On The Ropes: Tapped Out Book 3

by Quinn, Cari

  “Not there. That’s a different storefront. Not connected. This is the place.” She produced a key from her pocket and turned it in the lock before opening the door and motioning me inside. “Straight down the hall. We’ll start there first. The stairs go to a second level.”

  “That’s usually what stairs do.”

  She pointed inside, and I went. I could tell when my sister was nervous, and when she was nervous, I got nervous too. She was unflappable most of the time, so if something had her vexed, it probably wasn’t good.

  “What is this?” I wandered down the short hall with its threadbare, ancient carpet and opened up another a glass door. Stepping inside took my breath away. “A dance studio?”

  “Used to be, yeah.” She stopped beside me and viewed the space with her hands in her back pockets and her lower lip caught between her teeth. She bit her lip all the time too, just like I did. Somehow I’d never noticed before.

  I walked over to the ballet barre and ran my hand over the dusty wood, imagining how many other hands, small and large, had gripped it.

  “What do you think?” Mia hadn’t moved from the doorway.

  “It’s a pretty place. Lots of light.” I walked to the back of the room where sunlight poured in through the large windows and highlighted the tracks of dust on the grimy hardwood floors. It needed some TLC, but I could see the possibilities. I stared out at the wild shrubbery in back, backing up to a chain link fence. Though there wasn’t much of a yard, unsurprisingly, the stone patio was a nice surprise. “Why do you have a key?”

  “Because I’m buying it.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m purchasing it. It’s going to be mine. Well, ours, if you want to come on board.”

  I turned and stared at my sister across the enormous studio. The fact that it was a former dance place wasn’t lost on me. It made me wonder if the two halves of my life were on a collision course.

  But of course they weren’t. Sometimes a cigar was just a cigar, and sometimes an old, abandoned dance studio with windchimes hanging from the ceiling fixture was just that.

  “Yours and mine for what? You better start ‘splainin’, Lucy.”

  “You know I wanted to do that shelter,” she began, moving around as if she couldn’t keep still. Another sure sign of nerves. “A safe place for people to go after a traumatic event. Not just for counseling necessarily, but for anything they need. There are a couple smaller studios that branch off this one. Here, and here.” She walked from one door to another without opening them and turned back to me. “They could just be quiet places. Somewhere without judgment, without having to think beyond the next moment. There’s another room over there, a smaller one, that might work for a counselor’s office.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I was pretty sure I’d lost my voice entirely.

  “It’s just in the planning stages right now, but I sorta put an offer together. The owner rejected my first one, so I talked to Tray’s dad, and he helped me figure out what I should counter with if I decide to try again. I needed you to see it, to tell me if you feel what I do.”

  “What do you feel?” I whispered.

  “Hope.” She gripped the barre with her good hand. She’d gotten her cast off a couple of days ago, but she was still being careful with her injured arm. “I’m probably projecting, because this is where I’d hoped to open. This neighborhood, I mean.” She tipped back her head, studying the ceiling windchimes as I had. “I wanted a storefront, not somewhere tucked too far away in a building no one could find. There isn’t anything but that one door, but that’s enough. We can paint the name on the glass, make sure it’s really visible. And your section is to the left of the building. You probably didn’t see the staircase around the side. The second floor has a small storefront, big enough for your display window—”

  “What display window?” My head was spinning, my chest too tight. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your bakery. Well, it doesn’t have to be a bakery. You can make whatever you like. A café, maybe? That could work too. But I thought the space would be perfect. Your cooking soothes you, so maybe it would soothe someone else. They could leave here, go upstairs, get a cup of tea and a cookie. Or not. I just want to offer comfort.” She lifted her hands and let them fall. “In whatever form that takes. For everyone, it’s different.”

  “A bakery.” Already I could see it. Cheerful pink, yellow, and blue cupcakes in the window. Pies and cakes in a revolving tower. A fancy lighted case for all the other goodies I could create. “Mine?”

  “Yours.” Her eyes dampened and she cleared her throat. “If you wanted it, that is. I’m sorry, I forget to ask. Just assumed.”

  “As if I could say no.”

  “You can. You can always say no. It’s your choice.”

  I wasn’t ready to think about choices, to let my mind wander from today to that night a few weeks ago. One had nothing to do with the other, and I didn’t want all this good tainted by what had happened in the club. Somehow that had turned into good too, with what was happening with me and Gio. I didn’t know all his secrets, and he didn’t know mine—or Mia’s. We were living on borrowed time, and any day now, the thing we had going could end. Maybe that was why it was so precious. Temporary or not, it was very good.

  So was this, and that was what I had to focus on. Not times when I hadn’t had a choice. Or when Mia hadn’t had one.

  Making the choice to be happy, to live in the moment, was the hardest of all.

  “If I’m going to be a partner, I have to pay my share.”

  “I have the money. I want to get us going. When the profits start rolling in, then we’ll talk about you paying me back, if you still want to.”

  “I will,” I said quickly. “I won’t lean on you. That money is yours, Ame.”

  Her face pinched, as it always did when I slipped and called her by her given name. She’d been Amelia once, before the kidnapping. Years later, she’d changed her name legally to Mia to try to escape some of the stranglehold of her past.

  I didn’t know if that was possible. Some events dug hooks so deep in you, you spent the rest of your life trying to fill the holes. And what I’d been through didn’t compare to what she’d endured.

  To think I’d once harbored some sort of sick envy that she’d gotten all the attention and I hadn’t. Now I knew bad attention was worse than none at all.

  “It’s ours. You’re my family. My blood.” She walked forward and took my hands. “Without you, I wouldn’t be standing here today. You gave me a reason to fight.” She reached up and brushed my hair out of my face. “You’re so beautiful, and smart, and talented. Looking at you, I know everything was worth it.”

  My eyes stung and I gazed at our loosely linked fingers. “I haven’t always made good decisions, Ame. You wouldn’t think so highly of me if you knew.”

  “Hey, look at me.” Once I had, she stroked my cheek, as softly as our mama used to do when she sang us lullabies. “I made bad decisions too. So many of them. Ones I’d be ashamed to admit to you.”

  “Like what?” When she glanced away, I gripped her hand harder. “Please tell me.”

  I needed to hear what she’d done, so I didn’t feel like such a colossal fuckup. I’d started dancing to pay the bills, to offset my schooling, to gain a measure of control in a world where I felt powerless. But I’d gone about taking control in all the wrong ways. Taking off my top for a bunch of strange men wasn’t going to give me anything more than a momentary thrill, and one that could prove dangerous.

  I’d thought danger was sexy once. After what had happened at the club, and seeing the bits and pieces of what Gio was into, I didn’t. Not anymore.

  But once you set a course, sometimes there was no way to hit reverse. I could quit dancing, but I couldn’t quit Gio. Not yet. And since they were tied together, and dancing gave me a reason to see him, to keep an eye on his activities, I couldn’t give it up either. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t fun anymore. N
ow it had become a means to an end.

  “I made some mistakes, did some things I’m not proud of to try to pay the bills. To put some away for you and me. I wasn’t making much at the bar, and female fights never brought in the cash that male ones do. Lately, it’s changing. Women are starting to command—”

  I rubbed my thumb over her knuckles. “What did you do, Ame?”

  She walked away from me, pushed both hands through her hair. “I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this.” She shifted back to me. “But I am, because you’re an adult now, and you’re my best friend.”

  The tears prickled again, and I nodded. “Me too. You’re mine too.”

  One corner of her mouth lifted. “More than Jenna? I know I’m not exactly easy to deal with.”

  “More than anyone.” I moved forward and took her hand again, trying to convey with my expression that nothing she could tell me could shock or hurt me.

  Oh, if she only knew.

  “I gave men blowjobs for money,” she whispered.

  My horror must’ve shown on my face, because she spun away and stabbed her fingers through her hair again, completely destroying her braid.

  “Oh, God, I shouldn’t have said it. I shouldn’t have told you.”

  For a second, I didn’t know what to say. Maybe five or ten seconds. Then I realized I didn’t have to say anything at all.

  I wrapped my arms around her from behind, squeezing her tightly enough to tell her nothing between us had changed. I loved her every bit as much as I always had. I hated that she’d ever reached the point to do what she had, but I was so glad she’d told me.

  Maybe that meant someday, she would be able to understand why I’d made the choices I had. For money, and other reasons.

  “It’s okay,” I said after a moment, kissing her shoulder. “It’s all okay. Whatever happened in the past doesn’t matter now. You did it, you learned from it, it’s over.”

  “Do you really think that?” She pivoted to face me, and her dark eyes were stark in her pale face. “You can tell me the truth.”

  “I am. I wouldn’t begin to judge you. I’m not perfect. God, I’m so not. So whatever you did, it’s in the past.”

  She pressed her lips together until they went white. “Yes, it’s in the past.”

  “I won’t tell anyone,” I promised. “Never.”

  “Tray already knows, if you meant him.”

  I blinked. “Wow. Whoa. Really? You told him?”

  “Not exactly.” Her cheeks tinged pink. “He heard rumors way back at the beginning when we hooked up, then we got into a fight about it. But yeah, he knows.” She rubbed her palms on her hips. “He knows all the sordid truths about me, and yet he still sticks around. Guy must be insane.”

  “A little. And in love.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “Pretty much.” Smiling weakly, I took her hand. “I’m so grateful you told me. Thank you for trusting me.”

  Not just because I wanted her to feel like she could trust me, but also because it made me think that perhaps one day I could come clean about my own choices. She might not hate me for them. Maybe she’d find it in her heart to understand, if not forgive me.

  I didn’t need her forgiveness for the way I lived my life, but I wanted it. She’d been my parental figure for so long that I still craved her approval, even as I found ways to defy her.

  God, I was still such a kid in so many ways. But I was learning.

  “Thanks for not wigging out about it. I know it’s tough to swallow.” She wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. Worst pun ever, considering.”

  It took me a minute—guess I was still too wrapped up in my own pointless melodrama—but once I got it, I laughed and hooked her arm with mine. “So bad.”

  Arm-in-arm, we wandered around the space, talking, making plans. Teasing each other as we always did. We eventually wandered upstairs to the dance studio’s former juice bar, and I cringed a little at the dirty floors. It looked like an Orange Julius had seeped into the tiles and crusted over back behind the counter.

  “Elbow grease,” Mia proclaimed. “Just needs a little elbow grease.”

  “Make that a lot.”

  I could see the possibilities, though, ones that kept us chatting throughout the ride to The Cage. Mia wanted to talk to Fox, who was supposed to be meeting with a client, and I hoped to run into Gio for a liplock or two, assuming he was there. He had a fight tonight, so I figured he’d be getting in some last minute training, but he did something at the Boys & Girls Club a few days a week. Yet another thing he played close to the vest.

  Okay, so he played all the things close to the vest, except sex. There, he was plenty open. And giving. And umm, holy shit, could that guy eat me out.

  “Is it hot in here or just me?” I waved a hand in front of my face.

  Mia narrowed her eyes at me. “It’s October, and the A/C is blasting. You aren’t getting sick, are you?”

  No, just horny, and that required a different sort of injection.

  “No. It’s just warm. Unusual weather for October.”

  “It’s fifty-six degrees out.”

  “Still warm.”

  Mia gave me the side-eye, but let it drop.

  We arrived at The Cage fifteen minutes later, and Mia made a beeline for one of the dojos in the hopes of finding Fox. On the way, we passed Evie Pierce, the woman who’d broken my sister’s arm in a fight last month. I scowled at Evie, though she paid me no mind. She was too busy doing mat work and arguing out of the side of her mouth with the man in a suit crouched beside her. Not her trainer, I was almost sure. But boy, he sure seemed to be schooling her. And she wasn’t having a bit of it.

  “Sutton Pierce,” Mia explained, noticing the object of my attention. “He owns Mark’s Gym. Surely Kizzy has mentioned him to you. He’s her hell boss.”

  “Ohhhh, hell boss.” I nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard of him. Umm, he’s hot.”

  She glanced at him and pursed her lips. “You think? To me, he looks like a dick.”

  “A stuffy dick.” I took in his tailored pants and dark gray suit jacket. It wasn’t exactly the usual attire for a MMA gym. “But still hot. I’d do him.”

  As soon as I said the words, I glanced around. I hadn’t meant anything by what I’d said. Sutton was too old for me, and besides, the English tea biscuit sort so wasn’t my type. It was just my usual kind of gossipy girl talk. But it was different when your secret lover dude might be spying on you from behind a piece of equipment.

  Luckily, Gio wasn’t anywhere in sight.

  Mia rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t do him. He’s a prick. He’s the reason I had to leave Mark’s, because he didn’t want illegal fighting to be affiliated with his gym. I don’t understand how Kizzy tolerates him.”

  “She’s stubborn as hell? And hopes to make his life a living nightmare?”

  “Yeah.” Mia shook her head, clearly winding up. “And then it turns out his sister fought overseas. Yet he has such a problem with cage fighting. Prick,” she said again.

  “Hot prick,” I agreed.

  “Do I even want to know?”

  Mia tipped back her head as Fox laid his hands on her shoulders. “No, probably not.”

  “Damn women, talking about pricks the second a guy turns his back.” He grinned and kissed my sister full on the mouth until she flushed and squirmed away.

  They were so damn cute together.

  I cast a quick glance over my shoulder again, more than a little hopefully. I had someone I wanted to be cute with too.

  Or down and dirty, either way.

  “Hey, I’m going to go chill in your office for a few while you guys chat, okay?” I was already walking away. “I know you guys have private stuff to discuss.”

  In truth, I was in search of one particular booty—uh, ass, so I could do some calling. But the office excuse was semi-plausible.

  “You need the key,” Mia called.

  “No, she doesn’t. It’s unlocked. I�
��ve been in and out so I just left it.”

  “Thanks, see you in a few,” I called back with a wave, already rushing out of the room.

  I wouldn’t have much time, so I’d have to make it count.

  A quick check of the other dojo and the weight rooms netted me exactly zippo. Maybe he really wasn’t around. I decided to head back to the office and text him. At least we could exchange a few inappropriate messages if nothing else.

  Pulling out my phone, I headed into the office and came around the desk, intending to sprawl out in the cushy chair like I always did. Just as I was about to sit, I saw the knife, handle up in the chair.

  Impaled in the fucking chair.

  I made some kind of noise, I know I did. I didn’t think it was a scream, though, until the door I’d left cracked banged against the wall. Gio filled the doorway, his broad shoulders blocking the sun streaming in the windows behind him.

  “Jesus, tesoro, I saw you go past the men’s locker room and followed you here. What is it?”

  Swallowing deeply, I pointed at the chair. I didn’t trust my voice yet.

  “What the hell is this?” He started to reach for the knife, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “Don’t touch it. There might be prints.” See, spending tons of nights stuck at home watching cop dramas hadn’t turned out to be useless after all.

  “Who did this?”

  “I don’t know. I thought that was obvious.”

  He ignored my sarcasm and prowled around the room, apparently looking for anything else that might be out of place. Something I should’ve done.

  Yeah, it looked like I’d be watching a few more cop shows on my next night off.

  “Not a-fucking-gain.” He ran his hand through his wet hair. He’d obviously just taken a shower, as the back of his white linen shirt had little water spots on it.

  Wanting to lick them up was probably not an acceptable thought right now, so I focused on what he was saying instead of his bulging, ripped body.

  “What do you mean not again?” I walked around the chair to stand behind him. “This happened before?”

  “Your sister didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?” Even picturing his tattooed arms gleaming with water wasn’t enough to stem the tide of my annoyance. “Throw me a frickin’ bone. What are you talking about?”