The Good Fight (Time Served Book 3) (20 page)

Tiny tears cling to the ends of her thick lashes. “I want you,” she says, pressing a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “But only if you believe I do.”

My body surges forward before my brain can give the order, but we’re all on the same page anyway. Susan moans as my cock forges in through clenching tissues, not stopping until there’s nowhere left to go. I mutter unintelligible curse words into the thin skin of her throat, feeling her pulse beneath my lips. She’s not the prey offering up her jugular. Not the enemy, either.

She holds my gaze as I drive into her, slow, deep strokes that make sweat bead along her hairline and between her breasts. The thrusts increase in intensity until her tits are jiggling and she has to raise her hands to brace herself against the canvas wall. Her hips lift to meet mine, not shying away from the challenge but running toward it, reckless, foolish, real.

She lifts her head to kiss me, sucking on my tongue, letting me feel and hear her satisfied cries as she comes. The sound echoes through me, shuddering down my spine, making every muscle contract and release until I’m coming too, so hard I almost can’t take it.

Eventually Susan’s strained whimpers bring me back to reality and I realize I’m crushing her, my cock still shoved deep inside, hips grinding unconsciously. She has to be sore from this position, splayed wide open, rammed over and over again, but she doesn’t complain, even tries to hide her grimace when I pull out. She draws her legs together and looks away as I dispose of the condom, then I flop onto my back on the cushions beside her, too exhausted to make it to the bed.

For a long while we just lay like that, side by side, spent and sweaty, and I feel around between us until I find her hand. I squeeze lightly and she presses our palms together, linking her fingers through mine.

And then we just hold on.

Chapter Thirteen

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are crazy busy. I take off two days and work piles up, literal stacks of it arranged in order of importance on three chairs in my office, Jade’s idea of filing. All week she’s been coming in early and staying late, traveling over to the tannery with me and hanging around until we lock up at nine.

Right now it’s Friday night and I’m sitting at the reception desk at the Green Space, the front doors propped open with rocks to let the cool air filter in. It’s pouring rain, a nice break from the oppressive heat we’ve been enduring, and though we’ve had a packed house every day since we opened, tonight there are just a dozen or so kids lingering. A few play basketball, a couple read, and two little girls focus intently as Jade teaches them how to French braid.

Lupo’s beside me with a bottle of Gatorade. He’d hung around here on Monday and Tuesday when I was in Wisconsin, making sure nothing went wrong. And so far it hasn’t. I slant a look at him. He’s watching Jade, who’s dressed down in jeans and a T-shirt, her dark hair in a ponytail, red lipstick the only acknowledgement that it’s Friday night in Camden.

“You don’t want to go there,” I tell him.

His mouth quirks but he doesn’t look at me. “Dude,” he replies. “I’ve already been.”

I know it shouldn’t come as a surprise; Jade’s reputation isn’t really a rumor. But sometimes it’s hard to reconcile the woman I know with the woman everyone else knows.

“Don’t get mad,” he adds belatedly. “It was like, three months ago.”

“I don’t care what you two get up to,” I lie. “Just make sure things don’t get weird around here.”

“Not a problem. Jade doesn’t exactly do twice, if you know what I mean.”

And I do, kind of. As long as I’ve known her, Jade has never had a steady boyfriend. A series of flings, sure, Ricky among them. A couple of guys she swore she was serious about, definitely. But nothing long term. And it’s true that every guy she flirts with at the gym falls by the wayside sooner or later. It’s the smart ones who don’t fall for her first.

Case in point: Wyatt. He comes down the stairs now, two kids in tow, all three of them dripping wet from the rain. They’d gone up earlier to organize rain barrels and cover some of the more fragile plants, and now they gather around the duffel he brought with him, accepting hand towels and drying their hair.

I can make out fragments of their conversation, Wyatt talking about water conservation and sustainability as he swaps his wet T-shirt for a dry one, Jade tracking his every movement as he studiously ignores her. I’m not sure what their deal is and Jade seems equally perplexed, but if Wyatt’s keeping his distance, it’s one less thing for me to worry about. Because I need both of them: Wyatt on the roof, Jade down here.

“All right!” Wyatt claps his hands and all the kids in the room turn. “Who needs a ride?” He’s got a rattling old club wagon that seats something like fifteen, and he’s been driving kids home each night he’s been here. He says he doesn’t mind, but I give him gas money both for his trouble and to partly legitimize the idea of a guy gathering up kids in a creepy old van and driving them places.

A couple of the kids live around the corner, but the rest pile out into Wyatt’s van. He calls good-night and soon it’s just me, Lupo and Jade. I check my watch. Eight o’clock. Susan mentioned she might drive out tonight after work if she finished early enough, but I haven’t heard from her. We’ve talked a few times since getting back from Morrisburg but I haven’t seen her in person since we waved goodbye from our cars.

“We the only ones left?” Lupo asks, standing and stretching.

“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s lock up early. No one else is coming in this rain.”

“You got plans now?”

“No. Why?”

“Let’s go work out. You bailed on me this week.”

“I told you I wasn’t committing to anything.”

“I heard you. Let’s get a few rounds in anyway.”

Despite my protests, Lupo’s been upholding his end of our non-existent bargain by showing up here. He’s even got Oreo nagging me every time I arrive at Titan’s, saying how it’ll be good for me to train with him, and don’t I want to help the children? I’m not sure the last time Oreo actually saw a child, but Lupo doesn’t exactly fit the bill. Still, I’ve got nothing on the agenda and I’m not ready to go home by myself.

“Fine,” I tell him. “I’ve got stuff in the car. I’ll drop off Jade and meet you there.”

“I can come to the gym,” she says quickly.

“I’ll bring you to a church if you don’t want to go home.”

She rolls her eyes. “Stop trying to save my soul, Oz.”

“It’s not you that needs saving, Jade.”

Lupo laughs until she glowers at him, then he ducks out into the rain. A few seconds later we hear his car start up, but I block the door when Jade tries to exit. She stares at my chest for a second, then looks up at my face. “What?” she pouts. “I can go to the gym if I want to.”

“How’re things at home?”

She sighs. “Fine.”

“You’re spending a lot of time at work.”

“Someone’s gotta do your job.”

“Jade.”

“It’s weird, Oz, all right? Like, no one’s saying anything to me directly, but I’m hearing things.”

“Like what?”

“Like Alex got out early because he promised someone something, and now he’s not delivering, and they want...”

“Revenge?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you that revenge?”

She readjusts her ponytail, avoiding my eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Jade.”

“Oz. I don’t know.”

I blow out a breath. I’m crossing too many lines with the offer, but I have to make it. “If you need a place to stay—”

“I don’t.” She pushes past me. “If I need help, I’ll tell you.”

I catch her arm and wait until she meets my stare. “Promise.”

“I said I would.”

“You know how you got a brick and threatened to break into my house after that fight with Lupo?”

“I did no such thing.”

“I’m here for you if you need it.”

“I know that, Oz. Now can we go to the gym, please? All of a sudden I find I’m in the mood to watch you get your ass kicked.”

I follow her out to the car, rain pelting our faces. “Speaking of asses that need kicking, I know you set up me and Susan to wind up in that yurt together. You let each of us believe the other thought it was canceled.”

The SUV beeps as I unlock the doors and we climb in.

Jade grins in the muted console light. “You’re welcome.”

“You’re a meddler.”

“Some people need to be hit with a brick to see what’s right in front of them.”

I back out of the lot, the tires grinding over the gravel. “You know,” I grouse, “it turns out I feel like beating on somebody after all.”

It’s just a five-minute drive to the gym, the place surprisingly full for a rainy Friday. Jade peels off to hang with the gymbos, and I head to the locker room to change. Lupo’s already in the ring stretching while Oreo rests against the ropes, clipboard in hand, whistle around his neck. I climb up, feet bare, hands taped, wearing a black tank and shorts, same as Lupo.

We start out easy, since this is mostly for Lupo’s benefit, but I’m well out of practice. Eventually Oreo’s calling out moves and it’s Lupo’s job to take me down, my job to make it impossible. An hour in we’re breathing hard, sweating hard, and, thanks to a few well placed jabs and a particularly solid kick to the back of my leg, we’re bruised and limping, too.

I manage to break free of one hold and shove myself to my feet as Lupo does the same, and we’re ready to launch back into it when Oreo blows the whistle and calls an end to things.

“The fuck?” Lupo demands, yanking out his mouth guard. “We’re just getting started.”

“You’re done,” Oreo says.

A small crowd had gathered to watch, and now they call out a mixture of praise and barbs as they wander off, some heading home, some getting back to their workouts. I grab a towel and wipe blood and sweat off my face, a couple of butterfly bandages holding together a gash on my eyebrow, Oreo’s first class medical care. I squirt water into my mouth and listen to Lupo argue before Oreo tells him to shut up.

“It’s not always about you, genius,” he’s saying. “Oz isn’t getting any younger. And he needs his beauty sleep if he’s going to keep any woman interested.”

“Hey,” I interject. “There’s no need to bring my good name into your petty bullshit.”

“No?” Oreo asks. “What about her name? What is it again? Suzanne?”

“Sus—” I break off as the implication finally sets in, then turn to see Susan standing on the floor, watching. She’s wearing a thin white sweater and blue jeans, the cuffs dark with rain. I forget about Lupo, Oreo, everyone. The sight of her is better than the fistful of ibuprofen I’d planned to swallow when I got home. “Hey,” I say, climbing through the ropes and dropping to the floor, hoping I look happy to see her, but not creepy happy. “What are you doing here?”

She’s never been to the gym before. Not that it’s hard to find, since it’s Camden’s only gym, but still. When she didn’t text or call I’d given up on her coming, so I didn’t even mention where I’d be.

“I went to the Green Space first,” she replies, gaze scouring me from head to toe, tallying up my injuries. “But it was dark. I thought you closed at nine.”

“We do, but it was dead tonight.”

“Yeah. That’s what Jade said.”

“We just came to work out for a bit.”

“A bit? It looks like you got jumped into a gang.”

“That’s training for you.” I never got into gangs, but I knew kids who did, and they came out looking a lot worse than I do now. “Let me wash up so we can get out of here.”

“This looks like more than training, Oscar. This...” She trails off as she gestures at the white strips of bandage on my eyebrow.

“It’s training for Lupo, Susan. I’m not going to embark on a late in life career as a fighter. But I love this. I told you that when we met. And you liked it too, remember? In Mongolia?”

I see her cheeks stain, telling me she gets it. Being held down, overpowered, the back and forth, the fight for control. For dominance. “That’s different,” she mutters.

“Yeah?” I step into her. “How so?”

“Nobody gets hurt when we do it.”

“I’m not hurt now, either.”

She pushes her bangs out of her eyes and looks me over. “I’ll be the judge of that. Now hurry up and shower. You smell bad.”

“You want to fuck in the locker room?” I ask in a low voice. “You interrupted the fight, but I wasn’t finished.” I advance, trapping her against a sandbag, wrapping my sweaty arms around her and the leather. I dip my head to kiss her, feeling her sigh as she accepts the blood and the sweat and all the rest of the shit that comes with this life.

Catcalls ring out but I can hardly hear them.

* * *

Sunday afternoon I’m at Susan’s. It’s still raining, but it’s kind of nice, the soft patter of rain through the open balcony doors, the hushed sound of her FaceTime conversation with Dorrie.

I glance up from the dining room table where I’ve been sitting for eons, working my way through the mountain of paperwork required to register as a charitable organization in the state of Illinois. I should have done this before, but I’d been so antsy to get off my ass and start doing something that I’d skipped a bunch of steps. Plus, secretly, I didn’t want to do it because it was Susan’s suggestion, and I want this to be my thing. Unfortunately, her idea is better than mine, so here I am, cutting checks left and right, searching online every three minutes to try to understand the next question on the countless forms I have to fill out. Doing good is not as easy as it sounds.

I sigh and turn the page, bored out of my skull, absently eavesdropping on the conversation taking place ten feet away. Susan’s curled up on the couch with her tablet balanced on her knees, wearing one of the sundresses I like so much. She looks pretty and relaxed, though the more I listen the more strain I hear in her voice, despite her best efforts to sound upbeat.

“...good school, and I already have friends...” Dorrie is saying.

I peek over at Susan. Her expression is carefully neutral but her white-knuckle grip on the tablet tells a different story.

“And Dad said we could paint my room any color I wanted, and it’s got a bigger closet than the one in the apartment, and I really want to live in a house again.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Susan says, nodding.

I shuffle some papers to try to appear busy, and tap my pen against my temple as though deep in thought.

“Plus,” Dorrie continues, every bit the kid on a mission, not the bratty pre-teen I’d heard call her mother a bitch a few weeks ago, “now Dad’s got his home office, so there’s always someone here when I get home from school.”

I hold my breath as the punch lands, all the blood draining from Susan’s face even as she smiles, the action so forced it’s hard to watch. I hit a few keys on the adding machine, subtracting dollar signs from percentages and finding the square root of nothing, rows of red error messages appearing.

“If you really think you’d be happy there,” Susan says tentatively, “then I’ll discuss it with your father.”

“You will?”

“Of course.”

A long pause. “Thank you, Mom.”

“No prob—”

“I have to go. Shannon’s coming over.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll talk to you soon. Don’t forget to tell me what you’d like for your birth—” a beep indicates the end of the call “—day,” Susan finishes.

I sign my name at the bottom of a page of instructions, pretending to complete another piece of the puzzle. Then I look at Susan as though just now remembering she’s there.

“It’s a wonder there are any charitable organizations in Illinois,” I remark. “Who can be bothered to jump through all these hoops?”

She stares at me helplessly. “She still wants to move in with her father. Permanently.”

I give up the pretense of not being an eavesdropper. “She’s eleven. She needs her mother.”

A small shake of the head. “I don’t think so.”

“Susan.” I stand up and join her on the couch, putting the tablet on the coffee table. I want to tell her something, but there’s a fine line people without kids need to tread when offering child-rearing advice to people who actually have children. “You know what she really wants?”