Let Love Live
I won’t lie; watching the fabric of his slacks hug his ass as he walks up the stairs in front of me is a thing of genius.
The innuendo-laden dinnertime conversation bounces around in my head.
Only the click of the lock opening breaks my stare.
Dylan struts in front of me, holding the door open as I walk through.
“I’m more of a beer drinker than coffee, but I’m sure I could manage something,” Dylan explains as he walks into the kitchen.
Opening and closing some cabinet doors, he looks a bit bewildered at what he finds – or doesn’t find, is more like it.
“Actually,” he closes the final cabinet in the row, “I only have this old jar of instant coffee.”
I lean against the counter, crossing my ankles. “Sanka? What are you, sixty-five?” I laugh as he puts the jar back in the cabinet.
“No.” He closes the door and moves to the fridge where he pulls out two beers.
He twists the top off one and hands it to me.
“My parents stayed here for a week or so before they moved away. There was a screw-up with the closing dates and they needed some place to stay. And I’m twenty-six, not sixty-five.
” He opens his beer, and then tips the long neck to me. “How old are you, anyway?”
“Twenty-nine. My birthday is August second, in case you were wondering.”
“Oh,” he drags out the word. “The big three-oh. How do you feel about that?” Dylan’s question precedes his outstretched arm, indicating we should move to the living room. I drop my jacket on the back of a chair on the way inside.
The room is cozy, but not small or crowded. It feels like home, much more so than my place, which sits mostly in boxes. “Eh, it’s not a big deal, I guess,” I deflect as we sit down on the couch, turning to face one another.
“It doesn’t sound like it’s not a big deal.” Dylan kicks his legs up and rests his crossed ankles on the coffee table set in front of us.
Though the desire to avoid this whole conversation is present, I push it away in favor of wanting to be honest. Lies and deceit will get you nowhere in the end, anyway.
There’s something about Dylan that makes me think he feels the same way.
“You want the truth?” I ask just to be sure, but it’s also more of a warning.
Dylan nods as he takes another swig of his beer.
“It’s not like a mid-life crisis or anything like that, but I guess you can say that I’m not really where I’d like to be right now. ”
“How’s that?”
“You said it yourself earlier. I was supposed to be a world champion MMA fighter. And now,” I pause, swallowing back my beer, letting the difference between reality and what was supposed to be reality settle in. “I’m just a small business owner.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘just.’ Owning your own gym is a huge thing.
Was it a lifelong goal?” Dylan leans back comfortably against the arm of the chair, tucking one leg under his body.
Everything about his body language is relaxed and calm.
Where I initially thought there was anger and angst, I’m now seeing interest and concern.
It’s enough not only to put me at ease around him, but to trust him as well.
That’s something I haven’t been able to do since before Austin.
“Not really. It was more of a what’s-the-best-option-now kind of thing.” Okay, fine. It’s an honest response, but not necessarily the whole story. The crooked look Dylan shoots me from across the sofa lets me know he’s thinking the same thing. “You really don’t know why I don’t fight anymore?”
Dylan shakes his head. He stretches his arm across the back of the sofa where my arm is resting.
Gently, but surely, he squeezes my forearm.
Our eyes meet and the soft golden flecks in his sapphire eyes let me know that I can tell him.
“Even if you would have looked on Google, you wouldn’t have found anything.
” My admission makes his hand freeze on my arm.
The tender strokes stop as he keeps his eyes locked on mine.
Not giving him any time to ask for any clarification, I continue when his face softens and his hand returns to its movements. “My agent, who I paid a good deal of money, covered everything up.”
“What exactly did he cover up?” Dylan asks skeptically, but not fearfully.
“It was after a late night training session. My bike was parked in the back of the gym, but you had to walk down a short alley in order to get there. I still had my headphones in, so I was slow in reacting.” Having kicked myself so many times for that stupid error on my part, I’d like to say that I’m finally okay with it, but then I’d be lying.
Mimicking his position, I fold a leg under my body and lean back on the arm of the sofa.
After one last chug of my beer, I set the empty bottle down on a magazine on the coffee table.
“Reacting to what?” Dylan’s voice is different from a moment ago. There’s more tension there.
“Rachel’s asshole boyfriend. He’d gotten a little rough with her a few times.
She kept telling me that everything was okay – you know, the standard excuses, but after she showed up at my apartment with a red welt on her face, I’d had enough.
He wasn’t all that pleased when I showed up to his office to pay him a visit.
Since he was some high powered sales exec he thought it made him look bad.
” A flippant laugh slides out of my tightly clenched jaw.
“As far as I’m concerned, he would have looked a lot worse if I was less restrained. ”
“You lost your contract, didn’t you? After you beat him up?”
“I didn’t lay a finger on him. I’ve never used my strength anywhere outside of the gym or the octagon,” I clarify, giving him a pointed look.
“Let’s just say I had a few choice words about what I would do if he ever came near Rachel again.
I must’ve scared him enough, because for a few weeks he left her alone, lulled us both into a false sense of everything being over and done with.
And when I wasn’t looking, he and a few of his friends took me out in that back alley behind the gym.
All because I had my stupid headphones on and didn’t hear them.
” Dylan squeezes my arm and silently prompts me to continue.
This is heavy shit for a first date, but part of me is relieved to have it off my chest. “His friends pinned me down. Took three of them to do the job. Caleb, Rachel’s ex, got in one-too-many punches to my head.
The final straw was when he slammed my skull against the concrete. ”
Tracing my finger over the scar that starts at my temple and travels around the curve of my head, I turn slightly allowing him to see where it ends at the base of my neck.
“They told me I wouldn’t be able to walk again, let alone fight.
I didn’t want Rachel to have to deal with the fallout or to feel guilty over what had happened, so I covered it up. ”
Dylan sits up straighter, runs a hand over his hard, scruff-covered jawline and shoots me a disbelieving look.
“But what about the cops and all the legal stuff? You’re gonna tell me that everything just ‘went away’ simply because your agent waved his magic wand over it all. ” Disbelief hangs all around us.
The last part rouses a laugh out of me. “I know it all sounds kind of crazy, and this next part is going to make it sound worse, but I was beaten so badly that I didn’t wake up for a few days and when I did, I couldn’t remember exactly what had happened.
There was only one barely operational camera focused on that alley, so all we could surmise was that I had been jumped.
By the time my memory came back, I worked it out with my publicist and my agent to leave it as was – MMA fighter jumped, left too injured to fight any more. ”
“But what about Rachel? Did you at least tell her?” His tone is angry for her, for the lies he thinks I told.
“Of course I did. She helped me through rehab, cut my food for me when I couldn’t.
She told me about my parents being dead and buried when I asked for them, my turned-to-mush brain having forgotten the memory of their joint funeral.
” Pinching the bridge of my nose, I stare up at the textured ceiling.
Focusing on the light brown water spot in the corner helps me remain in control of my rising emotions.
Only the shifting on the couch next to me brings my attention away from its upward gaze.
He’s close, his leg less than an inch away from mine.
The heat of his body radiates in pulses against mine, like the distorted waves of heat that rise from the asphalt on a hot summer day.
It’s a physical thing, but ethereal and intangible.
If I reach for it, for him, I’m certain my hand will simply slice through the mirage.
Dylan moves his arm from mine, placing a hand on each of my thighs, drawing my attention back to his face.
“So, in the last two years, you buried your parents, defended your sister’s honor, and got beaten so badly you almost didn’t survive, had to be reminded of your tragic loss, moved away from your only home, started all over again, and opened what’s already a rather successful gym?
” One side of his mouth pulls into a playfully lopsided grin.
I’m thankful for it as the tension eases.
“Well, when you put it like that,” I laugh
“Put it like what? That’s exactly what happened.
” His palms feel like melted silk against my legs; the texture of my jeans feels heavy and gritty against my own skin as he brushes his hand against them.
“Don’t give me that look. It is. And to say you’re not where you want to be, well, that’s just, I don’t even know what to say about that.
I’d be damn proud of where you’re at if I were you. ”