Real

I’m flashed back to all those nights he came for me in my room, with those darkened eyes, and kissed me senseless until morning. “But he told me remembered some things?” I say hopefully.

“Sometimes he does, but sometimes he doesn’t. The point is, he can’t trust himself to know for sure what he did when he was black.”

Which is why he’s been trying to be so careful with me…

My insides go mushy all over.

“So who told Riley, then?”

“I told Riley. I had to hire an extra so I could take a day off. Otherwise I’d come back and Rem would’ve gotten himself in shitloads of trouble. Coach also knows about it, of course, and Diane suspects something is up, but she doesn’t know the actual term of what he has. She just think he’s moody.”

Sighing at that, Pete pours himself some more coffee. “I helped him sign off the ward the moment he could. I’d just quit, and he told me he wanted to go see his parents, and he’d pay me if I gave him a lift. So I agreed.” Anger slashes across Pete’s face as he returns to his seat. “But the parents wanted nothing to do with him. They were scared at the mere sight of him. Shit, you should’ve seen the drama. The mother started crying, the father told Rem they wanted to live in peace, and Rem just stood there. I could see him struggling for words. I don’t know if he wanted to beg them for a chance or not, but he didn’t say anything. They all but slammed the door in his face. So we left, and Remy started fighting for money. He was so good, so he got into pro boxing and hired me full time as his assistant. He got a house in Austin and took another shot with the folks, and when at last his parents seemed to be pleased with his growing fame, they invited him to dinner. But it was the weekend the competition provoked him, and they hired some asshole to follow him out of a match. Remy has a short fuse even when he’s in a normal mood.”

My coffee has grown cold, so I also go and fix myself a new one as I process all of this. Pete continues when he watches me sit down.

“So he got kicked out, and the parents never showed up at the restaurant.” He sighs while I sit here, both of us sad and hurting for Remy, then he adds, “It doesn’t sound much, what he told you, Brooke. But living with it can get difficult.”

His eyes bore into the top of my head, and I know he’s gauging me. I can feel the question in his eyes almost as if he’d spoken it. He’s worried about me leaving Remington. And I don’t know what guarantee I can give anyone, especially when I have no idea what to expect from his bipolar-ness. But I know I want to stay. I really do.

“He tried to go to college too,” Pete offers. “But he couldn’t finish a degree, was always getting into fights. With any provocation, the guy charges, and he kept introducing his knuckles to anyone at school he thought deserved it.”

“Was that where he met Riley?”

“Not on the other side of his knuckles, no.” He laughs, his eyes sparkling for a moment. “Rem actually stood up for Riley. Riley wasn’t the charming young man you see now when he was in college.” He winks playfully. “He was like me. Both geeks, I tell you. Neither of us were all that cool. But Remy was the coolest bad boy ever. Everyone wanted a piece of him, especially the women. He’d get them all over him, all day, and even the guys would follow, especially when he’s getting high. Excesses abound when he’s in his beginning black days. Alcohol, women, adrenaline, adventure.”

“He was actually under intense scrutiny all those years at the psych ward because of the eye color change,” he adds. “It’s not uncommon for BPs to have it, but it’s rare. Two conflicting gene expressions, and varying when one is triggered and the other is shut down. We have cocky, confident Remy, and black Remy. Black Remy still has a good heart, but he’s not reasonable. He’s not mean and certainly not evil. But he’s unpredictable and violent, and tends to destroy things, even himself. He flies high and then crashes low. This time you saw his low, it wasn’t nearly as bad as his other lows. Somehow Riley and I felt maybe it was because you kept him interested. He seemed to want to see you and kept coming out at least for that.”

“Pete, how can I help him?” I ask helplessly, pushing my coffee aside and giving him my full attention. “Please tell me how to help him, I get sick thinking of you using that stupid shit you shoot up his veins again.”

He sighs and tugs on his perfect black tie, loosening it a little. “I just don’t know with you, Brooke, but I know you’re a game changer. He’s never gone after someone the way he went after you, but even then, I can’t stop using it. Remy … his whole life is waiting for the other shoe to drop. You have to understand what it’s like that his normal side sometimes doesn’t remember what the black one does. There have been instances when police come knocking to his door, telling him he just broke into a liquor store and robbed it, and he’d be, “No fucking way I’ve been in bed all night,” and they go, “Sir, the liquor is still in your car.”

“Seriously?” I blink at that.

He nods somberly. “He fears he’s going to get black, then wake up blue and you will be gone. Because he did something to hurt you.”

I think of how important my contract of three months working for him had seemed. And remember the night he went crazy, yelling at Pete and Riley where the fuck I was, and what had they told me about him?

Somehow the realization makes me feel warm and claimed once more.

“Everything bad happens to Remington when he’s black,” Pete adds with a clatter of his empty coffee. “He wakes up and finds he was kicked out of boxing. Last time he bet all his money and woke up to find that if he loses this season, he’ll end up with very little to stand on. Riley and I try to get him in control, but he’s a handful. He’s too strong and too damn stubborn. And now, there’s you. I don’t know if you’re good for him, or the worst kind of Achilles’ heel there is to him. But it’s not our choice, is it? Remington wants you.”

Pete’s words roll inside my head as I stare off into the peach-colored hotel wallpaper. It’s taking me time to absorb all of this information. I don’t know what it is to love someone like this. My life in Seattle awaits … Melanie … my parents. I’ve got at least one more month, and I want to spend every second I can with him. I just love him more with every bit that I learn. He’s complicated and complex, a labyrinth I want to lose myself in. He’s my fighter, and I really want to fight to be with him.

But I just don’t know what I’m going to have to fight against. If it’s some fear in me … some fear in him … or that black side of him.

“I want him badly too,” I tell Pete, patting his shoulder. “So much I might shoot some shit up your veins if you keep shooting him up with that, you know?”

He laughs.

And I carry my empty cup to the sink, wash it, then fiddle around with some breakfast items, and send a text to Melanie telling her:

The earth moved. Yes! It was that freakingfuckingtastic OMG!!!!!!!!!!!

And finally, just before ten a.m. and before Riley comes to molest us, I go back to bed and lock myself in with him. Setting a tall glass I brought him on the nightstand, I lean over his naked form and murmur, while my heart and my sex organs swell up with his nearness, “Get up, you sexy piece of man ass.”

Then I grab Remy’s sexy ass and squeeze those rocks and clench my teeth because I want to bite them, he’s so frickin’ juicy and hot.

“I’m not Diane, but this used to be the breakfast of champions before the champion tore her ACL and shot her knee to hell. Now you get her services in bed, consisting of all sugary treats for this—” I squeeze his biceps, “—and this—” I slide my hand over his abs, “—and this.” I tap his lovely head and his mesmerizing maze of a brain.

Suddenly I realize if it weren’t for that double accident, I wouldn’t be here. With this man. And it’s the first time I realize I might not only be glad, but grateful, that the universe redirected me in my path.

His sexy voice is muffled by the pillow. “Why are you bringing me breakfast in bed?”

I slap his bum, and his flesh doesn’t move one whit. “Because you look like my every fantasy and feeding you gets all my juices going. It’s a female thing. Come on, drink.”

He sits up, squinting those baby blues, and grabs the glass. It’s a protein shake made of dates and I am so wild about dates. They taste like caramel and I can eat about two dozen in a sitting when I get my period and get that unstoppable hunger.

“That's so fucking good,” he says, and then tips the glass back for more.

I grin and watch him drink the rest, feeling warm all over. I love how well he eats, really clean. His body likes him for it, and so does his skin. I’ve never seen Remy eat junk food. Even when he’s pigging out in room service, it’s vegetables and fish or meat for him. I don't think he likes treats. It shows discipline and responsibility with his body, and I admire it. His fighting is aggressive to his cells and demanding to his ATP, which is the source of energy the cells produce, and I love that he feeds himself correctly right after. He’s an athlete in heart, mind, and body, and it’s incredibly hot to me.

My phone pings while he downs the last, and the message is actually Melanie’s answer to the text I sent while blending the shake. Figuring she must be running this morning without me, I set it aside to answer later. “It’s Melanie, my friend. She’s excited that there’s been some action between tua and mua.” I grin.

He laughs, the sound rich and awesome, then he sobers, his eyes so tender on my face my insides go mush. “You miss her?”

I nod and want to tell him that she knows Nora also, and that she’s like my shrink, but suddenly he pounces out of the room, so I start gathering my athletic gear, when he returns.

“Tell her to present herself at the Southwest counter, with the code on this paper. There’s a ticket under her name so she can meet us in Chicago. I’ll take care of her room.”

“No!” I say in pure thrilled disbelief.

His answering two dimples go straight to curl my toes.

“Remy, I…”

I don’t know what I want to say, but actually I do.

I want this man to know that I am absolutely wild about him, and I’m not going to quit as soon as it gets steep. But I’m too afraid of being the only one to say something so … lasting.

If I say the L word, what will it mean for my future? I want him concentrated. I want my fighter to win. And I want him to say the L word to me not because he heard it first, but because deep in his inner complicated emotional world, he’s certain that he feels this for me.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask instead.

One dark eyebrow plucks upward as he comes over with his two dimples. “Why do you think?” He kisses my ear and whispers, in my hair, “Because your ass looks great in those tight pants you wear. It’s a guy thing.”