Core (2 page)

Ava frowned, but there was a sudden spark in her green and red eyes. “If he’s so talented, why did he want my help in the first place?” She moved closer to Cale, close enough for her to stab a finger into his chest. “You’re trying to embarrass me in my own gym.”

“No,” Cale said a little too loudly. “Nothing like that. I just–I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Then why didn’t you just talk to me?”

“You’re not exactly the talking type,” Cale said, biting his lip just moments after the words left his mouth.

Walter chuckled until Ava glared at him. She rummaged through another box of equipment and tossed a pair of brown gloves at Cale. “Suit up.”

Cale grinned, eagerly stuffing his hands into the gloves, ready for his lesson. 
It worked. 
“Are we starting on the bags or…?”

Ava slipped into the ring and pounded one fist against the other. “You want to talk, let’s talk.”

Cale’s jaw dropped. 
This is not want I meant at all.
 He had every intention of remaining firmly on the ground, as far from the ring as possible, but Walter was already leading him towards it, the old man stronger than he looked.

“No, no, no, no, I don’t want to fight her. Believe me,” he said.

He wanted to demonstrate his skills, if anything. He wanted a chance to be around her. Not to
hit
her. And if he got into the ring and refused to fight her, she’d clobber him. That wasn’t Impressive either.

Walter grinned, gaps where healthy teeth used to be years before. “You’re not going to
get out of this one. If I know Baby Girl, she’s not going to change her mind. Might as well get it over with before it happens while you’re walking home one day. You challenge her, she’ll come at you.”

But I’m not challenging her.
 Cale refused to climb into the ring. Instead, he pulled Walter aside, his eyes wide. “Walter, you don’t understand. I
can’t
fight her.”

But before Walter could answer, Cale swallowed his words.
  A quick jab connected with his kidneys and he turned around just in time to taste Ava’s glove. She bounced on the balls of her feet, barely a foot away from Cale.

“We’re not even in the ring,” he objected.

Ava planted one on his jaw. She danced, her footwork quicker than Cale knew his was. But he was stronger. 
No
, he thought. 
Don’t think about how to beat her. Think about how to win her.

“Okay.” He put his gloved hands up in the best surrender he could muster. “You win.”

Ava’s fist thrust into Cale’s midsection so that he doubled over, a wisp of smoke escaping from his mouth. He batted it away, disguising the movement as trying to get more air to his lungs. The next punch Ava threw at him, Cale blocked, countering with a left jab of his own. The blow caught Ava sharply just below the ribs.

Cale froze, terror clear in his li
ght brown eyes. His reaction had been purely instinctual, and she had specifically asked for a fight, but he couldn’t blink, couldn’t move. 
I hurt my rider. She’ll never forgive me.

And she didn’t. Not even close. Instead, she dropped to the ground and swept his legs. His back hit the floor hard and he reacted just as quickly as she had, using his legs to push into Ava’s midsection so that he could flip her over his head. She landed on her back and used her feet to push herself backwards. Then she rammed an elbow into his chest and thrust her palm upward into his chin, fighting him from the ground. He bit his tongue and swallowed the blood, about to retaliate more aggressively than Ava would have been prepared for, until Walter stepped in.

“I call that a good spar,” he said standing in between the two. “Shake it off.”

Cale realized in horror that they had drawn a crowd. Mumbles filled the room as the trainees debated over the winner of the sparring
match. Ava ignored them all, shaking out her muscles and discarding her gloves as she headed back over to the jump ropes.

“What did I just do?” Cale whispered to Walter.

Walter shrugged, hiding a mischievous smirk. “Go apologize if you feel so bad about it.”

“But she’s my–
”

“I know who she is.”

That didn’t make Cale feel any better about hitting her. Even worse, he knew he would have kept up the fight if Walter hadn’t snapped him back to reality. Combat was in his blood. It was part of who he was. But he wasn’t prepared to explain all of that to Ava. Not yet.

“How’d you know?”

Walter shook his head and chuckled. “It’s all over your face, kid. Now go on.”

C
ale was starting to hate all of the help he was getting from fellow reds. It was a lot of pushing and shoving, a lot of rushing into things head on. A part of him wanted to think it out, wanted to make sure he was doing it right. He had a feeling that Ava didn’t trust very easily. A bad Impression might have been the only one Cale made.

“Hey, I’m rea
lly sorry about that,” he offered.

As Ava wrapped the end of her rope around her hand, she smiled.

“Next time, just ask me to spar with you,” she said, her hands on her hips. “You don’t have to trick me into it.”

Cale beamed, his tan skin alive, his eyes sparkling.
 
Next time. There’s going to be a next time
. “I can do that.”

It was all he could do to keep from bouncing up and down
. Don’t celebrate yet. She hasn’t agreed to anything.
 He tried to stay collected, clearing his throat. “Hey, I told you I’d pay for today.”

Ava held out her hand, but Cale frowned.

“I don’t have it on me. Maybe you could stop by my house later to pick it up? I can give you my address.”

Ava stiffened. She didn’t like the idea of going over to a stranger’s house, especially one as strange as Cale. She didn’t know what it was exactly, but she knew different when she saw it. And Cale was different. She was about to turn him down when Walter stepped in again.

“I bet Karma’s making something delicious for dinner,” he said, slapping Cale’s back. “Ava, you should go. Trust me, they’re great people to know. What time is dinner, Cale?”

Ava began to protest when Cale interrupted.

“Six. My mom’s making steak.” Then he wrinkled his nose. “And some vegetable crap on a stick, if you like that kind of thing.”

“Perfect,” Walter said. “She’ll be there. T can give her a ride.”

Ava crossed her arms in disbelief. 
They’re having this conversation without me
. She stepped back from the schemers so she could think about it. She had three options. One, she could use her bus money to buy a hotdog at one of the street vendors, leaving her stranded until T could give her a ride home.

Two, she could have dinner with Jim and Miriam. She fought the urge to gag at that thought.

Or, option three, 
mooch off of this odd, petulant dude’s family and never have to see him again
.

“I guess that sounds good,” she said with a shrug. “Your parents won’t care?”

Cale almost laughed out loud. 
Care?
 “No, trust me, they won’t. Besides, I owe you one for beating you up.”

Ava glowered, but Cale thought maybe she was hiding another one of her smiles.
“Fine. What’s your address?” she said.

“Give me your number and I’ll text it to you.”

Ava rolled her eyes and gave him the number against her better judgment. He was so excited he could barely hit the right digits with his thumbs. He flashed a grin at Walter and mouthed a “thank you” to him when Ava wasn’t looking. Walter pointed at her, then at Cale. Then he mimed being punched in the face. He mouthed, “watch out” to Cale, but he was smiling just as big as Cale was.

On the way out, Cale stopped to slip something into the backpack he’d seen Ava walk in with. The contents of the leather pouch were a gift to her. Cale wasn’t
all for tradition, and he had the feeling Ava wasn’t either, but he still wanted her to have it.

He sprinted around the corner and headed home, forgetting to call Rory for a ride. Every time he took a step, Cale felt his heart get lighter and lighter. If he wasn’t careful, he might have convinced himself he could fly.

Three

Welcome

Ava tugged at the long-sleeved, green t-shirt that hugged her frame, doi
ng a quick mirror check. It fit her fine, but it wasn’t comfortable enough for her taste. Still, she didn’t have many options. It was too warm to wear a sweatshirt, and she needed something long enough to cover up the new bruise she’d just added to her collection.
As if my nose isn’t bad enough.

Her phone lit up and she grabbed it and shoved it into her backpack instead of answering. It was better to be quiet when Jim was in one of his moods. Miriam was cleaning up in the kitchen, sweeping up nonexistent dust bunnies, and Ava waved at her as she rushed through the front door, her way of letting her foster mother know to leave the window open for her if Jim was still home
later.

Ava hurried to T’s car, slipped in, and slammed the door behind her. She winced as the motion jarred her arm. T didn’t notice. Instead,
he put the car into reverse and blasted the AC. Ava flicked her vent closed and leaned back.

T looked at her sideways. He let his gaze linger before he spoke. “You okay?”

“Fine,” she said, shutting her eyes for a moment.

T sighed and shook his head at her. “How long have we known each other, Ava?”

She glanced at him knowingly. He had that look on his face, like he had been thinking about her for a long time, probably on the drive over to her house. It was Ava’s turn to sigh.

“I don’t know, T.
A couple years.”

“Right.
That’s kind of a long time, yeah?”

“Sure.”

“What I’m saying is, you don’t ever tell me anything. Half the time you treat me like a complete stranger. It drives me crazy.”

Ava opened and closed her fist. The action made the bruise on her arm sore, but it was good to have a distraction. “What is
it you want me to tell you? I’m not that interesting.”

He scoffed. “You’re plenty interesting, Ava. The fact that you think you aren’t interesting is interesting.” He angled his rearview mirror so he could look at her without her knowing. He did
it often, letting his eyes linger wherever they wanted. “What are you going to this guy’s house for, anyways,” he asked.

“Food.”

“That’t it? You don’t even know these people. Let me buy you dinner. There’s this place….”

Her face didn’t change. She was still
pulsing her right fist, still refusing to make eye contact with him.

“He owes me money,” she explained further.

“So just pick it up. I’ll wait outside.”

“No, that’s alright. I’m good.”

Having dinner with T would not have been so bad, but he would expect it to happen again. And again. 
Next thing you know we’ll be having pillow fights and making brownies.
 Ava bit her lip against the idea of that.

T frowned even deeper at her silence, his hands still on the wheel as he drove. “I want to be friends, Ava,” he said, fr
ustration leaking into his voice. “That’s all I’m saying. I’m not asking you to marry me. Just friends.”

“We’
re already friends.”

He scoffed again. “Friends talk. Friends hang out. Friends call each other when they need someone to listen to their problems. All I get to do is give you a ride once in a while.”

“And I’m grateful for that. There. Friendship.”

T pulled up at the address Ava had given him and put the car in park. “Call me when you want me to pick you up,” h
e said. His words were choppy. Ava could tell he was pissed.

“Thank you for the ride, T,” she said as genuinely as she could.

“Sure.”

Ava wanted to take a shower to rid
herself of all the unreturned affection he’d spilled out on her. She hated talks like that. Miriam had them with her all the time. Even when she was a little girl, Ava would cringe. “It feels like you’re trying to choke me,” she’d say.

She sighed and walked up the driveway.
 
God, don’t let these people smother me to death.
 The house looked decent enough. Simple, charming, birdhouse mailbox on the front lawn, blue and white shutters on the windows. She wiped her feet on a welcome mat that actually said “welcome” on it, and took a deep breath.

Inside the Anders house, Karma was slicing chunks of raw steak with remarkable precision. When the doorbell sounded, Cale, who had been pacing near the refrigerator, scrambled, knocking his mother’s handiwork off of the counter. He fumbled as he caught the meat midair, and Karma snagged the cutting board before it clattered to the tile. Cale placed the steaks back onto the cutting board and licked the blood off his fingers, a nervous reaction.

With her thumb, Karma wiped a smudge of dirt from her son’s forehead. He winced at how cold her hands were. Earlier, his mother had suggested he go outside to burn off some anxiety with Rory, but it wasn’t long before he was back inside, pacing in the kitchen. “Am I too dirty?” he asked, his voice more strained than usual. “Should I go take a shower?”

She motioned for him to wash his hands in the sink. “You’re presentable. Just go get the door before she leaves,” Karma said. 

Cale hadn’t thought of the possibility of Ava leaving. He hurried past his mother, knocking the cutting board to the floor again. Karma sighed and rinsed the steaks off as Cale flung the door open.

“You’re early,” he said. “My dad’s still in the shower. I haven’t even told him yet.”

“Haven’t told him what?” Ava asked as she pulled at her shirt, willing it to be looser on her.

Cale stammered before coming up with a suitable response. “I haven’t told him you’re having dinner with us,” he said. It wasn’t a lie. Cale never lied.

Ava stood back a few feet from the door. Her hair was up in a ponytail, just like it had been at the gym.
Nothing special. She couldn’t understand why Cale was beaming at her the way he was and after a few seconds, she entertained the idea of calling up T and running for it.

“Look, I can’t stay long,” she said, about to take a step towards the driveway. “You have the money?”

Cale’s smile dropped clean off his face. “Why can’t you stay?”

She shrugged. “I just have stuff to do.”

“Oh. You mean like staying and having dinner with us?”

Out of curiosity alone, Ava peeked over Cale’s shoulder. The smell of grilled peppers filled the air and Ava had to put a hand over her stomach to keep it from sounding off. Karma appeared behind her son and held out a tray of the peppers, cooked to perfection, drizzled with butter and teriyaki. Ava studied the plate, then slowly picked one of the pepper cubes up and bit into it. It was filled with the kind of flavor that made a person drool on themselves. Ava wiped her chin with the back of her hand.

“You must be Ava. Welcome.” She put on a smile. “I’m Karma.”

The slim woman was pale skinned with coffee colored hair. Her eyes were the darkest, deepest blue Ava had ever seen and nothing like Cale’s. “Well, don’t just stand there. Come in. You’re early enough to help me in the kitchen.”

Karma didn’t leave room for objections and Cale gave his mother a quick look of gratitude before she shooed him away. “Go play with your brother and let us ladies chat,” she said.

Ava couldn’t help but notice that Karma was nothing like Miriam. And it wasn’t just because of the odd accent. Ava couldn’t place it. It was almost En
glish, almost American, almost…something else.

No, it was her nature
. Miriam would have been sheepish about a hesitant guest at her front door and she would never chase anyone away, even if she desperately wanted them gone. Even Karma’s movements were unlike anything Ava had ever seen. Her steps were both mechanical and flawless. Like a ballerina with a physics degree.

Karma set Ava up with a knife and a cutting board for dicing up onions and potatoes while she slid her own knife through more meaty strips of steak. They worked quietly for a few minutes, slicing and cubing without conversation, which Ava was grateful for. It was almost a respectful silence, as if Karma knew she’d rather not be forced into small talk, as if the woman wasn’t a fan of “chatting” herself.

Part of Ava couldn’t believe Karma and Cale had been so welcoming. She was a complete stranger, yet there she was, helping with dinner and snacking on the appetizers Karma had left within her reach. But then again, Ava hadn’t yet met Cale’s father. She was sure he wouldn’t be as warm as the others.

“So, is that bruise on your nose from boxing?” Karma
asked, her voice as smooth as her eyes were sharp. “Cale tells me you’re very talented.”

“Uh…
yeah,” Ava said. “He’s not so bad himself.”

Karma stole a grilled pepper and popped it into her mouth. She chewed slowly, keeping her eyes on her knife as she asked the next question. “And the bruise on your arm?”

Ava nearly sliced her finger off. 
How did she know? 
She had been sure to cover it up well, to move as though it wasn’t there. She had had plenty of practice at that sort of thing.

“I noticed you’re favoring it, though you hide it well.” Karma glanced up at her. She answered almost as if she had read Ava’s mind.

“I am very good at noticing.” She rinsed her hands off in the sink. “The human face is made of fifty two muscles. There are thousands of combinations of muscular movements that betray what a person may feel or think at any given time. That, combined with posture, vocal tone and quality, eye fluctuations, and changes in skin pigmentation, breathing, and heart rate make it easy to…notice.”

Ava blinked. The wo
man had just unloaded her onto Ava, from silence to an overwhelming info dump.

“Are you…
some kind of scientist?”

Karma looked up at her. “How did you get it?
The bruise?”

Ava tried to control her facial expression.
 
Don’t look so nervous
. Instead she kept working on the vegetables. “Yeah, boxing’s a tough sport,” she said as casually as she could.

Karma smiled a little as she looked at Ava, who made the mistake of looking back. Karma’
s eyes seemed to go on forever–an ocean of blue, a well of intelligence, but with an icy bite to them.

“I know a lie when I hear one,” she said. “
But that’s alright. It’s not my business. Just do me a favor and keep it from Cale unless you want a scene.”

“Why?”
 
What would he care?

Karma shrugged. “A gentleman doesn’t like to see a young lady mistreated. They may be rough around the edges, but all of my boys are gentlemen.”

Ava followed her outside and handed the food off to a boy who looked remarkably like Karma as he manned the grill. Dark hair, pale skin, blue eyes. He couldn’t have been older than sixteen.

“This is my youngest, Cameron,” Karma said. “Cameron, this is the Ava we’ve been hearing so much about.”

Cameron didn’t smile at Ava and he certainly didn’t exude the calculated charm that his mother seemed to. Ava almost felt colder standing next to him. She rubbed the goose bumps off her arms, glad for her long sleeves, though they’d done little to shield her from Karma’s observational skills.

“Nice to meet you,” was all Cameron said before returning to his work, flipping the steaks and vegetables that were already browning over the fire. “How would you like your steak?”

“I’m a vegetarian, actually,” Ava said. It was a matter of taste. She had never liked the consistency of meat. She waited for the questions that always accompanied that statement. The “What? No meat? Why not?” and the “Is it a religious preference?”

Karma didn’t even blink at her. “I’ll prepare some more vegetables, then,” she said, disappearing inside before Ava could follow.

Cale and Rory were tossing a football back and forth with remarkable accuracy. “Hey, Ava,” Rory shouted, hurling the ball towards the grill.

Cameron ducked in
anticipation, ready for the ball to topple the entire operation, but Ava ran forward, reached out one hand and caught the ball, bringing it to her chest before it collided with the cooking apparatus. She hid her flinch well as she straightened back up. Cale and Rory exchanged looks that Ava couldn’t interpret.

“Throw it here,” Rory said.

Ava had the oddest feeling the boys were testing her. Like they were watching every little thing she did. 
Maybe they don’t get a lot of visitors,
 she thought. Though she wanted nothing more than to send the ball spiraling into the bigger boy’s face, she walked over to them.

“My brother, Rory,” Cale said apologetically.

“What was the point of throwing it so hard?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at Rory before placing the ball into his palm. “You trying to prove something?”

Rory smiled with a shrug. “I don’t know my strength sometimes.”