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

Rian’s grin turns into something smug and knowing, but he merely spins on his heel, waving for us to follow. I trail behind Susan, trying to figure out how a woman whose dinner consists of a chocolate drink and fistful of candy can fill out a pair of jeans so beautifully.

The building is old enough that it doesn’t have an elevator, so we enter a dim, narrow stairwell tucked behind a door in the back corner of the restaurant. It’s dank and musty, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying the sway of Susan’s hips as she climbs in front of me, the faint dip of her waist outlined when her loose shirt shifts from side to side.

“And here we are,” Rian announces a minute later, using his shoulder to open a heavy metal fire door and exit onto the rooftop. Sunlight streams in and Susan and I wince, hands raising in unison to shield our eyes.

“You all right?” I ask, stepping onto the rooftop and pausing at her side.

“Temporarily blind, but otherwise fine,” she replies. “You?”

“Fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because your sexy chef friend kissed me and you haven’t?”

“I—What?”

She stares up at me. “What?”

“Did you just say—”

“You two want to see the garden or ogle each other?” Rian’s ready to tease us some more, but his phone chooses that moment to ring and he pulls it out of his pocket to answer, holding up a “just a minute” finger before taking a few steps away to talk.

“Why are we here?” Susan asks, looking around. For a second I don’t know what to say. She correctly identified my unaired jealousies, then...nothing. I’d much rather discuss the no-kiss situation than the garden, but I think that’s what she wants me to do, so instead I answer the question she did ask.

“To see how it’s done,” I reply, finally tearing my eyes from the confounding woman in front of me to study the garden. It’s unexpectedly large, maybe thirty yards by twenty. The entire space is a carefully laid out network of planter boxes, each brimming with growing green plants, trellises and gently hissing irrigation systems. At the far end are two wooden towers, approximately three-feet tall, and even from here I can hear the buzzing that identifies them as beehives. The opposite side hosts a tiny chicken run, with a caged area tall enough for a person to stand up, a small red coop on one end and space for the birds to dart back and forth outside. At present two chickens peck absently at the feed scattered on the ground, and when the wind picks up I catch the faint smell of animal.

“This is pretty unbelievable,” Susan muses, turning in a circle, looking impressed. “Who knew?”

Beside us is an entire planter box full of tomatoes climbing over trellises, and the wall space beside the door is draped in netting that supports a wall of tiny green beans. “Rooftop gardening’s a big thing now,” I tell her. “Same with beekeeping.”

“So why does an accountant want to learn about gardening?” she asks, looking up at me. She’s close enough now that I can reach up to capture the ladybug that lands on her cheek, holding it on the tip of my finger for her to see.

“To see what’s possible,” I answer, blowing off the ladybug and watching it fly away.

“You want to open a restaurant?”

“Not exactly. At the moment I just have a...concept.”

A knowing look crosses her face. “You want to grow watermelons in Camden. A safe watermelon that won’t hurt another man.”

“I—” I look at her sharply, but she’s turning back to Rian approaching, tucking his phone back in his pocket. Her lips are curled in a smile, and though Rian and I were college roommates and I love him like a brother, I’d toss him off the roof just to be alone with Susan right now.

Dammit. I want her. I want to kiss the smirk off her lips. I want to hear what she has to say next. For too long I’ve been missing the elusive spark that makes me desperate to get back for seconds and thirds. And the long buried part of me that craves—needs—a fight is dying to make this one last as many rounds as we can handle.

I realize Rian’s discussing the garden, something about how it’s two years old, supplies the restaurant with eighty percent of its produce and eggs, and a hundred percent of its honey.

“You’re both chef and gardener?” Susan asks as we wind our way through the planters. Rian picked up a basket from somewhere and casually plucks tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs and what he assures me are edible flowers from random clusters of green.

“Chef first,” he says, smiling at her over his shoulder. He catches my glare and grins wider. That fuckwit. He knows I like a challenge and that I’ve been bored lately. Like a good friend and asshole, he’s trying to provide one.

“We have gardeners who drop in a few times a week to maintain things,” he continues. “A beekeeper who checks the hives. Two of the prep cooks keep an eye on the chickens, collect the eggs, et cetera. And depending on who’s cooking, we all come up to gather the produce as needed. Beautiful, isn’t it?” He holds up a fistful of basil for Susan to sniff, which she does, but we all know “beautiful” doesn’t refer to the herb.

Fuck off
, I mouth when he extends the basil to me.

He laughs and adds it to the basket, telling us what’s in bloom now, and what will come into season as the summer continues. There’s talk of growing zones, shade and sun, water needs, and companion planting. It’s more information than I was prepared for, and it doesn’t help that I can barely concentrate, watching Susan bend to study a plant, scratch her temple as she asks questions, smile as she bites into a strawberry.

Rian’s phone rings again as he talks about the versatility of nasturtiums, and he curses. “It’s the kitchen,” he says apologetically. “I’m supposed to be off, but one of the sous chefs called in sick and these last-minute reservations left them shorthanded. I’m just going to run down and put out a few fires—don’t go anywhere.” Then to me he adds, “And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Susan and I are quiet as we watch him go. “I can’t tell if you love him or hate him,” she remarks.

“I haven’t given him a lot of thought tonight,” I admit. “Or gardening.”

“Really? You should pay attention, if you want a garden of your own. He’s got a lot of good information. Like this, for example.” She plucks two strawberries from the cluster of plants at her knees, wiping off any visible dirt before extending one to me. “How to grow strawberries.” She bites into the berry, the red staining her teeth before her lips close and she chews. “When was the last time you had a strawberry, Oscar?”

I want to kiss her so bad. Close the fire door and lock us up on the roof, the urban Garden of Eden. She can eat whatever she wants. I’ll eat anything she asks. Instead I eat the damn strawberry. “A good one? I don’t know, Susan. You?”

She eats the rest of the berry and tosses the stem back onto the soil, watching me. “A strawberry or sex?” she asks.

She catches me midswallow and I almost choke, looking away to compose myself. “What are you doing?” I ask when I turn back.

“Why’d you come to the hospital today?”

“To see you.”

“To say hi?”

“That too.”

“And?”

“Why’d you say hi back, Susan?”

“Because I wanted to, Oscar. Because I’m too busy not to. Because I’m free tonight and I don’t know the next time I will be.”

I make myself inhale. The urge to strip her right here, bear her down on to the soil, crushing the plants, smelling basil or oregano or whatever the hell it is as we fuck, is intense. In fact, it’s the best idea I’ve ever had. But something makes me hold back, and it’s not propriety. It’s not the fact that Rian could return at any minute. It’s not even the fact that I barely know her.

It’s because it wouldn’t be enough, and for the first time in years I’m feeling the piece of me I’ve tucked away for so long stir to life. It’s like that marshmallow test, where they give you one and tell you that you can eat it now, but if you wait a while and don’t touch it, they’ll come back and give you a second one. I’m a thirty-four-year-old man and I want all the marshmallows.

“If you want something, say so,” I tell her. I wipe my hands on my slacks, heedless of the strawberry juice.

“I don’t want your friend,” she replies. “He’s not my type.”

“What is?”

A twist of the lips. “Smart,” she says. “Employed. Interesting. Articulate. Understanding. Busy enough with his own life that he doesn’t begrudge me mine. Because I’m not going to change. I’m getting divorced because I won’t change.”

“That’s all?”

“Well, that and apparently I’m a control freak with borderline personality disorder and a lame sense of humor. But I just think I’m focused, and pretty funny, and I haven’t had a strawberry since Christmas, so if you—”

I had a “strawberry” two weeks ago, and I can barely recall her name. But the more I watch Susan’s lips move, tinted pink from the berries, the more I know she’s exactly what I didn’t even know I’d been missing. I step into her, cupping her face in my hands, feeling the strong line of her square jaw against my palms, and kiss her. I don’t even bother with polite and tentative, because I think Susan would eat that guy alive. I think she’d get bored, shake my hand, and head back to her car and her rap music and forget all about me.

I kiss her as dirty as I can. I want to show her what I want and what she can have and what she’ll be missing. I want to make her wet. I want her to know that I can, and I want to know it too. She moans in her throat and I feel it vibrate against my fingertips. My sprained wrist still aches, but it’s the last thing I’m thinking about as I drop my hand to her lower back and bring her in close, difficult because I have to bend down to kiss her, a problem I’ve faced with all but the tallest women. Well, a problem when we’re vertical. Because horizontal it’s no problem at all.

But horizontal isn’t on the menu tonight, I tell myself, even as Susan steps onto one of the planter ledges to address the height difference, pressing her breasts against me. They’re bigger than I thought, and it makes my balls tighten. I feel one of her hands fisted in the front of my shirt, the other clutching the back of my head, her fingers digging into my scalp. I like making Susan Jones hold on. I want to be the thing she holds on to.

My cock is very grateful for the loose fit of the trousers, but it’s still barely enough room to contain the raging erection that’s been ready and waiting since I laid eyes on Dr. Jones an hour ago. With permission and promise on the horizon, he’s raring to go, and I know Susan’s on the same page when the hand tangled in my shirt slips between us to gently grasp my cock where it pokes into her belly.

The grip tightens and I gasp. “Susan.”

“Uh-huh?” The question is muffled against my mouth. She strokes me efficiently, almost impersonally, and I wonder if this is what it’s like with doctors. This is a cock. This is how you work it. This is what feels good. Step one, step two, step three.

“Stop,” I manage to say, hating myself with the word.

She stops immediately, releasing me, stepping back along the edge of the planter, surprisingly balanced in her retreat. She hops down and adjusts her clothing, wipes her mouth with her hand as though she’s hiding the Junior Mint evidence. Except she’s not. A single word and she’s erasing everything. But she doesn’t look mad, exactly. Her face is flushed, her breath is satisfyingly raspy, and I can see her nipples peaked beneath her shirt.

You idiot
, my cock is screaming.
Look what you did!
Look what you
didn’t
do!

“Why?” she asks finally.

The words barely manage to penetrate my foggy brain, all my focus on willing my erection to go down. I’d have more luck getting Jade to dress in clothes that actually fit.

There are a lot of potential answers to her question, but what it boils down to is this: “I want more.” I want more than a fuck on a rooftop, more than another impersonal interlude that gets us both off and sees us part ways. Because when a starving man is presented with a feast, he’s not going to down the soup course and call it a night. Not when he knows there’s more coming.

“More than what?”

“Than this.” It sounds stupid when I say it out loud. I’ve got everything I could want. A lush rooftop garden; a gorgeous, willing doctor; a beautiful summer evening. It sounds like I also require a pot of gold, a unicorn and an invisibility cloak.

“Huh.” She exhales heavily. “That’s too bad.”

“Why?”

Her smile is fleeting. “Because I want more too,” she says, “and somehow I don’t think we mean the same thing.”

The fire door swings open and Rian steps out. “Sorry about that,” he says brightly. “Where were we?”

“I have to go,” Susan says, passing him on her way to the door. “Thank you for the tour.”

His face falls. “Everything okay?”

Her answer is swallowed by the stairwell, and I turn my back on Rian. My cock has finally given up the dream, erection no longer visible, but I need a second to swallow my disappointment.

I should say I respect Susan’s directness, her willingness to say what she wants—sort of—and walk away when she doesn’t find it. But I don’t. The kiss was too hot, her fist on my cock too perfectly tight, the taste of chocolate and mint and strawberry mingling on her tongue inciting something that’s lain dormant for far too long.

“Come on down to the bar,” Rian says, stepping up to stand beside me. “You look like you need a drink.”

Chapter Three

The next day brings more of the same. I stare out my office window at the tannery, mentally teleporting Mache’s rooftop garden to the barren gray surface. Without exaggeration, it would be the only slice of green in my entire view. And if it’s at all possible to grow living things in the toxic environment I’ve chosen to call home, it would be a fucking miracle.

At six o’clock I give up on the end-of-year report I’ve been plodding through all day and head out to my car. The morning sun gave way to afternoon clouds, the air thick with the weight of the impending storm. It’ll be a relief when the humidity breaks, because the way it is now, it feels like the entire atmosphere is riding my ass, sweat plastering my shirt to my back. That’s how it’d felt last night watching Susan walk away. I’d felt her imprinted everywhere, my mouth, my chest, my cock. My skin damp with perspiration and unfulfilled desire, all because I wanted something more than she was willing to offer.

I pause before climbing into my SUV, peering up at the building I’d just exited. On Wall Street I had a corner office on the nineteenth floor, and I’d given it up because it wasn’t what I wanted. Now look at me. What the fuck is wrong with this picture?

It’s a short drive to Titan’s Gym, so I make the two-block detour to idle at the curb in front of the tannery. But it’s not the building I’m staring at, not the garbage blowing around the front yard like urban tumbleweeds. It’s the for-sale sign. For Sale by Owner. I pull out my phone and punch in the handwritten number before I can talk myself out of it.

It’s answered on the first ring. “Hello?” A male voice, slightly scratchy, unaccented.

“Hey,” I say, turning up the air conditioning and aiming both vents at my face. “I’m calling about the building for sale.”

“Yeah?” Some kind of noise in the background, then sudden quiet. “Which one?”

I squint at the building, trying to make out the faded yellow numbers above doors that haven’t been opened in years. “Ah, the tannery. 4411 Arthur.” A pause. “In Camden.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know it. You’re interested?”

“Maybe. How much are you asking?”

Another pause, this one longer than mine. “Why don’t we talk about this in person?”

My neck itches, and I rethink this stupid idea. I’m in one of the worst parts of an already bad town, calling a stranger who, for whatever reason, owns an abandoned building in a slum. And he wants to meet in person? When? Shortly after midnight in an alley next to a river in which to dump my body? That might sound farfetched, but I grew up in Camden. I’ve got a six-inch scar to attest to the fact that sometimes people stab people because they fucking feel like it.

“I’ll call you back,” I say, hanging up on his protest. I toss the phone onto the passenger seat, turn up the air conditioning to its highest setting, and am still sweating when I park in front of Titan’s. I blow out a heavy breath and tell myself to get a grip. Susan’s odd form of rejection and this guy’s request to meet—it’s just common sense. Walk away from both. Or let them walk away from me, as the case may be. It’s the right thing to do. The smart thing.

What I’m not going to think about is how these two inevitably bad decisions are the only things that have sparked any interest in me in months. They’re the first things to make my heart pound and my pulse race and my cock hard—well, Susan did that, not the guy on the phone—in far too long. They’re the first things I’ve
done
and not just thought about doing. The fact that I didn’t finish either one isn’t the point. Or maybe it is.

Fuck. I don’t know.

I climb out of the SUV, grab my bag from the back, and head into the gym. It’s musty and smells like sweat, leather and medicine. Not entirely pleasant, but soothing all the same. It’s dim inside but I don’t wait for my eyes to adjust as I cover the familiar distance to the change rooms. It’s even more dank and humid in here than it is outside, and I change quickly, just shorts and a T-shirt, since I’m not fighting.

I say a couple hellos on my way to the treadmill and do a twenty-minute warm up, as though I wasn’t sweating before I even started. When the weights I want are free I make my way over and halfheartedly go through my routine, though my mind keeps wandering and I know I’m just wasting my time. What I want is to get in the ring and fight with somebody. Fuck with somebody.

Hell, let’s just be honest. I want to fuck somebody.

More honest: I want to fuck Susan Jones.

I’d settle for a good fight, but even with his one eye, Oreo knows everything that goes on in this gym and he rules it with an iron fist. He knows my wrist is sprained and he won’t let me in the ring so soon. Not that I’d told anyone here the truth about what happened. They all think I twisted it moving furniture, the best excuse I could come up with.

Now I’m flat on my back doing bench presses and trying not to listen in on the conversation taking place twenty feet away. I hadn’t noticed them when I came in, but Ricky’s hammering away at a sandbag like he knows what he’s doing, and Jade’s standing off to the side, doing her best to adore him. She’s got a brain, but it has yet to occur to her that she could be her own ticket out of this shithole, she doesn’t need to hitch a ride with a jackass like Ricky.

“...think I need your money?” he’s saying now, recounting an interminable tale of a deal gone wrong. “And he’s like, ‘Well, maybe,’ and I’m like, ‘No, motherfucker. You see this?’ showing him my rings, and he’s like, ‘Yeah,’ so then I...”

Oh God. I groan inwardly and lower the bar, sitting up. I can’t fucking listen to this. “Jade,” I call.

She somehow manages to tear away her attention from Ricky’s fascinating tale. I see her lips move as she excuses herself, then picks her way across the floor on sparkly red heels that have no business in this gym, or Camden in general. She either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care that the second she vacates her spot, two other girls hurry to fill it.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, planting her hands on her hips and shooting a pointed look at my wrist. Painted in a skintight black dress that stops two inches below her crotch, she still manages to be intimidating. Even though Jade doesn’t always choose the best way to go about things, she’s a smart girl raised by two stupid brothers and she knows how to take care of herself. And others, whether they want it or not.

“I’m working out. What are you doing here?”

“You have a sprained wrist, Oz. You shouldn’t even be looking at this place for another two weeks.”

“Relax. I’m taking it easy. What are you doing here dressed like that?”

She tosses her glossy dark hair over her shoulder and arches an eyebrow. She’s done something different with her makeup tonight, and her brows are darker than normal, making this glare even more worrisome. I grew up with two sisters—I’m familiar with things like clothes and makeup and the evil eye.

“What’s wrong with how I’m dressed?”

I’m not going down this road. I’m not her father. But...A quick glance over her shoulder confirms that Ricky has continued to regale his new fans with his story. “You’re right,” I say. “I shouldn’t be here. Let’s go get something to eat.”

She’s suitably confused by the change in direction. “What?”

“What do you want, a burger?”

She turns to see what Ricky’s up to and scowls. “I don’t need you to babysit me, Oz.”

“No one’s babysitting anyone, Jade. I didn’t get groceries this week and I don’t want to eat alone. Where do you want to go?”

She crosses her arms, painted nails tapping thoughtfully. “If I go out to dinner, you have to go out with Sheree.”

“No.” Jade’s been hounding me to date Sheree for months, ever since she brought her by the office. She’s a nice woman, around my age, but there was no spark. She’d been perfectly nice. No rapping, no cock-grabbing, no strawberries.

“Why not?”

“Because,” I say, snatching up my towel and swiping it across my neck. “Give me six minutes to shower. I’ll meet you out here.”

Her eyes narrow as she looks me over. “Is there someone else?”

“What? No.”

“Why not?”

“Jade—”

“Come on, Oz. I spend enough time here to see the women looking at you. Why are you asking me to have dinner instead of one of them?”

Jade knows I’m not asking her out. She came onto me a few times when we first met and I’d made it clear it wasn’t going to happen. She hadn’t cared. Flirting is like breathing for Jade, and when one guy doesn’t work out, she moves on to the next. Plus now she’s got dear old Ricky.

“Not my type,” I tell her. “Six minutes.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’ll be here. We can talk more about your love life.”

I flip her off and her laughter follows me all the way to the locker room.

* * *

I know I’m supposed to be benevolent and supportive of these charity races, but really, they’re a nuisance. I’ve got to wake up extra early, drive into the city, fight to find parking, then make my way through the crowd so I can hang out for an eternity with the other people in my speed group waiting for the gun to go off.

Then we run. And that’s it. I don’t like music when I’m working out, so for the next forty-five minutes it’s just me and my thoughts. And it doesn’t take a genius to know who I’m thinking about.

I don’t have Susan’s number and she doesn’t have mine, and I’m grateful for it. Because even though she’d made things pretty clear on Wednesday, I’d probably have called her. That said, there’s a line now, and I’m not going to cross it. I’m not going to show up at the hospital if I’m not driven there in an ambulance. The race starts at nine and the sun is just starting to burn off the thin layer of clouds that have kept the temperature in the low sixties, a nice break in what has otherwise been an unseasonably hot June. The route takes us along the lakefront and through Lincoln Park, thousands of moving bodies on track for the finish line.

Despite my grumbling, this particular race is close to my heart. Pace Yourself is a national organization that offers services to people whose lives have been impacted by drunk driving, and though I was in New York when my mother and sisters were killed, the kind people of the New York Chapter gave me the support I neither wanted nor needed. Or so I thought.

My dad died when I was a toddler, and by twenty-one I was officially an adult and an orphan. The guy who T-boned them was also killed, and though fighting was the thing I did best, the one person I wanted to hurt was dead. The anger and aggression turned itself inward, my grades suffered, and I stopped going to wrestling practice. Stopped caring in general. I drank too much, slept too much, kept to myself too much. Until Rian had enough of seeing his roommate piss away his life and hunted around online until he found the local Chapter of Pace Yourself. He called them, they showed up and they smothered me with kindness and support until I started going to class and practice just to avoid them.

The ten kilometers pass quickly, helped along by cheering strangers on the sidelines. The finish line is a hundred yards ahead, crowded with runners who have finished, support staff, friends and fans. A huge balloon arch marks the end and soon enough I’m passing beneath it, done for another year. I slow down and peel off to the side, accepting a bottle of water from a volunteer, shooting her a grateful smile as I tug a hand towel from my pocket and mop up the sweat at my temples.

Around me I can hear exclamations of congratulations, people calling out to each other over the din of the crowd. I finish the water and toss the empty bottle in a recycle bin, wincing inwardly at a pang of self-pity I have no business feeling.

I’m parked about half a mile away and I glance around for the quickest path out of the throng, frowning when I think I hear my name.

“Oscar!”

I hear it again, and shake my head. It’s not the loveliest or most common name, but it’s more likely there’s another guy named Oscar in the group than there’s someone trying to get my attention.

“Oscar!”

I pluck my sticky T-shirt away from my chest and shoulder my way through the swarm of sweaty bodies, accepting another bottle of water and downing half as I go.

“Oscar!” One more shout I’m fully prepared to ignore until a hand clamps on my bicep from behind. I turn, stunned to see Susan standing there, pretty in her blue scrubs and ponytail, dark lashes flickering rapidly as she’s forced to squint into the sun to make eye contact.

I look around in confusion. “What are you—”

Someone bangs into her, apologizing before hustling past, and I tug her behind me as I push through the crowd, using the time to gather my scrambled thoughts. Pleasure at seeing her, irritation at being forced to remember the very thing I’m trying to forget, confusion at her arrival. But beneath all that...hope.

The race ends in an enormous parking lot, with different tables set up for water, food, first aid and donations. I skim the first-aid stations, but there are no other people dressed in scrubs, just plain white T-shirts with giant red crosses on the front to differentiate them from everyone else. Finally I turn and peer down at Susan, releasing her wrist and sipping from the second bottle of water while I wait for her to speak.

“Did you, um...do well?” she asks when I don’t say anything.

I shrug. “It was fine. What are you doing here? Are you working?”

“No. I just finished. The hospital’s not far, so I came over.”

“Do you know someone else who’s running?”

“No. I didn’t even know there was a race until you told me.”

That’s right. On Wednesday I’d told her I’d come into the city to pick up my race packet. And she’d remembered. And now here she is.

The tiny seed of hope is threatening to grow into something more, but I ruthlessly squash it, a task easier said than done. Because she’s unbelievably pretty, even with faint circles under her eyes and tired lines around her mouth, some indistinguishable stain on the front of her top. She’d only held my arm for a few seconds, but I can still feel the press of her fingers on my skin, and I’d run this race forward and backward all day just to feel it again.

But I don’t say any of this. Because Dr. Susan Jones wants what she wants when she wants it, and then she wants to walk away. And though that would have worked perfectly for me before we met, it doesn’t work now.