Chapter Thirteen
Brooklyn
Shane wove around vehicles so quickly I didn’t have a single chance to ease my grip on him. Safety first and all, and if that meant I could feel the way his body moved with the motorcycle, then that could hardly be held against me.
The ocean air washed over us, and as I sucked in a deep breath of it, everything else faded away.
I almost tapped Shane on the shoulder to ask where we were going a few times, but I’d have to scream in order to be heard, and right now, I honestly didn’t care. I needed to get away, and after this morning’s subsequent hangover, I’d decided against using alcohol to deal with it.
We ended up in front of one of those squat, hut-type buildings that sold authentic Mexican food. Shane climbed off then gripped my hips and helped me off the motorcycle. I reached up and removed the helmet, sure I had mashed hair, but I didn’t care. Probably because I was too focused on Shane’s hands and the way my pulse skittered through my body.
Time to employ my self-control. We’re friends, we’re friends… “I’m off and on solid ground. You can let go now.”
His eyes met mine and swallowing became impossible. “Right. I’m supposed to keep my hands to myself. You sure you want to stick with that rule?”
I licked my lips. “I’m sure.”
“What’s the policy on hair?” He reached up and tugged one of my ponytails, sending tingles racing across my scalp. “You don’t expect me to resist these, do you?”
“I do,” I said, fighting the urge to tell him that I liked a little hair pulling. Definitely not a friends thing to say, and even thinking the too-flirty reply opened up the guilt floodgates. What was I thinking hopping on the back of his motorcycle like that? I’m putting myself in the exact position I swore I wouldn’t.
His hand drifted down to my shoulder. “Uh-oh. I’m losing you.”
I took a step back and rubbed the spot on my neck where I could still feel the ghost of his touch. “I assume we’re here for food?”
He seemed to shake himself out of wherever his thoughts had been headed. “Yeah. Josefina’s is the best Mexican food in the city.”
“Well, it’s been a while, and I’ve never eaten here, but I’m partial to a place in La Mesa.”
“I guarantee this is better.”
The lady at the cash register beamed at us as we approached. “Mijo! It’s about time you came to see me!”
Correction, she beamed at Shane. She even came out from behind the counter and hugged him before casting a big smile at me.
“This is Brooklyn,” he said. “Brooklyn, Josefina. Her son’s been one of my best friends since high school, so she puts up with me.”
She clucked her tongue and waved off his words. “Oh, you. You’re such a good boy.” She pinned him with a look. “You make sure my Hector is being a good boy, too.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Come on, then. I get you food.”
Shane nudged me. “Did you hear that? I’m a good boy.”
“And I thought you said she knew you.”
At his dropped-jaw expression, I laughed. Relief flickered through his expression, I assumed because he’d concluded the waterworks were officially over. It was funny how afraid most boys were of tears. Of course it’d be a lot funnier right now if it didn’t mean he’d witnessed my minor breakdown.
We ordered food, and I was talked into getting something different from my usual shredded beef burrito—apparently it was a requirement to have the enchiladas so I could experience Josefina’s signature red chile sauce. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I took my first bite. Instead of holding back, I let out a moan as the spicy food hit my tongue. “Okay, I’ll give you one. This is amazing. All I need is a Mountain Dew and this would be the perfect meal.”
“Is that what you were drinking this morning?”
A slight thrill went through me that he’d noticed, before I remembered friends wouldn’t be so excited about that. “Yeah. I need double the usual amount on days like today. I think tomorrow I’ll just bring in a two-liter and go to town.”
“You know that stuff is horrible for you. It’ll leave you gassed halfway through a fight.”
“Guess it’s a good thing I choose my fights so wisely. You should follow my example and leave me and my beloved Mountain Dew alone.”
A crooked half smile spread across his face and he gave my thigh a playful shove. “What if I want to start a fight with you?”
I shoved him right back. “Trust me, you don’t. You might think you’ve seen all my moves in the cage, but I have more—so, so many more. Seriously, it’d blow your mind.”
“Sounds like we better squeeze in a few more workouts together, then. You can teach me some new moves.”
I turned my focus to my food, poking at it with a fork. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. For one, you’re obviously super fragile, so I’d probably hurt you, and then you’d be injured and unable to fight.”
“Is that right?” He puffed himself up larger, showing off every not-fragile inch of his frame. “And what’s two?”
I dared a glance at his face and immediately knew it was a mistake by the way my heart contracted in my chest. “I don’t trust you to follow the hands-off rule.”
“Kind of hard to grapple if I can’t put my hands on my opponent.”
I arched an eyebrow. “And therein lies the problem. There are too many aspects of sparring that bring our bodies…” I waved a hand through the air, desperately hoping the dimming light of the sun made it harder to see the heat flaring in my cheeks. “You know.”
“You’re saying you have a hard time thinking straight when I have you pin—”
I quickly shifted forward and covered his mouth with my hand. “I think we better stop while we’re ahead.”
“Says the girl who’s currently breaking the hands-off rule,” he said, his voice slightly muffled.
“Just eat your food.”
He made a big show of taking a ridiculously large bite of his enchilada. In the time it took me to eat mine, he’d finished off two, as well as a stack of rolled tacos—all but the last one, which he insisted I eat.
After we were finished, he gathered our trash, and when he went to dump it, I took a couple snapshots of the palm tree-lined street leading to the ocean. The setting sun turned the clouds fiery orange and dark purple, colors I swore you only saw here, and the ocean reflected them back at the sky with an added ripple effect.
Back when I’d first picked up a paintbrush I’d started with landscapes, and still liked to paint them occasionally. Now my art was more abstract, faces and profiles painted on different-from-the-norm mediums. I’d received a lot of positive feedback, but time would tell if people who didn’t live and breathe the art world would like them, and if they’d like them enough to buy one.
That reminds me, the deadline for the Golden City Art Exhibition is today. With only those two spots up for grabs for artists like me, it was nice knowing no one else could submit, although hundreds probably already had. Judging probably won’t start until after the weekend, so it could still be another couple of weeks before I know if I got in.
A dangerous amount of longing flooded me, and I tried to convince myself it wasn’t a big deal if I didn’t land a spot. It was a long shot, and hoping too much would only set me up for a crash. What was important was that someone out there was looking at my work, and in a few months, my gallery internship would provide more opportunities for that to happen, whether or not I made it into the exhibition.
Thinking about painting had my fingers itching for a brush, so I decided to be cautiously optimistic about getting some time in the near future and snapped a few more inspiration shots so I’d have lots of options.
When I tilted my phone’s screen to get more of the sky in the frame, Shane’s dark profile filled half of it, and I hurriedly took a picture. It was a nice shot, after all.
I lowered the screen, and he extended his hand to me. “Let’s go get our feet wet.”
It’d been way too long since I’d felt the ocean instead of merely driving by it and admiring the view from afar, and the water here was usually warmer than the water up north. So, yes to touching the ocean, but since any type of physical connection with Shane made it harder to remain neutral and in control, I ignored his outstretched arm and stood.
He put his hand on the small of my back and moved his lips by my ear. “Stubborn.”
“Just because you can’t imagine a girl not tripping over herself for a chance to touch you doesn’t mean I’m stubborn. It’s called fidelity.” I knew what it was like to be cheated on, so I’d never put anyone through that self-esteem shattering experience. It was also why I knew better than to fall for pompous fighters and their smooth, charming lines in the first place. They talked a good game, but their actions didn’t always match. By the time the charm ran dry and the moods swung out of control, you were already in too deep, and then you ended up in a big messy situation that you didn’t know how to get your way out of. Unscathed wasn’t really an option at that point.
“And what are we called?” Shane asked, pulling me out of the past and dropping me back in the present.
“Friends,” I said, and when he gave me a skeptical look, I added, “Ish.”
“Oh. Now it’s crystal clear.” The pressure of his hand on my back increased as we made our way down the boardwalk and onto the sand. I bent and removed my flip-flops then dug my toes into the warm sand.
I closed my eyes and inhaled the salt-scented air. Memory after memory hit me, of sand castle Sundays with my mom and brothers, lazy beach days as a teenager spent tanning and catching waves, and hours spent with my feet in the sand and a paintbrush in my hand.
“You look happy,” Shane said. “Next time you get all huffy on me and start spouting off rules, I’m going to have to rush you down here.”
I scowled at him. “I’m about to show you huffy.”
He lifted his hands in fighting stance. “I’m happy to throw down in the sand. Oh, wait. We can’t spar anymore.” He stuck his lips out and gave me a sad puppy dog look.
I shook my head but couldn’t help the smile. As we walked to where the water lapped at our feet, the urge to know more about him swelled, and friends-ish people chatted about that kind of stuff, right? “I take it from your interaction with Josefina that you grew up here?”
I wondered which high school he’d gone to, and if our paths ever crossed and we didn’t even know it. Add in the MMA world and that increased the chances quite a bit.
“Nah. I spent most of my childhood in the shitty desert areas, where the heat is high and the money is in low supply. I didn’t get to San Diego until I was fifteen, and I was actually pissed at how pretty it was when I first arrived.” The words held a forced flatness, and I turned and looked at him, trying to read him better.
“Why?”
“Hope is a dangerous thing.”
“Yeah, I get that. I had a little too much hope when I arrived back in town, and it’s a good way to end up disappointed.” I recalled what he’d said about his life of being shuffled around to different foster homes. “Obviously not the way you get it—I’m not implying that…”
I didn’t know what to say, and my words got jumbled in my head. I wanted to say I understood, the way people did to give them that common ground and sense of solidarity. But the fact of the matter was, I didn’t—I couldn’t, not with the cushier way I’d been raised. I also didn’t want to insult the way he’d grown up. I’d already done that after he’d helped me break into my car, and I did try to learn from my mistakes.
“It’s not a competition,” he said, and the hint of a smile danced across his lips. “But if it was, I would win. Just saying.”
I returned his almost smile and it turned into a full one. “Couldn’t even make it two seconds without turning it into a competition, could you?”
“Not with you. One more second and you’d run wild with it, then for the next few days I’d have to hear you bragging about how you won, and a forfeit just isn’t the same as a real win.” He draped his arm over my shoulders, and after a moment of deliberation I decided it fit friends-ish territory, not to mention it felt nice to rest some of my weight on him, so I let it slide. “I think it’s time we stop dancing around the subject and get it all out.”
My stomach lifted up into rib cage territory.
“What happened at dinner with your dad last night?” he asked, and while I didn’t exactly want to talk about that, at least it wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined it to be in that pause. “Did I give you shitty advice?”
The hurt that’d ebbed and flowed all day rose back up. “Horribleness, with a side of shittiness.”
Shane put a hand to his chest. “You’ve never been one to pull your punches, but damn.”
“Wha—oh! No! I mean the dinner. The dinner was horribleness. I appreciated your advice, actually. It gave me the strength to try.” My eyes met Shane’s, and he gave my shoulder an encouraging squeeze. Since I didn’t know how to deal with the twisty sensation churning through my gut, I returned my gaze to the endless stretch of water. “Unfortunately, I can’t change him.”
I kicked at the water, sending a spray of it into the rising tide. “And please don’t remind me about how tons of people would kill to spend time with him. I know he has good qualities, but he’s blind when it comes to me. Or maybe he just only sees me one way, and always will. Whatever it is, it makes us clash. I think we’re now in a worse place than we’ve been in a long time, and considering we’ve hardly talked in years, I didn’t even know that was possible.”
“I’m sorry—I really am.”
I shrugged because it didn’t change anything. It was nice to get it off my chest, but between that and the genuine concern in Shane’s features, it also made our bubble feel too intimate.
It’s not like Trey’s here to confide in.
Of course, that’s my fault—I’m the one who moved for the summer. All to help a guy who wants me to forget my hopes and dreams and do his bidding.
I switched my weight to my other leg, and Shane’s arm fell from my shoulders. In an attempt to stop the yearning that filled me upon its absence, I hugged my arms around my middle. A sorry substitute, but at least it made me feel less guilty. “I think what sucks most about it is that my dad and I used to have a really good relationship. I was always a huge daddy’s girl. To the point that when my parents divorced, I begged to stay here and live with him instead of moving to Arizona with my mom, which I know hurt her feelings.
“When my passion was his by default, everything was great. Once I decided I wanted a different path than the one he’d planned for me, things got ugly. I never expected my art to come before his precious fighters and his gym, but I didn’t think he’d call it a silly, waste-of-time hobby and demand I pull my weight in the ‘family business’—the business he’d neglected his family to run, by the way. For so long those words stuck with me, and every time I went to show my art to my professor, or someone new, I’d get all tangled up in doubt because not even my dad—a guy who practically gave pep talks for a living—believed in me.”
I glanced up at Shane to find him looking right back at me, so intensely it robbed me of breath for a couple of seconds. “Wow, I didn’t mean for that much to spill out. You’ve got your own stuff to worry about, and I don’t want to dump on you. Not just that, I shouldn’t. You obviously respect him, and you’re working with him, and again, I’m not saying he’s not a good guy. He is. He just pisses me off and hurts my feelings sometimes.”
“I get it. I could tell that you used to be closer from the way you talk about him, which is why I was hoping last night would go better for you. It sucks that he made you doubt yourself, and if you need to vent, you can come to me anytime—I’m good at keeping things separate.”
“Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for distracting me for a while before prying what happened out of me. Now that I got it all out, I’m beyond ready to move on to something else.” I nudged him with my elbow. “Let’s do you now.”
“Finally. An idea I can fully get onboard with.” He exaggeratedly waggled his eyebrows, and I smacked his chest with the back of my hand.
“Not that. I’m saying now that I’ve spilled too much info, you have to, too, so I don’t feel so weird and vulnerable. Tell me all your worries and cares. What keeps Shane Knox up at night?”
“Oh, so you wanna get the fun stuff out of the way first. I gotcha.” His hand returned to the small of my back as he steered us down the beach a ways, toward a spot that didn’t get as much light from the nearby houses. “It’s not very exciting. I’m constantly thinking about getting that next fight. It looks like it’ll probably be with someone relatively unknown. Which is fine, but disappointing. It’s crazy how long it takes to rise to the top, and how fast you can fall and be forgotten about.”
I stopped, a different type of guilt filling me. The favor my dad wanted would help Shane’s career. If I could even get my ex to agree to the fight, and that was a big if. I didn’t believe he had a soft spot for me. He just didn’t like to lose. Looking back after enough time to gain some perspective made me realize he’d always treated me too much like a possession.
“And you,” Shane said, his deep voice carrying across the breeze and drifting over my skin like a caress.
I peered up at his face, replaying the last few seconds as I tried to figure out if my inner monologue had gone rogue on me. Had I said part of what I’d been thinking out loud? “Me?”
His hand drifted over and hooked on my hip as he curled me closer. “Lately thoughts of you keep me up at night.”
I stiffened. “Shane.”
“I know. You have a boyfriend. A stupid, annoying boyfriend.”
I tilted my head. “Don’t be mean. He’s smart and kind, and you haven’t even met him.”
“Won’t change anything. You asked what keeps me up at night, and I’m just being as honest with you as you were with me.”
My breath came faster and faster. Something inside of me had definitely short-circuited, but since I felt sparks everywhere, finding the source so I could fix it was impossible.
“Now why don’t you be honest?” His fingers dug into my hip, heat radiating from his touch down to my bones. “I know I’m not the only one who feels the chemistry between us.”
“I…” I shifted away, breaking his grip on me and swiping a stray curl behind my ear. “I’m not talking about this with you.”
“Because I’m right.” He didn’t bother leaving any wiggle room, and his eyes glimmered with a challenge I wished I could easily deny.
“Because you’re a hungry, cocky fighter, and I’ve already been through this song and dance before, and I’m not down for an encore. I need you to respect my boundaries if we’re going to be alone together ever again.” I meant it, I did, but I could’ve done without the stupid sense of panic that crept through my chest.
He pressed his lips together and looked down at me, the sun doing all sorts of unfair highlighting of his chiseled features. “I’ll keep my promise about not kissing you again unless you ask”—my relief lasted all of half a second before he added—“but I’m going to tell you all the times that I’d kiss you if I had my way.” He moved a hand up to cup my cheek. “Now.” He waited a beat and then stroked his thumb over my cheekbone. “And now. I can guarantee I’ll also be thinking about it the next minute, and the one after that, and the one after that.”
The more he talked about it, the more my head spun with images I shouldn’t allow to creep in, and I took a giant step back. This guy was quicksand, but unlike actual quicksand, slow movements would make me sink even faster, and I really needed to move away as quickly as possible. “That’s not a good idea, and I don’t think it’ll be very good for our friendship.”
“Oh, I’m not even going to pretend it’s a good idea. I know it’s not. I’m trying to land a big fight and I need to focus on my training so I can be ready at a moment’s notice. I don’t have a secure future with Team Domination yet, and I’m sure that this…” His gaze dipped to my lips and he swallowed, hard. “One way or another, it’d get in the way. Either I’d lose my focus or screw it up because I’m me, and both would land me on their shit list, and like I said, bad idea.”
“Right, so…” My heart hammered hard and fast, leaving me dizzy and short on oxygen. One of us needed to shut this down now, and it looked like that task fell on me. “We better get going. I need to get my car, and Finn’s probably wondering where I am.” I turned and started back the way we came.
It only took him a few long strides to catch up, but he gave me my space.
Which was good, because when he was close to me, it made it way too hard to think straight.