by Emilia Finn
I shake my head and go back to work preparing our cold dinner. “You need to stop talking like that, Will. And don’t you consider, just for a moment, that this is unhealthy?”
“Baked beans?” He frowns. “Nah, they’re better than drive-thru.”
“No, I mean our relationship. Your need to watch my every step. Your need to make sure the world is smooth as butter for me, when we both know the truth. The world fucking sucks, Will. We both know it, so you killing yourself over faking it is useless.”
“I don’t think it’s unhealthy at all.” Instead of anger or worry, he only flashes a playful grin, and hip-bumps me aside. “We’re a team. We’ve been a team since the Rodneys tried to fuck us over.”
“The Rodneys.” I snicker and reach into my bag for plastic cutlery. “I think it’s unhealthy you’ve named our parents ‘the Rodneys’.”
“Well, Rodney was your old principal’s first name. He was a dick.”
My shoulders bounce with laughter.
“Rodney was the name of the cop who tried to send me away that time.”
I shake my head.
“Rodney was the name of that fuckwit who took you out last year.”
My laughter cuts off, only to be replaced by a scowl. “He was a dick too.”
Will huffs. “Rodneys fucking suck. All of them. Show me a Rodney that isn’t a cocksucker, and I’ll reevaluate my opinion, but until then…”
“Fuck all the Rodneys!” I take my dinner and cutlery, and sitting on the end of the queen bed, I scoot to the side so there’s room for Will.
Snatching the remote for the tiny TV in the corner, I flick it on and tilt my head to the side when The Price Is Right comes on the screen. “I thought this show ended years ago?”
Will only shrugs. “That vacuum is worth six-ninety-nine.”
“Guy with the soul patch says four-ninety-nine.”
“He’s wrong.”
When the host announces the price, and the guy whose name is mercifully not Rodney loses, Will turns to me with baked beans in his teeth, and grins. “Told ya. I know my electronics.”
I roll my eyes. “That’s not something you should brag about, ya know?”
Jamie
Genetics Win Every Time
“Who?!” Brooklyn Kincaid – there are millions of us – is my cousin. She’s my Uncle Bobby’s daughter, and though she’s normally the quietest of them all, she squares up to me now and tries to shake me down for information. “Just tell me what you know!”
“I don’t know who you mean, crazy! How am I supposed to know everyone who walks through the door?”
“A little over six feet tall,” she says. “Dark hair, dark eyes. He was literally the only fighter in this place last night with a toddler on his hip. You’re trying to tell me you have no clue who I’m talking about?”
“I clicked almost every single person through the door, Brooke. But I didn’t see a dude with a toddler.”
“Useless!” She spins away with a dramatic flick of her hair so it whips me in the face. “You’re on my shit-list, Jamie!”
“I’m always on shit-lists,” I call out as she leaves. “It’s literally all I do in life. Tell Aunt Kit I love her.”
“I’ll tell her you told her to fuck herself.” She flips me off as she rounds the corner and heads into the hall. But all I can do is laugh under my breath and turn back to the laptop sitting on the desk in front of me.
Smalls has me typing up names in an effort to find some kind of organization in a tournament that currently resides on loose sheets of paper. She’s a fighting machine, yes, but an administrative genius, she is not.
I was in charge of clicking folks in last night, and now I have to type their names into a spreadsheet, because apparently, all of my shitty behavior when I was younger is coming back to bite me in the ass.
Errol Rhodes. Tony Clark. Joshua Jackson… not the actor, I’m certain.
Music plays from deep inside the gym – Eminem and Fort Minor are like our family anthem – and thudding fists echo off the walls, providing me with the lullabies that I was rocked to sleep with as a baby. Women fighters move through the space in barely more than underwear, but when you grow up seeing that much skin, it becomes an almost non-event.
That’s not to say I don’t look. I’m not a blind man. But I find myself more attracted to women who wear something exactly right, something flattering and fitted to her shape. Which is why when a girl walks through the front door of my gym, I sit up taller and study her while she’s busy on the phone.
Long, brown hair tied in a ponytail and left to dangle to the middle of her back. A cream, three-quarter-sleeved top that follows the angles of her hips and stops at the top of her skintight jeans. She carries a coat over her arm, a little purse slung across her body, and when she finishes fucking around with the door and meets my eyes, I’m struck down by the cherry red lips that curve up into a cute smile.
Is that lipstick, or is that color all natural?
And fuck, but I didn’t know I had a thing for butt-chins.
“Er… Hello.”
“I’m walking in now,” she says into the phone. “Yup, I’ll see you in a sec. Uh huh. Nope, nobody murdered me yet. Yeah, you’re being dramatic-goodbye-see-you-in-a-minute-love-you.”
She tears the phone from her ear and hangs up like it might explode if she takes too long. “Jesus Christ, he’s dramatic.” She stops for a moment and draws a massive breath until her sort-of flat chest fills. She pulls it in until her diaphragm grows to bursting, then she steps toward me and lets it out so I catch a whiff of mint and a hint of cinnamon. “Hey.”
I close the laptop lid and stand from the stool I’ve been delegated to. Extending a hand, I study her blue eyes. They’re not bright blue, but more of a denim. Dirty denim. “Hey there. You don’t look like a fighter.”
“I don’t?” She arches a brow up high and accepts my hand for a quick pump. “I could probably lay you out in three seconds flat… with my knife,” she murmurs.
“Like to see you try.” I release her hand and smile. “The laying me out thing. Knives should be left at home.”
“I don’t enter fights I can’t win.”
“Funny.” I flash my most charming smile. “Me neither.”
“Ah, see…” She makes the tsk sound. “Since you’re in this gym, and the world knows the Rollers are all about fairness, I can tell you with absolute certainty that I would win a fight against you.”
“You think?” I tilt my head and study the slight swell of her breasts. The gap between her thighs. The cute glitters on the button of her jeans. The high-top sneakers she wears that shouldn’t be attractive, but here we are, and I’m going to fantasize about Converse for the rest of time.
“I’m bigger than you,” I say. “Stronger. Faster. We could take this to the mats and see what happens.”
“You misunderstand. Though of course, that’s understandable. You’re a boy, after all.” She flashes a smile that makes my heart fizz, and reaches up to fix her hair over her shoulder. “You think we would spar with rules and regulations and such. But if I accept a round with you, I’m bringing my knife, and I’m sticking you while your back is turned as you enter the octagon. I’m not playing, so…”
“Oh.” I deflate a little, not from fear, but because I’m fairly certain she’s telling the truth, and my family really is all about fighting fair. “Well… maybe we’ll work up to that, then.”
“You’re like, the secretary or something?”
“Or something. You need a hand?”
“I’m looking for a certain fighter.”
“I’m a fighter. And I’m kinda sexy too.”
She snorts so loud, so piggishly, that I’m certain she didn’t mean it. “Uh, well, I’m not saying your arrogance isn’t appealing, but you’re not the fighter I was looking for.”
“So tell me who you are looking for. I’ll take him to the octagon, we’ll settle our differences, then do you wanna come hang
out with me for a bit? Because I feel super drawn to your chin.”
“My chin?” She brings a hand up to cup it. “What?”
“I’ve never in my life been about chins, but see, yours has that dimple that looks like a butt. Instead of it being weird, I kinda wanna touch it.”
Her eyes flare wide. “You want to touch my chin? Really?”
“I’m as surprised as you are, because I’m fairly certain this is the first thing a trained therapist would lift a brow at. And shit, I met a dude fighter yesterday with a butt chin, and I didn’t get all tingly about that one. But here you stand, and I find my fingers itching to touch.”
She takes a step back. An actual, wary, knives-aren’t-gonna-save-her-now step back. “You’re weird, ya know that?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time someone said that to me. Though my mom says it’s the cute kind of weird. Not the forty-year-old still living with his folks weird.”
Her brows furrow closer. “Do you still live with your parents?”
I blow out a breathy laugh. “Yes, but I’ll be eighteen soon, and then I’m thinking of building a treehouse or something. A guy’s gotta cut the cord at some point, right?”
“Right. Listen, Rodney, I’m looking for William Quinn. Can you point me in the right direction or what?”
“William Quinn?” What was a fluttering heart is now a stone; dead, useless, and sitting in a pit of sadness. “William Quinn has the butt chin too.”
She flashes a smile that I would happily invite to ruin my life. “Yes, he does. It’s cute, no?”
“Your brother?”
She tilts her head to the side and sends her ponytail flicking over her shoulder. “You’re not as inbred and uneducated as the rest of the Rodneys I know. Can you point me toward Will, or…?”
“Your brother is that behemoth mountain with the butt chin and the bad attitude? Seriously?”
“He’s been known to have a bad attitude, so yeah, we’re probably talking about the same guy. It would be super helpful if you could point me in the right—”
“Cam?”
The dude we speak of, the fucking mountain, shoves through the doorway and makes his beautiful sister jump. He stops just inside the room, looks from her to me, draws on that bad attitude of his, and snags her arm until they crash together and he has to hold her up before she falls.
It’s funny how, of all the things I could take note of right now – her panicking eyes, her glittering earrings, the long hair that whips around as William Quinn yanks her close – the way she stands on her toes and catches her balance is what I see. She wears sneakers, but she flips up to her toes for just a moment when William pulls her off balance and she has to right herself again.
My grin creeps up. “You’re a dancer? Not a fighter,” I clarify, “but a dancer.”
“How could you possibly know—”
“She’s nothing to you,” her brother snaps with that flapping butt chin. “Absolutely fuckin’ nothing. Close your eyes, or I’ll cut them out.”
“Hey, William Quinn?” Instead of backing away and cowering, I lean a hip against the desk and fold my arms. “We met last night at weigh-in. You remember?”
Shrewd eyes, dark despite their blue color, study me.
“Remember how you were talking about my mom and my sister?”
“Motherfucker,” he growls. “You better stand down, or I will end you.”
I paste on my douchiest smile and shrug. “I’m all the way over here, big man. I’m not squaring up.”
“Stay over there.”
“Goodbye, Cam the dancer.” I wink for the girl that tripped the Kincaid family legend into gear – when we know, we know – and laugh when she stumbles on her brother’s feet. “Cool name, by the way. Boy names for chicks are kinda cool. Makes you an oxymoron.”
“The fuck did you call her?” William releases his sister and swings around to face me. He weighs an easy hundred pounds more than me, and has fists the size of my head. “Say it again, motherfucker!”
“He said ‘oxymoron,’ Will!” Cam grabs his arm and tries to pull him around. “Not ‘moron’. There’s a massive difference between those two words.”
“He shouldn’t be calling you anything!”
“He’s a douche,” she shouts when he merely drags her forward. “But he’s playing you. Let’s go. It’s time to train.”
A flash of sunlight flickers to my left and draws my eyes to the man we loosely know as Uncle Oz.
He’s not my uncle, not by blood or marriage. But around here, if you’ve eaten at the same dinner table even once, you’re family. So the town’s finest steps into the twenty-feet-by-twenty-feet space and takes up just as much of it as the mountain. Perhaps a little more.
Oz is Ben’s stepdad, he’s Spanish as fuck, and even if he wasn’t already six-and-a-half feet tall, his loud mouth and habitual possession of guns makes it seem that way.
When William ‘The Mountain’ Quinn fights Cam’s hold, Oz steps up and bounces the guy back with a bump of his chest. “Do we have a problem here, son?”
“Not my daddy, not my problem.” William points a finger in my direction. “But the receptionist here has a fuckin’ mouth on her.”
“William!” Not playing in the least, Cam grabs her brother and swings him around with surprising strength from an itty-bitty dancer. “Will! Quit it.”
“He won’t touch you, Cameron.”
“He’s being a douche. You need to learn the difference between a serious threat and a dumbass.”
Oz turns to me once Cam gets Will back a few steps. “What did you do?”
“Nothing! I said she was pretty, but that was before he even came into the room.”
“He was hitting on me,” Cam says. “But it was harmless.”
“It’s not fucking harmless,” Will roars. “It’s never harmless!”
“I wasn’t gonna steal her away and bury her in the woods, ya know?”
“Stop it,” Oz snarls. Then he turns to Will and Cam. “Move along, boy. Save the fight for the cage. And no,” he shakes his head, “he ain’t fighting this year, so you’re gonna have to run it off.”
“He hit on my sister!”
“Man, I have a daughter about her age, and fuckers hit on her every damn day. At some point, you gotta pick your battles, otherwise you’re gonna get your ass sent to prison for hitting a minor.” He points at me. “Minor. He has a big mouth, but he ain’t an adult. You swing even once, and you’re gonna find yourself in trouble.”
Will grabs Cam in a grip so tight that she hisses from the pain and almost brings me bounding over the desk to save her. “Minor!” He points at his sister. “Seventeen, and forbidden to become a fucking statistic.”
“You can’t attack every kid that looks at her, bud. I was already given this talk by the chief.” Oz rests his hands on his hips. On his gun. “Now listen, I don’t know your face, but I know it’s tournament week, which means you have shit to do. You need to get back in the octagon, train, and stay the fuck away from this kid. He’s not a problem for you, but if you make it a problem, you’re gonna get your ass ejected from this tournament.”
“You need to teach him some manners, cop. You teach him that women aren’t fuckin’ steaks to salivate over for fun.”
Oz shakes his head. “Manners, he might be lacking. But he respects women. He’s got a big mouth—”
“Hey!”
“And an arrogant streak a mile wide, but he comes from solid foundations. He comes from good people. His mom and daddy would’ve popped him long ago if he was disrespectful to women. You’re wired up, it’s a big week, and hell, I can respect a guy looking after his little girl, but you need to cool your shit. Take her—” He pauses, then looks to Cam. “You know this guy, right?”
She swallows her nerves. She wasn’t this pale when talking about knives or hanging out. But put a cop in front of her, not even a cop in uniform, and she turns sheet-white. “He’s my big brother.”
“Aw hell. I got a kid. He’s loud and grumpy. A heavyweight too.” He looks to Will. “It’s okay to be protective of your sister, guy, but if you don’t learn to control it, you’re gonna get yourself into trouble.”
“Cop—”
“Wait. Your kid’s a heavyweight?” Cam asks. “He’ll fight next week?”
“Not only will he fight, but my kid is Ben Conner.” Oz’s chest puffs with pride. “He and his girl are Stacked Deck. Which means, if you’re any good,” he looks to Will, “you guys will meet in the cage. But him,” he points back at me, “not this year. Not ever. He’s a middleweight, and he’ll never weigh two hundred and fifty pounds.”
“I might!” I throw a pen at Oz’s back. “I’m working on it.”
He doesn’t turn to look at me. Perks of knowing me since I was in diapers, I guess. He knows me right down to the big mouth and zero respect for fear. “Find some perspective, man, and move the fuck along. Take her with you, keep her close, but if you manhandle her again, big brother or not, I’m gonna toss you in my cage for a few nights. Hell, if the timing is bad, you might be in the wrong cage for fight night.”
“Fuckin’ cops!” Will snaps. “I haven’t met a clean one yet.”
“You have,” Oz declares seriously. “This whole town is clean. For as long as you stay above the law, we have no trouble. Now move along.”
Growling, Will tugs Cam around, despite Oz’s warnings about manhandling her, and drags her through the door.
“Goodbye, Will.” Arrogant, I finger-wave for the mountain and know, without a lick of doubt, my ass is brave only because we’re in my family’s gym and I have a cop guard. I’m not ashamed to admit I’d run the other way if I saw him at night in a dark alleyway. “See you around, beautiful Cam.”
“Dude!” Oz spins as soon as Will is out of sight, and clips me on the side of the head. “The fuck is wrong with you?”
“She’s so pretty.” I drop back to my stool and press a hand to my heart. “Holy shit, Uncle Oz, but I think I’m in love.”