Chapter Four
Shane
I made her nervous.
I liked that I made her nervous. Not scared, and I wouldn’t cross that line. I didn’t do well with intimidation, not when people attempted to do it to me, but especially when people did it to others who were obviously weaker than they were. Not that I put Brooklyn in the weak category—I had a feeling she could take pretty good care of herself, despite locking her keys in the car.
Yesterday I’d told myself I wasn’t going to check her out ever again, but when I’d seen her in the parking lot, ass in the air, I didn’t have the strength to walk on by. Not only was I enjoying the show, but she also looked like she might need some help. Sure, maybe I took a few seconds to soak in the view before offering her a hand, but eventually I did the right thing. Then she’d surprised me by making that joke about her car, and teasing her and watching how flustered she got over it only made me want to mess with her some more. I wondered if I could pull more snarky comments out of her. If I could get her to laugh; if I could make her breath hitch. I allowed myself a moment to visualize pinning her against that bright blue Mustang and lowering my lips to hers for a quick taste.
Entertaining thoughts about her was a bad idea. While bad ideas used to be my specialty, I was on a different path now, one solely focused on my next fight, which would get me to the next one. The championship or bust, regardless of how long it took me to get there. Even if I had to fight every single guy in my weight class to get a shot at the belt.
That was what I should be visualizing, so I aimed my mental images that way. They’d call it a comeback, the way they loved to do. It sounded so much nicer than “we shut this guy out until he could make us money again.”
Money could come and go—I knew how true that was—but a title lasted forever. Being the champion might not, but no one could take away the victory of that fight, that night. The title that meant at one point you were better than everyone out there.
Movement and pale blond hair caught my eye. Brooklyn lifted her chin as she strode across the gym, purposely avoiding looking my way. Her brothers weren’t here yet, and if her dad was, he was in his office, so I didn’t bother being subtle about checking her out again. No use pretending it would be the last time, either. She’d smoothed down her hair, but she still looked flustered, and not by me.
I should leave it alone, but now I felt like an ass for leaving her out there in the parking lot with her keys locked in her car, especially since she was having such a shitty day. As someone who’d had his fair share of those, the least I could do was try to make it better. I dropped my duffel bag on a chair and walked over to the front desk. “I’m taking it upon myself to help turn your day around.”
Her shoulders tensed and her gaze remained straight ahead. “Look, I’m not in the mood to hear about your magic penis, and how one ride would fix all my problems, so save it.”
Damn, no holding back punches. I could roll with that. “Okay, that conversation is officially tabled for later”—I shot her my most charming grin—“and I’m really looking forward to it, too, but the reason I came over was to ask if you’d managed to get into your car.”
“Not yet, but I’m taking care of it now.” She clicked the mouse over and over and then banged it on the desk. “If this ever decides to connect to the internet—I’m going to have to bring in my laptop, because I don’t have time for this shit.”
I’d hesitated to admit this outside, because I shouldn’t be volunteering skills that made me sound like a criminal, but it was also stupid to wait for a locksmith, then have to pay him for something I could do in a couple of minutes. “I can break into your car and get the keys. Maybe just warn your brothers so they don’t think I’m trying to steal it. Something tells me they’re more of the ask-questions-later sort.”
One corner of her lip trembled upward before she forced it straight. Then she turned her blue eyes on me, and a sensation I hadn’t felt in a long time went through my gut. “What do you need to get in?”
“A wire hanger. Pretty sure I can find one in the locker room.” I tapped the edge of the desk. “I’ll be right back.”
The second I stepped out of the locker room with a hanger, a hand clamped onto my arm. Without bothering with words, Brooklyn rushed us toward the door.
I thought about dragging my feet and putting up a little resistance, but she was glancing around like a paranoid lunatic, and suddenly I wondered if she was a bit on the bonkers side. I tended to attract the crazy, but I’d sworn off that type. The highs weren’t worth the lows. Still, I couldn’t help attempting to tease out the side she’d shown earlier in the parking lot. “I’ve never had the rag doll treatment. Gotta be honest, I kinda dig it.”
She shot me a look. “It’d be easier if you helped, deadweight.”
There she was. “You know, if you just asked me my name, you wouldn’t have to come up with cute pet names for me.”
“Thanks to my stubborn nature, now I can never ask.” She opened the back door of the gym and shoved me through it.
Once we reached the car, I untwisted the hanger.
“How long will this take?” Brooklyn glanced around again, like we were either in a heist movie or about to make a drug deal.
“Just a minute or two.” I made a loop at the end of the wire so I could slide it down the gap between the window and door and catch the post that’d disengage the lock.
“Could we…?” She bit her lip, and it drew my attention to the lower one, and how it was a much brighter pink than the other. “It’s just, sometimes my dad and my brothers treat me like I’m this helpless, ditzy little girl, and I know that this doesn’t exactly prove otherwise, but I’ve lived in San Francisco for years without any issues. And for the record, I could call a locksmith, so technically this is a problem I could solve by myself if I had to.”
I extended the makeshift slim jim to her. “You wanna have at it?”
She sighed, her whole body getting in on it. “I’m not saying I don’t appreciate it. I’m simply asking if we can keep this just between us.”
“I’m happy to keep whatever you want between us,” I said, even though I should really cut back on the lines and innuendos. But the way she got all huffy about it made it way too fun, and so little entertained me these days. Not that I had time to sit around and enjoy life right now. There’d be time for that later, after my fighter ranking was in a more comfortable range.
Between that sobering thought and the fact that the stress coming off Brooklyn had calmed down considerably, it was time to pull back and hold myself in check. Get into her car, get out of this situation where I might focus too much on how entertaining she was, and get on with my life.
I fed the wire down into the door, searching for the latch. I’d worked hard to turn my life around, so I was rusty. Finally I felt it catch. I pulled straight up and heard a click—the lock popped up along with it.
“Why am I not surprised you know how to do that?” Brooklyn asked.
Of all the jabs she’d thrown, that one landed harder than I would’ve liked. “Because you, like most people, take one look at someone and judge them.”
Her face dropped.
I’d already taken time away from my training to help her, so I refused to feel bad. Obviously she’d grown up a lot differently than I had, and she thought she was better than me. Nothing would change that, and I shouldn’t even be talking to her in the first place.
If anything, it was a good reminder of where my priorities needed to be. Keeping my head down and giving training my all. I’d lived too many years trying to impress people who’d only ever look down on me. This time around, I was only surrounding myself with people who’d be with me through the ups and the downs.
I didn’t have the luxury of wasting time on some girl who took one look at me and declared me a waste of space.