Christmas in the Cage: A Fighting Series Short Story by JB Salsbury

Author:JB Salsbury [Salsbury, JB]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-05-27T23:00:00+00:00

Rex

“What the hell has you so happy?” I say to Blake as he sets his overflowing plate of food next to mine. The guy hasn’t taken his eyes off his wife or Layla stopped grinning since he walked in. “Aren’t you and Layla getting a little too old for bathroom bloweys?”

Finally, the fucker loses his grin and frowns. “Like it’s possible to be too old for bathroom bloweys?”

He’s got a point.

“Bro,” Blake says while forking a bite of roast. “Henry’s looking more and more like you every day.”

I spot my son at the end of the table, his grin wide as he talks and laughs with Axelle and Carey. On the outside he does look a lot like I did at his age—same dark hair, colorful ink on his skin that toughens up his pretty face. And his eyes, the same shade of blue, but somehow lighter because he doesn’t carry the shadows that are born from living years in an endless hell with no escape.

The memory sends a shiver up my spine and I suck in a shaky breath.

From under the table I feel my wife’s warm palm run along my thigh and squeeze. Instantly I’m flooded with her calming energy.

“He may look like me, but he acts a lot more like his mom.”

Blake grunts in acknowledgement and maybe even camaraderie.

Jonah, Blake, and especially me, we were a mess before we met our wives. Irresponsible, living our days fighting and our nights in different beds with faceless women. As the saying goes, if I’d only known then what I know now… And yet, somehow, our kids do. We all agree, we have our wives to thank for that.

Henry passed up the opportunity to go to college instead to work on his art and open his own tattoo shop. He works his ass off and runs a successful shop. He hasn’t settled down with anyone special, but he’s the type of man—dedicated, loyal, respectful—when the right woman stumbles into his life, he won’t make the stupid mistakes I did. He’ll claim her and never let her go.

As I cast my gaze around the table my chest aches for the little boy kept in a basement who craved love so deeply he’d do anything for it. If I could go back in time and tell him that one day he’d be a man sitting next to his savior and wife, surrounded by his children, friends, and blooded relatives, maybe he would’ve fought harder.

“Don’t do that,” Gia whispers into my shoulder then presses a kiss to the same spot.

I stare down into those gray eyes, the same gray eyes I dreamt about my whole life, the ones I held onto, the ones that saved me then and still today. “I’m not doing anything.” I put on my most believable smile.

But my wife can see my bullshit from a million miles away.

She lifts a brow. “You get like this every Christmas. We can’t go back and change the past.”

I run my hand up her back and sift my fingers into her silky hair.

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