“So you’re going to stay?”
“No, I just wanted to know if you were tired of me.”
* * * * *
“Sorry, Coach. He’s offering me a contract and cash. My girl, she’s going to have our kid any day now.” Terrell rubbed a hand over his close-cropped curls.
Quin sighed and sat on the edge of his desk. Losing any of his fighters sucked balls, but he’d expected T-man to jump ship. He just wished it hadn’t been to Greg. Anyone else and this move wouldn’t have hurt. “I understand where you’re coming from. I’m a father myself. Well, I wish you luck, man.” He extended his hand.
T-man’s shoulders relaxed and the tension that had him coiled so tight all day released. He slapped Quin’s hand and shook it. “Thanks. Sorry about this.”
“It’s okay. It’s a business decision. You’re doing what you have to do for your family. I get that. I made a lot of choices that weren’t just about me. I appreciate you telling me up front. If your contract doesn’t work out, I’d be glad to work with you again.”
“Cool. Cool.” He nodded and flashed Quin a smile, his white teeth standing out against his dark chocolate skin. “You’ll have to come see the baby.”
“Call me and tell me when he’s here and I’m there.”
“I’m going to go clean out my locker. My girl’s been calling me to go pick up some Cheez Whiz and ice cream.” He shook his head dramatically. “Girl eats some weird stuff.”
Quin laughed. “When Penny was pregnant she used to dip pickle slices in cottage cheese. It was nasty.”
“Seriously?”
“I wish I wasn’t. I can’t look at cottage cheese without getting a little sick.”
“Shoot, I’ll get her all the Cheez Whiz and ice cream she wants then.” T-man shuffled toward the door.
“I’ll see you around.” Quin watched his ex-fighter leave and shook his head.
Terrell wouldn’t see a fight this year, maybe not even next. He had no attack. Most of the time his opponent took him to the floor and he only escaped being put into a submission hold by sheer brute strength. You couldn’t teach the fire that men like Jacob or Mouse had to take the fight to their opponent and deliver a knockout. Greg, his most vocal opposition, picking off Terrell was a calculated move against Quin. He’d gone for the weakest link. Terrell needed money and the promise of a career.
In the long run, Quin wasn’t losing much. A fighter who might never be ready to compete seriously. Terrell was a local, who had come to the gym on his own, had his own apartment and a part-time job, so he didn’t rely on Quin for housing. At the most it was a blow to his ego and a loss to the team. The guys would talk. And therein lay his real problem.
Quin rolled his shoulders and grimaced. This was not what he wanted to handle after a long day, especially right before the fight. He needed to tackle this head-on. Pushing to his feet, he went to the office door and sought out his coaching right-hand man, a former Olympic wrestling contender named Oscar.
The fighters were still half an hour from finishing up practice. Though they were divided between stations and coaches, the focus was on the pair in the octagon. Mouse and Jacob wore pads going through takedowns. Oscar was in the ring with them directing as Quin had been before Terrell stole him away.
Mouse’s nose trickled blood and he gritted his teeth. It was a tell he’d developed in the last few weeks that put Quin on edge. Jacob, on the other hand, didn’t appear to have a scratch on him. He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet and had his gaze trained on his opponent.
“Hey, Oscar, wrap it up,” he said to the stocky coach.
Oscar nodded and moved between the circling fighters. “Okay, you two—”
Mouse shoved Oscar aside and grazed Jacob’s chest with his fist. Though Jacob danced away from the larger man, Mouse kept coming, delivering punch after punch, forcing Jacob to retreat and defend.
“Fuck,” Quin muttered, scrambling for the gate on the octagon cage.
As good as Jacob was, Mouse was still better. Jacob’s feet got in his way and the moment he stumbled Mouse tackled him in a no-holds-barred takedown. The sound of him slamming into the ground was enough to make even Quin’s teeth jar.
“Mouse, Mouse, that’s enough,” he bellowed.
Oscar grabbed one of Mouse’s arms as he pulled back to strike again, but he jerked out of the coach’s grasp. Jacob had both arms up and protecting his face.
“Fuck all,” Quin growled and wrapped his arm around Mouse’s neck, hauling him up by sheer force of strength.
Oscar scrambled to help Jacob while Quin shoved Mouse toward the cage fence. The fighter pivoted and spun around with his arms up and gaze wild.
“Calm down, Mouse. Now.”
Mouse growled something incoherent and launched himself at Quin. For a split second time stilled. Quin could feel the brush of the cool air against the fine hairs on his arms, the way his skin prickled down his spine, the slight squeak of the mats underfoot and the mingling scents of sweat, blood and new plastic.
God, he missed this.
Quin grasped Mouse’s dominant right hand as he swung into his charge and tripped up the out-of-control fighter. Quin let the bulkier fighter fall on his face and backed up a few steps. In his peripheral vision he saw Jacob and Oscar on the outside of the cage. Good, because Mouse needed a quick lesson in humility and keeping his shit together.
Mouse pushed to his feet and started jerking off the pads wrapped around his legs and arms. He threw them across the ring until he was left with only his gloves.
“You don’t want to do this, Mouse,” Quin said. It was only right to warn him, even if Quin was itching to throw a few punches himself. In the fight-or-fuck scale, they were both set on fight.
They began to circle, bouncing on the balls of their feet and studying each other. Adrenaline heightened Quin’s senses, bringing the droplets of sweat beading Mouse’s brow into crystal clear focus. He saw two openings to attack, but allowed them to slide by.
Mouse attacked in a quick one-two-punch combination, striking out with his left leg at the last moment. Quin deflected both of the blows and sidestepped the kick.
It was his turn now.
He grinned, which Mouse didn’t miss. Mouse faltered at the feral baring of teeth and bounced back, putting space between them. Or he would have had Quin not charged the heftier fighter.
Quin pounded two blows into Mouse’s stomach as his opponent cuffed him on the side of the head. It was a glancing blow, but still enough to bait his fighting instincts. Quin answered with a solid blow to the side of Mouse’s face, sending the man staggering back.
A thrill of primal excitement shot through him as he followed.
“Keep your guard up, Mouse,” he yelled, even as he pounded several more blows into the man’s sides.
Mouse twisted and put distance between them. He still had a crazy glint to his eye, but he seemed a tad bit more lucid. A few blows to the skull could knock some sense into him still it seemed.
“Are you done, Mouse?” Quin strode after the retreating man.
Mouse didn’t answer, but his gaze narrowed.
“If you’re done we can get on with—”
In a lightning-quick move Quin had taught Mouse, Quin was slammed back on the mat. His head bounced off the ground and he grunted as the other fighter began grappling with him. The moves were automatic. Quin thrashed and bucked his weight. He pulled his arms up to protect his face and twisted when he couldn’t knock Mouse off. Mouse kept pummeling him, hitting dangerously close to his old injury. The muscles twinged, a reminder that he couldn’t take as much as he wanted to believe he could.
Quin swung a right-handed punch and landed it on Mouse’s jaw, and the kid crumpled back like a house of cards.
Oscar rushed into the ring, glancing between them. Quin waved him toward Mouse, who lay in a heap on the mat, his hands twitching as he came to.
Well, fuck. Quin sat up and sucked in several deep breaths. He hadn’t mea
nt to knock him out. That was bad. Very bad considering the fight coming up.
Jacob knelt next to him and offered a towel and water. Quin accepted both, taking a pull on the chilled bottle and swiping at his face.
“What brought this on?” he asked, thumbing at Mouse.
“We had a disagreement. Sorry, Coach.” Jacob appeared as unreadable as ever.
Oscar finished evaluating Mouse and helped him out of the ring. The other fighters and a few of the gym regulars lined the fence, waiting for the rest of the drama to unfold.
Jacob stood and offered him a hand, which Quin used to hoist himself to his feet. Even the bruises he would have felt good. It was easy to get drunk on the siren song of adrenaline and raw power. All too easy to forget he couldn’t go back to fighting for his meals.
“Everyone get water and circle up by the bags in five,” Quin called.
For a moment the fighters continued to watch him.
“You heard Coach, move it.” Oscar blew a short burst on his whistle and shouldered back into the ring to Quin’s side.
“Go on,” Quin said to Jacob. He watched the young men mosey off to water bottles and the drinking fountain before turning his attention to Oscar. “What was that about?”
Oscar shook his head. “Mouse hit on Jacob’s girl and she turned her nose up at him.”
“That’s it?” Quin found it hard to believe. There was more going on between Jacob and Mouse than one could see on the surface.
Oscar merely shrugged.
Quin sighed. He could only solve so many problems at once, and that one would have to wait. “T-man’s signing a contract with Greg.”
Oscar snorted.
“I want to address the guys, try and nip the gossip in the bud. Why don’t you go get those new t-shirts for tomorrow night. We can hand that out.”
Oscar nodded and headed for the storeroom where they had stashed the boxes. The plan had been to hand the shirts out before they left for the match, but if there was one thing Quin had learned from his time in the service, it had been how to improvise and improve morale.
“Circle up, guys,” he called, his voice reverberating through the gym.
The fighters meandered toward him, some dropping down onto the ground, others standing and a few taking advantage of the moment to run through a few stretches. On the other side of the gym, T-man was exiting the doors for the last time. He might want to fight, but taking on the responsibility of a family was a burden that would change his life and either make him into a fighter or take him away from it completely.
“Good practice, guys. I’m seeing a lot of improvement across the board. We have a great team here, and tomorrow starts a run of fights for us. There is some not so great news. T-man is leaving the team. He’s been offered a contract, and I wasn’t going to step in the way of him getting a shot somewhere else. We have no hard feelings about him leaving. It was a business decision on his part, and one I support. That in mind, we have asked that if I am going to organize fights for you, you sign a non-compete. Any questions?”
One of the scrappy guys Quin had brought in from California jerked his head up. “Coach, who is T-man going with?”
“Greg’s gym.”
Several curses and creative uses for T-man’s name were uttered.
“Doesn’t matter where he went. What does matter is that tomorrow is fight night. I want you to get a good night’s rest and show up tomorrow wearing these.” He reached into the box Oscar had dropped at his feet and pulled out one of the new shirts. They were the gym blue, with white scrollwork and the gym name printed diagonally across the left shoulder. “Wear it tomorrow and come support the gym and Mouse. Two weeks from now Jacob and Ash have their matches. Any questions not about T-man?”
Silence.
“All right, I will see you guys tomorrow. Go home, get a good night’s sleep.” His voice was drowned out by the chatter of the men milling around and coming up to claim a t-shirt.
He stood shoulder to shoulder with Oscar and handed the shirts out. Addressing T-man’s departure didn’t make him feel any better. He was the first to go. There would be others. Quin had been expecting some to leave. Half of them had followed him to Texas when he’d just relocated to be a coach under someone else’s name, and while they were promising fighters and friends, many of them were too young to know what it was like to live without the support of their family. The others had girlfriends or debts that needed to be paid.
The road to becoming a professional fighter was rough, demanding and filled with uncertainty. Quin would give anything to be on the other side of the fence. To fight again. But it wasn’t in his cards. He’d played his hand and that run was over.
“What are you doing tonight, Coach?” Mouse gathered his discarded pads and placed them in a duffle bag.
“Not sure. Big plans?” He wanted to see Kellie tonight, to touch her again. He might not care like she did, but he felt. Maybe not as she did, with fire in her bones, but he liked her a lot more than he’d liked any other woman.
“Going to hit up a bar, watch the basketball game.” He straightened and flashed a perfect smile of fake teeth. “Pick up some ass. Interested?”
It was something they’d done before, but it didn’t even interest him. Not in the slightest. “Nah, not tonight, man. Hey, how’s Jacob doing?”
Mouse sobered. “Chink’s fast and hits like a jackass.”
“You can’t say that shit. What did I tell you?” Quin scowled and clenched his hands. It was that or strangle him.
“Sure I can.” Mouse turned to where Jacob was talking with another Asian man he didn’t recognize. If Quin was lucky, he was one of the former regulars come home. “Hey, Chink, we talked about this, didn’t we?”
Jacob’s expression never altered as he turned. He said something to his companion and crossed the distance between them.
“Mouse, you can’t call Jacob a Chink.”
“Sure I can. We’re friends.” The grin he gave Jacob was a little too toothy, a little too aggressive to be called friendly.
“It’s okay, Coach.” Jacob’s impassive gaze slid from Mouse to him.
Maybe it was a test. Jacob was challenging Mouse. Jacob couldn’t beat him yet, but he would, and that threatened Mouse. If Quin intervened, it could get worse before it got better.
He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Fuck it. Whatever. If someone complains, it’s your ass that’s answering for it.” He jabbed a finger at Mouse, who merely shrugged.
“Coo. Catch ya on the flip side.”
Jacob and Quin stood in silence while Mouse swaggered off to join a few of the guys hanging around the water fountain. A nervous-looking young woman passed the group and they all watched. He was going to have to give them more to do. Clearly the practices weren’t tough enough. Maybe he could make some calls, bring in a Judo master to vary the training up some.
“Is he riding you too hard?” he asked without looking at Jacob.
“No.”
“Does him calling you Chink bother you?”
Jacob snorted. “I’m not Chinese. It just makes him look ignorant.”
“If it bothers you, tell me.”
“That would make it worse.”
Quin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shit.”
“I can handle myself, Coach.”
“I never said you couldn’t. Just, keep me in the loop.”
Jacob merely nodded.
“Coming tomorrow night?”
“Bringing my girlfriend.” His lips were too thin when he stopped speaking.
“Something the matter?” Quin pushed one of the leftover shirts into Jacob’s hands and bent to pick up the box.
Jacob grabbed the other side, and together they hefted it and took it to the closet. It hit the concrete floor with a thud, and both men stood staring into the darkness.
“She’s a good Korean girl. My parents want me to marry her.”
“And you don’t want to?”
He shook his hea
d.
“Then don’t.” Quin shrugged and grabbed one of the shirts tucked against the side of the box.
“It’s not that simple.” Jacob leaned against the doorframe, his face partially shrouded by shadow. “Our families have been friends for generations. They’ve always had sons. She’s the first daughter born to either family.”
This was America. If a person didn’t want to do something, their family couldn’t make them. Hell, his dad would have liked to force him to stay in the service like his brother, but that hadn’t worked out. “They can’t force you to marry her. Does she want to marry you?”
“She does what she’s told to do.”
“Which in this case is to date you?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re bringing her tomorrow night because?”
“If I’m going to marry her I should at least try to do things with her.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“It is.” They stared at nothing for a moment. “Your eye’s healing up.”
“Yeah, thankfully Kellie wasn’t too mad at me.” Quin touched the still-healing gash. It would scar, adding to his collection, but that wasn’t what bothered him. He’d cared when he’d seen Kellie, known she misunderstood what was going on, and it had killed him.
“Are you going to treat her well?”
Another woman, he would have snorted and made an offhand comment that if she treated him well, he’d return the favor. But Kellie was different. She demanded his respect, stole bits of him he hadn’t known were unprotected.
“Yeah, if I didn’t, she’d kick my ass.” It was a little unnerving how Jacob stood there completely impassive. “Hey, can you give me her address? I wanted to surprise her, but I haven’t been to her place yet.”
One beat, then another passed. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Come on, she won’t go out tonight because she’s spending time with her grandmother. I just want to surprise her a little.”
Jacob was silent and still for several more moments. “Fine.” He turned toward the office, forcing Quin to follow him.
He’d be surprising Kellie with himself. It was time to step out on a ledge.
The Harder He Falls: 2 (So Inked) Page 18
