Wreck (Bareknuckle Boxing Brotherhood Book 2) (6 page)

“I should have asked. Sorry. I’ll get you a water.”

“No big deal, I’ll get it,” she said and took the cup to the register. She returned with a cup of water and two dollars. “Here, they refunded your money.”

“That was nice, Olive,” Shea said, surprised.

Kyle took the money from her and looked at Shea in disbelief.

“What’s your favorite color?” Olive asked, picking the tomato off her pizza.

“Blue,” Shea responded.

“Green,” Kyle said. “How about you?”

“I like silver.”

“That’s different. I thought you’d say pink,” Kyle said.

“I would have a couple years ago. I was really into pink, but after a while it got boring. I also watched those princess movies, ugh,” she admitted with an eye roll.

“Well thank goodness you’re over that,” Shea said. “What are you into now? Please don’t say
Twilight
.”

“My favorite movie is
Divergent
, or it
would
be if my mom would let me watch it. I saw clips on YouTube. She said I’m too young. Like I didn’t watch Chuckie and crap with Greg while she was at work.”

“Where does she work?”

“She used to work at a c-store. She got fired. Her boss was a b—her boss was the b-word. She was always yelling at Mom and making her do all the nasty jobs, like clean the bathrooms, and those truckers, they pee on everything! It’s like they don’t even TRY to AIM, she said. So the b—so her
boss
fired her,” Olive said, obviously trying to control her expletives.

“Where does Greg work?”

“Shouldn’t you ask my mom this stuff? He gets a check ‘cause he hurt his back. He stays home and does stuff there. He plays these online games and he cooks stuff.” She took a big bite of pizza and chewed thoughtfully.

“No brothers and sisters?” Shea asked.

“Is this the Spanish Inquisition?” Olive demanded.

“Do you even know what that is?” Shea challenged.

“No but it’s something people
say
when you ask too many
questions
, like now,” she shot back.

“Fair enough,” Shea said. “I have one sister. How about you?”

“Zero.”

“I’m thinking about getting a cat. A couple cats, actually.” Shea added, “Do you like cats?”

“Not really. I have a ferret.”

“What’s his name?” Shea asked, disappointed that the cat piss smell on Greg couldn’t have come from a litter of cats at the house.

“His name is Ferret,” she said, deadpan.

“So it doesn’t have a name?”

“He
has
a name. His
name
is
Ferret
.”

“How descriptive,” Shea said, trying to hide a snort. “That would be like if your mom had named you Girl.”

“Girl would be better than Olive.” She snorted, “Plus, also I had to call him Ferret. Greg wanted to name him Nos-FERRET-u and Mom wanted to call him Farrah the Ferret. What would you have done?”

“I wouldn’t have a ferret,” Shea said truthfully, “so I wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

“I thought about calling him Spot ‘cause I really wanted a puppy, but he doesn’t have spots, so it seemed stupid.”

“You don’t seem like the kind of person to name your dog Spot,” Shea observed.

“No, I’d name a dog Sasha. That’s kind of like your name, isn’t it. I bet Shea’s a big dog name.”

“Thanks,” Shea said, taking a bite of pizza to remind herself not to snark on the kid.

“You remind me a lot of my brother,” Kyle said.

“That big dude at the gym? I’m not even a
boy
!” she said, obviously insulted.

“He’s a brawler. Has to have a fight all the time, ever since we were kids. Nobody could put him down or look at him sideways without a fist to the face.”

“I only got in trouble for fighting a couple times, and she HIT ME FIRST,” Olive huffed.

“So you’re not into fists. Doesn’t mean you’re not a fighter. Way I see it, you spend the whole day making sure me and Shea know you don’t take any crap and that you’re smarter than us. Maybe you
are
smarter than me, I don’t know. But you’re not gonna outsmart Shea…she’s a nurse. If you piss her off, she might give you a shot.” He winked.

“She can’t just DO that. There are
rules
,” Olive said with disgust.

“Oh, well, I’m your dad, so I guess I could give permission for her to give you a shot,” he teased.

“You’re only my biological father,” Olive said knowledgeably, “and you wouldn’t do that. You’re just teasing,”

“Yeah, I know. I just wanted to see if you got my sense of humor or your mom’s.”

“My mom thinks Larry the Cable Guy is funny,” Olive admitted, looking downcast.

“What do you think is funny?”

“Those YouTube videos where people fall down. And those ones where cats are in containers and try to get out. Those are funny.” She let out a giggle almost by accident.

Shea thought again how incredibly cute she could be when she wasn’t being actively obnoxious. Kids, it turned out, were not automatically loveable just because they were small. This one had an attitude. She shook her head, thinking of the tangle of complications that walked into Kyle’s life on practically the same day she met him because of this girl and her mother. About how there was no hope of this ever being a casual fling, because it was too real and too messy now.

Shea was trying to think of something to say while Olive played with the tomatoes she’d first removed and then mushed up with her plastic fork, swirling them around her plate.

Kyle’s phone blared to life, and he answered it, mouth turning a shade more serious. “Fine, fine, we’ll meet you there in a minute. We’ll be right there. Yeah, you can talk to her.” He passed the phone to Olive.

“Hi Mom,” she said, rolling her eyes, “Yeah it was great. We got tattoos and he let me have a wine cooler. Best. Dad. Ever.” She laughed, but it sounded harsh. “I’m KIDDING, God, if you’re not Larry the Cable Guy you’re not supposed to joke?” She clicked off the call. “She told me to STAY on the phone with her until we got to JC Penney. Like me being on the phone is gonna keep you from kidnapping me at gunpoint or something. I tried to tell her if you didn’t want me for my whole life you’re not gonna run off with me now!” she said with a shrug, affecting the artificial sophistication of a teenager.

Kyle stopped her with a gentle hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him. “Hey, I didn’t know about you. That’s NOT the same as not wanting you. I didn’t know I wanted a daughter at all ‘til I found out I had you,” Kyle said.

Shea had to stifle a sob that rose in her throat, because it was maybe the best thing she’d ever heard anyone say. Her reaction was fast and powerful, and she plummeted, like an elevator, into love with Kyle. It wasn’t gradual. It was right then, that moment. She thought,
that’s the man I want to be with
.

Olive squared her shoulders and looked at him, gave a silent nod, and walked on, as if accepting this tribute. At the store entrance, she turned and looked at them, shifting from foot to foot.

“Thanks for the phone and stuff,” she said. “I guess I’ll talk to you—” She stared at her scuffed up canvas shoes, the ones with the hole in the toe. When they’d asked, she’d insisted they were her favorites, not just some worn-out old shoes that needed replacement.

“I’ll text you later, okay? Do you think you can call me tomorrow?” he asked a bit shyly.

“Yeah.” She brightened. “I mean, like, if I don’t get super busy and forget.”

“I’ll call you if you forget,” He said. “Now smile,”

He held up his phone to take her picture, but Shea stepped in front of him.

“Let me,” she said, and took his phone.

Kyle moved over to stand beside Olive, and Shea snapped a photo of them.

“Now silly faces!” She prompted, and Olive rolled her eyes ostentatiously before sticking out her tongue at the camera phone. “Now give me big smiles. Say ‘cheese’!”

“Cheesy. Lame. Embarrassing,” Olive said.

The father and daughter beamed, and Shea took a snapshot. Shea found the picture strangely moving as she noticed the awkward, formal way Kyle had his arm around Olive’s shoulders, the way the crescent-shaped scar on his face shone pale in the photo, and the way their blue eyes were exactly the same. It made her chest feel full and fragile, like a balloon: floating upward, light, but in peril as well.

“Would you come and meet my mom sometime? She’s your grandma. Her name is Carla Dolan. You look a lot like her.”

“You said I look like your brother.”

“I said you
remind
me of my brother. You look like my mom, though. She’s going to be wicked proud of you. And mad as hell at me for not knowing you sooner,” he said with a fond, rueful grin, “I want you to meet my family.”

“Duh. I
am
your family.”

“Right, but I’d like you to meet the rest. They’re your family, too.”

“Okay, I’ll ask my mom and Greg later.”

“I’ll text you. And, Olive, I’m really glad I got to see you today. Thanks.” He leaned toward her, but backed off, like he was hesitant to hug her.

Kyle’s phone lit up again. “Yeah, you better go,” he said. “Hi, yeah, I’m sending her out now. I was telling her bye. Yes, I know we’re a couple minutes—okay, six minutes—late. Bye.”

Olive took off, and Kyle looped his arm around Shea’s shoulders.

“How bad did you want to hug her?” Shea asked.

“So bad,” he said with a nervous chuckle. “It was so weird. I didn’t want her to leave.”

“I know.”

“Did you feel that way about her, too?” he asked in wonder.

“No, not really, but I can tell you did.” She said, “I’m KIDDING. She’s great, Kyle. You should see your face. I guess I’m no Larry the Cable Guy, sorry.”

Kyle laughed, and she felt herself relax as she laughed with him, the tension of the day melting off them.

“Let me take you out.”

“We are out. We just ate. Do not tell me you’re hungry again already.”

“No, but we could go for a walk. Maybe down to the harbor.”

“That’s like ten thousand miles,” Shea moaned.

“Pop quiz. Which one of us was a semi-pro athlete?”

“I work on my feet every shift. When I’m off, I like to sit down and relax. In my sweats. With the TV on,” she teased.

“Fine, so not the harbor. How about…”

“How about we count it a victory that she didn’t make fun of our matching shirts and call it a day?”

“Are you going to go to sleep or something?”

“I could use a nap.”

“Could you use some company?” Kyle asked, and she felt almost overpowered by a need to tell him yes.

“I really can’t,” she said truthfully, “I mean, I want to, but I can’t.”

He looked at her, puzzled. She couldn’t think of a way to tell him she was scared, or that she loved him and knew he could wreck her completely with a careless word or by disappearing as soon as they slept together. She wanted to postpone the inevitable heartache, live in the moment of bittersweet anticipation a bit longer.

“I had a good time today. Thanks,” he said, relenting with grace.

“Me, too,” she said, and faltered, reconsidering, when his phone rang again.

“Crap, it’s Ashley,” he said, and answered it. “Yeah, I asked her to meet my family,” He paused, meeting Shea’s eyes while he listened to his ex’s diatribe.

He held up one finger to let Shea know it would be a minute, that he wanted her to wait. She could hear the other woman’s voice blaring from his phone. She caught phrases like “bad influence” and “dangerous”, and she shook her head, waved to him and left.

Kyle Dolan listened to the mother of his child, his jaw set in grim determination not to argue, not to match her insult for insult.

“You still live in Mattapan where we grew up. It is the ARMPIT of Boston, Kyle. My daughter is not going to visit your family in that crime-ridden shithole so she can see some hooker giving a hand job in the alley on the way to your mom’s house. Your neighborhood and your lifestyle are too dangerous and too—shitty for Olive. Yeah, she’s right here. She can hear me. She knows. She only saw you so we could get the medical history we needed to HELP her. I’m not exposing her to you anymore, and as for that phone, how DARE YOU give her a cell phone. I was saving up to buy her one for her birthday, and now you rode in after not paying a single bill her whole life, and bought her some fancy gadget—”

Kyle walked out to the parking lot to get out of the busy mall and have some measure of privacy. His steps were heavy with anger.

“Look, Ashley, I know you’re mad—” He chewed at his thumbnail, a habit he had dropped as a kid. He was pacing back and forth on the sidewalk, agitated, desperate.

“Mad? I’m insulted. You think you’re going to walk in and play Daddy after all these years!”

“I know I have lost time to make up for. I intend to do it. I’m going to get to know my kid.”

“She’s not your kid. She’s MY KID. All you ever contributed was ten minutes in the back of my Jeep, Kyle.”

“Did you just say that in front of Olive?” he said through gritted teeth.

“Yeah. I did. Why, do you want her to think you’re something
noble
instead of a deadbeat boxer who never made it out of Boston? It doesn’t matter. You’re not in her life, and you’re not going to be.”

“Look, if I have to sue you for visitation rights, I will. You can’t keep me from seeing my own child.”

“Visitation? Really? HA! I’d love to see you try to be a parent, but you’d have to grow up first. Forget it. Any judge would take one look at what you are and laugh you out of court. I could go for nine years of back child support, though. That might be pretty nice. Get myself a new car.” She laughed.

“Do you think I’m going to BACK DOWN? Do you think I’m some guy you can PUSH AROUND, ASHLEY?” he roared into the phone.

He heard the line go dead and shut his phone off. He wanted to call her names, accuse her of keeping his daughter away from him for the last decade. He stopped himself. He didn’t even throw the phone. He stared at it, still whole and functional in his hand, and shook his head.

He wanted a drink, a double, good smooth Irish whiskey if he could get it. He wanted to take a baseball bat to Ashley’s car, wanted to punch a wall or—this was the cold truth—he wanted to punch her. His hands were shaking, blood was pounding in his head. He wanted to destroy her because she was mean to him and she was in his way. Kyle made his way to his car and sat there without starting up the engine for a long time.

Sure, she’d been awful to him, but this was the mother of his kid, who’d raised Olive on her own all these years, and he wanted to hit her. He had never wanted to hit a woman before. The very thought of it made bile rise in this throat at the memories. His dad backhanding his mother, the cry that broke from her as she staggered, and the blood coming from the corner of her mouth. The bruises on his mother’s arms from where his dad had grabbed her and shaken her until her head lolled like a toy. The two teeth his mother spat into the bathroom sink when she didn’t know Kyle was watching, the times she’d stood between her boys and her husband’s belt.

Kyle squeezed his eyes tight shut because they burned. His throat felt hot and it hurt.
Maybe I’m getting sick
, he thought, but when he opened his mouth, a sound came out that was suspiciously like a sob. He gripped the steering wheel, gritted his teeth, and growled aloud, trying to master his emotions.

“Goddammit! Goddamn her. I am not dangerous. I’m NOT, goddammit,” he forced out through gritted teeth.

He was shaking all over, and knew deep down that since he had wanted to hit her—even though he had resisted the urge to throw his phone, to punch the brick wall of JC Penney, the desire to hit and hurt and punish was still there. He was dangerous. The funny thing was, despite all his years of fighting in the ring, he always thought of himself as a laid-back guy, out for a good time. Never someone who would have considered striking a woman who angered him.

He blinked furiously, fighting back tears, and punched Shea’s number into his phone. She was the only person who knew about Olive and Ashley, so she was the only one he could turn to.

“Hey, I need you,” he said baldly.

“What’s wrong? Was the baby mama that nasty?” Shea said.
“This is real, Shea, don’t joke about it,” he managed.

“Okay, I’m sorry. Where are you?”

“I’m still in the parking lot,” he said.

“I’ll come get you. Wait there.”

He sat in his car, trying to push down the rage, pulling air into his lungs and forcing it out again, trying to say the alphabet backward to calm himself and drive past the red fury that engulfed him.

When Shea rapped on his window, Kyle was startled, nearly bumping her with the door in his haste to get it open. Shea hung back diffidently, but Kyle hooked an arm around her hips and pulled her into his arms. She landed awkwardly in his lap with the steering wheel jamming against her hip, but she held on to him tightly. He buried his face in her hair, his hands clenched on the back of her t-shirt. When his ragged breathing slowed, he loosened his grip on her and let her wriggle out of his lap.

“So, um, what’s up?” Shea said.

“Can we go somewhere and talk?”

“Like where? Your car’s pretty private.”

“Like your place. Or mine,” he said.

“To talk?” She raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

“To talk.”

“Is this naked talk?”

“I’m not ruling it out,” Kyle said.

“I’ll drive. You’re not in any shape for driving,” she said, “and I’m a nurse. I know all kinds of shit.”

“I bet you say that to people in the ER.”

“Most of my patients are unconscious. I’m a surgical nurse now. But when I worked emergency, they were pretty adamant that I shouldn’t talk to the suicide attempts. Seems I’m not motivational speaker material.” She grinned.

“I’m not gonna kill myself,” he said.

“I didn’t think you were. What did she say to you?”

“Just a bunch of bull about how I’m bad for Olive,”

“So she feels threatened and she’s insecure.”

“So she says I’m dangerous and I live in a shit neighborhood and I’d be a bad influence.”

“I’m thinking that her husband, Meth-Making Monty, might be a bad influence.”

“Do you seriously think they’re on drugs?”

“I didn’t get much of a look at her through the car window, and I haven’t, like, been to their house and seen their setup, so no. But I think there’s a chance. I mean, the mom is acting pretty erratic, showing up at your fight, making demands, yelling at you a lot…”

“Did you smell it on Olive?”

“I thought maybe a cat had peed on her backpack.”

“Does ferret pee smell the same?”

“I have no idea. I’ve never smelled ferret urine. Or any rodents, really. And I’m not sure I have ever had a weirder conversation than this one. If Zoe had told me that I’d be standing around the JC Penney parking lot talking ferret piss with her almost brother-in-law, I’d have said she was nuts. But I used to tell her she was nuts a lot.”

“Is she?”

“Not even close. She’s just really sweet and hopeful. I have no idea how we managed to live together.”

“Friends are always the same. Me and Aaron—we’re pretty different.”

“Both of you were boxers; now you both teach self-defense. That doesn’t seem all that different to me.”

“Trust me. He’s a brooder. Ma says he was born with the Irish blues. It’s all tragic and hard. I’m the good son,” he said proudly.

“So he’s the evil son?”

“No. He’s just not me.”

“It’s good to know your ego didn’t suffer too much from Ashley’s hissy fit.”

“Ah, it took a bruising, but I’ll survive.”

“Right, Danny Boy. So do you still need to talk or are you better now?”

“I’d like to talk,” he said.

“Then we’ll go to my place.”
“I said ‘talk’, Shea,”

“I figured that wasn’t exactly what you meant.”

“It’s what I meant. The more I think about it, the more Ashley’s right. I’m the same punk I was when we hooked up ten years ago. I fight, I live with my brother and his girlfriend, I party and drink and pick up girls, and I’m still in the same shit neighborhood where I grew up. If I was her, I wouldn’t want my kid hanging out with someone like that.”

“Kyle, that’s not true. Don’t take her too seriously. I’m sure she was emotional and possibly, you know, a meth head, so her opinion doesn’t count for much. I mean,
I
like you.”

“Thanks.”

“So come up to my place. Are you calm enough to drive?”

“Sure, I’ll follow you.”

Shea kissed his cheek and closed his door, looking at him through his car window for a minute. She set her hand against the window, and after a moment, he pressed his hand against the inside of the glass to match hers. Kyle regarded her through the glass and wondered how in hell he could keep from screwing this up.

At Shea’s building, he parked and caught up to her on the stairs.

“Hey, I got you something,” he said.

Kyle fished the tiny bag out of his pocket and handed it to her. She pulled out the tiny barrette with the silver dragonfly on it.

“It’s the one you tried on to clip your bangs back when you and Olive were looking at girly stuff,” he said sheepishly.

“I didn’t even know you were looking,” she said, touching the hairclip reverently, looking from the tiny lavender crystals on the silvery dragonfly to Kyle’s ice blue eyes. “I don’t really know what to say,”

“Then don’t,” he said, and with a tug on her sleeve, kissed her lightly on her mouth.

As he kissed her, he inhaled the scent of Shea, a mix of lemons and rubbing alcohol, sharp and tangy. He had meant to make it a friendly kiss, something sweet and unexpected, but her fingers caught at his shoulder. It was all he could do to raise his head and smile instead of parting her lips and taking the kiss deeper.

Her apartment was cluttered and messy. She tossed her keys into a dish and kicked her shoes off by the door carelessly.

“Make yourself at home,” she shrugged. “Zoe used to do the tidying up. She moved out.”

“Six months ago?”

“Pretty much. I’ve been—busy,” she said.

Kyle took in the catalogs stacked so high on the coffee table that they threatened to topple over, the unfolded laundry overflowing its basket, the light on her answering machine that flashed twelve messages.

“Twelve? Somebody must be looking for you.”

“Nah, everybody that knows me has my cell number. That’s telemarketers and shit. My sister.”

“Your sister goes in the group with telemarketers?”

“No, because if I gave them my credit card number, they’d be happy and shut up. My sister couldn’t stop complaining for all the money in the US Defense budget.”

“She a whiner?”

“Full-time malcontent. Believe it or not, I’m the sunny one in the family.”

“She must be scary,” he remarked, “so talk to me.”

“The idea was that you talk to me. What’s your plan where Olive is concerned?”

“I don’t have a plan. I want to be in her life, but I got to thinking, all that shit that Ashley said was true. My life isn’t a fit place for a kid. It’s not safe, it’s not stable.” His jaw clenched. “Maybe she was better off without me.”

“What’s ‘better off’ even mean? A kid is going to want to know who her dad is and that he cares about her. There isn’t anything better than knowing you’re loved, Kyle. So how could she be better off without you?”

“That’s nice of you. But I’m not just feeling sorry for myself. When Ashley said no way was her daughter meeting my family and going into my crap neighborhood ever again and all that—part of me was relieved. Like, ‘oh thank God, this kid isn’t going to have to see how I live and what a fucking deadbeat I am. She can go on thinking I’m a regular guy who maybe has a house and a regular job and a girlfriend.’”

“It’s not like you’re in prison or something, Kyle. You’re not a deadbeat. Granted, I wouldn’t take her to Wreck to check out the fights, but your daughter is
better off
knowing you than not.”

“I wish I could believe that. All those years the priest was up there talking about guilt, and I never really got it ‘til today. I thought I was proud of being a boxer, of what we did for Ma, but I don’t live a safe life. I’m dangerous…” he trailed off.

“Kyle, I think you’re nine kinds of trouble, but I don’t think you’re dangerous.”

“Then I think you’re wrong. I wanted to hit her, Shea. I wanted to punch her when she said that shit to me about never seeing Olive again,” he said brokenly, head in his hands.