by Cindi Madsen
“Don’t talk me out of it, then.” Like with the denial, I’d decided this was the best method to take the edge off. It had to work—the other option wasn’t an option. “Just help. Use your powers to find me a hot and unavailable girl for the night, and then I never want to hear about it again.”
He glanced around, and a one-two combo of apprehension and relief hit me. But instead of stopping on a girl, the blue eyes my siblings and I inherited from Dad landed back on me. “It’s not you, bro. Never has been. Then tomorrow you’ll be extra grumpy, hating yourself for it, and since you’re my coach, that’s not going to work in my favor.”
“Or maybe I’ll finally take the edge off and be happy.”
“You don’t do happy.”
“Not around you,” I grumbled, “and this conversation is a good example of why.”
The resigned expression that overtook his features reminded me of George, and why the hell had I gone and thought about Chelsea’s cat? Finn shifted in his seat. He tipped his head, indicating a group of women on the other side of the room. One smile from him, and their heads perked up. “The blonde,” he said, twisting to face me. “She’s been staring at you since we came in, and she’s got temporary fun written all over her.”
I gave her a lazy smile, which she returned, twice as wide and bright as mine, and Finn put his hand on my shoulder.
“I’m not gonna try to talk you out of it, but I am going to say that this is something that might fuck up things with Chelsea later. You parade women past her for one-night stands, and I don’t see her just ignoring that and—”
“She’s my best friend, Finn. I need her to stay my best friend.”
Finn opened his mouth, probably to counter with a sentiment I couldn’t hear because it would send my thoughts spiraling, so I blurted out the one thing I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since arriving at my apartment.
“She didn’t have a bra on when I got home, okay? She had on these tiny shorts, too.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Trust me, it called for drastic measures.”
“Because you…noticed?”
“How could I not? And yes, of course I’m attracted to Chelsea. She’s sexy and sweet and…” No going down that path. Stick to the cold, hard facts. “Like I said, I need her to stay my best friend. Our lifestyle doesn’t have room for more—you know that as well as anyone. Look at what happened with Mom and Dad.” Finn and Brooklyn were too young to remember the details. They remembered the fights, but I remembered what the fights were about. Now they knew that Dad had cheated, earlier in their marriage and another time or two before they divorced and Mom moved to Arizona to be near her sister. But they didn’t remember Mom talking about all her regrets and how she’d given up her career and her passions for Dad’s. One night she told me that she was sorry she was a shell of her former self and asked me to forgive her for not being who she used to be.
An icy lump formed in my gut, and the cold spread up into my lungs. I wouldn’t do that to Chelsea. Maybe she still had more to learn about being assertive, but getting away from her oppressive family and living on her own had done her good, the way I thought it would. She was happier overall. She didn’t constantly walk with her head down anymore, drained after giving so much of herself to everyone else. She’s better off without the ups and downs that come along with living here.
Better off without me.
To keep that thought from turning my night into a total downer, I focused on the here and now. “I’ll go back to the blonde’s place. I have no plans to do anything that’d hurt Chelsea.”
Finn gave a half groan, half sigh. “When Brooklyn finds out about this and goes to rip us a new one, I want it on the record that I at least attempted to stop it.”
“Noted.” I asked the bartender to send another round of drinks to the ladies, and then Finn and I walked over to their table and introduced ourselves.
Once we’d settled in and the drinks were delivered, the blonde turned to me expectantly.
Shit. She expected me to talk. This was why I did my best to avoid people in general. It was so much nicer when I had Chelsea with me to do most of the talking. Although I never talked as much as I did with her. It came easy.
And I already forgot Blondie’s name. I’d look like an ass if I asked it again, so I crossed my fingers someone would use it soon.
My mind spun through topics. Boring shit like the weather, a comment about the bar. Nothing worth actually saying. All this time I told myself I’d decided to stop doing the hooking up and dating thing, but maybe I just didn’t have any game.
“…both are,” Finn said.
The blonde placed her hand on my forearm and flashed me a big smile. “You’re a fighter?”
Well, at least Finn was doing the wingman thing, despite making it clear he didn’t want to. “Yeah. Part of Team Domination.”
“Would I have heard of anyone from there?”
I dropped my dad’s name and Shane’s, and the lack of recognition made it pretty clear she didn’t follow the sport. Not that I cared. I wanted to keep things light and shallow. To take off the edge with a woman who knew what she was getting into and then go back to my life without fucking it all up.
I covered her hand with mine and ran my thumb over her knuckles, deciding to forget talking and move on to something I was good at.
But then Finn’s words replayed in my mind, about how this could fuck things up with Chelsea later, if I ever decided to forget all the reasons I shouldn’t cross lines and go for it.
And I couldn’t decide if that was a good reason to stop or to go through with it so I wouldn’t keep thinking of my best friend as a possible option.
Chapter Nine
Chelsea
In spite of the fact that I’d visited the gym not quite a week ago, the sense of nostalgia remained when I stepped inside Thursday afternoon. Funny how a place could hold so many memories, even if most of them included the same routine, the same chair, the same sounds. Of course I’d lived a hundred lives inside these walls thanks to books.
During my freshman year of high school, my mom was laid off and couldn’t find work, which caused a financial strain on our mismatched family. My stepbrother was already in college, and my stepsister was about to leave to attend a university up north, and my stepdad made a huge deal about how strapped he was, not bothering to hide that his real kids were his priority. While Mom spiraled into a deep depression, I took over doing most of the chores and things like grocery shopping. Nightly runs to get her a soda refill because the fountain drink tasted better and she got a discount if she used the same cup. Every few months I sprang for a new one for sanity reasons.
That skin-tightening sensation hit me as I recalled those days when I’d felt so burdened, trapped, and completely unappreciated. I’d been trying to help and then suddenly playing maid and running the household was expected of me. Then I was the one who’d get yelled at if the house wasn’t clean and dinner wasn’t on the table, while Mom spent her days watching TV and clinging to her state of depression like a safety blanket. On top of the stress, it felt like I’d lost her.
Whenever I thought about those days, the pressure to ensure I didn’t end up living in filth and squalor ever again hit me. It’s okay. I have a steady-paying job.
But people on the bottom of the totem pole were the first to go when cuts came around. Panic squeezed my throat, a threatening reminder of how important it was to move up. How important it was to hold on to my sense of purpose and keep going. It’s okay. I’m stronger than Mom is. I won’t give up, no matter what life throws my way.
At that thought, guilt came crashing in. My mom might not be perfect, but I’d never gone hungry. I had clothes to wear, even if they were secondhand clothes that I had to wear until they were a little too small and a lot threadbare.
I should go see her. At least check that she’s taking care of herself. A guilt trip for not doing so sooner would definitely be in order, and those were my kryptonite
, causing me to enable her far too much. The worst part about visiting her, though, was that trying so hard and not seeing a difference made the hope that the old her might miraculously make a reappearance more slippery. And while it might be silly, I wanted to believe that if she and Jesse weren’t always so stressed about money, the odds of that happening increased.
I just have to land that promotion, and then at least I can say with a certainty one way or the other.
The sound of a buzzer brought me back to the present, and I walked past the chairs where I’d lived all those fictional lives and to the open doorway of Blake Roth’s office. It’d been updated since I’d left, not with paint or furniture, which was still on the well-worn side, but a huge whiteboard with fighters’ names, weights, and their upcoming matches claimed the far wall, and there was another, much newer one that detailed the class times for the gym.
“Chelsea,” Blake said, shooting me a warm smile and pushing away from his desk. “So glad you stopped by.”
“Yeah, I missed you the first time around, so I had to come back.”
He didn’t seem to know whether to pat my shoulder, shake my hand, or what, so I initiated a hug.
As if Liam’s size hadn’t been intimidating enough when I’d met him, Blake Roth took the big and burly thing to the next level—I could barely fit my arms around him. For the first few months, I’d ducked my head and fought the urge to hide every time he glanced in my direction. Living next door, I’d also heard him yell at his kids, and that’d only solidified my fear. If my desire to hang out with Liam hadn’t been so strong, I would’ve completely avoided the former light heavyweight and heavyweight champ. It took several months of spending a lot of time in the gym to realize his bark was worse than his bite. Blake was gruff, even less verbose than Liam, and didn’t express a lot of emotions, but he’d always been kind to me. Instead of chasing me out of the gym, he’d let me spend hours here, despite his voiced concerns about me being a distraction for his son.
Liam assured him we were just friends and that I was so quiet he hardly noticed me sitting on the sidelines. He’d added that if anything, I made him more focused because I wasn’t needy or demanding, helped him study, and did all the talking so he didn’t have to. At the time I’d taken it as a compliment. Once my feelings for Liam shifted a year ago, it was a bit like a squeeze of lemon on an open wound and added to the ridiculousness I felt over accidentally liking him.
Good thing I’d gotten over that. Mostly.
Blake asked about my job, and I filled him in and asked him about Team Domination. As soon as we’d sufficiently caught up—meaning I realized we’d gone several minutes where I’d done the majority of the talking while he just nodded—I excused myself to go see how much longer Liam would be.
Only I ran into Brooklyn, who had Carlos “Guerrilla Warfare” Guerra with her. “Hey, Chelsea. You remember Carlos?”
“Of course. You still train at the gym up north?” He was about a decade or so older than Liam, but they’d crossed paths both in and out of the cage. He was one of those guys Liam hated to fight, not only because he was tough—which he was—but also because they genuinely liked each other.
“Now I stick mostly to coaching, but I’m dipping a toe into the role of promoter.”
“Carlos is working on finding more venues and how to get more people into seats, which would be good for our guys,” Brooklyn said. “More opportunities to fight and bigger purses when they do. On the side of everything else I do around here without technically working here, I’m trying to help him out, although I’m a bit out of my comfort zone.”
“You’ve just got to find the right target market, then get the information to them.” I shrugged. “Marketing’s kind of my thing. I can totally help out if you’d like.”
“Yes, please,” Brooklyn said, and Carlos enthusiastically nodded.
“We could use all the help we could get.” He nudged me with one heavily tattooed elbow. “It’s nice to be back in your good graces.” He glanced at Brooklyn, and as I studied the tattoos on his neck, I idly wondered if he had any un-inked skin left. “Did you know Chelsea once gave me the cold shoulder for a couple months? Even after I apologized?”
I crossed my arms, remembering now that he’d brought it up. “You punched my best friend in the face. Repeatedly.”
“We were in the cage! He knew what he was getting into.”
Carlos had wanted to go back to buddies seconds after his and Liam’s last knockdown, drag-out fight, when Liam’s nose and the cut on his forehead had still been oozing blood. And regardless of the fact that Liam had given him a bro hug and congratulated him on the win, I’d held a grudge for a while. “All’s I’m saying is, you didn’t have to hit him so hard. Especially when he was already hurt.”
Carlos laughed, and Brooklyn joined in. “Clearly you’ve never taken one of Liam’s punches like I have. You have to knock the fucker on his ass or he’ll get back up and knock you on yours.”
“Well, now that I’m remembering the fight better, I’m reconsidering whether you’re in my good graces or not.” I dramatically lifted my chin for emphasis, although my smile probably clued him in that I was only teasing.
Carlos dragged a finger around his neck, as if I’d successfully scared him. “Yeesh, I should’ve kept my big mouth shut.” He chuckled and checked his watch. “I’ve gotta get going, but I’ll be in touch.” He pointed between Brooklyn and me. “Let’s get together and brainstorm soon.”
“Thanks for helping out with that,” Brooklyn said to me after Carlos had walked away. “You and I still haven’t had much of a chance to catch up. Care to entertain me as I sort through the bills?” She grabbed an accordion file off one of the chairs, sat down where it’d been seconds ago, and patted the spot next to her.
I glanced toward the cage and saw Liam was still training along with a group of guys, so I figured I had some time to kill, and Brooklyn was an excellent person to do that with. I sat in the chair she’d indicated, automatically tucking my legs under me. “For not working here anymore, you certainly seem to do a lot of work here.”
“Tell me about it. Just when I thought I was out”—she made fists with her hands and dramatically tugged them back to her chest—“they pull me back in.” Thanks to Liam making me watch that long-ass movie, I recognized the Godfather impression. He’d tried to get me to watch the sequels, but I’d pretty much run screaming at that suggestion, the way he did when I brought up period dramas. “Maddie, our new receptionist-slash-accountant sometimes gets behind and overwhelmed, and since I’m trying to ensure we keep her, I help her out whenever I can.”
Her fingers grazed the top of the accordion file before she reached inside and pulled out a giant stack of envelopes. “So, tell me about Colorado. How do you like it?”
“It’s beautiful. I work downtown in this cool skyscraper that makes me feel über professional. The first snow was totally magical—I felt like I’d woken up in a snow globe. Of course, then the cold set in, and I started missing palm trees. But it doesn’t stay cold for too many days. Not as warm as here, and the past month was sweltering, but overall, I like it.”
“You’re not lonely?” Brooklyn wrinkled her nose. “Sorry, I got so annoyed when I moved to San Francisco and my family constantly asked me that. But as someone who’s moved away from everything and everyone she knew, I also get that it’s hard. Especially at first.”
I read between the lines and figured this was her way of asking how I did without her brother. “Yeah, it was a bit of a rough transition, but I settled in fairly quickly. Don’t get me wrong, I miss Liam.” My chest squeezed as the truth of the statement hit me, and I struggled to keep the lightness in my voice. “And he’s not exactly a great conversationalist on the phone.”
Brooklyn placed the bills she’d pulled out of the envelopes in a neat pile on her thigh. “Those last three words were unnecessary.”
I laughed. “He’s much better in person.”
She p
ursed her lips and sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, I love him like crazy, but occasionally I’d like to shake some more words and emotions out of him.” Her eyes met mine, and she placed her hand on my shoulder. “You know he cares about you, right?”
For some reason, my heart caught. I knew. Of course I knew. He took care of me and said he always would. He insisted I crash with him so my family wouldn’t take advantage of me. He said he’d missed me, and for him, that was practically a grand declaration. Maybe he cared about me in a different way than I cared about him, but I’d never doubted his affection. “I know.”
“Good. I’m glad you’re staying with him. I think he’s been a little lonely himself, but he’d die before admitting that.” Her gaze drifted to the center of the cage, where Liam was talking to one of the guys. He made big hand gestures, and while I couldn’t hear the words, I could tell he was doing his signature combo of pushing and encouraging. The other fighter soaked it in, nodding as determination set into his features. “I worry about him. He just works and trains and works some more, stubbornly refusing to take any time off. I’d hoped once we added the extra classes and the gym started taking in more money, he’d relax.”
“Relaxing isn’t really his MO. I did my best to get him to this past weekend.” I summed up introducing him to George as we ate Chinese food, Saturday’s adventures, and our lazy Sunday where we slept in and rarely left the couch. Then of course work happened, for the both of us. Monday night I’d had my pity party while he’d gone out, and we’d spent the next two days like ships in the night, crossing paths once we’d reached epic levels of exhaustion. I’d stayed up late watching TV last night, wishing Liam would join me, but he’d claimed he was tired, and I was sure he was.
While I was here, I vowed to convince him to relax more, even if he tried to fight it as hard as George fought having his teeth brushed. Dang boys, not knowing what’s good for them.
