Page 81

I smiled softly to myself.
Bad boy Vaughn was back, and he was really kinda sexy.
21
KIAN
The job interview had been a complete and utter bust. I was so preoccupied with what had gone down with Vaughn that I’d gotten completely tongue-tied and botched every answer I’d given. They’d thrown various worksite scenarios at me and asked how I’d respond, and even I’d known my answers were weak, if not completely laughable.
I was good with tools. Yet I’d acted like I didn’t know one end of the hammer from the other.
Fucking Vaughn.
I caught the train back from the city, blaming Vaughn the entire way for the foul-smelling car that stopped at every goddamn station. I blamed him again when there was a group of teenagers talking on a phone using speakerphone, which was pretty much the most irritating thing I’d ever heard.
I could have been sitting in his dad’s comfy ride if Vaughn hadn’t been such a complete and utter jackass.
I wanted Rebel. I wanted to go home and find her walking around the house in one of her oversized T-shirts, preferably the one with a rip in the hem because it showed off more of her legs. I wanted to lift her off her feet and just hug her, because I knew she’d hug me back.
But Vaughn was probably there, getting all her affection.
So I couldn’t go home.
I could have gone to a bar. Found someone to leave with, but I was kidding myself thinking I could be with anyone else. If it wasn’t Vaughn’s two-day stubble scratching over my lips, or Rebel’s soft sweet mouth on mine, I didn’t want it.
I let the train bypass Providence and keep on going into Saint View. Thankfully, the boxing gym wasn’t far from the station. I could walk the final few blocks. Because even if I’d had money for an Uber, they wouldn’t come to this area for fear of getting jumped.
Darkness lingered here in so many ways, not only in the men smoking cigarettes at the end of the platform. The station was quiet. Dirty. Derelict. Razor wire topped fences around the tracks, designed to keep people from sneaking in without paying or loitering on the tracks. But they were so full of holes an entire army could have marched on through. Long shadows held secrets I didn’t want to uncover. I stuck to the patches of light as much as possible, knowing even though I was a good fighter, I was still only one man.
I was also no match for a bullet or a knife.
I made it to the boxing gym without drawing any attention to myself and was grateful. It had been a long time since I’d lived in Saint View, but I hadn’t forgotten the people I’d gone to high school with. There was so much anger. So much testosterone and aggression.
I’d been like that once too. Angry at the world for taking my mom. Angry because I had to live with the boy who I couldn’t get out of my head, even though he had a girlfriend and was clearly not interested in me. As a teen, I’d never fit anywhere. I didn’t fit with Vaughn’s friends because I was just the son of the housekeeper. Too poor to be seen with. But I didn’t fit at Saint View High either. As soon as they’d found I lived in a big-ass, proper house in Providence, I’d been on the outside. It didn’t matter how much I explained it wasn’t my house. All they saw was the fancy car that dropped me off at the gates each morning and the expensive cell phone Bart had bought me for my sixteenth birthday. They’d barely scratched the surface of who I was and judged me on it.
I’d been outgoing and had never had a problem making jokes at my own expense, so I’d had friends. A lot of them. But they weren’t the true kind.
Vaughn was the only one who’d truly known me. He was the only one who saw my friends were as superficial as his were.
I’d been the one to call him on not really liking the girl he was with.
He’d denied it, of course.
But I’d known the truth.
I waved a hello to Gino, one of the owners at the gym, and went straight to my locker. I pulled out my gloves and a pair of shorts, quickly getting changed and strapped up.
Out in the gym, I strung up a boxing bag. There might have been no fights tonight, but it didn’t stop my need to punch something. It was either that or self-combust.
Or cry.
Wouldn’t that be the fucking cherry on top of the shit-day cake? Still broke with no job. Kissed a guy who then rejected me. Crushing on a woman who said she hadn’t friend zoned me, but I didn’t quite believe it.
I slammed a fist into a bag, sending it rocking back.
I followed up with a left hook.
A right.