Page 65 of Beneath Your Beautiful
Her shoulders slumped. “I know. It’s just…ugh. I hate to think of you with someone else.”
I knew the feeling. “Don’t think about it. I told you I’d never cheat on you.” At least that was a promise I could keep. I couldn’t imagine walking in on Eden with another guy. Didn’t even want to. I’dneverdo that to her. It nearly destroyed me when I saw my mother with another man. I was too young to understand what they were doing, but I knew it was wrong. I’d never breathed a word of it to anyone. Not even to Connor.
She rested her chin on her knees. I could almost see the wheels in her head spinning. “Your dad mentioned something about fighting…the night he came in. He asked if I was one of your groupies.”
Fucking Seamus.
“I was waiting for you to tell me about it yourself. That’s why I never asked.”
I looked straight ahead at the skyline, at the lights that never seemed to go out, in offices and apartment buildings. All those people, living their lives, with their own dramas and hardships.
Fuck. This was so hard to say. I’d never told anyone. Never said the words aloud. Everyone who had been in my life before already knew, and nobody else needed to know. Until now. She needed to hear it from me, not from someone else.
“I used to be an MMA fighter. I was in the UFC.”
“What happened?”
I needed to go right in, lay out the facts, and get it over with. Rip off the fucking Band-Aid.
“My last fight was against Johnny Ramirez. He was my teammate, my friend…. a great fighter. One of the best.” I swallowed hard and forced myself to keep going. “I punched him in the temple. I usually tried to avoid head shots. I wasn’t…” Out to kill him. He’d had me down on the mat, my legs locked. It had been a wild hook from a submissive position. I hadn’t thought it would pack so much power. “The medical team gave him the okay to keep fighting. We went two more rounds and I won. Afterwards, he was pissed off that he lost, but he seemed okay otherwise. Walking and talking. Later that night, he complained he was dizzy and tired, and they took him to the emergency room.”
“It was a subdural hematoma. Traumatic brain injury. They performed an emergency craniotomy and he was in a coma. Three days later, he died.” My voice sounded automated, like I didn’t give a shit. Like the words I was saying didn’t affect me, didn’t have anything to do with me.
“Killian,” she said, her voice soft. “It wasn’t your fault.”
I shook my head and let out a harsh laugh. “It was entirely my fault.” I held up my hands and flexed them. “I killed him.”
“It was an accident. A horrible accident. You can’t blame yourself.”
I could, and I did. “He had a wife and a son who was born after he died.”
Eden straddled me on the bench and wrapped her arms around my neck. My arms went around her waist. She couldn’t do or say anything to make it better, but somehow, she did. Just by being here. The tension in my muscles relaxed and I breathed her in.
She pulled back and held my face in her hands. “What you told me doesn’t change the way I feel about you.”
I closed my eyes. “Eden.” She pressed her lips against mine. Neither one of us tried to turn it into a kiss. It was almost more intimate than a kiss.
When our lips separated, she climbed off me and sat next to me. I wrapped my arm around her and she leaned her head on my shoulder. We sat in silence as the blues and pinks of twilight became an orange glow that reflected off the buildings of the Manhattan skyline.
“It’s a new day,” she said quietly. “A world of possibility. Do you believe that?”
“I don’t know.”But I’d like to.
She didn’t say anything for a few minutes. “Killian? What would Johnny have done?”
“What?”
“If the roles had been reversed…what would Johnny have done? Would he have mourned your loss and continued fighting? Would he have given up something he loved?”
I didn’t have an answer because Johnny wasn’t here to ask. “He told me once that if he had to give up fighting, he wouldn’t be Johnny Ramirez anymore.”
“Is that how it feels to you?”
“Sometimes.”All the time. “But that life is over. I can’t go back to it.”
“Sawyer keeps going back to combat zones.”
“He doesn’t have a choice.”
