Page 12 of Sealed in Ink
“Uh, yeah,” I say.
“What do you think about them?”
I can’t tell him about the time I dreamed of getting a tattoo of him on my body, his name branding me. It was a phase when I touched myself while thinking of him owning me and dominating me. He took all the responsibility, bending me over, saying in his fierce, calm voice,“You have to do this for me. Bend over. Take it for me.”
“They’re okay,” I say, cutting into my steak, not looking at him. I need to control myself.
CHAPTER
FIVE
RUST
After dinner, the storm quiets down some, and Mary goes to her room. I do calisthenics in the living room: a core and arm endurance circuit. I try to work up a sweat most days, even if I’m not actively training. After that, I check my phone. I’ve got a text from Marquis—You better be relaxing—and a missed call from Brad.
I swallow, guilt slamming into me, not because I don’t deserve it. It’s too much to handle. This is new to me, too, this gnawing feeling that I’m doing something wrong. Life was far easier when I was a cold bastard.
Sitting on the porch, watching the rain lash across the darkness, I call Brad.
“Hey? Rust?”
“Yeah, I’m here. It’s pretty stormy, so the signal isn’t great.”
“Wait, I got you. I’m walking around on the hotel roof. Room signal is terrible.”
Usually, I’d probably chuckle here, maybe my only laughter for the entire week, like a quota only my best friend can fill up.
“How is everything?” he asks. “Mary doing okay?”
I bite down, remembering the private plane, the bathroom, and the fierce surge of come burning up my shaft. “Yeah, all good. Her car broke down, so I gave her a ride from the motel. How about you? How’s your old man?”
“Don’t tell Mary, but I’m here to bail him out. Apparently, he tried to break open a slot machine.”
I sigh but say nothing.
“What?” Brad prompts, knowing I’m holding something back because he always does and always has been able to pick up on these things since we were kids.
“He keeps pulling stunts like this. A few months ago, it was drunk driving. Now this. Sometimes, people aren’t worth saving.”
“My dad was a police officer. He was a good man. Mom’s death broke him, that’s all, but there’s some good in there. It’s different.”
He doesn’t need to explainwhyit’s different. He’s talking about my dad, who actually is an irredeemable monster. After my mom passed from lung cancer, Dad drank himself into a hole. Only after I got some success did I begin hearing from the leech again.
“You’re right. It’s not the same.”
“But everything’s okay?” he says.
“Yeah,” I reply.
“Getting into the right mood for the fight?”
Usually, I’d sit on this porch for hours, listening to the rain and simply being in the moment. I’d close my eyes and consciously walk through the fight a thousand times, imagining all the different scenarios. Now, when I close my eyes, I only see Mary.
“Yeah,” I tell him, a lie.
That’s going to be a problem. When my training camp starts, my mind has to beclear. I can’t have any thoughts about Mary or her body or her lips or her laugh or her smile or her fear or justher, dammit.
“Good,” he says. “Speak soon.”
