Chapter Nine
Shane
It was ridiculous how much relief washed through me when I’d learned Brooklyn wasn’t having dinner with her boyfriend. I wanted to track down Finn or Liam and find out who the guy was and how long she’d been dating him—a sure sign I’d lost it. Not to mention it’d also be a dead giveaway that I was thinking things about their sister that I shouldn’t. That I couldn’t stop, regardless of doing all I could to repress the memories this past weekend. I’d done so well.
Until I bumped into her in the hallway and everything came rushing back at once. The extra workout with her at the gym, just the two of us. How easy she was to talk to, and how even after I’d spilled too much, she didn’t respond with pity, but with a confession of her own. Then there was her adorable trash talk as we sparred and the way she’d surprised me with that leg sweep. Having her pinned underneath me.
All my instincts told me to shut it down and leave her alone. If the Roths found out I’d even thought about pursuing her, they’d change their minds about me. I’d asked them to take a gamble on my career, and I didn’t want them to think I was ungrateful.
I should’ve let her keep on avoiding me.
Easier said than done, since I couldn’t avoid her. Or thinking about her, apparently.
Probably because I’d neglected my personal life for so long. After my world began crumbling around me, I was too overwhelmed. Then I had to sort through the wreckage and see what was left—who was left. The past month I’d neglected most everything in favor of fitting in more training, first to land a spot with Team Domination and then proving myself so I could keep it.
I suppose I should at least set aside a day or two to have some carefree fun before I land a fight and that completely consumes my life. Brooklyn wasn’t an option for carefree fun—there were too many ways it could get complicated and messy, and I didn’t have time for messy. I’d had enough of that in my life.
Besides, she had a boyfriend. That fact gnawed at me more than I’d like, which just proved how much I needed some R and R with people who got me and understood my hectic lifestyle. This weekend I’d have to take my boys up on one of the parties they were always inviting me to. Since that left me five days to keep my mind busy in other ways, I should find a way to fill the time.
I pulled my bike up in front of the steadiest home I’d ever known, a gray rancher with a dirt yard that held one lone palm tree. Next spring we’d have to plant new flowers. This past year had been too crazy to worry about things like landscaping.
I tucked my helmet under my arm and strode up the driveway. My pep talk to Brooklyn reminded me of how short life could truly be, and how you never knew how long you had with someone, so I decided to practice what I’d preached.
Within ten minutes of stepping inside, I was seated at the small dining room table, a steaming plate of food in front of me, heavy on the protein and vegetables. Smelled delicious, too.
“You don’t have to fuss over me, Mom.” It’d taken me a solid year of living under this very roof to switch over from calling her Tammy. I’d assumed she’d be as uninterested and temporary as the rest of the foster parents I’d had. Boy did she prove me wrong. “The reason I came over was to check on you.”
“What, you can’t see how I am while you have dinner? Does eating suddenly require the use of your eyeballs?”
“I’m not against trying it,” I joked, and she smiled. She was still too skinny, but the hollows of her cheeks had filled out, and the hair on her formerly shaved head was now styled in a short pixie cut that I’d reassured her a dozen times looked good on her. “Where’s Bill?”
“On a run. Last time he checked in, he’d crossed into Wyoming.”
His job as a truck driver meant he was often on the road, but over this past hellish year when Mom needed him most, he’d jumped at every opportunity to be as far away from home as possible. “I thought he was off this week.”
She shrugged. “He picked up an extra route.” She left off the as usual, but I heard it anyway, and I gritted my teeth to bite back my caustic response. Maybe I didn’t visit enough, but he could do a better job of taking care of his wife. He was ridiculously absent while she was going through the surgeries to remove and reconstruct her breasts and the chemotherapy that’d been in the middle of all that, and it killed me that she’d defend him to the end, saying everyone grieved in their own way.
Since I couldn’t win a fight to save my life after I discovered the only person who ever truly gave a damn about me had an aggressive form of breast cancer, I supposed I didn’t have much room to talk. It sure as fuck didn’t help that I knew Bill wouldn’t be there for her. So I’d tried to be, even though my manager told me I couldn’t risk taking a break, which left me juggling both.
Sometimes I liked to torture myself with what-ifs, like what if Mom’s diagnosis had come after my title fight instead of two weeks before. She’d tried to hide it, her plan not to tell me until afterward, but Bill had “slipped.” He’d never be “Dad” to me, but during those hard months I got this feeling he’d finally decided that I might’ve earned my place.
While I was making up for the hassle I’d caused as a punk kid, my career circled the drain. No one cared why I couldn’t fight—why my head was so far out of the cage I didn’t care what happened to it inside of there—they just felt the money lining their pockets getting thinner, and I found out real quick who my true friends were. A pathetic number compared to who I thought I could trust.
At the end of the shitstorm, Tammy’s prognosis looked good. My career’s, not so much.
Whether or not I could resuscitate it had yet to be determined, and a big part of that came down to focus. Which meant I shouldn’t dwell on the rocky past year or the fights I’d lost, and I also shouldn’t let my thoughts drift to a certain blonde, or spend time wondering how her dinner with her dad was going. I hope it’s going okay. As much as she tries to act like she’s given up on caring, she clearly misses what she used to have with him.
“Are you still liking the new gym?” Mom asked. “I know how excited you were that they agreed to train you, although I’m not sure why anyone wouldn’t want to.” She reached out and squeezed my hand.
“Most people aren’t as blind as you when it comes to me.”
She clucked her tongue at me. “Don’t make me send you to your room, young man, because I still will.”
“Without dessert?” I asked, gripping the table and acting panicked.
She tapped a finger to her lips. “Well, I’d hate to be too mean. I bought your favorite ice cream, too. So maybe after dessert.”
Warmth flooded me. It only proved my point, which was why I’d never regret putting my life on hold to help her through her cancer treatments. After all, she’d dropped everything when a fifteen-year-old punk with a giant chip on his shoulder showed up at her door with nothing to his name.
I insisted on getting the ice cream, and when I tried to only have a small serving—I was in training—she nearly wrestled the scooper out of my hand, not giving it a rest until my bowl was filled to the brim. I’m going to have to use some evasive maneuvers to offload at least half of that.
“Anything else going on?” she asked. “When are you going to meet a nice girl and bring her home to meet me? I’d like to be a grandma someday, you know.”
I nearly choked on my bite of ice cream. “Man, three rounds in the cage are nothing to what you put me through in one night. I’m getting some serious cardio over here.”
“Well, maybe I should be training you full-time, then—and don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t answer my question.” She pinned me with a look, one that didn’t used to work on me. Once I’d accepted she wasn’t giving up on me, I was useless to resist it.
“I’ve got to get my career back, and that means I don’t have time for nice girls.” Or even feisty blond ones that I wouldn’t exactly go calling nice. Intriguing, for sure. Definitely funny… But none of that matters because she’s off-limits and taken, and I’m shutting down thoughts of her right now.
Tammy saw life through a rose-colored filter, so I’d never be able to convince her that no woman would want a washed-up fighter without much left to his name. Not that I wanted someone who was only with me for my title, but after burning through all my money by living too large—I’d made the mistake of thinking the cash flow would never end—and then paying off stacks of medical bills despite Mom’s many protests, I had just enough to train for about the next five months. I needed a fight within that time or…well, “or” wasn’t an option. I wouldn’t rest until I was back on top, and this next time, I’d know which pitfalls to avoid, and I’d be smarter. With my fights, with my money, with the people who surrounded me.
Which was another reason I had no business entertaining thoughts of fooling around with the one girl who could screw me over in so many ways. Enough that it should scare me straight, for sure.
But there was that one possible good way, and every time I was around her, man, did I want to resort to my old ways and be completely reckless.
Good thing I’d worked so hard on my self-control.
No girl was worth losing my career, not even one as tempting as Brooklyn.