Until We're More

by Cindi Madsen

  “He’s never told me anything, ever,” she said. “That would involve discussing feelings, and he pretends he doesn’t have any. But they’re there, Chelsea. I know they are.”

  Hope called to me, my heart skipping a couple beats, but hope was a luxury I couldn’t afford, not after two nights where I’d put myself out there without gaining anything in return. “I need him to know they are. Otherwise, I just can’t risk it.”

  Brooklyn sighed. “We need to find the right motivator. Like, maybe a little jealousy? Not that I’d normally encourage manipulating my brother’s feelings, but with Liam, I think we’re gonna have to force them out of him.”

  “I’ve already gone on a date with another guy. He doesn’t care—in fact, he encouraged me to get his phone number.”

  “Describe said guy.”

  “Nice. Likes to read.” I’d texted Kevin a couple times this week, and when he asked if he could take me out last night, I’d almost said yes. But then I felt like I was using him, so I gave him a whole speech about how I was leaving in three weeks and thought maybe we should stick to friends. I’d meant to try harder, but I shouldn’t have to force myself to get excited about a guy, and while I was living with Liam, the long and short of it was that no one else stood a chance.

  “So, scrawny,” Brooklyn said.

  “No, he’s…” I pictured him, and between that and the skepticism that filled Brooklyn’s features, I gave in. “Okay, yeah, he’s scrawny. Isn’t everyone compared to your brother, though?”

  “Good point. But I think in order for him to get over his stubborn self, he needs a bigger wake-up jolt. Show him how much competition he’s going to be up against if he doesn’t pull his head out of his ass.” She sat forward, her blue eyes lighting with a type of mischief that automatically sent trepidation through me, yet made me curious and a touch excited at the same time. “I have a crazy idea, so I guess it depends how badly you want to get his attention.”

  Apparently we’d reached desperate territory, because a sense of urgency flooded my body. We were almost halfway through my time here. “I need to know if there’s even a part of him that’s attracted to me. If I legitimately have a chance for more. Will your plan show me that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then I’m in.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chelsea

  Characteristically, my family had chosen today of all days to guilt me into coming over. I was already nervous about what Brooklyn had talked me into doing at the fight tonight, with a pinch of skittish excitement and a dash of optimism mixed in.

  Bonus, it would definitely count toward my being bolder than I ever had been, and it also scared the shit out of me. By the end of this trip, I’d have iron balls—or iron boobs, I guess. Yeah, like a Wonder Woman breastplate. Take your best shot and it’ll bounce right off me.

  Now if I could get myself to truly believe that, maybe I’d be ready for whatever faced me inside my mom and stepdad’s house.

  I took a deep, fortifying breath and walked through the front door. “Mom? It’s me.”

  She hollered from the living room, which meant she was in her beat-up recliner and most likely had been all day. As soon as I stepped into the room, she pursed her lips. “I thought you were going to be around more while you were in town. You haven’t stopped by since you picked up your cat.”

  “I’m sorry,” I automatically said, not bothering to point out I’d tried to make up for my absence by having that dinner delivered last week, just like she hadn’t bothered to acknowledge I’d sent it. “I’ve been really busy.”

  “I thought you were going to do the laundry, too.”

  Yep, you did, even though I never agreed to that. “Not since I have a different place to stay.”

  “With that Roth boy. You know, he’ll always just look at you as the poor girl from next door.”

  While I wanted to insist that wasn’t true, my gut still pinched with the worry that I’d always be a pity project to him. The girl whose own family saw her as an inconvenience unless she was doing something for them.

  No. Liam doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to.

  Which means he probably would’ve kissed me by now if he wanted to.

  Shit. I’m going to be prancing around in a ridiculously small outfit tonight for nothing.

  Maybe I’ll at least get some numbers out of it. If I can’t have who I want, maybe I should just get the virgin thing out of the way. Then there won’t be so much pressure on whoever I date next.

  Even as I thought it, I couldn’t get myself to believe it.

  I gritted my teeth, resolving to focus on one problem at a time. “What did you need, Mom?”

  “Aren’t you going to sit down?”

  Several memories hit me as I perched on the end of the couch. Scrubbing the always messy house, doing laundry, running errands, making dinners. How my mom once bought me a dress for my birthday, then, after I’d worn it to school one time, told me it would also be for Christmas, since she couldn’t afford anything else that year, so not to wear it again until after the holiday.

  Don’t get me wrong, I understood going without. I just didn’t understand why she could afford her soda habit and every cable channel ever. The house had really gone downhill since I wasn’t around to maintain it, and I had another moment of doubt about crossing lines with Liam. If it went wrong, I’d end up having to spend the rest of my time here at the house, and I didn’t think I could stay for more than a day or two without suffocating.

  “I’m starting up a new business,” Mom said.

  My stomach sank. She’d sold an array of stuff throughout the years. Not enough to make any actual money, but there wasn’t a pyramid scheme she didn’t fall for. “Remember how we talked about choosing better things to invest time and money into?”

  “This is jewelry. People love jewelry.”

  “Don’t you have to host parties?”

  “What? Our place isn’t good enough for you anymore?”

  “I meant…” Well, I’d partially meant that the place was a mess and nowhere near a good hosting situation. The exterior, which used to be the nicest feature of the house, was showing signs of neglect, and it still looked amazing compared to the inside. One interesting thing about San Diego was that you could have a crumbling small house next to a much bigger, much fancier place (like the Roths’). I could handle small; it was letting go of cleaning and upkeep that was the main problem. But that was far from my only worry. “Parties are a lot of work, Mom.”

  “I just need your help with the first one, then we’ll get other people to host. And before I have the party, I do need to invest in some items so I have stock on hand.”

  Here it came. Asking for money, combined with a guilt trip. I mentally buckled my seat belt for the inevitably bumpy ride.

  “Remember how when you wanted to go to college, we helped you?”

  No, I wanted to say. I remember you telling me that I needed to work my ass off and get scholarships, which I’d done. I’d had to live at home to save money, and that was the help she meant. Basic care for your child. Sometimes I wished I would’ve gone into debt just so I didn’t feel so obligated. But the truth was, she was my mom, so I’d feel obligated anyway.

  Mom put on her poor, woe-is-me expression and added a heavy sigh. “I picked up the slack around the house, even though you were still living here.”

  “I remember.” No point in arguing that I’d still cooked and cleaned as much as possible between classes and my part-time job as a cashier at the gas station down the street. I mentally did the math of how much I had in my bank account, minus what I’d need to pay my rent in Denver and the ridiculously small amount Liam would allow me to pay for rent here. I had extra gas to worry about on the way to Colorado, too, and I couldn’t count on extra money from the promotion until I landed it, although man did I need to land it. “I can give you fifty dollars.”

  “This jewelry is nice, not plastic costume jewelry. I ne
ed at least a hundred. Two would be better.”

  Be strong, be strong.

  “It’s the last time I’ll ask you for money, I swear. Jesse won’t help me out, even though I explained this is different than the perfume.”

  Oh, hell. I’d somehow blanked out the year of the perfume. We’d had all these knockoff scents in the house, ones that smelled as cheap as they were, and she’d asked me to hawk bottles at school. A few times I’d brought home twenty bucks and just pretended to have sold a bottle.

  “A hundred is all I can do.” It was more than I should do. When I envisioned helping out, it was for things like groceries, utilities, and other necessities. Mom didn’t have the entrepreneur work ethic, so this was the equivalent of flushing money right down the drain.

  “And you’ll host it? Next weekend, which barely gives me time to order supplies.”

  “I won’t host, but I’ll help.”

  “Okay. I’ll text you who I want to invite.”

  If I waited for a thank-you, I’d be waiting forever. As soon as I wrote Mom a check, she turned up the TV. This was bonding time as far as she was concerned, and if I left, I’d get another guilt trip.

  Jesse came home near the end of the show. My stepdad and I didn’t have much of a relationship. We’d had to be around each other for a handful of years, and we were civil, but he’d always made it clear he already had kids, and I wasn’t included in that. In an effort to keep what goodwill we had going, I asked him how work was. He replied with his usual about how the people who did the hardest work never got paid enough while the people who sat around made all the money. Then he complained about my mom sitting around and the amount of junk she ordered online. As much as I could add to that conversation, I never did. They both talked about how horrible the other one was, and I’d wondered more than once why they even stayed married.

  Was it selfish that I wanted them to stick it out, simply because otherwise my mom would guilt me into more than she already did by adding that she was lonely, something I often understood all too well?

  By the time I made it to the venue where the fights were going down, my optimism—my spirit in general—was limp and crumpled.

  As soon as I stepped into the back office where Brooklyn had instructed me to meet her, she shoved the typical ring girl outfit in my direction. One of the usuals had broken her ankle, and Brooklyn had been tasked with finding a replacement. Somehow that ended up being me. The idea was to kill two birds with one stone. With me doing the honors, Brooklyn didn’t need to keep searching for a sub, and as well as showing Liam what he was missing, it would make it clear that plenty of guys would line up for a shot with me if he didn’t. That was the theory, anyway, one I was currently rethinking.

  “What if I trip?” I asked as I ran my fingers across the stretchy fabric, my nerves overtaking my body until they made up more of me than my skin and bones did.

  “Slow steps,” Brooklyn instructed in a calm, placating voice. “Just hold up the sign and smile.”

  “And what if I’ve changed my mind?”

  She lowered the black-and-red getup, her face peeking out over the top. “Then you are totally free to do that. I guess…that probably means I’ll be going out there. Luckily I had doughnuts and didn’t bother shaving today.”

  I laughed and shakily took the hanger from her hand, not wanting her to have to resort to that while being grateful that she would without giving me grief for backing out—it was nice to have people in my life who didn’t always revert to guilt trips. My nerves stretched and frayed, and I was pretty sure I was about to throw up everything I’d eaten today. “It’s definitely bold.”

  “It definitely is.”

  I ducked into the bathroom, then came out and tugged at what little fabric there was to tug at. “Are you sure I can pull off this outfit? There’s bold, and then there’s making a fool of myself.”

  A giant smile spread across Brooklyn’s face as she gave me a thorough once-over. “You look smoking hot, and you beyond pull it off.” When I continued to fidget, she put her hands on my shoulders and locked eyes with me. “I swear on Chris Evans’s beard.”

  An overly dramatic gasp came out. “The most sacred of vows.” I swept my hair behind my shoulders, then forward, then back again. “The things I do for your brother. Either way, he’s probably going to kill us both for this.”

  Brooklyn nodded. “Oh, for sure. You wrote up your will before you came, right?”

  I laughed. “Yes. I don’t have any money, but I made sure to leave George to Liam.”

  Brooklyn snorted a laugh, and then we both laughed again. Already I felt lighter. I could do this. If nothing else, I could always say that for one professional MMA fight, I was a ring girl.

  As I reached for the handle of the door that’d take us down a hallway and out into the crowd—one that would be bigger than normal if my marketing help had actually helped—the laughter and lightness evaporated. My anxiety grew and grew, until it became so powerful that everything I did seemed as if someone else was doing it.

  Someone wearing my body walked out and sat at the front of the crowd in nothing but the booty shorts and bikini-type top.

  When one of the venue organizers handed her a large number that signified Round One, she took it, strolled across the front of the cage, and shot the audience a smile. The whistles left her smiling wider, her confidence buoying up and soaking into the real me.

  But when my eyes met the familiar blue irises of one of the coaches standing in the corner, whoever had been temporarily in charge of my body fled—that scaredy-cat—and then it was all me, all alone.

  There was undeniable heat in those eyes, only I couldn’t tell which kind. Anger was definitely in the mix, but was there a spark of want in there, too? Maybe even a predatory edge to the way his eyes narrowed on me?

  Regardless of whatever it technically was or wasn’t, it sent a flash of red-hot need through my body, strong enough for me to know, without a doubt, that I wanted Liam Roth in every. Possible. Way.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Liam

  What. The. Fuck?

  I was going to kill someone. Right after I stopped staring at Chelsea in those blessedly tiny shorts. The urge to run out there and claim her in front of everyone barreled into me, even as I also wanted to yell at her for being out there in the first place.

  Was she trying to give me a heart attack?

  My eyes locked on to hers, and fire seared through my veins. Lust and desire, and a healthy dose of jealousy that anyone else was looking at her clashed through my system.

  My throat went dry and an eternity passed, electricity crackling and popping in the air between us.

  Then she winked at me.

  Fucking winked!

  And turned right back around, giving me a nice view of her perfect ass as she strolled across the cage and down into the audience.

  Shane’s hand hit my chest before I even realized I’d taken any steps in her direction.

  “How many times is she going to walk around the cage in that skimpy outfit while a bunch of pervy guys ogle her?” I fully counted myself among the pervy guys—my thoughts were absolutely, depravedly filthy right now.

  Shane shrugged.

  “Did you know about this?” I asked.

  “Hell no.”

  My jaw began to ache, and my teeth were in danger of being ground to dust. “It’s got Brooklyn written all over it.”

  “The word ‘intervention’ has been thrown around plenty when it comes to you and your girl.”

  Shit, fucking shit, fuck, fuck.

  “Finn’s fight first,” Shane said, his gaze homing in on my fists, clenching and unclenching at my sides. “Then you can go do…whatever you’re going to do about it.”

  I didn’t know what that whatever entailed, but it took me a few seconds to shake myself out of the trance Chelsea’s appearance in that sexy outfit had put me in.

  If I peered into the audience and saw anyone looking her w
ay, I’d want to kill them, and of course guys would be looking her way. She was hot as hell, with fiery red hair that I wanted to gather in my fist and—

  After. This will be continued after. I squatted down in front of my brother, rattled off a few key things to remember about the fighter, and detailed the plan of attack, even though we’d rehashed it countless times over the past month or so. With the adrenaline of the fight and the crowd and all that work coming down to three five-minute rounds, it was hard to remember everything, and this was where instinct and muscle memory helped make up the difference.

  “You ready?” I asked, and he gave one sharp nod.

  Then he walked out to the center of the cage and touched gloves with his opponent.

  For the next three rounds, I’d pour every ounce of my energy into being the best coach I could be for my brother. That was what was important now. Helping him clinch this win.

  But as soon as the fight ended, there was about to be another one, and knowing Chelsea, we’d be going for at least three full rounds.

  …

  He’s got him; he’s got him…

  Finn’s specialty had always been ground and pound, so we’d spent a lot of time upping his standing game. Davies wasn’t used to missing, but Finn blocked, ducked, and countered his punches faster than he could throw them, and all the extra swinging was tiring him out.

  Both of them, actually.

  “Keep ’em up,” I yelled at my brother as his fists lowered a couple inches, his chest heaving as he sucked in extra air. Thankfully Davies didn’t heed my advice, and I saw the opening the same time Finn did. Lighting quick, he dropped down, wrapping up the legs and driving his head into Davies’s hip for a double leg takedown.

  As soon as the guy’s back smacked the mat, the fight was all but over. A few big punches and a mean elbow, and the ref called it.

  The next several minutes were a blur of celebrating and people moving, and I tried to focus on the here and now, even as the urge to get to Chelsea constantly played in the background.

  Finn returned to the corner, and we shared a quick hug. “Proud of you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta go take care of something.”