Part 39 (1/2)

It was stupid of me to have gotten so attached to him in such a short amount of time. I'd let him get into my head and my heart, and what did I have to show for it? Some decent memories of some decent s.e.x, that was what.

Okay, so those memories were actually fantastic, just like the s.e.x had been. But they were bittersweet, too, because at this point, I was pretty sure that I was never going to see Kellan again. At least, not in the way I wanted to.

”Vic ratted us out,” I said at last to Thom. I rubbed my eyes, heedless of my mascara. ”Kellan thinks we're trying to ruin him now. We had a fight. I don't think we can count on him being on our side anymore.”

Thom frowned. ”What did he say? I mean, did he understand we were trying to help?”

”No, he was too angry to understand much of anything. I mean, I know that, and you know that,” I said, wiping the black smears I'd accrued on my finger with a napkin from my desk drawer. ”But Kellan's not so sure. And how could he be? I've lied to him before, after all.”

”You didn't lie,” Thom a.s.sured me. ”You just omitted the truth.” I shot him a glare and he sighed. ”Okay, so it's basically the same thing. But you didn't do it to hurt him. Surely he'll see reason, given some time.”

”I don't think so,” I sighed. ”Kellan doesn't exactly wear his heart on his sleeve, and he doesn't let people in unless he thinks they're worth it. I was something special to him, and I f.u.c.ked up. I was trying too hard to be Melanie Cartwright instead of Parker Jones.”

”Well, at least you've realized it now,” Thom said, rubbing my shoulders. Anywhere else, it would've been workplace hara.s.sment, regardless of what I said to the contrary, but here, everyone knew Thom and his intentions were good. ”So the next thing to do is stop dwelling in the past and see if you two can have a future. And I think I know just the way.”

”Seriously?” I asked, slumping in my chair. Thom's fingers were magic. It really was a shame he was gay, though I was sure Andy wouldn't have shared my opinion on the matter. ”You have a plan for this?”

”I do,” he answered, popping one of the knots in my neck. ”Remember how I said the real winners in all of this are the managers, because they keep so much of the money that their fighters can never retire?”

I nodded, tilting my head back to look up at him. ”Yeah. I just never got to tell Kellan that because he was so p.i.s.sed.”

”Well, what if someone else told him? Someone who wasn't f.u.c.king him?”

I smirked. ”I take it that's you? Unless I've really misread the situation...”

Thom grinned. ”Yes, I mean me. Give me his address and I'll swing by and let him know what's going on. I'm a man. He'll listen to me.”

I rolled my eyes. ”Great, so s.e.xism is alive and well, I see.”

”He's angry with you, Parker. And when straight men get angry at one woman, they get angry at all women. You could tell him the G.o.d's honest truth right now about anything, and he wouldn't believe you. h.e.l.l, he'd argue with you that the sky isn't blue. That's just how they are.”

”Lucky for me, I have an awesome gay friend who would never be so irrational,” I said, sitting up as Thom took his magic hands away. I stretched my shoulders. They really did feel much better now, and I was starting to feel better about this whole thing, too.

”In all seriousness, Thom, it would mean the world to me if you'd talk to Kellan. If he knows what's going on, maybe he can get Victor Dallas to pay him what he's owed, and then he'll get the h.e.l.l out of that life for good.”

After all, that had been Kellan's chief complaint last night, other than the fact that I was a lying shrew, apparently. He needed money, and he needed it now. He needed to be able to sustain himself while the bill I was hara.s.sing Senator MacFarlane about was signed into law. h.e.l.l, if Kellan could get some of the other fighters on his side, we could make the organization implode from the inside out before we even brought the cops raining down on them.

Thom said, ”Send me that address, kitten, and I'll see to it that it gets done. Who knows? Maybe he'll have his s.h.i.+rt off when I get there. That'd be worth the gas money, for sure.”

”I'll e-mail it to you,” I replied. ”And thanks again, Thom. Really, this is above and beyond.”

Thom smiled. ”What are friends for?” he said, turning and heading back to his desk before Melanie could yell at him for dawdling. ”I won't get off until late tonight, but I promise, Parker, I'll take care of it. You just focus on the senator. You've got bigger fish to fry.”

That was true. As much as Kellan was dominating my thoughts, I still had important work to do. And if I was going to win him back, I was going to have to start keeping my promises and following through. I had to stop taking ”no” for an answer.

I called the senator again from my desk. As usual, I was routed to his voicemail, but that wasn't a problem. I would call every hour on the hour until either his mailbox was full, or he listened to me. And then I'd do it again the next day, and the next, for however long I needed to until I got some results.

I was going to salvage this thing between Kellan and me. I had to. Because going my whole life without ever feeling his touch again, without ever looking deep into his gorgeous hazel eyes, was just too depressing a thought to bear.

Kellan was in my blood now, in my heart and in my mind, and I wouldn't let him slip away again.

~ Fifteen ~

Kellan

Punching that bag until all my feelings about Parker went away didn't exactly work out the way I'd hoped it would. Even after an hour in the training room, I was still feeling like s.h.i.+t. No amount of berating myself about it would make me stop thinking about her and what we'd almost had, and so I'd taken a different approach: I was going to drink her away.

Yeah, it was about as stupid an idea as it sounds, especially given my history.

I hit The Sly Fox, the G.o.dd.a.m.n place where we'd met, around seven o'clock that evening. There was a game on, one I wasn't particularly interested in, but at least it drew a crowd. Normally I didn't like being surrounded by so many people, especially in close quarters, but right now I didn't want to be alone. And at least having warm bodies all around me solved that problem.

Or it would have, if the alcohol had actually made Parker's face disappear from my mind. Every time I thought of her, it was like everything else in the whole world disappeared. There was just me and her, except she was gone. I'd pushed her away. And now I was alone all over again.

No, f.u.c.k her. She lied to me. She was the one who'd pushed me away.

But I'd never even let her explain. Not really. Hadn't I owed her that? Couldn't I have shut the f.u.c.k up for just one second and listened? s.h.i.+t, I was starting to remind myself of my stepdad-jumping to conclusions and insisting they were real, despite any and all evidence to the contrary. It was easy not to change your mind when you just flat-out refused to see it any other way. Bonus points if you wouldn't let the other party get a word in edgewise.

That was what had torn our family apart for years. And now, I was letting it tear me and Parker apart, too. f.u.c.k. Was I really this big of an idiot? Hadn't I learned anything from what Iris and Slade went through? Apparently f.u.c.king not.

Maybe I should call her. Send a text. Something. Just not while I was drinking. Alcohol and cell phones were a bad combination, and I wasn't about to make a bad situation worse by saying something stupid when I was halfway drunk.

I was just about to settle up my bill when the door opened and a few familiar voices lilted my way. I looked over my shoulder at Jason ”Mad Dog” Kane, Brian ”Bloodbath” Mills, and Tyrell ”Shaka” Was.h.i.+ngton, a d.a.m.n odd bunch if I'd ever saw one. Not that they weren't good fighters, but I'd never seen them hang out before. They'd never given me any kind of trouble, and we'd talked a few times, but we'd never kept company, either. Not really. Whatever the special occasion was, though, they seemed pretty jazzed about it.

”Hey, it's Killer Kellan!” Bloodbath said, immediately taking a seat on the stool next to mine. ”Holy s.h.i.+t, man. We got a regular family reunion up in here!”

”What's up, Killer?” Shaka said, clapping me on the back as he sat on the opposite side of me. ”Fancy seein' you here.”

”Yeah, I'm not really a regular,” I mumbled as Mad Dog sat down on the other side of Bloodbath. ”Usually do all my drinking at home.”

”AA might call that a problem,” Shaka said as he ordered a round. ”But I bet it's cheaper that way.”

”Exactly,” I told him, surprised that he'd thought to get me a drink, too. I finished the last of my old beer and started in on the new one. ”Well, s.h.i.+t. What are we celebrating?”

Mad Dog grinned. ”Just a fun night on the town. That's all.”

Bloodbath laughed. ”Yeah, Killer. A real fun night. Even got into a brawl. Not like the usual stuff, though.”

I raised a brow. ”You were street fighting?”

”h.e.l.l no!” Shaka said. ”That s.h.i.+t'll get you busted by the cops, for sure. Nah, meeting with this dude went south, ended up busting his head open. Dude deserved it, though.”

Mad Dog snickered. I looked from him back to Shaka. ”What happened?”

”You know that guy who's been nosin' around the place with that blonde chick?” Bloodbath asked, leaning closer to me over the bar. I nodded, my stomach already tying itself in knots. Bloodbath lowered his voice and continued. ”Well, he wanted to talk to us this afternoon about some bulls.h.i.+t. Said Vic was trying to rip us off. Just an excuse to shut the whole place down, y'know? Vic warned us about his a.s.s a few days ago.”