Luke (A Cocky Cage Fighter Novel Book 8)
Page 15
Chapter Twenty-Five
Megan
“Hey, Nancy,” I say in greeting when Lennox and I walk through the Campbells' front door.
“Hi, there! How’s our boy?” she asks, opening her arms for Lennox, who runs over and gives her a hug. He’s clearly gotten comfortable with Luke’s parents these last few weeks.
“Hungry,” Lennox tells her with a pout, making me laugh.
“Oh, jeez. He just had a peanut butter sandwich, apple, and yogurt an hour ago,” I tell her, so she won’t think I’m starving him.
“Well, he’s just a growing boy who needs lots of fuel if he’s gonna be as big as his father,” she says with a smile.
“I wanna be as big as Uncle Luke,” Lennox tells her.
“And I bet you will if you eat your veggies,” Nancy says as she leads him to the kitchen. “Come on, and I’ll fix you a plate.”
“Bye, sweetie. See you in the morning,” I yell out since Lennox doesn’t seem the least bit concerned about staying overnight.
When I turn around to set his backpack on the sofa, Luke’s dad is standing there in the living room and says, “Here, I’ll take that from you.”
“Thanks,” I tell him when I hand it over. “Just give me a call if he gets upset and wants to come home, but I think he’ll be fine.”
“Luke came to see me today,” Phillip says, suddenly jumping topics.
“Oh?” I ask.
“Since he’s been avoiding me for weeks, I assumed he had learned the truth. I thought we had a deal,” he says to me quietly with a frown.
“We did, and I didn’t tell him,” I assure him.
“Then how did he find out?” he asks.
“Nate. He, um, knew details about Eli and me, so…”
“Isn’t that convenient for you,” Phillip says. “Now he’s staying at your place.”
“I shouldn’t have lied to Luke. Honestly, I’m not sure if he’ll ever forgive me. However angry he is at you, he’s a hundred times more furious with me,” I explain, and then it dawns on me what this conversation is really about. “Do you want your money back?” I ask Phillip point blank.
“No. Keeping a roof over my grandson’s head and food on the table is the least we can do,” he says, which makes me angry as hell since he’s implying I can’t take care of my own son.
“You know what, we don’t really need your money,” I tell him. “In fact, hold on one second,” I say before walking out the front door to my car and digging through my purse to find the check he gave me weeks ago, and I have yet to cash. Taking the money didn’t feel right at the time, but I knew I also had a son to think about. If I accepted, it would be for Lennox, but now that Luke knows the truth, his father can keep his money.
On the way back inside, I start tearing the check up until it’s nothing but a bunch of little pieces.
“Here you go,” I say to Phillip as I hand the shredded check over to him. Several pieces float to the floor, but I’m too upset to bother being polite and picking them up. “We don’t need your money, especially since Luke’s paid up Lennox’s daycare for the next several months.”
“How did he do that? Use money from his piggy bank?” his dad asks condescendingly.
“I’m not sure, but I know Luke; and if our son needs something, he’ll make sure he has it,” I tell him before I storm out the door.
…
Luke
“So how is this gonna go tonight?” I quietly ask Vaughan as I warm up in the locker room of his rundown gym. Tonight the front of the warehouse is packed tight with foldout chairs all facing the boxing ring that will serve as our makeshift cage, with the equipment shoved back against the walls.
When Vaughan holds up one finger, my shoulders slump in disappointment.
“Ah, come on,” I whine. “Let’s at least give them all a good show.”
Glaring at me, Vaughan shakes his head.
“KO?” I ask quietly. Another shake of his head has me groaning to the ceiling. “Submission? Seriously?”
His quick nod is my only response.
Fuck.
Tapping out is the pussiest way to go out in the first round. It means you were stupid enough to let yourself get in a compromising position from the word go. The only time I’ve ever tapped out was in the team tournament, right before my leg was about to get ripped off in the third round. I hated tapping then, and I sure as hell won’t enjoy it this time either.
Nothing else to be done now if I want to get paid, so I follow Vaughan out to the front, surprised to see most of those chairs they pulled out are full of people tonight. Great, I’ll be humiliating myself in front of all of them.
Seeing the tatted up asshole smirking at me in the ring while cracking his knuckles makes my blood pound with the desire to punch the smile off his arrogant fucking face.
I’m not sure if I can keep this up, losing fights I know I can win, and ruining my reputation as a Havoc fighter in the process. But at the same time, it feels good to actually earn my own money. Money I can use to care for my son, take him fun places on the weekends, and buy him his first Christmas presents from me in a few months. I also want to prove to my father and Meg that she can count on me to take care of them both.
When I duck underneath the ropes and climb in the ring, the ref has to put a hand on Cain’s chest when he tries to advance on me. This angry dickhead really needs to have some humility beat into him. Tonight won’t be the night I get to do it, though.
“Fighters ready?” the ref asks, and we both nod. I get my hands up in front of my face, knowing I’m about to get plowed over by a rage filled bull with about as much sense as the actual cattle.
“Fight!”
Cain charges me as I expected, but I easily sidestep him and then land a fist to the back of his hard head. Vaughan said I had to tap in the first round, but he didn’t say I couldn’t get in a few good shots on the prick before that.
My countermove clearly pisses Cain off, because he spins around and comes at me even harder. When I try to sweep his legs out from under him, he’s prepared for it, unlike the first time we fought in here a few weeks ago. While he’s worried about dodging my feet, I land a right hook to his face and a left jab to his stomach, causing him to fold up. Even though I would keep right on hurting him in a real fight, I back away and give him a few seconds to recover.
The next time he comes at me, we end up in a clinch, trying to take each other down. Time is probably running out, so I lift my right knee to ram it in his already injured stomach, which makes it easy for Cain to knock me off my left leg. Once we’re on the ground, me on my back with him on top of me, he starts punching my face over and over while all I can do is try to block.
Shit.
I can’t tap out like this. So what do I do? The one thing our coaches always tell us never to do. I flip myself over, giving him my back. And of course, he goes straight for the rear-naked chokehold since I’ve practically served it up to him on a silver platter. I make a half-hearted attempt to pull his arm away from the front of my throat, and when the warehouse starts to darken, I tap my gloved palm three rapid times on his arm.
The fucker doesn’t let go.
And either the ref seen it and ignored my pussy sign of submission or he missed it. I try again to tap out as more of my oxygen is quickly depleted but the next thing I know, I’m falling headfirst into the darkness.
…
“Luke. Luke!” someone calls my name and slaps at my face, but I’m so fucking tired. It feels like I just went to bed and my alarm is already going off five minutes later.
I try to raise my arm to bat the annoying person away from me, but my limbs are too weak.
Jesus. What the fuck did I get into last night?
“Luke!” the same dude yells my name again; and then cold water hits my face, making me gasp. As my eyes blink open, I cringe at the blinding brightness, and other noises begin filtering into my hazy mind. Cheering? Clapping?
Oh shit.
Finally, the blood returns to my head, and the rest of my body starts following my commands. The most prominent thought on my mind is that Cain is gonna pay for this. Somehow, someway, one of these days I’m gonna beat his ass!
Vaughan and the ref help me to my feet, and I avoid looking at the arrogant bastard on the other side of the ref as his arm is raised as the winner.
Glad that this whole ordeal is officially over, I grab a bottle of water and drain it while I stumble my way through the crowd to the locker room. I lose count of how many people tell me I suck or call me a pussy. They’re right, of course; no arguing that now.
Hoping a cool shower will help me shake off the fuzzy effects of temporary unconsciousness, I grab my towel, body wash, and shampoo from my duffle and head for one of the stalls.
Afterward, I’m more awake and alert, but the anger seems to be growing rather than abating from this horribly hellish day. While I’m getting dressed, I pull out my phone and see two text messages from Meg asking where I am and if I’m coming over, that Lennox is staying overnight with my parents.
Ignoring her since I’m not in the right state of mind to be around Meg until I work off some of this rage, I see that it’s just a little after nine o’clock. Maybe some of the guys are still at Havoc this late on a Friday night. Okay, so maybe some of the single guys are still hanging around. I know Senn, Trick, Jude, and Nate probably have gone home to their women, but maybe Alex is around.
While I’m sending him a text message asking as much, I hear the locker room door open. I look up, expecting to see Vaughan coming to pay me, and I’m annoyed to see it’s Cain instead, that stupid smirk still on his face.
“Sleep good, pussy?” he asks, but I ignore him and finish sending my text. “Aww, are you butthurt that you couldn’t last a single round against me in a real fight?”
“It wasn’t a real fight,” I mutter as I toss my phone in my duffle and zip it up, ready to leave.
“No, it was too one-sided to be called a fight. Easiest win of my life,” Cain gloats as he swaggers closer. “Now that you’ve lost against Ivan and me, it’s probably time to stop embarrassing yourself and call it quits.”
“Tell yourself whatever you want, but you know that I could take you any day in a fair fight,” I reply as I stand up and get in his face, only inches separating us. “Remember how fast you went down the other day? I would’ve knocked your ass out in another thirty seconds.”
“Bullshit,” Cain sneers, giving me a shove to my chest that pushes me backward into the bench. “It’s time for you to go crawling back to Havoc with the rest of those cocksuckers. Rumor has it that shit also runs in your family –”
That’s the last word the asshole gets out of his mouth before I nail him in it. I might have been able to hold my temper for having to lose to him; but as soon as he insulted Eli, he was done.
Cain gets in a few hits to my face too, but not with the same brute force as my punches. Blood gushes from a gash over his eye and his nose that is likely broken, and yet I keep hitting him until someone comes in and pulls me off of him. The other fighters I notice are Ivan and two other guys who are holding me back. None of them say a word; they just look at me with shock-filled eyes and gaping mouths and then back to Cain, who lies bloody and unmoving on the ground.
Jerking out of their hold, my hands are still shaking with adrenaline when I grab my duffle up and storm out the door, blood still on my hands and shirt, some of it my own from my busted knuckles and the rest Cain’s.
Once Vaughan hands over the money I earned on the way out, I still need to release the rest of the pent-up rage, so I get in my car and drive over to Havoc.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Megan
After I drop Lennox off with Nancy and Phillip, I don’t go straight home. The confrontation with Phillip reminds me that there’s someone I’ve put off talking to for long enough.
Assuming I’ll find him at the church, I park in front of the enormous brick structure. Inside I go through the United Methodist Church’s sanctuary before taking a left to go down the hall where my dad’s office used to be located. Thankfully, everything is still the same, and I find him sitting behind his oak desk. He has the Bible open in front of him while he takes notes on a legal pad, preparing for Sunday’s sermon. After four years he looks oddly the same, other than the thinning of his red hair on top, only noticeable because of his bent head.
“What’s the sermon on?” I ask, causing his head to snap up. “Let me guess. Forgiveness?”
My father’s jade eyes widen a moment in recognition before they lower again to the book before him like I’m not worthy of his attention.
“Why are you here?” he asks callously, sounding mostly annoyed.
“Why don’t you give a shit about your grandson?” I reply, predicting his cringe thanks to the curse word that I was forbidden to use growing up.
“A bastard child born out of wedlock may be one of the Lord’s children but he’s no grandson of mine,” my father responds.
“Oh my God,” I mutter in astonishment. “Lennox is a beautiful and sweet angel who was a gift sent to us from the man above himself and that’s not good enough for you!”
“I don’t want any part of you or him, and neither does your mother,” my father says.
“Right, because Mom’s not entitled to her own opinions unless they’re yours.”
“You need to leave,” my father finally looks up and tells me, a glare on his face probably because he’s worried that I’m tainting his holy ground with all my sins.
“Fine, I just want to know one thing,” I reply, crossing my arms over my chest to try and keep my heart from racing out of it. “Did Luke come looking for me after I went to live with Pattie?”
“Possibly. Why?” he asks, so quickly and without thinking about it that I know Luke did, in fact, try and find out where I was.
“Why didn’t you just give him her phone number or her address?” I prod.
“There was no reason for the Campbells’ good Christian boy to be tainted by you.”
“Right, of course,” I say sarcastically. “Especially not after all the tainting I did to Luke when I fucked him under your roof, you know, the same night I got pregnant with your bastard grandson.”
Just as I expected, my father’s face turns an unhealthy shade of red from my admission or from my use of the f-word. Probably the combination. Either way, it’s all I wanted, to confront him and let him see that I’m no longer the cowardly girl I was the day he hung up on me when I told him my life-changing news. He wanted to pretend I was a saint until they shipped me off to Phoenix and my aunt let me run wild. I wanted him to know the truth.
He’s not the perfect father he thinks he is, and I’m officially done thinking about how much he hurt me.
…
When I get home, I shower and get ready to put Operation Seduce Luke into action, feeling lighter, freer after the confrontation with my father and giving Luke’s dad his money back. I curl my long hair in big spirals, put on my makeup heavier than usual; and instead of pajamas, I break out a lavender halter top dress with a plunging neckline and a short hem that hugs my thighs about two inches below my ass cheeks. I pair it with a matching thong and black strappy heels and then spritz a little Love Spell by Victoria's Secret on.
Glancing at myself in the bathroom mirror, I’m pretty sure my whole look screams “easy”, which is exactly what I was going for. Regardless of what my family says, there’s nothing wrong with having sex. Abstinence may be great in theory but it’s naïve to think teenagers won’t ever give in to temptation. When they do, it’s best to make sure they’re educated on safe sex rather than just giving them a guilt trip.
I’m no longer a teenager. I’m a single woman who wants to have sex w
ith a man.
And as much as I like sucking Luke’s cock, enough is enough. He can keep hating me while he finally fucks me for the first time since Lennox was conceived. I know it won’t be nice and easy, but that’s okay. I want it hard and rough, just like I deserve. The idea of slow and sweet is no longer plausible with Luke; I get that, so I’ll take whatever he’ll give me.
After I’m ready, I sit my ass down on the sofa and alternate between watching the clock and the front door. Eight-thirty rolls around and then nine-thirty.
Where the hell is he? With another woman? Still at the gym? When he doesn’t respond to any of my texts, I decide that maybe it’s time to go look for him. Tonight’s the only night we’ll have alone for a while, and I want to make the most of it.
Grabbing my phone, purse, and keys, I make the short trip to Havoc, relieved to find Luke’s orange Mustang parked in the nearly empty gym lot. Only one other blue truck is here, so it’s obvious they’re closing soon or Luke’s staying after hours. Grabbing my purse, I toss my keys inside and head to the front door where I run into a fighter coming out.
The one fighter I could happily go my entire life and never, ever see again.
“Nate,” I say in surprise as he holds the door open for me.
The red-headed man’s eyes narrow at me in a quick examination before they widen in recognition. And dear God, how did I not ever notice before that I’m the female version of Nate? Damn you, Eli. Why didn’t you just tell me?
Jeez, this is so embarrassing, to be face to face with my former boyfriend’s lover.
“Megan?” Nate eventually asks.
“Yep,” I answer.
“Well, isn’t this awkward?” he mutters, echoing my thoughts. “Are you here for Luke?”
“Yeah, I am,” I say.
“He’s in the cage with Alex. You can go on in,” he offers, holding the door wider.
“Thanks,” I say courteously, even though what I want to say is anything but polite. He knew, Nate knew Eli and I had been together for years. The three of us went to dinner often and hung out plenty of times. I should’ve realized what was going on between them, but Nate knew the whole time that Eli was keeping this gigantic secret from me.