Page 2 of Pulse
“You’re making my balls shrink,” Dean said with a groan.
“Lunch,” Dad called out from the opposite side of the studio, clapping his hands to get our attention.
The Twins slapped each other on the shoulder, excited at the mention of food. Men.
I shook my head, my mood simmering at a healthy level of okay. There were good days and bad ones and sometimes there were mediocre ones, which were a mixture of all of the above. Today was panning out to be one of the okay ones. Time is what I needed. In the grand scheme of the universe, a lot could happen in six months, but six months was still a blip compared to the rest of my life.
“Ren?”
I glanced over my shoulder at the sound of Monica’s voice. I suddenly wanted to asphyxiate on my own vomit.
“I’m sorry. About everything.” She fidgeted nervously, the once mean girl of Beat looking all demure like a snake in the grass.
It was like a daily ritual with her. If she could get me alone, she tried to apologize again and again. So I tried not to be alone with her, which was more about her safety than mine.
“And thank you for…” She hesitated when all I did was glare back at her.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked, wringing my hands into the towel so I wouldn’t wring her neck.
“You haven’t told Dad yet.”
I narrowed my eyes. I hadn’t told because she hadn’t fucked up yet.
“Thanks,” she said sheepishly.
I just wanted to smack the bitch into the next millennia. The last thing I ever wanted was her thanks. “Listen to me,” I snapped. “I will never forgive you for what you did to me and especially for what you did to Ash. I’m just waiting for the day you fuck up so I can tell the world about what you did.”
“Then why don’t you?” she asked, her eyes widening with fear.
I looked her up and down before saying, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I don’t know how many times I can say it Ren,” she exclaimed.
“You’ll never be able to say it enough. Never.” Shoving past her, I went into the showers and sank down onto the bench.
Dropping my head into my hands, I breathed deeply, letting my rage simmer into a slow boil. It seemed like an eternity ago that I’d sat here with Ash, trying to calm him down after his epic meltdown in the studio. I’d heard nothing from him and I doubted I ever would, but that didn’t stop me from missing him every single day. Missing him and wondering if he’d gone through with it…killing Hammer.
There was a difference between beating a man within an inch of becoming a vegetable and stepping over the line into murder. I never asked him… I swallowed the lump in the back of my throat and pushed to my feet.
Living with a terminally ill mother after Dad left us was bad. It was fucking terrible, but I wasn’t old enough to fully understand. My age had shielded the full extent of my heartache, but not this time. I understood all too well and it wasn’t a pretty picture. Ash had abandoned me. He’d left with hardly an explanation and had never come back.
I lay in my bed upstairs night after night, replaying the scene over and over, trying to understand. He went to prison protecting someone else from him. Someone else. He said he didn’t love me. He was…there’d been someone else. Then what was I?Discardable?
“Ren?”
I glanced up in surprise as Josie appeared around the corner. Didn’t she have work? When she saw me sitting there like an idiot, she glanced back over her shoulder and came to sit with me.
“Are you okay?” she asked, looking totally out of place in the change room in her fancy suit and heels.
“Just had a fight with Monica.” I shrugged. “It’s been coming for a few days now.”
“Do I need to crack her skull?”
I shook my head. “I’ve got her under my thumb; she just needs to back off.”
“You know you can talk to me Ren.”
“I know.”
