Knockout

  Yanking her out the door, Jami drove Alyson straight home. Every time she tried to talk to him, his mood grew darker, and he barely managed the one-word answers he gave her.

  By the time he pulled up in front of her building, he knew she was just as angry and as hurt as he was, but his emotions were running too high for him to back down or apologize. He needed to hit something, and she needed to get the hell away from him for her own damn good. Didn’t she understand that?

  With a curt goodbye, Alyson slammed the car door and ran up the walkway. He waited until she was safely inside before peeling out of the parking lot.

  EIGHTEEN

  She was a total idiot to even consider shedding a tear over him, but she did it anyway. Jami’s ever-changing moods made her head ache. One minute he was sweet and attentive, touching her until she thought she would die, kissing her until she lost her breath, and the next, he was storming out of her life pissed off over something or other.

  She couldn’t keep up.

  Two days passed by with no word from him. He had dropped her off at her apartment that night, and she hadn’t heard from him since. That he hadn’t called or texted at all hurt, but she refused to be the one to give in this time. This time, Jami would have to come to her. She refused to be the one to break. She refused to be weak like her mother, because she already did it once, and if she kept it up, it would set a precedent for their entire relationship.

  Whatever it was…

  By midweek, Alyson had totally given up on worrying about when or if she might hear from him. Jami was off doing whatever the hell he did when he got into his moods. All she knew was that he had dropped her and swept her under the rug the minute he was faced with something tuff.

  She understood that their run-in with his opponent, the ‘“Iron Fist,’” was something of a shocker, and it had triggered his shift in mood, but it didn’t warrant shutting her out of his life. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She wasn’t the cause for his upset.

  Once again, Don’s words echoed in her head, and she wanted to laugh. How could he blame her for being a distraction? Jami was a distraction all on his own. He didn’t need any help with that.

  Victoria and Miles had become her hangout buddies over the last few days. They had been spending a lot of time together, almost like a true family would. She was coming to really enjoy their presence. She enjoyed coming home from work to a hot cooked meal and someone to talk to, and she hadn’t realized before how lonely her existence was, until she filled it. Before now, Olivia had been her only constant, and while no one would ever take her place, Olivia couldn’t be there all the time. She had her own life to live.

  The Michaels thought she had done so much for them by bringing them into her home, despite how cramped it was, but the reality of it was that they had done far more for her. They gave her a purpose and something to focus on, rather than dwelling on her situation with Jami.

  It bothered her that he would just walk away from her without a second thought. That she didn’t even warrant a phone call. She didn’t even know if he was still around, but she assumed he was, since he had a fight coming up in a couple of days. After that, there was no telling. She might never see him again.

  But she refused to think about that any longer. Today, she was determined to focus on the here and now.

  As Alyson rode the bus home, her body jostling over every tiny bump and crater in the road, she couldn’t keep the smile off her face. Today, she had planned something great for her favorite houseguests, and it was the perfect opportunity to forget her troubles.

  There was a small church festival being thrown a couple of blocks from her apartment. It was something of a tradition. Each year, the church would shut down one whole stretch of road and set up rides and booths with all kinds of games. They had fantastic food and music, too. She knew that Victoria and Miles would love it.

  After being sequestered for so long, too afraid to leave the house, they all needed a night out. They had earned it. She wanted to show them that despite the validity of their fear of their husband and father finding them, it was a big city, and the chances of them running into him were slim.

  “Being cooped up in here all the time isn’t healthy. You’re living in a self-imposed prison,” she had told Victoria, appealing to the woman’s good sense. “Do you really want to be the one responsible for stealing what’s left of Miles’ childhood?” It was a low blow, but one that proved effective and that was why they were now chewing on elephant ears and laughing their asses off.

  “Underhand,” Alyson called out over the chorus of music, voices, and crash of pins in the next tent. “You have to underhand it.”

  Focusing hard, Miles flipped his wrist and bent at the waist. Alyson bit her lip, nervous as she waited for Miles to throw the hollow little ball. Tossing it, they held their collective breaths as it bounced across the rims of glass bowls. Ping, ping, ping, ploop! Miles threw his arms up and spun around with a whoop! “Yes! Did you see that? I won!”

  “Good job, sweetie!” Victoria praised him, giving him a quick hug.

  Grinning, Alyson and Victoria waited for the man running the booth to hand over Miles’ prize, but he shook his head. “Sorry, guy, but your foot was over the line.” He pointed to the yellow strip of tape pasted to the ground a foot away from the table.

  Seeing the crestfallen look on his face, Alyson grew angry on Miles’ behalf. “That’s bullshit,” she told the man, earning a shocked look. “His foot wasn’t over the line.”

  “I saw it with my own eyes,” he told her.

  “Then you should get your eyes checked. There is no way he was over the line.”

  Refusing to budge, the man gave her a droll look. “He’s welcome to try again.”

  Looking at Miles, she raised her eyebrows in silent question. He darted a glance at the man and at the growing line behind them, and shook his head. “It’s okay. I’m getting kind of hungry, anyway.”

  Alyson paused to watch him, knowing that he wasn’t ready to walk away, but he also wasn’t willing to embarrass himself any further. If she argued the point any more than she already had, he would hate her for it. Having just entered his teens, she knew how sensitive kids in his age bracket could be when it came to adult intervention. However, she decided that she would play it her way. She wasn’t about to let him walk away without his prize.

  Turning a heated glare on the man behind the table, she said, “I’ll play.”

  “One dollar for three balls, or two dollars for seven,” the man said in a bored voice.

  Handing over a dollar, Alyson gave him a tight, confident smile. “I’ll only need one.”

  Handing over one, the man said with a cocky attitude, “Well, this I gotta see.” Standing back, he affected a bored expression.

  Alyson stepped back, making a pointed gesture to show that she was behind the line. Then, gripping the ball loosely, she eyed the table filled with glass bowls. They were tightly fitted next to each other, each one filled with water. The game looked deceptively easy, but she knew it was all a trick designed to steal the player’s money, but she had been coming to this festival for years, and she had a lot of practice.

  “The gold bowl in the middle,” she called out confidently.

  “Good luck,” the guy said, smirking as if he knew without a doubt that she would lose.

  He would be wrong. Drawing her arm back, Alyson tossed the ball lightly into the air. It sailed in a smooth arc, over the low wall, and then clinked over each rim. It bounced five times, rolled as it began to slow its momentum, and then plinked into the gold bowl, just as she predicted.

  Smiling triumphantly, Alyson took a big hop over the line and smacked her hands down on the wooden strip dividing them. “And that’s how it’s done.”

  Bending down behind the table, the guy dunked his hand into a basin full of water and brought out two bags. Handing the goldfish over, he grudgingly congratulated her on the win.

  “That was so cool,” Miles to
ld her as they walked away. “You got it in one try!”

  Holding up the bags in front of her face, Alyson inspected her prizes. “What can I say, Miles my boy, I’m just that good. Here,” she said, thrusting the goldfish at him.

  He clutched the bags to his chest out of reflex, and frowned down at them. “What, do you want me to carry them for you?”

  “No, I want you to carry them for you. They’re yours.” Victoria gave her a grateful smile that Alyson returned.

  “No way, I can’t take these. You won them, not me.” Miles held them out to her, refusing to accept them.

  Alyson held up her hands. “Nope, I don’t do fish. You wanted them, you take them.”

  “But they belong to you,” he argued.

  “I got them for you,” Alyson insisted. “That guy was scamming you. I just wanted to set him straight. Now come on, take your twenty dollar goldfish that will probably die by the end of the week and stop arguing with me.”

  “You can’t force me to take them,” he said, and at this point, Alyson could see the hopeful gleam in his eyes. He wanted them, bad, but he was going to play hard to get.

  “I’m telling you, Miles, I can’t handle the responsibility. If you give them back, I’ll have to flush ‘em.”

  Appalled, Miles clutched them to his chest. “That’s terrible! You wouldn’t really do that, would you?”

  Alyson shrugged. “It’s the way of the world, Miles. The strong survive and the weak get flushed. I’m starved,” she said, redirecting the conversation. “What do you say we get some of those ribs and then hit the rock wall?”

  Smiling widely, Miles reached out and gave her a hug. “Thanks, Ally.”

  Patting him on the back, she said, “You’re welcome, hun. Now let’s go have some fun.”

  After a plate of ooey gooey barbequed ribs that had them literally licking their fingers clean, Alyson and Miles paid for two tickets for the rock climbing wall. Apparently, Victoria had a fear of heights, which worked out fine. She got to hold the fish.

  Concentrating on where to place her foot next, Alyson reached for one of the notches above her head and pulled herself higher.

  “You’re losing,” Miles called down to her.

  Sinking her teeth into her lip, Alyson grabbed another grip. “Didn’t your mother teach you to respect your elders? You’re supposed to let me win.”

  Miles laughed. “You’re not old. You’re slow.”

  “I’m short. There’s a difference.” Looking up, Alyson could see the top of the wall coming into view and Miles only a few feet away. There was no way she was going to get beaten by a teenager. Picking up the pace, she reached and pulled, reached and pulled, until she was right beside Miles. “Slow, am I?” she asked, grinning widely.

  Surprise registered on his young, handsome face as Miles placed his left foot and hand and rose higher. “Please, I let you catch up.”

  “Oh, geez, Miles,” Alyson gasped. “Your pants just caught fire!”

  The second it took for Miles to glance down at his pants cost him the lead, but he quickly caught up, promising retribution. “You’re going down, old lady.”

  Laughing and giggling their way to the top, Alyson couldn’t remember a time when she had ever felt this carefree. Miles was such a great kid, and to look at his face now, his brown eyes alight with laughter, the sun shining on his smiling face, she was so glad she could be a part of that. Every kid should have a childhood filled with happy memories. Miles had been dealt a shitty hand, but he hadn’t let it rule him. She wanted to make sure it stayed that way.

  Reaching the top, Miles slapped his palm down on the ledge. “I win, sucka!”

  Pursing her lips, Alyson feigned irritation. “Only because I let you win. How would it look if all those girls down there saw you get beat by a girl?” She shook her head. “You should thank me, you know. I did you a solid.”

  “You’re a sore loser. I hope Jami knows what he’s getting into.” Glancing over his shoulder, Miles took note of a group of girls around his age waiting for their turn, but he wasn’t buying her excuse. Throwing back his shoulders, he raised one eyebrow and winked at her. “Thanks for the solid.”

  Alyson’s smile faded as she watched Miles hop back and repel down the wall. His words struck her right in the chest. Miles and Victoria didn’t know that Jami was no longer in her life. They assumed that he was busy training, and she hadn’t bothered to correct them. She wasn’t ready to admit to them that he wasn’t coming back. Maybe she wasn’t ready to admit it to herself yet, either.

  By the time she reached the bottom and was helped out of her harness, Alyson was more than ready to go home. The fair had lost its luster.

  Miles walked up to his mom with one of the girls that had been waiting for a turn on the wall by his side. “Care if I take Melanie on the Ferris wheel, Mom?”

  Victoria’s eyes skated over the girl, sizing her up the way only a mother could, and nodded. “Sure, sweetie, but make sure you come back right after. My feet are killing me.”

  “We’re going home?”

  “Yes, I think so. Alyson is looking a little worn out too.”

  Miles looked like he wanted to protest, but remembering the girl beside him, he reigned it in. Alyson was sure they would hear about it later, though. “Fine, I’ll be back in a few.”

  “He’s a good kid,” Alyson praised as she and Victoria slowly strolled toward the Ferris wheel, keeping several feet of space between the budding couple.

  “Yes, he is,” Victoria agreed. “He has a lot of his dad in him, but he handles it better.”

  “Do you think what he saw is going to affect him, you know, badly?”

  Victoria shook her head. “I used to worry about that, but now…now, I can see that Miles is his own person. I know he won’t forget what happened, but I can already see that it hasn’t harmed him. He’s chosen to go the opposite direction. Every time he gets upset, I can see his wheels turning. He is very aware of his behaviors and how it can affect others, so he tries extra hard to control it.”

  So that was what she was seeing. Alyson had noticed all the times that Miles could have yelled or talked back, shown some kind of teenage-like tantrum, but each time he had chosen to walk away. “He’s very mature for his age.”

  A pained look crossed Victoria’s face as she looked ahead through the crowd. “He didn’t have much of a choice.”

  Alyson’s phone buzzed in her pocket, drawing her attention away from what she felt was a crucial moment. “Hey,” she answered, seeing Olivia’s name on the I.D.

  “Where the heck are you? You better not be partying without me!”

  Signaling to Victoria that she would catch up, Alyson plugged one ear so she could hear. “You should know me better than that by now,” she spoke loudly. “I’m at a fair.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s this week, right?”

  Olivia had gone with Alyson a couple of times in the past, and before all the craziness of the past few weeks, it was the main thing she talked about. “Yep, I thought I would get the kid and his mom out of the apartment for a while.”

  “I don’t know whether to pat you on the back for being so nice to those people, or slap you upside the head for not inviting me. Where are you? I can come meet you.”

  Scraping the toe of her shoe across the concrete, Alyson bit her lip guiltily. “Actually, we’re just waiting for Miles to get done with one of the rides, and then we were talking about heading home.” Olivia’s silence made her feel absolutely wretched.

  She really wasn’t in the mood to hang out for several more hours, and when she tried to picture putting her fun-loving best friend and the mild-mannered Victoria together, it didn’t work in her mind. It probably wouldn’t be very comfortable for any of them. “Why don’t you and Spencer come down? It would give you something fun to do.”

  “If Spencer were here, I would, but he just took off. Another one of his mystery emergency phone calls,” she said, and Alyson could almost hear her rolling h
er eyes. What was that all about? Jami hadn’t seemed all that surprised when Spencer just up and left at the bar the other night.

  “Does he do that often?”

  “Only every time I see him. Look, don’t worry about it. I just wanted to see if you wanted to hang out for a couple hours, but I’m sure you’ve been there for a while and are tired. I’ll just see you this weekend at the fight.”

  “Yeah, okay, see you.” Geez, she felt like the crappiest friend in the world. In any other situation, Alyson would have jumped on the chance to have a little girl time with her best friend, but tonight she wasn’t feeling much like entertaining. “We’ll go have lunch or something.”

  “Okay, and while we do that, you can explain to me why you’re ignoring your man.”

  Alyson’s jaw felt like it had come unhinged. Ignoring him? What the hell was she talking about? Olivia hung up before she could ask the pertinent question, and as much as she would have liked to call her back, Victoria and Miles chose that moment to return.

  “All set?”

  Alyson looked at Victoria and forced an easygoing smile. “Yep, let’s go!” As they threaded their way through the multitude of people, Alyson examined the bags of goldfish Miles was carrying. “When we get back I’ll see what we have to put them in, and tomorrow I’ll pick up a bowl for them.”

  “Okay, cool.”

  On their way out, Miles managed to talk them into playing a couple more games. They ended up at the bean bag toss, and Miles won her a giant blue and white stuffed ape. At the whack-a-mole, Victoria lost so many rounds that the attendant took pity on her and gave her a Chinese finger trap. They ended up staying far longer than they intended and before they knew it, it was growing dark.

  “Can I get some cotton candy?” Miles asked Alyson.

  “Miles, sweetie, Alyson has already spent way too much on us tonight,” Victoria gently scolded.