Brawlers weakness, p.16
Brawler's Weakness, page 16
Last night, I looked up and saw her cradling Scotch’s son Fox in her arms and I felt like I got punched in the throat. I could see the longing in her expression. She held Fox like he’s a treasure and, he is, but more than that, a treasure she wants for herself.
I glance in the mirror at Lola. Beautiful, smart, and grown at twenty-one years old.
Could I have another kid? Could I grow another family, the way Anna has with Ben? I glare out the windshield at the unassuming road ahead.
Do I want that? Does Maisy? Do we have a chance at creating that together?
“Dad, you’re going to miss the exit.” Lola points to the upcoming sign.
For once, Asher doesn’t comment.
I flip on the turn signal and change lanes. Right now, I need to focus on dinner and be present for Lola’s family weekend. Then, Maisy and I need to talk. Or clear the air. Or understand what the hell is going on between us.
Maisy: I’m fine. Just crazy busy. I’ll be at my parents’ house early tomorrow so just come by around 5.
I reread her message, complete with her parents’ address, for the third time. Did she lie about not feeling well just to avoid me? What the hell would make her crazy busy between coming down with a stomach bug, seeing Mila for breakfast, and a handful of hours ago?
“You’ve barely eaten,” Anna comments across from me.
When I look up, I meet the eyes of Lola’s mother. Kind, unguarded, and concerned. I sigh. Anna and I kill it at co-parenting. Over the past two decades, we’ve become close friends and I consider her husband, Ben, to be one of my closest friends too. If I was going to confide in anyone about the wariness I feel about this thing brewing between Maisy and me, it’d be Asher and them. But…what the hell is even brewing between Maisy and me?
“What’s going on?” Anna prods. She slips her son Damien a twenty-dollar bill. “I thought I saw an arcade next door.”
Damien’s eyes light up and he shoves his brother Adrian. “Dude, arcade?”
“Duh.” Adrian stands from his chair. Shooting me a sly glance, he holds out a hand.
Chuckling, I slap a twenty in his palm.
“Ah, now you’re spoiling them,” Ben jokes, standing as well. “I’ll go supervise.” He kisses Anna’s head. “Come on, Lol. I want to hear more about Jasmine’s disaster of a date.”
Lola gives me a curious look, but at her stepdad’s prodding, she follows along.
Ben and Anna both give Asher a look, but he shrugs, sliding closer to the conversation by slipping into Lola’s vacated chair. “I traveled a long way for the real gossip.”
I snort.
Anna picks up her wine glass and takes a sip. We’ve been sitting around this table for over two hours, our family catching up, sharing silly stories, and joking around. We’ve celebrated Lola’s success in her coding program, lifted a glass to Damien’s scholarship prospects, and applauded Adrian landing the lead in his school play. Ben blushed as Anna filled me in on his new promotion and Ben’s eyes gleamed with pride as he told Lola how Anna’s hair salon was named Seattle’s top salon this year. And, as usual, Asher had us all riveted with stories from the incredible adventures he’s had over the past year.
Everyone was in sync and present. Everyone had great news to share. Technically, even me. But I’ve been distracted, my thoughts caught up on Maisy and the way she’s avoiding me.
Did something happen? Or is it me? Has she come to her senses and realized I’m only a rebound? Does she not know how to tell me because we work for the Bolts? Or because she doesn’t want to let me down?
“Axe?”
I look up, catch the worry in Anna’s eyes.
I sigh gruffly and grip the back of my neck. Leaning back in my chair, I cross my arms over my chest. “I met someone.”
Asher’s hand lands on my shoulder, supportive.
In one heartbeat, Anna’s concern dissipates and a hopeful joy flashes in her eyes. Still, her words are cautious, her tone hesitant. She knows how much I suck at talking, at discussing my feelings. Hell, it’s one of the reasons why we didn’t work out years before I blew it with Marisol. Carefully, she asks, “Who is she? How did you meet?” Her gaze shifts to Asher.
He dips his head. “I only know a smidge more than you.”
“Hence, why you stayed instead of decimating my boys at pinball,” Anna says.
Asher lifts his beer and takes a long drink, smacking his lips. “Exactly.”
I glance at the ceiling, half of me dreading this conversation, half of me relieved I have my brother and another adult, a female, to get advice from. “Her name is Maisy. I met her over the summer. Her best friend is dating one of my teammates but now, she’s working for the Bolts and…” And I blab out the whole fucking story like one of Lola’s drunk sorority sisters seeking validation.
When I’m finished, Anna’s rolling her lips together and I can tell she’s fighting a smile.
Asher’s less subtle. He chuckles loudly before polishing off his beer.
“What?” I give Anna a pointed look.
“I’m happy for you, Axel. You deserve this.”
“Anna, I’m telling you she’s avoiding me. She’s barely responding to my messages and—”
“You hurt her feelings,” she cuts me off, saying the words like they’re obvious. “You should have invited her today. You should have included her in meeting your family since she went out on a limb and invited you to meet hers.”
“That.” Asher points at Anna.
“Fuck,” I mutter, hanging my head. “You know, when Lola mentioned it—”
“Lola figured it out before you?” Her smile is gentle.
“You got a smart kid,” Asher tells me. “Be a proud parent for a second.”
I glare back.
“It’s time, Axel,” Anna murmurs.
My glare turns toward her. Anna’s smile grows.
“It’s time to let someone in. It’s been too many years and you’ve been on your own for too long. I know you don’t have a lot of experience dating—” she holds up a hand when I open my mouth to defend myself. “And that’s okay; that was your choice. But if you care about this woman, Maisy, enough to be twisted up over her, focused on what’s wrong when you’re out for Lola, then she means something to you. That’s telling, Axel. That matters. Don’t lose her.”
“I agree,” Asher chimes in.
I roll my eyes. “Why are you still here?”
My brother grins, looking between Anna and me. “It’s like old times, isn’t it?”
Anna laughs. “Axel and I having serious conversations and you just—”
“Providing the comic relief? Exactly,” Asher fills in.
Anna shakes her head, amused.
“So, what do I do?” I redirect the conversation.
“Talk to her. You need to communicate. Have you let her in? Truly, let her in?” Anna asks.
I clear my throat, shaking my head once.
“Why?” Anna’s voice is gentle, like she’s talking to a scared child. The way she used to comfort Lola when she was a little kid and had a bad dream or an argument with a friend.
“I don’t want to be her rebound.”
“And that was a perfectly acceptable excuse before you started caring for her. Now, it’s just an excuse. If you were her rebound, she wouldn’t bring you to her parents’ house for Sunday dinner.”
“I didn’t want to overthink it,” I toss out.
Anna laughs. “When have you not overthought anything, Axel?”
“True story,” Asher adds.
I frown. “I don’t know if I can give her the life she wants.”
Asher heaves out a sigh and gestures to the server that he’ll take another beer.
“What life does she want?” Anna leans back and crosses her arms over her chest, mirroring me.
I roll my eyes. “A husband, kids.”
Anna nods. “You’ve talked about starting a family?”
“Not exactly,” I say sullenly.
“Then, how do you—”
“She’s a twenty-eight-year-old woman with a heart of gold. She’s the kind of woman who should be a mother because she’s always giving, always thinking about others. Caring.”
“I can’t wait to meet her,” Asher says, his tone serious.
“And she wants to be a mother?” Anna lifts a perfectly shaped eyebrow.
“Yes. She’s told me she wants kids. Then, I saw her, last night, at the game. She was in the family box, with Lola.”
Anna smiles, leaning closer as if to encourage me to keep talking. I do.
“She was holding my coach’s kid. A baby boy. And her face… Anna, if you could have seen her expression.”
Understanding sweeps Anna’s expression. “You don’t want to let her down.”
“I’d rather let you wax my back again.”
Asher snorts and then, we all start laughing.
“That was a disaster,” Anna mutters, recalling the incident in which I attempted this awful form of torture. “Ben and I still laugh about it.”
“I tell it as an icebreaker on my travels,” Asher admits.
I snort, swiping his fresh beer and taking the first sip.
“I’m letting you have that because you need it,” my brother grumbles.
“Thanks,” I mutter. “I don’t want to break her heart. I don’t want to let Lola down,” I tack on.
“Lola?” Asher asks.
“Lola?” Anna looks surprised. “Axel, Lola is a woman. She’s going to graduate college and forge her own path in the world. You are an amazing father, one of the best I’ve ever known. Your commitment to Lola and to the family unit we somehow managed to pull off is admirable. But you can’t follow Lola around for the rest of your life.”
“Can’t follow me around either,” Asher laments.
Anna continues, “Not even for the rest of your career. You’ve gotta let her go out and live for herself. And you need to live your life for you. Trust me when I tell you, Lola doesn’t want you to do that alone. None of us do.”
Silence fills the space between us as I process Anna’s words. “Lola said that?”
Anna dips her head. “She worries about you. She worries what will happen if she gets a job offer or meets a man or goes off and decides to travel…she doesn’t know what you’d do.”
I close my eyes, feeling like a failure even though Anna just built up my parenting skills. “That’s a lot of pressure on a young adult.”
“It is.”
“I don’t want her to feel that way.”
“Of course not. It’s hard, letting them grow up and become their own people, isn’t it?”
“This shit wasn’t in the manual.”
Anna laughs. “None of it was.” Her eyes move to the window, to the arcade. “But we did all right.”
“You guys did more than all right,” Asher says, being serious.
“Yeah,” I agree, taking a swig of my Coke. “What if it doesn’t work out? With Maisy?”
“If you want it to, it will.” Asher takes back his beer.
Anna tilts her head. “If it doesn’t work out, then you move on and put yourself out there again. You’re not the kind of man who is supposed to live his whole life following around the dreams of his daughter and occasionally casting a fishing pole.”
I chuckle. “Yeah? Who am I then?”
“A man that gives. Just like the woman you described. Talk to her, Axel. Give her your best.”
“Which is better than what you’ve been giving her,” Asher adds, wanting to have the last word.
For being a good brother and showing up, I let him have it.
Twenty-One
Maisy
“Did you see it in the light?” Missy shrieks, splaying the fingers of her left hand wide in the sunlight. The natural light causes the simple, beautiful, shiny diamond on her ring finger to sparkle like an endless promise. Like a forever.
“It’s beautiful, Missy.” The words scrape against the boulder clogging my throat. Not because I’m not happy for my sister. I’m elated. Missy deserves every happiness and I’m delighted she found that with a genuine man like Brennan.
But did it have to happen this weekend? Do I need to introduce Axel, a man who doesn’t care if I meet his family, to my mom when she’s flitting around announcing wedding plans like it’s her upcoming nuptials?
Will she compare him to Brennan? Will she ask if he plans to marry? Will she have a coronary when she learns he has a twenty-one-year-old daughter?
Or will she bore us all, save for Missy, to tears with talk of cake tiers and color palettes?
I swallow back my bitterness. Missy’s wedding is exciting and as maid—maid, not matron—of honor, it’s my duty to care about flower choices and seating arrangements. And I do.
“Mais? You got a message.” Missy points to my cell phone on the edge of the dining table in my parents’ house. It’s already cluttered with Bride magazines, venue options, and, wait for it, my parents’ wedding album from the nineties.
I pick up the phone and the boulder in my throat expands.
Axel: We need to talk.
Words no woman ever wants to hear. Or read. Shit, is he ending this between us? Is he bailing on dinner tomorrow? Hope flares in my chest as disappointment knots my stomach. Do I want him to?
“There you are!” Mom enters the room, her gaze pinned on me. “I wasn’t sure where you went.”
I narrow my eyes. I’ve been here since this morning. I only popped out to get the bride-to-be the chai latte she desperately needed in her celebratory state.
Fuck, I’m jealous.
Guilt eats up my conflicting feelings of hope and disappointment until the only thing I feel is a clawing remorse for being a shitty sister. It’s not Missy’s fault that she caught Brennan’s eye. Or that she’s five years younger than me. Or that she made better choices with her romantic and professional lives and never allowed men to belittle her.
“We should start with dresses!” Mom claps her hand.
“But we need to know the color palette before we choose bridesmaid dresses,” my sister points out, tearing her eyes away from her ring to sit at the table.
Mom sits beside her. “Well, let’s start with yours.” Mom gives me a sympathetic look as I plop down across from them. “You’ll try to lose a bit of weight before the wedding, won’t you?”
Missy stiffens, keeping her eyes trained on the magazine in front of her.
I work a thick swallow. It’s not Missy’s fault she’s skinny either.
“Of course,” I grind out, my insecurities over my body, over my choices, over my fucking life expanding.
“I think Maisy looks amazing,” Missy comes to my defense. She offers me a smile. “You’ll look beautiful in any dress and in any color.”
“Except yellow,” Mom says, opening a magazine. “Washes you out,” she adds off-handedly, like a reminder.
“Here are my girls,” Dad announces, entering the dining room. His hands land on the tops of my shoulders, squeezing some strength back into them. Dad’s always the peacemaker, anticipating tension and trying to diffuse it before it can build. I’ve inherited my aversion to conflict and confrontation from him, giving my mother a green light to use her tongue like a whip. He kisses the top of my head. “Should I order some dinner?”
“That’d be great, Dad. I’m starving.” Missy shoots him a grateful smile.
“Yes, we can have some salads or—”
I cut Mom off. “I’ll take a burger.”
“Same!” Missy nods enthusiastically.
“Burgers and fries it is,” Dad decides.
Mom’s mouth pinches but she doesn’t voice an objection.
“We’re having lemon chicken, mashed potatoes, and a kale salad for Sunday dinner,” Mom says.
“Sounds good,” Missy replies, keeping the peace.
“Is your friend still planning to come?” Mom asks. By her tone, I know she doesn’t mean anything by it. She’s just confirming the final number of guests since Brennan’s parents are coming. “Oh, and is Brennan’s sister joining us?” She turns to Missy.
Missy nods. Mom’s gaze returns to me.
Her question was completely innocent and yet, humiliation burns through me.
Is he coming? Are we still a thing?
Will I ever have a shiny ring on my finger?
I clear my throat. “Yep.”
Missy’s smile widens. Mom’s does too. They’re both happy for me.
And I’m…miserable?
“Excellent.” Mom pats the top of a magazine. “Let’s get to work before dinner arrives.”
“Ooh, Mom, look at this veil.” Missy nudges her magazine closer to Mom, her voice breathless.
Under the table, my fingernails cut into my palms as my hands clench.
Will I ever be worthy of a happily-ever-after? Of the stability and commitment of a partnership? Of the future I’ve dreamed of since I was a little girl playing bride?
Or will I really move to Costa Rica and spend my days surfing, alone?
My throat tightens and the backs of my eyes burn.
My phone beeps and I glance at the screen.
Axel: Are you home? Can I stop by your place?
I look at Mom and Missy, at their bent heads and excited smiles. I don’t want to ruin today. I don’t want to mess up Sunday. I don’t want to detract from Missy’s excitement, or hear Mom’s comments, or spend another Sunday dinner aching on the inside as the only single woman at the table.
Me: At my parents. Let’s talk tomorrow, after dinner?
Axel: OK
OK. I don’t know how to read that. But right now, it doesn’t matter. I have to get through this weekend and save the tiny shred of pride I have left. Even if it kills me.
“You okay?” Mila asks.
I close my eyes and lay back against the decorative pillows on my bed. I’m exhausted. So emotionally drained that I don’t even want to toss my decorative pillows to the floor and pull back my duvet.
