Bruiser
A FIGHT NIGHT Romance
By Simone Scarlet
Copyright © 2015 Simone Scarlet
The right of Simone Scarlet to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which in it published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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Chapter One
Ava
“Yo, Mrs. Cassidy!”
With a groan, Ava Cassidy forced one eye open.
Looming above her, hook-nosed and handsome, was her kickboxing instructor, Brandon.
“Mrs. Cassidy,” he repeated, apparently not remotely bothered that one of his clients was lying on the vinyl mats, practically comatose. “You’re good with accounts, right?”
Ava groaned.
That last hour-long class had literally kicked her butt. Her yoga pants and sports bra were plastered to her sweaty body. Her heart threatened to burst as it hammered away inside her chest. Each gasping breath she made had the coppery, metallic taste of blood in it.
“Bookkeeping, y’know?”
And yet despite her impending death, Brandon Broderick was attempting to have a fucking conversation with her.
“B-ookkeeping?” Ava groaned, finally. She accepted the enormous, calloused hand Brandon offered her, and let the big man haul her to her feet. “I used to be a bookkeeper – before the kids, and all that.”
Ava was swaying slightly from side to side, and she honestly worried that she was going to toss her cookies at any second, but Brandon just kept talking.
“I thought you mentioned something about that.” He suddenly stepped in close to her, so the other customers in the karate center wouldn’t hear him. “You mind looking over my books tonight?”
Ava blinked.
Was that a proposition? Or did he really want to her to look at his books?
At nearly 35-years-old, Ava was finding it increasingly difficult to tell these days. On the one hand, Brandon was a young, fit, flirty man – a great big beast, who the other leering moms had nicknamed ‘the Jewish Gerard Butler.’
Part of her was flattered by the idea that he asked her to ‘look over his books’ in the same way leering old men used to invite college girls up to ‘look at their etchings.’
But, on the other hand, Brandon was also a 25-year-old entrepreneur struggling to keep a martial arts center afloat. He might legitimately just need some bookkeeping advice.
“Well?”
Whichever one it was, Ava decided it might be fun to find out. After all, she’d always had a thing for martial arts guys – ever since she’d dated one in college – and Brandon was an intriguing guy.
“Let me drop the kids back home,” she nodded, and then peeled her sports bra away from her large, sweaty breasts. “And maybe have a shower. Then I can come over when my husband’s home with them.”
Brandon’s enormous hand – as big and meaty as a bear’s paw – squeezed her arm. Ava felt an illicit thrill.
“Thanks,” he smiled crookedly. “I’ll get some pizza in. I won’t keep you too late, I promise.” His brown eyes flashed. “I just really need some advice.”
And then he was gone – wheeling around to assemble students for his next class.
Sticky, sweaty and red-faced, Ava watched him go with curiosity. It had been a long time since she’d done any professional bookkeeping – but she had a feeling volunteering her services to this young entrepreneur could be interesting.
Chapter Two
Brandon
It had all started two days earlier.
Brandon Broderick had come to work early that Sunday to catch up on paperwork and escape his parent’s basement. The money he’d once spent on rent was now tied up in this place – BB Martial Arts Center.
He’d picked the name himself.
A nondescript concrete building in a mostly-deserted development, Brandon had taken the karate school over three months earlier, when the former owner had an unfortunate run-in with the IRS.
A martial arts obsessive, Brandon had been a student there for most of his life, and worked there since he was 14. When he’d heard that the last owners had been hauled off in handcuffs, he’d leapt at the chance to keep the center open rather than let it shut its doors after 25 years.
But the problem was; running a business wasn’t as simple as it seemed.
That’s what he’d come to realize, that Sunday morning.
As he ate leftover pizza, and peered through the ledgers the former owners had left, he started to come to a depressing conclusion.
This place was going down. Fast.
He didn’t understand it. The previous owners had always paid their bills. He and the other members of staff there always got their paychecks on time. But according to the cash-flow penciled in the books, there was no way that could have happened.
Maybe he was adding it up wrong. Maybe there was another source of revenue he was missing.
Somehow, he had to be getting this wrong.
Because if he wasn’t, the school was going to be closed and he was going to be bankrupt in a matter of weeks.
Pushing back his chair, Brandon stared up the MMA posters and trophies lined up on the walls and shelves.
He’d pulled these from his parents’ basement when he’d signed the lease for the karate school – all trophies he’d won over the course of a lifetime studying martial arts.
Karate. Taekwondo. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. From four years old, until he went to college, he’d spent more time in a karategi than regular pants.
And these trophies and posters? They were an advertisement to the parents who brought their kids here, and the moms who came for cardio kickboxing class.
He wanted them to know that Brandon Broderick wasn’t just some schmuck who’d stumbled into running a karate school.
He was a two-time MMA youth champion, certified in six martial arts. He’d had a successful career fighting in the octagon, until his parents had made him take his LSATs.
He’d never lost a fight yet – and he was damned if this karate school was going to be his first defeat.
Chapter Three
Ava
The karate center smelled of pizza, and the sounds of the UFC replay echoed across the speakers.
Opening the door gingerly, Ava Cassidy poked her head into the darkened lobby, and called out: “Brandon? Are you here?”
The door to the office swung open.
There, in a t-shirt and shorts, stood Brandon Broderick. Looming and unshaven, he look
ed like somebody had dressed a bear up in people-clothes.
“Mrs. Cassidy!” Padding barefoot across the tiles, he welcomed her. “Thanks so much for coming. It means a lot.”
Ava shrugged, looking around the karate center nervously.
At ten o’clock at night – when the instructors and students had gone home, and the lights were off – the place was strangely eerie. In the main room – where the classes where held – the only light was the flickering reflection of a TV, playing last night’s MMA highlights.
“I can’t stay for long, Brandon,” Ava admitted, as Brandon led her into the office. “Clark’s back at home, but he has to get up at 5am to fly to some convention in Ohio.”
Brandon nodded. “This shouldn’t take long.”
He showed her the cluttered desk of his office. Cold Styrofoam cups of coffee and half-eaten pizza lay alongside stacks of unpaid bills and unopened letters.
In the center of the desk was a leather-bound ledger.
“Those are the books that the previous owner kept,” Brandon explained. “Before they… y’know.”
Ava did know. The husband and wife who’d use to run this place had been led off in handcuffs, after a litany of tax evasion and fraud charges were exposed.
“Okay,” Ava nodded, sitting in the creaking leather seat and pulling the ledger towards her. “What do you want me to do?”
“Tell me what I’m missing,” Brandon explained, looming over the tiny housewife. “I’ve been going over it since Sunday, and I just can’t figure it out.” He pursed his lips. “I don’t see how this place kept running.”
Ava shrugged.
“Give me a minute. I’ll take a look.”
“You want pizza?” Brandon offered her the box. “It’s only a couple of hours old.” Then he jerked his thumb towards the fridge in the corner. “I have some soda in there, too.”
Ava looked up and laughed.
“Honey,” she smirked, rubbing her belly, which she considered round and bloated from popping out two kids. “The last thing I need is pizza.”
Brandon smirked incredulously.
“Whaddya talking about?” He cocked his head on one side. “You look great, Mrs. Cassidy.”
She blushed. Ava hadn’t heard many compliments recently. At a little over five feet tall, she was achingly conscious of every pound she carried; and as she headed the wrong side of thirty, she started to wonder if the looks men gave her were from lust, or pity.
“You look like the chick from the Matrix,” Brandon grabbed himself a slice of cold pizza and began chewing. “Not the weird-looking one. The French one. Monica Belluci.”
Ava blushed again.
“Anyway,” and then, as if he’d done nothing more significant than comment on the weather, Brandon just kept talking. “What do those books say, Mrs. Cassidy.”
“Please,” Ava licked her finger and flicked through the pages. “Call me Ava. You make me feel like an old woman when you call me Mrs. Cassidy.”
Brandon shrugged.
His silence wasn’t an issue. As Ava sunk her attention into the ledger, it started siphoning all her attention.
She did the calculations in her head. Then she grabbed her cellphone and did them on a calculator as well.
Finally, looking up, she asked Brandon, “What did you say the issue was?”
“It’s the figures, Mrs…. I mean, Ava.” He perched himself on the corner of the desk. “No matter how many times I add them up, I can’t make them work. To me, it’s like this school is losing $3,000 every month.”
Ava’s eyes narrowed. She reached out and squeezed Brandon’s hand.
“That’s because you are, honey.”
Chapter Four
Brandon
“Look, I’ll admit I didn’t read the small print when I took this place over,” Brandon admitted, as he and Ava sat on the vinyl mats, in the darkness of the karate studio.
He sighed.
“They’d never been late with the rent check. We always got paid on time. I assumed the place was making money.”
With a growl, the big man turned his head and looked down at Ava.
He’d known Ava Cassidy for two years now – ever since she’d signed her kids up for karate. He’d always liked her – she was the cute, goofy mom who cracked jokes with him, and brought him leftover pizza. But until tonight, he’d never really given her much thought.
Now, with her revelation about the karate school’s finances, he was hanging off her every word.
“Listen,” Ava explained, reaching over to pat Brandon’s knee. “It’s not your fault.”
Brandon shivered, as he felt the skin of her palm against his bare leg.
“I could be wrong,” Ava continued, “but the way I figure it, the previous owners wanted this place to lose money.”
“I don’t get it,” Brandon growled. “Why would they want to lose money?”
“They went away for tax fraud, right?”
Brandon nodded.
“People who are trying to screw the government will often pull shit like this,” Ava sighed. “They have a bunch of businesses making money, so they buy one that’s losing it. Then they can filter the expenses through cash, and claim the loss against their taxes. They end up making far more than they lose.”
Brandon blinked.
“So – you’re telling me this karate school was a tax write-off?”
Ava shrugged.
Brandon put his head in his hands.
“So… What do I do?” Turning to Ava, he sighed. “I sunk my savings into this place. It’s my life.”
Ava pursed her lips.
“How much do you charge per student?”
“Which ones? Kids? Adults?”
“Either.”
“I dunno,” Brandon shrugged. “A hundred bucks a month, on average.”
“So,” Ava shrugged, “you need to sign up another thirty students. Just to break even.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“But if I read those ledgers right,” Ava warned, “you’ve only got until the end of next month to do it.”
“And I owe on the rent and utilities,” the big man sighed. “And I’m late with this month’s rent as it is.” He shook his head. “Man, what am I going to do?”
Ava sighed.
“You’re a smart, young guy. You’ll do okay if this place goes under. It wasn’t your fault.”
Eyes burning intently, Brandon turned to her. Ava actually shivered at the intensity of his gaze.
“I’ll be fine,” he growled. “It’s the people who train here that I’m worried about.”
Ava laughed nervously.
“That’s sweet, but we’ll do okay. There’s a Tiger Schulmann’s opposite the mall.”
“Oh, you’ll do fine,” Brandon nodded, and there was something slightly venomous in the way that he said it. “But what about the others?”
Chapter Five
Ava
“Others?” Ava demanded.
“A couple of years ago,” Brandon explained, “when the owners promoted me to start managing this place, I offered classes for special needs kids and at-risk groups. I offered them for free - we get kids bussed in from Trenton, and everything.”
Ava blinked. She’d vaguely been aware of his special classes, but didn’t realize they were that big.
“Last year? One of the kid’s parents even came up and hugged me,” the burly karate instructor continued. “Said my classes had kept her kid out of trouble and getting into fights. Her boy actually moved up a grade because of the discipline I’d taught him.”
Brandon sighed.
“I’ve been making a difference, y’know? Giving something back. And now all that’s going to go away.”
Ava sat there in silence, looking at Brandon’s flat, handsome face. She could have sworn tears were welling in his eyes.
“I-I had no idea,” she breathed.
Brandon reached over and squeezed Ava’s hand. She shudde
red at the feeling of his hot, calloused palm curling around her fingers.
“It’s not me I’m letting down,” he breathed. “It’s them.”
And looking deep into his eyes, Ava could see that Brandon meant it.
For a moment, they stared into each other’s eyes. Ava felt herself shiver at the intensity of it.
Then she coughed, and pulled her hand away, and pretended to look at the time on a wrist watch she wasn’t even wearing.
Hauling herself to her feet, the curvy mom started making for the door.
“It’s way later than I should have stayed out,” Ava explained, as she grabbed her bag and coat. “Clark will be worried about me.”
Brandon hauled himself up from the floor. He followed her to the front door.
“I’m sorry to lay this on you,” the big man sighed, unbolting the locks, and swinging open the glass doorway onto the parking lot outside. “I-It’s just a lot for me to deal with.”
Ava paused.
She looked up at the towering karate instructor – more than a foot taller than her diminutive 4’11”. He was a beast of a man – with those hulking shoulders, and hooked boxer’s nose, and brown eyes burning beneath a craggy brow.
But right then? He looked as lost and as helpless as a little boy.
Instinctively, she hugged him.
Chapter Six
Brandon
Ava wrapped her arms around Brandon’s massive waist, and pressed her head against his t-shirt-clad chest. He smelled of sweat and man-musk. It was exhilarating.
And Brandon squeezed her back – crushing her in his bear-like arms.
For a moment, they stayed like that, drinking in the feel of each other’s bodies. And then Ava looked up, into Brandon’s flat, rugged face.
He looked down at her, and her wide, brown eyes.
And then he moved to kiss her.
“Whoa!”
Ava stumbled back, pushing herself out of his bear-like hug.
Bruiser: A Lonely Housewife Embarks on a Passionate Affair with an Alpha Male MMA Fighter Page 1