Brawl (20 page)

“Move out of my way.” I ask in a voice that lets him know that I’m deadly serious. “I’m going to get our stuff out of your house and then I’ll get out of your hair.”

Taking a step closer to him, I stop and gauge his reaction. His lack of acknowledgment pisses me off, making my temper flare. The nasty Gabbi who’s been dormant since my heart-to-heart with Amy rears her ugly head and I step right up to him, dropping my bag to the floor at his feet, and letting my expression fill with malice.

Chest to chest, I repeat my demand. “Get the hell out of my way.”

Hooligan shakes his head and holds his ground. He uncrosses his arms and runs a finger down the side of my face. Something gives in my chest, maybe not literally, but I feel tearing, right where my heart is. A tiny fissure develops from that one tender touch and cements every objection I have to Hooligan and love in my mind.

My right arm has a mind of its own, swinging in an arc and punching him in the face before I have time to question the wisdom of such a move. The second swing I take at him, that one’s all on me—a conscious decision coming on the back of the satisfaction that I got from the first.

He catches my arm, mid-air, using it to pull me into him, so he can glare down at me. “Now, you’re just trying to piss me off. You can go.”

Hooligan pushes me away from him and steps out of my way. Picking up my bag, I take the time to look at the crowd who’ve gathered around to watch our drama. The censure written on their faces hurts. They were my friends for one short month, my personal cheer squad. This gym was quickly becoming more of a home to me than where I laid my head at night.

My feet are frozen to the spot. He’s said that I can go, however, I’m in two minds now.

What do I have left if I walk?

My decision is made for me when Hooligan delivers his terse promise.

“Enjoy your reprieve, Gabbi. I’m only letting you go
for now
. What you haven’t had the time to learn yet is that I fight for what I want. Actually, fuck that, fighting’s for pussies. When I want something, I
brawl
for it. Fighting implies there’s depths that I won’t stoop to in order to get what I want. So when I say I’m ready to brawl for you, that should tell you that there’ll be no limits to what I do. To what I’m capable of.”

I’m on autopilot as I run for my car with his words ringing in my ears. Icy-cold fear grips me, making me shiver and turning my blood cold in my veins.

The fear isn’t that Hooligan is dangerous or that he might hurt me physically.

I’m afraid that he might actually do what he’s promised...brawl for my love.

Gabbi

Two weeks later

“W
hy are we here?”

Folding my arms over my chest after I’ve exited the taxi, I regard Amy through stony eyes. My gut told me that she was up to something when she called earlier with a declaration that her mother was going to watch Cooper so we could hit the town for one last time before I’m officially legal next weekend.

I drum the fingers on my right arm. Annoyance grows within me when her cheeks redden and she ducks her head, unable to stand the heat.

“Well? I’m waiting.”

“We’ve decided to speed things up. You’ve been a real bitch lately and Nate says that Hooligan’s even worse. It’s impossible to speak to either of you.”

A shaved head emerges from above the people lined up at the door, waiting for admittance to Nitro’s nightclub.

“Speak of the devil,” I groan as Nate makes his way over to us.

He picks Amy up, planting a kiss on her lips, before putting her back on her feet and throwing an arm over her shoulder. She snuggles into his side, sliding an arm around his waist. I look between the pair of them. The redness coloring Amy’s cheeks deepens and Nate hits me with a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin.

“You’ve got to be joking.” Turning to Amy, I grab her arm and try to drag her out of Nate’s embrace. “
Please.
Please, don’t do this to me. They’re the devil, the lot of them.”

It quickly becomes a tug-of-war over Amy when Nate refuses to let me pull her away.

“Settle the fuck down,” he admonishes, which just makes me madder. Stepping up to him, the extra height from my high-heeled, knee-high boots giving me the extra inches I need to get right in his face, I grab his cheeks in one hand and pull his head closer to mine.

“Don’t tell me to settle down, Nate. It wasn’t that long ago that you were trying to get in my pants, so excuse me if I’m pissed off that you’ve managed to weasel your way into Amy’s since then.”

“Hey. Hey.” Amy holds her hands up and pushes between us. “He told me that nothing happened between you two.”

“Nothing did,” Nate and I answer in unison. He breaks into a satisfied smirk, while I shake my head so hard that I’m afraid it’s going to leave my shoulders.

“That’s not the point, Amy.” I try to reason with her. “He’s a player and you deserve better.”

“Gabbi, I decide what I deserve, and at the moment, I’m having fun with him.”

Letting out a deep sigh, I shrug and walk back to the curb, lifting my arm to hail a taxi. I’m out. All I want to do is head back to my newly rented apartment and crawl into bed. Amy’s mom can watch Cooper for the rest of the night and I can mope around for once without having to worry about upsetting him.

“Don’t go. Come inside and watch the fight. He doesn’t know you’re coming and we’ll keep you out of his way if it upsets you that much.”

A sick part of me wants to see him.
It’s taken all of my willpower not to give in—to his constant texts, to the flowers waiting when I turn up to work every night, to his promises to stay away from his gym during my training sessions if I come back, and, most of all, to the presents he leaves for Cooper with my flowers. To be honest, the thoughtful useful boy stuff that he gives to my little brother is the hardest to ignore, knowing how much it must remind him of his own son and how painful it would be for him.

“Gabbi?” Amy’s quiet voice breaks into my reverie. She rubs my back, the heat of her hand through the thin silk of my shirt reminding me that, apart from Cooper, no one has touched me for weeks.

What a sorry state of affairs that is. I’ve turned into a seventeen-year-old version of the spinster aunt. All I’d need is a dozen cats and I’d be set for life.

Squaring my shoulders, I give her my best stink-eye before letting a small smile break free. “I hate you. This is all your fault. If I hadn’t listened to you that night, I wouldn’t have met him. If I hadn’t listened to your ridiculous plan to start fighting, I wouldn’t have touched him. And if I’d ignored your call tonight like I was going to, I wouldn’t be about to torture myself by seeing him.”

A big grin covers her face and she throws her arms around me, squealing with delight and jumping up and down on the spot likes she’s just won the lotto. Looking over her shoulder, my eyes meet Nate’s—his green gaze that’s identical to his uncle’s making my heart flip in my chest. He gives me a chin lift, commiserating with me over his crazy girlfriend’s antics.

“Shit.” I pull back from her. “Are you two, like, official? Exclusive?”

Nate nods straightaway while Amy shakes her head in denial. Seeing his response, she turns to him and starts arguing that they are “no such thing”. For the first time since we arrived at Nitro’s, I laugh. A belly-rumbling laugh that has everyone staring at us.

“It’s comforting to know that I’m not the only one with this problem.”

Nate glares at me. “Enjoy it while you can, ninja girl. You haven’t a clue what you’re up against.”

Amy elbows him with all of the subtly of a steam train. Cataloging the look that they exchange, I decide that I need to be on alert for game playing from them.

They’re up to something.

“Come on, let’s get in there before I change my mind.”

***

T
he first four fights of the night fly past. I’m distracted, my attention returning to the red door that Hooligan will enter through when it’s his turn. My palms are sweaty and I keep wiping them on my jeans, in between bouts of tapping my heels on the floor.

“What’s with the new look?” Amy slides into her seat next to me, beer in each hand. She passes one to me and takes a big sip of her own. “Not that you don’t look hot, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in pants and with your tits in a top that doesn’t look like it’s about to split under the strain of containing your ginormous puppies.”

Gulping down my beer, I toss the empty plastic cup under my chair. “I needed a change. My old look didn’t represent who I am, anymore.”

Nudging me with her shoulder, she leans into me. “You’ve got it bad. Why don’t you just give in and put us all out of our misery?”

“Because I’m not interested in what he wants. All I wanted was a few fucks. He refused to give me that, then he goes nuclear on my ass in front of everyone, dumping all this shit about his dead wife and kid on my head and telling me that he has
feelings
for me. I’m seventeen, not some old lady who wants to settle down and have kids.”

Amy drops her head to the side, looking away from me. I watch her, puzzled, until I notice her shoulders shaking. Bitch is laughing at me. Flicking her ear, I slump in my seat. “Oh, fuck you, Amy. It’s not funny.”

Facing me, she tries hard to contain herself, but is too far gone. Her eye makeup is running down her cheeks from her tears. Nate returns from wherever he’d disappeared to and sits on the other side of her. Lifting an eyebrow in my direction when I look at him, he shakes his head at me. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She thinks I’m funny.”

“Oh my God, Nate. You should’ve heard what she said. Something about not wanting what Hooligan wants and not being ready to settle down because, get this, she’s not an old lady who wants kids.”

Nate burst into bellows of laughter that match his girlfriend’s, and I give up. These two are fucking insane. They deserve each other.

“We’re in for a special treat tonight folks. He wasn’t supposed to fight until next weekend, but apparently he has better plans now, so he’s here tonight instead.” The MC yells into the microphone and I know that the moment I’ve been waiting for has arrived. “And, entering through the red door, we have our undisputed, undefeated, reigning champion. Give it up for Hooligan Harvie.”

The basement fills with shouts and screams reminiscent of the first time I came here. The crowd leaps to their feet, and just like last time, I lose track when the masses swallow him. Jumping onto my chair, I wobble on my heels until someone grabs my arm and steadies me. Diverting my attention from searching for Hooligan to see who’s touching me, I snatch my arm back when I see that it’s Jep. He’s apologized a million times for what happened in the locker room and for what he said, but I can’t let it go. I should because he helped out at my house the night Cooper was threatened and he assisted me with my training whenever Angelo asked him. He’s gone out of his way to make amends, it’s just my inability to forgive that stands in the way.

“I’m not trying anything, Gabbi. Just stopping you from getting hurt again.” The reminder of what went down after the first fight I attended makes my mouth run dry. I forgot about that; lost as I was in my internal dilemma about facing Hooligan for the first time in weeks.

Drawing in a deep breath through my nose, my chest expands, then contracts when I let it out of my mouth. It cleanses my mind, letting me weigh my options.
Forgive Jep, and maybe catch a glimpse of Hooligan or hold onto my resentment and miss out.
For the first time in a long time, I chose to not argue the point or cling to my anger, holding my hand back out to him so I can use his solid frame to keep my balance.

Craning my neck above the throng, I find Hooligan. He’s almost at the cage, climbing the steps to enter, looking like business as usual, until he stops and looks straight at me. My heart leaps into my throat when he points at me and then curls a finger, beckoning me to join him.

Shaking my head, I jump off my seat and try to hide amongst the bodies, out of his sight, and away from the green gaze that just looked at me with so much affection that I’m struggling to breathe from the intensity.

“Nate,” Hooligan’s voice comes over the speakers, filling the room, making me feel like I have nowhere to hide. “Grab her.”

Strong hands seize me from my position crouched in front of my seat behind Jep’s legs. Despite my best efforts to resist, I’m picked up and slung over Nate’s shoulder. As he carries me off, hair hanging over my face and my jean-clad ass in the air, Amy gives me a thumbs-up. I flip her my middle finger and she claps her hands with delight.

This is worse than any plan I could’ve imagined they’d dream up. My blood’s rushing to my face, and I’m trying to come up with an escape plan when I hear Jep yelling at the noisy crowd to move out of our way. He’s directing them, making room for Nate to carry me to the fucking cage, making it clear that all three of them are in on this.

Fuck.
What the hell is Hooligan up to?

Desperation consuming me, I try to repeat the maneuver I pulled on Nate the first time he had me in this position. Kicking my leg out, I let out a scream of frustration when he counters it, clamping down on my legs with strong arms so I can’t hurt him with my knees. His torso shakes as he laughs at me. Jep looks back at us, and works out what happened in one glance. Dropping back level with me, he leans down and yells in my ear.

“Don’t you remember me telling you that he let you put him on his back last time?” Lashing out at Jep’s smug face with my open hand and connecting with a slap, I’m left squealing when he reaches up and paddles my ass with two stinging strikes. “Now, that wasn’t nice.”

Nate walks up the steps to the cage, swings me back onto my feet, and then dodges my clumsy attempt at a punch. Backing out of the cage, he shuts the gate and grins at me as he pulls a padlock out of his pocket and clicks it shut on the gate.

“Goddamn asshole,” I hiss at him. Executing a bow, he walks down the steps and leaves me alone with Hooligan. In the middle of a fucking MMA cage. With at least two hundred people staring at us.