KAGE (KAGE Trilogy #1) (2 page)

It was almost cheating, really, dropping to my knees in front of poor Dr. Washburn. The way I cut my eyes up at him from beneath my bangs as I begged could probably be classified as flirting, and I had always suspected he found me attractive. The uncomfortable heat in his eyes as he looked down at me told me I had guessed right.

Being the object of that kind of attention, even from men, was nothing new to me, and I wasn’t above using it to my advantage on occasion. Flirting came naturally for me. I knew I was good-looking. Everyone had always told me so.

I had brown hair that I kept cut short in back, but with long bangs that swept over one eye. Warm brown puppy dog eyes framed by long lashes gave me an innocent look, as did my plump, pouty lips. My mother had the stereotypical red hair and lightly freckled skin she got from her full-blooded Irish mother, but somehow I’d gotten a good dose of my grandfather’s half-Spanish looks. Add to that the fact that I’d pretty much mastered the art of boy-next-door charm, and I could be pretty persuasive when I wanted to be.

Like now.

Dr. Washburn cleared his throat nervously and extended a hand down to me. “You’re laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you Mr. Atwood? Stand up.” He helped me to my feet with a grunt and nudged his glasses up again. “I’ll do my best to get you a pass, but I can’t promise anything. It’s up to the event promoters, really.”

I grinned. “Thanks, Doc. You won’t regret it. I’m gonna rock this project.”

“You’d better,” he warned. “I want to see you graduate with honors next year, Jamie. You’re too good, too smart, to just skate by. And you’ve certainly got the charm to make things happen.” He gave me a pointed look that let me know my efforts to flirt my way into a press pass had not gone unnoticed, and that perhaps I wasn’t as smooth as I thought I was.

I smiled and bowed to him, which earned a hearty laugh. Then, without asking, I grabbed the Sharpie out of the top of his notebook and scribbled my name and number on the cover. “Call or text me and let me know something, okay? You gotta come through on this.”

“I’ll try, but like I said, I can’t promise anything.” He frowned as a tone sounded over the hallway speaker, signifying the beginning of class. “God, look what you’ve done. You know how much I despise tardiness. You’ve made me guilty of the thing I rail about the most.” He hurried away down the hall without another word, and I wandered out of the building.

I considered going back to Layla’s dorm room and finishing what we’d started, but instead headed out to the parking lot to my car— a thirteen-year-old white BMW with a sluggish engine and a fraying convertible top. A piece of waterproof tape held the back window in. My roommate Braden had informed me that a new top would cost more than the car was worth, and I’d told him he was full of shit. No way a new top could cost that much. But I researched it online, and as much as it pained me to admit it, Braden was right.

So I was stuck with a car that would probably be held together by bubble gum and fishing line by the time graduation rolled around. Meanwhile, Braden— who was much more of an asshole than I was, and therefore less deserving, right?— tooled around in a sleek black Audi that probably rang up to about forty grand. Hell, that was close to my mom’s yearly salary as a nurse.

At least I had it over Braden in the looks department. He may have been rich, but his appearance was as plain as it got. His mix of brown hair, brown eyes, and medium skin tone was perfect for blending in, like human camouflage. He also had an aversion to working out.

As I drove the mile and a half from campus to our condo, my brain was swirling with excitement about my upcoming evening. It didn’t get much cooler than having a press pass to a big sporting event, even if it was a pseudo-sport like MMA.

My roommates were certainly impressed. Braden, our resident MMA expert, had already bought tickets for him and his girlfriend, Miranda. I still didn’t understand why he hadn’t mentioned it. I mean this guy was so crazy for the sport, he’d probably been having wet dreams about the upcoming fight for weeks.

“I thought you hated MMA.” Braden glared suspiciously at me, like he thought I must be hatching some diabolical scheme. “What ever happened to it not being a legit sport? You said it was barely a step above pro wrestling. You said—”

“I know what I said,” I interrupted. “Look, I’m still not a big fan of MMA, okay? But it’s a pretty big sports event, and it’s here in town, and it’s just a few weeks until my project is due. It’s like fate, you know? Like the
deus ex machina
swooping in to save my ass at the last minute.”

“Deus ex— whatever that means. Can’t you speak English? We’re not all in the Mensa club, dude.”

“I’m not in Mensa, either. That’s even less legit than MMA. And I pretty much defined the term in the sentence for you. Ever heard of context clues? You don’t have to be a genius to listen, Braden.”

“Boys, boys,” Miranda interrupted. “Are you going to fight all night? Because I don’t want to hear it. I’d rather stay home.”

“Well, anyway,” Braden said irritably, fluttering his hand in the air like a bird having a seizure. “I think you’re secretly a fan of the sport, but you think it’s beneath you. That’s what I think. I think you have this idea that fighting is a bunch of brainless cavemen, and you want people to think you’re too smart to enjoy it.”

“Oh, is that right?” I laughed and looked to my other roommate, Trey, for backup. He ignored me and kept playing his video game, looking like a little turtle, with his cap of curly brown hair, freckled nose, and roundish glasses.

“You wanna ride with us?” Miranda interrupted in her no-nonsense way, running her fingers through the blunt ends of her straight, dark hair. “We’ve got plenty of room. Is Layla going with you? She and I can get ready together.”

“Nah, if I even get to go, it’s just going to be me. This is business, not pleasure.”

I didn’t say it, but I doubted that sitting through a bloody massacre with Layla could be classified as pleasure. She could barely stand being in the same room when I was watching sports, which was baffling, because she was a college cheerleader. She was present at every football and basketball game the school played, yet she had only a rudimentary understanding of the rules of those sports. I had a sneaking suspicion she wouldn’t even have known when to get excited during the games if it wasn’t for the cues from the cheer captain.

But that wasn’t why I dated Layla. Sports was the last thing on my mind when it came to her. She was gorgeous, popular, and willing to suck my dick. Plus, she was incredibly lovable once you got past her jarring first impression, and my family had gone nuts over her the one time I’d taken her home for the weekend.

“I’m glad you finally decided to bring someone home,” my mom had said. “She’s such a sweet girl.”

“And not bad to look at either,” my dad had added with a laugh. “Can she cook?”

His unapologetically sexist comments earned him a sharp elbow to the side by my mom. But he’d winked at me, and mom had smiled and crinkled her freckled nose, and I knew I had their blessings to take things to the next level.

Only that next level had never materialized. Layla did her thing, I did mine, and we met up once or twice a week for sex. Most nights, we talked on the phone for a few minutes before bed, but we had never actually spent the night together in the same bed.

She had invited me over a few times, but I’d always declined, and she hadn’t pushed the issue. She seemed to respect my need to keep some space between us, even if she didn’t understand it. Truthfully, I didn’t understand it, either. While I considered her my girlfriend, loved her as a friend, and enjoyed having sex with her, anything that suggested true intimacy or the commingling our separate lives still made me uneasy.

I knew she wouldn’t expect to be invited to the MMA event. We both knew that wasn’t us.

As I trotted down the hall to my room to grab a towel for a quick shower before the fight, I heard Braden trying to explain my relationship to Miranda. “Jamie and Layla aren’t like us, babe,” he said. “She actually gives him a little breathing room, unlike some people I know.”

“Is that supposed to be a hint?” Miranda laughed out loud. “Okay, big boy. You want breathing room? I’ll just go out drinking with Kaylee and Lisa tomorrow night instead of hanging here with you like I always do. They’ve been begging me all week.”

“Um, I don’t think so,” Braden said irritably.

“Then quit complaining.”

I heard what sounded like loud kissing coming from the living room, and I shook my head, pulling the bathroom door closed behind me. Those two puzzled the hell out of me. Individually they seemed like the most independent, take-no-shit people, but put them together, and you had a couple who couldn’t seem to get enough of each other. It almost made me wish I could figure out how to have that with Layla.

But as the warm water spilled down over my head, I felt an undeniable pang of guilt. The truth was, I didn’t actually want that kind of closeness with Layla, or anyone else for that matter. Did that make me selfish?

Was I destined to be one of those serial womanizers who bounced from girlfriend to girlfriend and woke up one day to discover my forties had come and gone and I still didn’t have a family? Was I going to be like Uncle Martin, my dad’s lawyer brother who showed up with a new woman at every family reunion? On the surface, Uncle Martin seemed to be living the life he wanted, but I had studied him a few times when he thought no one was paying attention. Something about the wistful look in his eyes as he watched the established couples and their children interact gave me the distinct impression that all was not wine and roses in Martin’s world.

I didn’t want that kind of life, but sometimes it felt like that’s exactly where I was headed.

2

W
HILE I was getting dressed, Dr. Washburn texted to say that a press pass would be waiting for me at the Will Call ticket window, and I celebrated so loudly the neighbors probably heard me. I pulled on my skinny khakis, a midnight blue stretch button-up over a black t-shirt, and my black leather shoes. Then I pieced my bangs out with a bit of hair gel and slicked the rest back into a ducktail.

Lastly, I picked up my favorite necklace, a crude silver Claddagh strung with double strands of black rawhide that tied in the back, leaving the strands hanging free down the back of my neck. The small beads knotted on the end of each strand clacked gently when I moved just right.

The symbol itself, two hands holding a crowned heart, was a nod to my Irish heritage that my mother, and I by way of osmosis, found to be such a source of pride. Mom had given my older sister a Claddagh ring for her sixteenth birthday, and I’d been so jealous. When I turned sixteen, Mom had the more masculine-styled necklace custom made for me. Since that day, I’d rarely gone without it.

I tucked the strands into my collar in back and checked myself out one final time in the mirror. By the time I met my friends in the living room, I looked and smelled like a million bucks. Okay, maybe only a couple hundred bucks since I shopped at Target, but it was good enough to make Miranda raise her eyebrows.

Phillips Arena was hopping an hour before the show was set to begin. Braden drove the Audi carefully through the parking garage, sandwiched in line between two late-model beaters. The ticking sound from one of the engines bounced around deafeningly in the enclosed garage, prompting a familiar tirade from Braden.

“Dammit, why do people drive such hunks of shit? Don’t they have any pride at all? When a car sounds like that, it’s time for the junkyard.”

“Not everyone can afford to buy a new car, sweetie,” Miranda said quietly from the passenger seat.

I sat in the backseat and kept my mouth shut. More power to Miranda for wanting to teach her man a little humility, but I’d lived with him long enough to know he’d always be a spoiled rich brat, bitching from the womb to the tomb about problems he would never have the misfortune of understanding.

His dad gave him everything he wanted, including the three-bedroom condo he and I shared with Trey. Braden had the master suite with his own bathroom, while Trey and I fought over the one in the hall. Not a bad deal, considering Braden’s dad owned the condo and only charged Trey and me a hundred dollars each, plus our share of the utilities, food and expenses.

My parents would shoot me if I lost my killer living arrangement, and I didn’t have sex to barter with like Miranda, so I knew better than to mouth off at Braden too much. Friendship was the only thing I had, and that was a slippery slope at best with a guy like Braden. We’d already lost one roommate when he got a little too pushy, accusing Braden of not doing his part to keep the place clean. That guy had lasted all of one month before he’d been replaced with Trey.