Текст книги "These Battered Hands"

Автор книги: Laurel Ulen Curtis

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

“I was never a hothead,” he justified, “but I sure as hell wasn’t good.”

I laughed to myself, tucking my face into his chest before tilting it up with my chin against his collar to look at him. “I guess you are the coach who seduced his athlete,” I noted, not really believing it for a second.

He cringed slightly. “Okay, maybe I had it backwards. I was a decent human being before I met you. Then I started preying on innocent—”

“Stop!” I laughed, shoving his chest enough to make his body rock back.

“Come on,” he whispered, letting a smirk creep back onto his previously fake-distraught face. “Let’s just go for a ride.”

I nodded furiously, my agreement overwhelming my ability to give a normal response.

I wanted to just settle in and be close to him for a little while, feel the coziness of him seep straight into me, and I didn’t feel like being in one spot.

I wanted to move and live and flit and wander.

And I wanted to do it with him.

“Calia,” my dad called from the kitchen as I crept into the house that night.

It was starting to become a routine, the creeping and sneaking followed shortly by the scare of my life.

I had to think that one of these times my heart would actually go into palpitations.

As it was, I’d been lucky enough to keep it to a practice of skipping a beat or two.

“Hey, dad,” I greeted back, turning the corner to see him sitting at the table going over some sort of paperwork. “What’s up?”

His eyes met mine quickly before bouncing back down to the surface of the table in front of him. His reading glasses sat perched at the end of his nose, so I figured he was in the middle of something important.

“You don’t need to come in early in the morning. I have some paperwork and meetings to take care of, so you can just come in in the afternoon for your workout, okay?”

“Are you sure you don’t need help?” I asked, wanting to butter him up now for the day when I told him I wasn’t everything he wanted me to be. If I ever got the courage.

“I’m sure.”

“Okay,” I smiled, thinking I could text Nik or go by his apartment in my free time so we could get together again in the morning. Free time was a commodity, especially these days, and I wanted to use it.

As I turned to leave, my dad burst my bubble.

“Actually, maybe you wouldn’t mind helping your mother bake a few dozen cookies for a team gift? Since you have the morning off?”

His meaning was clear, and his words, despite the phrasing, weren’t a question.

“Sure,” I agreed, slightly disappointed but accepting all the same. I’d see Nik when I went in for practice in the afternoon and that would have to be enough.

Turning to go upstairs, he called me back once more.

“Whoops, almost forgot, Cal. Sign this real quick.”

“What is it?” I asked, no stranger to my dad handling paperwork for meets and endorsement offers and the like.

“Just something for the Olympic committee.”

“Oh, okay.”

I grabbed the pen off the table and daydreamed about Nik.

And at least we’d had—

Today.

I felt rejuvenated in my purpose, and I planned to use all of the hours provided to help Callie find her form.

She’d told me she’d had trouble concentrating at camp without me there, and as much as I enjoyed the flattery, I hated that that was the case.

I wanted success for her every day whether I was there or not and the training for that would start today.

I tucked my helmet into the saddle bag, snapped it closed, and walked with a bounce in my step to the front door and through it.

My mind a tunnel of focus, I paid little attention to anything and everyone else and headed straight for the bathroom to change.

“Nik,” Frank called from his open office door, stopping me in my tracks with surprise.

“Yes, sir?” I asked, turning to face him but not changing the direction of my lower body.

I didn’t want to give him the idea that I wanted to stay and chat, but I could hardly disregard him either.

His eyes narrowed.

“Come in here, please.”

“Okay,” I agreed, pointing to the gym. “I’ll just go tell—”

“She’s not here,” he interrupted, waving me toward the office with large, snappy swing of his hand.

My eyes shrunk and pulled together at once, knowing by the tone of his voice and Callie’s absence that something was up. I just didn’t know what yet.

Dread boiled like hot lava in my stomach, coating the inside and slowly sliding its way out in an attempt to take over everything. My breath caught before I could answer, half wondering if I was ready for what waited beyond his door.

We’d had meetings before, but this one felt notably different. It felt ominous and obscure, and I wasn’t sure if that feeling was completely contrived or a vivid depiction of my intuition.

Whatever it was, it wouldn’t wait.

It wouldn’t disappear or change, and the best thing I could do for my nerves and sanity was get it over with.

“Okay,” I finally agreed, turning and heading for his office right then.

He stood in the door as I entered, shutting it resolutely behind me and rounding the desk.

“Sit,” he ordered.

Slowly, I sat.

Moments passed with nothing but the muted sounds of a full gym whispering through the glass and the whirring of his desk fan behind him filling the air.

I wasn’t sure if he was trying to force my hand with the stress of the wait, but it wasn’t a good plan for me. I didn’t plan to say one fucking word unless prompted.

“You know, Nik, I brought you here because the prospect of having someone of your caliber coaching in our gym was beyond appealing,” he finally started, clasping his hands over the tent of elbows on his desk.

I didn’t like where this was going. Sure, his words were mostly positive, but the tone…well, it was not.

It leached acid and spewed disdain and spit out a healthy dose of accusation just in case the first two weren’t enough.

“I thought you’d be able to relate to Callie, help her learn to listen and apply what her coaches enforced.”

“Yes, sir.” And I thought I’d done a pretty damn good job. She’d been better than ever at the Olympic Trials and every day besides, her practices in the gym as well as her performance on the world stage a testament to how well my coaching style jived with her talent.

“If she could listen to you, I figured she’d listen to me and her National Coaches.”

I didn’t move, didn’t speak because, to me, there was nothing to say.

He was talking about her like a dog or a child, a basic skill set like listening and obeying something to be learned instead of accepted, and Callie sure as hell wasn’t either of those.

I could see his jaw hardening in time with my own, his inference and my non-response pushing each other’s most sensitive buttons.

When the tension broke, he finally put it all out there. “I didn’t give you permission to date her.”

Leaning forward slowly, I settled my elbows onto the arms of the chair and linked my steady hands together.

“All due respect, sir,” I enunciated clearly, slowing down each word to make sure there was no confusion or misunderstanding when it came to my answer.

“But I didn’t ask for it.”

The rubber band on his cool snapped, bringing his body up and over the flat top of his desk until all of his imposing weight leaned viciously into his hands.

“Doesn’t consent mean anything to you?” he asked, angry, his veins standing out in his neck and a purple hue under-lighting the thin layer of skin.

“It means everything to me,” I told him honestly, staying in my seat to appear as far away from confrontational as possible given the circumstances. I didn’t want to be disrespectful, but I did want to prove my point. And I wouldn’t settle for agreeing to something I didn’t think was right.

“And Callie gave me one hundred percent of hers.”

That’s not what he meant though. For him, Callie’s permission and his were one and the same—but only when the order came from him.

His thoughts were written in the mottled purple splotches across his face and chest, and the inky abstract of their illustration read like a murder mystery novel where I was the victim and he was the killer.

“That’s—” he started to yell.

“And I’m sorry, sir,” I interrupted, “but when it comes to a relationship between me and your daughter, her happiness is the only kind that matters.”

I don’t know what I expected, but I know it was infinitely more positive.

To me, my reasoning was sound. Completely bulletproof in its simplicity and beneficial to Frank as the first man who had loved her.

But what I thought and what was weren’t one in the same, the mood and atmosphere in an already struggling room doing nothing but tanking.

“Well, it’s done,” he declared as though he had final say. Like what he said, went—period.

But I wasn’t his daughter, and I hadn’t spent my life trying to please him. I wouldn’t go so easily.

“It’s not,” I disagreed calmly, telling him the truth and admitting to my intentions all in one painful shot.

“I’m telling you it’s done,” he reiterated, and I finally lost a little bit of my cool.

“I got that, sir. And I’m sorry, but I don’t give a fuck. It’s not done. And it probably never will be.”

He sighed deep and heavy, before grabbing a piece of paper off of his desk and shoving it toward me.

I read over it quickly, and the gist had me about ready to lose my shit.

“A letter to the Olympic committee about misconduct?”

He said nothing.

“What in the fuck good would this do you? It’s the exact thing you claim to be trying to avoid!”

“You’re right. That’s where you come in.”

I heaved an angry breath and moved my fist open and closed, trying to calm some of the rage. My normal even keel was slipping away piece by piece thanks to what I now had no doubts would be the worst fucking father-in-law on the planet.

“If you go, there won’t be a letter, there won’t be anything. Nothing but success and the unheard of achievement of three Olympic games for Callie. But if you stay, with the way she’s running around with her head lost in you, this is going to happen one way or the other. At least this way,” he said, shaking the paper in front of my face, “is on my terms.”

I’d never wanted to punch a man so badly in my life, my normal instinct to reason completely overwhelmed by a need for a fight.

But it wouldn’t do anyone any good for me to fight it now.

Most of all, it wouldn’t do any good for Callie.

“Blackmail?” I asked, unwilling to believe he’d treat the fate of his daughter so callously and impersonally. I wanted to believe I was missing something, that there was some other clause he’d kept just to protect her.

His simple shrug said there wasn’t. “Whatever it takes.”

My hands shook as I looked out the window into the large space of the gym, unbridled, never before matched fury rattling the ends of my bones together and heating my normally cool blood to a boil.

Unaware of the conversation on our side, gymnasts and coaches smiled and laughed and carried on with their days. All the while, my world spun out of control.

I felt sick to my stomach, truly moments away from throwing up every last spoonful of the oatmeal I’d had for breakfast, the whole dirty thing screaming of poor decisions and unintended consequences.

I knew there was no clean break to this scenario, no get out of ramification free card, and no going back to the way things were.

I could only move forward, and the ugly choices presented to me didn’t make accepting that easy.

But, as the hamster in my mind spun and spun on its wheel, my heart had to step up and make the decision for it. And only one thing felt right.

After everything I’d witnessed today and up until this point, only one person deserved to make this decision and it wasn’t me and it sure as fuck wasn’t the dirtbag in front of me.

It was Callie. The one who had the most to lose and gain and a hand in most of the variables.

My instinct was to protect her, sure, but by doing so, I’d be doing her the same disservice as her father.

I swallowed thickly, clenching my jaw and keeping my eyes averted from his face.

I couldn’t even stand to look at him.

“It’s up to her,” I murmured, knowing that talking to her about this would be my only chance to come up with some other solution.

“She’s already agreed,” he said simply, the words echoing in the room like three individual gunshots.

Each one, a direct. Fucking. Hit.

Another sheet of paper shoved out in front of me. Blood started to seep from the holes, shock the only thing keeping me alive for the time being.

“That’s why she isn’t here,” he explained. “She’s agreed to my terms, agreed not to see you until the Olympics and any and all endorsement deals that follow are through.”

My teeth ground into my jaw and the sounds of the gym turned toxic. Tears threatened, and if Frank hadn’t been there watching me, I probably would have let them flow.

“She’s worked her whole life for this, Nik. She cares about you, that much is obvious, but she didn’t want to have to face you with this choice,” he reasoned with saccharine sincerity. “Make it easy on her.”

I took the page from his hands with a rip, studying the lines of her name at the bottom and willing it not to be so. But those were her curves of script, her lines and loops and cute dots above each ‘i’. She’d written her name in the chalk on the mats and in the sand at our beach enough times for me to know.

I wasn’t mad at her.

God, I wanted to be.

It would have been easier and infinitely less messy for my heart.

But instead, I was just broken.

After everything that had happened between us, all of the push and pull that we’d fought and shoved through until this point, I’d thought we were past this. Yesterday, that work and fight felt justified. She’d given me real emotion and connection, and she hadn’t held back. The metaphorical parking lot had been entered, and the “Don’t Back Up Or Die” spikes were fully engaged.

I’d read the Warning Sign, but I couldn’t stop myself from being pushed back across them without consent.

My emotions were shredded nonetheless.

I understood the things that were at stake and the pressure she felt to live up to each and every one of them.

I got it.

I just wanted and hoped and believed the solution was going to come from a different direction than this.

My heart ached at the lack of a goodbye, but I knew with the way I was feeling, it probably was for the best.

He shoved a nearly identical agreement meant for me in front of the other one, and I was helpless to do anything to stop it.

“I’ll sign,” I barely whispered, the effort to squeeze any words through my throat, let alone those, greater than any physical challenge I’d ever faced.

I grabbed a pen from his desk, took the piece of paper, and did it without looking back as a furious and unrelenting sting attacked my nose. My tongue felt too big for my mouth, and I choked on the thickness of my saliva, but I ignored it.

The longer I lingered the harder it’d be, and if there was one thing I was interested in doing, it was making things easier for Callie.

“Good,” Frank muttered as I finished, grabbing the paper from my hands and putting it behind him on his desk. “Now get the hell out of my gym.”

“Gladly, sir.”

I pictured my dad’s hand on my shoulder, guiding me through one of the toughest moments I’d ever faced as a man.

A moment where I wanted more than anything to let all my anger out through punches and slurs and the behavior of a boy.

A moment where, for Callie, I needed to be a—

Good man.

It took twenty-six years and basically no looking—but I’d found one.

He’d practically fallen straight into my lap, and what a good thing that was since I had absolutely no time or prospects for meeting him or anyone else otherwise.

I was feeling good as I walked into the gym that afternoon, three batches of cookies baked contributing to a healthy amount of raw dough consumed.

It supposedly wasn’t good for you, and my father certainly didn’t approve, but I’d enjoyed every second of it.

Glancing back at Nik’s empty spot in the parking lot, I wondered what was keeping him.

As the glass door swung closed behind me, I hitched my bag higher on my shoulder and headed straight toward the locker room to put my things away.

A few of the homeschooled gymnasts were scattered about the apparatuses, pointing and flexing and running at full speed depending on where they were.

Just when I got to the edge of the half wall that separated the front-of-house from the floor, my dad’s head popped out of his office door.

“Cal?”

His face was an unreadable mask.

“Yeah, Dad?” I asked, wondering how he’d known I was here so quickly.

“Come in here, would you?” he told me while pretending to ask.

Eager to get it over with and knowing Nik wasn’t there, I changed directions and headed directly into his office. I couldn’t imagine what he wanted and the last thing I felt like doing was having a sit down with my dad. My good mood would surely be ruined by all of the things I should be doing.

He shut the door behind me, gestured that I should sit down, and leaned up against the wood edge of his desk.

The fake leather of the chair I sank into was warm to the touch, and the air in the room felt oppressively hot.

My heartbeat sped up to compensate for the extra energy used to cool myself down, and I had to choke my way through several shallow breaths.

His eyes were watchful and assessing, and I got the distinct impression that his mood for this particular talk was anything but warm and fuzzy.

“What’s going on?” I asked when he didn’t say anything.

“Why don’t you tell me, Calia,” he said, using the full version of my name how parents tended to do when you were in trouble.

Searching my mind, I tried to put together some sort of a progress report, but it was hard when I didn’t know what I was looking for. “I don’t—”

“Sleeping with your coach!” he interrupted with a boom.

I shot back in my chair as though I’d been slapped.

While I sat stagnant, tongue-tied with surprise and the absolute worst kind of dread, he was the one to find his voice again first.

“Do you have any idea what kind of scandal this would be?” His voice was quiet in volume but sinister in intensity and meaning.

I tried to form words, to defend myself and Nik, but nothing I had to say happened fast enough.

“You’d be ruined,” he declared in my silent void. “The media would turn it into a fucking circus. You’d be slut-shamed and he’d be labeled an opportunist weasel. You might even be kicked off the Olympic team for misconduct, I don’t know.”

They couldn’t do that. Could they?

I didn’t know the exact rules, but I couldn’t imagine that a consensual relationship between two of-age adults was grounds for legal action. But the truth was, I really didn’t know. I knew what I thought everyone would think all along, that it was inappropriate and a precedent for crossing a very technically tricky line, but I had no clue when it came to the actual ramifications of our relationship from a rulebook standpoint.

My mind reeled and roiled, and my stomach’s behavior wasn’t far behind.

I felt sick, like I could ralph right there, right on the floor at his feet, and when I thought it couldn’t get worse it did.

Fear, foreboding and powerful, washed over me at the realization that Nik’s absence was so out of the ordinary, so unlike him, so something he wouldn’t do.

Not today, not any day, and not unless he hadn’t had some kind of choice.

“What’d you do to make him go?” I whispered, knowing it had to be true.

Knowing he wouldn’t have left unless he’d been forced to. Counting on it and waiting for confirmation because I needed it.

“Nothing.” My dad’s voice was like a whip, meant to lash and sting with every strike. “I explained the options, and he chose to go.”

“No,” I whispered, not believing that everything we’d been through, everything I knew about him, and all the things he’d helped me learn about myself could culminate in something as hypocritical as this.

He would have spoken to me. I knew he would have.

I shook my head, swallowed roughly, and blinked at a rapid pace. “He would have—”

A paper landed in my lap, unwelcome, just as my dad’s words overpowered my own.

“He signed an agreement, Cal. No contact with you whatsoever until the games and any subsequent contracts are through.”

I shook my head as I looked at his name, staring at me mockingly from the bottom.

My dad softened his voice and squatted down in front of me.

“Look at it this way. He obviously cares about your future a little, agreeing to start over so you won’t have to.”

Disbelief and hysteria swirled just under the surface until I couldn’t stand to sit still any longer.

When I jumped up, it forced my dad out of the way, his back hitting the edge of his desk, but that didn’t slow me down as I grabbed for my phone from my bag and pulled it out frantically.

I jogged out of the office without another word, my father calling my name behind me as I went and my hands shaking violently all the way.

I didn’t stop, unwilling to compromise and unwilling to believe Nik wouldn’t be waiting on the other end of my call.

Pushing send as I shoved out the main door into the parking lot, I brought the phone to my ear and listened to it ring in time with a series of full body shudders.

Four rings and a click left nothing but disappointment to greet me on the other end.

From the top of my head to the bottom of my soles, every inch of my body felt alone and cold in a way it never had.

Because now I knew what it was like to have it.

And you never truly missed something until it was—