The Rampage MC #3: Atlas and Joy

Chapter 15 (Joy): Go To Waste

"Wouldn't be the first time that things have gone astray, now you've thrown it all away. Now it cuts like a knife." ~ Cuts Like a Knife, Bryan Adams

One week later, I was still stewing -- but being very careful not to listen to my heartbreak playlist where anyone else could hear it again. That whole exchange with Kit still made me angry, even seven days after the fact. How dare he not offer excuses for laughing along with everyone else at me so I could get even angrier at him? He'd just stood there and listened to me rage in my righteous anger, his face ravaged, and then he had the audacity to admit he was wrong for laughing along, and he didn't even attempt to excuse or defend his indefensible behavior. You can't fight with someone who isn't trying to make excuses for their actions, and there's no more frustrating feeling when you're geared up for a fight...and the wind gets taken from your sails.

There is nothing I can say to that, Joy. I wish there was. I wish I'd stood up to everyone for you. But I didn't do the right thing.

So as I was chopping the vegetables for tonight's stew with way more energy than was needed, I thought maybe I could still get the fight I was spoiling for. I whirled around to face him -- he was cubing the meat at the island -- and waited until he looked up at me.

"Why was I No One in your phone? Do you realize how hurtful that was?"

"I do and I'm sorry. I should have explained why because it had a very different meaning to me than it did to you, but when I saw how mad you were about it, I didn't think you'd believe me," he said evenly. "So I just went with the reason that was the truth about why I didn't want you as Joy in my phone -- and that was in case the brothers saw you calling. So, once again where you were concerned, I made the wrong choice, and I'm sorry I hurt you."

"So, what was the real meaning of No One?" I challenged him.

"It was the chocolate chip cookies, which sounds weird as fuck," he said immediately. "You made a batch for me just because I ran the clothes from your car to your room the day you moved in. You made me cookies because of something I did that was no big deal."

It was to me, I thought but didn't say.

"So, honest to god, I sat in my room that night you gave me the cookies, thinking about you, about your smile and about the fact that you'd made me cookies. No one in my life had ever made me cookies, Joy. No one had ever done something that nice for me. No one had a smile that made me feel like yours did. No one had ever touched me here," and he tapped his chest, "like you did when you handed me those cookies. I'd never met anyone else like you and I realized it was because no one else in the whole fucking world was like you. So until I could put you into my phone as Joy, No One was as close as I could get, and I know it was stupid, and I know I hurt you, but that's why I used No One. I'm sorry."

"Why not just tell me?" I demanded.

"Because you were pissed and it was pretty fucking sentimental and that's not exactly in my wheelhouse. But like I said, I should have explained it all to you instead of hurting you, and I'm sorry I handled it the way I did."

Freaking wind out of my sails again.

"You definitely should have," I snapped at him, then turned around to continue chopping the vegetables.

Until I cut down too hard and the knife blade snapped right out of the handle.

"Dammit!" I exclaimed.

"You OK?" Kit asked.

"Another knife broke," I said. It was something I should have asked Beard to replace when I'd started. The kitchen was stocked with a set of cheap knives that were probably older than I was, but as per my usual MO, I made due even though I knew we needed new knives. Now, a third knife from the set had broken since I'd started and pretty soon, I was going to be down to the butter knives for food prep.

A tattooed hand set the package that had been sitting in the kitchen since the morning after my birthday in front of me.

"Here," was all he said.

"I don't --"

"Woman," he huffed, frustrated, and then he ripped the gift wrap off the rectangular box and lifted the lid. From the box, he pulled out a beautiful, leather knife roll and unrolled it to reveal a set of my dream knives. I just looked at them for a moment, their beautiful handles gleaming. I knew what these cost, and they were way out of my price range.

"Atlas, I can't accept these."

"Nothing to accept. They're yours."

I turned suspicious eyes on him and that tattooed, hard body was standing very close to me. 

"You had these the morning after my birthday, Atlas. Which means you had these way before my birthday because these are only available at select stores, none of which are exactly close by or open all night."

"Yeah, I've had 'em a while. You and I talked one night about chef's knives, and you mentioned you liked this brand of German knives. You were talking about how you'd gone into a store one time and these felt the best to you."

I remembered that discussion. He'd asked me a lot of questions about the knives, and since I loved the subject, I'd rhapsodized about this very knife set that was now laid out in front of me.

"So, you can remember exactly which knives I want, but you couldn't be bothered to remember my birthday?"

He looked at me for a minute. "Birthdays don't really register with me. In my family, they were just another day, nothing to celebrate, nothing to recognize, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have thought about how you'd feel about your birthday. I won't make that mistake again, and I'm sorry I did in the first place." 

"So you've been holding on to these for months. When were you actually going to give these to me?"

His mouth kicked up at one corner in what was clearly not amusement but regret. "I'd planned to claim you the day you hit six months here and give these to you that night when I took you out to dinner. I've got no game when it comes to buying gifts, but the knives seemed to be something you'd like. Maybe these were a mistake because they don't exactly scream romance. I don't know. I probably should have gone with a necklace or earrings or something like that."

"I still...I know how much these cost. I really can't accept them."

"Use 'em. Don't use 'em. Either way, they're yours. I've got no use for them and they can't be returned since I've had them longer than ninety days." He rapped his fingers twice on the counter. "I'm going to get back to the stew meat."

Kit returned to his station and began working, but I kept staring at the gleaming knives for another minute, my mind debating. Then, unable to resist, I pulled out the eight-inch chef's knife and felt its weight in my hand. Perfection.

Carefully washing it, I dried it and then got to work. What a difference the sharp blade made and I fairly flew through the rest of my prep.

After about half an hour of silence except for chopping and slicing, I said, "Thank you."

Kit said just as simply, "You're welcome."

Then, feeling I needed to clarify, I kept going. "I don't want you to think that just because I'm using the knives that anything's changed between us. It hasn't. I just can't stand to see anything go to waste."

Like we did.

"I know, Joy. I know."