by Amity Cross
Sitting at the bar, I sipped my beer and narrowed my eyes. Was it my imagination, or were people staring at me? Staring and whispering. It wasn’t unusual, but I’d been under the radar for months now. I’d gone to great lengths to make sure no one gave a stuff about me.
Glancing up, I scowled as I spied a group of women stealing glances at me. They were talking heatedly about something, and then they would fire off glances in my direction.
“What’ve I done now?” I muttered, wondering what the rumor was this time.
It could be one of two things. That woman, whatever her name was—the one whose car I’d jumped out of at the traffic lights the night I saved Callie—must’ve finally started to talk trash about me. About time. Or it was about me letting Hamish bash my face in. That would get the rumor mill spinning. He was the star of The Underground and was now with my ex, who used to be a bartender here. Everyone knew sweet, little Lori.
Someone sat on the stool next to mine, and I rolled my eyes. No one ever sat next to me unless they were trying to start something. I wasn’t in the mood for games, not tonight, so I turned, but I wasn’t expecting to find Hamish sitting there looking at me like I’d sprouted a second head. The Irishman never came to the bar, which meant he was looking for me, and that never ended well for anybody. I had the black eye to prove it.
“You had to go and ruin the one place where I didn’t have to deal with your ugly ginger face,” I drawled.
“Is it true?” he asked, looking me over.
“Is what true?” I scowled, not wanting to get into a verbal slinging match over my latest misdemeanor. Whatever it was.
“Did you really pull that woman from a burnin’ buildin’?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” My blood ran cold, and I bristled, immediately going on the defense.
“It’s all over the news, man.” He held up his phone and showed me the screen.
‘Disgraced UFC Welterweight, Mark Ryder, Saves Woman From Burning Building.’ My fingers tightened around my bottle of beer, and my lip curled. How the fuck… Callie wouldn’t have said anything because she didn’t know. Someone must’ve seen me and knew my face. I cursed under my breath.
“Ryder, you—”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped.
I didn’t have to read the article to know what it said.
“I didn’t want anybody to know,” I muttered, leaning my elbows on top of the bar and fisting my hands into my hair.
“That you saved a woman from bein’ burned alive?”
I’d almost forgotten Hamish was still sitting there, and I picked up my drink, downed the rest of it, and flung the empty bottle over the bar and into the bin.
“Hey!” Faye screeched at me, but I didn’t give a crap.
Rising to my feet, I shoved down the urge to shout right back.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Hamish exclaimed, grabbing my arm.
Shaking myself free, I stalked off through the crowd, the staring and whispering getting on my nerves. I pushed out of the nearest exit, the door by the bar, and closed out the noise of The Underground behind me.
It was a service entrance. There were empty beer kegs, old wooden pallets, and a dumpster. A pile of crates was arranged in a seating area for the bar staff, and an overflowing ashtray was on the ground with some empty beer bottles.
My jaw tightened, and I couldn’t hold onto my anger anymore. With a cry, I kicked at the crates, sending one after another flying across the concrete. Picking up the bottles, I threw them at the brick wall, and they smashed, shattering into a million pieces.
The door opened, and someone appeared, then yelped as they saw me in mid-breakdown and scurried back inside again.
Grabbing a pallet, I heaved it into the air, but it didn’t get very far. It crashed to the ground, and I screamed an obscenity at it before collapsing against the wall, my chest heaving.
I knew this would happen. I knew it, and I still went after her. I went after her, got tangled up in her well-being, and now I’d fucked it all up.
Callie was wrong. She was wrong. It was about justice. When she saw this, she would look at me the same way everyone else did. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t handle seeing the revulsion twist her pretty face. I should’ve told her before I’d slept with her. Shit, I should’ve told her before I’d kissed her, but the pull was too strong. I’d never wanted a woman as much as I wanted Callie Winslow.
I was ashamed of the man I used to be. There. I’d said it. I was arrogant, gullible, and selfish. I’d never physically hurt any woman in my life, but it didn’t matter. My reputation was stained by it all the same.
Taking out my phone, I opened the messenger app I’d been using to talk to Callie.
Storm R: We need to talk.
The message was marked as read almost immediately, but the three little dots that meant she was writing back never appeared.
14
Callie
The morning after our date, I woke in Mark’s arms, and we did it. Again. That man had some serious skills, and I was swooning. He was letting me in slowly—some of the barriers he’d put between us were beginning to come down. Some of the mystery was being solved, and my heart sang.
After showering together, he left to go to the gym, telling me he had to fight tonight, and he would call me tomorrow. Not in the mood to do anything else but bask in the blissful memory of the most epic sex of my life, I went back to bed and did just that.
The trill of my phone roused me from my lustful stupor, and my hand fumbled over my bedside table looking for it. When I finally grasped the annoying little rectangle, I pulled it from the charger and peered at the screen. It was a string of messages from Macy that ranged in variations of ‘The FUCK!’, ‘Have you seen this?’, ‘Is it him?’
Opening the messenger app, I tapped on a link she’d included. When the page loaded up, my heart sputtered and almost ceased working entirely.
‘Disgraced UFC Welterweight, Mark Ryder, Saves Woman From Burning Building.’
I scanned the article while my head swam, and my entire body tingled with hypersensitivity.
It was only two years ago that a now infamous UFC ring girl came forward with allegations of violence against Ryder. She had bruising on her neck that police later confirmed were strangulation marks. She also made claims he’d harmed her in places that could be easily hidden, convincing her it was all part of a twisted sex game. Later, the woman alleged she realized she was in real danger and came forward.
As a result, Ryder received a lifetime ban from the UFC, lost his sponsorships, and was financially ruined. The last he was heard of was when he returned to Australia soon after settling the matter out of court. Since then, he’s flown under the radar, but now it seems Ryder has made another name for himself. This time as a local hero.
Two weeks ago, a shop front caught fire on Melbourne’s iconic Brunswick Street. It wasn’t reported at the time, but a woman, one Callie Winslow, was trapped inside by the flames. Ryder, who was in the vicinity, heard her cries for help and ran headfirst into the fire without a second thought, ultimately carrying her to safety.
The true intention of his apparent selfless act remains to be seen, but is this the beginning of the comeback of the century? It could herald a new chapter in the life of the disgraced UFC star, the beginning of penance for his past crimes. Or it could just be a matter of right place, right time. We won’t know until the man himself comes forward. If he ever does.
Holy fuck. Mark was convicted of domestic violence? I rubbed my eyes and took a deep breath. I didn’t know what to think, but my knee-jerk reaction was to run the hell away as fast as I could. I knew he had issues, it was written all over his face, but this? Holy…
Picking up my phone, I typed a response to Macy.
Callie: I feel sick. My bum is fizzing.
Macy: Is that an autocorrect?
Callie: No. Bum fizz is a thing.
Macy: What the fuck is bum fizz?
Callie: Haven’t you ever felt so nauseous that the skin on your bum cheeks and the top of your thighs tingle? It’s fucking weird, but I swear it’s a thing.
Macy: Now that you mention it…
Callie: I can’t believe… He choked some girl?
Macy: It sounds legit, C. I’m frightened for you. You should dump his ass immediately.
Callie: I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me, but this? I can’t…
Callie: Did he do this for his career? Am I a publicity stunt? I’m such an IDIOT.
Macy: It’s not your fault. You didn’t know.
Callie: Excuse me while I go puke.
Throwing my phone down, I fell back into bed and flung my arm over my forehead. He was too good to be true. The handsome, selfless, stranger who was interested in a roly-poly nobody like me. I wanted him to be different so desperately, and now he’d ended up being just like all the other douches out there. Worse, actually. He’d assaulted a woman.
Puke, puke, puke.
I was really regretting finding him in the first place. Why couldn’t I have listened to my gut instead of my heart? Why couldn’t I have just let it go? Now it was like the universe was playing some trick on me. My shop burns down, my rescuer turns out to be a domestic violence offender and… Bad shit always came in threes, so the trifecta was going to be a doozy. A real fucking doozy. Just you wait.
Later that night, my phone pinged with a notification. It was a message from Mark that read, We need to talk.
No, no we didn’t. He’d lied to me. Big time.
He didn’t get to talk to me at all. Ever again.
The insides of my eyelids felt like sandpaper. Every time I blinked, I shaved a layer from the exterior of my eyeballs. I would probably be blind soon. Technically, I already was.
I’d ignored all the warning signs, even the ones Mark had given me himself, and just fell into bed with him the first chance I got. He’d saved my life, but that didn’t mean a single thing compared with what he’d done to that woman. One act of heroism didn’t negate violence against women. I’d been duped, and fuck, it stung like hell.
The front door to my shop was unlocked when I arrived. It was right on five p.m., so I’d caught one of the builders before they had gone home for the evening.
“Hi, Callie.” Seeing it was Ray, the head honcho, I smiled.
“I’ve just come to clear out the stock in the back,” I explained. “Some of it should be salvageable.”
“We’ve got a skip bin in the alley, so feel free to use it,” he went on. “They’re coming to collect it in the morning.” Glancing around the shop, I saw they had been hard at work with the demolition of the charred and burned-out sections of the building. “Demo is almost done, and tomorrow, we’re starting on the rewiring and plastering.” He looked pleased with the progress.
“They weren’t kidding when they said things would start moving,” I murmured, picking my way around the drop sheets and tools the tradies had left when they had knocked off for the day.
“Another week and we should be all patched up, painted, and ready for the final install.”
It looked like The Fitzroy Cake Company would be ready to open in about a month’s time. It should’ve excited me, finally opening the doors to the public, but I didn’t feel like celebrating. I didn’t feel like anything in particular. It was all pretty meh.
Smiling halfheartedly, I thanked Ray and let him go home to his family for the night, then turned my attention to the stock room. The scene of the crime. The place where I’d first met Mark.
Trying not to think of it, I began pulling down boxes and containers from the shelving. Most of the cardboard boxes had smoke damage, but a great deal of the contents were salvageable. Some of the containers of sprinkles and decorations were melted from the heat, so they had to be thrown out, but it wasn’t quite as bad as I first thought.
Opening the back door, I was in throwing distance to the skip bin and delighted in the bang the boxes made as they landed among the rubble. Imagining it was Mark’s head, I threw another box. Bang.
“Callie.”
I froze, my hands shoved in a box of paper patty pans. My heart twisted at the sound of Mark’s voice. A little birdie sat on my shoulder and tweeted, ‘What took him so long?’
“Get out,” I snapped, not even looking up.
“I didn’t want you to find out like this…” he went on.
“You said you’d made mistakes, but I never thought your fist ‘mistaked’ right into a woman’s face,” I retorted. “No wonder you didn’t want to talk about yourself.” I snorted.
“I’m so tired of trying to defend myself,” he said. “Nobody wants to listen. They just want to point fingers and blame.”
“Then explain it to me,” I replied, turning to face him.
He stood just outside in the alley, practically shaking, his jaw tense…and didn’t say a fucking thing. It was a metaphoric slap in the face.
“Can’t explain the truth, huh?” I rolled my eyes.
“I knew this was going to happen,” he said, his eyes darkening. “No one else heard you calling for help. What was I supposed to do? Keep on walking? I didn’t give my name because I knew this bullshit would come out and it would hurt you, but you just wouldn’t let it go.”
“So it’s my fault now?” I exclaimed, throwing my hands into the air. “I want nothing to do with you. I don’t want to be like her.”
“You’re not listening.” He lowered his gaze and shook his head.
“I can hear you loud and clear,” I declared. “You saved my life, and now it’s your stepping-stone back into the UFC. You said it yourself, Mark. You walked over everyone and everything on your way to the top. You fell off the wagon, and now here’s your chance to jump back on with a bonus fuck on the side. At least you had the decency to use a condom.” I glared at him, my heart broken completely in two. “Now it’s your turn to listen. I won’t be anyone’s stepping-stone. I’ve worked too hard to let anyone trample on my dreams. Unlike you, I’ve got integrity. I do things the honest way. Shit, and bashing a woman? You’ve got some nerve coming here trying to guilt me into forgiving you. That’s how these things work. The cycle of violence doesn’t stop at a couple of backhands.”
He stared at me, his expression cold. There was no warmth in his eyes, no movement on his lips…there was nothing at all. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting—more of a fight maybe—but his lack of emotion led me to believe everything I’d just said was true.
“Get the fuck out of my shop and my life, and never come back.” I turned and opened another box, pulling out the contents and stacking it into a plastic tub. “If you do come back, I’m calling the cops and getting a restraining order.”
There was no movement behind me for a moment, and then there was the sound of his retreating footsteps. I knew he was gone because the air had turned cold, and my skin was prickling with goose bumps.
My hands began to tremble, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Taking a deep breath, I swallowed my tears and got back to work.
I’d dodged a bullet, so why did I feel like the biggest piece of shit out there?
Squashing down the wave of nausea threatening to overwhelm me, I slammed the storeroom door closed and locked it.
15
Storm
I was in the mood to do something stupid. Real fucking stupid.
Leaning against the bar at The Underground, I considered getting plastered before my fight with Crowbar. That would be really idiotic. Practically suicidal.
I never hurt anyone. I wanted to scream it at Callie over and over until she heard me, but she was determined not to listen. She’d made her mind up, and that was that. She’d listened to the lie, and it was enough for her. I didn’t try to explain because it was pointless. I’d seen that look before.
Thinking of her body next to mine, my jaw tightened. We’d only spent a handful of days together, and I already knew she meant more. We could’ve been lik
e Hamish and Lori one day. We could’ve been in love.
What the hell did I want with that? I snorted and began grinding my teeth. Who wants to fall in fucking love? All it ever brought anyone was a heap of trouble and hurt feelings. I wasn’t cut out for it, anyway. Whatever.
I didn’t need anyone.
“You’re a real dark horse, you know that?”
I glanced up at Faye and scowled. “Don’t let the stories fool you, Faye. I’m still a dick.”
“Get over it, Storm,” she retorted.
“Stop trying to make me into something I’m not, Faye.”
“You’re unbelievable.” She shook her head and walked off, flicking her hair over her shoulder as she went.
Now that word was out about the fire, The Underground was buzzing with a different kind of Storm flavored gossip. It should’ve made me happy, but all I could think about was Callie. Get the fuck out of my shop and my life, and never come back.
The hatred in her emerald eyes cut me right to the bone. The venom in her parting words had poisoned any hope I’d had left inside me. Never come back.
Glancing over my shoulder at The Underground, a woman smiled and battered her eyelashes in my direction. Looking her over, my immediate thought was she wasn’t Callie. Glancing to my right, another woman was leaning against the bar giving me her best ‘come fuck me’ eyes. Not Callie, either. None of these women were.
Cursing under my breath, I put my head down and carved a path through the warehouse before pushing out back. At least it was quieter, and there weren’t any random vaginas trying to find their way onto my cock.
Callie, Callie, Callie… Now it was her turn to haunt me. I didn’t understand it when she’d said the same thing in her social media post, but now? She was under my skin and was itching like hell.
