Brawler (10 page)

Dan opened the door.

That’s the last thing I remember about that night.

I spent the next two weeks living at Callum’s house. Dan offered to let me stay with them in their posh pool house, but I couldn’t. My pride wouldn’t let me. It was hard enough taking Callum up on the offer. I went to the apartment the next day while the Asshole was at work, collected what small amount of possessions I had, and never went back. I changed my mailing address to my dorm up at Cal, I got a new phone with a new number, and I started shopping around for motorcycles. I’d told Laney I wanted one as a strange lie in a weird moment, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. The freedom of being on the road alone with the wind whipping past. No music, no chatter from anyone else in the car. No back seat. Just me. Flying.

The new phone and the bike were going to be expensive. So was going to college. Even buying all of the toothpaste and toilet paper I’d need was going to cost me, and I was broke. Or a millionaire, depending on how you looked at it. Dan and I had long, exhausting conversations about the money Barkley Thorp had been giving me over the years. I asked him not to tell anyone else about it. Not Karen and definitely not the girls. I wasn’t sure what it meant or what I wanted to do with it yet, but eventually Dan did talk me into using at least some of it to go to school and live off of while I was getting my education. I declined the financial aid Cal was offering me in the hopes they would give it to someone else who needed it, I paid my tuition with the first check I’d ever written in my life, and I made an anonymous donation to the school to help other kids get the help they needed. I made a donation to UCLA as well.

My first day of college was surprisingly not that different from high school. In fairness, my high school experience had been in the Higher Focus program, a set of classes designed to challenge geniuses and get us accustomed to what a college environment would feel like. Thanks to my time at Weston, I didn’t have a single one hundred level class on my schedule. I’d earned college credit the entire time I was enrolled there and most of my classes were two to three hundred level. My core classwork required for just about any major was already started.

Day one and I was nearly a year ahead of the curve.

My phone vibrated in my pocket where I sat in a dark corner of the lecture hall. I groaned, contemplating ignoring it. Laney had been texting me all morning with selfies of herself getting ready for the first day of school, trying on different outfits, and hanging out around campus with her friends. I was getting sick of it.

Reluctantly, I pulled my phone out surreptitiously and glanced down at it under my fold away desk. I smiled when I saw the message was from Jenna.

Hey. How’s college?
she asked.

It’s cool. How’s high school?

It’s cool. Big. Little scary. Hey, speaking of scary, what the hell did you do?

Uh oh.

Don’t know what you mean.
I answered, thinking I had a pretty good idea what she meant.

Bullshit!

Language ;)
I scolded, quoting her mom.

Sam says you cock blocked me. Is that true?

She’s using that term wrong.

Doesn’t mean it’s not true. How many, Kel? How many guys will be scared to come near me?

I stifled a laugh, covering my mouth and coughing to hide it. No one paid me any attention.

The entire football team. JV and Varsity.

Bastard,
she swore.

Pisser. Hey, what are you wearing?

Excuse me?

I reread what I’d asked her, then cursed softly.
That came out wrong. Laney sent me pics of her First Day Back outfit. Lots of them.

Is that seriously a thing?

She very seriously seems to think so. Where are yours?

I’m not sending you pictures of what I’m wearing.

At least send me a pic of your smiling face. I miss it.

She fell silent for a minute after that and I worried she was finished talking to me. I hadn’t spoken to her in a week, not since I’d left to come up to school, and I missed her more than I thought I would. This one quick exchange was more entertaining than hours of texting with Laney or Callum.

My phone vibrated again. She’d sent me a picture.

When I opened it, I laughed out loud. Literally. Heads turned and students glared at me, but the professor kept going without missing a beat. I painted a serious look on my face but my shoulders were shaking with silent laughter.

Jenna had sent me a picture of herself sitting in class. She was flipping me off.

When everyone was done scolding me silently with their eyes, I texted Jenna quickly.

lol I love you, Nonpareil.

And that was not an accident.

It was not a lie.

Eight Months Later

Laney and I didn’t last through the sex ban. In fact, we broke up constantly, and what confused the shit out of me was how we always ended up back together. We’d break up, go our separate ways, date other people, but the second I came down to visit the family for holidays or birthdays or the stray weekend that I had free, we’d run into each other and somehow end up making out and jerking each other off in some awkward location. After each time, we tried being a couple again, but it was never long before the distance got to one or both of us.

If we didn’t have sex, Laney and I didn’t have much.

During our interims I started partying with the girls at the gym who trolled the matches. A little rough and a lot desperate, they normally weren’t my type, but I wasn’t looking for anything heavy and neither were they. They were the closest thing to the casual sex I’d had with Laney that I could find and I decided to give it a shot and enjoy it.

And I did, right up until I slept with the wrong girl.

I didn’t have any love for Laney, but the sex I had with this girl in the back of the locker room under the cold showers was one of the most bizarrely empty encounters of my life. She told to do her from behind while pulling on her long, blond hair and growling at her. She literally asked me to do that – growl. Like I was a damn dog. Then she wanted me to spew a litany of offensive things at her, calling her every dirty name in the book and asking if she wanted me to split her in half. She had a whole script of what she wanted me to do and say, and I realized I was an actor in her fantasy, nothing more. I wasn’t exactly a warm fuzzy guy when it came to sex, but at least I enjoyed the physical feel of it. This was different. She wasn’t getting off on me or some misplaced feeling of love or attachment – she was getting off on the act.

It was a whole other level of empty I hadn’t realized existed.

“That’s what girls do now!” Callum had yelled at me excitedly when I told him. “They read
Fifty Shades of Fucked Up
and suddenly they want you to tie them up and humiliate them. It’s amazing.”

“It’s weird.”

“I know,” he laughed. “They’re all nuts. It used to be I’d say something stupid like ‘You’re like a fine wine. I want to lock you in my cellar and drink you for days.’ and they’d look at me like I was a creep. Now that’s the fantasy and I’m getting laid twenty four freaking seven, bro!”

After that, I tried to forget the girl’s name along with her blurry tattoos, pierced tongue, and Callum’s seal of approval, but I couldn’t. It was like the whole thing was haunting me to remind me how low I could sink.

Chelsea. That was her name. I hoped to God I never saw her again.

I wasn’t shallow enough for the animal growling sex with the porn star and I wasn’t deep enough for a real relationship. I was in some strange middle ground purgatory and I couldn’t change it, but that’s what they all wanted me to do. Change.

All of them but Laney.

She’d never asked more of me than the moments we had in the backseat of too many cars. In the janitors closet at school. On the beach under the night sky with the tide rolling in. Sex was just sex to Laney, something fun and exciting, and when I got distant, she didn’t care. She got what she needed, then she was on to the next thing. Initially I had thought it was messed up, but after my recent dip back into the dating pool, I wondered if it wasn’t perfect. If we weren’t made for each other.

It was kind of a depressing thought, one I tried to avoid.

Instead, I focused on better things. Things like killing it at school. Winning a recent bout. Jenna’s fifteenth birthday.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you.”

Jenna cringed slightly. “You know you can’t sing, right?”

“Happy birthday, dear Jenna!” I shouted in reply, flying far off key. “Happy birthday to you!”

“Wow. Thank you. That was humiliating.”

I sat down, smiling at her. “You’re welcome.”

“Can I take the hat off now?” she asked, pointing to the massive sombrero our waitress had put on her head when she’d brought out the small birthday cake I’d had delivered.

I dug a fork into my burrito. “Is your birthday over?”

“It’s not even my birthday today!”

“But it is tomorrow. We can do this again tomorrow if you want to take the hat off now.”

“No,” she replied immediately, pulling the massive embarrassment down farther onto her head. “This is fine. It’s good. I love it.”

“It looks good on you,” I chuckled.

She looked ridiculous, but she smiled at me happily and drug her finger through the side of the cake to gather the icing.

“Your mom would flip,” I warned her, watching her lick the purple frosting off her fingertip.

She smiled mischievously. “I know. That’s why early birthdays with you are the best. You let me do whatever I want.”

“Yeah, you’re such a rebel,” I said sarcastically. “It’s a real burden. I bring bail money.”

“I’m going to do something crazy. Something mom would
never
let me do. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“Shit dammit bitch ass,” she said at full volume.

I closed my eyes, shaking my head. “It’s like sweet music.”

“It’s better than your singing,” she replied, getting serious and taking her fork to the cake. “Yes! There’s a raspberry ribbon.”

“It’s your favorite, right?”

“Yes. Thank you!” She sat up in her chair to lean across the table and plant a quick kiss on my cheek. “You’re awesome.”

“I know.”

“Sucks you live so far away.”

“I know,” I repeated more softly, watching her face fall a little serious. A little sad. “I miss hanging out with you.”

“Yeah, me too. Are you going to visit the house while you’re in town?”

“Nah, I don’t think so.”

“Because Laney will be there?”

“Maybe.”

Jenna sighed dramatically. “First college, now Laney. The world is conspiring to keep you away from me.”

I laughed. “Have you been watching soap operas while I’ve been gone? What’s gotten into you?”

“I don’t know,” she mumbled, looking away.

I nudged her foot under the table, getting her attention. “Hey. What’s up?”

She looked at me reluctantly and I noticed how tired she seemed. “Mom is all over me about school and painting. She’s scheduling all these activities for me and tutoring and it sucks. It’s like she’s trying to keep me from having free time.”

“Have you told her you don’t want to do all of it?”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t listen. It’s all stuff she had Laney doing at my age because it’s what mom did when she was a kid and Laney loved it, so she’s convinced I’ll love it to if I give it a try.”

“What does she have you doing?”

“Gymnastics and dance team. Cheerleading.”

I looked her over from her dark hair to her dark eye shadow to her vibrant blue hoodie with the nautical stars printed in black up the right sleeve. “I cannot picture you with pom poms,” I said, not wanting to even try.

“Right? I’m not good. I’m too tall. There’s too much of me to do that stuff, but I have try it all, and I don’t like it. Any of it. I’ve been faking being sick to get out of stuff and I have a sketchpad hidden under my mattress so I can practice at night when she’s not snooping around. Kids my age are usually hiding drugs or cigarettes. I only want to draw a fruit bowl in peace.”

“Sorry, Jen.”

She shrugged. “It’s okay. It was easier with you and dad around, but dad is always working and you’re gone and… I don’t know.”

I felt a twinge of guilt in my gut that pulled on the corners of my mouth, making me frown. Without Dan and I around, Jenna was outnumbered.

“What about Sam?”

She brightened a little. “Yeah, at least I’ve got her to keep me sane. I skip out to go to her house a lot because her parents think I’m amazing just for wearing colors. They’re easy to please.”

“You didn’t want to bring her today? I told you it’d be fine if she came with us.”

“No, I like it being you and I. Besides, she’s at her aunt’s house. Her cousin just showed up and she has a baby no one has met yet so the whole family is over there today.”

“How old is the kid?” I asked distractedly, not really caring. I was more concerned with the cake sitting in front of me. Taunting me.

“Emma had him about a year ago, I think. They just got back to the States from living in Europe.”

My fork hovered over the side of the cake where I’d been about to dig in. Right until Jenna told me the cousin’s name.

“She went to Weston?”

“Yeah.” Jenna looked up at me, her eyes thoughtful. “She would have been in your class. Did you know her? Emma Kirkpatrick?”

“It sounds familiar,” I answered evasively.

Jenna recognized the dodge, narrowing her eyes at me. “How familiar?”

I grinned crookedly at her scrutiny. “It’s not my baby, Jen.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I barely even met Emma and besides, I’m very careful. Trust me. It’s not mine.”

“Hmm.”

Now
I
narrowed my eyes at her. “What?”

“Nothing. I just realized something.”

“What?”

“Her baby’s name is Colter.”

I felt myself flush for some reason, my cheeks going red. Was I embarrassed? Why? “That’s a good name.”

“It’s
your
name,” she reminded me.

I shrugged. “Depends on how you spell it.”

“She named her baby after you, didn’t she?”

“It’s possible.”

“Why would a girl you barely know name her baby after you?”

“Because I’m awesome.”

“Kellen,” she said impatiently.

“Yes, Jenna?”

She stared at me, waiting.

Finally I put up my hands, giving in. “Fine. Alright. Emma was the girl from the fight.”

“The one you got in trouble for?”

“No, the one Mr. Miyagi trained me for.” Jenna stared at me blankly. “Never mind. Yes. That fight. The guy was her boyfriend.”

“Shit boyfriend.”

“No kidding.”

“
Karate Kid
, by the way,” she said drolly. “I get it.”

I grinned. “You get everything.”

She drug her fork through the icing slowly, like a rake through a Zen garden. “That’s really cool.”

“What is?”

“That she named her kid after you.”

“Do me a favor?” I asked her seriously.

“Sure.”

“Don’t tell anybody about it.”

“Okay,” she frowned. “But why?”

“We don’t know for sure she named him after me.”

“The name isn’t exactly common,” she argued.

“Either way, keep it between you and me, alright?”

“Are you embarrassed?”

I shrugged off the question. “I don’t want to have to talk about it with people.”

Yes, I was. I was embarrassed. It was an honor, one I didn’t feel like I deserved. I’d almost ruined my future with that one moment, and even though I didn’t regret stepping in to help her, I knew I could have handled it differently. More calmly. She was such a small girl and pregnant and fragile. What if one of us had hit her? What if we’d knocked her down and hurt her and the baby? The animal had come out, I’d let him out, and it could have ended so much worse than it did. For everyone.

I didn’t deserve a medal for not destroying something beautiful.

“You did a really good thing,” Jenna told me, watching me.

“And you’d be doing a really good thing for me by keeping it quiet.”

I could see it in her eyes that she knew I was ready to run. To hide. She knew me well enough to understand that when things got too intense, I retreated like a coward. I hid from the world and I waited for it to end.

“Okay,” she agreed easily, letting me off the hook. “I won’t say a word.”

“Thanks.” I lifted my fork, stabbing it pointedly into the cake and pushing a grin onto my face. “Now let’s eat ourselves sick on this thing and get out of here.”

She smiled knowingly. “Ocean?”

“You know it. If there’s one thing I miss almost as much as you, it’s being five minutes from the water.”

“You know what I miss
more
than you?”

“What?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

My stomach flipped and for the second time that afternoon, I felt my cheeks flush red, feeling embarrassed.

Unworthy.