Monk by Ivy Black
Chapter Thirteen
Kasey
My lungs are burning, desperate for air, and the muscles in my thighs are on fire. Cramps are threatening to lock up my legs and send me sprawling into the dirt, but I continue pushing myself even harder. My vision is wavering and I’m feeling dizzy.
Metallica’s Battery blasting in my ears, I run like I’m punishing myself. And maybe I am. Though I have no idea what I’m punishing myself for. I didn’t do anything. Well, I didn’t do anything other than freeze up and choke. I’d fantasized about running into Jacob again for so long, even had a speech all planned out in my head. I’d practiced the scathing diatribe I was going to unleash on him over and over again, if I would ever see him again.
But when the time came, I made like a deer in the headlights and basically just stared blankly at him. All of the things I wanted to say, all of the cutting remarks and sarcastic, brutal asides, all of the slings and arrows I’d planned on hurling at him—all went by the wayside. Like an idiot, I stood there practically speechless and scrambling for something—anything—to say.
I run up the trail, dodging around the broad trunks of the trees and doing my best to avoid any of the detritus on the ground that can trip me. The last thing I need is a busted ankle. That will just be the cherry on top.
By the time I make it to the top of the trail, I’m sucking in deep, heaving breaths. My legs are shaking, and I feel like I’m on the verge of passing out. I need to sit down and stagger over to a bench, dropping down heavily onto it. Pulling my backpack off, I pull a bottle of water out and drink deeply, the cold liquid quenching the fire that’s raging in my throat.
I use my wristband to wipe the sweat from my forehead as the dizzy, lightheaded feeling that’s gripping me finally starts to ease. My vision clears, and in the parking lot ahead of me, I see the early morning sun glinting off the black tank and chrome of a large, mean-looking motorcycle. A Harley, I assume. It immediately brings me back to yesterday and the scene with Jacob at the church. The tsunami of emotions that sweep over me threaten to tip me over that edge of rage that has sent me on this suicidal run in the first place.
Thankfully, I don’t think my body can take the punishment again. I feel like I can barely move right now, so running is out of the question.
I’m in pretty good shape. I run regularly. I do yoga. But there’s a universe of difference between a hot room doing yoga poses, running on the flat sidewalks of my old suburban neighborhood, and these steep, pitted mountainous running trails that snake through the forest above Blue Rock Bay.
I pull out my earbuds and take another long swallow of water as my breathing starts to slow. Unfortunately, my heart still feels like it’s about to burst out of my chest, but a little more rest will slow it down. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about my legs, though. Running home is out of the question right now, as far as I’m concerned. Walking is going to be a challenge.
“Moore’s Trail is a pretty rough run. Challenging.”
I whip my head around at the sound of his voice. My eyes widen and my mouth falls open as I stare at him. Jacob is walking toward me, his boots thumping hard on the pavement of the parking lot. My heart lurches, threatening to stop dead in my chest as I stare at him. My mouth opens and closes but no words come out.
I clear my throat and look away, trying to stuff down all of the emotions that are welling up within me. I don’t want him to see them. Don’t want him to see anything. I refuse to give him that power over me. I want to be as blank as a stone. Need to be. I need to show him as little as he showed me yesterday.
The moment he sits down on the other end of the bench—a respectful distance away—I feel my resolve already weakening. It feels like cracks in that dam are already forming faster than I can patch them up. Yeah, I’m a stone all right.
Putting on the best mask of cold indifference and the air of neutrality I can manage, I turn to him.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he replies.
“How’d you know where I was? Are you stalking me or something?”
I feel pleased with myself for remembering. “When you’re pissed off you like to run. And I remember you preferred running in the morning,” he says. “I figured after yesterday that you’d probably be running today.”
I’d be lying to myself if I said the fact that he recalls so much about me is strangely flattering. Small, trivial details like the time of day I prefer to run, while ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of things, still hits an unexpected note within me. I stuff it down ruthlessly, not wanting to give him that much credit. He doesn’t deserve it.
Turning to him, I narrow my eyes and glare at him. “Wow. You sure seem to remember a lot. Except, you know, to tell me you’re going to drop off the face of the earth.”
He looks away and I can tell the venom in my voice strikes a chord with him. Good. I shift on my seat and flex my legs, wanting nothing more than to get up and walk away. But they aren’t cooperating right now, and the pain that radiates through me is searing. I bite my tongue. Hard. And It takes all my will to keep from crying out. I scowl in frustration, feeling like a rat in a trap, unable to wiggle my way out.
Instead of focusing on the pain, I turn my attention to Jacob. Maybe this is my second chance to say everything I wasn’t able to get out yesterday. Maybe this is the Universe throwing me a bone and giving me a second bite of the apple. All I need to do is keep myself calm enough to actually get it all out.
Jacob turns to me, an inscrutable expression on his face. “I thought about it a lot last night. It was pretty much all I thought about, to be honest—”
“Is that supposed to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside?”
He shakes his head. “No. Just telling you that I thought about it. About how… I acted.”
“I’m impressed. You thought about somebody other than yourself for a change.”
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. The frustration in his eyes is as obvious as the nose on his face, but he’s doing his best to keep it reined in. Jacob always had a quicksilver temper, though he never actually turned that on me. But I saw him get into it with others back in the day over minor things. Mostly it was the snotty rich kids at school who mocked him endlessly for his home life. Like it was his fault that his parents liked to get high and smack him around. They screwed with him relentlessly, and I saw him get into more than a few fights about it.
“I know you’re pissed. And you have every right to be. I get it,” he said.
“Thank you for your permission to be pissed. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”
I know I’m being petty and sound like a wounded teenage girl even to my own ears. But I can’t seem to stop myself from spewing all of this childish angst all over him. It’s like it’s all been stored up deep inside all this time, and seeing Jacob yesterday shook it all up. Now, it’s just exploding like an out-of-control champagne bottle, and I can’t put the cork back in.
This is all pointless. There’s no sense in rehashing everything that happened more than a decade ago. But dammit, I think I’m entitled to some answers. I think I deserve them.
“You’re married,” he notes.
“Seriously… have you been stalking me? How could you possibly know that?”
“Tan line around your ring finger,” he replies as he points at my hand.
I smile at her ruefully and pull hard on the end of my ponytail. Walked right into that one.
“Brownie points for being observant,” I spit, trying to save a little face.
“Had to be when I was in Afghanistan,” he replies. “If I wasn’t observant, I would’ve ended up dead.”
I don’t know if he mentioned being in Afghanistan to try and drum up a little sympathy with me, or just as a statement of fact. Looking at his cold, emotionless face, I decide it’s the latter. Judging by the way he’s looking at me, I think sympathy is the last thing he wants from me. That, of course, raises the real question in my mind.
“So, what do you want, Jacob? Why did you go to all the trouble of tracking me down here?”
“Wasn’t all that much trouble—”
“Stop it. Just stop it,” I hiss. “I don’t want to hear your little jokes. Don’t want to hear your cute, snappy little retorts. Get to the point. What in the hell do you want from me?”
“I wanted to talk. I wanted to… explain,” he says.
“Don’t you think it’s a little late for that?”
He shrugs. “If it’s a little late for me to offer an explanation, then it was a little late when you asked me for an explanation yesterday, don’t you think?”
I bite back the scream that’s bubbling up in my throat. Jacob is beyond frustrating. He’s always been able to turn my logic back around on me—he’s been doing it since we were kids—and it drives me absolutely nuts as much now as it did back then, maybe even more so.
“Fine. So, explain yourself,” I say, my voice thick with exasperation.
“I was hoping we could do it somewhere a little more… civilized.”
He’s dressed in blue jeans, black harness boots, a black t-shirt, and his leather biker vest—looking like he’s just walked off the set of Sons of Anarchy—and he’s talking about being civilized?
“What’s wrong with talking here?” I ask.
“Because I’m pretty sure your legs are about to start cramping up somethin’ fierce and you’re not going to be in any condition to talk. And there’s a lot that needs to be said.”
My head is spinning, and it feels like the world is tilting on its axis right now. To go from being completely ghosted more than a decade ago, being bitter as hell about it all this time, to now having him not only drop back into my life but asking me to have coffee with him? It’s surreal.
I will have to say that he is right about one thing, though. There is a lot to be said. Or more specifically, I have a lot to say. This chance probably isn’t going to come around again if I don’t seize it. And it will be nice to be able to unleash my screed when I’m not in as much agony as I’m in right now.
“Fine. But let me make it perfectly clear. I’m going to talk. You’re going to shut up and listen. I don’t want to hear your sarcasm and I don’t want to hear your snark. Understand?” I say.
He nods. “Understood.”
“Fine. Give me your number and I’ll text you the details.”
He takes my phone and puts his information in for me, then hands it back. He gets to his feet and gives me a nod, then turns and starts to head off. He takes a few steps away then turns back.
“Why don’t I give you a ride back to your place?” he offers.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Really? Because I can tell you’ve been sitting there trying to not scream this whole time. You sure you want to take that walk back home? It’s what, five miles or so from here?”
As if responding to his voice—and betraying me—my thighs start to twitch, sending a jolt of pain through me. Yeah, the cramping is coming, and it’s probably not a good idea to let my pride get in the way. No matter how angry I am.
“Fine. Thank you,” I say.
He laughs softly to himself and steps back, helping me to my feet. Jacob paces me as he leads me over to his bike, handing me a spare helmet he keeps in his saddlebag. After buckling it on, throwing my leg over the bike is an exercise in agony. Jacob is doing his best to avoid laughing, and I feel like slapping that smirk off his face.
“Ready?” he asks as he climbs on in front of me.
“Yes. Let’s get this over with.”
His laughter is drowned out by the throaty rumble of his bike as he fires it up. The vibration is powerful and runs through me, feeling like it’s rattling every bone in my body and shamefully making me tingle in my more intimate areas.
“Hold on,” he calls over the engine.
I’m not a fan of motorcycles. They’re dangerous as far as I’m concerned. But I have to admit—if only to myself—that this is far preferable to a five-mile walk home. I lean forward and wrap my arms around him, the leather of his vest surprisingly soft as I lay my cheek upon his back.
Jacob has always been a strong, muscular guy. He used to work out relentlessly when he was playing sports back in school. But as I slide my hands around him, he feels different. His muscles—his entire body—are harder. Even more toned than he was before. It’s difficult to explain, but he was “softer” back then. Now, he’s all hard angles and planes. He’s fully grown into his body, that’s for sure.
Giving my head a shake, I push all those thoughts away as he takes off out of the parking lot. I focus on staying balanced and not falling off. It makes me cling to him even harder. Closing my eyes, I try to stop thinking about how his body feels beneath my hands. But then, my mind turns to the power of the engine rumbling through every inch of my body. Frustrated that I can’t seem to control myself, I grit my teeth and try to stop thinking about all of the different emotions and sensations coursing through me.
And when I climb off, my body still vibrating, I embarrassingly realize I’m warm and wet—and not all of it is because of the bike.
“Call me,” he says.
Before I can reply—perhaps even thankful that I can’t—he revs his engine and roars off, leaving me standing there, the insides of my thighs slick and the yearning in my heart—along with other places south of my belt line—beginning to wake.
“Yeah, I’m a real stone,” I grumble.
