Grey
It is two in the morning when I finally get back home. I don’t expect to find Liv waiting up for me. I already told her I would be coming around this time. Though she is naturally paranoid enough to stay up, I’m just hoping she’s asleep. There is no need to be up. I did what I had to and now I’m coming back to rest beside my girl. I’ll feel guilty if she sat up in bed nervous to see me come home. My phone died a few hours in, and I didn’t have my charger on me. Damn, knowing Liv, she is most likely up right now, burning her eyes out with the lack of sleep. I have half a mind to head straight into the kitchen and make her some coffee to soothe her.
I exit the car and wipe my semi-bloody hands on my basketball shorts and heave my duffel bag out of the backseat. My shoulder is a little sore from the punches I threw all day, but I suck it up. I’ve been through much worse. I haul my ass up the stairs, ignoring the pain, my girl fresh on my mind. I want nothing more than a hot shower and to snuggle up with my princesa. Just a few more steps and I will get all of that.
I close the door after me and kick off my shoes. I walk into the kitchen and rustle around in the fridge for water and some lasagna made a few days ago. While the food is warming up in the microwave, I plug my phone into the charger attached to the kitchen counter. I didn’t have any time to get the most nutritious meal between taking fuckers down and gaining rank numbers. My fists are practically itching to go against the toughest of the toughest fighters out there in the big tournament, the very event that will seal my fate as an official MMA fighter. Fuck, I am getting hyped up just thinking about it. To be legally right when bashing guys’ faces in. Ah, I smell the blood and gore right around the corner. And I am chasing after that fucker.
I tear through the delicious lasagna Liv made in five minutes and chug down some orange juice to wash it down. I am putting the dishes in the sink when my phone rings. Without thinking about it, I grab it off the charger and swipe my finger across the screen. A little blood gets on it. I grumble a curse while I rub it on my black shorts. I let out a sigh and hop onto the counter, finally looking at the kind of reddish screen.
It’s a text from Dean, an address.
I clam up, instantly knowing what he means. I type a response and am so lost in the tapping of my thumbs that I almost don’t notice.
Liv is watching me from the hallway.
“What are you doing up, Liv?” I sigh and hop down from the counter. “I told you I would be coming home very late.” I tilt my head as I walk up to her and she takes a little step back. Hurt, I stop. “What’d I do?”
She stops from biting her lip and croaks, “I tried calling and texting. W-why didn’t you answer?” Her voice is thick with emotion, and it sounds like she’s been crying. But why would she be crying? Did someone hurt her? I will literally kill any fucker who hurt her. Shit! Do I need to start chaining her to the bed when I’m gone? ’Cause I will if it keeps her safe. I hang with some very bad people, people who have no morals, who aren’t afraid to hurt the girl I love.
“Did something happen to you?” I take another step, but this time she isn’t fast enough to move away. I caress her cheek with my hand but stop when I realize there’s a bit of blood on the glove I am still wearing.
She notices and whimpers, taking a step back. “You didn’t…y-you wouldn’t—”
“What are you going on about?” I shrug, truly not understanding what’s going on.
“You promised you would be safe! Y-you promised!” she screams and begins crying.
“What are you talking about?” I raise my hands defensively, shaking my head. She shakes her head, and I step forward to comfort her, whatever she’s going through, but she takes another step back and lands with her back against the wall. “Liv—”
“The gun is gone, Grey!” she shouts, and I widen my eyes.
She thinks I took it to hurt someone…
“It isn’t like that—” I begin to defend myself, but she pushes me away with her hands on my chest.
“You promised me, Grey! Do your promises not mean anything?” She is crying tenfold now, eyes bloodshot and voice shaking. I push through her tiny hands and pull her into my chest. She fights and screams and cries. I just shush her and stroke her hair and gently rock back and forth. I bend down and press my lips to her forehead. Finally, she grows limp in my arms and lets me talk.
“I didn’t use it or anything,” I tell her, and she stays silent, except for her sniffles and soft cries. “I gave it back to Dean because I knew how uncomfortable it made you. I really was fighting like I said I would be.”
“B-but, the blood…” Her voice is rocky, and my heart breaks at the sound. I kiss her hair and sigh.
“I showed none of my opponents mercy. I do that a lot.” I pause and pull back, cupping her face and brushing away tears, falling into her sparkling oceans of eyes. “But if it scares you too much…if I scare you too much…” I reluctantly pull my hands away, and she whines and pushes her face into my chest, wrapping her arms around me.
“Don’t go anywhere,” she whispers.
I smile and feel my body come alive under her touch. I kiss her head again and mumble as I squeeze her a little and rock us side to side. “Never…me tienes princesa.” (You have me, princess.)
***
Some hours later I awake to the most obnoxious sound of an alarm. I instantly know it’s Liv’s because I don’t fuck with alarms, nor have I ever set one in my life. I mean, what’s the point of it when it cuts your sleep off and just gets you pissed before the day even starts? Speaking of which, why the fuck does she have an alarm anyway? Is she going somewhere she didn’t tell me about?
“Sorry.” She comes rushing through the door a few seconds after I begrudgingly sit up in bed.
“What the fuck was that for?” I grumble, rubbing my tired eyes and letting out an exhausted yawn. I side-glare at her as I scratch my stomach lazily. She laughs at me before crawling onto the bed after she shuts the thing off, looking sexier than ever. Dressed only in one of my black shirts, maybe the one I took off last night before falling into bed next to her, hair messy and lips puffy from the number of assuring kisses I gave her before falling asleep.
“I had a therapy session today,” she sighs and falls onto my lap, straddling me, hands playing with the ends of my hair. “But after what went down between my mother and her mind-state…I just don’t see the point anymore. She was forcing me to go in the first place. And now…” She smiles and tugs a little at my hair; I crook a smile at her. She tilts her head and breathes, “Now I don’t have to listen to her anymore.”
I frown because I have ruined her relationship with her mother. And it isn’t the first time. Mine with my mother is tarnished forever. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive her. But Liv’s is salvageable. Not now, of course. In a few months, maybe even years, just until it hits her mother that her daughter is a woman and not a child who can make her own life decisions.
“What’s wrong?” Liv asks, her voice small.
I shrug and rub her waist. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” She laughs a little and sucks on her bottom lip.
I meet her searching eyes and shrug again, feeling a little guilty. “For causing all of that between your mother and you.”
“You didn’t cause that, Grey,” she says, and I shake my head adamantly.
“I did, and I’m sorry I can’t be what you need.” My voice wavers, so I clear my throat and avoid her eyes. “I don’t mean to worry you about whether or not I’ve shot someone. I just want to love you, but I can’t do that correctly. How do you even care about me without fearing me?”
She wraps her arms around me and kisses the crook of my neck. “Don’t you ever think like that. I love you more than you will ever know.” She pulls back, tears streaming down her cheeks. I wipe them away, and she shakes her head. “I only worry about you because I love and care about you. Why don’t you get that? I would never fear you…I could only fear how much I love you. Because sometimes it drives me to the point of insanity.” She smiles so brightly I have to squint my eyes, and she laughs that cute smile of hers where her cheeks grow red and that tiny little dimple rests on her cheeks. “But it is definitely worth it in the end. Grey, loving you is worth everything…”
I suck with words, so I respond with my lips. I pull her forward and tell her with a passion-filled kiss how much I love her and will always love her. I whisper irrevocable and undying love in my native tongue. I caress her cheeks with promises to be there for her for whatever she needs and to protect her with my life. I pin her to the bed and spread her legs open with a string of curses just to show her what she does to me.
She moans when I pull back and lick her bottom lip.
“I love you, Olivia Westerfield,” I tell her, resting on my elbows and admiring her flushed cheeks and blown-out blue eyes. “There aren’t enough words in the world for me to explain. So just remember that.”
She smiles widely and nods. “There’s no way I can forget it.”
I laugh, and it hits me square in the heart: I want this girl, officially. I want her to be mine, and I don’t want anyone else to ever have the chance of taking her from me. I let that happen once before because I was such a blind, prideful fool. But I’d be damned to let it happen again.
“What would you and that therapist talk about?” I ask her, and her smile drops.
She shrugs and writhes a bit under me. “How I am still, or was, hung up over you. How my love for you was weighing me down…” She bites her lip, guilty. But I get it. I was still hung up over her too. And my love for her could bring down the world if I let it.
“How would she respond?” I rub her hips, and she bites back a blush, but I still see the redness and the baby dimple.
“Something along the lines of ‘You should learn to move on and look toward a brighter future…’”
“Well, I say fuck that.” I grip her hips, and she gasps but grins. “Go for what you want. I am…do…you?” I shrug, and she tilts her head.
“I don’t know what you’re getting at…” Her eyebrows stitch together in confusion.
Fuck! I told you, I am horrible with words.
I would tug at my lip contemplatively if my hands could stop holding her—never.
“Like that Ryan Goose guy said, we should know what we want and take it.” Does that sound any fucking better?
Her puzzled features give me my answer. “You mean Ryan Gosling?”
“Sure, yeah, him.” Sorry, I don’t know the actors of modern-day life. The only TV I watch is the UFC channel.
“Wait, when did he say that?” She tilts her head, lips pursed.
“When the Allie chick didn’t know what she wanted,” I refer to that one stupid rom-com movie I know that Jaimie forced me to watch when she was going through her romance movie-watching obsession.
She clamps her lips tight.
“Well, I definitely want you,” I say sheepishly and clear my throat looking away. This is fucking stupid. I sound and feel fucking stupid.
She leans up and presses her lips to mine. “I understood what you meant at Ryan Goose,” she admits, and I gasp and narrow my eyes at her.
“That was mean of you. I was struggling there!” I whine but can’t help to laugh as she cracks up in laughter, mocking me.
“Sorry.” She laughs even harder.
All I can do is stare down at her in awe and place a simple kiss on her lips. She stops laughing and looks up at me with those oceans for eyes and baby dimple and a comically goofy, wide smile.
“Mine, okay?” I whisper, hovering over her lips.
She nods and whispers back, “Yours.”
Finally, our lips meet, and our hearts also meet in a beautiful, disastrous collision.