ELEVEN
Ward
She was upset about something.
That was what was on my mind as I got to the woods and started running.
I wanted to get the run in to focus, to get my body loose, to be able to go into that match tonight with a clear head, and a working body.
It had been years since I needed to fight. My body hadn't exactly gotten soft, but it was used to a different routine to keep it hard.
Kenny had that on me.
But he didn't have the anger.
He didn't have my past.
He didn't have the blood of a girl he cared about all over his hands that morning, reminding him why he needed this match to begin with.
It had been easy over the past two days to forget that shit, to shelf it, to crowd it out with the good.
And there was a lot of that.
When I let myself think about it, it was impressive how easy it was, how little I fought it. I wasn't a man who was supposed to have a woman, let alone a woman like her. That wasn't supposed to be in the cards for me. I already had way more than I thought I could. And it had always been enough.
But then there she was.
With so, so much more.
And, here was the crazy fucking part, willing to give it to me.
She was just there with those understanding eyes, that nonjudgmental soul, and those open fucking arms.
It wasn't something I had ever known in my life.
Maybe she was right.
Maybe there were issues with women leftover from a crummy relationship with my mother.
Maybe it was easier to see them as disposable, just like my mother had allowed herself to be.
Maybe keeping them all at a distance allowed the cycle to continue.
But then there was Adalind with her bleeding head, her unlocked door, her too-trusting spirit.
And my first instinct had been to protect.
Not to fuck and leave.
I guess that made the difference.
Hell, we hadn't even slept together when I laid claim to her in front of everyone in Hex when I had confronted Kenny.
Kenny.
Who didn't deserve to be a memory in her head, let alone one that ended with her tossed by a dumpster like trash.
Which was exactly why I needed to fucking focus. On beating his ass. On thinking about his fighting tactics, in knowing which ones to use against him.
Not thinking about Adalind.
And whatever it was this morning that had her going from a little annoyed to be woken up, but happy, to standoffish and guarded in a heartbeat.
She turned down breakfast.
The woman practically had an orgasm every time she ate something, and she was turning down food?
No.
That wasn't normal.
But before I could call her on it, demand an explanation, she realized her stitch had come out, and looked a little bit like she might actually pass out from the small bit of blood on her fingertips.
And protection-mode reared up again.
It wasn't something I could have truly ever even known I was capable of before. I hadn't been protected as a kid. No one had protected me from shit in that basement for years.
I hadn't learned it.
Yet there it was whenever she needed it, like it had been waiting all along.
It was a strange thing to realize so late in life things about yourself that you had never uncovered before.
And you would think that, for a man like me, so set in his ways, I would have fought against it, not welcomed it.
I couldn't say, no matter how much I thought on it, what the fuck made the difference. Why I had opened up. Why I was putting effort in, stepping out of my comfort zone. Letting her in.
Hell, she was the only non-hotel employee who had ever stepped foot inside my place.
Shit was changing.
And fast.
I should have been freaking out.
But, oddly, it simply just felt right. Easy. Uncomplicated.
Except for maybe whatever put her in a mood this morning. That, at least, seemed a bit more complicated. Normally, I found her easy to read. She had a shit poker face. She wore everything on her sleeve.
So this morning, yeah, that meant she was actively trying not to be so transparent. Which, for her, did not come naturally. That wasn't good. I didn't know dick about such things, but I knew that a woman pretending to be fine meant she was definitely not-fine.
But that was something I would have to handle tomorrow when I saw her.
Today and tonight, I had other things to deal with.
I pushed myself through a forty-minute run before I made my way back home to shower then head into Hex, knowing there wasn't much to do, but wanting to try to keep myself focused.
"Kenny went on a bender, and has been telling anyone who will listen which, when it's a drunk guy in a bar, is not many, about the match tonight," Laz informed me from the doorway to my office.
"So I should be expecting more than just the entire group from Hex when I confronted him?"
"I think it's going to at least double Hex's usual occupancy. Igor is handling the bets."
I didn't give a shit about the bets.
I had enough money.
I was glad I left my having to fight for money days long behind me.
The money could go to the women's shelter in town. It would do much more good there.
And there was no doubt in my mind I would be winning. There was simply no other choice.
You didn't lose your own fucking grudge match.
"What are the bets like?" I asked, curious.
I might have owned a fighting club, but not once had I stepped foot in my own ring. Those days were long past. Hearing that I was holding a grudge match must have surprised most people. I might have been a bit of an intimidating presence, but no one had seen me get physical with someone before.
And they had seen Kenny fight.
I was pretty sure there would be a lot of betting against me honestly.
They would be losing big.
And the people who bet on me, namely my own fighters and some people in Navesink Bank who maybe had seen me fight as a kid, would be making bank. While Kenny high-tailed it out of town, never to be heard from again. There was no way to save face in a place like Navesink Bank when you lost that kind of match.
"About sixty-forty for Kenny." I snorted at that, shaking my head. "That confident, huh?"
"Trust me, Laz. This is a fight I am going to win."