The Harder He Falls: 2 (So Inked) (2 page)

The flippant way he spoke of his family’s health sparked the urge to punch him between the eyes. Grandma Gang might not be related to Kellie, but the woman had always been kind to her, a half-breed, when others snubbed her for having a white father. Sometimes she was ashamed that she’d caved to pressure and taken her Korean last name instead of her father’s. It was also one of the reasons she’d entertained the idea of a life with Shin for so long—getting another grandma in the bargain—but nothing was worth the misery putting up with Shin would bring.

“I hope she feels better soon. I’ll be sure to drop by later and see how she is. Well, that’s all I wanted—”

“You didn’t work hard enough to buy back the gym,” Shin spat, anger boiling in his voice.

Weren’t they through with this argument? Kellie dropped her bag next to the front door and pressed her back against the wall. The house provided just enough shade to cover her and no more.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I did look into it.” Why was she explaining herself to him?

“I can’t believe that you would allow the Nahm family legacy to die like this.”

Guilt ate at her stomach. She could only be so many things before she lost herself in the demands of others. In a perfect world she could co-own the tattoo shop and the gym, but even with her mad number skills, it wasn’t possible. Plus, the gym had already been flipped and reopened, but she wasn’t going to tell Shin that.

“I’m sorry that you feel that way, but it’s out of my hands now. I’ll catch you later.”

“You should reconsider my offer for marriage.”

Kellie snorted. Her? Married to him? He’d wreck her bank account and trash her grandma’s house. Not to mention they couldn’t stand to be in the same room together for more than five minutes. “Not going to happen. I really don’t get this fascination you have with self-torture. Go find yourself a bride somewhere else.”

“Wait. We can still—”

“Bye, Shin.”

She clicked the red button and never felt more relieved about cutting someone off mid-sentence.

Fuck Shin.

Fuck his expectations.

And fuck this day.

* * * * *

Quin held up the boxing mitts. “Imagine it’s Greg’s face right here.”

Mouse’s attention strayed over Quin’s shoulder. “Man, your baby mama’s headed this way and she looks pissed.”

Quin glanced behind him and, sure enough, Penny was headed straight for them. He grit his teeth even as the fighters paused in their training to watch her pass. Her scowl was enough to ward away even the most seasoned man training today. Too bad Quin didn’t have the option not to deal with her.

“Keep them going.” He jerked his head toward the group running through wrestling-style takedown drills. There were four different stations in today’s mixed martial arts training routine, and enough going on that he didn’t need Penny being a distraction.

Oscar, his right-hand man, nodded. “Will do.”

Quin pivoted and thumbed toward the room he’d set up as his office. Penny’s narrowed gaze tracked him and she changed direction.

Quin studied the new installments he’d put in over the last week with a critical eye. He needed a good day or two more to have the gym exactly as he wanted it, but he couldn’t argue with how things were going. The octagon cage was set up in the back. The black chain-link fence glistened, it was so new. Unlike other fighting styles, mixed martial arts used an eight-sided ring to eliminate the tactics of cornering an opponent. In the octagon, men were only as good as their skills, reduced to what they could do with their arms, hands, legs, feet and most importantly, their brains.

Everything about the sport called to him. He loved the rawness, the adrenaline and most of all, the competition. Or at least he had. He watched from the sidelines now and coached.

His fighters were training and he was lobbying for bouts against other locals with plans to travel to Houston and Austin later in the year.

But first there was the little matter of Penny to solve.

Quin stepped into his office and held the door.

“Something wrong?” He had a good guess what it was this time, but wasn’t about to jump into a fire voluntarily.

“Where were you Friday? And what about this morning?” Penny tossed her hands up in the air and her blonde ponytail bobbed with the motion.

Frustration bubbled up inside but he just shoved it aside. He couldn’t be everywhere at once. Why couldn’t she understand that?

He closed the office door and circled the desk. How many times were they going to have this argument? He sat down in the new chair and leaned back. His muscles twinged low around his spine, reminding him of the old injury. He’d aggravated it while trying to contort himself into a pretzel to fix a leak.

He picked up a pen from the desk and clicked the button repeatedly to give his hands something to do. “I sent you a text. It was too early to call. I might have woken up Josie. A pipe in the locker rooms busted and I had to stay late. We talked about putting work first for a little bit until the kinks are worked out.”

Penny put her hands on her hips. “Quinton, that’s not good enough. I thought you wanted to be part of Josie’s life. I thought having you move down here with us was a good idea. Keep the family together.”

“We are together.” He wasn’t a deadbeat dad. He’d never missed putting money aside for their daughter. Hell, he had the gym so she would never want for anything.

Penny leaned over the edge of the desk, somehow managing to appear menacing despite her petite size. “No, Quin, we aren’t together because do you know what today is?”

They stared at each other. Was this a trick question? He kept his mouth shut regardless. Maybe moving to Texas had been a mistake. When he’d still been in California, they’d been friends. He’d call her and her husband for advice, to laugh and talk. Now all they did was argue.

Penny tapped the top of the desk with her nail. “It’s Saturday.
Your
Saturday. Josie’s at home waiting for Daddy to come and get her because she was told, by you, that you would spend today together. What am I supposed to tell her?”

Josie had the attention span of a jellyfish. She forgot about him after a few minutes of being together. It stung his pride that his own kid would rather play with a box than him, but she was only three. He spread his hands. “I can’t be in two places at once. You’ll have to explain to her that I’m working.”

“She’s three, Quin. She doesn’t understand that. All she knows is that Daddy never spends time with her.” Penny tapped his desk to punctuate each word.

“I do too.” He threw the pen down. “Last time she never even said hi to me. I sat on the couch while she played with dolls. She hardly even noticed I was there.”

What did she want him to do? Ignore the gym, lose his income and move into Penny’s garage? Yeah, he didn’t think Penny’s husband Chad would appreciate that. He liked the guy, he was good for Penny and treated Josie as if she were his own, but that went only so far.

Penny swiped at her cheeks. “God, you don’t even get it, do you?”

He stared past her at the cinderblock wall. He was doing everything in his power to be a good provider. He wasn’t going to let her manipulate him into letting go of the business. If he let up even a little bit this early in the game, it would run away from him.

Penny’s gaze snared his despite his best intentions. “You can’t throw money at your daughter and expect everything to be okay.”

He frowned. That wasn’t what he was doing. He provided for them with his own blood, sweat and tears. “Penny—”

Someone knocked on the door.

Thank god.

“Come in,” he called.

Penny turned her back on them.

One of the front desk clerks he’d just hired stepped in, glancing from Penny to him.

“What is it?” he asked, welcoming any excuse to escape this conversation.

The nervous young man licked his lips and stared at Quin with large eyes. “The delivery from earlier. I think there’s a problem.”

The second order of punching bags had arrived right as the first practice session was beginning. He’d left the boxes on the back doorstep until he could get the guys together to hang them.

He sat forward in his chair. The skin across his shoulders prickled and he got a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. “What do you mean, there’s a problem?”

“I think you should look at this.”

Quin pushed to his feet and started around the desk. The jittery kid clearly had adrenaline pumping into his system.

Penny pivoted and glared at him. “I’m not done talking to you.”

“Not now,” he snapped. He couldn’t take much more of her nagging. Didn’t she understand that the gym was how he would pay for Josie’s college? Or whatever his baby girl wanted to do. He was determined she’d never want for anything.

He strode around the block of offices at the back of the gym to the double doors that led to what passed as their loading area. In reality, it was the narrow path between the back of the warehouse-turned-gym and a chain-link fence that bordered an industrial property. The clerk opened the door for him and held it.

Quin caught a glimpse of ripped cardboard and his stomach dropped. Dread dug invisible claws into his shoulders.

“No. No, no, no, no, no!”

He stepped into the sweltering heat and sweat drenched his body. Remnants of the boxes littered the alley and the bags looked like beached whales, their bellies split open with sand pouring out. His skin went cold and hot in waves.

“Fucking— Who the hell did this?” He strode down the line of boxes he’d stacked an hour ago, his skin going colder with each step. Every single one of the bags was destroyed.

“Quin?” Penny stepped out into the sunlight, her blonde hair glinting.

“Not now, Penny,” he growled. Thousands of dollars, ruined. Gone. He shoved his hands through his hair. How was he going to pay for this?

She closed the distance between them, her jaw thrust out and her little fists balled up. “If not now then when, Quin? There’s always something more important going on.”

He jabbed a finger in her direction. “Don’t fucking mess with me right now.”

“You are a terrible father, Quinton Berkus.”

His vision hazed red. He was not a terrible father. He might not be the best, but he was far from the worst.

* * * * *

Kellie scrolled through the So Inked Twitter account. Social media wasn’t really her thing, but they got a lot of attention online, especially since the fire. So she’d pulled up her big girl panties and learned the ropes. Usually Autumn manned the Twitter and Facebook accounts, but she’d yet to show up for work, besides a few days after they’d acquired the new building following the burning of the original So Inked.

Technically the shop wasn’t open yet. Their Grand Re-Opening party wasn’t until Monday, but they’d been working out of the new building almost since they’d gotten the keys. Kellie had had an appointment to do a back piece, but the client had gotten sunburned earlier that week and Kellie couldn’t work on her. Autumn was supposed to be working, but she was still missing.

As much as Kellie loved Autumn as a friend, she couldn’t keep her employed if she didn’t work. With no appointments and no one to shoot the breeze with, Kellie had a full day to work on the finishing touches around the shop, and she didn’t mind being alone. It seemed as if lately she was never by herself. It was nice for a change.

She sighed and rolled a few feet over to where her sketchbook was laid open at the receptionist desk. Maybe she’d get lucky and have a walk-in. She could do with some cash in her pocket.

Another geisha-samurai image stared back at her from the page she’d been working on. There was open real estate on her calf she wanted to fill in, but couldn’t decide on a pose or colors. She excelled at Asian tattoos, but working with someone else’s vision was easier at times. This was one of those times.

In the sketch, a refined version of the traditional samurai crossed blades with a geisha. It was a lover’s portrait. A fanciful version of what she thought her grandfather and grandmother might have been like. Before his death and her Alzheimer’s.

The new bell chimed above the door. She took a moment to add a line to further define the samurai’s brow before glancing up.

“Hi, welcome to So Inked.” She tossed in a smile for good measure and gave her potential client a head-to-toe once-over.

He was tall, an inch or two shy of six and a half feet, with thick brown hair and intense blue eyes. His right arm was wrapped from wrist up under his shirt sleeve in vibrant ink. She leaned forward as she recognized the style as Japanese. He wore shorts and one of the TapouT t-shirts popular with mixed martial arts enthusiasts that molded to his chest, announcing to the world that here was a god in flesh.

She barely kept from rolling her eyes. The muscle-bound numskulls were the biggest pussies. He would probably whine and moan and complain if she actually had to tattoo him.

“Hey.” His gaze finally landed on her, though it immediately skipped down to her cleavage.
Typical.