A little cheer went up from everyone assembled before they started rattling off pizza toppings. Magnus wasn’t picky and he said so while making his way into the kitchen where Kayla, the manager of Open Wounds and family friend, was dutifully organizing Dagen’s protein shake mixers in one of the upper cabinets.
“Hey,” she said with a smile when she saw him. “Did they get the rest packed up and loaded, okay?” Kayla had always been such a good friend to him. She’d been in Harbor’s grade at school, becoming one of the group without any effort at all, and had been a constant shoulder for him even when he was on the other side of the country.
“Yep. All present and accounted for.” Magnus looked from the cabinet she was working in to the counter in front of her where several more drink mixer cups stood. “How many of those things does he have?”
She laughed. “Too many. It’s as bad as you and your coffee cups.”
Lifting his nose in the air, he sniffed. “If I’m so bad, why do I receive a new one from you every single Christmas?” He was quite proud of his coffee cup collection—he’d purchased a set of shelves specifically for them when he’d moved into his new loft above the club.
Kayla snorted. “Because I keep finding ones that belong on your shelf of snark.”
“What’s a shelf of snark?” Rory’s voice came from behind him. Magnus turned to find him standing in the mouth of the little U-shaped kitchen holding a box that was clearly full of pots and pans. The pale skin of his cheeks were ruddy from the cold above the neatly trimmed red hairs of his beard. He hadn’t had that when they’d been together, and Magnus wondered how different it would feel to kiss Rory now with those whiskers teasing his cheeks and chin.
“Oh, um…” Magnus stuttered out. Rory had never been in his apartment, and even though he’d always loved cups for coffee or tea, he hadn’t started actively collecting them until A.R.—after Rory. “I’ve amassed quite the collection of coffee cups and this one,” he pointed a thumb back over his shoulder at Kayla, “has bought me so many with smart-ass quotes on them that they have their own shelf.”
“It’s a compulsion.” Kayla shrugged, green eyes sparkling as she looked between them.
“Sure it is.” Magnus shook his head and reached for the box Rory was still holding. Before his hand had even closed over the edge of it, Kayla was breezing past them and grabbing her coat from the back of one of the dining room chairs.
“Actually, I could use a break from kitchen duty. Rory why don’t you stay here and help Magnus deal with the protein shaker situation? I’ll go help unload the truck.” Without giving them a second to respond, she shrugged her coat on and headed into the living room and out the front door.
Rory turned wide eyes his way, and while Magnus thought Kayla’s were a lovely green, they didn’t compare to the blue-green orbs watching him hesitantly. It sent a pang of sadness through his heart. They were unpacking boxes. It shouldn’t even be a question at this point whether Magnus was okay with his company.
Trying to lighten the mood, Magnus grabbed the first thing he could reach out of the nearest box. Then frowned as he looked down at the green cylinder object in his hand with a hinge on one end and a wide opening at the other. Raising an eyebrow, he met Rory’s eyes again and squeezed the hinged side making the thing snap like a clothespin.
Rory laughed. “What the hell is that?”
“I have no idea. Ollie!” Magnus walked until he was in Rory’s space, his hands where they were still clutching the box brushing Magnus’s stomach, and held up the strange green contraption. When Ollie looked his way, he asked, “What is this?”
Before Ollie could answer, Dagen walked through the door with another load of boxes. “Hey! Are you making fun of my cucumber keeper?”
Ollie winked. “It keeps his cucumber extra fresh.”
“Oh, I bet it does,” Rory piped up, and Magnus swiveled his head to meet his laughing eyes.
He snapped the cucumber keeper again, enjoying the red coloring Dagen’s cheeks. “Only you, little brother.” Tossing the piece of plastic into the nearest drawer, Magnus walked to the counter where Kayla had been working. Rory set the box he’d been holding on the countertop beside him while looking over the protein shakers still to be put away.
“They’re not even trying to be subtle, are they?” Rory asked quietly.
“Not even a little bit.”
“Does it bother you?”
Magnus stopped what he was doing and looked up at Rory’s face before the corner of his mouth turned up. “I think we may have broken their brains when we sat beside each other at Christmas dinner.”
Rory clicked his tongue, nodded his head, and said in perfect deadpan, “I knew that was going to be too much.”
Magnus laughed—a quiet, soft chuckle that he didn’t know his throat was still capable of making. The man beside him was the only one to ever coax that sound out of him, and it wasn’t so long ago that he would have sworn Rory would never make the effort to do so again. It felt intimate, standing in the corner of the kitchen, away from prying eyes and sharing a secret joke. Rory’s eyes were sparkling with the same mirth and the same reservation. Could they really do this? Be friends? Be...something?
Reaching for a stack of protein cups, Magnus decided he didn’t have to have the answer right now, but he was certainly going to enjoy the peace while it lasted. He handed the cups to Rory. “Can you put those on the top shelf?”
Rory shot him a tight-lipped little smile, no doubt remembering all the times he’d teased Magnus for being the shortest Rourke, and took the cups from his hand, calloused fingers brushing his and sending a jolt of longing through his belly.
“Gladly.”
Chapter Three
Before he knew it, Rory was seated on one end of Dagen and Ollie’s dark leather couch, a plate of pizza in his hand and a beer on the end table beside him. With all of them working, Dagen, Ollie, Kayla, Stella, him, and Magnus, it had only taken a few hours to get the apartment arranged and all but some of Ollie’s sketchbooks unpacked. Then Niko and Luca had shown up with pizza, and they’d settled down in the living room to watch the Pay-Per-View MMAPRO fight that was the reason Harbor and Theo were absent from their ranks. He wondered at Vidar not being around though. The eldest Rourke had manned the gym all day while they all helped Dagen and Ollie move, but he thought they might see him tonight. Maybe he’d just been too tired.
It was surreal to think that only last month he would have been one of the people on the screen—feeling the excitement as the roar of the crowd filled the arena while he cornered for Theo Smith. Even though he was Harbor’s trainer, former trainer now he supposed, Harbor asked Rory to corner for Theo during their Middleweight fight that determined the winner of last year’s tournament and the new champion. Harbor Rourke was an incredible fighter and loyal to his bones. Even if it wasn’t obvious every time his friend looked at Theo, Rory would have known from that request alone that Harbor and Theo were the real deal.
“Who’s fighting tonight?” Magnus asked, walking in from the kitchen with a plate and beer of his own. Magnus had walked Stella to her car after she’d declined pizza because she was meeting a friend for dinner, and had stayed out there a long time. Rory had barely stopped himself from going to check on them, and the curiosity at what mother and son had talked about wiggled around in his brain. He thought of Stella as a second mother, and she’d always treated him like he was one of hers. There had been times in the last year and a half after Magnus moved back that he’d gone to her, even knowing how unfair it was, to talk about how the way things went with Magnus were eating him up inside.
“Andre Harrison and Gregor Matheson,” Rory answered, fighting to keep the pleased look to an acceptable minimum when Magnus chose to sit beside him on the couch instead of in the empty recliner. Kayla had to leave even before Stella for a tattoo appointment so it was only the six of them left for pizza and fight night.
Niko was on the other side of Magnus, and Luca
was sitting cross legged on the floor, back to the couch, with his plate on the coffee table. Both the Barlos brothers had an olive complexion and dark hair and eyes. Niko was the shorter of the two at five-foot-five with Luca at five-foot-eight. Rory couldn’t help the warm joy that filled him at seeing Luca doing so well. When he and Vidar had brought him home from that place, he was afraid Luca would have trouble acclimating back to normal life. But with Niko steady and fiercely protective beside him, as well as Magnus offering Luca a job, he seemed to be adjusting well.
“Aren’t those the guys Harbor and Theo fought?” Magnus asked, mouth half full of pizza and eyes on the TV screen where the commentators were discussing the upcoming fight.
“Aye. This fight will determine who Harbor fights next. It probably won’t happen until later this year, but it will be nice for him to know so he can adjust his training.” A note of sadness threaded through his voice, despite his efforts to hold it back. He was, without a doubt, thrilled that Harbor had found Theo, but he’d be lying if he said it hadn’t left him feeling a bit bereft when they’d decided to live and train at Theo’s home gym in Indianapolis. It was only a couple of hours away from Cincinnati, true, but training Harbor had been the staple of Rory’s days for the last couple years. Harbor’s steady presence, friendship, and relentless work ethic had helped Rory focus and get through some of the toughest months of his life after his mother died. He knew he hadn’t been cut out completely, they spoke all the time, and Rory was helping both him and Theo develop programs to keep them moving forward with their training, but it wasn’t the same.
“You,” Magnus started and paused. “You did all his training, didn’t you?”
“Not all, your brother is a machine. And boyfriend or not, he’s going after Theo to get that title.” Rory chuckled.
“I have no doubt of that.”
On screen, Andre and Gregor were making their way to the cage while the commentators made mentions of the last fights they were involved in.
“This next fight coming up is one I’ve been looking forward to since the fight card for tonight was announced, Jim.” The commentator said as Andre stepped into the cage. Rory furrowed his brows. Andre looked terrible, pale and tired.
“Oh, absolutely, Todd. These guys, Andre Harrison and Gregor Matheson, are both top-notch fighters, but they both lost their last fights in the Middleweight title tournament. So you know they’re going to be hungry getting in that cage tonight.”
“I couldn’t agree more, Jim. Gregor fell to the now Middleweight Champion, Theo Smith, and Andre was submitted by none other than the Middleweight first contender, Harbor Rourke.”
Everyone in the living room, including Ollie and Dagen, now both looking a little flushed after finishing “putting the clothes away in their closet” —so many jokes Rory could make, honestly—cheered when the camera swept the crowd and landed on Harbor and Theo who lifted their hands and waved.
When the camera panned back to the cage, Andre and Gregor were facing each other in the middle as the referee went over the few rules for the fight.
“Does he look off to you?” Dagen asked, tilting his head back in the oversized recliner he and Ollie claimed to look at Rory.
“Aye,” Rory said. “I wonder if he had trouble cutting weight.” Even as Rory spoke, the commentators started in again confirming Rory’s thoughts.
“Look at the determination etched into every line of these guys faces. I have a feeling this is going to be an explosive collision of these Middleweight contenders here tonight! And the fight is on!”
“They’re circling each other, Andre trying for a jab, testing the waters. Is it me, Todd, or does Andre look a little under the weather?”
“He is a bit pale, Jim. And I know he had a little bit of trouble cutting weight for the fight tonight which can be absolutely brutal on a fighter’s body.”
“That’s so true, Todd. And for a guy as tall and broad shouldered as Andre, I’ve always kind of wondered if this weight class is the best fit for him. Oh! Gregor shoots for a takedown, and we have our first real contact in the first round of his Middleweight contest!”
Rory nodded. “I think I actually agree. Andre could easily move up to light heavy. He’s got the build, and I’d wager it’s closer to his natural weight.”
Magnus hummed beside him, and Rory’s breath caught when he realized he could feel Magnus’s body in a line of warm contact from his hip to his knee. Having finished his pizza, Magnus was slouched down a bit with his head resting on the back of the couch and looking dangerously close to falling asleep. As Rory watched, Magnus’s head started to slide until his dark hair was brushing Rory’s shoulder.
“Tired?” He couldn’t help but ask, keeping his voice quiet while the fight raged on the screen. All the other eyes in the room were focused on it, but he found he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the softening features of Magnus’s face.
Magnus’s eyes fluttered open, and he jolted a little when he saw how close he was to Rory. Before he could move, Rory gently touched his arm bringing Magnus’s eyes to his. Once he had his attention, he shook his head and scooted just an inch closer, making it easy for Magnus to lean against him which he did after a moment’s indecision. Then they were pressed together from shoulder to knee, side-by-side, and for such a small contact—a contact he could have with any of his friends without a second thought—that line of warmth burned through Rory clear to his core.
Magnus’s voice when it came was quiet. “Yeah. The club has been crazy. I knew it would take a lot of my time, but…” He blew out a breath, giving a little shake of his head.
“Business is good, then?”
“For the most part. We’ve been a little slower with a new club opening just down the road, but that’s to be expected.” Magnus grimaced. “Keeping employees is the rough part. I mean finding dependable people is hard enough...getting them to stay is turning out to be harder than I thought it would be.” Turning his head away, Magnus glanced at Niko and Luca, both engrossed in the fight. “I’m lucky to have a few truly dependable ones, though.”
“It’s good what you’ve done for them,” Rory whispered while the commentator’s on screen shouted that Gregor had defeated Andre. He glanced at the screen for a moment, a frown pulling at his lips at Gregor jumping around the cage with complete disregard for the man still lying on the mat with the doctor and referee leaning over him.
Magnus met his eyes. This close, even in the dim light of the living room with the flashing lights from the TV washing over them, he could see every single color, green and gold and blue. “Don’t act like I’m the only one. They told me you’re teaching them self-defense.”
A flush crept up Rory’s neck, and he swore he saw Niko’s lips tilt up out of the corner of his eye from where he’d slid to the floor to sit beside his brother. The little shit. “It’s a good thing to know.”
Magnus nodded before pulling his eyes away and focusing back on the TV. “Looks like Harbor will be fighting Gregor next. I know he apologized for being an asshole to Theo, but I bet Harbor is rubbing his hands together like an evil cartoon villain right now.”
“Oh, hell yeah,” Dagen chimed in. “Remember how Harbor almost went after him while they were still in the cage after Gregor and Theo’s fight?”
Rory nodded his head. And he couldn’t blame Harbor, not even a little. If someone got in Magnus’s face like Gregor had Theo, even now, he’d be hard pressed to keep his cool. Jim Rodan’s voice amplified by a microphone drew his eyes back to the screen to see Jim standing in the cage with Andre, who even in defeat still had his head held high.
“That’s a tough break for you tonight, Andre. Is there something you wish you would have done differently in preparing for this fight?”
“Honestly, I felt pretty good during training, but cutting the weight for the fight is never easy for me or anyone really, and this time it really got to me.”
“With being your second loss here, is it time to go back to th
e drawing board?”
“Definitely. I’ve been considering making some changes with my training, and I think this really cements the need to do that.”
“I mean,” Jim laughed. “No one can fault your determination or dedication. It’s obvious you’re a talented fighter. Do you think we’ll see you back in the cage?”
“Without question. And I take my hat off to Gregor tonight, he’s an outstanding fighter. It was an honor to step into the cage with him.”
“And there you have it folks, Andre Harrison, gracious even in defeat and promising this isn’t the last we’ve seen of him here in the MMAPRO fight cage.”
“He seems like a good kid.” Magnus’s voice was quiet and rough, on the verge of sleep again.
“He does,” Rory echoed. He glanced around the living room taking in Ollie curled up in Dagen’s lap, both of them looking half-asleep, and Niko and Luca with their heads bent together talking quietly about something on Niko’s phone. The warmth of Magnus’s body seeped in through his clothes and into his skin. Into his bones. It was easy to imagine more nights like this. Surrounded by people he thought of as family with Magnus pressed up against his side.
A buzzing vibration against his hip broke the peaceful moment. Magnus grunted and slid away from him to dig his phone out of his pocket before sighing when he got a look at the screen.
“Hey,” Magnus said, pressing the phone to his ear. “What? He didn’t call or anything?” His shoulders went tense, and despite being almost asleep moments ago, Magnus morphed into the businessman Rory realized he’d become right before his eyes. “I’m on my way.”
Hanging up the phone, Magnus stood from the couch and went to the dining room and grabbed his coat off the back of one of the chairs.
“Do you need us to help?” Luca asked, eyes following Magnus. Rory thought it was one of the first times he’d heard him initiate a conversation.
“No,” Magnus said, shooting Luca a smile. “But thank you. Enjoy the rest of your night off.”
Open Wounds: The Boxed Set Page 28
