Rebel Rockstar (28 page)

Y
ou notice
a few things about people you hate. I realize I’ve never been on a cruise before and I should be enjoying the scenery, the beautiful blue water surrounding us… All that shit. But I can’t, because the fuck who hurt Faith was here, and…

Paparazzi.

I managed to avoid them for the past few days, forgetting about where my career in boxing had taken me. I was only just in my twenties. They should be leaving me the fuck alone to explore adulthood, or some shit. But no, that just gave them more ammo.

I ignore the flash of cameras – who the fuck has the time to go stalk someone on a cruise to take photos? And how did they even know I was here? – as I stare down Jason. His back is retreating from me, and it only pisses me off more.

I know what he was doing. Fucking coming up to Faith’s cabin to try and talk to her.

Never mind that he’s here with the woman he cheated on her with.

Never mind he’s the world’s biggest prick.

But of course, as soon as he saw me in there with Faith, he backed off.

Fucking coward.

“Hey!” I shout at him. He stops for a second, but doesn’t look behind him. He keeps walking after that, so I shout at him again, adding some things –

“Hey, motherfucker, I said stop.”

I sound like a dick, even to my own ears. Good. Fuck this guy and his shit feelings. He doesn’t deserve to…

He yells back at me, and it surprises me. But not enough surprise for me to care enough to know what he’s saying… The words are meaningless.

The crowd around us is bigger now and there are more cameras clicking. Guess there are a few more boxing fans on this cruise than I’d thought; I’d expected it to be housewives and their husbands, and the side dishes for those husbands. Not that they needed to be married to fuck around. I knew full well. I’d been cheated on before, but nothing as bad as this whole Jason and Becky business.

He never deserved Faith.

And he never would.

I don’t think anyone does.

Jason stops a few feet from me and turns, repeating himself again. There’s a swear in there that his little mouth doesn’t look like it’d fucking know, and there are some words in them but I’m not listening to those either. From the sidelines, I hear someone asking questions about me.

“Is that River Xavier?”

And just like that, I can’t make the distinction between a swanky cruise ship and the ring. I feel the crowd around me, and I can’t make them out from the sweating, screaming hordes in the seats below the ring. And these ones are standing, so it’s like when there’s an aggressive match, too many people in there for there to be chairs, and if there are any chairs, they’re being thrown at others –

Fuck.

I don’t need a ref for this.

I step forward, my left leg going in front of my right leg instinctively as I raise my hands. I throw my body weight towards the bitch in front of me, throwing my first punch out –

Fist hits skin.

Jab, cross, jab, cross. There’s a dim pain as his leg connects with my stomach, but I ignore it.

This fuck doesn’t even know how to throw a hit. He’s resorting to kicking and grabbing at my skin, and I feel nothing about it, I just want to hurt him, even though I’m far more advantaged than he is.

Hit, hit, hit. I’m on top of him and his shoulders are in my hands as I drag them behind his back, twisting him around as he shouts. No tap out. Hit, hit. I slam his head to the ground, panting angrily, about to take my palm and hit him with it when I hear her.

“River! Stop!”

I don’t know when she left the room and I don’t know if Dawn is with her, but there’s something different about honorably fighting in a ring and beating the shit out of some asshole on deck that I stop immediately.

My fists, still clenched, are held in front of me, and I gasp for air, not because I’m tired but because the sudden lack of conflict drains me…

I need to hit him again.

I back away.

“I’m sorry, I just… I can’t forget what he did,” I tell Faith, my eyes darting back to the cabin. “Is Dawn okay?”

Faith nods, crossing her arms in front of her body. “Sabrina’s with her.”

I nod, feeling comforted.

And then I realize: the cameras never stopped clicking. I turn to look at them and I see a flash of hair and short shorts covering almost no skin as Becky runs across the deck, picking up Jason and dragging him away where I can’t get to him –

We’ll have to deal with being in a confined space with each other. But that doesn’t mean we have to see each other. And if Becky does her job right, I won’t have to deal with Jason, and he won’t have to get his face fucking broken in again.

My breathing is less shallow. Calmer now.

I take Faith’s hand in mine and pull her to me, but then I drop her hand and just take her in my arms. Her head fits perfectly under my chin like it always has, and I love how small she is in my arms and how it feels like I can protect her…

I would protect her, against anything.

But I can’t convince myself that attacking Jason isn’t just as much for her as it is for me. I sigh into her hair, about to close my eyes when the first fan pipes up, asking me for an autograph.

A
nother camera clicks
, and I imagine how it looks, me holding Faith in my arms and breathing out calmer than I have in ages. She feels right. I’ll have to figure out who that person is and ask for that photo later, but there’s only so much shit I can deal with right now.

Faith presses her body against mine for a moment, but then she pulls herself away from me and we’re only connected by our fingertips as she grabs my hand. A pen is shoved roughly in the other hand as another voice – high-pitched from being nervous? Fans of boxers are often worried they might get by their idol, but I’ve never hit down a fan yet – reminds me of what they desperately want: my name scrawled on their shirt.

River Xavier.

Done.

And then the pen is still in my hand, and I write my name on notepads, clothing, skin, and maybe a camera or two. I don’t keep track. My mind is on Faith. I throw the pen to the ground and go to her, needing her more than I need the attention of some groupies and a few reporters.

“Mr. Xavier! Is this your wife?” One voice screams over the sound of the rumbling people. The cruise was quiet and serene a few minutes ago, but it got loud in the fight and has only gotten progressively louder later. I nod, ignoring the technicalities of the statement. She’s my girl, even if she doesn’t know it yet, but by the way her hand squeezes against mine…

She does.

It’d be nice to have her as my wife, I think. No, I know.

But we’re not there yet.

I nod again to the random man, taking Faith’s hand in mine and moving back in the direction I’m pretty sure I came from. She just giggles, stopping and still moving even as she does so. I’m too strong and her body gets pulled along by my grip, so I stop, too, wondering what’s up.

“My room’s this way,” she says, grabbing the sleeve of my shirt even though it’s way too high up for her to lead me without it looking ridiculous. And then she pulls me and we’re back to our cabin.

The room is still organized and looks the same as it did before, still smells of freshly cut apples and unpacked luggage. I guess she took our clothes out and got them done when I was hunting for Jason…

Sabrina and Dawn are missing from the room. Guess the blonde took my little girl out to explore the ship. Perfect fucking timing.

I kiss Faith on the forehead, hoping she’ll know I noticed. Either way, I’m not going to ask. She leans her head against my chest and that’s all that matters.

“River,” she says.

“Shut up,” I tell her. I have to quit being so fucking soft. I wonder if she’ll still like me as much, as mushy as I’ve been around her. But I’m not in the mood for mush now. I grab her by the waist, pulling her to me.

She’s so much weaker than me and it’s so easy to just take her in my arms, but she doesn’t fight me. She never has.

We’re meant to be together.

I crush my lips against hers. One of her hands rises to the back of my head, pressing against it so that my mouth drags closer to hers. I shower her in rough, wet kisses, tugging at the bottom of her shirt and moving to pull it up over her head –

“Wait,” she says, tugging at the hem of mine back. Hers is urgent, less sexual than we’d been just a second before.

I stop immediately.

“I can’t, River… It’s too much, too soon. We have to talk, you’re being too pushy,” she admits brokenly.

It hurts so fucking much to hear her say that. I try to speak.

I can’t.

“Tonight,” she says, kissing me lightly one more time. “I promise.”

And then she’s out of the room, saying she has to find Sabrina and Dawn, check up on her little girl. And I’m sitting in there, thinking about the kid that might just be mine.

I don’t feel like a father.

But…

Dawn feels like home.

She feels like my child.

* * *

H
ours pass
. Tonight never comes.

I’m not even mad when Faith presses herself up against my side, leaning her head on my shoulder, and tells me what a sleepy night it is.

“It is,” I say, and I keep myself from kissing her again. It shouldn’t be possible to kiss someone too much. If she’s sleepy, though, it might be better not to. I haven’t spent the night with her before, not in years. I don’t know what it takes to make her tired, even though I’d have been able to answer that question just years ago. I press my fingers in her hair, pulling at it lightly so it rises from her scalp and she moans. “Let’s go outside.”

She nods, her eyes half-lidded and I wonder if she’s actually too tired to…

I shake my head.

Dawn is in here.

And that is exactly why we can’t be close.

I knock on the door to the adjoining door, and Sabrina opens it a moment later. “Can you watch Dawn?” I ask.

I bet she can hear the strain in my voice, as she nods quickly and comes inside the room. Dawn’s sleeping peacefully on her cot, and Sabrina won’t have a lot of work on her hands.

I lead Faith outside, until we’re at the door leading to the deck.

I shove both hands against the door, opening it with two instead of the usual one because it’s the only way I’ll be able to keep my hands off of my Faith. It’s dark out now, darker than expected. The stars are so visible here, unlike any place I’ve ever seen them in the city.

W
e are completely surrounded
by water.

I want to turn to Faith, but I don’t yet. We’re just outside her room, which is on the first floor of the ship. The ship has two floors, with the main captain’s bridge being on the second. No one is allowed up there.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I nudge against her with my shoulder, nodding my head in the direction of the captain’s quarters. There’s a ladder leading up there and everything, and rails to hold onto to make sure we don’t fall in case we hit a particularly bad wave.

But I’m not concerned about me. Just about her.

“You know it,” she says, that grin of hers I haven’t seen in so long spreading across her face. Faith has always been nerdy, the good girl… But there’s a streak of wildness in her, and I long to bring it out in her. I just hope she gives me the chance. “It’s been ages since I did something wicked and bad…”

Without giving her fair warning, I start running across the deck, avoiding the sun chairs other tourists have left lounging about, and I hear her high-pitched “hey!” scream into the distance at the injustice. It makes my sides ache, and I almost lose my advantage.

Almost.

My hand hits the ladder first, and I drag it all the way down so the bottom rung hits the deck and we’ll be able to climb with stability. I long to rush up it, feel the sea breeze on my face as the wind wafts against my skin. I move to the side, ducking my head.

“Ladies first.”

She hits me in the stomach, lightly, mumbling something about not being a lady.

She couldn’t be more wrong.

“So, Faith,” I start.

She finishes. “Shut up.”

She leans her back against the railing, holding her weight up with her arms just enough so she’s shaking from the exertion of it. I laugh, moving towards her, and grab her arms so that her body is leaning up against the rails. I hold her arms on either sides of her so she won’t fall. I’ll keep her safe.

“It’s been so long,” she says.

“You just told me to shut up,” I nuzzle my mouth against her skin, moving my face down so my lips rest against her throat.

“You’re ruining the moment,” she says, but she arches her neck so her skin is easier for me to reach. I stop kissing her. I want her now, but I want her to ache for it. For me.

I want her to beg. My hand caresses her small curves through the fabric of her clothes, and I exhale into the night air. “I looked for you for so long, Faith.”

“So much has changed.” She pulls herself away from me, ducking under my arms and finding a seat leaned up against the captain’s office. She sticks her legs out in front of her, and I do the same. I sit there, listening, as she tells me everything – my family moving and helping her family, which they’d told me. I was so desperate to see her and tell her she could live with me, but she refused to even come to the door. She tells me that she was broken over her mother’s death, and I know that still hurts her –