by Josie Kerr
“Pretty please? And I won’t tell Em about your birthday?” Bailey grinned and placed her hands in prayer.
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Oh, okay. Just because you asked nicely. And I’m afraid of what Em will do when she finds out that I kind of fibbed to you.”
Bailey squealed, hugged Charlotte, and then dragged her off to the dining room.
“Oh my Lord, this is the best meal I’ve ever had,” Tig said with a groan.
Dig chuckled. “Every meal after a fight is the best meal ever. How much did you have to cut, anyway?”
Tig shook his head. “Not much—seven pounds.”
Dig whistled. “Damn. That’s good.” Tig nodded and continued eating, just enjoying the meal and his satisfaction about winning the fight and the additional pleasure of getting that bonus.
Maybe, just maybe, he would actually have a little bit left to spend on himself after he helped his parents out with their farm expenses. Some new tires would be good. He swallowed hard, hoping that no one would notice the sudden flare of emotion.
“Hey, man. I get it,” Dig murmured. “I so totally get it.”
Tig nodded. He knew Dig got it.
When Dig had shown up at the fight club one afternoon three months earlier and essentially begged Colin to let him train with him, Tig wasn’t quite sure what to think. When Tig was at Raptor Pryde, Dig was already on the circuit and had full corporate sponsorship and had actually fought against Colin himself in a fight for the heavyweight title. He was the golden child, receiving lots of preferential treatment and perks, and Tig could not fault him for that. He’d paid his dues and was a damn good fighter. He was also about the only signed fighter that took the time to get to know the other ones—fighters like Tig who were still trying to get a decent fight, hell, any fight at all—and had seemed truly sorry and shocked when Tig was dismissed from Raptor Pryde.
Hell, it was Dig who told Tig to look up Colin Carmichael’s new club, advising Tig to dismiss anything he knew of Colin’s seemingly nasty public personality.
“Dessert?”
“What?”
Dig grinned at his smaller friend. “I said, ‘I think it’s time for dessert,’” he said with a tip of his head toward a group of women who had just entered the private dining room.
Dig grinned at the group while Tig inwardly groaned. Those women generally never paid him much attention, which was normally just fine with Tig.
Tonight, though? He had an itch, and he wasn’t sure whether fighting or fucking would scratch it.
“Bridget’s trying to make eye contact with you, Tiggyman.”
“Hmph.”
“Man, what is up with you tonight? You knocked your opponent out less than two minutes into the fight, you got Fight of the Night, and I bet you get Move of the Night, too, for that matter. And you’ve got ring girls eyeing you like potato chips and ice cream at high tide.”
“Jesus, Dig, and you say I don’t have a filter. Good Lord.”
Dig frowned. “What’d I say?”
“Ugh. Never mind.”
Tig closed his eyes and rolled his neck, making it crack with a satisfying pop.
“Oh, man, you do need to get you some. How long’s it been?”
“Too long.” Way too long.
“Tig, you are The Man tonight. You can have your pick of any woman in this place.”
Another grunt from Tig.
Dig’s smile faded into a look of horror. “Oh my God—do you not like women? Man, I’m so sorry—I just assumed. . . .”
Tig rolled his eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, DiGiacomo. I like women. I like women a lot. These women, though? Maybe not so much.”
“Huh? Why the hell not?”
“Because they dismiss me unless I do something like I did tonight, okay, Dig? I mean, at least they’re up-front with wanting to fuck a winner, but damn, it gets old being ignored the rest of the time, never given the time of day because I’m not a beast like the rest of you guys.”
Dig looked at Tig in a completely new light. Normally the little fighter was quick to smile and joke, and he was definitely the friendliest of the guys on the team. But tonight he had a hollow look in his eyes, eyes that kept searching the room for something, but Dig did not know if Tig even knew what that something was.
“Man, I’m sorry,” Tig said with a sigh. “I got shit at home that needs to be taken care of and now that the fight’s over, I’m actually thinking about it.”
Dig nodded. “Anything I can help you with, tell me, okay?”
Tig nodded.
“Oh, did you hear?”
“What?”
“C’s going to ask Bailey to marry him.”
“About damn time,” Tig said with a laugh. “Where is C, anyway? He’s usually here by now.”
“Colocha distracted him,” Junior said as he sat down across from the two fighters. “They’re probably in the bathroom making out.”
“No, there he is,” Dig said with a jerk of his chin toward the entrance. Tig turned and saw Colin, Bailey, and another woman.
He sat up straighter, and Junior barked a laugh. Dig swiveled in his seat, trying to see what Junior found so amusing, and then a slow smile spread across his face.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it, Mashburn?” Dig said, his smile growing wider. “She’s got a pretty face, but man, does she look high-maintenance or what? Damn.”
Tig did not respond.
He watched Bailey and the woman perch by the bar, the brunette sliding neatly onto a barstool and primly crossing her legs at her ankles.
Tig’s eyes wandered from the top of her mahogany head, down her shapely figure, and finally rested on her high heels. Damn. Smoking. Hot.
Junior could not control himself any longer and burst out with a gale of laughter. “Man, Tig, I’ve found out more about you in the last two minutes than I have in the past two years I’ve been training your obnoxious ass.”
Tig shrugged and grinned.
“Well, go talk to her. Damn, man. A woman elicits a response like that, you gotta go to talk to her.”
“You don’t know who she is?”
Junior shook his head. “Never seen her before. But if I had to guess, I bet she works for Irish.”
Ah. That would make perfect sense. She looked like someone who would be part of Rory’s team.
“Man, I would never get a lick of work done,” Tig murmured. Junior snorted another laugh.
Tig’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He took a look at who texted him and shook his head. Even from one hundred fifty miles away, his mother could still cockblock him.
“I gotta take this. It’s Mama,” Tig said, standing up from the table. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
“We’ll do some recon, Tig,” Junior said with a wink.
Dear Lord, save me from a matchmaking trainer.
Tig stepped out the side door into the cool night air and called his mother back.
“How’d you do, sweetheart?”
“I won, Mama. And I got Fight of the Night, too.”
Hattie Mashburn gasped. “Trevor, that’s wonderful. Oh, honey.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty great. There’s a good bonus that coming with the Fight of the Night thing, too.”
Hattie stayed silent on the other end of the line.
“I don’t know when I get the check, but it’ll be pretty soon. I’m going to come down there and talk to the bank, Mama.”
“Trevor, honey, that is not your responsibility. . . .”
“No, but I’m going to make it my responsibility. What are you going to do if you lose the farm? Where will you live?”
More silence.
“Mama, everything will work out.”
“There’s another balloon payment due, Trevor.”
“What?”
“Floyd took out another mortgage to cover seed and payment. . . .”
“The year after the flooding . . .”
“Yes.”
“And it’s due now.”
“Yes.”
Tig leaned his head on his arm and squeezed his eyes shut. Dammit, Floyd.
“I’m still going to talk to the bank.”
“Trevor . . .”
“Mama . . .”
Hattie sighed. “You’re such a good boy, you know that?”
Tig huffed a laugh. “I’m almost thirty years old, Mama.”
“You’re still my baby boy. Go celebrate. I’ll see you next week, okay?”
“Okay, Mama. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Trevor.”
Tig turned his back to the brick wall and leaned his head back in resignation. He could not win for losing.
His phone buzzed again. He fully expected for it to be his mother, apologizing, but it wasn’t.
Fight night tomorrow. Same time, location.
You in, Kicker?
Tig looked at the message, quickly responded, and went back into the pub.
“Man, it seems like I was just doing this,” Ryan muttered as he taped up Tig’s hands. At Tig’s unusual silence, he looked at his friend. “You okay, Tig?”
“I don’t know. This is weird. The whole feel of this night is weird.”
Ryan nodded in agreement.
“Tig . . .”
“I’m fighting, and then I’m getting my cut, and I’m getting the hell outta here. Something’s off.”
“You drive the truck?”
“Yeah, I did. I almost got hit on my bike last time—scared the shit outta me.”
“Hey, Goody, you finish taping up your girlfriend?”
Tig saw Ryan’s jaw clench.
“Ryan. Not. Worth it,” Tig murmured out of the side of his mouth.
Ryan exhaled and nodded. “Gimme five, Carter, and then I’ll service your mom.” Ryan rolled his eyes but grinned when he saw Carter scowl.
“Fuck you, Goody. I’m sending the next fighter over to you.”
“Sure.”
“That guy’s an ass,” Tig muttered.
“That guy’s always been an ass, but he’s worse since he’s taken over his old man’s construction business.”
Tig looked around the half-empty construction yard. It did not seem like anything had moved or changed in the past two years. But then, it probably hadn’t since Carter seemed to be more interested in holding illegal fights on the grounds than actually getting construction contracts.
Ryan put one last layer of tape around Tig’s wrists. “Feel good?”
Tig nodded. “Thanks, Goody. I mean it.”
Ryan patted Tig on the shoulder. “I know it.”
“Oh, hell no. He’s not wrapping me, Carter. I want another cutman.”
Tig’s head snapped up. Holy fuck.
Damon Pierce, heavyweight brawler and all-around jerk, stood and glared at Ryan, who met his ferocious gaze.
Carter rolled his eyes. “Goody, you gotta problem with Pierce here?”
“Yeah, I gotta huge fucking problem with Pierce, but I’ll wrap him just like I do anyone else.”
Carter held his hands up. “What do you say, Pierce? He wraps, or you don’t fight. That’s the deal.”
Pierce grudgingly agreed and took Tig’s place on a small table.
Tig watched Ryan carefully wrap Pierce’s hands, taking as much care, if not more, as he did with Tig’s wrappings.
“Nice score with Fight of the Night, Mashburn,” Pierce said.
“Thanks.”
“Tell Dig congratulations on his win, too.”
Tig barked a laugh. “Oh, hell no. You want to talk to Dig, you do it yourself. Jesus Christ.” Tig shook his head in disbelief. Barely eight months before, Pierce had broken Dig’s arm severely enough that the doctors had thought it was a career-ending injury. Matters got even worse a few months later when Pierce broke Colin’s jaw and snapped his arm during what was supposed to be an exposition fight. Thank goodness both Dig and Colin’s bodies had healed, but the rift between Pierce and the fighters of DS Fight Club had not mended
“Where you fighting out of these days?” Tig asked.
Pierce shook his head. “Nowhere. Here.” He looked like he was going to say something else, but he stopped himself in time.
“That feel okay?” Ryan asked Pierce.
“Yeah, that feels good. Thanks. Hey, man, no—”
Ryan waved Pierce off. “Ain’t no thing, man. Ain’t no thing.”
Pierce flexed his hands and cracked his neck. “Thanks again. Tig, good luck out there.”
“You, too.”
Tig and Ryan watched Pierce walk away and push through the crowd.
“You ever get the idea that that dude’s a whole lot more complicated than he seems?” Ryan mused as he traded wraps for bandages.
Tig huffed a laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, I think he just might be.”
*****
Because Tig had won Fight of the Night in a legitimate fight the night before, instead of going on near the beginning of the card, he went on next to last, which gave him plenty of time to watch the crowd and see who was actually at the fight.
Most of the usual suspects—namely thefighters and that ass Carter—were in attendance, but there were two surprising faces: Jett Raptor and Tom, a guy that Tig recognized as the matchmaker from Raptor Pryde, as well as some other men that looked more like scouts than anything.
What the hell were they doing here? Had Raptor returned to recruiting from the underground fight circuit?
He shook his head to clear it. He needed to concentrate on this fight as opposed to letting his mind run amok with increasingly implausible scenarios.
“Mashburn. You’re up next,” Carter bellowed.
Tig cracked his neck and headed down to the makeshift octagon to take care of business.
*****
Tig did not get out of the construction yard until after the last fight because, unlike the usual procedure, all the fighters had to wait until the very end to receive their winnings.
That meant that Tig was a wreck. Every single one of his senses pinged with warnings, and even more so because of the prevalence of unfamiliar faces at the fight.
Carter put a thick envelope in Tig’s hand, but he did not look happy as he glanced toward Raptor. Tig huffed a laugh and was tempted to give his former trainer the finger, but refrained, at least for the time being.
“Let’s go. Go, go, go. We gotta move, Tig.” Ryan shoved Tig in front of him, walking so quickly that he forced Tig to trot.
“What is going on, Goody?”
“Shit’s about to get real, Tig. Please tell me you didn’t park your truck in the lot. . . .”
“Nah. I parked around the corner. Didn’t want to risk getting completely blocked in. But I didn’t get my—”
“Doesn’t matter. We gotta go. I’m right here. Get in.” Ryan unlocked the door, climbed in the car, and glared at Tig.
“Damn, all right, Goody,” Tig muttered, reluctantly getting in the car. He had barely closed the door before Ryan sped away. “What the fuck is going on?”
And then they heard the sirens.
“That’s what’s going on, Tig. Place was about to raided.”
“Holy shit. How did you know?”
Ryan looked uncomfortable and just shook his head.
“How much did you bet, Tig?”
“What?”
Ryan heaved a big sigh. “How much did you bet? You bet on yourself, right? How much?” Ryan cut his eyes to the man in the passenger seat and then concentrated back on the road. “How much? Ten? Five?”
“Just a grand.”
“Just a grand.”
“And, of course, now that’s gone. I mean, I got my purse, but . . .”
Ryan pulled out another envelope from his jacket. “Take it. Tig, you were the draw tonight, not Pierce, not anyone else. You. You brought those people in the gate. That’s your portion of the gate take. And your winnings are in there, too.”
Ryan stopped at a red light and looked at Tig. “Tig, no more fighting. You’v
e got way too much to lose now. Play the long game. No matter how desperate things seem right this minute, you’ve got people that have your back and will help you out—anything you need.”
“I’m gonna need a ride to pick up my truck tomorrow, provided that it doesn’t get impounded.”
“What time?”
“Oh . . . uh . . .”
“What time?”
“Eight.”
“Done.” Ryan pulled up to the Fight Club, where the parking lot was full and several of the lights in the apartment segment of the building were still on. When Tig opened the door to get out of the car, he could hear music playing.
Ryan huffed a laugh. “I guess they’re still blowing off steam.”
“Yeah.” Tig heaved another big sigh. “Thanks for looking out for me, Goody. I mean it.”
“Sure thing, Tig. Remember what I said.”
Tig nodded and managed a weak smile. He thumped the dashboard of Ryan’s truck and got out and made his way up the external staircase to his apartment.
He slipped into his studio apartment and turned on one small light, praying that no one would wander downstairs and realize he was home.
It wasn’t until he pulled off his boots and took the envelopes out of his pockets and put them on the table that he allowed himself to relax the smallest amount. He looked at the bulging envelopes.
“Ah, fuck it.” Tig sat down at the small table and separated the bills out by denomination, and then he began counting.
The next morning, Tig was feeling a lot more hopeful and might have still been on a little bit of a high after the two fights. True to his word, Ryan was waiting for Tig at eight o’clock, with the bonus of a breakfast sandwich and a huge black coffee. They did not say anything as Ryan drove them to the back to the construction site where Tig’s old truck sat a block away, untouched.
“No one wants to steal a pumpkin-colored, forty-year-old Datsun,” Tig said with a grin.
“Is that what you call that color? Good God A’mighty. I’m gonna wait and make sure that thing starts up.”
“Oh, it’ll start. Thanks for the ride.”
Ryan nodded, but indeed waited for Tig to start the truck, which he did with no issues. Ryan shook his head, waved out the window, and drove off. Tig sat in the truck for a long moment and then pulled out of the parking lot and headed down to middle Georgia to see the man at the bank.
