A pair of strong arms rounded her waist and halted her forward progress. A second later her back hit something hard and unforgiving, and the banker fled through the double doors.
When the arms released her, she spun around and came face-to-face with Cam. Again.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she spit out.
Cam’s eyebrows rose. “Stopping you from getting arrested for assault.”
“Please. I just pushed the guy. And you didn’t hear how he was talking to my father.” She looked around him in time to see the office door close.
What was going on? There was only one way to find out.
She raised a dismissive hand to Cam, warning him to stay away, and stalked back to the office. Her father was sitting at his desk, face in his hands. “Pop?”
He looked up, and his expression crumbled. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Messin’ up.”
“How?” She fell to her knees and patted his thigh. “Start at the beginning.”
When he exhaled, he shuddered, and her already rattled mood plummeted. Whatever it was, it was bad.
“I borrowed money to help someone out. I put the gym up as collateral, and now I’m behind on payments. I have ninety days to pay in full or they’re gonna take it.”
Fuck. Tanya swallowed against the lump in her throat. How the hell had this happened? She was in the gym whenever she wasn’t teaching or playing football, and her brothers Terrell and Tyler were in and out too. None of them had intimate knowledge of the gym’s finances, because that was Pop’s thing, but somebody should’ve seen or sensed trouble.
He rubbed the back of her hand. “I failed everyone.”
“No!” Those words didn’t belong on her father’s lips. He was South City’s big-hearted hero. “We can fix this. We can talk to everybody in the family, and whatever you owe, we’ll pull together and pay it back. It’s the least we can do for everything you’ve done for us. How much do you owe?”
His voice muffled in his throat as he said, “Thirty thousand.”
Damn it. She didn’t have anywhere near that much. Neither did any of her brothers or sisters. Terrell was unemployed. Tyler’s money was tied up in a messy divorce and custody battle. Tori was raising three kids on her own. And Teresa had just gone back to graduate school.
“Who’d you loan the money to?” she asked. “We’ll just have to make them pay you back sooner than they expected. Then we can settle the debt.”
Pop crossed his arms and hardened his expression. “Nope.”
She squeezed her father’s hand in an expression of sympathy and strength. “I know you don’t want to call in a debt, but no friendship is worth losing the gym. Who is it?”
He looked at her, and his eyes fluttered as they rolled toward the back of his head. “I gave the money to your mother.”
Tanya sat back on her heels and let his words sink in. Talk about worst-case scenario.
After a few calming breaths, she asked, “Why would Mom take $30,000 dollars from you? You haven’t owed child support payments in years, and it can’t be the restaurant. I live right above it, remember? It’s freaking packed on weekdays.”
Pop sighed. “The Diazes got an offer to sell the building to developers, so they told your mother they wouldn’t be renewing her lease. She came to me panicked, and we put together an offer to buy the building ourselves.”
What an unbelievable mess with her mother at the heart of it. Tanya bit back a growl. She’d been so proud of that purchase, thinking her mother had done it while standing on her own two feet. A strong, capable, independent woman. When in reality, her father had helped his ex-wife. Of course he had. His sense of obligation didn’t quit. Pop Martin swooped in to save the day with no care for the trouble it would cause him.
Tanya didn’t want to take sides. She’d thought she was beyond that. But in times like these, it was hard not to. The anger tossed her back seventeen years to the day he moved out of the family home. She’d been eleven, and convinced her mother was to blame.
Damn it. It just proved her theory on love and marriage. Once you loved someone enough to promise them forever, you were tied to them and their freaking problems even after forever fell apart. That’s why she stayed far away from relationship strings.
“What’s done is done,” she said, grasping desperately at words that would help her remain neutral. “We just have to figure out a way to fix it.”
There had to be an idea that would let both her parents hold onto their dreams.
She looked around, hoping for inspiration. Photographs lined the office walls, chronicling the accomplishments of the kids that had worked out in this gym. Some of them actually made it onto the few remaining college boxing teams. Her heart squeezed. This gym was so many things to so many people. Her father had even managed to bring low- and no-cost healthcare to the neighborhood in this very space by partnering with her best friend MJ’s fiancé, sports medicine guru Tag Howard.
Wait! Maybe that was the answer. “What about Doc?” She jumped to her feet and pointed at the medical equipment in the partitioned corner of the office. “He’s pumped a ton of cash into this place to create the training room. I bet he’d lend us more.”
“No.” Pop’s face wrinkled. “I won’t borrow any more money I can’t pay back.” He slapped his hands on his thighs like he’d done her whole life whenever the situation was non-negotiable. “Enough is enough. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. And without any savings, my pension alone can’t cover all the payments I already have. Borrowing more money would be irresponsible.”
“What happened to your savings?”
Pop shrugged. “The house needed a new roof last summer.”
The house where her mother lived. Tanya threw up her hands. “Unbelievable.” Her father hadn’t lived in that house since her parents had separated and he moved into the apartment above the gym. Sure, Tori and her kids had been living there for years, upping the responsibility Pop must’ve felt, but still…
How about a little independence, people? Take care of your own problems. There was a novel idea.
More deep breaths. More head shakes. “Okay,” she said. “There’s gotta be a way to stop this.” There had to be.
Think, Tanya. Think. Something would come to her, because nobody threw a block like she did. Protection was the name of the game. They’d be prying this gym from her cold, dead hands.
A knock sounded, and she turned in time to see the door she’d forgotten to close completely swing open.
“Cam!” her father said.
“Hey,” Cam said.
Great. For five years, he hadn’t been anywhere to be found. Today, he was every-damn-where.
• • •
“How can I help?” Cam stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. “I couldn’t help but overhear.”
Pop stood. “Whatever you heard, forget about it, and get over here and give me a hug, Mr. Cam Damn Simmons.” He whistled. “Super Bowl champeen.”
Cam hugged the little man, letting him slap him soundly on the back. He hated the circumstances he’d walked in on, but it sure felt good to be back. He’d spent so much time here as a teen, Pop had become a surrogate father to him.
“Glad to see you made it home,” Pop said.
“Glad to be home.”
Cam heard a scoff from someplace behind him. Tanya. But when he turned she was leafing through papers on her father’s desk, looking uninterested in the conversation.
“Can you give my dad and me some time alone, please?” she asked without looking up.
He nodded. “Yeah. Of course.” But as he backed toward the door, he made eye contact with Pop and said again, “I can help … if you let me.”
Tanya glared at him. Woo wee! Ice cold. And it didn’t get warmer until he was back in the gym.
Under the circumstances, he wasn’t surprised by her reaction. He wouldn’t want his dirty laundry being aired i
n front of anybody. But he wasn’t just anybody—at least he hadn’t been. That’s why he’d walked in and offered to help. Apparently, five years away changed things. Something else that didn’t completely surprise him. He just hadn’t thought it would erase ten years of a friendship so close they were damn near family. With one exception—what had happened beneath the bleachers senior year. Thinking about it still made him smile.
They’d always been willing to go the extra mile for each other back then, and after what he’d overheard standing outside Pop’s office, he wasn’t going to let that change.
When Tanya had time to really talk to him, he’d get her to see he could help.
“Cam Simmons?” A short, chubby guy with moon-shaped sweat marks underneath his man-boobs stood in front of him. “No way! It’s me, Goby Klinker, John-John’s little brother.”
“Holy crap.”
They grabbed hands and bumped opposite shoulders.
“It’s been forever, man,” Goby said.
“I was just thinking the same thing.” He looked around the gym. “Is John-John here?”
“Hell no. He’s in worse shape than me. Works three jobs now because of the little ones. Hasn’t been to the gym in years.”
That guy had never made it to a full week of high school classes. How was he holding down three jobs? “Wait. John-John has little ones?”
“Three. Under four.” Goby wrapped his hands around his neck.
Damn. “I didn’t know that.” He’d lost touch with the guys he used to run with too. “What about Joe and Marquis? Are they around?”
“Not around here. Joe’s banned ‘cause Daria thinks it’s a meat market. She don’t trust him.”
Like Cam’s ex-fiancée Sabrina hadn’t trusted him. He rolled his eyes. “That sucks.” Especially when it was unwarranted. “And Marquis?”
“Workin’ in Atlanta. Moved about a year ago. Hear he’s doing real good.”
Now that was something to smile about. Marquis got out. Hopefully Cam would be saying the same thing about his mother at the end of this trip. Boston was where she belonged. With him.
“Bobby, come here!” Goby waved his hand to attract some guy’s attention, and then he shifted back to Cam. “This dude’s the biggest football fan. Browns, of course, but we ain’t winning a Super Bowl anytime soon.” He faced the room and the half-dozen guys who were lifting and practicing footwork. “Listen up, everybody! Super Bowl MVP Cam Simmons is in the house.”
Cam smiled as heads turned and eyes widened. Three weeks after earning the title, and he still got a rush from it.
“What’s up, gentlemen?” He raised his arms in invitation.
Something about the attention stoked his adrenaline. Always had. Like walking into school Monday morning after a big Friday-night win. Everybody knew your name. Everybody wanted a piece of you. Powerful stuff. The kind of stuff that helped a man feel important.
He signed a few autographs and told a few “war” stories, but when Pop’s office door opened and Tanya stepped out, he was too distracted to do much more than listen to the guys rattle on about football. She said something to her father, who returned to his office, and then she walked over to the punching bags and systematically went down the line pounding the hell out of each one.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Gotta take care of something real quick.”
He made his way through the small crowd toward Tanya, who was now whaling on a punching bag out of view from most of the gym.
“Hey,” he said.
“Oh my God,” she mumbled, then shot him a look, but didn’t miss a beat with the bag. “You want the bag, you have to wait, Simmons. Super Bowl MVPs don’t get special treatment ‘round here.”
He almost smiled at the exasperation in her voice.
Tanya Mary Martin. Five feet, nine inches of attitude and curves that would get a guy’s head bit off if his admiration wasn’t discreet. The best female basketball player East High had ever seen. And the most loyal daughter he’d ever seen. This shit with her dad was tearing her up.
“Let me help,” he said.
She cut another glance at him, scornful and pitying like he was the biggest moron she’d ever seen. “He won’t take your money.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s proud.” Boom, her fist connected with the canvas. “And we don’t need your charity.”
“Okay. I respect that. Fine. We’ll figure something else out.”
She pushed the bag into another and straightened. “We won’t be doing anything, Cam. This is my family’s problem. You are not my family.”
“But I’m your friend.”
She narrowed her golden eyes. “Are you? Because I thought friends stayed in touch.”
Fair enough, but she could’ve nudged him when his silence had gone on too long. He was a busy man. But now was probably not the time to point that out, so he simply nodded. “I’m sorry about that, and I’d like to fix it. We can move on from here and not lose touch again. Deal?” He held out a hand.
She ignored his peace offering. “I’ve got a lot to figure out these days, so you’re going to have to get in line.”
Again, he almost laughed, because it had been awhile since he’d been around a woman who was so clearly not anxious to be around him. “Should I take a number?” She didn’t blink at his attempt at humor. “You know, so you can call for me when it’s my turn?”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath, Simmons. It could take a while.” She shot him a snotty smile before she turned and headed toward the hallway, then tossed over her shoulder, “Maybe like five years.”
He laughed then. She’d always been a spitfire. And he had a feeling she was just getting started. He was going to be taking a lot of potshots from her over the next month.
The funny part? He kind of couldn’t wait.
Chapter Two
Sell Your Spare Parts: Plasma, Hair, Breast Milk, and Sperm
Tanya shut her laptop and dropped her head to her desk. That was what she got for Google searching “ways to make $30,000 dollars fast” during her free period. Depressing. Hopefully, the school wasn’t tracking her Internet usage. She didn’t want to have to explain this.
Sell your body parts. The sick thing was, two days after learning her father was in serious debt, she’d do it if she thought for a minute it would legitimately result in thirty grand.
She opened her laptop again and read on.
Two minutes later, she was shaking her head and thinking, Hell, no. Donating plasma sounded like a lot of pain for little gain. Her hair wasn’t long enough. Her breasts were dry. And these days, she didn’t have easy access to sperm.
She clicked through the other options, looking at the screen through split fingers. Honest to God, it was pretty hopeless when a trip to the casino seemed like your best chance. She needed a money tree, or a treasure map, or …
A knock on her office door made her jump. She slammed the laptop shut and scurried across the room. Chill out, Martin. The blinds on her door were closed. It’s not like anyone could’ve seen what she’d been doing. Still, she pushed through embarrassment to open the door and came face-to-face with Cam. It figured.
This was starting to get ridiculous.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Roaming the halls, paying visits to my favorite teachers.” He grinned, and it was like a command; she grinned too.
“I wasn’t your teacher.”
“Depends on how you look at it. You definitely schooled me on the finer points of the layup … among other things.”
Yeah, she had. And he seemed to have no idea how much she’d love to kick his ass now. It would be a little retribution for all the times he’d cried on her shoulder after he’d left home only to forget she existed once he got over the emotional bumps.
“Well, I’m kind of in the middle of my workday, so if you would excuse me …” She stepped back to close the door.
He stopped it with his hand. “You don’t
look busy. Where are your students? Don’t gym teachers usually have class in the gym?
Busted. “It’s my free period, but that doesn’t mean I’m not busy doing important things.”
“Like?”
She lowered her chin and her voice. “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”
He laughed. “Walk around with me.”
“What?”
“Show me the school—what’s changed, what’s stayed the same. I hear Senora Keeley is still teaching Spanish II. You know you want to give her a blast from the past by showing up and sitting in the back of the room. Remember we used to make up those songs that drove her crazy?” He bobbed his bold brows. “If you give me a beat, I’ll even rap.”
Nostalgia pulled at her instantly. Life was so much easier back then when all she had to worry about was too much homework or maintaining her free throw percentage.
He was still looking at her expectantly. Damn his charm. As much as she didn’t want to make his first visit home in five years easy, she couldn’t quite say no to that opportunity. Besides, the kids would be bouncing off the walls to meet Super Bowl MVP Cam Simmons.
“Fine,” she said. “But I have to be back for fifth period.”
As they walked the halls, pointing out familiar sights, the years melted away. Then when they reached the Humanities wing, he raced ahead of her and stopped next to a purple locker.
“I wonder if the combination is the same.” The lock looked miniature in his hands.
She laughed as he fumbled. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“It belongs to someone else now.”
“Nah. Once it’s mine, it’s always mine.”
There was the arrogance she expected from a professional athlete of his caliber. There was something else too, something that stuck in her throat and reminded her of the one and only time he’d had her. But the very next day she’d found him standing right here flirting with the prettiest girl in school, Abigail Glass.
Back then, Tanya’s athleticism had made her “one of the guys,” and the boys couldn’t seem to get enough of girly-girls like Abigail. Oh, she’d heard all about their infatuations. Cam hadn’t been the loudest admirer, but he’d never disagreed. And he’d never looked at Tanya the way he’d looked at Abigail. Since Tanya hadn’t been interested in being anyone’s second choice, she gave up on the pipe dream of anything more than friendship right then and there. She’d told herself it would be better that way. Romantic relationships were doomed. Friendships could last forever. Or at least that’s what she’d thought before they hadn’t spoken in five years. Now, she didn’t know what to think.
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