by Amity Cross
I snorted. Of course his looks would be the first thing she mentioned, and since she’d Googled, she would know his whole sordid story.
“He’s going good, actually,” I declared. “He’s really good at the business side, and he handles the younger guys fine. Oh, the class he did the other night was rad.”
“Rad?”
“It was a term used in the nineteen eighties that means really fucking amazing.”
“I know what rad means, Ren,” Josie replied with a laugh.
“Dad chose really well,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “He’s really nice.”
“Is he single?”
“Josie! What happened to Hamish?”
“Meh,” she replied.
Hamish was a tough, happy-go-lucky fighter that Ash was buddies with from his stint at The Underground. Irish by birth, ‘Goblin’ had made his name fighting in the seedy underbelly of Melbourne and had no interest in trying for the professional leagues, not one iota. That’s where he clashed with Josie the most. Considering she worked PR for the Hayes twins, who were pretty popular drawcards in the AUFC, Hamish’s involvement in illegal cage fighting had been a sore spot since they started hanging out. I used the term ‘hanging out’ loosely as they were on and off so many times over the past two years it gave me whiplash.
“Things not going so well?” I prodded.
“It’s off,” Josie replied. “We had another argument about me being in Sydney and him being in Melbourne. I don’t understand why he can’t just go pro. He keeps getting offers, really great offers with a lot of money attached, but he turns them all down. I just…” She sighed dramatically. “I just don’t understand him.”
“Long distance is hard, and you know Hamish,” I said. “He’s ingrained into the woodwork at The Underground. He’s very happy-go-lucky in the sense he likes to give authority figures the middle finger.”
“It’s not like he’s strapped for cash,” she complained.
“No, but I know guys like him, Josie. Fighting is all they know. Take it away, and you’ve got a crisis on your hands. It’s his identity, just like it’s Ash’s.”
“Then maybe we’re at an impasse.”
“If that’s what you want.”
“Ren! You’re meant to convince me—”
“Convince you of what?” I interrupted. “Sounds like you both want each other to change and that doesn’t make for a healthy relationship.”
“I remember when I was sitting with you in that cafe talking about Ash,” she declared.
“How the times change,” I replied dryly.
“Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good. Everything okay in paradise?”
There was no use hiding it from Josie. She was my best friend, and I trusted her, but she had this inbuilt radar that pinged when I was trying to avoid something. She’d just work me until I spilled.
“He asked me what I thought about us getting married,” I said with a sigh.
“Oh my god!” Josie practically screeched down the line, and I had to hold the phone away from my ear or suffer permanent hearing loss. “What did you say?”
“I said I didn’t need a bit of paper to be with him.”
“Ren, seriously? It’s a miracle he asked at all. When men talk about stuff like that, it’s serious business.”
“You think he actually wants to? I mean, grand declarations, in the traditional sense, aren’t really him.”
“Why not? It actually seems like the sensible thing to do.”
“Sensible?” I snorted at the irony. Nothing had been sensible about our relationship. It was all passion, lust and power. We both had plenty of money, so it wasn’t about the financials. I knew I’d been right the other night when I thought it was because of his past. I knew all about abandonment.
“You guys love each other, so what’s the problem?”
“It just seems so…” Dare I say it? “Big and final.”
“Ren,” Josie complained. “You guys are going to be together forever anyway, so why not put a ring on that?”
She was right. I loved Ash more than I knew was possible. I needed him like I needed air to breathe. He was my family, my friend, my lover and my rock. If getting hitched was what he really wanted, I should probably listen.
“I guess,” I muttered, playing with a serviette.
“Think about it a little,” she went on. “And talk to him.”
“And you talk to Hamish,” I said firmly.
“I will if you promise—”
“I promise.”
“Pinky swear?”
I could hear the laughter in her voice, and I rolled my eyes. “Goodbye, Josie.”
“Goodbye, Ren.”
Hanging up the call, I curled my hands around the cup of coffee, my gaze drawn outside once more.
Marriage. It was such an alien word, and considering how it went down for my parents, I wasn’t sure if it had hostile connotations attached to it. Maybe that was why I was turned off by the idea. It was about much more than just wearing a ‘flooffy’, white dress and caked on make-up in front of a bunch of people. That would be totally shallow of me to say no because I didn’t like wearing dresses.
Truthfully, I’d never thought about getting married before because what Ash and I had now was enough for me. It had never occurred to me that it might not be for him.
Sighing, I resolved to think about it first before bringing the notion back up. I had to get my head on straight before I tackled that mountain.
Yeah, I’d think about it.
Seven
Ash
I guess I was waiting for the perfect moment.
I couldn’t lie. The ring that sat hidden in the drawer of the side table in the living room was beginning to burn a hole. I had no one to talk to about my intentions with Ren, no one but Violet and she’d go absolutely crazy. The good kind of crazy where she’d offer to help plan the entire thing alongside Josie. Then Ren would definitely get her ‘flooffy’, white dress. I was happy just to elope.
Me and Ren. Ren and me.
I didn’t know why it meant so much to me. I already had her. Shit, I loved her more than anything, so why did this stupid little thing bother me so much?
Family. That’s what it came down to. My family had abandoned me when I needed them most and so had Ren’s. Surely she got that part at least. We were already a family, but I guess I wanted it on paper before I could believe it was real. Paper was tangible.
Maybe I should go find my parents, tell them my intentions with Ren and tell them how well Violet was doing now that she was in Sydney. Would they even care? Would they just slam the door in my face the moment they saw me standing on the stoop? It had been six or seven years, give or take, and there was no telling where they were now.
Ren kicked her legs across my lap and smiled at me. We were sitting on the couch in our living room, the TV humming in the background. She was watching some reality show while eating a bowl of ice cream. Some random flavor she’d found at the supermarket. Fairy Floss.
“What’s up?” she asked, setting the bowl on the coffee table.
“Nothin’,” I muttered.
“Ash,” she complained, moving against my side.
How could I tell her that I wanted to go find my parents and not let slip that I’d bought her a ring when she specifically told me that she wasn’t interested? On their own, both of those things were a can of fuckin’ worms, but together, they spelled the end of humanity as we knew it. She’d searched for her dad after her mother had died, but I know she’d only done it because her mum had asked her to on her deathbed. You can’t ignore shit like that. I doubted she would’ve cared if not for that last request.
The more I thought about it, the more I knew that I needed to go find my parents. I had to close that door and get over their baggage before I could open another with Ren. I’d keep the ring and ask her once I’d worked it out.
“You’re totally spacing out,” Ren said, leaning her head against my shou
lder.
“Am I?”
She stared up at me with her big doe eyes. “What you thinkin’ about, Maverick?”
“Just somethin’ I’ve gotta do tomorrow.”
“Yeah, like what?”
I took a deep breath, my chest rising and falling. “Nothin’ special.”
How would I go about finding someone that didn’t want to be found? Maybe they hadn’t really bothered to disappear. The last time I saw them, they’d given me the impression that they’d go off the grid to rid themselves of me, but I knew my dad didn’t have the smarts to pull off something high-tech like that.
“Ash.”
He was a big bloke just like I was, but he wasn’t a trained fighter. He’d given me a few bruises over the years like the bully he was, but the difference now was that I wasn’t afraid of retribution. I knew I got my anger issues from him like some sort of poisonous genetic mutation and that made the man a hypocrite. I was a bad influence on Vee? Maybe I deserved it after all the shitty things I did as a teenager, but look what they did to her. She was perfect compared to me.
“Ash, for fuck’s sake,” Ren declared.
“Huh?” I blinked hard, focusing my attention onto her.
“What’s the matter?”
She was looking at me with a hint of anger in her eyes, but I couldn’t tell her about this. This was my shit to deal with.
“Nothing’s the matter,” I said, thoroughly annoyed.
“Are you still pissed about the marriage thing?” she asked, her gaze searching mine.
Fuck. “No, I wasn’t pissed about that at all.”
“Really? Because I—”
“Ren, it’s cool,” I interrupted. “Don’t worry about it. I brought it up out of the blue.” I shrugged. “It wasn’t a proposal.”
Her brow furrowed, and instantly, I knew I’d said the wrong thing.
She snatched up the remote and turned the TV off. “Was it important to you?”
I shrugged. It was very fucking important to me, but I wasn’t ready to go down that road just yet. Talk about premature ejaculation.
“Stop shrugging and use words,” she huffed.
“Ren, let it go, okay?”
“I know you’re not telling me everything,” she said, moving her legs from my lap.
“Ren.”
She held up a hand to stop me from spitting out another excuse. “You know how I feel about that.”
Secrets were what drove us apart in the first place. Lies were what kept us from getting back together after the fact, and what was I doing right now? This had no bearing on our relationship or how I felt about her. This was between my parents and me, and I didn’t want her to know.
It might be selfish or stubborn, or it might even be my pride talking, but I didn’t want her to deal with it. Even if I did gather the courage to go see them, it was going to be ugly. I couldn’t have her being a part of that poisonous cycle, not after everything she’d had to endure with her own sister.
Monica Fuller had plotted with the man who’d attacked Violet, Hammer, to do the same thing to Ren. Her own fucking sister. They were going to take her dignity and break both her legs, so I stepped in to deal with Hammer once and for all. I couldn’t go through with it, so it inevitably landed me in hot water—with the cops and with Ren. I couldn’t let my own family drama touch her. Not even in the slightest. If I had to keep this secret, then I would.
“I know,” I muttered.
“Then what’s bothering you?” she asked more forcefully.
“I told you,” I exclaimed. “Nothing is bothering me.”
She snorted and shook her head.
“Ren, seriously—”
“I’m going to bed,” she snapped, getting up off the couch.
I went to stand with her, but she shook her head and wandered off down the hall.
I watched her disappear, totally dumbfounded. We’d had little arguments about stupid shit before but nothing like this. She’d never given me the silent treatment or walked away without us working it out. Problem was, Ren Miller could see right through me and right now, that was the thing causing the problem.
Determined to work it out, I strode down the hall and stepped into the bedroom. My heart skipped a couple of beats when I found our bed empty, and my skin began crawl. No Spitfire in my bed had to mean she was pissed big time.
I found her in one of the spare bedrooms, tucked underneath the covers.
I hovered at the door, my hand curled tightly around the jamb. “Ren?”
“I’m tired,” she murmured, and that was that.
I was in the doghouse, and it burned like hell.
Eight
Ren
I slipped out the next morning before Ash woke.
Maybe he’d changed his mind and was trying to ease out of it gently to spare my feelings. Or maybe he just had a feather up his ass about something. Either way, he wasn’t telling, and that was the thing that hurt the most.
After all the shit we’d been through to get to where we were, knowing that he was keeping something from me stung. It didn’t matter if it was big or small because, when it came down to it, the intent was there.
Beat was quiet tonight. Everyone had gone home, and there was no class scheduled, so Caleb had made good on his offer to teach me some of the ins and outs of boxing. I was glad to have something to take my mind off the whole marriage thing.
Glancing over to the ring where Caleb was busy setting up something he wanted to show me, I began to wonder what Ash was doing right now. As usual, the hulking specimen that was my nearest and dearest was closest in my thoughts when we weren’t together. When I didn’t come home tonight, he’d work himself up into a ball of anxiety.
Snorting, I shook my head. He had to learn to live without me being there once in a while. Co-dependency wasn’t healthy for a guy with the abandonment issues he had. Hell, we both had them, but I’d learned to deal pretty fast when my mum finally lost her battle with cancer. Ash never really had.
Flexing my fingers, I tested my wraps and found them tight. I cast a look at my gym bag, which I’d set under the bench, and wondered if I should at least text to say where I was, but then I shoved away the thought. If he wanted to keep something from me… What a selfish thing to think.
“You ready?”
I glanced up as Caleb appeared out on the mats. Unlike most gym-junkie fighter types I knew, he was wearing a tank top with the Beat logo on the front with his shorts and bare feet. His hands were all wrapped up in black, and he had this whole mean and lean thing going on. Definitely not an MMA kinda guy.
Standing, I said, “As I’ll ever be.”
My phone began to ring, and I tried to block out the annoying trill.
“Do you need to get that?” Caleb asked, nodding at my bag.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
It stopped ringing for a second, and then started up again.
“You sure? They’re pretty persistent.”
Bending over, I pulled the phone out of the side pocket and saw a couple of missed calls from Ash. I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet, at least not without it turning into a slanging match, so I switched the phone to silent and chucked it back.
“Sorted,” I declared, squaring off in front of Caleb. “Where do we start?”
“They have this saying in boxing,” Caleb said, turning on his teacher mode. “Styles make fights.”
“Styles?” I cocked my head to the side, my beef with Ash falling to the wayside as my natural curiosity was pulled back to the one thing I was good at. Fighting.
“There are a few different ways you can approach this kind of fighting. There’s the counter puncher who uses their book smarts to keep a safe distance from their opponent.” He tapped his temple with a grin. “Then they pick their spots to attack.”
“Defensive fighting,” I said.
“Right. Then there’s the boxer puncher.”
“Who just belts the shit out of their opponent?”<
br />
He laughed and nodded. “Yeah, pretty much. But it’s more about wearing down the other guy. You’d be good at it, One-Shot. The fighters who have this style nailed down are known for their brutal KO’s.”
“Sign me up,” I retorted with a wicked grin.
“Then there’s the slugger.” Caleb smacked his fists together. He looked pleased with himself, his eyes sparkling much the same way Ash’s did when he was about to fight.
“You fought like that?” I asked.
“Yeah, it was my thing. Sluggers, or brawlers as some call ’em, fight with aggression.”
“So you were a hard-ass?”
“Something like that. It’s all about wearing the other guy down with relentless pressure. Fast and hard.” He wiped his forearm over his brow and shook his head like he was trying to rid himself of a bad memory.
“What?”
“To fight like that you need to be able to take a lot of hits. Because you’re moving so fast, it leaves a lot of defensive holes that are easily manipulated.” He bowed his head. “You get pummeled just as good as you dish it out.”
Yeah, I got it. I’d taken a lot of hits fighting at The Underground and in the AUFC, but not to the point where I was a borderline paraplegic. Not like Caleb. I could see the spark and the passion he had for his chosen sport as clear as day, and not being able to compete anymore must be tough. Especially since he was still at the top of his game.
“What are the punches?” I asked, turning the conversation back onto the task at hand.
He smiled weakly and nodded. “The five punches are the jab, cross, hook, uppercut, and overhand,” he explained. “You need a strong stance. Last thing you want is to lose your balance. The other most important thing you can have in boxing is your footwork. That’s why I do a lot of duck and weave training.”
“Sounds boring.” I was used to the freestyle and unrestricted freedom of using a variety of techniques. This all seemed so…sleep inducing.
“Boxing is no less brutal than MMA, Ren,” Caleb said with a chuckle. “It might be a little more regimented than you’re used to, but it’s still very technical. The aim of the game is to hit but not get hit.”
