CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Az
My fingers traced idle patterns on Victoria's bare back as we lay tangled on the gym floor. Leighton's propensity for stashing condoms where he knew I'd find them was something I'd need to thank him for at some point. Though not anytime soon, he'd been doing it to get under my skin about Victoria.
"So, was this your plan all along?" She teased, tracing the tattoos on my chest. "Tell me you wanted to train me in self defense so you could get into my pants?"
"It seems more likely that was your plan, considering you made the first move." I chuckled.
She playfully slapped my chest. "Whatever Az-hole, I'm not the one who has a stash of condoms in the gym."
"No, that would be Leighton. For which, I'm currently pretty grateful."
"Seriously?" She laughed, shifting so that she was propped up on her elbow. "I've literally never seen him in here. This seems more like you trying to cheat and claim winnings from our bet when you haven't even won yet."
She squealed as I hooked my arms around her and repositioned us to hover over her.
"Well, I suppose if you're so certain you're going to win your losing bet, we need to renegotiate the terms."
A wicked smile painted Victoria's face as she allowed her hands to roam freely over my tattoos.
"What sort of terms did you have in mind?"
"Dinner."
"Dinner?" she scoffed. "I eat dinner with you guys pretty much every night. How is that something that you want to wager over?"
"You really have no idea." I sighed, pushing myself into a seated position. "Princess, if things hadn't gone down the way they had at your Gala, I had every intention of asking you to let me take you to dinner before the night was out."
Victoria bolted upright, her arms crossed to cover herself as her shoulders curled inward. I couldn't help frowning at the apparent attempt to hide herself from me.
"Right. Because the chunky girl always lands the hot guys."
"Are you seriously downplaying my attraction to you after what just happened between us?" I asked, arching a brow at her.
"That.…"
"And what about Craig, and Joey, and Leighton?" I interrupted. "Do you really think any of us aren't wildly attracted to you, Princess?"
Her face flushed a furious red. "For all I know, you guys have some thing about getting the same girl into bed and I was just the most convenient."
I scrubbed my hands over my face in frustration. The entire time we'd been guarding Victoria, she'd portrayed herself as a confident woman with a blazing fury running through her veins. I wasn't sure what to make of the sudden shift in how she seemed to view herself.
"Do you remember the first time we ever met?" I asked when I finally dropped my hands back into my lap.
"Yeah. How can I forget, considering before the night was over I'd wrongly accused you of trying to kidnap me?"
"That wasn't the first time we met, Princess." I smiled softly, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "The first time we met was at the youth center."
"I don't remember that."
"Well, I do." I smiled. "My dad had just gotten sick and mom was struggling to make ends meet. I don't remember what was wrong with her that day. Everything seemed to go wrong all the time around that time in my life and I was too young to understand any of it. Anyway, she was really upset and frazzled when she dropped me off at the center before her shift. She hadn't even remembered to send me with lunch like she normally did. But there you were, this big grin missing a couple teeth, and a bouquet of weeds you'd picked from the play yard. You gave them to her, and she smiled for the first time in months."
"That sounds… really sweet, actually."
"It was until I got in trouble with Prudence for stealing your snacks." I laughed.
"So, you were always an Az-hole." She chuckled.
"Only sometimes."
Victoria sighed, her eyes studying me momentarily before she spoke again. "You never talk about your mom. Not since that day in the pool when Leighton mentioned her."
I pursed my lips and stood, moving to gather our clothes and dispose of the used condom. As unsure as I was about talking to Victoria about my mother, I was absolutely certain I didn't want to do so with us both naked. I pulled on my gym shorts and handed the Princess her clothes before snagging a couple of water bottles. She dressed in silence, watching me until I settled back onto the gym mats.
"My mom was the best person I've ever known." I started as Victoria sat back down across from me. "We never had much, not even before Dad got sick, but she made sure to do her best to keep our family's troubles away from me and let me be a kid. It wasn't like every other kid in Southside didn't have the same or worse going on at home, but I got to be na?ve a little longer than most the rest of them. It wasn't until Dad got sick that I even realized how desperate our financial situation was."
"Az–"
"It's alright," I stopped her, waving my hand to brush off whatever she had intended to say. "I got into a lot of fights after my dad got sick. Seeing my mom pick up shifts, coming home so tired she could barely keep her eyes open, but not stopping until me and my dad were cared for, it made me angry. I'd imagine a shrink would say that's where my penchant for lashing out stems from."
"I can't say I understand it completely, but I get the anger that comes with losing a parent." Victoria spoke softly.
"When you say stuff like that, it reminds me of her." I replied, one side of my mouth ticking up in a half-hearted smile. "She'd pick me up from school after I got in trouble for fighting and tell me she understood why I was angry. There were a few times she set up cans and bottles she'd collected to recycle for some extra cash and set me loose on them with the baseball bat we kept by the door."
"Did it help?"
"Some," I shrugged. "But then my dad died and my mom couldn't make ends meet anymore. One day she took me to your mother's office in the center and asked if there was anyway I could be cared for overnights. She said that was when the best money was made on the corner. I was old enough by then to realize what she was doing. I tried to fight her about to, offered to find a job to help pay the bills, but she made sure I was persona non grata because she wanted me to focus on school."
"You'd think I'd remember you from back then." Victoria sighed.
"Nah, we were kids, and at that age, four years is a big enough age gap that I would have made it a point to not be around you. Kid germs and all."
Victoria snickered and shook her head.
"Prudence made sure I was taken care of. I'm pretty sure she's the reason I landed the scholarship, because my grades were shit. I didn't care about anything back then except getting my mom back the way she'd been before my dad. She was the mom that came to every school play, every field trip, and every little league game. I'd stopped participating in any of it after dad died, or else I know she'd have found a way to keep making it happen." I paused, huffing out a breath through my nose. "She'd have liked you, and she'd have been really pissed at me for the way I've treated you."
"Is that what you meant that night at my Father's about a lesson you learned from your mother?" She asked.
"Yeah. She raised me to treat women well and never allow anyone to talk down to or over them. Before you laugh, I am well aware of my failings." I chuckled. "If my mother were around to witness them, she'd tan my hide, thirty years old or not."
"She sounds like someone I'd have loved to know."
My eyes scanned over Victoria, taking in the way her shoulders still slumped forward as she sat on the mat opposite me. "Yeah, I think she'd have loved to know you, too." I said before standing and offering her my hand. "That's enough chick flick shit for now, though. We have more training to do before you're done for the day. I'll be damned if I screw up another of my mother's rules."
"And which rule is that?" She laughed, allowing me to help her to her feet.
"Never leave a woman unprotected when she's in trouble."