She would never be alone again.
I went to take a shower then pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt. I stuffed the gloves I’d bought in the front pocket of my hoodie and, out of habit, turned to grab my coat off its usual peg.
A smile lifted my mouth. Nope, I wouldn’t be getting that jacket back.
I jogged most of the way to Mia’s. The streets were quiet in the middle of the night, not counting the few pockets of people crowding around stoops or outside of corner bodegas. I didn’t second guess my actions until I stood in the vestibule of Mia’s rundown building. Should I have come? She was likely asleep. Carly too.
Instead of pressing the buzzer for their apartment, I hit the intercom for their place instead, hoping like hell that Carly—and only Carly—would be up. By now, Mia had probably crashed. The adrenaline spike after a fight was huge, but so was the eventual low. If she was anything like me, after a few hours she’d taken a hot shower, popped some ibuprofen, and hit the hay.
“This better be good,” came the feminine voice through the speaker. She didn’t swear so it wasn’t Kizzy, thank God. Plus she sounded more perky than hard-edged, so that left Carly. “Do you know what time it is, unknown person?”
I looked at my watch. Almost three. I’d spent hours caught up in the horrors I’d found on the web. “Yeah, sorry, Carly. It’s Tray. Can I come up?”
“Tray?”
Had she forgotten me already? Some impression I’d made on the kid. “Fox,” I muttered. “Fighter dude? Mia’s…friend?”
“I remember you. I just wanted to hear you say ‘Fox.’” She giggled, though the sound seemed subdued. “Come on up.”
She rang me through the lobby, and I bypassed the elevator for the stairs. I had so much excess energy and pent-up frustration about the whole situation with Mia and her past that I could’ve run through Brooklyn twice and not gotten tired.
Then I saw Carly’s façade of cheerfulness as she opened Mia’s door and that energy surge turned into panic.
“What is it? Where is she?” I pushed her aside and barreled into the apartment. Nothing seemed out of place. Mia’s bleeding body wasn’t draped over the sofa. The kitchen counter, however, was filled with mixing bowls and pans, and the distinctly peanut buttery scent coming from the oven made my stomach growl. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“A, I don’t know your number. B, she was pretty upset after you left last night—and she shouldn’t have been, considering what y’all had been doing beforehand.” Carly closed the door with a firm click. “And C, why should I? Apparently this getting beat all to hell stuff is her normal life. Yours too.”
I pivoted to face her. Carly stood with her back to the door, her hair in long swirling reddish-gold ponytails that spilled over her pink sweater and made her look about twelve. Except for her eyes. They were much older than her years and painfully direct as they bore into mine.
“Is she all right?” I asked carefully, unsure how to proceed. I didn’t know any more about dealing with kids than I did about taking care of people. Carly was closer to adult than child, but right now I suspected she also needed taking care of, and that put her strictly in landmine territory. I gestured at the mess in the kitchen. “I’m assuming she must be or you wouldn’t be working through the Betty Crocker cookbook in the middle of the night.”
“I like to bake.” She pushed off the door and socked me in the stomach on her way to the kitchen. The move was so like Mia—Amelia?—that it made me grin before I remembered this wasn’t the time.
“So I see. And smell.”
“Want a cookie?” She slammed her cookie sheet on top of the ancient stove. Then she huffed out a sigh. “She’s sleeping. She’s fine, I think. I just don’t like seeing her like that. She shouldn’t be limping. Not ever aga—” She broke off and shook her head. “She just shouldn’t. Now eat a damn cookie.”
I walked over and ate a damn cookie. When I was done, she slapped another in my palm.
“The edges are a little burnt.” She sighed again and stared at the sheet of cookies.
“A little.” I chewed and swallowed, smiling at her steely-eyed glance. “But they’re great.”
“That’s better.” She turned to the refrigerator and took out a skinny carton. “Milk?”
Not just milk, but whole milk. What women didn’t stock skim? My kind of women, that’s who.
“I shouldn’t. I’m training—” Ah hell. I’d already blown my workout diet about ten times over. I shrugged. “Sure. Hit me.”
She filled a glass covered in painted daisies and slid it my way. We ate and drank in silence until she murmured, “Why do you do it?”
/> “Eat peanut butter cookies?” I asked, knowing full well what she meant.
“I’m serious.”
“Yeah, I kinda got that.” I finished off the milk and set down the glass on their small circular table. If I extended my arms, I could reach just about everything in the kitchen. “I had stuff to prove.”
“And you did it by getting beat up?”