“Where are we?” I asked as Lynx pulled the truck into a large lot. Off to the side was a lit up park. We were the only vehicle around, which made my stomach do a flip. “What are you doing?” I tried not to panic, but today had been too much. After the discussion with the incubator, I needed time to process, something Lynx had given me as he was driving, but apparently, he was done waiting.
“You’ve had a shitty day. Let’s do something fun.”
Fun? What the hell was that? I didn’t do fun. I never had the money for it. I worked, paid my bills, and lived in my apartment. I did the occasional going to grab a bite to eat with Andi, but I didn’t do fun.
“What?”
“Something fun for us to do. You may not want to, but you need it, and what I have in mind will help.”
He was right. I didn’t want it. I wanted to go back home and figure out who my father was. There had to be something that would tell me. The determination to find out burned red hot, and I was anxious to try to figure out who he was.
“I need to get back.”
“No, you need to have fun and let all that shit go for a while. You said you trusted me. Has that changed?”
“Of course not,” I answered.
“Then let’s live.”
***
I looked around the vast, open space. Fields lined the area with a baseball field in the center that had a large track circling it. “What are we doing here?”
Lynx reached into the back of his truck, pulling out a pair of tennis shoes then handing them to me. “Put these on.”
I didn’t take them, just raised my brow. “Why?”
He chuckled. “So much for the trust.” He wiggled them in his hands. “I’m going to show you how I deal when I have a shitty day.”
My curiosity was piqued. I really wanted to know. Any coping mechanism was like gold. Therefore, I grabbed the shoes, took my boots off, and put them on. They were quite big, but I made due by tying them extra tightly. Lynx kept his boots on as he led me to the large track. He didn’t touch me, but he walked right beside me, close enough that I felt the brush of his arm every once in a while.
At the field, he bent down on one knee and made sure his laces were tied then rose. “Laps. We run laps.”
I stared at him. He was joking, right? My jobs required me to be on my feet, but running wasn’t on my list of things I did.
He smiled, reading the look on my face. “Yes, we run. It’ll help you clear your head and get rid of all the shit by pounding it step by step into the track.”
Lynx picked up one foot, pulling it to his ass, stretching his muscles. I stared in awe at his fluid movements. Each one was so precise and with reason. Each of his flexes made parts of my body come alive that I hadn’t noticed since I had Drew in my life.
“You gonna stretch?” he asked, and I snapped my eyes away from his flexing, following his lead. My muscles were tight and not used to this, but surprisingly felt pretty good.
“Come on,” he said, taking off in a jog.
I couldn’t stop staring at the fluidity of his movements, like years and years of practice had been put into each. Of their own accord, my feet took off, catching up to Lynx.
We fell into step with each other, my breaths trying to keep up. On the second time around, Lynx spoke.
“I do this to clear the shit out of my head. When I run, I don’t have to think about anything but my feet hitting each step. Any emotion I have racing through me, I push into the steps I take.” He paused, and I thought about his words. Then I thought about my mother and her hurtful ones.
I sent them down to my feet and hit the pavement a bit harder than I had previously. It felt good, almost relieving.
“When I have visions of my brothers”—my stomach dropped for him—“I go to a track like this and run. I could run for fifteen minutes or hours. It all depends on what mood I’m in.”
I was happy he had an outlet he could use to cope.
As each step I took hit the ground, I allowed the emotions of the day to fall with them, the tension slowly leaving my body along with my energy. Each step was putting distance between me and the buildup of pressure inside myself. Each time my knees came up and feet went down, I could work through the thoughts in my head as my body worked through the motions. Motions and emotions all worked together for a common goal: to keep moving, keep going.
“Catch me,” he called out as he darted forward.
He thought I could catch him?
“Come on!” he called back when I didn’t move. “Show me what you’re made of.”
I took off, pushing my used body hard. I gained feet on him, reaching out my hand and feeling the urge to tag him. With one more push, my fingertips grazed his shirt. I did it! I stopped, doubling over at the waist with heaving breaths.
Lynx’s hand came to my back, and I stilled. Taking some more breaths, I let it go.
“You okay, babe?” he asked with laughter in his voice.
“I got you.” I rose to see his smiling face, pride coming off me.
His hand came around my side, resting on my hip, the tingles hitting me hard with the slight touch. I wondered why he wasn’t heaving like me. His touch wasn’t helping.
He took a step closer, and I sucked in deeply. “You did,” he said in his deep, baritone voice. He reached for my hand and placed a soft kiss on the top of it. Every bit of breath was knocked out of me because it was so tender, gentle. In that moment, I wanted to kiss him, but I was scared shitless of it.
He surprised me by saying, “Come on.” Then he held my hand, tugging me back to the truck. He let go only long enough to grab a blanket from the back before he was leading me to a wide open area. I felt nervous, but at the same time, I didn’t. Everything with Lynx came so naturally.
He laid out the blanket then motioned for me to sit. “Let’s take a break.”
Knowing I could use one of those after that run, I sat and Lynx followed, giving me some room, though not much. His shoulder and leg grazed mine from time to time, and instead of getting nervous about it, I began to like it. The warmth of him helped break the ice inside of me, and I cherished the heat.
I lay down, looking up at the sky beginning to fade into darkness, the glow of the sun peeking over the trees. My breathing calmed, and was it weird that I felt safe and comfortable?
I broke the silence of the night as Lynx lay down next to me. “So tell me; why Lynx? Is it your real name? Because I’ve never met someone with that unique one.” In all the time we had spent together, we had focused a lot more on me than him, and I needed to know more.
He reached over and grabbed my hand, but I didn’t fight it. I liked the touch too much.
“Last name. Brody Lynx. In the service, I went by Lynx and it stuck.”
“I like it.”
His hand gave mine a soft squeeze.
“What about your parents? Are you close?” He had said in the hospital that he had crippled a man for his parents. I had inferred that to mean he was close with them, and I was hoping I was right.
“They passed.” His eyes held a vacant, glassy look. I instantly wanted to take that expression off his face, but he continued, “My mom had a heart attack, and my father couldn’t handle her not here anymore and ended up getting sick with sepsis. He passed in the hospital.”
“Oh, Lynx.” I laid my head on his shoulder, trying to give him some sort of comfort.
“Shit happens, babe. You deal.”
I nodded then asked, “Do you see your sister a lot?” I remembered him telling me about her back in the hospital. It was only a brief mention, but those were the things that stuck out in my head.
“A few times a month. She’s married and has a kid, so I see her when I can.”
I continued staring into the sky. “Are you close?”
“We don’t call each other every day or anything like that, but I’d say we are.”
I really liked that he had someone he could turn to.
I had a question that I wanted to ask, but I was nervous to. After long moments had passed, I just said, “Can I ask you something?” Stupid, so damn stupid. I was already asking him things. Why would this be different?
He gave my hand a small squeeze. “You already are, babe. Ask me anything.”
I sucked in deeply. “What took you so long to come to me?” I didn’t want to sound needy or whiny; I genuinely wanted to know. I had lain in bed so many nights, wondering where he was and hoping he wouldn’t let me down.
It was his turn to suck in deeply. “I had an episode.”
My head snapped to him as he continued to look up.
“I was at the grocery store, walking down the aisle. All of a sudden, a loud pop came from above me. I didn’t recognize until later that a bulb had gotten too hot and shattered. I was too busy pushing my way out of the store. Bottom line is, I wanted to get myself together before I saw you.”
While it was unbelievably sweet he would think of me in that way, I felt a little sad about it also. I wanted him to have come to me. I could have helped him. I didn’t know what I would have done, but I would have figured it out. Wouldn’t I?
“Sorry, Lynx,” I whispered as he turned his head to me with a soft smile.
“I was going to come to you as soon as you got out, but then that happened, and I didn’t want you to see me like that.”
My gut twisted, and I rolled to my side, fully facing him. “You’ve seen me a lot worse, Lynx.”
He let out a gush of breath. “I know, babe. I know.”
“It doesn’t go away, does it?”
“No, babe. You just learn what works for you to combat it.”
I tried not to let it get me down, but it saddened me that I would be living with this the rest of my life: learning myself and what I needed to do to keep myself in check. The medicine helped, but would I be on it for the rest of my life? I didn’t know that answer.
“Running helped,” I said honestly.
His fingers intertwined with mine. “Good.” He lifted my hand to his lips and gave me a soft kiss.
***
“Your mother is a real shit.”
My mood was tarnished as Lynx spoke. We had been driving for a while, and I had been riding a high from the time we had together. Sure, most people wouldn’t categorize what we had done as fun, but they weren’t Lynx and me. He had taken us somewhere where there wasn’t a lot of people so both of our triggers would hopefully not come into play. We had laid together for hours, talking, and I had loved every second of it.
“Yeah,” I answered, not wanting to talk about this. I didn’t want to bring it all back up after I had stomped it into the pavement. “I prefer to call her an incubator.”
He laughed deeply. I liked that I could make him lose himself and bring him some type of joy.
“Okay, we’ll call her that. What’s going on in that head of yours?”
So many damn things I felt like I was in a rubber ball being bounced around all over the place.
“It’s on them, not me. I didn’t do anything but exist. The way they treated me is on them. I can’t feel like I wasn’t good enough anymore, because no matter what I could have done, I had a huge black X on me from the moment I was conceived.” I paused, not knowing if I should say the rest, but then went with it. “I wonder if I was better off in the foster homes than at home with them. He hated me so much. He would have made it a painful death, and no child should have to go through that.” Not even me, I thought yet didn’t say.
“You’re right. All that shit is on them. They are sorry excuses for humans. I don’t do the ‘what if’ game, though. It’s a game you’ll never win, you’ll never see or know the response to. Therefore, it’s pointless.”
Damn if he didn’t make a shit-ton of sense.
“I saw the way you looked when she told you about your biological father. What’s your plan?”
I liked that he had said my plan. It was. It wasn’t Lynx’s or Andi’s. No, it was mine to learn and discover.
“I’m going to find out who he is.”
“Good girl. I’m proud of you.”
I felt like I had just scored the winning touchdown in a football game, and part of me wanted to do one of those stupid, little dances the players did when they scored. He was proud … of me. I was proud of me.
I was working on finding a way to hold on to the light and not drown in the dark. I still couldn’t say what the future held or even if someone like me would have a future, but I was learning to hold on to the moment.
“I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but—”
“That’s easy, babe. Go back and look at her employment history. There’s a paper trail somewhere. You find out where she worked then start digging into who her boss was.”
“You make it sound so simple,” I grumbled.
“Babe, it’s easier than you think.”
And I believed him. The panic didn’t come, surprising me. I had thought for sure searching for an unknown man and springing it on him that I was his kid would start it up, but it didn’t, and I liked that, too.
***
“We’re close to home.”
I wanted to be relieved, but I was scared as hell to face Andi. If she really felt that way about me, it was something that needed to be discussed. However, with everything I had learned today, I didn’t know if I could take more.
The day had been an emotional rollercoaster. First, Lynx had showed up then seeing my incubator and the shit she spewed, and finally, the park where Lynx and I had fun. I had to admit that going from low to high had taught me that with the bad, there was good out there. It had made everything balance out in a way I hadn’t experienced before. Everything had always been weighted down on my shoulders, pushing me farther down. Unfortunately, the weight was still there. It just didn’t seem as heavy for the first time, but I was afraid seeing Andi and talking about what needed to be discussed would tip that scale again.
“You wanna go and get something to eat, or you want me to take you to Andi’s?” Lynx asked.
I turned to look at him. “Dinner.”
It was selfish of me—I knew it—but it wasn’t because Andi was probably waiting for me. No, it was the mere fact that I didn’t want this night to end. I didn’t want to say good-bye to him.
The corner of his lip tipped up. “Dinner, it is.”
I had never traveled much out of my surrounding area, so when Lynx pulled up to a tan, brick building with windows on every side of it and lights flashing, I was excited. Yes, I was excited about going to dinner. Something so mundane that most people do regularly and didn’t think twice about. For me, on the other hand, it was new, an adventure.
There I was, a twenty-one-year-old woman, and going out to dinner was exciting. I didn’t let the thought seep in, though, because I was letting in the good, instead. I didn’t want to ruin the moment. I couldn’t.
The sign flashed Sully’s, and underneath it was a billboard listing some Italian dishes. Since I didn’t cook much, I only had spaghetti when Andi made it and brought it over or when I worked late at the diner and grabbed something to eat in the back before heading home. It dawned on me how closed off my life was, something I was going to change.
Lynx parked the truck and came over to my door, helping me out of his monstrosity.
“You know, if you downgraded just a bit, I could actually get in and out of your truck without so much effort,” I teased, not shying away from him. No, I liked it. I also liked the glint in his eye from amusement directed at me.
He leaned in close, and I didn’t move. “Babe, then I wouldn’t be able to help you in and out of it,” he flirted back.
Holy crap. I wasn’t overcome with panic or the need to get away from him. No, I was … comfortable, something I had never truly been.
“I love it when you smile,” Lynx said, reaching for my hand then lifting it to his mouth and giving it a soft kiss. My belly fluttered as the fire in his eyes burned brightly. “Come on; let’s get you fed.”
The inside of the restaurant was quaint. It almost looked like the diner I used to work in, and that made me relax even more. Lynx sat across from me in the booth, the waitress came, and we ordered.
There was something niggling me in the back of my head, so I had to ask Lynx, “What do you do for a living?”
“A little bit of everything.” His vagueness wasn’t going to happen. I lifted my brow for him to continue. “I told you I’m good at finding information. People come to me to find what they want to know, and I get it for them.” He shrugged.
“So, like a PI or something?”
He chuckled. “No, babe. More like an independent contractor.” He held out his hand across the table, and I didn’t hesitate to put mine in his. “Sometimes, I do good things, sometimes, not so good.” His hands tightened around mine. “Many people know my skills and pay top dollar to get them. I’m no saint, babe. But I’m not involved after I give my clients what they need. I don’t touch whatever it is they do with the information.”
“So if a pimp is looking for his cash, you go and find it?” I really only had my experiences to relate to, so I was going with it.
This time, I got a full-out laugh. It was a beautiful sight to see so close and an even better feeling that I had made him do it, despite not knowing what the hell he was laughing at.
“No, babe. You need to think higher: government officials, CEOs of fortune five hundred companies, real estate moguls, investors. They pay a lot for me to do what I do. I don’t deal with common thugs.”
Wow. He must really be good at what he does to get that high up on the financial food chain, which meant Lynx had money. Hopefully, he didn’t think—
“No, I don’t think you’re after my money,” he stated bluntly.
“How do you do that?” I said in a huff as he squeezed my hand again.
“It’s written all over your face. You tell me so much just by a look.”
I did?
“Yep, you do,” he answered with a grin.
“You should have become one of those psychiatrists they made us talk to.”
His lip curled in disgust. “Fuck no. I’ve got enough of my own shit.”
“You could have used your talents for good and not evil,” I joked. Damn, it felt so nice to do that: to let that part of me go and not close it up so tightly it suffocated, to really feel alive.
“I do both, babe. It’s the way of the world.”
I knew he spoke the truth. I had seen enough evil to know there were so many different types of it: different levels, different degrees.
When I got home, Andi was already asleep, and for the first time, I smiled while falling asleep myself.