“I loved you,” I whispered next to her, not quite ready to admit that I still did. Not sure she had earned the words.
“I know…you were so easy with love it was terrifying. Your mom taught you that.”
“She did.”
“What my family did to me, it doesn’t excuse what I did to you. It will never make it right. Those girls, there was only one way in with them. I had to speak their language,” she said, her voice thick with shame. “Cruelty. When I fell into step with them, I proved my parents right and I’ve been trying to live with that ever since.”
“I remember at one time it being us against them. I miss that.” I reached for her hand then and curled my fingers around hers. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too. So much I freaked. The team—they take their cues from you, you know,” she said with a quick squeeze of my fingers. “They were all ready to let me in the minute you did. If I made it into that circle and lost you again, I didn’t know what I’d do.”
“We aren’t those kids anymore. We aren’t at the mercy of others. If you want to keep me, keep me.” I shrugged, my heart limping toward the signs of hope at putting this to rest. “And I’ll keep you.”
“Not so sure Priest will let me stay on the team after what happened.”
The man in question had appeared from around the corner and leaned against a pillar just seconds before, hanging back watching, but with less than ten feet between us, no doubt hearing our every word.
“Probably not,” I said as I met his eyes, smiling at the twitch at the corner of his mouth. “I guess it’s a good thing it’s not up to him.”
His dark eyebrow shot up and he cocked his head.
“You sure about that?” Tilly asked, sneaking a peek at me from her good eye.
I nodded. “Yup, I slapped him silly too.”
“You didn’t land that punch.”
“No, but look,” I said, pointing at the man himself.
Tilly pushed up in her chair and leaned toward Priest. “Ooooh, a direct hit. Wanna borrow my ice pack?”
“I’m good, thanks.” He slid his hands in his pockets and crossed one ankle over the other, settling in. Giving us space, but not letting me out of his sight. Tilly had to earn that trust back with good behavior I guess.
Or maybe I was the one he needed to watch out for.
“Let’s start over.” I gave her a cocky nod of my chin and narrowed my eyes all suspicious-like as though this was our first meetup in the yard at a state prison. “What are you in for?”
Tilly pursed her lips and bobbed her head. “Some crazy bitch lunged at me like I was Thor carrying a pizza in one hand and a six-pack in the other. Apparently, she didn’t like my beer choice so she pummeled my face.”
“How do you know she didn’t like the beer?”
“Cause she took off with the pizza,” Tilly said, hitching a thumb at Priest. “A total misunderstanding. She might have had rabies. Animal control is on the lookout on account of the attack being in daylight and all.”
We stared at each other for a beat before bursting out in laughter.
“Ouch,” Tilly said with a wince. “Laughing hurts. Damn,” she hissed. “So what about you?”
“Dumb bitch tried to pass off skunk piss as quality beer. Had to whoop her ass. She won’t do that again.”
“You gonna get that sex hair checked out while you’re here? Looks like a medical condition.”
“I’ll have them check that first, because the hand? Pshawww. Totally doesn’t hurt.”
A piece I didn’t know I’d been missing slid into place. I dropped my head on Tilly’s shoulder to have her tilt hers against mine just seconds later. The physical injuries of our internal wounds on the surface now.
Where they could finally heal once and for all.
24
“We didn’t need one more thing stacked against us,” I said as we finally walked into my apartment four hours later, Priest right behind me carrying bags of food from Banked Track.
I didn’t go in. My hand had finally quieted to the dull ache, tingling instead of the heartbeat dancing under the skin there just a couple hours earlier, and I just wanted to sneak away to somewhere warm, quiet, and question free.
Word would get around soon enough that one of those girls from the derby team finally snapped. By the time the story made the rounds, they’d no doubt have Tilly in the ICU on life support, or at the very least permanently disfigured with stories of a gruesome eye popping out of the socket injury.
Total fiction, but hey, this town had a knack for fiction. It’d be nice if they’d start using that particular talent for good instead of evil.
Question was, how the hell did I think I was going to fare when I was a transplant here at best and Priest still had to face backlash for a situation no one actually knew the real details of and he was one of their own?
“At least it’s only a sprain,” he said with no indication in his voice as to whether I had totally fucked our shot out there.
We played with injuries all the time. It came with the territory. Going hard had consequences. We all accepted them.
But this was a new level for me, for all of us really. I’d never intentionally hurt another player.
And because of my outburst, I had a sprained hand and Tilly had six stitches. We got an unceremonious send off with a smart-ass warning about looking into anger management from Sheriff Chase who was lovely enough to stop in when the hospital reported a possible assault to make sure neither of us wanted to press charges.
Totally unnecessary.
Okay, Priest said it was necessary, but still, I couldn’t trust that guy’s opinion, being so by the book and hell-bent on self-punishment and all.
I’d always been
