Beat (The Beat and The Pulse #1) (3 page)

Frowning, I let my
mind wander back to the video. Beginner class, hey?

Monica chose that
moment to walk into the kitchen and zero in on me. Probably because she knew I
was alone. Bullies always worked the same way. Get their victims alone.
Unfortunately, she was in for a rude shock.

“Stay out of my way,”
she hissed, leveling her gaze with mine.

There was no way in
hell or any other plane of existence where I was letting Monica Miller walk all
over me with her manicured toenails. I knew her type and it wasn't pretty at
all.

Sneering, I countered
with, “Stay out of mine and we have a deal.”

We stared at each
other for another minute, sealing the deal. There was no sisterly bond, no
kindness, no understanding. A line had been drawn and the moment one of us
stepped over it, it was game on.

I was looking forward
to it.

When I didn't back
down, Monica huffed her annoyance and spun on her heel leaving the kitchen in a
whirlwind of expensive perfume and drama.

There’s no way that
spoilt brat was my sister. No fucking way.

I'd never been the
kind of chick to sit around and wallow in a pit of my own misery. That was
something I could never afford to do. School, housework, cooking, caring for my
Mum when things got rough...those things took up one hundred percent of my
time. Growing up had to be done all at once, so the moody, difficult, teenager
had never surfaced. All of that was trapped under a hard layer of reality.

Reality bit.
Hard
.

Standing in the
upstairs hall at Beat, a plastic bag of gym clothes I'd bought with Dad's money
in my hand, I stared at the photos of fighters and championships gone by. They
were all guys, but the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if I could
do that. Learn to fight. I probably didn't have a chance at winning a
competition, but maybe I could be strong again.

It just seemed like
something I could do...something I could manage in a world that was empty of
everything else. There was a beginner class at seven. Dean seemed to think I’d
be into it.

Staring at one of the
newer photos, I studied a man in his super smart boxing shorts, holding up a
huge red and gold trophy. Dad was on the other side and they were both smiling.

The man was all
bulked up with muscle, a large tattoo covering his chest in black and grey. The
photo was slightly blurred, so I couldn't make out the design. He was quite
handsome in a Tom Cruise circa
Top Gun
kinda way. The bit before he
became a douche and when everyone loved him. I wondered where the guy in the
photo was now.

“Hey, Ren.”

I glanced up at Dad
as he stuck his head out of the office.

“Everything okay?”

I nodded at the
picture. “Just looking.”

He wandered out into
the hall and stood by me, glancing at the picture. “Are you going to give the
beginner class a try tonight?” he asked. “Free of charge of course.”

“I know.” I shrugged,
the plastic bag crinkling as it swung and hit my knee. “Got nothing else to do.
I had nothing to wear, so I got some things at the Kmart round the corner.”
Twenty bucks got me a sporty top, bra and a pair of those three quarter shiny,
Lycra leggings.

Dad's eyes lit up and
I suppose I should've felt good about the fact that he was taking an interest
in my interest and all of that, but I was still kinda numb. Numb and looking
for something,
anything
, to grab a hold of.

“Thanks for the
money,” I added. An olive branch. A tiny twig of one.

“No problems,” he
said, the smile in his voice blindingly obvious. “Anytime.”

Nodding at the
photograph I'd been staring at, I asked, “Who's that?”

“That's Ashley
Fuller,” he declared. “He's the best fighter I've ever had the pleasure of
training.”

I glanced at the
photo, studying the tattoo on his chest. It wasn't getting any clearer the
harder I squinted. “Where is he now?”

“That's kind of an
unfortunate story. He was meant to go pro, like Dean and Linc, but he got
disqualified.”

Dad sounded disappointed
about it, so I prodded, pretending that it was for his benefit. “Disqualified?”

“Banned.”

“Oh.”

“He left to go do the
rounds of the circuit in Thailand. That was four years ago.”

“You sound bummed
about it.”

Dad scratched his
jaw. “He showed a great deal of promise. He could've gone right to the top here
and in the States, easy. But he threw it all away.”

I frowned, wondering
what it had been that made the guy mess up his future like that. I couldn't
understand, but then again, I'd never had one to look forward to. I wanted a
future, but I wasn't sure what mine looked like yet.

I kind of pitied this
Ash Fuller and his lost dream. He'd been the Golden Boy of Beat and he'd done
something stupid, whatever that was, to fuck it all up.

“I have to be honest
with you, Ren,” Dad said. “Things aren't the greatest financially here at the
moment. We get sponsorships and donations from the companies that sponsor the
twins, but nothing that compared to the finances we had when I was training
Ash. That's why we do all these extra classes and Monica takes on extra
clients.”

Dad's franchise was
going through hard times. I bit my lip to stop myself saying that I knew all
about budgeting and eating nothing but beans on toast for months on end.
Somehow I knew that medical bills were a lot more expensive than the
electricity for this place.

“So, it's not all
sunshine and rainbows,” he went on.

Grunting, I said, “If
you need budgeting tips, hit me up.” Before he could reply, I strode off down
the hall to get changed for my initiation into beating people's asses
one-oh-one.

Chapter 3

Ren

The next morning, I
found myself limping out of Beat and down the footpath like I’d been through
the wringer.

Beginner MMA class
was
brutal
. Seriously, I didn’t realize how unfit I actually was until I
woke up with muscles that burned every time I moved. That meant it was working,
right? I lost count of how many times I ended up on my ass with Dean and
Lincoln laughing at me from the sidelines. My first full day at Beat was
memorable, but I wasn’t sure it was for the right reasons.

The sun was already
up and the sky was clear, promising another hot day for the last weeks of the
Australian summer. There was a curse in front of me, and I glanced up as a
woman fell to her knees right onto the concrete just ahead of me.

Wincing as she
landed, I jogged to catch up with her.

“Hey, let me help you
up,” I said, the country girl in me kicking in. I hooked an arm under hers and
helped her to her feet. Both knees seemed to be scraped, bleeding a little, but
not that bad. She actually seemed to care more about her shoes than her knees
and my eyebrows rose.

“Shit,” she hissed,
stamping her heeled foot. “Bloody hell.”

She was this tall,
blonde, beautiful corporate type all done up in a tailored skirt, jacket and
silk shirt. Put her next to me and she was the image of refinement. Shit, would
I ever stop feeling inadequate and be happy with who I was?

“Are you okay?” I
asked, letting the woman go as she steadied herself.

She glanced down at
me from atop her six inch heels. “Yeah, yeah. I’m okay. I wish I could say the
same for my shoes. You know how much these things cost?”

I looked down at my
scuffed boots and then to her heels and shrugged. I didn’t know a thing about
shoes.

“Oh shit, where’s my
manners? Thanks for helping me up. I’m Josephine, Josie for short.” She stuck
out her hand.

I shook it with a
smile. “No problems. I’m Renee, but everyone calls me Ren.”

“Hey, you wanna go
for a coffee?” Josie asked, brushing off her knees.

I glanced down the
street. “Coffee?”

“Yeah, it’s the least
I can do. I mean, nobody stops these days.” She shrugged. “Everyone’s an
asshole, you know.”

“Um. Sure?”

“C’mon.” She waved me
forward. “I know a little place around the corner.”

We wandered around
the corner to Sydney Road, the main drag through Brunswick and into a little
coffee shop a few doors up. It sat next to a junk shop and a Turkish bakery
that was already open and pumping out the sweet doughy smell of fresh baking
bread.

A bell above the door
jangled as we walked into the cafe and the bakery’s scent was replaced with
fresh roasted coffee.

“Hey, Josie,” the guy
behind the coffee machine called out.

“Hey Seth. Just the
usual, thanks.” She glanced at me.

“Oh, cappuccino,
thanks.”

The barista smiled
behind his thick-rimmed hipster glasses. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in here
before,” he said to me. “Are you new to the area?”

I shrugged. “You
could say that.”

“Well, I’m Seth, the
coffee guy. Pleased to meet you.”

Grateful for another
friendly face, I smiled. “Ren.”

Seth beamed. He was
cute in a lanky, clean-cut, indie, arty kinda way. Total polar opposite from
the guys I was hanging out with at Beat. “Have a seat, ladies. I’ll bring ‘em
over in a sec.”

Josie led me to a
table by the window, the morning sun warming us through the glass.

Seth slid Josie a
latte in a glass and set my coffee in front of me before disappearing behind
the counter and firing the machine up again.

“Where do you work?”
I asked as she dumped a sugar into her drink.

“I work in an office
in the city,” she said. “Menial admin junk. My place is up there a bit.” She
waved her hand in the air.

“You live on your
own?”

“Yeah. Rent is
killer.”

I smiled, taking a
sip of my cappuccino. We’d lived in the outer suburbs where rent was bad enough
that we had been scraping the bottom of the barrel. I wasn’t sure I wanted to
know exactly how much it cost to live in the city.

“I saw you come out
of Beat,” Josie said. “Do you work there?”

I sighed, not knowing
how to describe my situation to a stranger, or if I should. “No, not really. My
Dad owns it.”

She sat up straight,
suddenly interested. “Really? Are there hot muscly guys?”

“Yeah,” I said with a
laugh. “There’s a couple. There’s a lot of exposed nipple.”

“If you don’t mind me
saying, you don’t seem very happy about it.”

Josie was so nice and
genuinely interested I just spilled everything. I told her about my Mum and how
it was her last wish for me to know my Dad. I told her about the last day and
actually meeting him for the first time in seventeen years…and my rude
awakening by my half-sister, Monica, that I never knew existed.

“Oh Ren,” she
exclaimed. “It’s not your fault your Dad’s an ass that left you and your Mum.
Shit, I would’ve smacked him one.”

“I can’t believe he
put me in the storeroom. What kind of sick joke is that?”

“I’d sleep in his
storeroom and eat all his food. Milk him for all you can get,” she declared.
“There’s seventeen years of Christmases and birthdays to make up for.” She
ticked them off her fingers. “Not to mention good school reports, tooth fairy
coinage, pocket money…”

I stared at her, not
believing a woman I just met would be so…
kind
to me.

“What are you looking
at me like that for?”

“It’s just,” I
stammered. “I just met you five minutes ago, I dump all my crap on you and
you’re still sitting here?”

“What can I say? It’s
not every day you fall over and someone actually stops to help you up.
Besides,” she said, waving a hand at me, “isn’t that meant to be fate or
something?”

I cocked my head to
the side. “We’re fated to be BFF’s because I helped you up?”

“Ren, I see it this
way. I don’t have many female friends. Not good friends anyway. I get along
with guys more than anything, and believe me when I say, I’ve got a feeling
about you.”

“A feeling?”

“A feeling.”

I gave her a look.

“Oh, shit. I like
dick, Ren. Not that kind of feeling.”

I burst out laughing,
covering my mouth with my hand.

“Hey, I gotta get
going if I want to catch the train into the city. Work and all.” Her chair
scraped back as she stood, collecting her handbag. “Wanna get coffee here again
tomorrow? Same time?”

My heart began to
swell at the thought of making a friend in such a hostile environment so soon.

“Yeah,” I said,
beaming. “You got it.”

Life went on like that
for a while. It’s what it did. Time went on and waited for nobody to catch up.
Days rolled into weeks, classes came and went and I was still as welcome as I
was the day I walked into the studio.

The one thing I had
that was mine was fighting.

When the lights went
off at Beat and everyone left for home, I crept out of my shell and trained.
During the day I watched as Dad went through the motions with the Twins,
listening to the more advanced techniques they used. Of a evening, I attended
all the classes and soon I was advancing from the beginner to the intermediate
MMA group. Needless to say I was the only woman, but I didn’t let that stop me.

I’d catch Dad
watching every now and then, but he never approached or treated me any
differently than he had since day one. Which was with mild interest and a whole
lot of indifference. Monica made sure of that. I was only there because Mum
wanted me to be, so I wasn’t fazed either way. Maybe that was a lie, or maybe
it wasn’t, but after so long looking after someone else, it was refreshing to
look after just me.

Every weekday
morning, I’d meet Josie at the coffee shop around the corner and we’d talk
about anything and everything. I’d never really had a best friend before and I
guess she was the closest thing I’d ever had. Nothing was off limits and she
was never short of a horror dating story. We’d laugh and chat and it made me
forget my situation for an hour every day.

Monday night was the
intermediate MMA class and as I shook out my tired muscles I relished how tough
it had been. There were ten of us all up and I was the only woman. It was hard
work, more because of the exercises and techniques than the distinctive weight
and strength disadvantage. It was hard on the body as well as the mind.

We had an outside
instructor, so I didn’t have to deal with Dad or the Twins. It was my own space
to screw up or excel in and that made it even better.

Stretching out my
quads, the guy across from me called out, “You almost had me in that last set,
Ren.”

“Up yours Brett.” I
brandished my middle finger at him and waved it around. “I could’ve beaten your
ass to a bloody pulp. I was going soft on ya.”

Brett had become my
training partner during class. At first the other guys gave him shit about it
nonstop and he thought he had to give it to me easy because I was a woman, but
that was until I put him flat on his back in five seconds flat. The shit
stopped and the fear began. Okay, so no fear, but a begrudging respect for the
tits and vagina brigade.

“Careful,” he
exclaimed.

Laughing, I shoved
him as hard as I could. He wasn’t as heavy or as built as the Twins, so he
stumbled back a step.

“You’re getting
tougher to beat,” he said with a grin.

I wiped the dribble
of sweat that was trickling down my neck with my towel. “Thanks.”

“You back Thursday?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”
That’s because I lived here, but I wasn’t letting on about that to a bunch of
dudes I took class with.

Brett wandered off,
collecting his stuff and followed the line of guys toward the showers. I didn’t
fancy showering with nine other guys, even though there were doors with locks
and all of that, so I hung around in the studio. I eyed the gym and began to
think about the idea of walking it out.

“Hey Ren. How’s class
going?”

I glanced up at Dad,
who’d crept up on me while I was distracted. All our interactions over the past
few weeks had been awkward at best, so I’d been avoiding him as much as
possible. I still didn’t know what to say or do, so I didn’t do anything at
all. Maybe that wasn’t the brightest idea on the list, but I was at a loss. Mum
and I used to talk about everything and she was the only person I really knew
how to relate to. Now that she was gone, it was like I'd forgotten how to be
close to anyone.

She
was the only one who wanted you and she still abandoned you in the end
. I squashed down the traitorous thought with
a hard swallow.

“It’s okay, I guess.”
Total lie. I really liked learning to fight. I loved the burn.

“Monica never showed
any interest,” he said. “She’s good with food and all of that, but we never clicked
on other things.”

“So, I’m the son you
never had?”

“
Ren
.”

“I’m having a hard
time letting the past seventeen years go, Dad. I can’t just turn it off.”

“I am trying, you
know.”

“I know, but it’s the
fact that Mum had cancer and we were alone. That’s screwed up.” He stood there
like a stunned mullet for ages, so I thought I’d better fill in the silence
since he didn’t look like he was moving any time soon.

“Any new classes
coming up?”

“A new self defense
course starts next week.”

I nodded. I already knew
about that one. Wednesdays at seven. Tuesday was beginner MMA, Thursday and
Monday was intermediate MMA. Friday was for the hardcore fighter junkies. I
hadn’t graduated that far yet.