Her Last Best Fling (17 page)
“You’re a professional ass-kicker,” Lindsey said. “Plus
Mercer’s your employee,” she added to Jenna. “If we’re talking about
inappropriate workplace poaching, here.”
Jenna rolled her eyes and spoke to Steph. “I’ll be frank—I
don’t know how our male clients would react to the prospect of a date with a
woman who fights. But I think you’d make a very interesting addition, and I’m
sure I could find you
some
matches...if not as many
as I might for a woman with a more, um...traditional job.”
“I figured.” Her profession tended to divide guys into a few
distinct camps. The insecure jerks liked to call her femininity into doubt
.
The perverts suggested she might want to wrestle
with
them,
preferably naked and covered in oil. And
the polite but not-into-it guys smiled stonily and immediately ceased viewing
her as girlfriend material. But one thing had long ago become clear—the majority
of men didn’t relish dating a woman who could best them at chin-ups.
“I’ve found it challenging myself,” she admitted. “I’d be fine
if you marketed me as a martial arts instructor. That’s technically what I am
now, and I think it intimidates guys less.”
“Do you know what you’re looking for?”
Did she ever. “A nice, grown-up, professional guy. With a
half-decent car and some kind of dress sense.” She pictured that hopeless
Patrick guy, and all the other incarnations of him she’d dated. “Somebody
moderately sophisticated.” Who’d take her to a nice restaurant instead of the
corner bar, so she could dress up and feel girly after all these years of
training and touring. A man who’d make her feel like a lady
,
not a
chick.
“I’ll call the powers that be first thing tomorrow morning,”
Jenna promised. “Give me your number and I’ll let you know the verdict.”
She scribbled it on a Post-it, feeling hopeful. As she handed
it to Jenna she said, “I promise if I get a date with one of your clients, I
won’t go dressed like this, or all banged up. I’m just on a coffee break, and I
knew you were closing at five, so...”
Jenna waved the excuses aside. “If any two matchmakers are
sympathetic to the hazards of your job, you’re looking at them.”
“Okay, great. Fingers crossed. I better get back
downstairs.”
They said goodbye and Steph jogged down the steps, mindful to
approach the double doors with caution. In her absence, Patrick had moved his
debris and tools to the side, and she hurried through the threshold, half
expecting to trigger an explosion.
The dangerous man in question was at the other end of the gym,
standing beside another worker at the emergency exit, scratching his head as
they stared at a mess of wires spilling from an electrical panel.
God help him,
Steph thought.
He was one of those men who just floated cloddishly through his
life, helped along by those endeared by his good looks and hapless charm.
Probably had sympathetic teachers who’d passed him so he could stay on the
hockey team. Likely was coddled by girlfriends even after he’d forgotten their
birthdays three years running. She knew his type well enough to make these wild
assumptions—her younger brother was exactly the same. The lovable, harmless
oaf.
She touched her nose. Well, perhaps
harmless
wasn’t quite the word for Patrick.
Steph loved her brother too much to feel bitter toward this
kind of man, but a part of her did find it unfair. She’d had to work three times
harder than any man in her field to be taken seriously, had to push herself to
succeed, since so few people at the top of the MMA food chain cared to invest
their energy or resources on a female fighter. Women didn’t get juicy coaching
deals or promotional opportunities, not the way the guys did, and Steph’s
biggest payday for a professional fight had probably been as much as what a guy
like Rich earned before he’d even signed with an organization.
She was a hard worker and she loved her job, but she was tired
of struggling financially. She hoped she’d find an equally driven man, someone
in a competitive—if civilized—field, who could offer the financial security
she’d been missing her entire life.
Her family had been pretty poor, her father losing a good job
as a machine mechanic when his factory was bought out in the nineties. After the
layoff, Steph’s mom had started working behind the deli counter at their local
supermarket to supplement their income “until things picked up.” Two decades
later, she was still there.
Once upon a time, they’d been able to pay for Steph’s first
karate classes without a care, but those days were short-lived. If she’d pushed
herself to excel—at karate, judo, jujitsu, MMA—it was because being an
overachiever had garnered her favoritism. The kind that had allowed her to keep
coming to classes at a discount or in exchange for doing odd jobs around the
dojo. Martial arts had never been a simple extracurricular to Steph. She’d loved
it the way other girls loved horses or ballet or boys. And she’d fought to keep
it in her life.
Still, she’d been doing this for over twenty years. She was
tired
. She’d never grow weary of the physicality
of the sport, but the financial struggle... She was ready to leave that behind
her. Wanting a man who could offer that wasn’t shallow—it was practical.
She eyed Patrick as she stripped out of her warm-ups.
Handsome, to be sure. Sexy even, and probably perfectly sweet
despite the alarming frequency with which he caused her bodily harm. But even if
her blood quickened at the sight of him, her rational brain knew what a guy like
Patrick would bring—more struggling, little stability. Maybe a great sex life,
but that wasn’t a fair trade-off, not if it came at the price of all that
uncertainty.
She wound medical tape around her injured hand and pulled on
her gloves, ready for the evening’s first workout. Down here it was business as
usual—physical strain, sweat, satisfaction. Beyond these walls, though, things
could be different.
Would
be different. A
sophisticated man waiting for her at a restaurant, maybe kissing her cheeks, if
that happened outside the movies. She’d let him teach her which wine went with
which dish. Show her how it tingled to kiss a man who tasted of burgundy or
merlot.
“Son of a—”
Steph whipped her head around at the sound. It was Patrick, of
course. His averted cuss had accompanied an unmistakable
zap!
and a flickering of the lights.
He
shook out the hand he’d shocked. “Sorry!” he told everyone who’d turned, flexing
his fingers. “My bad.”
At least it wasn’t me that
time.
He was over it in a moment, back to joking with his
colleague.
God help you,
she thought again,
watching him.
And God help the poor woman who falls for
you.
Copyright © 2013 by Meg Maguire
ISBN-13: 9781460321157
HER LAST BEST FLING
Copyright © 2013 by Candace Havens
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