Fierce (6 page)

“Don’t be gross.”

“Didn’t mean to be.”

And she didn’t think it was, not really. A compliment like that, however flip, was the last thing she’d expected from him.

“Stop hiding,” he said. “Come on out and we’ll talk this through. Promise I won’t be gross.”

“That’s like a sewer saying it won’t stink.”

“Or I can just dial 911. Either way, I’ll hear your story in the end. Nice phone, by the way.” He winked, then mimicked what she’d done a minute ago—the faux emergency call. Only she wasn’t certain if he was pretending.

Rose stepped out from behind the punch bag and set her hands on her hips. “Well? What else do you wanna know?”

“Have you worked out here every night?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea. Wasn’t harming anyone.”

“Why go to all this trouble though? The drag act, the lies, the humiliation. Springbok’s is—”

“I can’t go there. Not ever.” She balled her fists, and Avery saw it. His resulting frown seemed genuine enough. “What happened?” he asked.

“I have enemies there. They can’t ever know what I’m doing.”

“What enemies?” He moved toward her, close enough for her to smell his aftershave, and held out her phone. “Anything I can help you with?”

Rose snatched her phone. “No.”

“Me and Luca kinda know the owner. We might be able to straighten it out for you, whatever it is.”

“I
know
you know the owner. I work here, remember?” She checked herself. “
Used
to work here. But he’s the problem.”

“Culver’s the problem?” He turned his head slightly, slanting her a curious look. “How?”

“His bitch daughters. They bullied my sister, then they…put me in hospital when I tried to stop it.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Who? Ash and Lena? You’re saying Ashley and Lena Culver did that?”

“You want me to repeat every fucking thing I say?”

He opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out. He shifted position, stroked his stubble-free chin. The guy looked good tonight, like, too good to be real. And that was part of the problem. She couldn’t read him enough to tell why he was being so obtuse about the Twitches. After all, he and Luca didn’t even like Tyler Culver.

“I’m not making this up,” she said. “I swear to God I’m here because there are people I need to get even with, and this is the only place I can go to train the way I need to train. I’ll never be Ronda Rousey or Gina Carano, but I can get tough enough to kick the shit out of my stepdad when he tries to stop my sister from leaving home on her eighteenth birthday. And I can get tough enough to do some damage to those Culver bitches the next time I see ’em.”

“Why didn’t you say any of this before?”

She threw him a look of shock and disgust.
Are you for real?
she thought.

“Scratch that,” he said. “I mean, of course, you couldn’t tell us, but maybe if you’d, I dunno, approached one of us privately, we might have been able to coach you—”

“A World Champion MMA fighter? Do you really think I’d have been able to afford that? I didn’t even have a job!”

“Hmm.”

“That all you’ve got to say? Hmm?”

Avery took his cap off and ran a hand through his neater-than-usual hair, messing it up. “You’re living on your own?” he asked. “Here in Mitre?”

“Uh-huh. A real shit-hole on the other side of town.”

He sighed, slowly shaking his head. “Rose Jacqueline,” he said to himself, then nodded pensively from side to side. “Okay, here’s the thing, Rose. A part of me wants to turn your ass in for fraud. You’ve betrayed my brother’s trust, and that’s not something I take lightly. I don’t give a shit about you duping me and the other guys; we’re all prejudiced assholes anyway, which is why we never gave Ross Jackson a chance. However, Luca’s got a heart as big as a house, and he likes to give chances to people he thinks deserves them. The chances we never had. So, for Luca’s sake, I’m gonna give you this chance. You’ve proved how determined you are, like no one I’ve ever heard of. It’s so ballsy what you’ve done here I can’t think of the words. So you’ve got that going for you.” He paused, put his cap back on, and stroked his chin again.

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he went on. “I’m just trying to think of a way this can work. Once your cover’s blown, there’ll be a fucking revolt here if we even suggest keeping you on the payroll.”

“Then let me carry on as Ross Jackson. I can—”

“Ugh! No way. That would freak me out.” He shuddered then put his hands in his jacket pockets. “But don’t worry, I’ll figure out
some
way to get you in here.”

“What does that mean?”

His turn to shrug. “Can’t exactly train you without equipment, can I? And you’re sure as hell not coming to
my
place to train.”

Rose didn’t know what to say. She was still a little in shock at having her cover blown so spectacularly and by the worst possible guy—or so she’d thought. If only she’d known Wright Hook had a soft spot for damaged girls who had hot buns and looked like a Becky.

“What do we do now?” she asked, one eye still on the hidden exit.

“Go home. Sleep on it. If you decide you want me to coach you, be at the northwest edge of the lake tomorrow morning at six thirty. You know the slipway, near the sailing club boathouse?”

“Yeah. I run around the lake all the time.”

“Uh-huh. We’ve probably seen each other, then, and not realized it. Tomorrow we’ll go a different way.”

“How far will we be going?”

“As far as you can until you can’t go any further,” he replied. “That’s important.”

“Why?”

“I need to know your limits before we start to push them.”

“But I don’t need fitness training,” she insisted, lifting up her tee to show him her six-pack. “See? I’m in shape already.”

Avery seemed to approve of what he saw. “It’s not just about being in shape. It’s about finding your limits and pushing so far past them they no longer exist. If you want to be a fighter, you’ll have to change the way you think. Start by ignoring how good you look. Stay away from mirrors while you exercise. Concentrate on reaching those endurance limits. When you get there, that’s when you’ll learn how to fight…against yourself, your own fears and doubts. I can show you all kinds of martial arts, but the only way you’re going to know yourself as a fighter is by how you react to those limits.”

“That voice telling me when to quit, you mean?”

“Exactly. Always listen to that voice. It’s there to keep you safe, like a biological red flag. It knows when your body’s had enough. But here’s the thing…that voice always plays it safe. It leaves you something in reserve, kind of like an airplane and its fuel gauge. Zero is never absolute zero; it’s just zero on the gauge. You’ve always got a little something left in the tank. What I’m saying is that as a fighter you need to tap into that reserve fuel. You need to be able to prove that red flag wrong and keep on going. Throw up if you have to, but don’t stop till you feel you’ve reached your limit and pushed it as far as it will go. Anything less and you’ve lost before you even get in the ring with a real fighter.”

Rose liked his tough talk and the fact that he knew, personally, what it took to reach those limits. Avery Wright finding her here tonight had been one of the worst surprises of her life; now, just a few minutes later, all that had flipped on its head. At the bottom of life’s barrel—no family, no boyfriend, no job, no money, pretending to be a boy, facing jail time for fraud—she’d been thrown a lifeline by a guy she didn’t even like, and who didn’t like her. This was without doubt the weirdest night of her life.

“Maybe we can train in here before opening time,” she suggested.

“Maybe. I’ll have to talk it over with Luca. When the other guys find out you’re a chick, you’ll be a pariah around here. They might stay away in droves.”

“But I’m already a pariah,” she reminded him. “They all hate Ross Jackson anyway. I thought you did, too.”

He snorted. “I
do.
That guy’s a stiff. He’s got no business being around fighters in a men’s gym.”

Rose slumped into a tired defensive mode. She just couldn’t work him out. One minute he was on her side, giving her an insightful pep talk, the next he was insulting her again. “I’m still trying to figure out what I ever did to make you fucking people hate me.”

“I couldn’t put my finger on it before, but it’s obvious now. You pretended to belong here. You were a phony, and fighters have a radar for that kind of thing. They can tell when an opponent’s putting on a show and doesn’t have anything to back it up. That’s like throwing chum in the water in a place like this, in our territory. We’ve got the instincts of fucking sharks. And sometimes the compassion to go with it—or lack of.”

“You think they’d ever understand if you explained it to them?” She knew that sounded desperate, but despite everything that had happened, Rose really did feel like she belonged here; somehow, she had ever since Luca had offered her the job. He didn’t need to do that, and most gym owners probably wouldn’t have, but he’d seen something in her that no one else ever had. And it seemed as though Avery was seeing that same thing in her now, when her back was to the wall.

What was it they saw?

“Maybe if I approached them one at a time outside, they might be willing to listen,” he said. “But in here, as a group, testosterone flying, not a chance. Most of ’em would quit on the spot if we even suggested it. You being a girl’s bad enough—from their point of view, that is—but it’s the deception they wouldn’t be able to swallow. You cheated your way in here, and they’ll hate you for it.”

“But you don’t,” she said.

He fixed his gaze on her legs, making her self-conscious again, then he hit her with an intense, piercing stare that seemed to probe the soup of emotions bubbling to the surface inside her. All this intimate scrutiny left her weak at the knees.
I’m just tired,
she told herself, not believing it for a second. He was getting to her because he had all the power and she had none, and that was a strange and dangerous turn-on.

What does he want? Rescuing me from my pathetic corner like this…what is in it for him? Why go out of his way to train me when I’d just humiliated him and his brother and their entire establishment? Unless he wants…me? No, no that couldn’t be it. I’m at my most unattractive, dressed like a tomboy, and I’m a nobody…while he has a body like a god and is the best in the world at something. So what is it?

“Well, do you or don’t you?”

“I don’t hate you, no,” he said. “I’m just trying to work you out.”

“What else would you like to know?”

“I’ll know more after tomorrow when we’ve found those limits. We’ll have lunch together as well. No use either of us going into this thing blind. No topic is off the table; you grill me and I’ll grill you, and by the time we’re done, we’ll both know whether we want this or not.”

“Can I give you my answer now?” she asked cheekily.

“No. After lunch tomorrow.”

“And if we decide not to go ahead with it?”

“Then we go our separate ways, and Luca never has to know who you are. I’ll make up some excuse for you and that will be that.”

“Okay. Sounds fair enough.” Rose looked around at the equipment she’d used. “You want me to put all this stuff away?”