Page 21

“I’m not offering you charity.” I hook a thumb over my shoulder and wait for the boy to stumble back toward the gym door.

“You’ll pay for the shorts.” I keep my words low, harsh, knowing they’re for Alana only, though her eyes remain on his back and linger for a full minute after he’s gone.

“I’ll have Eliza add the cost to your account. There are no handouts at this gym.”

She drags her gaze from the door, but only to send them up to the signage that spans the entire length of the building. “Love and War.” She reads each word slowly, pained with every syllable that crosses her lips. “You called it Love and War?”

“All’s fair.” I wipe my face again because my blood still runs hot, and the sun pelts down against my sizzling skin. “Locals mostly call it the war room, though. Ollie came up with it ‘cos his daddy’s a cop.”

Her breathing is choppy. Staggered and shallow. But slowly, she brings her eyes to mine. “Ollie?”

“Darling. He was a couple of grades above us in school. I know it’s been a minute since you were last here, but I bet if you tried, you’d remember him. He was a friend to you, even back then.”

“I remember him.” She keeps a tight hold on her temper. Fiery eyes and a clenched jaw. “Why’d you name it Love and War? ”

“Why not?” I drink a little more water before I sweat everything out and risk dehydration. “Spent my whole life in one or the other. Sometimes, both at the same time.” I take a step back. Though, fuck, I don’t go far. I can’t, even if I tried. “You coming in out of the heat?”

“Do I have to?” She clings to her car door like she’s afraid the car will roll away without her. “Is it customary for parents to stay while their kids train?”

“Yes. In fact, it’s in the rules when you join the gym. Something about liabilities and whatnot.” Or lie -abilities. But hell, I haven’t owed her a damn thing, least of all the truth, in ten long years. “Heard you’re working over at Books Books Books now?”

She drops her gaze and exhales a huffy, chest-shrinking breath. But she closes her car door, at least. One step closer to not running away. “I forgot how ridiculously quick the gossip vines work around here.”

“New York City is all about anonymity, I suppose. There are so many folks out there it would be impossible to be in anyone else’s business except those in your immediate vicinity. Plainview’s all about knowing everyone’s everything. It’s a hobby in a town where there’s nothing else to do.”

“I didn’t miss it.” She clasps her hands together and watches her feet. But at least she slowly starts toward the door. “You and Eliza Darling, huh? That’s… cute.”

I glance across and feel, for the first time in as long as I can remember, happiness beat through my chest. Humor, even.

Deliria, most likely. “Eliza Darling is a child. It could be the time away makes it easier for you to see a grown woman. But I never left, which means when I look at her, I’m still looking at a twelve-year-old.

Putting her in the cage against another grown-ass woman and hoping she doesn’t die—well, that’s different.

But in all other facets of life?” I drag the gym door open and gesture for her to go first.

To be a gentleman, I wonder, or to see if her shirt rides up and shows off the ink on her back?

Definitely the second.

Unlucky for me, she’s not wearing a sleep camisole anymore, and the top she chose for Books Books Books is entirely professional and appropriately fitted.

“Chris suggested we discuss a truce.” She slows her steps and peeks back, shyly searching my eyes as I release the door and meander closer. “He came by the bookstore earlier and said some stuff.”

“Yeah?” The mere talent it takes to act casually, even while my heart burns and my stomach turns to acid, is, in my humble opinion, better than anyone who ever received an award at the academy shows.

“Chris always did find time to hang out with you, even while I was busy elsewhere. You were like siblings, so if I wasn’t available, he still came to you and felt at peace. You never seemed like you minded.”

“I didn’t mind.” She comes to a screeching stop and looks up when Oliver Darling strides out of the hall. Her cheeks pale, and her eyes shimmer.

But when he skids to a standstill and looks from her, to me, to her again, I get the distinct feeling he was coming to find me anyway. To warn me she might be near.

“Oliver…” Alana’s voice cracks. But she doesn’t dare step forward.

Nor back. She doesn’t go in for a hug, though ten years ago, she would have.

Fuck, we spent our whole lives growing up in this shithole town, running around wild and getting into stupid situations our parents would’ve belted us for. All of us.

Me and Alana, Chris, Ollie, and his sisters. We were a group of heathens who lacked fear and possessed barely an ounce of common sense between the lot of us. But when Alana Page snuck out of town without a single word of warning, what was once a rat pack of unbreakable bonds became… broken.

Just, broken.

“Alana.” He scratches the back of his neck, a nervous tic he’s had since boyhood. “I, uh…” He looks at me again. What the fuck do you want me to do, Boss ?

“You can keep going,” Alana rasps, stepping to the side. “Wherever you were going or whatever you were doing. We don’t have to do this awkward back and forth. I understand.”

“Maybe next time.” Hesitant, he shuffles past her and stops on my right, dropping his hand to my shoulder and meeting my eyes. “Was hoping to have a word with you if you had a sec?” He tries to push me back a step. “About the class schedule.”

About Alana.

But even she knows he’s lying, so she continues past the desk on her own, chewing on her nail and disappearing into the hall without me.

“Tommy…?”

“I’m handling myself.” I shake his hand off. “Leave me alone.”

“You’re handling yourself?” He grabs me again, earning a fiery glare when I swing my eyes around.

“Dude, you already died once. You don’t get to come back from that twice.

Chances are, just as soon as Bitsy no longer needs her, she’ll probably leave again.

It’s best if you keep your distance and wait her out. She’s a summer blip at best.”

Funny, seeing as how we fell in love in the first place during the summer between elementary school and middle.

“I’m not gonna do anything stupid.” I push his hand off and jerk my shoulder out of the way when he tries to grab on. “If she’s temporary, then I’m gonna use this time to get closure. Get answers, maybe.”

“Not everyone gets closure,” he growls. “Sometimes, there is none. There’s just a trip down the yellow brick road, and when you get to the end, you fucking die. Again.”

“Leave me alone?—”

“Tommy!”

“I’m not asking.” I turn on my heels and move into the hall, following Alana’s sweet scent and the sound of a dozen children shouting their kiai s.

But when I reach the main training room, a feral swish of panic storms through my gut.

She’s not here. I don’t see her sitting along the wall with the other parents, nor someplace else, all alone and nervously destroying her nails.

For a single moment, I wonder if this is what may be best? Is this what the rest of them are trying to protect me from?

Blinding pain, just like when I was eighteen and couldn’t find her, comes surging back. A reminder of the terror I felt back then, as fresh now as if this was our senior year all over again.

But then Eliza coughs from the front of the room and tips her chin until I turn and find Alana huddled as deeply into the corner as she can physically get.

Folded arms and frightened eyes. She’s shrunken down as small as humanly possible and tugs at my heart because her vulnerability now is just as palpable as it was when we were kids, when she needed refuge with a person not intent on making her question every thought that passed through her mind. Every memory. Every belief.

Maybe I care for Bitsy these days, and maybe when the time comes and we have to bury her, I’ll shed a tear for the old duck and send up a prayer that whatever comes next will be kind to her.

But she was always, and will forever be, a master manipulator.

And Alana was her target. Day in, day out.

If Alana questioned anything, Bitsy rode her narrative until she was blue in the face, and her daughter, so sweet and sad, doubted her own sanity .

That’s what drew us together, I think. Her need to escape a mother who twisted words with expert precision, so she came to a guy who never twisted a damn thing. And I needed her, my safe haven from the people who considered kicking the shit out of their sons a sport.

Her touch was healing. Which made us exactly what the other needed.

Until we weren’t, that is.

“You wanna go to my office or something?” Shut the fuck up, Tommy. You’re angry, remember? You’re furious. “No one will stare at you in there.”

Her cheeks warm, and her eyes glitter. I know she tiptoes atop a wireline that, if she falls, will leave her destroyed.

But she clamps her lips shut and shakes her head. Then, she shifts to the right and makes a point of watching her son.

Her son .

She has a son.

Do I want to go to my office? Tie a rope around my neck and take care of business, maybe. Seek Oliver out and invite him into the cage? If I lay there long enough, he might beat me half to death and give me something different to hurt over.

I do neither. Instead, I back up to the wall and shield her from the curious gazes of the other parents who stick around for class.

“You don’t have to do that.” She speaks barely above a whisper, sniffling and hiding the sound amongst the shouted cries of training children. “Just go about your day, Tommy. This won’t ever feel good, so why force it?”

I tuck my hands behind my back and enjoy the scratch of the brick wall against my bare shoulder blades.

Shirtless in front of Alana Page. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

“I enjoy watching the kids work on their skills.” Not a complete lie .

“In a group of twelve, one or two of them might be champs someday.” But when Franklin steps forward and kicks a bag, only to fall on his ass and whip his embarrassed eyes this way, I smirk and add, “ He probably won’t be one of them. ”

“Shut up.” She gifts him with an encouraging smile, nodding to entice him to stand again. To keep trying. “Don’t speak badly about my son.”

“I don’t consider it speaking badly. I wasn’t ragging on the boy.” I slide my gaze across and meet her eyes. “You had to know mixing your genes with a corporate jockstrap wasn’t gonna land you with an athlete. I hope you weren’t banking on him taking you all the way to the NFL or anything.”

“I said shut up.” Her jaw turns to granite, rock solid and unshaking.

“ Don’t speak about him at all. You think you know me, Tommy, the girl who fell into your arms and begged you to make the world a kinder place.

But you have no clue anymore. Maybe you’re pissed about it, but becoming a mother was the best thing that ever happened to me.

It gave me strength I never knew I could possess.

Now?” She glares straight into my eyes. “I’ll slit a man’s throat for looking at him wrong. So stop.”