fingers had been and my mind always wandered, and she tasted like longing. Not lust or desire, but an old, aching longing that shot through my mouth, down to my stomach, and set me ablaze inside. I inhaled sharply against her shoulder, wincing against the flames and sinking my teeth gently into her tender flesh.

“If I can survive you,” I answered roughly, trying to maintain control, but dying to lose it as well.

I lifted her quickly and threw her on the couch underneath me. She stared up at me in surprise and excitement, and not a little bit of fear. Then she spread her legs and pulled me down against her. I went slowly, gently, watching her as she responded to my increasing weight pushing down on her. Her mouth slid open slightly, her eyes going half closed, and a single small breath escaped her throat. Like a sigh. Like a whisper telling me ‘yes’.

She ran her hands up my sides, under my shirt, gathering it around my shoulders. I breathed deeply, watching her, wondering if what I was doing was wrong or right or somewhere in the gray in between of her eyes where everything seemed to hurt, but I wanted it. I loved it. I needed it.

I ripped my shirt off over my head and tossed it aside, then did the same to her clothes. I couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. Every time I found a new stretch of skin, a new peak or mound, a valley, I wanted to feel it. To learn it. To finish the map I’d made of her in my mind that night in the bathroom. I wanted to remember every inch of her as I found it for the first time, because I fully understood that it might very well be the last time.

This was dangerous. It was reckless. I had no idea if I was ready for this, but it was Jenna and I knew if it would ever be alright, it would be now. With her.

I couldn’t look at her and I hated myself for that. I buried my face in her neck as I lay naked on top of her and I vowed not to let her see. If I went under, if I turned empty, I couldn’t have her know. I was skimming the surface as it was, half in and half out, dangerously close to the memories and the pain and the cold, but she was so warm against me that I hoped I’d be alright.