A Fighting Chance (11 page)

“I’m sorry about the text messages,” she said. “I’ve never sent drunk texts before, so it was a shock when I read them this morning.”

“I enjoyed them.” He took her hand. “I also would have enjoyed meeting
you here last night, but I think you would have regretted having sex in the hotel lobby more than you regret the texts.”

She couldn’t even imagine. “Thank you for not taking me up on the offer.”

“I probably would have gotten stage fright anyway.” He took her hand and started walking. “It was hard not to camp outside Kate’s door and make sure you didn’t go wandering the casino, though.”

“We had just enough to drink downstairs that having room service bring us a
lot
of champagne seemed like a good idea.”

He laughed, and then pointed to a sign for an Irish pub up ahead. “I couldn’t make regular reservations because I wasn’t sure what time you’d be, but I finally took Janie up on her offer to let her know if I needed anything. They’ve been saving us a table.”

The restaurant
was incredibly loud and dimly lit, but the table the hostess led them to was all the way in the back, and fairly quiet. Del smiled at the sign that said Reserved for Brendan Quinn.

“One of the perks of dating an MMA fighter?” she asked.

Brendan snorted. “If it is, it might be the only one. I’m trying not to imagine what your family would think now, adding fighting to the list of things
they weren’t looking for in a potential in-law.”

“I think they’d be fine with it,” Del said, thinking about how genuinely sorry her father had looked when she’d talked to him.

They both ordered coffee since they’d be driving, and then ordered meals that made Del wince at the thought of the calories. It had been all well and good to make fun of Kate and her impending gown fitting, but
she had a maid of honor dress hanging in her closet she needed to fit into.

“I don’t know if I’ll be fighting much longer anyway,” Brendan said when the server left.

“I hope it’s not because of me,” she said. “Or my family. As exciting as Friday night was, it would be weird for me to watch you fight like that a lot, but if it’s part of who you are, then that’s okay.”

“It’s not part
of who I am. It’s part of a hole in my life I tried to fill after I left you. It’s how I coped.”

“And you don’t need it anymore?”

He looked at her across the table for a long time before shaking his head. “I hope not. Do I?”

The way he turned the question on her made her sit back in her chair. Even though she knew she’d just spoken as if it was a done deal that their relationship
had a future, she’d caught that he was still worried about what her father would think of him. And she couldn’t stop the unwelcome doubt that crept into her mind. “I don’t know, Brendan. You rejected me last night, you know.”

He arched an eyebrow, and she knew he’d caught her attempt to deflect the conversation with humor. “When the reminder you set comes up on your calendar, I’ll be there.”

She laughed, resisting the urge to check to see whether she actually had entered a reminder to have sex with Brendan under the big Christmas tree. If she had, at some point in the future, she was going to get a notice that would either be really funny or really painful.

“I’m thinking about giving up fighting mostly because I’m getting too old to let guys beat the crap out of me for grins,”
he said, smiling at her.

She felt both relief and disappointment at the change in the conversation’s tone, even though she was the one who’d dodged the question. “Do you have a contract, for like a certain amount of fights?”

He told her he didn’t, and then they talked about his training for a while. And the fighting. Then they talked about her job and her apartment. When their food came,
they kept talking, pausing to take bites now and then.

She remembered how, when they’d been together before, they could spend hours talking about anything under the sun. They rarely argued over a topic because they had similar taste in everything from books to politics to movies, but they differed enough to make the conversations interesting.

As the time ticked away and they ordered
desserts they mostly ignored, she realized how much she’d missed talking to Brendan. Sure, she’d missed his touch and the way he could heat her blood with just a look. But she’d missed talking to him just as much.

“You have a four-hour drive ahead of you,” she said when the server had already cleared the table and taken Brendan’s money and was only returning to bring them coffee refills.

“At least I won’t have any trouble staying awake,” he said. “I think we’ve had an entire pot each.”

“Still, it’s going to be so late when you get there.”

He sighed, pushing his empty cup away. “I know. I don’t want to go, though.”

“If I didn’t have to work tomorrow, I’d talk you into staying. And no, I can’t call in sick because I took Friday off this week and I’m taking two
days off besides Christmas next week.”

“I’m supposed to go to my cousin’s tomorrow so we can put some miles on the snowmobile.” He shook his head. “I wish I could take you with me. You always loved going out on the sled with me.”

“You need to get to the camp early enough to sleep, then. And maybe I can take some time off later in January and you can take me sledding.”

He gave her
a heated look across the table. “You should put a reminder in your phone, because I’ll hold you to that.”

“I will.” She pushed back her chair and stood because she knew they could literally sit there all night talking, or until they were thrown out. She didn’t want him out on the snowmobile with no sleep.

“Let’s hit the restrooms and then I’ll walk you to your car,” he said.

She
didn’t bother trying to wave off the offer. Brendan had always walked her to her car, and he always made sure it would start before he left her. And she would take the extra ten or fifteen minutes the walk would give her with him.

He held her hand as they walked through the casino that would lead to the garage where she was parked. They walked slowly, not speaking, and she steeled herself
for saying goodbye to him without crying.

And she did okay until they reached her SUV and he pulled her into his arms. She thought for a second he was going to kiss her, but he wrapped her in his embrace and hugged her hard. With her arms around his waist, she held on tight.

“I can’t believe it’s only been three nights and I’m already going to miss you,” she said.

“I’ve been missing
you for six years,” he said quietly. “And I know it was my own damn fault, but it’s the truth.”

“I’ve missed you, too.” She took a deep breath and pulled away. “You’re going to have to walk away or we’ll say goodbye all night.”

“I don’t want to, but you’re right.” He kissed her, his mouth lingering on hers. “I’ll talk to you soon. There’s no cell signal or internet at the camp, but I’ll
call you as soon as I get back to Boston.”

“I’ll be waiting.” She gave him a smile, but it was a little shaky.

She got in and started her engine, knowing he would stay until she was underway. He’d always been that way. Knowing that prolonging her departure any more would just drag out the goodbye and increase the chances she’d start bawling, she put the SUV in Reverse and backed out.

Once she’d put it in Drive, Brendan waved, and then he turned and walked away. Her vision shimmered and she swiped at her eyes. Finding her way out of the casino parking would be hard enough without crying.

And she’d talk to him soon. He’d call her in a few days, and she had a wedding to get through. And then the holidays. Her life would be so full, she’d probably barely have time to
miss him.

But as she neared the end of the aisle and glanced in her rearview mirror to see Brendan watching her leave with his hands shoved in his pockets, she knew that was a lie. She was going to miss him even more now than she had for the last six years.

* * *

Shortly before noon the next day, Brendan pulled into his cousin’s driveway and killed the engine. It was about an hour
from the cabin—which had finally warmed up thanks to the roaring fire he’d built in the woodstove—to Scott’s house, but the drive was worth it for a day out on the snowmobile trails. While they didn’t manage it every year, they always tried to sneak away for a day sometime during the week before Christmas, when nobody really cared about having electrical work done on their property.

Scott’s
wife, Chloe, opened the door, and Brendan smiled at the silver glitter sparkling in her hair and on her face. “You doing a practice run for a New Year’s Eve party?”

She rolled her eyes as a German shepherd pushed past her legs to get to him. “I wish. We’re having craft time. It’s the first and last time we’ve done a glitter craft.”

Brendan crouched to say hi to the dog and give him a
good neck scratch. “Hey, Kojak.”

“Scott’s in the kitchen with the boys. It was my turn to hide in the bathroom and mutter bad words under my breath.”

Brendan laughed. “It can’t be that bad.”

“You know what makes glitter stick to foam balls? Glue. Lots and lots of glue.”

He followed her into the kitchen, where two-and four-year-old boys were seated at the table while Scott hovered
over them, grimacing. “Not so much glue, Johnny.”

“Glue makes the glitter stick, Daddy,” the four-year-old argued.

“It’s going to take that glue four days to dry, though.”

“Bwendan!” The two-year-old, Hunter, had spotted him and he waved, flinging glitter off his hands like it was fairy dust.

“Oh, thank God,” Scott muttered.

“Hey,” Chloe said. “Whose idea was it for the
boys to make balls like the Times Square one for New Year’s?”

“Your mother’s,” he shot back. “She saw it on that website, remember?”

“True. But which one of us just smiled and nodded and which one of us said that was a great idea and told the boys about it?”

“All done,” Johnny declared, holding up what looked like a tiny baseball dipped in glittery white soup.

“It’s lovely,”
Chloe told him. “Daddy can help you clean up before he leaves with Brendan.”

She gave her husband a smile and a kiss, picked a paperback up off the kitchen counter and, after giving Brendan a little wave, disappeared into the other room.

Brendan looked at the carnage on the kitchen table. “You’re an electrician. You couldn’t come up with some kind of emergency to get you out of this?”

“It’s too small a town for that. I’d get caught.” Scott grinned as the boys went to the sink to wash their hands. “And, believe it or not, it sounded fun.”

That didn’t surprise Brendan at all. As soon as he’d heard Chloe was pregnant the first time, he’d known Scott would make a great dad and he hadn’t been wrong. She did some kind of graphics work on the computer from home, so when Scott
could schedule some time between electrical jobs, they’d visit the condo she still owned in Boston. While he didn’t get to see his other cousin, Lanie, or her family as much up here, Brendan got to spend a lot of time with Scott, Chloe and the boys in the city.

“Let’s get this cleaned up so we can put on some miles,” Brendan said, pushing up his sleeves.

An hour later, Scott kissed his
wife and sons goodbye and they fired up the snowmobiles. Rather than drag his from the cabin in the bed of his truck, he borrowed Chloe’s, but he’d brought his own gear.

When they hit the open trail, flying over the snow, Brendan tried to let go of everything weighing on his mind. He must not have done a very good job, though, because the third time they pulled off the trail for a break,
Scott folded his arms and leaned against his machine.

“What’s going on with you, Brendan?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got something on your mind and whatever it is, it’s weighing pretty heavy.”

“When I was at the casino for the fight, I saw Del.”

“Ah.” He didn’t have to tell Scott who Del was or fill him in on any of the backstory. They’d knocked back quite a few beers
at the cabin when Brendan broke it off with her and his cousin knew how badly it had torn him up. “Did you talk to her?”

“Yeah.”

When Scott just stood there and looked at him, Brendan gave up the entire story, from Del flipping off his poster to the time they’d spent together to his leaving. They’d also called each other a few times, even though the impending holiday and her best friend’s
wedding had her running around.

“I’m just worried about what happens if we get together again,” Brendan said. “I wasn’t a big hit with her family to begin with and that was before I broke her heart.”

“I’m lucky,” Scott said. “I get along great with my in-laws, but I know not everybody does. I also know people say you marry the entire family and I guess that’s true in a way. But you don’t
have to love them. You have to smile and get through the holiday or whatever the occasion is, but you won’t live with her family. You’ll live with Del.”

“There’s more to it than that, though. We probably shouldn’t have slept together because that put us back into an old relationship instead of building a new relationship together.”

“So date her,” Scott said, as if it was that easy. “Make
sure being together is what you both really want.”

“I know being with Del is what I want. I want what you have,” Brendan told him, because it was the truth. A wife with love in her eyes even when she was annoyed with him. Kids who wrecked the place, but gave the best hugs. “And I want it with her.”

“You know Chloe didn’t come with a guarantee, right?” Scott snorted. “I’d already had
my heart broken by a woman who couldn’t be happy in a nowhere small town and here came Chloe from Boston.”

“Didn’t it scare you, wondering if she’d wake up one day and wonder what the hell she was doing here?”

Scott nodded. “Yeah. But not taking the chance and losing her forever scared me more.”

“Shit.” Brendan lifted his helmet off the seat, ready to hit the trail again. “It all
scares me.”

“Guess you need to figure out what scares you the most.”

Chapter Eight

In the soft glow of the thousands of white Christmas lights strung in the hall, Del was keenly aware there were almost as many eyes on her and the best man as there were on the bride and groom. The bridal party danced to an instrumental version of “White Christmas” in front of a massive Christmas tree decked out in sparkling white lights and silver garland, and she
could practically feel her parents’ stares.