Inked Playboy (Cocky Suits Chicago Book 5)

by Alex Wolf

  A smile spreads across my face, and I turn to Massimo. “Yeah, I’ll take this one.” Then, I lean back down to Harlow. “Stop stealing my lines, asshole.”

  Yeah, maybe I can wear a suit for her. This could be fun.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cole Miller

  It’s been a few weeks since everything happened at the hospital and, if I’m being honest, it might’ve been the best few weeks of my life, and it only seems to be getting better. Going suit shopping with Harlow was the highlight. Well, that and the sex we had that night. I wore that fucking suit right out of the store, leaving nothing to chance.

  Dex and the brothers have been a little off about us, but they seem to be coming around. That’s the only downside to this whole thing.

  It’s not like I meant for this to happen with Harlow, but it did, and it’s made my life a million times better. Everything feels like it’s falling into place, life seems to have more meaning.

  Being with Harlow has been fucking incredible. We’ve stayed together every single night, either at her place or mine. I just dropped her off to get ready for work then picked up my suits from the dry cleaners. She made me get three of them. I just didn’t look at the price tag. She laughed the entire time.

  I know I hate suits, but can I really complain that much? Dex shut up about it, and Harlow wants to fuck immediately any time she sees me in one. It will never be an every day thing for me, but I don’t mind getting dressed up for her every once in a while, if she enjoys it. Isn’t that what the whole dating and relationship thing is all about, anyway? Compromises? Hell, I’m crushing it.

  It’s seven a.m. and I have meetings lined up at The Hunter Group to meet with a few venture capital firms, one right after another. Hence, why I needed to pick up my suits. As I’m driving down Michigan Avenue, I get a phone call.

  “Hello?”

  “Cole?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Pete Simons with WMMA.”

  “Hey, Pete. How are you?” Fuck yes. I mentally fist pump. There’s only one reason for Pete to be calling, and that’s to deliver some good news.

  “Great. How would Mandez like a fight with Tory Chalmers?”

  Another fist pump.

  That’s the fight Pedro’s been wanting for over a year. I have to fuck with Pete, though. You can’t just agree with these guys, everything’s a negotiation tactic. “Oh, I don’t know. Shouldn’t we make it an interesting fight?”

  He snickers on the other end. “You and Mandez are the cockiest sons of bitches on the planet, I swear.”

  I laugh. “We’ll see. Gotta clear it with Pedro. Nothing official yet, but it’s probably a yes if the money’s right.” I need to get every dime for Pedro I can. He has to live off this fight money the rest of his life, help his friends and family out with it. One injury can end it all at any time. Even a miscue outside the octagon can throw the whole thing off the rails.

  “Sounds good, I’ll wait to hear back.”

  “Awesome. Talk soon.”

  “Yep.” He hangs up.

  There’s no way in hell Pedro will turn down this fight, but I just built us some bargaining time. Pedro’s going to go nuts and scream yes, but I have to hear it from him first anyway.

  I immediately call Pedro and Bill. They should both be at the gym right now.

  Bill answers on the second ring. “Team Miller.”

  I disguise my voice. “Yes, I want to learn how to fight like Cole Miller. Is this the right place?”

  He sighs audibly, clearly annoyed. “We have a few classes each week, if you drop by—”

  I cut him off. “I want to learn it in like a week, just like Cole Miller. That guy’s the best fighter I’ve ever seen. That something you teach?”

  “A week? Are you kidding me?” He mumbles a few curse words after that, and I can barely contain my laughter.

  I compose myself. “What’s the problem, I thought you guys were the best? I wanna be the best in the world, like Cole Miller.”

  “Listen up, this is a serious place for serious people. Cole Miller hasn’t been the best in several years anyway. He’d get his old ass kicked if he tried to come out of retirement now and you can’t learn what we do in a week.”

  I switch to my normal voice. “Your words hurt me, Bill.”

  “Cole?”

  I die laughing.

  He lets the curse words fly audibly this time. “You little shit. What the hell do you want? We’re trying to train over here, unlike you sitting around eating potato chips, counting your money like Scrooge McDuck.”

  “Is that what you think I do all day?”

  “Yeah, in my mind you do.”

  I can’t stop laughing. Fuck, I love these guys. “Go get Mandez and put it on speaker phone.”

  He yells for Pedro. I hear some footsteps pounding then some heavy breathing.

  “Why you breathing so hard? Thought you were in shape? I can hear your ass through the phone.”

  “Oh suck a dick, I been here since five, bitch. What do you want?”

  “Got a call from Pete at WMMA.”

  I can practically hear Pedro bouncing around now. “Well, what’d he say? What’d he say?” He fires off the questions in rapid succession.

  “You want a rematch with Black?”

  “Motherfucking shit fuck, I already kicked his ass! Why would I want to fight that asshole again? I’ll murder him!” He sounds like he wants to trash the whole office.

  That’s what Bill gets for saying I’d get my ass kicked now.

  I’m dying laughing.

  He stops. “Are you fucking with me?”

  “He’s doing a lot of that this morning,” says Bill.

  “Yeah, it’s Chalmers. You want it?”

  “Fuck. Yes. You call them back and tell them any time any place. You tell them to bring his ass down to the streets and I’ll fuck him up in an alley with nobody watching if I have to.”

  That’s how it is with fighters. It’s never about the money, but it is. Deep down, though, it’s about the respect. It’s about knowing you’re the best in the world, and nobody can ever take that away from you. “All right. You want it, you got it. Better get your ass in gear. I’ve seen the videos on that kid.”

  “I’ll be ready,” says Pedro. “Bet on that.”

  “Yeah you will be,” says Bill. Hell, even he sounds excited, and Bill never gets excited.

  “All right, fellas. I’ll set it up. Get to work.” My adrenaline spikes too, and part of me feels a little sad. I remember those days like they were yesterday, getting those phone calls, because they were practically yesterday. Five years ago, to be exact. It’s crazy how short a fighter’s career is. I’m stoked for Pedro, though. He’s the champ, but every opportunity to prove himself just solidifies him more as one of the greats of all time. This will be a tough fight, but it’s the kind of fight you live for. You want the toughest fight possible. You want to beat the best and prove yourself.

  “Hey, Miller?” says Pedro.

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  “No problem, man. You’ve earned this. Everything you have, you did that. You. Remember that shit.”

  “No, seriously, though. Thank you. I’d have nothing if it weren’t for you and Bill. I won’t let you down.”

  Fuck, I have to bite back some emotions creeping in my chest. Pedro’s not very humble, you can’t be as a fighter, but he’s humble when it counts, when it matters.

  “Pedro, you couldn’t let us down if you tried. No matter what happens, okay?”

  “Yeah,” says Bill. “He’s right. No matter what, kid.”

  “Okay. Well, thanks. I mean that.”

  “All right. You guys know what to do. We got this. I’ll have a date for us by end of the week, probably.”

  “Cool.”

  I hang up again and pass through a light on Michigan Avenue.

  What the hell?

  There’s a woman walking with a small plastic bag of groc
eries. It looks like…

  Mom?

  I pull over to the side and roll down the passenger window. I have to look twice, just to make sure. I don’t want to pull up and holler at some random lady walking down the street unless it’s her.

  She walks by and doesn’t see me.

  “Mom!”

  She glances over and it’s definitely her. Whew. Thought I might look like a weirdo for a second. I wave her over.

  She glances through the window and recognition sets in. “Oh, umm, hey.”

  I smile, trying to make her feel at ease. “Hop in, I’ll give you a ride.”

  She eyes my Tesla for a quick moment, then apprehensively opens the door and gets in. Once her seat belt is on, she looks over. “Nice car.”

  “Thanks, I like it. Good for the environment and a lot of fun. What are you out doing?”

  I feel like I’m on top of the world right now and Harlow is getting ready for work, so I don’t want to bother her with Pedro’s news. I’ll tell her later. Still, I just got the fight of the century for Pedro and my meeting with the VCs is coming up. It’s like I’m walking on air.

  “Just heading home. Picked up a couple things.”

  I glance down and there’s some deodorant and toiletries in her bag.

  “Where’s home? I can drop you off.”

  “It’s the shelter, just a few blocks up.”

  My heart drops. I don’t know why it does, but it does. I just feel bad for her. I shouldn’t, really, but I do. I start to think, and I know it’s fast, but I’ve been staying at Harlow’s a lot anyway. I don’t know. For some reason, I feel like Harlow doesn’t trust Mom as much as I do, but it’s my mom. I don’t really trust her either, but I hate seeing people down on their luck like she is. Regardless of what she did or what she put me through, not having her life together, I can try to make her more comfortable. It doesn’t really cost me anything. We share the same DNA.

  “Hey, Mom?” Why does it feel so weird to call her that? Maybe it’ll become more normal as time goes on. I’m not going to lie, it’s actually nice seeing her. My whole life I’ve never known anyone related to me by blood. I have so many questions, but I don’t want to overwhelm her.

  “Yeah?”

  “Would you like to, umm… I mean, yeah, why don’t you come stay at my place for a while? Maybe I can help you out some, you know, find a job or whatever it is you want to do.”

  She shakes her head adamantly. “No way.” She pauses and turns to face me. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I just mean, I couldn’t do that. I don’t deserve that.”

  “It’s no problem. I have a big place and I’m not there very much. It’s way better than wherever you’re staying, I guarantee it. Just try it out for a couple days, think of it as a vacation or something.”

  She stares off out the front windshield. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s okay, really. I’m not looking for anything, like, I don’t know how to say this. You don’t need to give me anything in return. I don’t want anything from you, like to…” Fuck, why is this so hard to talk to her? “You don’t owe me an explanation or anything like that. What’s done is done. I just want to help.”

  Finally, she nods. “Okay, I guess we could try it out for a bit.”

  My heartrate spikes. “Great. I’ll take you there now. I have to get ready for some meetings anyway. You’ll have the place to yourself all day. But there’s food, TV, books, whatever.” I pause and take a deep breath. “And maybe later or something, if you’re up for it, we can talk about things.”

  She winces a little.

  “Not like that, no guilt trips or anything. Only if you want to, just you know? I’m just curious about where I come from, what my biological family was like. That type of stuff. I just don’t know much about who I am, my family, that kind of thing. If you don’t want to, it’s no problem at all.”

  Mom pauses for a few beats. “Okay. I think that’d be okay.” She looks over at me, and it still seems like she’s afraid to talk to me, touch me, like she might break me.

  I get it. She had a kid young and had no idea what to do. She probably thought she made the best choice for me, like this state could take better care of me than she could. She’s probably lived her whole life thinking I resented her. I don’t know, but I don’t want to push her. I still have no idea why she did what she did, but if she doesn’t want to talk about that, it’s fine with me. I came to terms with it a long time ago. It just feels good having her around.

  We get to my place and I give her a quick tour, show her how to work the remotes, where the food is, that kind of stuff.

  “Seriously, make yourself at home. I’m gonna get ready real quick and head off to my meetings.”

  “Okay.”

  I walk back to my room and get my suit on and fix my hair. I use a YouTube video to tie my tie, then straighten it a few times, but the fucking thing won’t do what I want it to. Finally, I get it as good as I can and walk out to the living room.

  Mom’s eyes get wide.

  “How do I look?” I spin around. “Would you want to give me hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in my business?”

  She stands up and walks over. A smile spreads across her face, and she reaches up for my neck like she’s going to fix my suit but stops herself and shies away. “Sorry.”

  I shake my head. “Don’t be. It’s okay.”

  Ever so slowly, she reaches up with her bony, wrinkled fingers, and fixes my tie, then brushes off the sleeves of my jacket the way they do in the movies, like she’s done it before. “There, that’s better.”

  I don’t know why, but all kinds of new emotions swirl through me, and I don’t know what the hell is going on. The bridge of my nose starts to tingle a little, and it feels like my eyes might water. I have no fucking clue what’s happening right now. I’ve just never had a mother, ever. I didn’t have what other kids had, a mom at their little league shit, or fixing their tie before prom. I never had that, and I just got a small piece of it, for a split-second, and fuck. I don’t think I realized how much I would’ve enjoyed those things growing up. I really wish I could’ve had that, but I didn’t, and I’m not going to sit here and feel sorry for myself. It was just nice to get a small part of it, just once.

  I look away at the mirror to hide my face and I glance at the tie. It looks perfect on me. I try not to sniff, because I don’t want her to feel bad, and I just say, “Thank you.”

  “It’s no problem.”

  I whip around once I’ve pulled myself together, and suddenly I just want to leave. I don’t want to get all emotional in front of her, run her off. “So yeah. I showed you where everything is. Nobody should come by or anything, so just relax and do whatever you want.”

  She looks at me for a long few seconds, like she can feel everything I just felt, deep inside me. “Okay, th-thank you.”

  I turn and head for the door. I’m not nervous. I know I’ll crush it at these meetings. I memorized all the shit Dex and Paisley put together. I know it backward and forward, could recite it in my sleep.

  Before I walk through the door, I turn back one more time. “All right, I’ll see you later.”

  “Okay, son.”

  Son.

  Fuck, my life is changing at the speed of light right now. At least it’s for the better, I think.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Harlow Collins

  I walk into Dad’s house without knocking, because it’s still like it’s my house and always will be. I absolutely love this place and all the memories it holds. It was just Dad and me for so long, but my cousins would come out all the time, so it never felt like it was just us.

  The house sits on a few acres of land and I know all of them intimately. When other girls were playing with dolls, I was blowing up ant hills with fireworks with Donavan, Dex, and Deacon. We’d laugh so hard at all the trouble we were always getting in, of course, they always talked me into doing everything, so I’d be the one who
got caught. Decker would sit back and complain about how he was too old to do that shit with us, and how we should grow up. Fuckers. I love them so much.

  “Hey, kiddo!” Dad doesn’t even come greet me, just hollers from the kitchen. He must’ve heard me come in.

  I walk around the corner and he’s over by the stove. “Hey! Whatcha making?”

  “The hell do you think I’m making?”

  We both say, “Spaghetti,” at the same time.

  It’s the only thing he’s capable of cooking, really. I grew up on fast food pretty much. I don’t knock him for it. He did the best he could after my mom left. I have no idea where she is, and I really don’t care. One parent was good enough for me. I have no desire to ever see her again, but I try to keep an open mind when it comes to Cole. I still had a parent. I might feel differently if I grew up with nothing.

  Of course, I’d probably try to latch onto anything I could if I was in his shoes.

  Dad and I always do this once a week, dinner at his place, no matter how busy I get. It breathes new life into me. It’s a nice little tradition and helps us keep caught up on what we have going on. I focus so hard on my work sometimes days and weeks go by and I barely talk to anyone. It’s a nice little break and helps keep my roots in reality. Sometimes, you just have to shut off for a couple hours and be a human being.

  Plus, I just love my dad.

  “I’ll work on the garlic bread. You always screw it up.”

  He scoffs. “Do not. I make excellent garlic bread.”

  I cock a hip out and stare at him.

  He keeps stirring the sauce and mumbles, “Jesus, you burn the bread one fucking time.”

  “Every time,” I correct him and smile the whole time I do it.

  We both start laughing as I chop up some garlic to mix with the butter.

  “So how’s life?” He tosses some tomatoes and peppers in the pan.

  “Ask what you wanna ask, Dad.”

  He smiles, but still doesn’t look up. “How’s Cole?”

  I grin and mix the butter and garlic together in a small bowl. “He’s good. Things are going really well.” I’ve wanted to ask Dad if I could have Cole over for one of our dinners, but the more I thought about it, the more I think it’s probably best to have a little break from Cole once in a while too. This is just for Dad and me, and I don’t want to be that person who injects their new crush into every single facet of their life immediately. I can function without Cole Miller next to me at all times.