Secured Secret (3 page)

“Are we going someplace specific or were you waiting for me to give you directions to my house?”

“Honestly? I was kind of driving around aimlessly,” he admitted before asking. “Where do you live?”

“Turn here,” she answered, pointing him in the right direction. He found her house with ease, and she let him in through the front door. He looked around impressed. It didn’t look all that large from the outside, but inside the furnishings were really expensive, making him wonder if she came from money. He didn’t know all that much about her, but he liked her and wanted to know more.

“Make yourself at home. If you don’t mind, I’m going get out of this dress. It’s strangling the life out of me.”

“Go right ahead. I’m fine to wait.” She left the room and he walked the length of it looking at the pictures sitting around. One picture in particular caught his attention. It was an older couple; both were blonde haired and blue eyed, bearing a striking resemblance to her. There was another of a man around the same age as Genie, maybe a couple of years older; he had brown haired with amber eyes. Genie’s voice sounded behind him. “That’s my brother, Jacob.”

He startled a little when he realized she was standing so close. “You two don’t look a thing alike.”

She pointed at another picture of a dark haired man with the exact same shade of eyes as her brother. “Just a freak of genetics. See he looks just like our dad’s brother. That’s Uncle Jackson. Which one of your parents did you end up looking like?”

She sounded genuinely curious. “My dad. Do you want to tell me what’s going on now?”

Genie smiled sadly at Shannon’s question. She really expected him to have already heard the whole of it, but at his repeated demands, she was forced to admit that Weave must have stayed silent about their night together. It was obvious that Shannon wasn’t going to let it go until she told him everything. “I’m an idiot,” she admitted.

“I seriously doubt that.”

“I slept with Weave,” she blurted out before she could change her mind. He was the first person she ever said the words to, and by his shocked expression, she knew it wasn’t an act. This was his first he heard of it.

“You did what?” He asked numbly.

“Are you really going to make me repeat it?”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “When was this?” he asked, finally.

“When y’all were in town six months ago.” As stupid as she felt talking about her problems with Shannon, she also felt strangely relieved to have someone to talk to.

“I’m well aware of the fact I’m about to say something that is going to sound like every other stupid woman all over the world, but it doesn’t make it any less true. I thought it meant something to him. I thought
I
meant something to him, but when I woke up he was gone, and then I never heard from him again, with the exception of seeing him tonight of course.”

Shannon groaned before sitting down hard onto the couch. He pulled Genie down with him into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and she felt comforted as if she were a little girl again. “I’m sorry baby, but I swear I didn’t know.”

“I know. I could tell by your reaction that this was the first time you heard it. I’m sorry to be dropping my bullshit on you. I’m totally aware of the fact that he’s one of your best friends, and I don’t want to put you in the middle of anything.”

He rubbed a small circle on her back, staring off into space. Genie tilted her head back, openly watching him while he was lost in thought. His eyes were almost the exact same color as her big brother, and it made her suddenly homesick. She could see she was dividing his loyalties, and she felt like a total bitch, a needy one at that. She scrambled off his lap. “You should head back,” she told him. “Your friends are probably wondering what’s happened to you.”

His eyes snapped to her as if forgetting she was there. “The thing is that I don’t know what I should do. This is one of those moments in my life where I’m torn between being right and doing right, you know?”

“No,” she answered honestly. “Nothing you just said made sense.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands in front of him.

“I’m going to think on it and get back to you.”

“Okay,” she drawled out slowly. “Well thanks for listening. I hope you don’t leave here thinking badly of me, and if you have time, maybe we could go to lunch or something while you’re in town.”

He stood and pulled her into a tight hug. “Now you are being an idiot. Of course I don’t think badly of you. I think you might be the answer to my prayers. We’ll get together tomorrow if you’re not busy.”

“I’d like that,” she told him, relieved he didn’t hate her. She missed having a friend. That was one of the hardest parts about moving so far away from home.
Maybe I should
move back,
she thought. It was the best idea she’d had for a long time.

Shannon sat in the parking lot of the hotel where he was staying, lost in thought.

He knew, just knew, something had happened, making Weave fall into an even deeper pit the last six months, but was unable to figure out what it was. Now it was so obvious it was Genie. He noticed the way Weave watched her that night at the bar, but he also believed he would never allow himself a moment of happiness to act on it, so he put it out of his mind; but Weave had acted on his feelings. Now what was he supposed to do? He knew all along that it would come down to one of them having to step in, but now there was Genie. Did she have what it would take? More importantly, did Weave care about her at all, or was she just a one-night-stand to him? Shannon didn’t think so. Genie wasn’t one-night-stand material. There were two types of women in the world; there were women you fucked and women you married. And Genie Cook was a woman you married. Giving up on solving all the world’s problems for the night, Shannon climbed out of the SUV and made his way inside. He wasn’t surprised to find Weave sitting in the chair waiting when he opened the door. In truth, he almost crowed in relief because the fact that he waited to see him come in for the night proved his theory she was important to him.

Weave calmly came to his feet as Shannon closed the door, but when he turned back to face the room, Shannon ran into a solid wall of Weave’s fist. The blow snapped his head back. He didn’t give him time to recover before tackling him to the floor and landing several blows to his body, but Shannon gave back as good as he got. Weave and he had sparred many times over the years, and it almost always ended in a draw, but Weave held unadulterated fury behind each one of his blows and Shannon knew then without a doubt, what the right thing to do was, because Weave was in love with Genie Cook. Finally, after several minutes of scuffling around on the floor, the two of them rolled over onto their backs staring up at the ceiling, trying desperately to catch their breath.

Shannon was the first to break the silence. “You are such a fucking idiot Weave.”

“Dick head,” Weave returned just a quickly.

“If you’re in love with the girl, you should tell her the truth. It’s not her fault you’re a fucked up mess, and she didn’t do anything to deserve being fucked over the way that she was.”

“Do you think I don’t know that? What she doesn’t deserve is to be saddled for life with a murderer. Do you think it better that I should tell her that? I didn’t let her make the decision for herself; I took away her choice on the matter when I didn’t tell her beforehand, and that was because I’m selfish. Everybody always loses to my selfishness.”

Shannon pushed himself up off the floor. “You’re right. You are selfish because you think your pain is your own, and you screw the rest of us out of being able to share it with you. It is emotional blackmail, and I’m getting to be just a little bit tired of the whole damn thing. Maybe I should marry Genie. Wouldn’t that solve all your problems then?” Shannon was getting really warmed up now, his helplessness feeding his anger. “That way you don’t ever have to admit that you made a horrible mistake one time with horrible consequences, and you won’t have to worry about her happiness, because I’ll make sure she’s kept happy at least twice every night” he added for good measure. It produced the desired effect.

“You mother fucker. If you think to touch her I’ll slit your throat.” Weave’s voice shook with the level of his fury, and Shannon knew he spoke the truth, but he couldn’t resist getting in one last jab.

“If it’s not me, it’ll be someone else, and better the prick you know, right?”

Shannon limped away, slamming his door for good measure, and Weave slumped his shoulders in defeat. Bob stood silently outside his own door watching the entire scene. Weave met his brother’s knowing eyes briefly, and without a word, Bob stepped back inside his room, closing the door behind him. Dropping onto the couch, he slung one arm over his eyes, trying to hold it together. They didn’t understand. They would never understand. He couldn’t trust himself to be with her. What if he lost his temper? Just now was a perfect example. He had threatened to slit Shannon’s throat, and he meant every word of it; but could he really do it? He feared he was about to find out because he didn’t doubt the sincerity of Shannon’s threats. He would try to win Genie over and make right all of Weave’s wrongs. The gauntlet was thrown. He could kill Shannon or watch him marry Genie, because there was no third choice for him, and he couldn’t be with her himself.

“I come bearing gifts,” Shannon said, carrying a greasy bag through the door. “It’s fat-laden and will probably clog our arteries, stopping our hearts on contact, but it smells delicious and what a way to go.”

Genie laughed at Shannon’s antics. “Sounds like bliss. When you said we’d have lunch today, I half expected you to blow me off. And why is your eye black?”

Shannon paused in spreading out his bounty across her kitchen table to place a hand across his chest. “Ah how you wound me. What have I done to make you have such a low opinion of me? First you accuse me of being a man-whore, now you claim I can’t keep my word. Good grief woman.”

Genie blushed, feeling a bit ashamed of herself. It wasn’t like her to be so judgmental. “I think it’s because you remind me a little of my brother,” she told him honestly. “He
is
a man-whore.”

Shannon winced. “I’m not sure which is worse: being a whore, or reminding you of your brother—both are huge blows to my ego.”

“Oh please, we both know that you are very aware of your own stud-like manliness. I couldn’t dent your ego with a baseball bat.”

Shannon threw his head back in laughter. “Stud-like manliness,” he repeated then chuckled again. “Then I feel the need to point out that you are a strange mixture of independent and soft that is virtually irresistible to men. I couldn’t have blown you off even if it were in my nature.”

Genie sat down at the table without a word and bit into the greasy hamburger, trying to hide her reaction. His words were some of nicest things anyone had ever said to her, but it kind of hurt her heart. Weave didn’t feel that way. Apparently, he wasn’t inflicted with any such problem of walking away.

Shannon was openly watching her. “Don’t look like that,” he said softly. “There is a lot you don’t know about Weave. Do you know how I said I didn’t know whether to be right or do right?”

She nodded and he said. “Well, I decided I’m going to be right, and I don’t want to hear any of the Dr. Psycho-babble about being right or being happy, because I think that my being right is going to make someone happy in the end. But first I’m going to have to do wrong by my friend.”

Strange as it seemed, she thought she might be starting to understand him, which only went to show she was hanging around with him too much. Her silence must have been his cue to continue. “I’m going to tell you a story, but you have to swear that it will never leave this room.”

Genie could tell by his expression that he was serious, and though it seemed child-like, she held out her pinkie for him. “Pinkie swear,” she said as he linked fingers with her a second before settling back into his chair.

“I’m holding you to that,” he told her gravely. “You might as well get comfortable because this is kind of an involved story. I need to give you a little bit of background information for you to truly understand. You see, we grew up, Weave, Bob, and I, on the inside of the MMA fight circuit. My dad is Bryant Smith.”

Genie interrupted him. “Oh I know who that is; you do look just like him.”

“Anyways,” Shannon continued on as if there were no interruption. “Growing up, we all believed that one day we would be the next generation of the greatest MMA had to offer, and we started training as early as our parents would allow. We were good too, but none of us was as good as Weave. He knew what it took. He was the real deal. There is not a doubt in my mind that he would have one day rivaled my dad in greatness if everything didn’t fall apart the way that it did.”

“That’s huge.”

“That is huge,” he agreed. “The problem is that it’s a rough life. The highs are really high and lows are really low. One day you’ll be living large, and the next day you could be considered a joke. That’s why so many professional fighters end up abusing drugs, but my dad maintained an extensive drug testing program that we were subject to as soon as we started training in his gym.”

“Oh, he was a tricky, tricky man,” Genie told him. “He let y’all feel grown up while making sure you stayed clean, ha!”

“Yep. Parents are sneaky,” he agreed. “But once we were old enough to be a part of the party scene, Weave was already close to becoming the next big thing and every up and comer wanted a piece of him in order to make a name for themselves. He was hounded everywhere he went, but he got to be pretty good at exchanging insults and cooling tempers. None of us really noticed how heavily he was drinking in order to withstand the pressure, but it was pretty much twenty-four seven, and you couldn’t tell the difference anymore whether he was drunk or sober. One night we were in this little redneck dive, not unlike the one we were in six months ago, and this kid, who looked to be around eighteen, started talking shit. Weave blew him off time and time again, but this kid, he just wouldn’t let it go. When he couldn’t draw Weave into a fight, he just sort of blew up, and the whole bar ended up exploding into this huge brawl. I didn’t see the whole thing, but this kid ends up pulling a knife and attacking Bob, mistaking him for Weave. He stabbed Bob in the back and Weave just lost it. He threw himself on top of the guy and he beat the shit out of him. He was like a man possessed. Nobody could stop him, and the guy ended up dying a few days later, from internal injuries.”