Once You Break a Knuckle Read Online Free PDF Page B

boring into him, but it had winched the fabric so tight the muscle was bruised and bloodshot. He flexed it and it ached. Not the worst injury he’d ever taken; in fact he’d be able to work tomorrow, dammit. It was only eleven. So much for the four-day weekend.
    Someone knocked on the door. He yelled that he’d be a second, and started to work himself to a stance, but his calf seized and he fell onto the couch.
    â€”Fuck it. The door’s unlocked.
    Alex opened the door and peeked through. Her hair was up, but a few strands hung down the side of her head. She had a bag of ice tucked under her shoulder and a small black film canister in her hand.
    â€”I got a call from Mud. How bad are you?
    â€”Not bad enough.
    â€”I’ve got ice and our secret stash of T-3s.
    â€”I’ll take the ice.
    Her hands lingered on the edge of the door before she closed it. She wore track pants and a windbreaker, had probably been out running – one of those fitness women with legs like nautical rope. A film of sweat shone on her forehead and she placed the back of her wrist to it, let her eyelids drop. Her shoulders rose, fell. Then she stalked across the room and extended the ice.
    Ray took it, careful not to let their fingers brush, and wedged it under his calf. Alex hesitated near the coffee table, arm’s-length from the couch. Ray set his beer down.
    â€”Where’s Madison?
    â€”With my folks.
    She toyed with the zipper on her jacket and didn’t look at him. He’d known her longer than he’d known Mud – she waitressed at a restaurant he frequented during his apprenticeship, too young to be taken seriously, labelled an up-and-comer by the sleazebags he worked alongside.Then, when he took Mud under his wing, she always came with him to the parties and gatherings, this crazy, mysterious blonde you could tease but never touch.
    â€”You want a beer?
    She shook her head. He scratched his stubble. Fifteen years, maybe more.
    â€”Well. You alright, Alex?
    â€”Can I sit?
    He shifted his leg off the edge of the couch, moved over, and shoved the ice up along his calf. It stung his damaged skin. She sat on the lip, far opposite him, and stared forward. He reached for his beer but it was too far away, so she grabbed it by the rim and slid it to his palm. He felt like an idiot and drank the rest and Alex looked at her watch and then set her hands on the flat of her thighs.
    â€”You’ve known Mud as long as I have.
    He could sleep with her, right now, if he wanted to. That’s what she was going to tell him – that it’d been a long time since Mud touched her. He’d seen it before, hundreds of times; guys get so infatuated with the new business that they neglect their wives and then their wives go and sleep with fucking painters who get doped each day before work.
    â€”Mud’s good shit.
    She drummed her fingers on her knee.
    â€”You ever get tired, Ray?
    â€”All the time.
    She turned her palms upward and stared at them, one then the other. They were small and soft, hands that couldeasily button up a shirt, hands that didn’t grapple power tools. When he did the same, Ray saw only twenty years of scrapes and cuts and decades gone to waste. But Alex read something in her own, or read something in his. Or, more likely, she simply saw right through him. He had no idea what she wanted.
    Her eyes fixed on him, those raven lashes, those irises as bright as sparks.
    â€”Sure you don’t want the T-3s?
    â€”Save them for when I drill through my leg.
    â€”The suite looks good.
    â€”Bedroom’s the nicest so far.
    She scrunched her nose as though recoiling from a bad smell.
    â€”Do you ever get tired of, you know, this?
    â€”All this?
    â€”I don’t know.
    She crossed one leg over her knee and leaned her chin on her wrist. She was such a good-looking woman.
    â€”It’s hard not to. It always seems like everything’s the same until the