Page 32 of Sealed in Ink

My best friend chuckles. “What, Mary? Am I being rude?”

“Uh, it’s just… a little.”

“I don’t mind,” I say honestly. I almost want to thank him for bringing it up. “No, I had no idea who she was until that night.” Wait, a debate? “Did you think I had been with her, Mary?”

I try to ask it casually, like I’ve always spoken to her. It was easy when I could place her in the friend’s kid-sister box. I’ll never be able to cram my image of her into that again, no matter how hard I try.

“Uh, well, I wondered,” she says, looking down, not at me. It’s like she can’t meet my eye. It should never be that way. She should never feel too nervous or intimidated to look at me. “Celebrities have secret girlfriends all the time.”

“Brad would’ve known,” I say matter-of-factly.

“People keep secrets,” she replies.

“Not me. Not from Brad.”

Not until recently.

She finally looks up, nodding as if to tell me,fairpoint. If I had my way, we’d tell him right now.

“You eating lean for the fight?” Brad asks. “There’s supposed to be a good steak house around here.”

“Sounds good. I’ll skip the potatoes.”

“Your loss,” Brad chuckles. “That’s one thing I don’t envy, Rust. Those weight cuts.”

“It’s not too bad for a heavyweight. Just eight to ten pounds, nothing major.”

“Yeah, but I just hate dieting in general,” he laughs again. “Dieting and dating,” he goes on with another laugh.

Feeling obligated to act normal, I say, “Still no luck in that department?”

He sighs. “Nah, not really. There was this woman at work, but it was an odd power dynamic with me being the store owner. It didn’t feel right, so I didn’t act on it. It was too inappropriate.”

In the rearview mirror, I exchange a look with Mary. She looks like she’s ready to burst when Brad says this. He’s such a good person that he didn’t act on his desire for an employee, but we can’t even hold ourselves back when it comes to family, something that willreallyviolate the connection we’re supposed to share.

“What about you?” Brad asks. “Except for that Maddie crap, obviously.”

We’re talking as we often did growing up, like Mary isn’t there. It’s something I became used to being around her so much. Like me, she’ll get quiet, content to observe and listen. Yet, with this topic, I feel she’s analyzing every move. It shouldn’t matter. We ended things, killed them. It was over before it ever began.

“Ah, you know,” I say, not wanting to lie.

Everything feels out of place when I tell a lie to Brad. The world only started to fit together when we became friends. Now, it’s slipping out of sync, a sick system of pain that should never apply to us—a nonstop right hand to the jaw on repeat.

“No, I don’t know, actually,” Brad laughs, not a care in the world. “He thinks we can read his mind, Mary.”

“Oh,” she says and laughs. She’s suffering as much as I am, struggling to contain the pain she feels. Perversely, my instinct is to turn, touch her hand, and tell her everything will be okay. But I keep my hands on my legs and my gaze firmly aimed forward.

“He’s never taken anyone on a date,” Brad says, talking to Mary, his tone warm, just messing around. He doesn’t know it’s like twisting a corkscrew into my gut. He’s right, though. I didn’t takeheron a date. It wasn’t a date. It was a mauling. A feast. A celebration of the warmth between us, the heat I never expected to feel.

“It was never my thing,” I mutter.

“You could have any woman you wanted,” Brad says. “Hey, not that I’m jealous or anything.”

“It doesn’t appeal to me,” I say, talking to Brad but really talking to my woman. She needs to hear this more than anyone. No, she doesn’t. End it, goddamnit, but I can’t. “I’ve had chances. Parties. Women love fighters. I’ve seen and been around it all my life, but I don’t care. I never have. I thought I was a robot when it came to women for a long time.”

“Not anymore?” Brad says, turning into the restaurant’s parking lot.

I realize my mistake. I said “thought”as in the past tense. That’s offering way too much information. I need to be more careful around him, my best friend. I need to try to limit what I say and think and the indications I give toward this sick thing we’ve done.

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