My eyes darted around the parking lot. “Where…are you?” I managed to ask.
“At the shop.”
The Shop was Terminus City Tattoo, Knight’s home away from home. Before he’d enlisted in the Marines, Knight had been a tattoo artist, body piercer, and sometimes-resident there when things got bad at his Step-Dad’s house.
Which was always.
“You’re home?”
Knight exhaled through his nose. I pictured him smoking a cigarette out on the Terminus City fire escape, the smoke disappearing as it floated in front of his almost colorless, ghostlike blue eyes.
“If you call crashing on a couch in the fucking break room home.”
I did. That couch and Bobbi, the woman who’d hired him and let him stay there, were more of a home to him than he’d ever known.
“Are you…” I had to consciously tell myself to breathe just to have enough oxygen to finish my thought. “…doing okay?”
Knight had been in either boot camp or Iraq since last May. He’d written me a few letters, but we’d had very little contact since he left. His departure hadn’t exactly been under the best circumstances.
“When the fuck have I ever been okay?”
When you were with me.
Part of me wanted to go to him. Pretend like the past didn’t exist. Run away together and live in that faraway land called Denial. But the other part of me couldn’t forget all those nights. Those horrible, horrible nights. Nights where I’d been physically restrained and screamed at, hog-tied with seatbelts or handcuffed to bedposts. Nights where my boyfriend had picked fights with perfect strangers in public. Nights where he’d destroyed everything he could get his hands on and left me to pick up the pieces.
Nights that, when triggered, still had me breaking out in a cold sweat and gasping for air.
“How long have you been home?” I choked out around the swelling lump in my throat.
“Not long enough to know how the fuck to do this.”
Knight was broken when he found me and broken when he left me, but now? I could hear it.
He was shattered.
“Hey…” I cooed, as if speaking to a skittish bird. “Do you…want some company?”
He remained silent as I cringed, kicking myself for the offer.
“Punk…”
“Yeah?”
“You know what’s gonna happen if you come here.”
Bad things. Wonderful things. Bloody things. Tears.
“Then we’ll go get coffee,” I said, shifting my car into reverse.
Coffee. That sounds grown-up. Just a couple of exes grabbing a friendly cup of that shit I hate to drink on a Sunday afternoon. What could possibly go wrong?
“Coffee,” Knight echoed. “Fine.”
Three
I sped into Atlanta with a bowling ball in my gut, a cigarette between my fingertips, and the wind rustling the nylon garment bag in my backseat.
Knight was home.
As much fun as I’d had with Harley, as much as I appreciated him for making me feel good again, for distracting me from my pain, I didn’t love him. I simply wasn’t able. Knight had taken my heart with him when he left for Iraq, leaving me with nothing to offer Harley but my time and my body.
And my Mustang, of course, which he’d tricked out in order to win more money at the track. If he ever found out I’d used all that extra horsepower to go see his mortal enemy, Ronald McKnight, Harley would probably rip out every aftermarket intake and valve he put in.
With his bare hands.
But I didn’t want to think about Harley. And I damn sure didn’t want to ruminate over the colossal mistake I was making by going to see Knight. So, I turned on my car stereo, cranked the volume knob to the right, and let Local H distract me with their own hard-hitting, three-chord tales of woe instead.
By the time I pulled into the crumbling parking lot behind Terminus City, I had almost convinced myself that everything was going to be fine. That Knight and I would walk to the corner coffee shop, catch up like a couple of old friends, then go our separate ways with a hug and an empty promise to stay in touch.
I rolled up my windows and turned off my car on muscle memory, my mind hard at work trying to trick the rest of my body into staying calm. Fabricating lies. Taking deep breaths. Reciting positive affirmations. With every shaky step I took toward the fire escape entrance, my self-talk grew louder, trying to drown out the rumble of excitement and panic building inside of me.
I was a few feet away from the concrete stairs I’d spent countless nights smoking and laughing and crying on when the thick metal back door at the top flew open and a ghost from my past came stomping out.
I froze, a fawn in the presence of a hunter, every muscle tensed, every sense on high alert, every brain cell cocked and ready to fire.
One second ticked by before Knight saw me, but in that second, I saw him. His white-blond buzzcut looked the same. My fingers twitched, remembering how velvety it felt beneath them. His sharp features were still scowling. His almost colorless eyelashes, eyebrows, and irises were just as striking as they’d been the first time I saw him. His body was still armored with muscles on top of muscles. His shoulders still tensed from holding up the weight of the world. His feet were still adorned with black combat boots. But his wardrobe of rolled-up Levi’s, skinny suspenders, and band T-shirts had been replaced with military-issued camouflage cargo pants and a tight black T-shirt.
I watched in suspended animation as Knight pulled a pack of Camel Lights, my brand, from his pocket, his movements as familiar as my own. I knew exactly how he would shift his weight as he reached for his lighter, how he’d hold the unlit cigarette between his teeth before sparking the flint. In that second my trauma, my fear, and all my good sense dissipated.
I was just a girl, staring at a boy, trapped inside of a trained killer.
Knight bit the end of his cigarette just like I knew he would, but before he could light it, his eyes landed on me.
I stared as Knight’s hardened expression softened. To anyone else, the change would have been imperceptible, but I saw it. I saw the way his pale eyebrows lifted and pulled together slightly, the way his angular mouth turned down at the corners. I realized in that moment that I was looking at a man who probably hadn’t been hugged since the night he told me he was leaving…eleven months ago.
That look trumped my desire for safety and self-preservation. Without thinking and without a word spoken between us, I marched straight up the stairs, wrapped my arms around Knight’s waist, and buried my face in the curve of his thick, corded neck.
He smelled like home. An uninhabitable, condemned, broken home with a gas leak that could explode at any minute, but home nonetheless.
“Punk…” Knight’s strained voice begged, his hands hovering inches above my body. It was a warning.
“It’s okay,” I whispered against warm skin, my lips grazing a rapidly pulsing artery. “It’s okay.”
Knight’s arms circled my upper body, coiling around me like a Boa Constrictor. My breaths became labored from the crushing force of his embrace. I felt his remorse and pain. I felt his Adam’s apple slide up and down against my cheek as he swallowed.
And I felt his erection swell against my waifish body.
Desire flooded my bloodstream, clouding my judgment. It caused me to do stupid things, like place a kiss on Knight’s thumping jugular.
Then another one, a little lower.
One second, I was being crushed against Knight’s hard chest, the next I was being crushed between his hard chest and the graffiti-covered back alley wall of Terminus City Tattoo. Abrasive bricks clawed at my skin while Knight devoured my mouth and took his frustrations out on my clothing. As he bit and sucked and stole the breath from my lips, Knight fisted the low neck of my thin white wifebeater with both hands and ripped it completely in half. Shoving my padded Wonderbra up over my breasts, Knight broke our kiss just long enough to glance down at his handiwork. Two silver hearts encircled my nipples, held in place by barbells shaped like arrows.