by Emilia Finn
“Eh, I’m getting in the car and heading to your place now anyway. See you at dinner?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not eating at home tonight. But we might see you after, if you hang around for the ice cream and stupidity.”
“My favorite part of the night,” she laughs. Liv looks to me. “Cam.” Then to Will. “William. See you guys around.”
The moment she slides into a little car and pulls out of the lot, Will’s smile grows a million notches. “You guys can go wherever the fuck you want. I’m getting dinner at the Kincaids.”
“Will!”
I have never, not once in my life, seen my brother do a tip-of-his-toes dance, but that’s what he does now, in a parking lot more dark than it is light. The sun will be down within the hour, and my brother thinks he’s got himself a date.
“Don’t veto me if you can’t handle the veto heat coming right back at you, Bubbles.” He fists the rope in his hands and crosses the thirty or so feet that separate us. “Don’t be a fuckin’ hypocrite.”
“Don’t be dumb!” I hiss. “Dammit, Will. These are clearly separate situations. He’s gonna watch you all night long.”
“And I’ll be the perfect gentleman.”
“Wait.” Jamie’s brows pull together in thought. “What am I missing?”
“Will thinks Liv is pretty.”
“Everybody thinks Liv is pretty. She’s like a real-life china doll.” Jamie’s eyes go to Will. “And do you know what collectors do with really rare and expensive china dolls? They lock them up, they keep them guarded and safe. They keep grubby hands off.”
“The cop is her guard.” Will nods. “I get it. Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna go to that dinner tonight and stare a little bit. You think she’ll go for a walk into the forest and need an escort?”
Jamie snorts. “If she does, I assure you, she has a dozen escorts in line before you. Starting with the cops, and ending with her brother. She’s gonna forever be the doll in a cabinet as far as you’re concerned. But!” he adds with a laugh. “If you staring at her gets me a couple hours at dinner with Cam, then have at it. I’ll be sure to bring flowers to your funeral.”
“Not funny.” I smack Jamie’s ribs. “Don’t joke about that stuff.”
“Veto to anything with alcohol.” Will leans closer. Livi is gone from his mind, and now he’s the protective brother again. “No drugs. No gangbangs. No stealing shit. No breaking into shit. No exploding shit. No walks in the forest. No walks anywhere. Ya know what?” He snags my hand. “Just no.”
“Will!” I pull my hand back and lean against Jamie’s chest, because he’s strong, and sure, and warm, and he would never let me fall.
His hands go to my hips, his groin presses to my back. He’s not hard or anything, but still, his presence makes my heart swell.
“Dinner,” I demand.
“Curfew.”
“Time?”
Will looks to the watch on his wrist. “Six o’clock.”
I scoff. “Midnight.”
“Seven.”
“Eleven.”
“Bubbles!” He runs a hand over his face. “Nine.”
“Ten.”
“Cameron!”
“Nine,” I squeak out.
“And he has to walk you to the door. Call me at eight-thirty, ask me where I am. If I’m at the hotel, he can bring you to me. If I’m at the estate, same.”
“And if you’re in the forest with Olivia?” I tease. “If you’re making the kissy face, and her daddy hasn’t killed you yet?”
His grin stretches right across his face. “Then you can stay out till nine-thirty.”
He’s such a hypocrite. And quite possibly not father material. He’s protective beyond measure… but now those rules fly out the window, because a pretty girl smiled at him.
“Deal.”
Twenty minutes later, as the gym slowly clears out, those who are going to dinner keep it on the downlow, and those who aren’t invited are ushered out and told to rest for fight night. Jamie and I go against the stream and make our way inside.
Floors are hastily mopped, sweat and blood is removed from the mats, lights are switched out as people leave, and eventually, Kincaids wave their goodbyes. Jamie’s mom and dad are the last to leave; one of them smiles and squeezes my hand. The other looks like he’s lost weight and aged a decade in a week.
Lucy and her dad still aren’t talking.
But Jamie holds my hand tight, and slowly tugs me through the playground he was raised in. From reception and into the hall, we emerge in the room that holds a boxing ring.
“I lost my first tooth in that ring.”
“You did?” I swing around to look at his face; a knee-jerk reaction, despite the fact I know he has all his teeth.
“It was loose anyway,” he says, “barely hanging on by a thread, but I was too scared to yank it.”
“So someone else did?”
He chuckles. “Bean popped me in the mouth with a fast jab. My tooth came free, and my sister never got in trouble for it.”
“Because it was already loose?”
“Yup.”
He leads me around the mats – we’re both wearing shoes – and into another hall.
“This is where I kissed a girl for the first time.” He backs me up against the wall, and leans into my space until I can taste the gum he must’ve been chewing earlier on his breath. “I started my crusade to find you when I was seven years old.”
“Stop it.” I laugh. “You did not.”
“I did.” His eyes stare into mine with a deep intensity. “I was hoping to get a jumpstart on my dad, seeing as how he kissed my mom when he was eight. The girl’s name was Ashton. She was here for afternoon classes since her mom wanted to be here to watch the fighters work out.”
“I can see the draw,” I snicker. “Also, Ashton? You seem to have a thing for chicks with boy names.”
“Coincidence.” He plops a fast kiss on my lips and pulls me away from the wall. “I also kissed a chick named Lauren. Shannon. Kaylee.”
“You can stop now.”
He throws his arm over my shoulder so I walk on a slant and lean into him. “Lots of girly names. I would still be in love with you, no matter your name.”
“Really?” I wrap my arms around his torso and try to look up. “You promise?”
“Of course. The kitchen.” He stops us in the tiled room and nods toward a picnic bench and table in the middle. “We had to build that thing in here. There’s no way we could get it through the doors.”
“Which means you’ll have to dismantle it before you take it out again.”
“Nah, it’ll stay until it breaks. Then we’ll build another.”
“Where are we going to dinner?” I look to the fridge and feel my stomach rumble. “I skipped lunch.”
“That wasn’t smart. You gotta eat.”
“I was busy ogling the fighters.”
I turn into him when he makes no move to leave, and wrap my arms up beneath his and around to his shoulder blades. I bury my face against his broad chest and breathe him in. “It’s fight night tomorrow.”
He wraps his arms around me and holds me tight. “Yeah.”
“And when it’s over, we leave town.”
It’s like his body literally deflates. He turns heavier, his grunt more pronounced in his throat. “Yeah. You got any good fight gyms out your way?”
“Why?” My heart thunders. “You looking to move?”
“It’s fuckin’ tempting,” he sighs. “It would be damn near impossible for me to pack up and leave my family. But watching you leave isn’t gonna be good for my health either.”
“Let’s not think about that tonight.” I wipe my face on his shirt, rearrange my lips from a pout to a smile, then I pull back and catch his eyes. “So we’re on a date, huh? All of your evil plans are falling into place.”
He scoffs. It’s as fake as my smile, but we’re both trying. We’re doing our best not to dwell on what’s comin
g. “Yeah. A date in a stinky gym. Exactly how I planned it. Come on.”
He leads me out of the kitchen and continues along the hall. “Are you super hungry, or can you wait a bit? It’s only five, but if you’re starving now…”
“I can wait a little longer.” I press a hand to my stomach, because above the hunger are the fluttering wings of nerves. “What are we doing?”
He leads me into an office about midway along the hall, leaves me at the door, and heads across to a cardboard box haphazardly stacked in the corner. He rifles through it, so I take a moment to look around.
“Whose office is this?” I step to a wall of photos and smile, because there are images of Jimmy Kincaid as a child. He stands with the woman I now know as Iz. But Jimmy’s smile… the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. “This is your dad’s office?”
“It’s actually my uncle’s,” he answers. “But mostly, it’s a dumping ground. We don’t have a lot of reason to have an office, and anyone that needs to sit at a computer tends to do it at the front desk.”
“Like you did the day I met you.”
“It gets lonely in here.” He digs deep inside the box, yanks out a pair of sweatpants, and finally smiles with satisfaction before digging back in again. “We don’t have a hell of a lot of administrative things to do around here. Back in the day, Uncle Aiden used to take care of gym memberships and stuff, but all of that is automatic now. He used to take care of the accounting, but we pay someone else for that now. There used to be a security console in here, for the cameras and such outside, but Griffin Tech takes care of that now. We’ve offloaded most of that shit, so now we don’t have to fight over who has to sit at a computer all the damn time.”
“So what did you do wrong last year that landed you on data entry duty?”
He snags a shirt from the box and chuckles under his breath. “Nothing. Stacked Deck was new, Smalls was overwhelmed, and I’m a sucker for a girl with a pout. Especially if I have love for that girl. So there I was…” His eyes meet mine. “And in you walked.”
“And threatened to shank you.”
Laughing, he slams the box closed and makes his way across the office with clothes in his hands. “You could have been so sweet and innocent. You have the looks for it, if you wanna give that a try. You could convince anyone that you’re softly spoken and shy. But instead, you come to a fight with a knife.” He stops in front of me, presses a hand to his heart, and his lips to my cheek. “And I was in love. Here. Put these on.”
“Hm?” I accept the fabric he presses to my hands, and frown. “What do you mean?”
“Get changed. Jeans off, sweats on.”
“But… why?”
“You mean apart from the fact I fuckin’ said so?”
“I still have my knife, you know?”
Snickering, he leans back in and steals another kiss. “Please get changed. I wanna show you some stuff, but jeans will annoy you within ten minutes.”
“And this is part of our date?”
“Uh huh. It’s gonna be the best damn date you’ve ever had.”
“Well, obviously, considering this is my first date.”
His breath comes out on a sigh of relief. “Thank god. The pressure is off. This could suck, and it’ll still be the best date you’ve had.” He presses the pad of his thumb to the dimple in my chin, winks, and walks to the office door. “You can change in here. No one will come in, I promise.”
“I’m not wearing a sports bra, Jamie.” I step toward the door. “There is no chance in hell I’m skipping or running or doing any stupid bouncing thing when I’m not wearing the right bra.”
“No skipping,” he promises. “No running. But please get changed.”
Then he steps out of the room and closes the door.
Jamie
The Love of My Life
A man’s heart shouldn’t feel the pressure of a vise when he’s in love, right? It’s supposed to feel nice, comforting and welcome…
Right?
But Cam’s pending departure from town is like a ticking clock above our heads. A week ago, it was a game, a challenge to enjoy our time together and live it with as many laughs as we could cram in. But now it’s a countdown. A guillotine.
It’s a fucking heartbreak waiting to happen.
But it’s date night, so the very moment the office door opens at my back, I replace my scowl with a smile, I push aside the ache in my chest, and instead, welcome that warm blanket of love when Cam steps into the hall in Rollin On Gym sweatpants, and a too-big-shirt, tied at the side to make it fit a little better.
She’s wearing our brand, and knowing that, seeing that, brings a swirling power to my blood.
Uncle Bobby once told us what he felt the first time Aunt Kit wore Rollin On gear. She turned up to a fight wearing our gym brand, and Uncle Bobby would tell us how powerful he felt, how in love, how utterly fucking defenseless he had become, because it was at that point he realized his life no longer mattered to him. Without her, he had nothing. Without her smiles, life wasn’t worth the drudgery of getting out of bed.
Without her to call his own, he wouldn’t even bother to pretend to be okay.
I always rolled my eyes when he told us those stories. Not because I didn’t believe him, and not because I didn’t want the same for myself. But purely because I was a child, and always, every single time, my aunt and uncle would go on to make the googly eyes for each other, and then they’d kiss.
Lots.
For a long time.
And it was my job, as a child, to roll my eyes at such a display.
But now I see it. I feel it. My heart knows it, and fuck anyone that wants to say Cam and I are too young to know about forevers. Eighteen-year-olds don’t find their true love in the middle of a sweaty gym. They don’t spend an eternity together, happiness, utopia, wonder.
Eighteen-year-olds are supposed to have fun, hook up, then go on to find their real forevers.
Sure, maybe that’s a reality for most. But not these eighteen-year-olds. Because when a Kincaid knows what he has, he takes care of it. He devotes his everything to it. He nurtures it. And he ensures that it – she – never loses her smile for the rest of time.
The knot in Cam’s shirt pulls the fabric up a little, showing off a section of her belly and the lines of her abs, which, while not quite a six-pack, are definitely a marker for where her muscles lie beneath. Her hips are trim – dancer hips – though not quite as wide as Livi’s.
“It kinda turns me on to see you in gym merch.” I slide my finger into the waistband of her sweats and tug her closer. “Turn around so I can see the logo on your butt.”
She snorts and lowers her eyes to rest her forehead on my chest. “Who designed this stuff? Because that logo is clearly, purposely drawing the eye.”
“Pretty sure my aunt designed them. It was approved by my uncle when he got to see… but Uncle Bobby didn’t think it through, because then she wore them outside of the house, and he realized all eyes were drawn to her butt, and not just his.”
“Oops.” She wraps her arms around my hips and holds on for an extra hug. “They’re comfy as hell. I’m probably gonna keep these.”
“They’re all yours.” I press a kiss to her hair. “Then you can walk around your town with my name on your ass. Exactly where it should be. Come on.”
I step back, take her hands, and when her eyes come to mine, I gently tug her along the hall until we enter the space where our octagon sits. It’s regulation-size, it’s the same brand of octagon we see on ESPN, just as expensive, just as real.
I walk the long way around the room, snag the stereo remote as we go, and flip the music on so Eminem’s Godzilla hits our ears and brings Cam’s smile back up.
Music – it could be rap, or it could be something sweet and soft – but whatever it is, Cam responds. It’s as natural to her as breathing. Her shoulders drop lower, her hips loosen up, her eyes dance.
“It’s like a drug, huh?”
&nbs
p; She follows me through the room and doesn’t even try to hide the warmth in her cheeks. “The music?” She nods. “It sure feels like it.”
“Ya know, if I was less of a gentleman, I would say something about how you should dance for me.” We stop on the outside of the octagon, move up the steps, and into the cage. “I could say something about sitting on my lap and showing me how you move your hips.”
“And if I was less of a lady, I could tell you to go fuck yourself.” She grins when I turn to her. “But since I’m not, I guess I’ll say… maybe.”
A grunt I swear I didn’t summon reverberates through my chest and down into my cock. Cam could dance for me. She could do what she already does so naturally, but for me. Purely for me. And it would be my hands on her hips. My dick – still zinging from what I didn’t get to finish in the forest – filling, seeping, wanting.
“Alright, Rocky.” Cam releases my hand and stops in the middle of the octagon when I say nothing beyond my grunt. “Please explain to me why we’re inside an octagon right now, when we’re supposed to be on a date.”
“Well…” I tug my hoodie up and over my head. The air in here is cold, but it’ll take only a minute to warm up. I toss the fabric to the fence, and drop the remote on top so it lands with a soft thud. Fixing my shirt, I stand back on the heels of my feet and study this beautiful, exotic, almost cat-like woman, with her sexy eyes, and loud attitude – but without the skills to back it up. “This, my beloved, is our date.” I lift my hands, gesture to the floor under our feet.
Cam’s brows shoot up. “First, what the eff? And second, your beloved?”
I grin. “You can’t fight for shit, and tonight is the very last night we get free time before the tournament. Tomorrow,” I sigh. “I fight, Will fights, everyone fights. And then when that’s all over, you go home, and it’ll be too late.”
“So you think you’re gonna teach me how to fight in one night?” She drops her hands on her hips and lifts a challenging brow. “Really?”
“No,” I admit. “This isn’t something you can learn once and expect to retain. Fighting is a lifestyle, a commitment, a skill you must continue to build on for it to be useful. Not a seventy-two-hour detox tea. But I’m also not gonna send you back to some city where I can’t reach you, where you’ll be working in a store, dealing with other humans, without you having at least a rudimentary education on how to disable a motherfucker if he gets handsy.”