Memphis Read online

  Copyright © 2018 by Ginger Scott

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  * * *

  Ginger Scott

  Ebook ISBN-13: 978-0-9990464-3-2

  Print ISBN-13: 978-0-9990464-2-5

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Ginger Scott

  For BilliJoy.

  You are a champion to so many.

  Fight on.

  “Rhythm is everything in boxing. Every move you make starts with your heart, and that’s in rhythm or you’re in trouble.”

  – Sugar Ray Robinson

  Chapter One

  Liv

  There are certain things you can always count on.

  Like how the perfect pair of jeans is a myth. It’s a simple fact of logic—no ass is alike, and it’s impossible to cut denim to conform around every imaginable curve.

  Roots will grow out faster than a stylist says they will. I’ve got a purse full of root touch-up pens in every imaginable color that prove this one true. I’ve been many colors, but I haven’t been my own in years. No matter how hard I try, there are some traits I can’t seem to dodge. Just like the Valentine last name, Archie Valentine’s damn dishwater-blond hair is one of them.

  There’s also the rule that the best-looking men are the ones who will tear your heart apart. My mom should have warned me about this one. She knew better. She picked a man who dragged her heart across the country, to Atlantic City and back. Weeks at a time of her life were wasted—aching nights spent awake and unsure of where my dad was, who he was with, how long she’d be in some hotel room or her own bed alone. She said prayers on dirty concrete floors beneath coliseums, begging spirits to protect him or heal him after a fight. She always prayed for him to get up, to fight again, and for him to come home—no matter where he was…no matter whom he was with.

  My dad counted on it.

  There is one truism that should comfort me—you can always go home again. Only, it’s those things that never change around here that make coming home the most miserable sure bet of them all. It’s the way the air smells—like dirt on fire. It was sixty-eight degrees when I boarded the plane in Portland. The pilot said it was a cool one-oh-six when our wheels touched down in Phoenix.

  As miserable as the heat is, that’s not what sinks deep in my gut as the cab idles forward against the grain of every other vehicle heading the opposite direction.

  My parents and uncle share a duplex, one of four built as a downtown Phoenix infill project when I was a kid. Time has left the place with mismatched garages, oil stains on the driveway, and chunks of broken sidewalk bits. Development plans changed to a different part of the city, forgetting this one under the scorch of the relentless sun. Trees don’t grow here, just old piles of brick and barred-up windows guarding pawnshops and bail-bond joints.

  V’s Gym stands in the center of it all. A whitewashed stucco two-story with cracks every few feet and a thick layer of dirt from the summer dust storms and lack of rainfall. At the height of his career, my dad had enough to buy the entire block, so he did. It was going to be “the investment of the century.” Like all of his grand plans, though, this one fell short too. Locals still come to train, or at least they did before I left seven years ago. The gym churns out just enough business to keep the power on. Renters in the other two duplexes and my Uncle Leo’s coaching pays for the rest of their needs.

  The three of them are all of the family I have left on this earth, and the last thing I ever wanted was to see them again. All it took was one good-looking man to drag my heart around Portland—dragging my name through the mud—and here I am, rolling up alongside the large mural of my father in his prime painted on the side of V’s. The setting sun casts a golden hue over the chin, his light almost gone in reality, too.

  The streetlight struggles to flicker to life as the cab stops. The sensors can’t tell if it’s day or night. The heat muddles with the computer systems just as much as it seems to with the people living here. My eyes scan over the faded words painted on the brick under the likeness of my dad’s face: ARCHIBALD “THE HEAVY” VALENTINE

  “Forty-six.”

  The cabdriver’s voice startles me from the short visual trip to my past.

  “Uh…yeah, right. Of course.” I shift in the seat and remove the safety belt from my waist, leaning to pull my phone from my back pocket. I slide out the crumpled fold of bills from the small slot on my phone case and take a slow breath in an effort to chase away the tight squeeze of humiliation climbing up my throat.

  Pulling out the two twenties and two fives I have left, I pause with the money in my hand and let my eyelids flutter with nerves for just a moment.

  “I’m gonna need change,” I say, handing my cash through the small window. It only takes the driver a second to realize how much I’ve given him.

  “How much?” His reply comes out in a bark.

  “Four, please,” I say, clearing my throat before the words are done leaving my lips.

  His fingers work quickly on his stack of folded bills, and his hand jerks back for me to take the money.

  “Thanks,” I say, eyes focused on the door handle and my attention on getting out of this cab as fast as I can. I drag my rolling duffle bag along the seat behind me and the cabbie takes off the moment I slam the door.

  I’ve quit giving excuses to people. That driver would never believe me, but I need those four dollars a lot more than he does.

  “You just gonna stand out there all night? Or you planning on coming inside and giving your favorite uncle a hug?” The familiar gravel of his voice fires up a few more nerves inside my chest that I thought were dead.

  “You’re my only uncle,” I say as I roll my neck and look at the bald and overweight man holding the security door open leading into my parents’ house. We’ve made this same joke so many times; it quit amusing me when I was ten. Of the three of them, Leo was my favorite. Of course, that’s like picking a favorite way to get your tetanus shot. Leo would be short and sweet with a tiny needle in the arm and maybe a Hello Kitty Band-Aid at the end. My parents, they’re definitely multiple rounds right in the stomach, and probably an infection from the puncture wounds.

  “Come here and give me a hug.”

  Lips tight and eyes wide, I lean in as he wraps his heavy arms around me, wishing I felt more than a glimmer of comfort in them. I’m desperate, but I can’t let that color things too much. Leo sti
ll is a selfish prick of a man. He hasn’t seen me in a while, so right now I’m getting the charm. Once the newness wears off, his rust will show, and it will be nasty.

  “Your mom can’t wait to see you,” he says, letting go and backing away from our embrace to lead me inside. “She’s upstairs with your old man, giving him a bath.”

  I nod and drag my feet through the foyer, the edges of the linoleum peeling up more than I remember. The house smells of dirty towels, sweat, and some sort of pungent medicine.

  “Let me take your bag.” I feel the weight shift in my hand as my uncle takes the straps on my bag and tugs.

  “I got it,” I say, wrapping my fingers tighter around the handle. I don’t really like people taking things from me anymore. I’ve lost too much.

  My eyes hit his, and his lip ticks up on one side to match his shoulder shrug.

  “Thing is, you’re actually going to have to stay in my spare. Your mom’s in the other room here. She stays up so late with her shows, and your dad just sleeps all of the time…”

  My eyes drift down to his chin and I relax my grip on my bag.

  “That’s fine.”

  I guess staying with him is better than staying with my mom. It’s another set of doors between us, and I’m fairly certain I’ll come to appreciate those barriers. My bag looks even smaller in his possession. He holds it up and flashes a short-lived smile.

  “I’ll take it on over and be right back. Your mom should be down in a minute or two.”

  I nod and wave my hand near my leg, spinning away on the balls of my feet and hooking my thumbs in the pockets of my jeans. My mom isn’t excited to see me. I guess maybe, somewhere woven into that innate motherly instinct there’s a flicker of excitement in there, but mostly she’s looking forward to saying I told you so.

  I’m a Valentine all right—one big-fat disappointment to Angela Grossman, a Valentine by marriage. Just as disappointing as that man upstairs.

  “You Olivia?”

  My hands flee from my pockets and clutch the cotton on my chest, my heart pounding against my knuckles.

  “Who the hell—” my face and arms flush and tingle with the rush of delayed adrenalin, my mouth dry three words in.

  He’s like a ghost the way he leans against the kitchen counter, taking big gulps from the bottle in his right hand. Black sweatpants ride low on his hips, pushed up to his calves, and the V-cut white T-shirt hugs his body where it’s dampened with sweat. His build is vintage Archie Valentine—the build of a real boxer, a physique that almost doesn’t exist anymore—but a glance up to his face shows a different kind of man. He isn’t smirking, and his brown eyes aren’t shifting gears to show off his charm. His face is void of ego, even after he lifts the bottom of his shirt with his free hand to run it along his face to clear it of sweat, thus revealing a sculpted row of abs that brings my gaze back down to his waist.

  “Olivia, right? Leo said you were coming in…”

  My eyes widen as he steps closer, wiping his palm along his right hip before reaching out for my hand. It lingers there for an awkward second before I wake myself from this frozen state and take his palm.

  “Yeah, sorry… I…I didn’t know anyone was down here,” I stumble.

  “I came in through the back. I needed to wash this out,” he says, holding up his now-empty bottle, the insides gritty from some sort of green drink.

  “You, uh…” I raise my hand and tap my fingertip on the edge of the bottle. “You missed a spot.”

  His eyes hover on mine for a beat just before his chest shakes once with a chuckle.

  “Yeah, I meant before I mixed this stuff, but you’re right. I should wash it out again. I’m bad at leaving stuff until later.”

  He turns from me and moves to the sink. I immediately recall all of the things I’ve left until later, until it’s too late.

  “I’m sorry, but…who are you?” My eyes roam over the muscles in his back and the curve of his thick shoulders as he rinses his bottle out at the sink. I know what he is. It’s been a while since a body in his condition worked out around here, though. Most of the guys that come to V’s are hobby-seekers. They like the workout, and telling people they box, even if it’s only against other thirty-year-old wannabes in sparring gloves. This guy, though…he’s different.

  “I’m Memphis.” His short answer is punctuated by the sound of him tapping his bottle against the sink, shaking away the beads of water.

  “Unique name,” I say, my nerves clearing out a little more. I remind myself that good-looking men hold no power over me.

  “Thanks,” he says, turning back to face me, cheeks dimpled with a proud grin. “I picked it myself.”

  “Ahhhh, you’re a wrestler,” I joke. “I have to advise you, though.” I lean toward him and look both ways before cupping my mouth and whispering loudly. “Memphis doesn’t really strike fear in the heart of your opponent the way, say, Thunder or The Ax does.”

  His grin tightens, holding in laughter.

  “The Ax?” he repeats, one eyebrow raised.

  “I couldn’t think of any real wrestler names, but you have to admit…those would be good ones.” I nod and fold my arms, squeezing myself at my ribs as a physical reminder to be wary.

  “Those would be terrible,” he says, chuckling through his words. “Pretty as you are, I can’t lie.”

  My fingers squeeze harder and my jaw loosens as my smile drops.

  “You usually lie to pretty girls?” My gut squeezes in response to my knee-jerk reaction. That wasn’t fair. It’s not his fault I happen to know a guy who makes his living lying to pretty girls. “Sorry, I was…I’m just tired. Long flight.”

  His eyes move down to the floor between us. His lashes are long enough to draw my focus to them.

  “I bet. No worries.” His eyes move up just then. They’re a brown that’s also gold. “I know what you meant.”

  I match his gaze, wondering if Leo told him more than my name, like why I had to come crawling back home, penniless.

  “Do you really know?” My brow draws in, and his expression follows as we stare at one another. His lips part with a breath, about to speak, but in a blink his attention is behind me.

  “Your hair looks like shit.”

  I have a feeling I could have stayed in the silent conversation with Memphis for a while had my mom not brought me right back to reality with her ever-so-warm and loving welcome.

  My eyes drift closed and I turn to the side, not quite ready to fully square up with her. Angela doesn’t wait, though, running her hand through my hair and twisting ends in her fingertips, pushing her glasses to the tip of her nose and studying my dark-brown split ends before glancing at the top of my head where my color is much lighter.

  “I haven’t been able to get to the salon,” I say, falling right into my roll of justifying things that shouldn’t be important or matter when the daughter she hasn’t seen in seven years is standing in her kitchen.

  As far from grace as my parents have fallen, my mom still gets up two hours before she has to care for my dad to make sure her hair is done and her face is covered in foundation and powder to soften the wrinkles made from a lot of hard living.

  She lets my hair fall from her fingers and tsks, moving over to the young version of my father who bared witness to this little taste of my dysfunctional family.

  “Memphis,” she says, patting her palm on his chest. I catch the slight curl of her fingers and cringe. He’s man-candy to her, a throwback to what my father once was.

  “Good night, Mrs. V. I was just borrowing your sink when Olivia came in.” His eyes flit to me as he says my name.

  “Welcome here anytime, son. You’ve got a big fight coming. Arch is really hoping to be there for it.”

  Memphis nods, and nothing more is said about it. He must be close enough to the family to know that my dad hasn’t left his bedroom in years, and my mom’s delusions that they’ve had coherent conversations—let alone made plans for him to leave this ho
use—are to be indulged and then ignored. The last time I reacted to her fantasies led to the worst impulsive decision of my life.

  “Tell Leo I’ll see him in the morning,” Memphis says, glancing my way briefly. “Nice to meet you finally, Olivia.”

  “You, too,” I say, forcing myself not to look at him long either. It’s bad enough that I’ll be seeing him again. I need to treat him like a client of the family business. I should probably treat my parents and uncle that way, too. I’m here as long as it takes for my bank account to be viable enough to survive a cheap apartment in any other zip code.

  My mom barely waits for the back door to close before she starts working me with guilt.

  “You should go see him before he falls asleep. I told him you’d be up, but be careful, he might not remember what you look like. It has been a while.” The sarcasm oozes with her special brand of bitterness.

  I gnash my teeth under tight lips and pace myself. If I start engaging with her now, I’ll never make it through the week, let alone however long I have to stand it here.

  “All right,” I say instead of the dozens of things I’d rather respond with.

  When she pulls out a stack of tabloids from the cloth bag she takes to the grocery store, I do my best to ignore her obviously calculated attack. I recognize the covers. I should—I’m on them: my head buried in a hood, a newspaper folded and shading half of my face. Enoch’s lawyer ushering me toward that last luxury car I’ll ever step into.

  “You should go with a dark brown again,” she says, flipping over one of the covers with my red locks on display.

  “Maybe,” I hum.

  That photo was one of the first ones, right before the trial.