FIGHT Part 1 (9 page)

Chapter 20

Eddie

I knock on her door and stand there, starting to wonder if she’s actually going to answer. I wasn’t a dick to her, really, but she did look pissed with Erica standing there when I opened the door. I really need to get an office if that’s how she’s going to respond to the people I work for. Shit, listen to me! I’m talking like she’s actually going to be around for a while!

I hear voices inside, not just hers but someone else’s voice. A man’s voice. What the hell is happening? The locks click and I straighten my stance and shove my hands in my pocket. When the door opens I don’t see my beautiful red headed vixen, just the dude that was in the hallway the other night. Jax, Jason, Adam? Who cares, what’s more important is the fact that he’s in her apartment, answering her door instead of her.

I smile as nice as I could muster.

“Red home?” I ask, using her nickname on purpose, just to piss him off like I was claiming territory. I look around him and see her standing behind him, pissed, arms folded under her tits, pushing them up. Hell, that woman.

“She’s busy.” He says with the most insincere smile I’ve ever seen.

“We kinda have something we need to finish, this will just take a minute.” I say, pushing past him, taking her by the hand, and then leading her back into my apartment.

I think I surprise her, because there is no fight as I pull her to my apartment and inside. I shut the door, push her against it, and kiss her as hard as I can. Fuck, if this woman is playing me I’m going to be livid, but I can’t
not
kiss her when she looks like she does today. My tongue plays at her lips until she moans and lets me in, lets me taste her. Her hands go to my arms and she puts the slightest bit of pressure, telling me she thinks she wants me to back off, but isn’t quite sure. I pulled back just enough so that if she wants to continue she will have to push forward for it, but she doesn’t. She just pants, licks her lips, and then looks up at me. Her eyes glistening, she smiles.

“So, we have something we need to finish?” She sneers at me. Feisty, this one.

“Yes. A few things. First off, who the hell is that guy that answered your door?” And why do I feel like I could walk across the hall and kick his sleazy ass right now? That’s the worst, feeling like I can’t protect her and stick to my life rules. Shit. She bats her lashes at me, bringing out the smartass from earlier, and smiles.

“Oh, that’s Jase. My BEST FRIEND. How’s Erica? That was a mighty quick fuck you guys had there, guess you were already started, though, weren’t you?” She bites off, her jealous streak coming out. I’m sad to say mine is showing its evil head, too, and I’m not sure I like it.

“She’s a client, I’m following her cheating husband.” I emphasize husband, so she would know we definitely didn’t do it. I’m not sure I’s be able to get off to another piece of ass after being with Red.

“I’m sure,” she replies “So what else, I have a guest waiting for me.” She crosses those arms again, the slightest of muscles pop out and makes her tattoos move. I can tell she is holding back a temper. Part of me wants her to come at me, just so I can have her in my arms again. What is wrong with me? I am breaking so many fucking rules with her, and I am starting to not care.

“We never finished our conversation from earlier,” I say, bracing myself for her backlash. She does not disappoint.

“Oh, you mean the one about why you treated me as a disease when you saw the bruise?” She clips, but I deserve it. I hate bruises on women, and what she has isn’t just one, small bruise. It wraps around her side, hugging her ribs. There is also one just to the left of her belly button that looks an older one, though since it’s already starting to change colors.

“It isn’t just one bruise, and they aren’t small. What the hell, Gwynn?” I ask as gently as I can.

“I’m a fighter, Tex. It’s what I do. Hits happen, bruises happen, black eyes happen. Shit happens.” She shrugs. I am absolutely not okay with this logic. “Hey, I won,” she says as she leans back on the door and crosses her ankles.

She won? She won, but she still looks like she’s been beaten. Where is the fun in that? Why would someone do that to themselves?

“Those bruises are from a fight that you won? Hell, I’d hate to see you after you lose.” I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. Her eyes grow wide and I immediately know I hit a nerve. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. God that sounded terrible didn’t it?” I laugh and she does too, shaking off the nerves that suddenly took over my body.

Her laugh is like a blanket, warming even the coldest parts of my heart that turned off years ago. I want to be wrapped in it, in her, every single fucking day.

“You did, actually. Last week on the stairs. The black eye, split lip, there were more marks but most of them have faded my now. Plus, the tattoos kind of hide the bruising.” She says as if it’s the most normal thing in the world to walk around proudly with bruises. It isn’t normal, can’t she see that? There’s nothing normal about wanting to get beaten down.

The day she was talking about was the day that I met her on the stairs as I was leaving for Philly with Tatum. I remember her hood being up, her being short with me. I remember seeing the bruises and thinking that someone roughed her up, but really it was all because of her job. Her job?!

“That’s fucked up, Red. Ever heard of counseling.” I spit out, anger now coursing through me because she lets this happen to her, just like my mom let it happen to her when I was a kid.

“Excuse me? What the hell does that mean?” She stands, her body tensing at my suggestion that she was crazy. Well, she had to be if she was letting people wail on her, right?

“I mean...that’s not a normal job for a girl like you.”

“A girl like me? Please, tell me Eddie...what type of girl am I?” She crosses her arms and cocks her head at me.

Fuck, I want to tell her she was the type of girl I want to fuck the rest of my life, but even thinking it made me mad at myself. I want to tell her she’s the type of girl that belongs at home, taking care of my kids, but that thought made me even madder. Every time I thought about what type of girl she was, I came up with some dumb ass answer. I don’t know her, I fucked her once, and now I am stuck on her. What the hell is wrong with me?

“Nothing, nevermind.” Rubbing my hands over my face, this is not how tonight was supposed to go.

“Great. If that’s all, I have company,” she hisses and opens the door, slamming it behind her.

Fuck!

I grab my phone, dialing up Tatum.

“Savage,” he moans into the receiver.

“The fuck goin’ on over there?” I laugh.

“Ah...uh. No. Nothing.” Someone said something as the speaker gets muffled, then he comes back. “What?” he snaps.

“Need work dude. Something heavy,” I beg. Maybe if I could get out of town for a bit I’d be able to get her out of my mind.

“Right. Got it, check your e-mail. He snaps then hangs up, in a hurry to get back to whatever it was he was up to when I called.

I pull up the screen immediately and see my travel plans. Vegas, nice. Who cares why I was going there or what I’d be doing. I’m getting out, getting away from the one thing that could make me break all of my rules, and I am leaving in three hours.

Time to get myself back.

Chapter 21

Gwynn

I walk back into my apartment, wishing that Jase would be gone so I can go back to my Netflix marathon. Unfortunately, he is sitting on my couch looking more pissed than before.

“Hey,” I say as I walk to the kitchen to grab a beer. I don’t want to have a fight with him, but I can’t exactly tell him he needs to leave either. Even if he is pissed at me for an unknown reason, and I was pissed at him for being a douche, I still enjoy having him here as company.

He makes some sort of snorting noise from the couch and I look over. He is shaking his head, wringing his hands together and mumbling something I can’t quite understand. I take his mild meltdown in my living room as a time to reflect on our friendship. Jase was there for me when no one else was. He helped bring me out of the depression that was setting in after my dad died. He took my job that I had lined up at the grade school so that I wouldn’t get a bad rep in case I ever wanted to go back to teaching. He was always there for me, even when he did have girlfriends. I never shared much with Jase about my sexual encounters, and I haven’t had a steady boyfriend since college so he’s never really known what goes on in that part of my world. It’s unfair now that I think about it, that he shares everything with me but I don’t do the same, but I always felt weird telling him about that stuff. Even now with Eddie, there’s no way I would tell Jase about the maddening sex we had yesterday, or the fact that I’ve never met anyone that has captured my mind like Eddie does. I guess a part of me has always thought Jase had a crush on me so I didn’t want to hurt him with details he didn’t need to worry about.

I walk over to the couch, watching him calm himself down before he speaks. I know this Jase. This is the angry Jase, the one that beat up Mike Hawthorn our sophomore year of college because he made a move on me when I was drunk. This is the Jase that called my mom to come to stay with me after my dad died because I had threatened to kill myself just so I could be with him again. This was determined Jase. Only thing is, though, is I don’t know what he’s so determined about this time.

“What’s wrong, Jase?” I ask quietly, sitting on the couch next to him. He takes a breath in, holding it for a second before letting it out.

“Everything, Gwynnie. Everything is wrong.” He shakes his head and sits back on the couch, rubbing his hands over his face as he lays his head on the back of the couch.

“I don’t understand. I thought you were just upset about your breakup. She was a bitch, Jase. I’m sorry that you didn’t see it, but you are better off without her.” I tried to be as honest as I could when it came to his relationships, I didn’t want to see him go through what he went through a few years back.

“Don’t you think I fucking know that? This has nothing to do with that whore.” He groaned and turned to look at me.

“I love you, Gwynnie.” His hands find mine on my lap and holds them there as he gazes into my eyes.

Jase is a very attractive guy, and if I hadn’t friend-zoned him so long ago he may have had a shot with me. Now, though, I’m too scared to do anything with him, but the feeling that he wants more from me is really fricking strong tonight.

“I know crazy...I love you too,” I say smiling.

“No, Gwynn. Listen to me. I- FUCK.” He stands and starts pacing the floor. “I fucking love you. Not some cutesy ‘be my best friend’ love either. LOVE love. I love you like a man loves a woman he wants to be with forever, but you don’t FUCKING see it. All these years together and you have been so blind to me, ignore me anytime another man comes along, and you have been pushing me away ever since this Eddie character came in the picture.” He groans and keeps pacing, his hands are on top of his head now as he walks my apartment like a beast on the prowl.

“Uh...well. I had no clue, Jase.” Lies.

“Fuck that, you knew. How could you not know? I’d drop anything to be with you, but you just....you don’t get it!”

He’s right, I don’t get it. I don’t want to be with him, I don’t want to fuck him, I don’t want any of that. I want a friendship with him and that’s it.

“Jase, I’m sorry. I can’t-. ...We can’t...stop pacing and look at me!” He doesn’t stop, he just keeps pacing, walking. I sigh and stand up, stepping in his way so he has to stop pacing.

“Move, Gwynn.” He tries to step around me but I move in his way. “I said MOVE!” He shoves me aside but I see it coming and brace myself. I don’t budge, there’s no use in him fighting me.

“Stop fucking pacing my apartment like a caged animal and look at me Jase,” I hiss at him.

He finally looks up at me. It’s sad, but I expected to see hurt, sadness, and pain in his eyes. All I see are two bloodshot eyes full of anger and resentment.

“What, Gwynn. Or should I say ‘Red’. What do you need to say?” The nickname sounds so hot, so wonderful coming out of Eddie’s mouth. It sounds just plain stupid when Jase says it, though, and it pisses me off that he just used it.

“Jase...this. This can’t happen. I do love you, but I love you like a brother. God that sounds awful, but it’s true. I can’t love you like that. I’m sorry...I truly am.” I say, not letting the tears that are fighting to break free roll down my face. I’ve never had to break up with someone before, but this feels like a breakup to me, and it really fucking hurts.

“So that’s it then? I don’t even get a chance? You gonna run across the hall to your fuckbuddy when I leave?” His voice is different when he speaks, cold almost.

“You know that’s not the case, Jase. I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want you to leave. I want you in my life still, but the jealousy has to stop!”

“It’ll never stop, Gwynnie. No one is good enough for you.” He leans in and kisses me, surprising me, and in a quick movement I pull back and slap him. His head jerks from the force of my slap. He brings his hand up to his cheek, not turning back to look at me. I can tell where my hand hit him, God I hit him hard. My hand is still stinging from that.

“Sorry..just..you shouldn’t have done that Jase.” I say quietly. Sure, I feel bad for slapping him, but he shouldn’t have kissed me. There is no excuse for that.

“Right then. I see where I stand, Gwynn. This...” he motions between the two of us. “This was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.”

Defeated and angry he walks towards the door. Before leaving he turns to me.

“Watch your back out there Gwynn. There are some unstable people in this world.”

“Why does that sound like a threat, Jase?” I ask nervously, knowing just how unstable Jase use to be before he met me.

“Not a threat, doll. Just the truth. It’s a cruel world out there,” he replies, opening the door to leave.

Without turning around, he walks out of my apartment, and out of my life.