28. Knox
Chapter twenty-eight
Knox
Rule #12: Clean up your messes.
I really hoped Spencer would show up for our evening sparring match. I hadn't seen him since the greenhouse, and I had a strong itch to punch him in the gut. I'd had a long day performing C-sections, and although things had gone well for the most part, I'd had to wear khakis, a blue clinical coat, and a bow tie to the office, and I'd had to make sure my patients understood that I'd dressed up as Bill Nye the Science Guy in the spirit of Halloween . This holiday put me in a bad mood.
As I warmed up at the punching bag, the outdoor entrance to the gym opened, and Spencer sauntered in with his purple gym bag from high school over his shoulder and a wary look in his dark eyes. He had his hair in his usual half-up bun, and he'd recently had the bottom half of his hair trimmed so the buzz cut faded out to his neck. I'd heard him described as a Viking in med school. He looked like a dick to me.
I jabbed the bag. "You showed up."
He dropped his duffel to the spring mat floor. "You disappointed?"
I hit the bag so hard, my knuckles screamed. "Gear up."
He snorted dismissively. "You still salty about Gemma? Come on. You needed a push to admit how you felt for her. Did you or did you not fuck her silly that night?"
I stilled, rotating a glare his way. "You jonesing for a black eye or something?"
"So touchy." Spencer crouched down by his bag and unzipped it, pulling out his seven-ounce gloves and fitting them to his large hands. "To answer your question—no. I'm just jealous you found someone as great as Gemma, and I had to hand her to you on a fucking platter so you would notice your own feelings. Sometimes I think you have ones and zeroes in there instead of biological DNA."
"You should have done nothing like what you did," I seethed advancing on him slowly. I had already worked up a sweat, and my muscles were warm, twitching and begging to be put to use.
Spencer stood slowly, pulling his cutoff, white T-shirt away from his body and eyeing me a little more seriously than I was used to. He'd warmed up, too, apparently. A sheen of sweat glistened on his arms, and he cracked his knuckles. "You should work on your emotional intelligence, smartass."
"You hurt her," I replied with quiet venom.
"I did not," he dismissed with an eye roll. "She liked you the whole time. Don't even fuck with me. Are we going to fight or bitch like pussies?" He slipped his mouthguard in.
I took my stance in the middle of the floor, pushing my mouthguard against my teeth and biting to get the right fit. "If you were anyone else, I would have knocked your teeth out."
"I believe you, you crazy motherfucker. No kicking," he warned, holding out a finger as he circled me and then took his crouched stance. "Grapple."
The lingering smell of sweat and disinfectant filled my nose, and I took a readying breath. We advanced, hands up. I had quicker reflexes than Spencer, but what he lacked in agility, he made up for with brute strength, so when he made the first move, he caught me off-guard. He rarely did that. He faked a jab, and my brain caught onto it, so I leaned down and went low, slapping my shoulder against his pelvis. Spencer buckled slightly, but he regained his footing, and then we were grappling for control, both on our feet and me low, trying to take out his legs. Our breaths came out in short bursts as we fought each other's strength for control of the maneuver.
I adjusted my grip, shifting to a single leg. Then I lifted and drove, taking Spencer off balance, and he twisted, attempting to lock me in a guillotine, but I managed to wedge my hand between his arm and my neck, creating just enough space to breathe. We hit the mat hard, me on top in his half-guard. I pressed my forearm into his throat, a little harder than necessary, and his eyes bugged, his face going red. He hooked my arm, looking for a kimura, but I kept my grip tight, pulling my arm close to my body.
I tried to move him to a side control, but Spencer bucked and bridged, using his hips to create space between his body and the floor, and it forced me to release him. He rolled, and then fast as vipers, we were back on our feet, circling each other like predators.
Breathing hard now, Spencer stared me down and yanked out his mouthguard. "You seriously trying to kill me? What the fuck is wrong with you?"
I lifted my eyes to the ceiling. "Don't be dramatic."
"Right, because accusing me of giving your girlfriend listeria wasn't dramatic."
I glared. He gave me a taunting smirk. Without bothering to warn him, I dove for a leg grapple, but he was faster, immediately catching me in a clinch. His arms wrapped around my torso, and we fought for dominance. I managed to lift him, slamming him back down to the mat. The impact reverberated through the mat, and Spencer wheezed, coughing and rolling to his side. Like the dirty cheat he was, he grabbed me by my ankles and yanked, wrenching me down to the mat where he went right through my guard and into a kimura.
It was at that moment that the gym door opened, and I thought dimly, as I grappled on the ground with Spencer, that my neighbor really couldn't have picked a worse time to want to use the gym. But it wasn't David's voice that drawled through the panting and grunting of Spencer and I loosely trying to kill each other. It was my sister.
"You two look like toddlers fighting over a granola bar. What the fuck are you two doing?"
Spencer and I separated, standing and stumbling away from each other. Panting hard, I ripped out my mouthguard and glared at Arabella, where she stood by the exterior door. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Yeah, don't you live on a compound with polygamists?" Spencer asked, bending to rest his weight on his knees.
She spared him a glare. "You look like a barista. What's with that hair?"
"Man, I missed her," Spencer said, smiling and pointing her way before going to his bag to get his water bottle.
"Arabella," I cut in, folding my arms and trying to force my breathing to calm. "What are you doing here? You live in Utah."
Ara was dressed in an uncharacteristically sophisticated outfit, but she still had the same beat-up leather bag she'd had for years, and I suspected she would rather be in jeans and a T-shirt. She looked around the gym, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "It smells like karate class in here."
"Ara," I gritted out.
She flipped her pink hair and gave me a haughty look. "Mom made me come for wedding preparations."
My stomach sank. "No, she didn't."
"I'm the maid of honor," she added testily.
"Jesus," I muttered, swiping a hand down my face.
Spencer gave her a distrustful squint. "Wait, for the fake wedding?"
Arabella threw up her arms. "What the hell? Is it fake or is it not? I came to find out where Gemma went because I swear to you, it seemed like she was really into you, and I believed for a second your engagement was real. Then Mom said you knew it wasn't real, and she was trying to call your bluff. Then Gemma just stood us up for lunch and disappeared. So." Arabella put her hands on her narrow hips, glowering at me from across the gym. "I want the truth, you buttmuncher. What is going on, here?"
"Wait, Gemma left?" I asked. "To go where?"
" Buttmuncher?" Spencer cackled.
"I don't know where she went," Arabella said, completely ignoring Spencer. "She went to the bathroom while Mom and I got a booth at Fontine's, but then she never came back. I looked in the bathroom and stuff, but she wasn't there."
"She said nothing to you before she left?" I asked suspiciously.
Ara shrugged. "Nope. She just up and left."
"Did you call her?" I asked, already taking off my gloves and running through possibilities in my mind. It wasn't like Gemma to run from a fight. Not unless something had really gone wrong.
"How would I have her number?" Ara shot back.
Point taken. I jogged over to where I'd set my phone and picked it up. Five missed calls from Gemma over the span of two hours. Goddammit. I'd been so focused on getting out of work and to the gym, I hadn't even checked it. I dialed her back, pacing while Spencer ribbed Ara.
"You went with pink this month, huh?"
"Kindly," Ara glared, "walk off a cliff. I don't want to hear your opinions about my body."
"Oh, I've given you my opinions on your body," Spencer grinned. "Remember your high school graduation? I was just finishing up med school, and you wore that dress where you had one butt cheek hanging out and told the whole graduation assembly that you had a lopsided butt when I teased you about it?"
"I did not know there was a mic that far from the stage!" Ara seethed.
The phone rang, and then Gemma picked up. "Hey."
Relief coursed through me in a soothing wave. "Hey," I said, trying not to sound breathless. "Where are you? Are you okay? Arabella just showed up here and said you left lunch, so I wanted to make sure you were alright."
Gemma was silent for two seconds, and then with atypical softness, she asked, "Did you know? About your mom using me to prove a point to you?"
My gut twisted painfully. I stopped pacing and rubbed my eyes. "I… yeah. I knew. She told me that she thought we were bluffing."
"And you didn't share that with me because?" she asked, her voice trembling.
I looked up to find Spencer and Ara watching me with unabashed interest. "I wasn’t sure how you would react. And… it wasn’t completely relevant."
"Hah." Gemma's half-hearted, emotionless laugh tore through me like claws on tissue paper. "So, your mom told you to your face that I'm trash, and you just thought, 'As long as Gemma doesn't know, I can get what I want.' Is that it?"
"No." I rubbed my forehead where my brow had creased. "Of course not. She's wrong, first of all. I lo—" I stopped myself, swallowing the words I wanted to say. "I respect you more than anyone else I know, Gem."
"Hey," Ara and Spencer said in unified outrage.
"I didn't want this to hurt you,” I continued. “It was genuinely my hope to disentangle you from this mess— us from this mess—so we could… continue what we've started. Unhampered," I finished. I didn't know what she'd heard or who she'd heard it from, but she sounded so hurt, I felt it like a physical pain in my chest.
"She said you've both been playing a game of chicken with me in the middle, but apparently, I'm the only idiot who had no idea what was going on. Is that true, too?"
I grimaced, letting my head fall back. "You are not an idiot."
"But?" she prompted, her voice hard.
"I was playing my horrible mother's… games, yes." Jesus, out loud, it sounded so pathetic. How had I thought that playing into this insanity was the best path to happiness? My parents had twisted me in knots and mind games my whole life, and I was thirty-six now, but apparently, I hadn't learned a damn thing.
"I see," she said glumly.
"You don't," I countered gently. "Where are you? It's easier to explain in person."
"Explain what?" she asked with genuine curiosity. "I mean it, Rook. What is there to explain? Your mom used me as an example. You allowed it to try and outmaneuver her. You hired a lawyer I never got to meet with. You played a chess game where only you could see the moves, and you played me on the board like a pawn. Am I right or have I gotten that mixed up?"
Fuck. She was right. I sighed, crouching because my body felt like it was going to break out into nervous jitters. "I didn't mean for you to get hurt."
"I know you didn't," she said sadly. "But… I did."
I pinched my temples between my thumb and middle finger. "I'm not sure what I was thinking."
"You wanted to win," she replied with equanimity. It was so un-Gemma-like. Her calmness was the most disturbing part about this because it told me she wasn't herself. She'd been hurt, and now wherever she was, she wasn't completely rational.
"I truly wanted you to have your freedom," I said. "I mean that, Gem. I didn't go about it in the smartest way, but I—"
"Rook," she said, cutting me off. "I know. I know all of that. But I need some time. I need to think this over and see how I feel. I trusted you. I thought you—" she swallowed. "I thought you saw me as an equal."
"I do," I insisted, but I knew there was no point in trying to convince her of that. I'd hurt her. She was asking for space. I needed to respect that. "Are you staying somewhere safe, at least?"
"Don't worry about me," she replied morosely. "I brought Mini and Pumpkin to kennels to stay for a bit. I'll let you know after I've had some time."
"Gemma," I snapped, standing and finally succumbing to a wave of anger. "At least tell me where you're going."
"I'll talk to you later." She hung up, and I pulled the phone away, staring at it in mute shock.
After a beat of silence, Spencer turned to Ara. "Way to undo all my hard work."