Totally Tormented Read online

  I sat up and propped myself up on his pillow. “Do you think it’s weird that we’ve slept in this bed together and yet we hardly know anything about each other?”

  “I know a lot about you.”

  “Like what?”

  “That you go to school at Cambridge. That you don’t like to do things that are illegal. That you don’t know how to make scrambled eggs.”

  I reached out and pushed his shoulder. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said, reaching up and blocking me. “Careful, I’m wounded.”

  “Sorry. Did I hurt you?”

  “’Course not.” He said it like the idea was ridiculous.

  “Anyway, so do you?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Do you think it’s weird that we’ve slept in this bed together and we don’t know that much about each other!”

  He sighed, and I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it. So I reached out and shut off the TV. “Hey!” he protested. “We were watching that.”

  “No, we weren’t.”

  “We were about to be.”

  “No, you were about to be.”

  He grinned and rolled over so that he was facing me. The bruise under his eye was turning from yellow to purple. There was an angry red ring around the outside of it, and I knew it had to be painful. A lump bloomed in my throat – I didn’t like thinking about someone hurting him.

  “Are you sure it doesn’t hurt?” I asked, biting my lip.

  “I told you, I’ve had worse.”

  “When?”

  “You really want to talk about that?”

  “I guess not.” I let my eyes move down his body, taking in all the bruises.

  “Hey,” he said, cupping my chin and tilting it back up so I was forced to meet his gaze. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  I shook my head, not understanding. How could this be his life? How could he be okay with the fact that he’d spent the night fighting? Again, I got a weird feeling about his new gym. And again, I knew better than to say anything about it.

  “Pip,” he said. “I swear, it doesn’t hurt.”

  I nodded, but I felt choked up, like maybe I was going to cry or something, which was ridiculous. He wasn’t a victim. He was doing the same thing to other people.

  Justin must have been able to tell that I was getting upset, because he changed the subject. “So what’s your favorite movie?”

  “My favorite movie?”

  “Yeah. You said we don’t know anything about each other, so let’s go. What’s your favorite movie?”

  I thought about it. “Dead Poet’s Society.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Depressing.”

  “It isn’t!”

  “The teacher gets fired at the end, and a dude commits suicide!”

  “Yeah, but it’s about facing your fears. The part where Ethan Hawke gets up on his chair at the end is super inspiring.”

  “You probably just like it because Ethan Hawke is in it,” he grumbled.

  “Eww, no,” I said. “I don’t like that look. I’m more of a Channing Tatum kind of girl.”

  “Channing Tatum.” He shook his head. “I’ll fuck that dude up.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Favorite food?”

  “Lasagna. You?”

  “Ice cream. Rocky Road,” I clarified.

  “Not frozen yogurt like you were having with Adam?”

  “No. Not frozen yogurt like I was having with Adam. In fact, I kind of hate frozen yogurt.”

  “Good.”

  His hand was on my leg now, his thumb making little circles on my skin. I shivered.

  “Wanna get under the covers?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  He reached over and shut off the light, and we climbed under his comforter. His room was starting to become familiar. I was beginning to feel more at home here than I did in my own dorm.

  “Hey,” I said, suddenly remembering. “Where’s Gilbert?”

  “Gilbert’s gone.”

  “Oh. Is he… I mean, did he…?”

  “I don’t know where he went.” He took a deep breath. “He was gone when I got back to the apartment. He disappears a lot, Gil. I used to try to chase him around, but it never worked.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Still do have to chase him around sometimes, obviously. But in the end, I know he’s going to go off and do whatever he wants.”

  There was a silence. I wasn’t quite sure what to say.

  “Favorite color?” he asked.

  “Purple. You?”

  “Red.”

  “Of course.” There was another silence, and for a moment, I just lay there and listened to him breathing. His hand was still on my leg, but now the circles were becoming slower and lazier.

  I turned over, and he pulled me close, spooning me. He pushed my hair off my neck and rested his chin on my shoulder. “You comfy?” he murmured into my neck.

  “Yes.”

  His arms tightened around me. And maybe it was because I knew he was going to be falling asleep soon, or maybe it was because it was dark and I couldn’t see him.

  But I decided to ask him one more question.

  “Have you ever been in love?”

  I felt his body tense. “No.” He hesitated, like maybe he was going to say something else. But then, a second later, he said, “You?”

  “No.” I waited for him to ask me something else, to press me, to ask me if I ever wanted to be. But he didn’t.

  And after a moment, his breathing grew deeper and more even, and I knew he was asleep. And after another moment, so was I.

  ***

  When I woke up, Justin was already awake.

  He was stroking my hair and flipping through the channels.

  “Finally,” he teased. “I thought you’d never wake up.”

  “How long have you been awake?” I was suddenly panicked, not knowing how long he’d been watching me sleep. Was I drooling?

  “Not that long. Only a few minutes.” He turned off the TV and rolled over. He winced.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked automatically.

  “Nothing.”

  “Justin, if you’re –”

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m just sore, that’s all.” He flipped onto his stomach.

  “I probably just need to ice my back.” He turned his head and glanced at me. “Or you could give me a massage.” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down, and I rolled my eyes.

  But inside, I was giddy. I would take an excuse I could to touch him.

  I reached out and started to rub his shoulders.

  “Unh-huh.” He shook his head. “Get on top of me.”

  “What?”

  “Get on top of me. On my back.”

  “I’ll hurt you.”

  He scoffed at the idea. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  I swallowed and then climbed on top of him, straddling his back. I wasn’t wearing anything under his t-shirt, and so I pulled it down as best I could. He had sweatpants on, so it wasn’t like we would have been skin to skin, but still.

  I started at his shoulders, kneading my palms into his skin. His muscles were tense, and I hated that someone had done that to him. I wondered again if I should say something about his new gym maybe not being the best place for him. But it really wasn’t any of my business.

  I stroked him, moving to his neck and letting my hands linger over the place where his hair met his skin. I ran my fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp gently.

  He let out a sigh of pleasure.

  My hands dropped to his back and after a few minutes, I could feel his muscles loosening.

  Suddenly, he turned over, grabbing my wrists to keep me from falling off of him.

  “Justin!” I gasped. But he held me tight.

  “Time to do my chest,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

  “No way.” I tried to move, but he held me close.

  “Why not?” he teased. “You afraid?”

  “Of what?”

 
“Of what might happen.” He was serious now, and for the first time ever, I thought maybe I saw a flash of fear in his eyes. Was he afraid of what might happen?

  But why would he be? He wasn’t inexperienced like I was. So then what was he afraid of?

  “No,” I said. “I’m not afraid.”

  “Maybe you should be.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know what I’m saying. I must still be woozy from last night.” Something like frustration flashed over his face, and then he was getting up, crossing the room to his dresser, his flirty mood gone. He yanked at his dresser drawer, then pulled out a t-shirt and shoved his arms through the holes.

  I wasn’t sure why he was suddenly so upset. I hadn’t done anything. I watched as he picked his phone up off the dresser and checked the screen. He frowned, then punched at the screen, like he was returning a call.

  “Hey,” he said when the person answered. “Who’s this? Oh, hey….Yeah, okay.

  Yeah. Definitely. Text me the address. Okay. Bye.”

  He set his phone back down and turned to me, smiling. “That was my new coach,” he said. “From the Slaughterhouse.”

  “From the what?”

  “The Slaughterhouse.”

  “The name of your new gym is The Slaughterhouse?” I was dumbfounded. Who the hell thought that was an okay name for a gym?

  “Yeah. Anyway, they’re having a party at my coach’s house tonight. In Brookline. And they want me to come.”

  “That’s great.” I pulled at the bottom of the t-shirt I was wearing. “Um, do you… I mean, are you sure this is a good gym?”

  He got a suspicious look on his face. “What do you mean?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, I just… what happened to you last night, it’s kind of…is that normal?”

  “Not exactly, but it’s how they do things there. It’s their method of teaching.”

  “Okay. It just seems a little harsh, that’s all.”

  He turned away from me, and I thought he mumbled something that sounded like,

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing.” He crossed the room then and took my hands in his. “You have to come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “To the party.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. It’ll be fun. I can introduce you to everyone.”

  I hesitated. The last time I’d met some of his friends, it hadn’t exactly gone so well. That being said, I didn’t like that he’d just said I didn’t understand something about him or his life. I might have been true, but I didn’t want it to be that way. I wanted to understand him.

  So even though I knew it had the chance of being a total and complete disaster, I gave him a smile. “Of course I’ll go with you.”

  JUSTIN

  We took the train out to Brookline, then got off and headed for the address Quarry had texted me. I was kind of shocked that he lived in one of the most expensive areas of Boston. Brookline was the top of the food chain, and even the snootiest snobs with the richest families didn’t necessarily have the funds to live there. It was mansions and Mercedes and BMWs and rich Europeans with their fancy clothes and their stuck-up kids.

  At least, that’s how I’d always thought of it.

  The good side of being in Brookline was that Lindsay would probably feel a little more comfortable than if I was taking her to some dump in East Boston.

  Finally, we got to the address Quarry had sent. The house was on the smaller side and didn’t qualify as a mansion by any means—but it was still Brookline, which meant it was probably worth millions anyway.

  There were a bunch of cars parked in the driveway and on the street out front and I could hear the music coming from inside the house.

  We walked up and the door opened for us before we even rang the doorbell or anything. There was Z, dressed in a yellow button-down shirt with a few buttons open, his expression turning welcoming as he looked me over. “Here’s the man of the hour,” Z

  said, chuckling. “You look like you got into a fight with the marines. I mean, all of them.”

  “I feel like I was, too.” We shook hands, and his enveloped mine almost completely, but he was gentle as a bear cub. Then he looked at Lindsay.

  “And you are?”

  “Hi, I’m Lindsay,” she said.

  “What a beautiful name,” Z almost purred. “The party could use a little more class.” They shook hands.

  I wanted to growl out, back off Z-- she’s with me. But then I remembered she actually wasn’t with me. We were just friends. And besides, Z wasn’t doing anything but being gentlemanly, if a little flirty.

  “You two go inside and make yourselves comfortable. I know Quarry will be happy as hell that you made it, JB.”

  As we went inside, I tried to take in the atmosphere of the house without being overwhelmed by it all. There were people everywhere, many of which I didn’t recognize.

  Of course, most of the guys were in the fight game. That much was obvious, from their scarred faces, tattoos, piercings, and generally mean looks.

  At the same time, people had tried to dress up a little bit, because this was in a swanky part of town and Quarry probably demanded that sort of respect from his guests.

  There were two floors, but definitely less people on the first floor. The second floor was where the music was coming from, a thumping pulse of hard rock that started to slowly envelope us as we got closer to the living room.

  It wasn’t just a bunch of guys, either. There were plenty of women, and many of them had what I thought of as the “fight groupie” look to them. Dressed in short skirts and low cut tops, they showed off their goods unabashedly. They gave you a look as you walked by that indicated they were up for anything, as long as you were in the MMA world—they were interested.

  I wanted to pull Lindsay close to me, wanted people to see that she was with me.

  I didn’t have any desire to hang with these boring skanks who liked to run through fighters like we were baseball cards that they could collect and then sell someday for cash.

  Soon, it seemed as though we were getting to the heart of the party, the center of it all. Quarry was holding court in the living room, and he was surrounded by his team—

  my team. I recognized many of the same guys that had been in the cage with me yesterday. As they noticed me, the room started to quiet down.

  Finally, someone whispered in Quarry’s ear and he turned and saw me. His normally intense expression grew instantaneously more so. And then he grinned. “Look at his guy. The legend has graced us with his presence, boys. Justin The Barbarian Brown has arrived!” He came towards me, laughing. “Somebody get this man a drink,”

  Quarry called out.

  I glanced at Lindsay to see how she was doing. She whispered to me under her breath. “Did he just refer to you as The Barbarian?”

  “It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

  Quarry came and wrapped his strong arm across my shoulder, ignoring Lindsay.

  “Do you realize what you did last night?” he asked me, almost confidentially.

  “I barely remember last night.”

  “Well let me refresh your memory, JB. You put on a first-class display of guts and heart and even more importantly, talent and technique. It gives me the fucking chills when I think about it.”

  “I just did what I had to do.”

  “That’s what I like about you. No fuss, no ego. You just go out there and do what comes naturally, and you’re a damn killer. We are going to make you even better.”

  The other guys from the team seemed to be watching us interact with a mix of wariness, respect, and perhaps envy as well. I wasn’t sure I liked all the attention I was receiving. It would have been one thing if I’d won a big fight or gotten a belt in the UFF.

  But all I’d really done was had a “moment” during practice, essentially. It didn’t m
atter in the scheme of things, and I didn’t want to be celebrated for something that didn’t count.

  Still, it was better to have earned my respect early. Now, hopefully the other guys would back off a little bit and allow me to have my place in the gym. It could be a rough atmosphere if the other team members were constantly testing you during practice, and I’d made a big enough statement to keep that from happening.

  Jimbo, the short guy with the goatee who I’d fought first, handed me an open beer. “Glad to have you on the team,” he said as he gave it to me. “You hit like a Mack truck, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” I said, sniffing the beer. “Should I trust this isn’t poisoned?”

  Jimbo laughed. “I don’t poison drinks, bro. Maybe I would piss in it, but I’m not drunk enough to pull that kind of stunt tonight. Besides, you hit too hard.” He winked.

  “What about one for his friend?” Quarry asked.

  “Yeah, of course.” Jimbo handed Lindsay the beer he’d been holding in his other hand. “I was going to drink it, but ladies first.”

  I glanced at Lindsay. She looked like she’d been handed Drain-o. She smiled like a good sport, though. “Thanks.”

  “Well, you two just enjoy the party,” Quarry said. “Socialize. Drink. There’s some food in the kitchen, as long as these vultures haven’t picked it all over.”

  “I think there’s some pizza left,” Jimbo said.

  “We’ll talk more later,” Quarry told me, giving my shoulder a squeeze for good measure, then moving out of the room. A small coterie of fighters followed after him, including the three professionals that fought in the UFF. All of whom I’d fought and embarrassed last night—and one of whom I’d even knocked unconscious. They didn’t appear as friendly to me as everyone else had been so far. Not a smile in the bunch, but some baleful looks as they left the room.

  Jimbo noticed the tension. When they were gone, he raised his eyebrows in silent acknowledgment. “Like I said, I’m glad to have you on the team.”

  “Not everyone feels the way you do, apparently.” I sipped my beer and noticed it didn’t even taste remotely like piss, which was comforting.

  Jimbo shrugged. “You know how it is, JB. There’s always a pecking order, a hierarchy if you will.”

  “You’re pretty well spoken for a dude who breaks people’s faces for a living,” I said.