GROWING UP, I DIDN’T GIVE people details of my family life. Those I went to school with didn’t know Celia wasn’t my birth mother, or that my brothers and I were orphans. They didn’t know that the reason I got in trouble for sleeping in class wasn’t because I was some punk, it was because Jerry had me paired up taking fights by the time I was in seventh grade, which meant training every day and fights twice a week.
But Johnny figured that shit out.
Of course, we lived in a cluster subdivision and he was only two houses down, so he was privy to more than he should’ve been anyway. We were different; I fought and he played guitar. Regardless, he stuck around, became a good friend.
But watching all the people frantically setting up instruments and just the feel and buzz of the people waiting for the show to start, I’d say his hobby has turned out to be the more lucrative of the two. He and two guys that graduated a year before us ended up taking music to the next level. Now they’re touring and making one hell of a name for themselves.
I almost don’t recognize Kane, the drummer, when he comes up on the side stage to talk to one of the guys. He looks out at the crowd and spots me. I tip my beer in his direction and he waves me over. Of course, the security guard looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, but Kane comes around.
“It’s all right, he’s with us.” He ushers me through the curtains. His hair’s bright red and he’s added some ink since the last time I saw him. “How you been, man? Johnny said he saw you this morning. You by yourself?”
“Yeah, just me. Had to come see you guys play. Been too long.”
We walk around the corner and out a side door where their bus is parked. Kane flings the door open and the smell reminds me of these fuckers smoking out the garage before practice every Saturday. I’d be recouping from a Friday night fight and just sit in and watch them, blown away that I was friends with people who possessed such musical abilities.
“Everyone, there is a guest on the bus. I repeat—”
“You don’t have to repeat shit, it’s just me and Tracen,” Johnny says. “I thought for sure you’d flake. Glad you proved me wrong, man.” He looks behind me. “You alone?”
Damn, are they all going to ask me that? “Just me. And what the fuck you mean you thought I’d flake?”
“Probably because every Friday or Saturday night since I can remember, you’ve had a fight.”
“Nah, I haven’t fought in months. Still train and teach at the gym, but no fights for this old man.”
“Fuck you. If twenty-seven’s old then I’m screwed,” Kane pipes in.
“Where’s Tracen?” I ask, looking down the narrow corridor.
“I thought he was back there getting dressed, but who the fuck knows. The inconsiderate dick probably left me on here all by myself.” Johnny faux pouts.
“Well, tell him fuck off for me when you see him.”
“You can tell him yourself after the show. We throwin’ down tonight. It wouldn’t be right if we didn’t, being back in Chi-town and all.” Johnny takes a swig from the Patrón bottle on the table in front of him. I shake my head and stand, knowing they are about to have to go on stage.
“You know I’m game.”
“Here man, take this. That way big boy at the stage entrance will let you come back after.” Kane hands me a lariat with a card attached, Bloodfeather stamped on the front.
“Break a leg, motherfuckers.”
When I make my way back to the show floor the room is packed and bodies have doubled. Even still, as I walk across the room, it doesn’t take me but a second to notice her. I do a double take, beyond surprised to see Lydia at a rock concert. It just doesn’t seem like her scene.
Dressed in a v-cut white t-shirt, fitted black leather jacket over it and hair piled on top of her head, she’s enough to make my fucking mouth run dry. The drastic difference between this Lydia and the Lydia from last night is incomparable; from elegance to edge and I can’t tell which I like more. Needing a beer and an excuse to get a better look, I scoot closer to the bar and wave down the bartender. I look over at Lydia to see what she’s drinking.
“What can I get you?” the guy shouts over the noise.
“Goose Island Stout and—” I look back at him. “Vodka cranberry. Top shelf, please.”
On the other hand, it doesn’t really surprise me that she’s here because if you look around it seems like everyone’s here there’s so many people. But what does surprise me as I carry this drink over to her, is when some douche sidles up beside her and hands her a fresh drink.
Fuck.
“Here, this drink is from that guy at the bar.” Thinking fast, I set the drink down in front of one of the two girls sitting at the poseur table I pass, moving quickly so they don’t have time to ask questions.
The guy sees me before Lydia does, and I expect him to pull her closer, maybe move to the side of her cause I know that’s what I’d do. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t even say anything to her in warning as I approach, like he doesn’t care that I’m about to take his girl.
That’s my pussy he’s not protecting.
“I couldn’t help but notice you—” I begin, head dipped to her ear from over her shoulder. I see her hear me before she turns, her body tensing, shoulders coming back.
“Are you stalking me now?” she smirks, sipping the douche’s drink from a straw as she does. I lean in closer.
“You’d like that too much.” Her eyes snarl at me as I ease back, the creamy skin at her chest blushing pink. We look at each other, contemplating our next move and attempting to figure the other out.
“Didn’t take you for a Bloodfeather fan. Guess that’s why I jumped straight to stalker.”
She scrunches her nose and bites her lip, looking up at me with striking blue eyes. I hadn’t noticed how beautiful they were before.
“This is just where I ended up. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your date?” My words are somewhat rushed and even I hear the impatience there. She looks from me to him and back. He’s sipping on his drink and looking toward the stage, not paying the least bit of attention to us. Is this guy fucking blind? Lydia nudges his arm with her elbow, loudly introducing us over the noise.
“Kason, this is Stone. Stone, Kason.”
I nod my head and he gives one back before returning his to the band taking the stage.
“I must’ve not done my job earlier,” I say in her ear.
Johnny throws his guitar strap around his neck and strums a few chords, and given the crowd’s reaction you’d have thought he just played their entire new album. As they settle into their instruments and positions on stage, my phone rings. I look at Lydia and down at my phone.
“Better take this.” I walk quickly to the back of the room, clicking the answer button before I quite make it there. “Hello?” I have to raise my voice above the noise a little. There’s a reply but I can’t make it out.
“Hello?”
“Stone?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“Joseph Cameron. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
I inhale a deep breath. Shit. I hate to ask him this since he’s taken the time to call me.
“Would it be possible to call you tomorrow, sir?” Part of me feels like I should just leave here and talk to him now.
“That’s why I was calling. Would you be available to come by my house tomorrow? Say around ten, eleven o’clock? I believe we’ve had two boys put us through some hell this weekend, thought maybe we could fix this problem over a cup of coffee.” Thank God.
“Absolutely. I’ll be there, sir. Thank you.” This is exactly what I hoped would happen, for Rush’s sake.
“I’ll text you the address.”
“See you then.”
Blowing out a huge breath of relief, I pull open the door and make my way back inside, searching the crowd for Lydia. I spot her around the same spot we were before and push my way through the wall of people giving me looks like we’re elementary students and I’m cutting in the lunch line. Attempting to sneak in beside her, I fail when a drunk idiot pushes me into her instead. She looks up at me, a subtle glare in her eyes.
“Was that your coffee date from this morning? She stand you up?” She gives me a fake pout and I grin and look to the stage, watching Johnny mutilate the crowd with each pluck of the guitar strings.
“My coffee date from this morning is on the stage. The phone call was business.”
The look she gives me screams disbelief and she rolls her eyes. Remembering the lariat around my neck, I hold the string up and dangle it for her to see. She looks from the pass to the stage and back, eyes wide.
“You know Bloodfeather? Are you kidding?” She has to yell over the music as it gets louder, garnering the attention of her date, who I give a mental nana-nana-boo-boo as I glare at him. He looks around behind him like maybe I was looking at someone else. I nod to Lydia, knowing she won’t be able to hear me if I speak.
She grabs my arm, jumping a little and screaming, “I’ve been a fan for years!”
I watch her, a little captivated by her excitement, before returning my attention to the stage.
Johnny, Kane and Tracen play songs from their last album and a few songs from their new one, and I notice she knows every word to every one no matter which. If I hadn’t run into her tonight, I wouldn’t know that about her. It’s not a big thing, but it makes me see her differently and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me like her a little more. It’s been a while since I knew anything about any of the women I fuck.
When there’s a break between songs and Johnny spends a few minutes getting everyone’s attention, I take the opportunity to sneak to the bar and refresh our drinks. When I try to get back to her, I can see a group of guys surrounding her too close for my liking. The closer I get the more I realize they are fucking with her and her doucher date is talking to some girls in front of them and doesn’t even notice. What the fuck?
I push through with purpose. “Hey!” I shout at the guys. “Back the fuck up.” They don’t respond. I make my way around to the front of Lydia and make eye contact with her. She looks mildly irritated but unharmed, I hand her the two drinks in my hand and step between her and the two guys. “Either you go find somewhere else to stand or I break your fucking legs.”
The drunk bastards chuckle to one another but seem to get the point and move to another area. When I turn back around to take my drink from Lydia, she’s just staring at me. I ease the beer out of her left hand and cheers her cup trying to lighten the mood a little.
She turns a little to look at the stage and I ease behind her, leaning down to her ear so she can hear what I say.
“Since your date isn’t taking care of you, I’m just going to stand behind you.”
She looks up at me, smirk in place and shaking her head. She reaches up with her free hand and pulls my head down to her mouth.
“I don’t need taking care of and that’s not my date.” She pulls back just enough to look at me before pulling me back. When she drops her hand and turns back to face the front I narrow my eyes at the back of her head. Better be glad I’m not Superman. I shake my head and grab her hips, pulling her into me.
That’s where we stay for the next hour as we take in the best concert likely either one of us have been to. They killed it. I make a mental note to hit all the shows I can this next tour.
When the band exits the stage and bar lights come back on, people start to scatter and thin out. The guy, Kason, comes up to Lydia with one of the girls and hugs her goodbye, telling her he’d call her this week. He nods in my direction before leaving. I narrow my eyes at Lydia, knowing I don’t have the right to ask questions, but curious as to what just happened.
“My best friend’s brother, so basically my brother, too,” she says in explanation. I nod, taking her empty drink and my empty beer and tossing them in the trash. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes look wild. And even though I know it’s not what we do, I go for it because as much as I want to go backstage and hang with the guys, I know it wouldn’t be near as much fun without her.
“Come on.” I start to pull us over to the backstage entrance.
“Whoa, wait. Where are we going?”
I look at her and dangle the lariat again.
“But I don’t have one,” she argues. I pull us ahead anyway. Big Boy, as Kane calls him, stands like a brick fortress at the curtain. I show him the lariat as we walk up and he starts to let us back, but then notices she doesn’t have one.
“She doesn’t have—”
“Kane said if I had any trouble to let him know.”
He looks at me, realization dawning as he remembers me from earlier. He unclips the radio from his hip.
“Yo, Tim.” He looks to me. “What’s your name?”
“Stone.”
“Need clearance for a Stone via Kane. You see him back there anywhere?” We wait for a couple minutes and then a voice comes over the radio.
“Yeah man, send him through.”
I feel Lydia’s hand grip my arm and I don’t even have to look back to know she’s excited.
“Well shit, Keeling. I thought you were bullshitting us. I even got a couple extra girls on standby in case you walked in here lookin’ pitiful.” Johnny stands and takes Lydia’s hand, kissing the back of it like fucking Casanova. She smiles and bows her head slightly, but she doesn’t fall over herself like most chicks do for Johnny.
“It’s beyond cool to meet you. I’m a huge fan,” she says, being sure to look at Kane and Tracen when she delivers the compliment.
“Damn. Stone must have a real snake in his pants to rope this one.” Kane walks over to us, opening his arms and pulling her into a hug, being sure to make it good and inappropriate for my benefit. Lydia laughs and hugs him back.
“Careful, candy Kane. This one’s got brains and beauty. Probably too smart for your weak moves.” I give him shit right back. “I know she’s too smart for mine.”
She turns, eyes a storm of blue desire, giving me a look that makes me think I could be wrong about that.
I didn’t do the best job of monitoring.
Something tells me Lydia isn’t normally a drinker. Maybe it’s her apparent need for control or the fact that I’m helping her to her apartment after six drinks in as many hours.
I made her single out her apartment key before we ever got out of the truck because I knew the odds of her doing it on the move were slim.
I open the door to her apartment and I’m met with that same smell that always clings to her, separate from her perfume, but significant all the same. When I close the door behind me, the only light is a combination of moonlight and the glare of streetlights coming in through the large windows.
When she walks across the floor stopping before them and shedding her clothes piece by piece, I wish she were sober so I could take her on the floor, across that strip of moonlight. She’s lithe and svelte, a complete mystery that leaves nothing to the imagination.
“Come on, I’ll give you a tour,” she says, looking over her shoulder as she passes through a door on the other side of the main room, only her pants and boots remaining. I follow. “That was my living room, and this—” She smooths her hand across the comforter across her bed. “Is where the magic happens if you want to make some.” She winks at me and I press my lips together, smirking because it’s impossible not to.
“Why don’t you get up there and let me help you get those boots off.”
“Yeah, I bet you want to take these boots off. Huh, dirty boy?”
Now it’s almost impossible not to laugh. I may not know much about her, but I know she isn’t a dirty talker. Well, unless I’m biting that pretty pussy. Then she says some dirty shit.
She hops on the bed, her chest naked and tits bouncing right in front of my face as I bend to take one foot in my hand. I knew this would be fucking torture.
I unzip the sides of her boots and slide them from her feet, one and then the other before pulling back her comforter.
“Come on, get in.”
She narrows her eyes.
“Only if you get in with me.”
I cock my head to the side.
“Lydia, come on.”
“Will you at least stay until I fall asleep?” she asks as I pull her pants from her legs, leaving her body bare other than a pair of panties.
She’s gorgeous.
“Where’s a shirt for you?”
She looks up at me, confused, then points to a drawer in her dresser. I open it and remove a folded t-shirt, shaking it out and pulling it over her head. Her eyes meet mine as she puts her arms through the sleeves.
“Five minutes. That’s it.” I walk around to the other side and pull back the comforter.
“That’s it? I remember it taking much longer, but if you say so.”
“Ha-ha. Now hush and close your eyes.”
We settle in beneath the covers, my arm stretched out and her head on my chest. She starts to run her fingers beneath the fabric of my shirt and every stomach muscle I have flexes in response. If only she knew how hard it is to lie here in this bed and not fuck her senseless.
“Lydia. Go to sleep.”
“That’s no fun.”
“Just pretend it is. Sleep.”
We lay there in silence for a second before I register the quietness of the neighborhood outside her window and the ticking of a clock somewhere in the apartment. My hand smooths over her back and I stare up at the ceiling,
“Thank you for staying until I fall asleep. It doesn’t come easy for me.” Her voice almost makes me jump purely because she’d been so quiet I thought she’d fallen asleep. I look down at the top of her head, surprised.
“Yeah? The neighborhood’s quieter than mine. Surely that’s not it?”
She shakes her head against my chest. “No.” She pauses. “I have this same dream over and over. It keeps me awake a lot.”
I’m no stranger to nightmares. I had them often for the first year after my parents’ death and I would scream and cry in my sleep. I would get so embarrassed when Celia would come in and try to console me. I get how she feels.
Makes me wonder what’s happened to her though.
“What of?” I ask. Her voice is quiet and almost sounds far away when she speaks again.
“Her on the floor. All the blood.”
My jaw flexes and even though it’s dark, I close my eyes and hope that unlike me, hers isn’t a nightmare translated from reality.
I lie there and replay the words over and over in my mind until I know she’s asleep. I war with myself for a long time before finally getting up to check all the windows, locking the front door behind me, and slipping out into the Chicago night.
When I looked forward into what this year would hold for me, pulling into the driveway of an elected officials house mere days before the inauguration of our new president was not in my plans.
I ring the doorbell, thankful for the shelter of the front entrance to cover me from the cold, heavy rain. The door promptly opens and a middle-age woman answers.
“Can I help you?”
“Stone Keeling to see Senator Cameron.”
“Come in.” She gestures to a sitting room to the right. “Please, have a seat and I will let Mr. Cameron know you’re here.”
Of course, the house is massive, all the houses in Arlington Heights are. The fifteen-foot ceilings seem to swallow me whole and the shiny hardwood floors are polished to a perfected gleam. I hear footsteps for two whole minutes before a visual is produced.
“Stone ‘The Hammer’ Keeling in my house. How are you, son?”
I wince inwardly at the use of my fight name, a name I’ve worked hard to shed.
The older man carries a wide-toothed smile as he makes his way over to me, but his eyes say I’ll throw you to the fucking sharks. And apparently, he’s done his research on me or else he wouldn’t know that I used to fight, and he damn sure wouldn’t know what I was called in the underground syndicate.
“Just Stone, sir. Don’t fight anymore.” I go with the truth, shaking his hand as he extends his.
“Is that right? Well, have a seat and let’s get down to it. Shall we?”
I sit in the armchair across from his.
“Quite a predicament these boys have gotten themselves in, isn’t it? Rush planning to ride a wrestling scholarship to Northwestern next year, Joseph playing basketball for Michigan State. And now, to piss it all away for a pricey fistfight. What do you think they were thinking, Stone?” My name squirms off his tongue like a snail rolled in sea salt, respect nowhere to be found among the disdain. “And why are you cleaning up his mess and not Mr. or Mrs. Sorrels?”
“Because they don’t know anything about this and wouldn’t know how to handle it if they did. I’d like to offer whatever I can to make this go away so that they don’t have to be involved.”
“I called you here today because I have a proposition for you that I think could help us both.”
“I’m listening.”
“Now regardless of position or pull, I’m not one who likes to play dirty, but if it means keeping my son’s nose clean, I’ll do what I have to. Do you understand what I mean by that? You could take these bare-knuckle fights for instance. I’m sure most of you don’t fight purely for the sport, right?”
I eye Senator Cameron expectantly.
“I’m sure most of you are blue collar people trying to make better lives for yourselves. That’s why when I found out about these fights, I chose not to expose them. I took the information and put it in my pocket for another day.”
“Another day?”
“I’ve heard stories about you,” he continues, ignoring my question. “Why’d you quit? Rumor has it that just a year ago, your winning purse got up to twenty-five thousand dollars. For a boy from Humboldt Park, I’d say that was a week in the green.”
“Good for you, you’ve done your research. Now get to the point because I thought I was here to talk about my brother.” ‘Cause I know there’s a point. There always is with motherfuckers like this; never happy with what they have, they want to take what others have and they want.
“What I propose has promises of a very good outcome for your brother. But I guess that decision lays with you.”
The joints of my knuckles burn hot with the need to knock this bastard out of his high-backed chair. I knew it. I knew there was no way in fuck this would end in mine or Rush’s favor, but I made myself think otherwise, if only for my soul’s need to believe in people again. I lean forward, elbows on knees and give him a look I know says more than enough.
“My patience suddenly ran out, senator. Point. Now.”
“In short? You fight. But not just any random sidewalk brawler; Borya Ivanoff.”
“What does me fighting some Russian going to do for you?”
“I’ve got a campaign to fund, but I think what you should worry about is what this will do for you, or more specifically, your brother. You fight Mr. Ivanoff and I make certain this incident never sees the light of day and Rush attends Northwestern blemish free.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Well, I’d hoped you wouldn’t even need to consider that, but since you asked; I play dirty and keep Joseph’s nose clean. Rush? Well, he will have some feats to overcome. And considering he’s only a couple months from turning eighteen, I doubt very seriously the judicial system would go easy on him.”
“It must be nice to sit on your fucking hill in the mansion corruption built. Instead of pulling me up here to waste my Sunday, why didn’t you just send me a fucking bout card, huh? Give me a time and a place on the day of the fight like we do things in the real world? Let me guess, Ivanoff needs to train? Prepare?” I stand, taking two steps until I’m directly in front of him. “I don’t need to train, Cameron. I’m ready right fucking now.” I take a step toward the doorway and I see him stand in my peripheral.
“Ah, you’ve been out of the game for a while, Stone. But I take it I can send them your acceptance?”
“I don’t give a shit what you tell them. I wouldn’t fight for you if you had my dick in a vise. You can go to hell.”
As I make it to the hall I run into the lady who answered the door and her face reads one of horror. My jaw grinds and my eyes briefly clench shut as I open the door because I realize the man I didn’t want to be anymore, is back.
Jerry drilled into my head the mentality that you never stop, that your best was never good enough. And in those teachings, he created a fucking savage.