Page 57 of Beneath Your Beautiful
She leaned over the gearbox and wrapped her hand around the back of my neck, pulling me towards her for a goodbye kiss. My eyes closed, and she pressed her lips gently against my closed eyelid. It felt odd, but in a good way. Sweet and gentle and caring. She sat back in her seat and looked over at me, a small smile tugging on her lips.
“What was that?” I asked.
“An angel kiss. From a dirty angel. And I like what I see, even when I look closely. Let me see you, Killian. Don’t shut me out.” She hopped out of the Jeep and waved goodbye over her shoulder.
Yep. She hadn’t Googled me. Fuck. What would she think about that? It didn’t matter that they ruled it an accident. Or that they claimed there were pre-existing medical conditions. My hands were officially lethal weapons, and I was a man seeking salvation and redemption, without a clue how to find it.
On my way to the gym, I thought about what she’d asked me in the coffee shop that day we talked for an hour. What would be my first choice of career? For years, all I’d known was fighting. All my life, I’d been fighting—for survival, against the bullies, against authority. When I discovered Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at fifteen, I was hooked. Not only did it give me the self-defense training I needed, it gave me a focus and a purpose in my life. MMA had been my passion, my art, my religion, my calling. For the first time in my life, I’d found a home, a place where I belonged. I loved the adrenaline rush. I loved the crowd. I loved the fans, especially the kids. When they asked for my autograph and told me they wanted to be just like me when they grew up, that I was their favorite fighter, their hero, I’d never felt more humbled or prouder of any achievement in my life.
But that life was over, and I couldn’t go back to it. Now, if I could choose to do anything, I’d use my hands to do something good. To create something beautiful. To build something instead of knocking it down and destroying it. But it was pointless to think about what Iwoulddo when I’d already committed to the bar business. There were worse ways to earn a living, and I didn’t hate it. I just didn’t love it.
Later that afternoon, the enormity of what was happening hit me. Somehow, I’d talked my way into a relationship and I was happy about it. I leaned against the doorframe in the courtyard and watched her painting the wall while she talked to Zeke. I knew they were just friends, so I didn’t need to be an asshole about it. Eden said I needed to make more of an effort to be nice to Zeke. Jesus. This girl will be ruling my life soon, as if she didn’t already.
The mural unfolded before my eyes as she painted pink flowers. Poppies? Her talent awed me. When I saw the sketch she did of me, I felt like I was looking at myself the way she saw me, not the way I really was, but better. Like I was someone good.
Her art was different than Connor’s. His was more graphic, I guess. He was into manga and anime. In his early teens, he’d been working on a comic book, but I didn’t know what happened to it. I stared at my phone as if thinking about Connor hard enough would send him a telepathic message that he should call me.
My phone remained silent.
Unfortunately, Louis didn’t. We were standing across the street from the bar, watching the construction guys working on the roof. Not that watching them would speed up their progress or lower the cost—we were Monday morning quarterbacks, critiquing their work and grumbling about everything we could do better. I took a swig from my bottle of water and squinted at the crew of men in hardhats doing jack shit, as far as I could tell.
“He hasn’t gotten off his ass in twenty minutes,” Louis grumbled. “What the hell is he doing?”
“Catching some rays on our tar beach.” The guy in question was shirtless, with a beer gut and a red face he hadn’t gotten from over-exertion, judging by the way he was sitting around like a fucking potato.
“Good thing we agreed on a price for the job,” Louis said.
“We should have done it ourselves.”
“Because we have so much roofing experience,” Louis deadpanned. “With so much free time on our hands.”
We could have done it, but we had enough work, running the bar, and standing around, doing nothing, like we were doing now.
“Speaking of hands, how was your date?” Louis asked.
“I kept my hands to myself.” I smothered a laugh, thinking about Eden’s no-hands command this morning.
“I call bullshit.” He side-eyed me. My face gave him no clues to support his claim. Unlike Eden, I’ve perfected the art of keeping a poker face. A lifetime of secrets and lies taught me how to hide my emotions. “Did you tell her yet?” Louis asked, bursting my happy bubble.
I shook my head no.
“You should,” he said, telling me something I already knew.
She’d find out eventually. Every bartender at Trinity Bar, except for her, had eventually found out what I had done for a living. I asked them to keep their mouths shut about it but one of those days it would slip out.
“Nobody judges you as harshly as you judge yourself,” Louis said, trying to impart some words of wisdom.
Too bad it was bullshit. Anna Ramirez judges me, and one day when her son is old enough to understand, he’ll judge me, and he’ll hate me for what I stole from him. Sometimes, I tried to take consolation in the knowledge that Johnny loved MMA as much as I did. He ate, slept, and breathed the sport. He’d taken too many blows to the head, had suffered too many concussions, supposedly. If that had been the case, why did they let him fight me? Injuries were a risk we took every time we stepped into the cage. If you dwelled on what could happen, or let the fear get inside your head, you’ve already lost the fight before it started. To win, you needed to be mentally strong and you needed to be confident. There’s no room for self-doubt. Johnny was deemed physically fit and mentally sound. Even after that punch to his head during our fight, he’d passed the medical team’s tests and was sent back in for two more rounds.
“If by some terrible twist of fate, I couldn’t continue fighting, I wouldn’t be Johnny Ramirez anymore,” he’d told me once after a training session. “I’d be pissed off at the world, hating life, and impossible to be around.”
“More than you are now?” I’d joked, but I had understood what he was saying because I felt like that too.
“You ain’t no day at the beach, Vincent.”
“Is that why you’re always trying to cozy up to me?”
“We’ll leave our bromance outside the Octagon. When I’m forced to fight you, all bets are off.”
