Chapter Eight
Brick
The first thing I thought when I saw the graffiti on the side of the comic book store wasShit, now I’m going to have to fight somebody.
Isn’t that a fucked-up thing to think? I practically cracked my knuckles before I gave it a second thought. You just spend so much of your life swinging your fists around, it’s hard to remember there are other ways to respond to things.
I hadn’t always been quick to fight, but I had always been good at it. My older brother Sam was rough on me, and that’s putting it lightly. He was taller, stronger, and meaner. My mother could have done something to stop him, especially when we were young, but she sure as shit didn’t. It would be easy to make excuses, saying it was too much for her to raise two rambunctious kids like us all on her own, or that her job took too much out of her. Hell, I got myself into so much trouble, Iwasa handful. But I knew the truth of it. She was okay with one son, but once I came along and my father disappeared, she decided I was a burden, and that was exactly how she treated me.
So I learned to fight because Sam made me, whether I wanted to or not. I learned to throw up my arms and block a fist because it was the only way to stop that fist from landing on my nose, and I learned to punch back because it was the only way to get him to stop.
I can blame Sam for that, but I can’t blame him for the choice I made to start fighting for money. That was my decision, and I had to live with it.
It’s not the kind of thing you ever expect to do. I even thought I was going to turn a new leaf when I moved away from my childhood home—start a new life with the change in my pocket, find a way to live peacefully, that kind of thing. But one night, a stranger tried to start shit with me at a bar in Philly, and my rage came crashing out like a tidal wave. I wiped the table with a couple of guys, despite them having at least fifty pounds of bulk on me each, and my fists were flying so fast they didn’t know what was coming.
Turns out there was a guy at that dive, and he knew a guy who was looking for a guy, and next thing I knew, I was bare-fist fighting other mean-looking motherfuckers in a basement. Some shady types with a lot of money needed something to bet on, and they loved the way I could take a beating and keep going. More often than not, I could get myself a substantial cash takeaway at the end of the evening. It was enough to make up for the occasional broken bones and some seriously split lips. Or at least that’s what I told myself.
A dipshit like me, I thought it was no big deal. I was tough enough to take a beating, and I wanted the money. Sold. Then Charlie followed me to the fight one night, even though I told him a million times he shouldn’t come there.
Fucking Charlie. I should have known better than to trust him, but there was something about his smile and the way he tucked his hair behind his ears when he was feeling self-conscious. There was something about the way his lip trembled when I moved in to kiss him and the way he said my name.
Charlie came from money, and I was foolish enough to think that meant something, even though I met him in a bar filled with dirtbags like me. I was foolish enough to think his privileged family and his refined manners meant he was a good person and that I was lucky to have him taking a chance on me.
At the fights, I was making real money for the first time in my life. I might not have been proud of the way I was earning it, but it felt good to throw a little cash around and pretend a guy like Charlie and a guy like me could fall in love. Now, I’m not sure which was a bigger lie—pretending I was different or pretending Charlie was actually an angel.
The night I saw him standing there, hiding in the shadows in the back of the crowd at one of my fights, it sent a chill right down my spine. I wanted to level the guy I was facing in the fighting pit, scoop Charlie up in my arms, and carry him home. I wanted to save him, although I should have been trying to save myself.
Before I could react, before the fight was even over, chaos erupted. A drink spilled, a punch landed in the wrong place, a man shoved Charlie against the wall, and from there, everything got blurry.
Faded.
I remember that Charlie looked bad, real bad, and I remember that I had to punch out two bouncers and throw my guy through the back door to make our escape. I’d seen a lot of beat up faces in my day, and Charlie was going to be sporting those injuries for quite a while. It tore me right open to see him like that. It felt like I had hurt him myself, like my fucked-up life had boiled over, and he was the one who got scalded.
Pow.Right in the gut.
It’s one thing to feel guilty like that. It’s another to find out a week later that there was a hell of a lot more to the story.
I was laying low in a dive on the outskirts of town, trying to figure out my next move, when an old friend sidled up to me. He gave me a cheap shot of whiskey, then another, and then told me the facts of the matter. It was the bouncers that had jumped Charlie in the first place, throwing him against the wall because my dumbass, rich ex-boyfriend had tried to snag the wallet of one of the bosses at that fight. And that second Charlie found himself in trouble? He sold me out, claiming I was behind the whole thing.
I still wasn’t sure which of us was a bigger fuckup—Charlie, trying to steal money he didn’t need? Or me, thinking with my fists before I even knew the whole story and getting myself in all sorts of trouble for someone else’s sins.
So yeah, I sometimes felt like I needed to punch something. I didn’t like feeling that way, but we didn’t always get to pick how we feel. Sometimes, we just had to feel it.
And in that particular moment, I was feeling pretty fucking pissed that some twerp had gotten away with messing up the comic book shop right under my nose.
It was the middle of the afternoon, and I should have been hauling boxes and kegs. There was plenty to take care of at the Steel Rose without looking for trouble down the street. I could work up a good, grimy sweat in the back of the bar and let Lilith’s screeching music block out any of the painful memories. That’s what a smart person would do. Just get the job done, collect a paycheck, and go the fuck home.
Before I could do anything smart, though, that guy from Northstar came flying out the front door of the shop, making a beeline down the street and straight for the bar.
Ezra.
He actually looked pretty cute, all worked up like that. His arms were pumping by his sides and his Converse flapping against the pavement. As he got closer, I saw that his mouth was all twisted in a grimace, and I couldn’t help but think of how much fun it would be to unravel all that built-up energy and see what he was really capable of.
“What am I paying you for?” Ezra exclaimed, gesturing backward to the shop. “Were you not here last night?”
I leaned back against the wall and took my time staring down at him. He stopped in front of me, and when he swallowed hard, I saw the beads of sweat on the side of his neck.
He must be nervous. Cute.
