by Shandi Boyes
I give lying a shot. It isn’t something I’m proud of, but when you’re backed into a corner, you must come out swinging. “Our gym was remodeled.”
“With better, more up-to-date equipment,” Saint argues, his smirk growing. “Try again.”
My back molars crunch together, hating that he read my lie so easily. I don’t know why I’m shocked. I’m a shit liar. The knowledge won’t stop me from giving it another whirl, though. You don’t just come out swinging. You’ve got to have your guard up as well. “The owner doubled the membership fees.”
Saint’s deep exhale ruffles the reddish-blond hair stuck to my temples. “From ten dollars a week to twenty. Jeez. How dare he!”
Our family isn’t close to being poor. Our mom works as an architect, and our father is a pilot. We’re not wealthy, but my parents made a sound decision when they invested in Ravenshoe long before a multi-millionaire rocked up to glam up the place. The price tag on our family home is now in the millions, and my parents don’t owe a dime on it.
Their decision many moons ago means their children didn’t have to race out and get jobs the instant they left high school. We all did, though. Landon is following in our father’s footsteps, Caidyn is giving architecture a whirl, Saint has a hand in just about everything, and I’m working even while studying, just the basis of my job is kept on the down-low.
As I said earlier, my parents would never judge my decisions. However, there are some things you can’t share until the time is right.
“We’re here, slumming it in Hopeton because the only pussy around here is you,” Saint continues, directing my focus back to him.
I roll my eyes, acting as immature as my twenty-one years on this earth. “How many times do I have to tell you, Saint? Shunting the blame for your lack of balls onto your baby brother won’t cut the mustard. If you get out a measuring stick and the odds don’t fall in your favor, only you are to blame for that.”
Have you ever wondered what a man looks like in the seconds leading to him going into coronary failure? I had once. I’m not curious anymore. Saint alleviated my curiosity within a nanosecond of me reminding him I’m may be the youngest brother, but that’s the only ‘young’ thing about me.
As the determination on Saint’s face grows, so does the volume of his voice. “You know what, fuck it. I’ll do it.”
“Do what, exactly?” Coach Merritt asks on my behalf, worried Saint is about to finish what I started in this ring almost five minutes ago.
I’d like to see him try.
Saint rips off his gloves, tosses them into his gym bag at the side of the ring, then climbs through the ropes. “I’m going to prove how effective my signature move is.” In a manner no man on the planet should ever replicate, he makes a ‘V’ with his index finger and middle finger, slams them against his quirked lips, then wiggles his tongue between them like he’s devouring an invisible buffet of pussy.
“You’re not going to do that here, surely,” Coach Merritt blubbers out, convinced he’s seconds away from witnessing Saint lift Demi onto the slushie counter at the back of the gym, then go to town on her pussy.
When Saint ignores Coach Merritt’s panicked tone, he shifts on his feet to face me. “Ox…”
My eyes snap to his so fast, my head grows woozier than the anger that fused my brain while considering the possibility of Saint going through with his pledge.
I didn’t think this through. That isn’t uncommon for me. I did the same thing when an MC at an underground fight asked me my name. I am the first to admit I’m not overly good at thinking on the spot, so I went for something easy. Until today, no one has ever shortened my name to Ox. Well, not in this world anyway.
Although I want to ask Coach Merritt exactly how much he knows and for how fucking long he’s known it, I don’t have the time nor the patience to wade through that shitstorm right now. My brother is moments away from calling me out as a liar, and it’s taking everything I have not to pummel his face in for outing me so cruelly.
It’s not every day you encourage your big brother to hit on the girl you’ve been crushing on since primary school, and I had to take it one step further by forcing him to bring out his signature move.
He isn’t going to simply ask Demi on a date. He’s about to ignite a spark between them so furious, no amount of liquid will dose the flame, not even the blood gushing from my bleeding heart. He’s about to make Demi Petretti his, and the bro-code states there isn’t a single-fucking-thing I can do about it.
2
Demi
“Oh, sweet Jesus, here he comes.”
Sloane, my best friend since middle school, fluffs out her curly locks like it’s perfectly acceptable for a man to waltz across the room, weave his fingers through a random stranger’s hair, tilt her back, then kiss the living hell out of her.
Yes, it sounds romantic, but do you have any idea how many lawsuits Saint could face if his flirt radar was off by a measly inch? Unlike Sloane, I’m not studying law, but I imagine the penalty would be hefty—for the average man. I can’t say the same for the men who ‘work’ in my uncle’s industry. They don’t live in the same world as you and me, and they most certainly don’t follow the same set of rules.
When Saint, proverbial playboy and middle sibling of the Walsh brethren, reaches the halfway point, Sloane rams her elbow into my ribs. “Wet your lips. You don’t want the zap to fall through the cracks. If there’s no spark, he’ll retreat as quickly as he arrived.”
“What?” I crank my neck to hers so fast, I make a mental note to book an emergency appointment with a chiropractor. “Why do I need to wet my lips?”
Sloane peers at me like I’m insane. “Saint he-can-fuck-me-any-day-of-the-week Walsh is heading in this direction. We’re the only females on this side of the gym, so either you or I are about to be kissed.”
She tries to hold back the disdain her last sentence hit her throat with. Her efforts are borderline. The last time she looked at me as she is now was when I got the over-hyped Barbie convertible one whole week before her. She didn’t care her birthday was seven days after mine. She wanted us to get it at the same time.
Sloane’s narrowed eyes slant even more when my tongue instinctively delves out to moisten my lips a couple of seconds later. I’m not buttering them up so Saint can authenticate the durability of the spark he’s endeavoring to ignite between us. It’s because my mouth went bone-dry from catching a steely blue stare across the room.
Maddox is watching his older brother’s stalk of the sweat-scented space. Unlike the numerous other gym-goers stalking Saint’s prowl with the hope of witnessing his signature move be slapped back to the nineties with the crack of a palm, he looks more frustrated than hopeful.
It isn’t an expression he often wears, not that I watch him or anything. He’s in the general area I’m perusing, so I can’t be blamed when my eyes linger on the tight bumps in his abs or the beads of sweat rolling throughout his delicious, tattooed guns. He’s flaunting his assets for the world to see, and unlike his brother’s nickname, I am no saint.
The Walshs have been known around this part of the state for almost as long as the Petrettis. They live in the town bordering mine, and although they have standard, everyday jobs, their family name is well-respected amongst the locals.
I can’t say the same about mine.
If you believe the many reports family services have on my family, my uncle stood up to the plate to raise me when my father passed away six years ago. He paid for my education, ensured I had a roof over my head, and he even spoke with the Dean of a local college about granting me a scholarship.
Just like Saint’s signature move, everything appears swell on paper. It’s only once you read between the lines do you see what’s truly happening.
My uncle is an abusive tyrant of a man. He pushed my father to the brink so many times, it was inevitable one day his tiptoe across the rocky cliff he forever balanced on would end badly. No one could help him, not even me,
his only child.
Most children have a mother to fall back on when their father dies. I wasn’t granted the same mercy. With her ‘owner’ dead, and her debt to my uncle unpaid, my uncle forced my mother back into the ‘trade.’ I haven’t seen her in years. In all honesty, I don’t even know if she’s still alive.
Women aren’t valued in my uncle’s industry. More times than not, we’re seen as a burden. If I don’t prove to my uncle time and time again that I’m worth my weight in gold, I’ll be forced into the trade like my mother. Since that scares me more than I’ll ever let my uncle know, I have no choice but to play his games.
My focus shifts back to the present when the undeniable aroma of a man on the hunt streams into my nostrils. Saint has made it across the room unscathed, and unlike his younger brother’s eyes that are locked on me, his baby blues are bouncing between my best friend and me.
It’s wrong to admit a sigh parts my lips when Saint weaves his fingers through Sloane’s hair before he dips her back and attaches their lips, so I’ll keep my mouth shut. I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t want to be kissed by Saint, but things would have been easier if he’d gone against the grain. Alas, life isn’t easy for any of us.
With the crowd feeding off the electricity surging between Sloane and Saint, I almost slip out the back entrance unnoticed. Almost.
“Demi, wait up.”
I recognize the voice of the man chasing me down. I heard it many times throughout my childhood and ignored how it made the fine hairs on my body bristle anytime it floated over my skin. I’ve even taken it in when it’s on the brink of exhaustion from doing an activity someone as handsome as him shouldn’t be doing.
Maddox Walsh is a beautiful canvas on the verge of being wrecked if he doesn’t stop parading himself in front of numerous pairs of fists every Thursday night. From the intel my uncle has shared, Maddox is undefeated in the underground fight circuit he’s been contending in the past seven months, but shouldn’t the prospect that there’s always someone better than you around the corner concern him?
“Hey, did the shouts back there affect your hearing?” Maddox asks after catching up with me. “I’ve been calling your name for half a block.”
I keep my eyes fixated on the street while replying, “Yeah… ah… it was pretty crazy.” I hate lying, but I’m grateful I’ve not yet learned how to lie to someone’s face without stammering. “Sloane will be extremely happy.” Since my last comment is straight-up honest, it’s delivered without the slightest jitter from my vocal cords.
I stupidly drift my eyes from a stream of cars parked down one side of the street to Maddox when he asks, “Are you happy?” He nudges his head to Stamina’s, a boxing gym my uncle ‘claimed’ as his almost four years ago. “Because you looked pretty devastated when Saint locked lips with your friend.”
Hating that he read my disappointment in the wrong manner, I briskly shake my head. “Oh, no, I’m not upset about that.”
Maddox slants his head in a manner that’s much too adorable for a man who’s been able to grow a beard since he was sixteen. “Then what are you upset about?”
Have you ever wanted to confess your heart out like they’ll be no consequences to your actions? That’s what I’m facing right now. I’d give anything to tell him the truth, but since I can’t, I pretend I’m a perfectly stable twenty-one-year-old.
“Did you feel the spark back there?” I hook my thumb over my shoulder. “I just lost my best friend.” My only friend.
My dropped lip lifts into a half-grin when Maddox playfully bumps me with his elbow. “If Saint’s track record is anything to go by, your best friend will need you in T minus…” He checks his watch like he can set a schedule to Saint’s dating calendar. “Six days, twenty-three hours, and fifty-two minutes.”
I’m a horrible person for smiling about the future heartbreak of my best friend, but it can’t be helped. You didn’t hear the wittiness in Maddox’s tone. It truly seems as if he’s happy I noticed the mammoth buzz brewing between Sloane and Saint.
We walk half a block in silence before Maddox breaks the quiet. “Come have a drink with me?”
When I suddenly stop, an old lady with purple curls and a face full of makeup bumps into me. I’m stunned by Maddox’s offer but also psyched about it.
After apologizing to the lady not watching where she’s going, I stammer out. “W-w-what? It’s only Thursday.”
“And?” Maddox asks with a laugh, killing me with his perfectly straight white teeth. His smile is one of the reasons he shouldn’t be in the industry he is. It could convince you that the world is flat and my uncle is a kind man. “That means you have all of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to sleep off your hangover.”
I shouldn’t laugh, but I do. “The fact you think I’ll have a hangover means you don’t really know me at all.”
My eyes lower to his kissable lips when he rakes his teeth over them. “Are you sure about that, Demetria Andria Petretti?”
I slap a hand over his mouth like I didn’t just imagine what his lips taste like. “Who told you my real name?” We went to the same school since the first grade, but not once was my name shared in its entirety.
It’s an effort not to whack Maddox in the stomach when a string of gibberish spills through the cracks in my fingers. If he spoke normal, I’d hear him perfectly fine, but I guess that would mean I would win this round, and the Walshs don’t back down when they’re being haggled.
The air my fist forces out of Maddox’s lungs dries the sweat on my hand. It’s a pity it can’t fix the sweaty mustache forming on my top lip. I’ve known the Walshs for years, but this is the first time I’ve stood across from my crush without one of his siblings chaperoning our interaction. I’m swimming in waters out of my depth, but the fear of drowning won’t harness my interrogation.
“Seriously, Maddox, who told you my name?” My teeth grit when my endeavor to remove the panic from my tone fails. It weakens the chemistry brewing between Maddox and me and switches the sparkle in his eyes from playful to concerned in under a second.
Maddox removes my hand from his mouth, but he doesn’t release it from his grasp. I’m twenty-one-years old. Handholding should no longer affect me, but I’d be a liar if I said zaps of electricity weren’t surging up my arm.
After peering down at our hands long enough to convince me he’s experiencing the same sparks, Maddox confesses, “I overheard it when your uncle was schmoozing the Dean for a scholarship. I go to STEM Academy. They have a first-class understudy program.”
“Oh…” I could say more. I should say more, but I just can’t. I’m too busy seeking the closest hole to bury myself in. I’m skirting the truth like it will give me rabies, yet Maddox is being as honest as it comes. ‘Understudy program’ is what the fighters in the college circuit call the underground fight tournament in this region. “Sorry.”
He flashes me a grin that’s more immoral than decent. It brings back the sexual tension tenfold and has me fighting not to squirm on the spot. “What do you have to be sorry about, Andi?”
I fan my spare hand across his chest, not only announcing that he needs to stop following me but also warning him I don’t appreciate the nickname. Although, the spasm my briefest touch causes his pectoral muscle has me considering permitting him to call me whatever the hell he likes.
Confident he’s gotten the point and needing to remove my hand from his chest before I replace it with my tongue, I tug my hand out of his grip before I continue pacing down the street.
Maddox gets the hint about my dislike of his nickname, but he doesn’t quit following me. “Still not a fan of nicknames, eh?”
He’d understand my continued dislike if he knew the names tossed at me by my uncle’s men. Pet. Kitty. Baby doll. They’re just a few I’ve been hit with the past week, and they’re the only ones I can repeat without vomit scorching my throat. Andi may seem the weaker of them all, but it’s more than capable of destroying me.
Only one
man calls me ‘Andi.’
He doesn’t use it affectionately.
He only brings it out when he wants to maim.
When I increase the length of my strides, eager to place distance between Maddox and me before the wrong person sees us together, Maddox jogs to catch up to me. The length of his strides is almost double mine, so he doesn’t need to jog. He just wants me to know he’s aware of what I’m doing and that he’s refusing to let me get away as easily as he has the past four years.
Stubbornness is another well-known Walsh trait.
We walk for almost two blocks in silence before the quiet gets the better of Maddox for the second time. “Are you not a fan of talking anymore? I could barely get a word in when we were kids.”
“I like talking,” I snap out before I can stop myself. “Just not with you.”
Jesus, Demi. Cut the guy down with an ax, why don’t you.
“Ouch.” His hurt would be more believable if he weren’t chuckling. “Dress me up and call me Shirley, did I just get my first rejection?”
I roll my eyes. It’s the only defense I have to hide my grin. I don’t usually find cocky men endearing, but I’m seeing it in an entirely new light since it’s coming from Maddox. “Let me guess, your middle name is Cocky?”
Smirking, he follows me down Westcott Lane. “Close. It’s Richard.” He hits me with a flirty wink that doubles the stupid smile I shouldn’t be wearing. “You can call me Dick if you’d like?”
I laugh like I have the world at my feet. “So that’s how you operate? I just call you up, and you’ll bring dick right on over.” Oh. My. God. Who the hell am I? I’ve never openly flirted like this before, much less with a man as sinfully hot as Maddox Walsh. “Not that I want your dick or anything.”