We leave Lucas to go to the bar and head off in the opposite direction. She keeps her book close while we walk.
“There’s a bakery up here.” I indicate the direction we should go. “One that serves baked treats in the shape of naughty body parts, but that’s not why we’re going there.”
“It isn’t?” She raises an eyebrow at me and then she laughs. And it’s almost as carefree as that first night at the club. Like we’re friends. Like we’ve known each other a long time and this is who we have always been.
“The coffee is the best around. And you look like you could use a break. Was it Lucas’s dumb question or are you not feeling well?”
“A little of both,” she says as I usher her into a building where all the bricks have been painted a deep, bright blue.
Inside, the walls are striped white and pink along the top half, while the bottom half is a deep raspberry color. White tables and chairs fill most of the space and cases full of exquisitely pornographic cupcakes are on display behind them.
A guy in his early twenties leans against the counter beside the coffee machine. He’s reading a magazine but looks up when we enter.
“Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll order the drinks?” I gesture at the closest table then pull out a chair so that she can sit. “How do you like your coffee?”
“Actually.” She puts the book on the table but goes straight back to touching her belly. “I’ll have water. With ice if possible.”
“Do you want anything else? A boob cupcake? A dick cake pop? I hear cock and carbs are a girl’s best friend.”
She laughs and eyes the display case like she’s considering. But then she sinks back in the chair. “I can’t. Gray found all these articles about how fasting while doing chemo can help tumors shrink faster and protect healthy cells… He brought it up with the doctor and he figured it couldn’t hurt to try… so we’re doing that. I’m starving and I miss food, but Gray will miss me more, so I don’t have the heart to tell him that I want a damn pastry.”
I order a coffee for me and an ice water for Indy, then pick out a few cupcakes for the guys at the bar. And then I pick out one for Indy to take home with her because she has to eat some time. And surely her fiancé wouldn’t begrudge her the creamy sweetness of a chocolate dick pop.
Taking the boxes back to the table I hand her the single cake. “Taste test for your wedding cake.”
“We’ve ordered with St. Pierre.” She flips open the box and blushes when she sees what is inside. “But thank you.”
“St. Pierre, huh? The man is a legend.”
“He’s talented,” she says.
“He’s a pastry chef god. Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I binge his show on TV. But he’s no Dolly and herpink bitscakes.” I stretch out one finger and push the box another inch toward her. “You only get to lick the cream out of a dick pop once.”
“I’ll take it home.” She stows the box in her bag. “Thank you.”
I settle back in my chair. Link my hands together in my lap and stretch out my legs. “So how are you going with treatment?”
“Uh… not great.” Her face grows pinched. “I’m on chemo pills. Then there’s the drugs to suppress the tumor’s growth, and the drugs that will hopefully shrink it. The drugs to help with the nausea, and the ones that help with the pain. I practically rattle when I walk, and I’m exhausted all the time. I’m so sick most of the time that I don’t even care that I don’t eat.”
Her interest swings to the other pink box still on the table between us, and I can’t quite believe, even with the constant unsettled stomach, that she wants to ditch food to make her fiancé happy.
“You’re not wearing your leather jacket.” She runs her gaze over my torso and heat creeps up my neck. “But you are wearing a shirt. I honestly suspected you didn’t own any.”
I pluck at the lightweight cotton, stretching it in the process. It has the logo of the bar on it. “Work uniform. No doubt, I’ll lose it later.”
“Another night of debauchery?” Her eyes light up with amusement.
Our drinks come. Mine scalding, bitter, and extra strong because I have a long shift ahead of me. Hers, tinkling in the glass when she stirs it with a straw.
I frown at my cup. “Distracting myself.”
“I’m sorry.” She plays with that ring on her finger. It twirls, it’s so loose. Does she worry that she’ll lose her engagement ring? That it will slip off when she isn’t paying attention? “I shouldn’t have asked. It’s none of my business.”
I could explain to her how I stumbled into underground fighting. I could tell her that I couldn’t sleep, or eat, or breathe and that I was in constant fucking agony. That I found getting in the cage and lashing out was the one thing that curbed my anger and my pain. That it numbed me enough to function like a robot.
I could tell her that the girls that came with it became a drug. That for a little while each night I get lost in the chase. That coupled with the booze and the drugs, I can pretend that I’m somewhere else until the past all comes crushing down on me.
But then she’d worry about Gray, and what he’ll do when she’s gone, and he can’t bear the pain. She thinks I have no regrets, when all I have are regrets. “What does Gray do?”
