Dodging Trains (30 page)

“I can’t chase him down,” I breathe. “He wouldn’t hang out on the same hunting grounds today.”

“Yes, but you can change your dream! Come here.” She wants to cuddle me like I’m a toddler, trying and failing to encompass all of me with her small frame.

“Change my dream, huh?” I want to scoff, but in some doctor’s office, I skimmed an article about people doing just that.

She kisses my temple. No pity exudes from her, which makes me relax. “Yep, do it. It takes a while, but I pulled it off so I’m living proof. What would you do in that dream if you could change it?” Of course she knows what I’d do, but she sounds genuinely intrigued.

I snort. “Kick his damn ass.”

“Oh yeah, baby, you would,” she whispers. “Tell me the whole story.”

So I do. I tell her how I’m peeing, how the door is forced open and this redheaded troll barges in. How he starts telling me I’m pretty. I’m not scared, no, I fucking shout in his face that he’s fucking ugly, and that he needs to get his ass out of here before I bash his brains in.

I tell her how he smirks, that long hands come out to get me, but despite the small size of the bathroom, I grab one of his arms, twist it backwards—he wants to tap out, but of course I’m not letting him. I tell her how I crack his shoulder, describe the disgraceful howl of pain he emits. I look at his mouth, and I hate it too, so I punch him in the face, repeatedly, and it’s pure delight when he spits tooth after tooth after tooth.

I stomp on him. The train creep is a bloodied mess on the floor. People are knocking on the door, but I tell them I’ll be done in a minute. Paislee encourages my violence, laughs when I put his head in the toilet and flush, when I enjoy the sight of his blood making the metal bowl swirl ketchup-pink around his head.

She laughs louder when I jerk his pants down, leaving his white ass on display for whoever enters first after I exit. I turn to leave, but then I have a good idea, because he should never molest another child. So miraculously I have a pair of scissors. Miraculously they’re sharp enough to cut his balls clean off.

I describe how the blood makes swirly rivulets on the floor, circling the drain. It doesn’t reach me—I’m untouchable. So I straighten, stare at my sixteen-year-old self in the mirror and read accomplishment and victory in my eyes.

“What about his butt?” she says, evil, so evil. “Are you gonna leave it like that?”

I like the way she thinks
.

“I almost forgot. There’s a toilet brush in the room, one with a long, thick handle. Turns out the train creep doesn’t like his own medicine.”

“You could have used his penis. Just cut it off and plugged him with it,” she says, straight-faced, and that’s when I start to laugh out loud.

The fear as I woke up, her cruel humor, our love from an hour ago, the food, the wine—this night, tomorrow, my life. All of it together is overwhelming, and I haven’t laughed in so long.
Now I can’t stop.

My stomach clenches, and I tear up. She’s laughing too, my beautiful, lovely girl who’s been through as much and more. When I can’t snap free and I squirm in my fit, she climbs onto me and pins me down with delicate fingers through mine, kissing me and giggling, “Hush, baby.”

She changes my focus then; slowly, she makes my body relax with light strokes of her tongue in my mouth. She sinks down, her hips moving in quiet undulations.

I grow, needing and thinking that I’ll never stop needing her. “You want my baby in you?” I ask, drunk on her.

“I want anything you.”

She fucks me slowly, the way she likes, and tonight, again, it’s perfect and makes me come quicker than I ever do. I arch when I spurt, jutting up against her, and she clamps her body around me, a small monkey with arms and legs secured so we can tremble together.

“Sleep,” she whispers to me later. “Sleep. Sleep.”

“What if the dream returns?” I ask, trusting her with my lack of wisdom.

“It won’t come back. You just dreamed it, we’ve talked about it and invented a great rewrite. Your subconscious has had its fill for tonight.”

Deep down I realize she can’t know for sure, but despite this knowledge, I shut my eyes and I fall asleep with a small, warm body nestled tightly against my own.

PAISLEE

I
wake up
with a quiet knock on the door, like someone would rather not interrupt. I let my gaze flick over the room. Our meal is still on the table, a s
mall crime scene of foods, glasses, bottles, napkins, dirty plates, and cutlery. It makes me smile. That boy was a hungry boy. His hunger was stilled last night.

The knock on the door returns, louder this time, and I skim Keyon’s shoulder with a hand. His mouth is slack, his eyes moving in dream beneath his eyelids. There’s a smile at the corner of an eye. When someone looks youthful in sleep, it’s because they’re happy.

I hope I star in his dream.

I steal out from the sheets, not wanting to wake him. I find my dress and pull it over my head. There’s no time to locate underwear and shoes, but I pat my hair down, wanting it smoother than it must be after a night with Keyon.

I open with the security chain still attached. “Yes?”

Jaden’s outside. “You know what time it is?” he asks in lieu of a greeting.

“No…”

“It’s a quarter ’til showtime, and the child I’m babysitting needs to get out of that bed”—he tries to peer past me—“or I’ll be fighting
for
him.”

“He’s in the shower,” I lie. “Really? It’s late afternoon?”

Jaden rolls Mediterranean-blue eyes at me. “No. You think we’d let him oversleep? It’s his big day.” He clicks his tongue. “And I can’t wait to get rid of the guy. He better win so I can take over his dressing room privileges at the gym.”

“Dressing room?” I’m so lost.

“I’m kidding! You’re hot but not the brightest bulb. Anyway, get his ass out of bed, the shower, whatever, and meet us at the restaurant in fifteen. He’s had enough honeymoon-time. It’s back to work.”

Keyon grunts unhappily when I wake him up. It makes me grin, because I see in him the boy with the blue raspberry lollipops. In the shower, we kiss. I soap up every stone-hard ridge, feeling suds and hair mingle along the way. I end up on my knees, lathering up his calves and ankles too, and when I stand, his member is fully awake and raised at me.

Eyes hooded, he breathes, “And now we can’t do anything about this. I’ll be hurting all morning.” He points at himself.

“Maybe I can help you with that after breakfast?”

He leans in and sucks on my lips, warm water mingling with the taste of toothpaste and skin. “Or maybe I’ll keep my frustration with me through to the fight.”

“So devious,” I say.

Keyon chuckles. “Will you be my conspirator to this devious plan?”

“Yes.” I draw away to give him a serious face. “I solemnly swear to do nothing about… that. Until after the fight. Then I’ll do a lot.”

He salutes me with a cheerful twitch of his boner.

Three men stand
from their seats when we arrive. Markeston swats a waiter over, ordering coffee and milk and grapefruit juice to the table even before we’re seated.

I feel Dawson’s gaze on me first. I know what he’s asking, but I don’t respond. It’s not my place to tell him how Keyon is doing. He can tell them himself.

“Hey, guys!” Keyon says, chipper. My focus shifts to twinkling eyes I adore and a broad smile.

“Good morning,” Dawson replies first. “Did you sleep well?”

I look at my watch. Keyon got to his room around eight last night, and now it’s ten thirty. Really? We’ve been in bed for over twelve hours?

“Like a log. Courtesy of this crazy girl,” he murmurs and lays a hand on my thigh. It makes my cheeks grow warm, so I dip my face into his shoulder.

“Did you like what we sent up for you?” Markeston asks.

“It was delicious. I think I ate most of it.”

“He did,” I nod against Keyon. An arm goes around me and ropes me in. The three in front of us chuckle, and Jaden clears his throat. It’s exaggerated, which is why I start wondering.

I frown up at Keyon, who bites his lip, gaze glittering: “What, babe?”

“Nothing. Just, you ate a lot of steak and potatoes and chicken and stuff. Seafood,” I mumble. That does it. Everyone except Dawson bursts out laughing.

Yeah. Suddenly I feel like part of that meal. Despite my decade-long history of being completely shameless, my face is on fire. I open my mouth for something to deflect their attention with—I’m drawing total blanks—but Keyon cuts in, rocking me close. “Shhh. You’re amazing. So amazing.”

“Dawson, you know that no-girlfriend rule of yours? Brilliant, huh? Guess things will change from now on,” Jaden says.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Dawson instantly replies, stare locking on the other fighter. “Keyon’s a special case. You, for instance, even if you settled with a girl, would probably not be in his category.”

“The
needy
category,” Jaden misunderstands on purpose. I’m happy about the subject change. Nervous about the mention of girlfriends. Still, I enjoy the company, these men, their good-natured ribbing, the lack of judgment. And nobody, besides the most important one, knows who I used to be.

The rest of our breakfast makes a stark difference to our breakfast in Mexico City. Instead of avoiding me at all costs, my love leans back in his seat and hooks an arm around my backrest.

A finger touches the side of my arm whenever I move, whether to add more cream for the coffee, stir, or wave the waiter down for another biscuit. And during the entire meal, I am closer to nirvana than I have ever been.

“Babe.”
Keyon’s eyes are wide and sincere looking down on me. “I need to start prepping. I need to win this fight.”

I stroke his cheek, wondering what it will look like in three hours. “Shoo! Do your thing. I’ll be waiting.” I won’t let the thought of him getting hurt sink in, because I’m not one to jinx outcomes. I straighten my back and stare into his eyes.

“You’re going to
destroy
‘The Hammer.’”

“I will. And you can call him Jackson.”

“Oh yeah, because he’ll have no time to use his hammer on my—” I cough, interrupting myself.

“Your what?” Dilated pupils meet mine from a face that’s turning stony, and it’s not, not a good sign. These ups and downs: I think I understand, but my heart skips at his change.

I need to reel myself in, not let my happiness ruin our fragile nearness.

I never was a bitter person. I honestly don’t think I possess the resentful gene. I see others’ points of view easier than my own, and Keyon has such battles to brave. I’m strong. Life has taught me to shut valves off, valves that if left open, could flush me to the gutter with anyone’s bathwater.

I can close them again.

I can lose again.

I try not to think of glazed eggs or the moment when, layer after exquisite layer, Keyon peeled me bare as one, believing in a
me
that was good. My midnight-blue weight of hope is in my purse, a reminder that doesn’t inhibit realism; my fairy tale was brittle from the start, and it’s prepared to shatter at any time.

There’s no lying to myself about being in love with my friend from times of chaos and uncertainty, the one who’s pulled me from dirty survival if even for a blessed minute.

So much one can think at once. Now I lose to my mind. It runs amok imagining Keyon with another girl. I’ve been the other woman, the slayer of relationships. It would be justice if it happened to me. But if she made him happy, I’d need to understand.

I didn’t come to Las Vegas to claim Keyon as my boyfriend. That’s not why I slipped and called him mine. It was the feeling I had last night. It was his quiet contentment at my side during breakfast.

My lips still prickle with the mimosa he ordered for me because I’d never tried one. I finish my sentence lightly and with care, saying, “Jackson won’t have time to use his hammer on my friend.”

But if I’m to suppress what I feel in speak, at least I will show him in action. I search for his lips and find them, easing in between them with my tongue.

He gasps my name out once I let up, hands tight around my waist and lips so close I want another taste. “To be continued?”

“Yeah,” I whisper.

He leans his forehead against mine. Then he puffs up his cheeks in the sexiest display of
frustrated
and turns to walk away. I stay behind. Emit a shuddering breath before I grab my laptop and settle in at the bar.

I’ll write to my brother about Keyon. I’ll tell him about the fight. The message will be more than a sentence long. Again I’ll cross my fingers that I won’t be unfriended.

I’m happy without a reason, and I’m owning it. I order another drink, a piña colada, just because I want one. And whatever tomorrow brings might not be what I want.

KEYON

Sleep is underrated.
So is amazing sex, amazing women, and amazing dinners and breakfasts and everything in between. Jaden’s got his arms crossed in front of me on the treadmill, eyes narrowed and studying me.

I’m taking it easy, breezing through my little run. Maybe I’m high on having had enough
Zzzs
—who knows—but I’m stepping down on the intensity, the way the medics and Dawson have been prescribing for a while now, getting ready for my fight at an even pace.

“Fucking chick.” Jaden might be grinning at me, but his eyes scowl.

“Yeah? Nothing fucked about her,” I lie, because he doesn’t know how fucked up she is, how fucked up I am, how not fucked we’ll be together once I figure shit out.

“Seriously, dude, you in love or something?”

“Maybe,” I say. Then I sniff, minimizing the enormity of my admission, and stare at the flat-screen in front of me. Courtesy of the hotel gym, a Marlon “The Hammer” Jackson medley runs nonstop for me.

“Dayyyyyuuuummm.” If Jaden could extend the word longer without being out of breath, he would. “Keyon Arias, on the verge of committing to the Ball and Chain. Who knew?”

“I’d chain her up if she let me,” I say.

“Don’t blame you. She’s sexy as hell,” he replies, and I get off the treadmill and thrust him against the wall so hard a mirror behind him cracks.

“
What
did you say?”

“Her sister,” he snickers out. “Is so hot, I mean, wow.”

“Asshole.” I drop him and stalk to the ring. “Ready to spar?”

“Do I have a death wish?” he counters. “Sure. Let’s do it.”