Chapter Two
KARLI
I was sitting in my room with my laptop open to my latest assignment while talking on the phone with my good friend, Michaela. She was trying her damnedest to try and talk me into going to a costume party with her in one of the private rooms inside of Circus Circus.
I didn’t have any desire to party and mingle with a bunch of knuckle-dragging jocks. It was bad enough some days that I had to live with and work for one.
“Not tonight, Michaela. I have homework, and Dad’s making dinner.”
“You’re twenty-two years old, Karli.”
I laughed. “Thanks for the reminder; I almost forgot.”
“Oh shut up; you know what I mean. You don’t do anything but study, work, and spend time with your dad. You work for him – I would think that would be enough togetherness.”
I smiled. “He’s lonely, Mich.”
“Then he should join Match or eHarmony and let you have a life.”
“He lets me have a life. Look what I’ve done with it. The last two boyfriends I had turned out to be the biggest losers on the planet. At least when I stay home with Dad, there’s no danger of meeting another one. I attract them like magnets. Besides, I do things.”
“What things?”
“I went to the football game with you last weekend.” I had hated every second of it.
Michaela’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Trent, played football for Las Vegas University. She begged me to go with them and to the after party. I bailed on the party about a half an hour into it when I’d already gotten hit on by two, dumb jocks and a third one rubbed up against me and tried to pretend it was an accident.
“The football game doesn’t count.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No, because after the game, I had to beg you to go to the party and then you left after fifteen minutes – alone.”
“It was half an hour.”
“Oh geez, excuse me. If you would have stayed, you might have hooked up with one of the hot guys on Trent’s team since you completely ignore the yummy fighters at the gym you get to work at.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I ‘get’ to work there. Have you ever tried to get the smell of dozens of sweaty, funky guys out of a roomful of equipment?”
“Well, I’ve had to air out my bed once or twice.”
“Michaela!” I laughed. My friend was crazy. It’s part of why I loved her. “Anyways, you know, after the last, disastrous relationship, I don’t date jocks. I’m holding out for a nice, non-sweaty law student with his muscles between his ears, instead of places that makes him think he’s God’s gift to every woman over eighteen. I’ve had more than my fair share of players in my life.”
“They’re not all players. Trent isn’t.” I had my doubts about that, but for now, I kept it to myself.
“I know, honey, but I have too much going on in my life to even risk it right now. I don’t have time for head games. Dad gave me this whole week off so that I could get caught up on my homework. I’m not about to tell him I’m going to a party instead of having dinner with him.”
“The party won’t be in full swing until nine, at least. You have plenty of time to do both. Please go with me!”
I sighed. “I don’t have a costume.”
“I have that red flapper dress you loved so much. We can do your hair all up in curls and you can wear your black stilettos. You’ll look so good! Please!”
“Grr, you’re so persistent!”
“Is it working?”
“I guess, but hear me say this, Michaela – I am not hooking up with any jocks tonight.”
“I hear you. I’ll be there at eight to help you get ready.”
I hung up, still shaking my head at my crazy friend. Before she got serious with Trent, she had a reputation for being loose and easy, but she wasn’t really like that.
My poor Michaela had been left home alone to raise herself most of her life. Her mother was a showgirl and her father owned one of the smaller resorts in Vegas. They had plenty of money, but not much time for a kid. She compensated for the lack of love at home by going from one man to the other. I hoped for her sake I was wrong about Trent. I just got the same feeling from him that I did every player I’d ever known…and I’d known plenty.
“Karli!”
“Yeah, Dad?”
“Dinner’s ready, honey.”
I put the phone down and closed my laptop. Whatever Dad was making smelled great. I went out to the dining room to see he already had the table set and my plate heaped with chicken, rice with asparagus, and a bowl of what looked like some kind of cream soup. Dad spent his life taking care of his body, so everything he made was healthy, but he also knew how to make it all taste great. I’d learned to eat right and take care of my own body at a young age thanks to him, and even now that I’m in law school, I do my best to find time to work out every day.
“It looks great, Dad.”
“Thanks; the chicken is marinated in a garlic sauce. I got the recipe from Carole Lewis; you remember her?”
I sat down at the table and poured a glass of the iced tea Dad had put in a pitcher on the table. “Yeah, I remember her. Are you seeing her again?”
Carole was a sales rep for one of the protein powders Dad pushes at the gym he owns. They had dated for a while last year and all of a sudden, they just weren’t. He never told me what happened and I never asked. My father’s dating life had never been a comfortable topic for me. I did wish that he’d find someone, though. He’d been single for a long time and the longer it went on, the guiltier I felt about finding my own place and moving out.
“No, we’re just friends,” he said. “So, will you be at work tomorrow? If not, that’s okay, but I’ll have to ask Linda to come in and clean the equipment before things start growing on it.”
I laughed. “I’ll be there. Thank you for the time off; I really got a lot done.”
I usually spend at least three days during the week taking care of office work, ordering supplies, and cleaning at the gym. Dad has three other part-time employees, but I’m the only one he trusts to access the finances. He hates anything to do with money or paying bills. I’m not sure how he managed after Mom died and before I got old enough to do it.
Sundays are slow and he doesn’t do any training with the MMA fighters, so that’s usually the day I spend cleaning the mats in the octagons and washing all of their sparring equipment.
“You know how important your education is to me,” he said as he swallowed a huge bite of his chicken. “If you ever need time off to study, all you have to do is let me know.”
“Thanks, Dad. There’s a party at Circus Circus tonight that Michaela wants me to go to with her. You don’t mind, do you?” I was twenty-two years old and I didn’t need my father’s permission to go out, but as long as I lived with him and he was paying all of the bills, I felt kind of obligated to at least let him know what I was doing.
“Of course not. You’ve been working hard studying all week, you need to get out and have some fun. Just be safe.”
“Always. We’ll take an Uber from here and back,” I told him. “If it’s really late, I might stay with Michaela tonight, but I’ll be in to work early tomorrow, I promise.”
“Whenever you get there is fine. I’ve got this new kid I’m training, and he’s supposed to meet me there at seven.” He rolled his eyes.
“You’re training on a Sunday?”
“I’m training as often as I can get this kid in. He’s the one I inherited from Martin.”
“Oh.” I tried to be casual as I swallowed the lust that suddenly surged up inside of me.
I knew I just went on an on to Michaela about jocks and I wouldn’t touch this guy with a ten-foot pole…but damn was he hot. I’d yet to meet him in person, but Vegas was covered with photos of him in nothing but shorts; a more perfect specimen of a man I had yet to see. He was like sex on a stick dipped in ink, and I wouldn’t even be human if my body didn’t react. “He’s training for the heavyweight match in a few weeks, right?”
“Yeah, and he’s got a couple exhibition matches in between, too.”
“So why do you say, ‘supposedly’ he’ll be there at seven?”
“I’m just having a hard time getting this kid to focus. He wants to stay out all night partying and doing God knows what, and then he shows up half an hour late or more and I can tell that his head is just not in it. He’s crazy talented, and that is what has saved him up to this point. But I’m afraid the day is coming when his lack of focus is going to cause real problems for him.”
Typical, I thought. A guy that looked like him was way too busy spreading the love – and who knows what else – around Vegas. “Martin probably partied with him,” I said with a laugh.
Martin and my dad had been friends as long as I could remember, which was funny since they’d also been in direct competition with each other until Martin retired. He was a funny old man, and unlike my dad who was rigid about his diet and work-out routines, Martin somehow managed to stay in shape while partying like a teenager right up into his seventies.
Dad snorted. “Yeah, I’ll bet you’re right.”
We dropped the subject of his new fighter, which was good since I was suddenly feeling hot from the inside out just thinking about a poster I saw of him last week in front of the MGM. Dad asked me about school, and I told him how my classes were going and we talked about some of my instructors.
There was one attorney who had come in a couple of weeks ago to do a two-day class on criminal law. His name was Ethan, and he couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me. But he was so knowledgeable about the law, there wasn’t a single question asked that he didn’t have an intelligent answer for. He was also good looking, so that helped keep my attention. I didn’t tell Dad that part.
Ethan had been that intellectual type that I’d been telling Michaela about, though, and I’d actually been thinking about him a lot over the past week. He was in good shape, but he looked more like a runner than a fighter. His dark hair was perfectly styled and his suits well-tailored and always seemed to match his dark-blue eyes to a T. He was definitely not my usual type, but that was the main attraction.
I helped Dad with the dishes and by the time the kitchen was cleaned up, Michaela had arrived with the flapper dress and an overnight bag full of make-up in tow. Reluctantly, I got ready for the party, secretly wishing that I was dressing for a date with Ethan Grant, Esq.