Fire And Ash (6 page)

I walk over to the ropes and lean against them.

“Climb in the ring Jacobs. We have a newcomer who thinks he belongs in the advanced class, but he needs to prove it. I’m using you to measure his skill.”

I’m pulling my gloves on when a shirtless boy about an inch taller than me exits the men’s locker room. If It were not Derek I would have taken a minute
 
or two to admire the defined six pack not too many guys my age possess. His gaze locks with mine as the door swings shut behind him and we stay staring at each other as he walks to the ring and climbs into it.
 

Oh this is too good.

His dark eyes twinkle with laughter as he pulls on his gloves. “And this was supposed to be hard,” he mutters to no one in particular.

I narrow my eyes at him. “Don’t worry, it will be.” I plan on paying him back for every last rude thing he said to me at his house.

His mouth splits into a smile that matches the laughter in his eyes. “You seriously want me to fight a
girl?”
 
He asks Mick. I know the question is simply to get under my skin.

“I’m sure,” Mick drawls with amusement. Newcomers always underestimate me and he gets a kick out of watching them realize their error.

Mick runs down the rules, announces he will be acting referee then gives the signal for the fight to start. He winks at me as he does. It’s his way of saying
kick his ass Jacobs
.
 

“I don’t hit girls unless they hit me first so after you.”
 

While Derek is sweeping down into a mocking bow, I move faster than I know he has anticipated that I can and land a powerful kick to his stomach. My bare foot is left feeling like it just connected with granite.
 

He barely grunts as he straightens up. The right corner of his mouth upturns to mock me. “Is that all you’ve got?”

I move to kick him again, this time in the head, to make him see stars and wipe the infuriating smirk off his face, but he moves as fast as I do and stops my foot in mid-air. His hands wrap around my ankle and my back is suddenly connecting hard with the ground. Pain shoots up the length of it but I ignore it. If he didn’t wince, I’m not going to either.
 

I jump to my feet and come up swinging. When I land a left hook to his jaw it feels so good.
 

“That’s for being an ass,” I can’t help but to retort.
 

The smug smile on his face remains in place as I find my back slamming against the mat again. This time I can’t clearly recall how he’d moved to cause me to do so. My back stings, but my pride stings more.

“Bastard,” I hiss jumping to my feet again. I act like I am going to hammer an uppercut to his chin, but when he shifts his weight to block it, I sweep his legs out from under him and he goes down on the mat.
 

I smile down at him when his head cracks against it.
 

He jumps to his feet without the aid of his hands and for a moment I marvel at the sheer strength it takes to do so. His biceps flex and I know they did so on purpose when Derek winks at me.

So he’s not just a jerk, he’s an arrogant jerk.

I jab out powerfully enough to
accidentally
break his pretty nose, but he blocks my left fist from connecting with its target. I swing my right fist out and around but he wrenches my arm out of the air and jerks me forward. He uses his larger body mass to force me to spin around as I move. I end up with my back pressed against his chest, my right arm in a submission hold behind me and my left one restrained tightly at my side.

My right arm burns like it’s been set on fire and I swear he’s trying to pull it from the socket.

I clench my teeth against the pain, forcing myself to focus past it, exactly how I’ve learned to do in my training. My arms are restrained but my legs are still free. It’s nearly impossible to incapacitate all four limbs at once from a standing position. In a borderline dirty move I know Derek will not expect, I rear my head back, knocking it hard into his nose.
 

If you ever find yourself outmuscled, go for the nose. A hit with enough force behind it will snap the bone. It doesn’t matter who has you, I promise they will release you.

Aunt Farrah’s advice proves sound. My arms are at once freed. I take a couple of steps forward then
 
spin on my heels to admire the damage I’ve done.
 

Blood is trickling down Derek’s nose but it isn’t broken. Even though he deserves for it to be I pulled the blow when I struck so it would only feel like it was.
 

Mick would throw me out of the gym and possibly bar me from ever coming back if I hadn’t. The golden rule of his gym is to fight a clean match.
 

Derek and I face off again. If looks could kill we would both collapse where we stand.
 

“Enough!” Mick calls out throwing Derek the towel around his neck. “Before one of you does some real damage to the other.”

He places his freight train of a body between us so we can’t engage each other again.

******

My family has returned home when I walk through my front door.

“You look like shit,” Sean says from the couch as I limp into the living room.

I give him the finger and he laughs at me under his breath when my grandmother calls out from the kitchen that she saw me.

 
I collapse into the seat nearest the door. It’s the worn overstuffed recliner my mother bought my father for Christmas when I was four. It’s the same one she used to sit in and read me bedtime stories until I fell asleep. She’d fall asleep too until Dad happened upon us and then he’d gently prod her awake and he’d carry me to my room with her one step behind him. They always tucked me in together and kissed me goodnight at the same time. Mom kissing my left cheek and Dad my right.
 

It is one of the happy memories I have of my parents before their constant arguing began. I smile at it, trying to hold on to it and not think about the things that came later.
 

“What happened to you?” Aunt Farrah’s question brings me back into the present. She’s sitting on the couch in between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. There is no way they were there first and she chose to sit between them. It’s more likely that she claimed the couch first and they sat on either side of her simply to be annoying.
 

“A boy happened to me,” I grumble wishing more and more that I’d actually broken Derek’s nose. It feels like I had a run in with a brick wall. Every muscle in my body is sore, but my right shoulder and my back are screaming at me particularly louder than the rest.
 

“What boy?” My cousins and my aunt all growl at the same time. They each look certifiably homicidal.

I roll my eyes at the absurd conclusion that they’ve all jumped to. “Not like that. It was in the ring down at Mick’s gym.”

Sean and Gerard relax but Aunt Farrah still looks like she’s ready to murder somebody. And if she looks like that, I’m suddenly glad Dad is not around because I am positive there would be no stopping him from marching over to the gym, demanding that Mick give him Derek’s address and then shoving his size twelve boot up Derek’s butt.
 

Aunt Farrah raises one eyebrow at me and I think she is actually considering doing it herself. It would be utterly embarrassing, but it would also be a riot watching it go down.

“I left him in worst shape than I’m in,” I say quickly to talk her down. I am perfectly capable of fighting my battles for myself. “He had my arm locked in a submission hold, but I used your head butt trick.”

“Good. Did you break his nose?”

“No. Mick would have thrown me out the gym.”

Aunt Farrah’s approving smile turns into a disapproving frown. “Ethics do not win fights.
Always
kick your opponents when they’re down.
Every time
.”
 

As I ring the doorbell at Cassie’s I remind myself to remain on my best behavior.
I am here for her birthday dinner, and punching Derek in the face will ruin the occasion.
 

When Derek answers the door I am convinced the universe is testing me.
 

I smile sweetly at him when I see that his nose is still slightly swollen.
Good. Because it’s been three days and my arm still hurts like a bitch.
 

He is wearing navy khakis and a white button down shirt, and I berate myself for noticing how nicely he cleans up.

He does not initially speak. His eyes do a slow perusal of me from head to toe, identical to the way they did the first time I came to his house. But this time I am not in jean shorts and a tee. I’m wearing a dress I borrowed from Aunt Farrah because Cassie said that she wanted everyone to dress up. I feel the sudden urge to tug at its short hem, but refuse to give Derek the satisfaction of seeing me do it. I can only imagine the judgmental smirk that it will induce.
 

I find myself thankful to be wearing a cardigan over the skinny straps and semi-low neckline of the dress. Even in summer temperatures dip rapidly across Colorado once the sun goes down.
 

“Are you going to let me in or are you going to leer at me all night?” I quip.
 

His eyes flash with surprise and I take satisfaction in knowing I’ve caught him off guard. He shifts his body to lean casually against the door frame quickly recovering. “I was just looking for a hint of the bruises I know I left behind. Call me sadistic, but I like to admire my handiwork. How’s your shoulder feeling by the way?”
 

“Just fine. How’s your nose? Did I break it?” I push past him, not waiting for him to invite me in.

His incredulous laugh booms out behind me. “You wish.”

I am about to throw a snappy comeback over my shoulder when his hand shoots out and jerks me backwards by the arm that is not sore.
 

He leans in way too close to my personal space and I just know he has lost his mind.
What in the actual —

The thought stops short when he begins whispering in my ear.

“Tonight is Cass’ birthday and she has asked me to be nice. I’m complying because birthdays are a big deal for her. But I don’t like you and
you
are the last person she needs as a friend.”

What?! He doesn’t like me. The asshole doesn’t even know me.
I snatch my arm away and am about to ask him just what his deal is. Why he has decided that he doesn’t like me just off of principal when I haven’t done a single thing to warrant it, but Cassie appears from around a corner at the exact moment that I am.
 

She eyes Derek suspiciously. “Are you being nice?”

He throws her a high wattage smile and slings one arm around my shoulder. The sore one, and I’m positive it is done on purpose.
 
“Of course. I promised I would, didn’t I?”

She asks the question with such desperation that I don’t have the heart to tell her differently or not to play along, especially when it is her birthday and over the phone when she invited me out to dinner with them she told me that she hasn’t had a birthday that included real friends since before Derek’s dad died.
 

“Derek has been a perfect gentleman since he answered the door,” I assure her.
Ha! If that isn’t an oxymoron.
 

Her face relaxes into relief. “Mom is waiting on us in the car around back.”

When Cassie turns her back to lead the way I elbow Derek in the same spot between the ribs I kicked him in at the gym. He didn’t go down or cry out, but it was a solid kick. I know it still has to be sore. I am proven right when his body tenses beside me and he lets out a low heavy breath. I’m being petty, but no more than he is with his arm weighing heavily down on the shoulder he tried to pop out of its socket.

“Get your arm off of me,” I whisper low enough for Cassie not to hear.

Derek pretends like it is too low for him to hear too.

I accidentally on purpose step on his foot with the heels Aunt Farrah said it was blasphemous to wear the dress without. I’ve only worn heels all of five times before in my life, but I’m coordinated enough not to look like a klutz in them. Still, I pretend to wobble a bit and my left heel digs painfully into Derek’s right foot. I swallow a smile when a perplexed Cassie turns around at the sound of his wince.

“Sorry,” I say smiling innocently over at him for her benefit. “I’m not used to walking in these things.”

Derek takes the front seat beside his mom and Cassie sits in the back with me. Thankfully. Riding in a car beside Derek for an hour to Highland Village and back would have been a true test of my will that I know I would have failed.
 

Sitting through dinner at the Hibachi restaurant without strangling him is bad enough. Every time he opens his mouth to sling a cleverly masked dig across the table at me I imagine impaling him with a chopstick.

When we get back to their house my car won’t start. The local tow shop closed at eight along with just about everything else in town and if I call a twenty four hour wrecker from Highland Village they will charge two arms and two legs for the drive they will have to make. Mrs. Jensen suggests I leave my car for the night and have it towed to a mechanic in the morning. I agree with her right up to the point where she says Derek can drive me home. But telling her I’d rather walk from their house to mine barefoot than ride in a car beside her charming son would be rude so I smile tightly and tell her thank you instead.
 

Derek doesn’t seem any happier about his mom’s offer than I am. He stalks out of the house with his keys then growls at me not to close the door too hard to his car. I pretend like I don’t hear him and slam it shut. Childish I know, but Derek Jensen brings out the worst in me.
 

We ride in tense silence the entire way to my house. I reach for the door handle and begin climbing out of the car before he even has it in park good. A hand at my elbow jerks me back.