Page 93 of After Midnight

He glances down at the one inked across his ribs. It’s a raven with torn wings, feathers drifting down, some of them catching fire as they fall. I try not to frown at it.

“Yeah,” he says, offering no further explanation—not that I expected him to. But he’s obviously in a mood to make this difficult.

“What’s it mean?” I ask.

He shoots me a look, part annoyed and part humored. His lips quirk up on one side. “Nothing. It’s just a tat.”

All his tattoos have meanings; he told me that one night after he’d swallowed too much liquor and was in a rare sentimental mood. But I don’t remind him of it now. It’d just piss him off.

The two men finish their sparring match in the practice ring. Thinking this might be my only chance to get Lucas to talk, I say, “I’ll let you kick my ass in the ring if you tell me what the hell’s going on with you.”

His gaze meets mine, sharp and assessing, jaw flexing as he seems to consider it. Then he shrugs one shoulder, and his lips quirk slightly in the corner. “Fine.”

As soon as we crawl into the ring, gloves on, I feel like I’ve made a bad decision. Lucas has kicked my ass enough times for me to definitely have learned my lesson. But fighting is one of the only things that seems to bring him out of his shell, and if that’s what it takes to get him to talk, I’ll do it.

We bump gloves, then take our fighting stances. My bare toes grip the cool mat underfoot.

I might be bigger than Lucas, but he’s a hell of a lot faster than me, and he actually knows what he’s doing. He feints, then lands a jab to my ribs that makes me draw a sudden breath and stumble back. I know how Lucas fights when he means to hurt, and he’s not fighting like that now. His punches are controlled, reined in, and each one he lands hits just hard enough to hurt without seriously injuring me. I’ll definitely be bruised tonight though.

I’m lucky enough to land a jab to his shoulder, making him stumble, and it draws a thin smile to his lips.

“Nice,” he says.

Only Lucas would be pleased by someone beating him up. I immediately think of his father, of what he went through when he was young, and it makes my stomach turn.

“Now talk,” I say, bouncing on my toes, gloves held up to shield my face—not that he’s trying to hit me there, but he’ll give me an earful if I drop my hands.

Lucas rolls out his neck, and for a moment, I think he’s going to ignore me. Then, with the casual tone of someone talking about the weather, he says, “Alisha dumped me.”

The words zing through me like a bolt of lightning, and I try not to wince.

Shit.

I had a feeling that was what had happened. It feels like they’ve been imploding for a while. But to hear him confirm it makes me worried—and sad. I really like Alisha. She’s part of our band family. And I’ve missed having her around.

“What happened?” I ask, then have to quickly dodge out of the way when he tries to kick me in the upper thigh. The kick is slow, and I’m grateful he gave me the chance to move out of the way. His kicks are brutal.

He bounces on his toes, hair flopping and guitar pick thumping against his chest. “She wants to get married.”

I knew that, kind of. When Dex proposed to Nora, things seemed to change with Alisha, like she was getting tired of waiting for Lucas to ask her.

“And you don’t?” I ask.

“Not right now. I told her later.” He gives me another lazy shoulder shrug, but there’s more that he’s not saying; I can see it in the firm set of his jaw, the tightening around his eyes. “Guess my time ran out.”

This time when he strikes, it’s swift and unflinching, and he lands two hard jabs—one to my shoulder, one to my ribs—before I get out of the way.

“Fuck, dude,” I say, holding up a hand, then wincing at the pole injury in my shoulder. Guess he woke that one right back up.

He doesn’t apologize; Lucas rarely does. But he doesn’t come after me again, instead retreating to his side of the small ring.

With his back to me, he says just loudly enough for me to hear, “If you know what you want, don’t be a dumbass about it.”

I stop rubbing at my shoulder, my hand falling slowly to my side.

Immediately, his words bring her face to my mind: blue eyes, windswept black hair, soft brown skin shining golden in the sun. And the thought of losing her in the way Lucas has now lost Alisha makes deep pain blossom under my ribs—though this ache has nothing to do with the bruises that’re definitely already forming from Lucas’s punches.

I let out a sigh. Lucas glances back at me, and for the first time since I walked into this gym, I see a flicker of pain on his face. He masks it well, but I’ve seen it enough times to know how it looks, to recognize the way it pulls at his mouth and his eyes. And I hate this for him.