Shadowboxer (Tapped Out 1)

Yet again an instant of silence reigned. Then we were all laughing, and Mia moved into my arms of her own free will. I actually believed it might be okay. That we’d be okay.

Then, I still believed.

Chapter Thirty-One

Mia

My sister loved her bedazzled penis cake.

Carly lopped off the balls with glee, declaring them hers as the birthday girl. Watching her as she filled her mouth with cake, I felt every day of the three years that separated us. Had I ever been that young?

I would die to protect her innocence, because mine had been stolen from me more times than I could count. First by the man who’d imprisoned and raped me. Then by the news media that turned my daily life into a spectacle. They’d made running my only choice. I changed my first name and I’d dreamed of changing my face, until I settled for people pounding on it until I didn’t recognize the features greeting me in the mirror every morning.

That was my reality, and sitting in center of a party in my crappy apartment didn’t change it. I looked from face to face, even familiar ones, and I saw strangers. My face belonged to a stranger.

I shifted and relaxed as warm arms tightened around me. Tray had pulled me on his lap an hour ago and he hadn’t let me go yet. A few others had gotten up to dance, Carly among them, and he’d just lifted my hand and separated my fingers, examining them as if they were the most fascinating things he’d ever seen. I sensed in him what I couldn’t bring myself to mention aloud.

Tomorrow, after the fight, he thought I was going to run. And he had some misguided idea that he could stop it, that he could love me through the inner torment that compelled me to keep hurting myself, over and over again.

I’d found him out of blind luck, when I was searching for a way to get enough money to leave. Or looking for an opportunity to die. I’d latched onto his Greek God face with the zeal of a missionary in church. It was his ilk that made fun of me, that rightfully shut me out of their world. Perfect, clean, proper people with pristine lives. I was dirty, damaged goods. His parents had known that right away and had acted accordingly. By the playbook in my head, he should have shunned me as a worthless tramp, not given me his jacket and kept coming back for more like a golden puppy who craved the steel-toed boot breaking apart his ribs.

The memory came with devastating swiftness, taking me back against my will.

“Do you know why I picked you? Why I followed you when you walked home from school? I knew you weren’t happy, Amelia. But I could change that. I could share my money with you, and my lavish home, and my body. I could offer you pleasure. I saved you.”

“Wanna dance?” Tray laced his fingers with mine and brought them to his lips. “You’ve never seen me do the Macarena.”

My heart wasn’t in it, but I needed to keep up the charade. It was all we had. “You were a little kid when that was popular.”

“So? I still remember how to do it.” He winced. “It’s actually the only dance I know.”

“Wait a second. Sexy, swaggering Fox Knox doesn’t know how to dance? How can this be?”

“I fight and I fence and I fuck. Those are the only coordinated movements that interest me.” He shrugged, his sulky mouth forming that pout that always made me want to kiss him.

Everything did. I wanted to curl up inside him and never leave. He’d keep me safe. He’d love me until he willed me whole again.

And if someday he grew tired of patching together the holey quilt that was my psyche, if he decided he’d screwed up by getting involved with me, he would take what was left of me with him.

Darren hadn’t killed me, but Tray surely would.

There were calculated risks in life. Odds to be played. If I’d been a different woman, I could’ve taken the chance. But the girl who was barely clinging to the shreds of sanity couldn’t put the bullet in the chamber one more time.

I’d tried to keep him at arm’s length. I’d fought with all my being, but he’d simply strong-armed me into giving in, much as he had in Kurt’s Superette this morning. I was still a challenge for him. Still that unknown variable. When he pegged me for sure and saw that all my numbers were crazy eights, he’d move on in that affable way he had, and I wouldn’t hold it against him because he simply hadn’t understood what he was getting into.

I’d hold it against me, because I’d never wanted someone so much and never been more certain that I had no right to keep him.

“Hey, bitches, it’s time for presents.” Kizzy hopped up on the coffee table and waved the bottle of champagne she held in one hand and the gift-wrapped box she clutched in the other. “If you didn’t bring a gift for the birthday girl, get your ass out and find your free eats somewhere else.”

I couldn’t help laughing. Thank God Kizzy had taken over most of the party planning. I sucked at this kind of thing. My dark mood wasn’t exactly helping either. The fight was tomorrow, and then Tray had surgery, and I had to start making some serious decisions. I couldn’t keep playing happy couple or whatever the hell I’d been doing with Tray much longer. The rent increase notice I’d received that morning had put the exclamation point on that.

But that wasn’t for tonight. I’d spent enough of my sister’s day wrapped up in myself. The rest of the night was for Carly—and then for Tray and me.

I faced him, feeling the familiar quiver beneath my breastbone. “You don’t have to leave if you didn’t get Carly a gift,” I said under my breath.

He arched a brow. “Think I’m a cheap date?”

“No, of course not. But you haven’t known her that long and you’ve already done enough.” He’d helped pay for today’s shopping trip, though I’d practically begged him not to. I didn’t want to take advantage of him, ever.