Chapter Twelve

Paxton

Like a goddamned coward, I observed my mother’s funeral from a distance. I didn’t bother going to the mortuary for the memorial service, but I observed her interment from a distance. I saw Mia standing by her graveside, and Dirk was a few feet away. I wanted to reach out for her, to apologize for freaking out and running away, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t go to her anymore than I could return her calls, and I couldn’t undo disconnecting my phone number. I couldn’t handle hearing her voice any longer, with the faint waiver in her tone, and the hint of tears in her voice.

I had hurt her, and I knew it. I had told her the truth, which had been an unforgivable sin. I had stolen her father from her, and though he wasn’t much of a person to be worth bothering with, he had been her parent. I’d had no right to dump that burden on her.

I’d had no right to revel in her compassion, or to drain her empathy. I had no right to her, because she was too good and too pure for everything that I was. I was a tainted, foul thing, and allowing myself to have her would be the absolute worst thing I had ever done to anyone in the world. I was a selfish bastard, but maybe I wasn’t that selfish. I was doing my best to protect her from myself. I was also protecting my heart from Mia, though she had already wormed her way inside.

I stayed until everyone had gone, watching the workers shovel the dirt onto my mother’s grave with a digger. When they had departed too, I walked over to her freshly dug grave, sans marker, which would come later. Kneeling down on the raw earth, I passed my hand to the ground and whispered a final goodbye, knowing I would never return to this place. Not just the cemetery, but this entire fucking town. I would go back to my life in Vegas and try to forget any of this had ever happened. It was the best thing for me, and more importantly, it was the best thing for Mia too.

***

I threw myself into fighting. My life became all about training in the octagon. The opponent facing me ceased to matter, as did anything else besides the release I received every time my fist connected with flesh or my foot hit a body. Intense workouts in the gym also offered escape into adrenaline-induced oblivion, so I trained harder than ever.

That night, I stood in the locker room after a fight, breathing heavily. I had won my match, and Charlie Short hadn’t stood a chance against me. He’d been higher ranked than me, and he was a fan favorite, but I had decimated him. I’d pursued victory with single-minded determination, leaving him gasping on the mat. I should have felt victorious, but all I felt was numb.

I looked up at the click of heels, an incongruous sound in the men’s locker room. Lila came striding toward me, her face a mask that filtered any clue of how she felt.

Her voice, however, was not so ambiguous. She sounded like she was biting on ice cubes and frosting each word she pushed through her lips. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean the way you’re fighting. You had no mercy for that guy.”

I regarded her coolly. “Since when am I supposed to have mercy for my opponent? I won the match, and that’s all that matters.”

She shook her head, her disgust evident, which made me feel about five inches tall. “No, that isn’t all that matters. You want a good guy image, and I thought you were a good guy. A little rough, with a dark edge, but a good guy. You might lose some endorsements after that fight, and you’re lucky you weren’t disqualified. You hit him long past when you had to. You almost killed him.”

I could feel my shoulders slumping, and I recognized the truth in her words, though I didn’t want to hear it. “Don’t be so dramatic, Lila. I’m not going to lose any endorsements, and you’ll still get your cut.”

Her lips clamped into a thin line, and she glared at me for a long second before sadness filled her eyes. “I don’t know where you disappeared to when you were gone for those two weeks, and I don’t know what happened to you, but you need to deal with it and do it quickly, before you lose not just your career, but every person in the world who cares about you.”

Without another word, she turned on those ridiculously high heels and strode from the locker room. I stared after her, wanting to dismiss her words, even as I felt a hollow pang in my chest. She had a point. I knew she had a point. Hell, I could feel myself getting out of control in the octagon. I was hard on my opponents, far harder than I needed to be. There was a difference between winning a match and destroying your opponent. Guilt weighed heavily on me, and I made a note to call Charlie in a few days to check on him.

I stripped off the last of my gear before striding to the shower, turning the water on full blast and icy cold in an attempt to master my emotions and regain control. I couldn’t keep going on like this, but I had forgotten how to function any other way.