Breakfall (28 page)

S
EAN
DISEMBARKED
from the backseat of Dud’s jeep, the electronics whiz-girl Rachel spilling out the other side. The Warehouse was dimly lit except for the arena, and loud strains of hard-metal renditions of Christmas carols filled the air.

Nell turned to Sean. “We fight, but since it’s Saturday, we decided to turn it into an early holiday party before people run off to spend time with their families.”

“Kind of early, isn’t it? It’s only December eleventh,” Sean said.

“Wait until the finals hit,” Nell replied with a tone that spoke of experience. “There will be no time to party then.”

“Okay.” Sean looked through the crowd. “Is Asbjorn coming?”

“I don’t know. Didn’t he say?” Nell looked at Sean, scrunching her nose in concern.

Sean just shrugged and turned away, scanning the crowd. He’d seen Asbjorn only from afar over the last few days, and every glimpse of the man was like a stab in the gut. He’d failed to mention that Asbjorn dumped him. He also failed to mention why. Everyone knew of a massive, red-herring fire alarm at the Pile that took until three in the morning to clear away, with police roadblocks and fire engines barring the way. The fire marshal, together with the policeman in charge, had produced a charred bag of microwave popcorn, satisfying the curiosity of the media as well as that of the onlookers from the surrounding buildings.

The Warehouse garage door rolled up, admitting a black, red-trimmed Porsche Carrera with Adrian Rios at the wheel. His dark, spiked head popped out as he gracefully slithered from the confines of the tight vehicle. His espresso eyes sparked with glee as he surveyed the scene, lips stretched in a wild grin as he nodded to his partner.

“C’mon, Don! Great crowd tonight.”

A white-haired man just ten years Adrian’s senior oozed out of the snug passenger seat and turned around to tilt the seat forward.

Sean froze at the sight of the familiar, broad-shouldered frame.

“Fuck, man, I thought I’d never get out from that tiny backseat!” Asbjorn stretched his considerable height and looked around with only a hint of his customary lazy grin on his face.

“This baby’s built for speed, not comfort,” Adrian said absently.

Asbjorn seemed to have been scanning the crowd. His eyes briefly halted on Sean. Their eyes met for an awkward and uncertain moment. Asbjorn nodded to him in greeting.

Just friends.

Sean nodded and turned his back, appalled. His eyes itched. He would not cry. He was here to fight. He was here to kick some ass. He was here to prove he didn’t flinch from punches.

He saw Dud and Nell exchange a concerned glance.

“Mark, you sick fuck,” Don growled, his eyes returning from the bit of greenery hanging above them and landing on the short blond who met him in the middle of the ring.

“You’re standing under the mistletoe, Don. Gotta do it or have bad luck all year, dude!” Mark grinned and lifted his wide, narrow lips to Don’s.

Don grimaced at the jeering crowd, and then he leaned down for a sanitary peck. “Ready to fight yet?” he growled.

They drank their shot of Aquavit. They bowed. They fought. Mark lost.

“Aw, man. Now you get to pick the next fight.”

Sean stood next to Rachel, who was presently examining his cell phone recording device. The black tape was still holding it together.

“So the deal is you drink and then you fight. You earn your alcohol by putting on a show,” he told her.

“What are the rules?”

“Ah… no permanent injuries, I think. The Golden Rule applies.”

“Who will share drink and blood with me?” Don’s voice rang strong and clear, and he looked around, stopping to look in Sean’s direction. Not at Sean, though.

“Shit,” Rachel said, making sure her ponytail was secure. “What’s he good at?”

“Everything,” Sean replied. “Just do your best.” He shoved her toward the ring.

A
SBJORN
WATCHED
his student stumble toward the ring, and grinned. After all, she asked to be here. It wasn’t his fault she drew Don for her first fight.

He watched her take a shot of Aquavit from Don’s hand. “I’ll share your drink and your blood!”

They drank, and she was about to take a few steps back and bow when Don grabbed her hand. “Not so fast. Look up, chickie.”

Asbjorn watched with great amusement as Rachel’s cheeks flushed crimson at the sight of the mistletoe, and his eyebrows rose at the way the girl measured Don up and down, taking in the cut muscles delineated under his painted-on shirt. Satisfied with her inspection, she shrugged and stepped closer as his large hand snaked around her waist and pulled her in. Her lashes fluttered shut as she tilted her head up. Their lips met, not breaking up for a while.

“What’s she getting her black belt in, again?” Dud snorted.

Asbjorn grinned, hearing the crowd hoot in appreciation when the girl’s knee bent, her foot kicking up.

“Get ’im, Rachel!” Nell shouted next to Asbjorn. “Now’s the time!”

They broke the kiss and got down to business. The fight was short and sweet. After some circling about, a few kicks and punches were thrown by each combatant and failed to connect. During a too-tight pass, Rachel bumped her hips into Don, catching him below the waist with her lower center of gravity. She dropped, grabbed his knee, and stood up. Don waved his arms around and fell back in a hard breakfall, his head barely avoiding the concrete floor. Rachel launched her smaller form at him and ground one knee into his hip right next to his groin. A threat.

She had watched Sean work on some moves over the weeks—including choke-outs. Her small fists grabbed the neckline of Don’s tight, sleeveless shirt right by the sides of his throat, using the leverage of the fabric to squeeze the knuckles of her thumbs into the pressure points on the jugular. If luck and skill was on her side, doing so would signal the brain to shut down momentarily. One Mississippi, two Mississippi….

Two mean, hard fingers lifted her whole body, invading the hollow of her throat. She arched back, avoiding that threatening pressure against her trachea.

“Not a bad move. She almost pulled it off,” Asbjorn commented from the sidelines.

“She can choke-out like that a lot faster if she practices. Have you shown her how?” Nell asked.

“No. If you lay it on too fast, it can become a lethal technique.”

“We should tell her,” Nell opined. “She already knows what to do anyhow.”

“Yeah. She’s ready.”

But she wasn’t ready for the wrestling bridge Don executed as he flipped her over and pinned her to the floor with his considerably stronger body. His hands fixing her wrists to the cold concrete, he lowered his head and seemed to whisper something in her ear.

Her color rose to her cheeks again, this time in anger. “Oh, fuck you!”

“Promises, promises.” Don jumped to his feet and offered her his hand, which she rejected with a deadly glare. He walked off grinning.

“What did he tell you?” Nell asked, eager to investigate the reason behind her scowl.

“That asshole. He said I kiss better than I fight!”

“You did good, kid. Even though Don’s language seems to be rubbing off on you.”

Rachel gave Asbjorn an evil glare. “There will be another time. And I’ll get you too, Sensei. You had way too much fun watching that.”

T
WO
HOURS
later, Sean had four beers and four fights under his belt. He did flinch. The recent assault invaded his thoughts at the most inopportune moments, but he found it wasn’t as bad as he feared it would be, and his reaction was improving with each violent encounter.

“The more exposure you have, the less it seems to trigger flashbacks.”

He scowled when he realized the words in his mind had been uttered by Asbjorn. He bowed his head in a brief moment of gratitude, for his flashbacks no longer triggered tears. Part of his toughened exterior could surely be ascribed to Asbjorn’s presence. He absolutely would not lose face before the man who dumped him.

“Sean. I thought you were dead.”

“We had a deal.”

“I can’t go on like this. It’s killing me.”

Snippets of Asbjorn’s words wedged themselves into Sean’s mind, intruding upon his consciousness when he least expected it. Yet the intrusion wasn’t unwelcome. It was uncomfortable, yes.

But it felt well deserved.

The man seemed to have loved him in such a dedicated, one-sided way, standing by his side through the most fragile beginnings of what they had had together, and yet… Sean didn’t quite know why he couldn’t let Asbjorn all the way past his defenses. He deserved to feel bad—and Asbjorn deserved to feel a lot better than he did on that night almost a week ago.

Sean missed him. He missed being able to sleep without his clothes and shoes on, without having all his alarms set. He missed the casual touches and kisses, the random gifts of soy milk latte with a shot of caramel, the feeling of Asbjorn’s heavy warmth on top of him, drowning in his warm blue eyes….

Sean grabbed two bottles of Sam Adams Winter Harvest, opened them, and strode into the middle of the ring again.

“Who will share my beer and my blood?” He looked around, searching. There were takers out there, some eager to make contact with his elusive, slippery gaze. Asbjorn’s eyes were downcast.

Sean reached deep within himself. He braced for rejection. He centered, aware of his one point. “Asbjorn, will you share my beer and my love?”

Fuck. What a Freudian slip that was.
Blood
, not love. I’m such a loser.

Sean felt heat rise up his neck and into his cheeks; hearing Ken snicker made it even worse.

T
HE
CROWD
fell silent, their eyes on Asbjorn.

“Do something, you lummox,” Ken said, kicking Asbjorn in the rear with the hard toes of his bare foot.

Since eyes were on him already, Asbjorn looked at Sean, meeting his brown eyes. Not chocolate-melty eyes. This time they reminded him of hard metamorphic rocks he used to climb in the Catskills: immovable and resolute. There was pain in those eyes, and he fought not to respond to it.

“I will share your beer and your blood. B-l-o-o-d. Blood.”

He saw Sean nod in acceptance.

Asbjorn entered the ring and accepted his beer. “My favorite,” he said, surprised.

Bottles emptied and put away, they were about to square off when Sean made a time-out sign. “Bjorn… look above.”

The mistletoe hung off a fishing line, seemingly suspended in midair. White berries shone against misty green leaves, and a red ribbon held the small bouquet together.

“For luck, Asbjorn?”

“We had a deal.”

“Just friends.”

“A kiss between friends can do no harm, Sean.” Asbjorn approached and deposited a chaste kiss on Sean’s generous, upturned lips, and as he did so, he felt something fragile breaking inside him. His jaw tightened, fighting to maintain composure at the sight of Sean’s almost-closed eyes, his moist, lightly parted lips. Asbjorn backed away again, assuming his ready position. “You ready, Sean?”

O
H
YEAH
.
Sean was more than ready. He was raring to go. He kept his distance a bit far for Asbjorn to land a punch, leaving his legs within reach. Asbjorn kicked for his knee, and Sean swooped down, captured the leg, and lifted it. Asbjorn fell back, and Sean followed, landing on top of Asbjorn and wrestling him for a choke-out, and just as Sean was hoping and planning, Asbjorn flipped them over. Now it was Sean who was pinned under Asbjorn’s body, his hands held down to the cold concrete floor.

A
S
A
SBJORN
flipped Sean, he thought going for the choke-out wasn’t too bad. A bit like Rachel’s strategy, but it needed more work. On top of Sean, his body pressing the smaller man under his chest and hips, his hands immobilizing the smaller wrists in a way he recalled from before—

—
and Sean writhing under him, Asbjorn’s name tumbling off his lips in an incoherent cry, his pleasure cresting—

He shook his head, trying to banish the memory just as Sean’s lips parted slightly, his eyes softening to that hazed, molten look.

“Asbjorn…,” he whispered for him alone. Sean’s heel grazed the back of Asbjorn’s leg, riding it all the way up to his butt.

Asbjorn dealt with loss and pain a lot better than he dealt with public embarrassment.

“No, Sean. We had a deal.” He let go of Sean’s wrists and sprang to his feet. He seethed as he turned his back on former lover. He would not be manipulated, and he would not be shamed before his friends. Anger welled within him—enough anger would mask the pain.

His gaze caught the eyes of Don and Adrian, who stood near him. How did they do it? Their dynamic was so much like his and Sean’s, yet they made it work—somehow. He headed toward them.