“She’s harmless, Coach.” Mouse took off his cap and scratched his head.
Quin had to put Josie down or risk dropping her. He still held on to her hand though she strained to reach the puppy. The puppy, in turn, seemed to realize that this little human was puppy-sized and crept as far as the lead would allow it toward Josie.
The puppy was a little on the skinny side. It kept ducking its head in a timid kind of way. Mouse gave the dog a little more line and she crept closer to Josie so that she could lick the little girl’s fingers. The dog’s long, whiplike tail slashed through the air, wiggling her whole body.
Josie pulled out of his grasp and threw her little arms around the dog’s neck, giggling as the puppy turned to lick and slobber her. “Can we keep her, Daddy?”
He groaned. “Damn it, Mouse.” He hoisted the bag of Josie’s things higher on his shoulder. “No, Lady Bug, this is Mouse’s dog.”
“You can pet her though.”
“Daddy, I want a puppy, please?” She blinked her baby blues at him and damn if he didn’t want to get her ten puppies.
This was a nightmare. Penny would not allow a dog. She’d stated in no uncertain terms early on that they weren’t ever going to entertain the idea of a dog. Ever.
“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Why don’t you tell the puppy bye-bye and we’ll go have lunch?”
“Aw, bye-bye, puppy.”
He sighed and watched Josie hug the wiggling dog and stick out her bottom lip. Jesus, where did she get this from? Penny didn’t act like that, so was this from his side of the family? He pitied the men who would meet her someday. They were all doomed. “Let’s go eat.”
It took less than fifteen minutes for Josie to take over his office. Quin had to resort to making Josie sit on his desk so she would eat her lunch.
Josie crawled from the desk into his lap and leaned against his chest.
“You tired, Lady Bug?”
She nodded.
“Do you want me to take you home?” If she did he wouldn’t blame her. It wasn’t as if he was going to do anything exciting the rest of the day. He had training again late this afternoon and work that had to be done.
Josie shook her head and squeezed him. “Stay with you.”
What did he say to that? She snuggled in closer and he knew in a matter of moments she’d be asleep, and he didn’t care. This was a pretty good day.
Chapter Nine
Koi Fish—These tattoos are all about placement. The fish itself symbolizes courage and the ability to attain goals and overcome difficulties. Koi depicted swimming upstream denotes the individual still struggling with their problem. If Koi are swimming downstream, the person has overcome their difficulties.
Kellie pulled into the parking lot that had once belonged to her family. The warehouse turned gym had undergone a complete facelift. A zen garden of succulent plants decorated the area around the marquee. The sun glinted off a small pond, partially shaded by young bonsai trees. The exterior no longer sported chipped and peeling paint. A medium blue blanketed the building, giving it a contemporary feel. A large sign in silver, black and white proclaimed it Arena Fitness.
She squinted at the sign. Had someone told her the new name? It was the only reason she could think of for why it would sound familiar.
“Cho Hee.”
Turning toward the voice, she shrugged away the mystery of the gym name. In the long run, it didn’t matter.
“Hey.” She pushed her sunglasses down to shield her face.
Jacob moseyed toward her, sporting a t-shirt with the gym logo on it with the sleeves cut off and sweatpants. The shirt looked really familiar. Kellie had babysat Jacob and his siblings before she’d gone to college. It was still weird thinking of the thin, athletic boy as the muscular young man he’d become.
Together they turned and began walking toward the glass double doors.
“So— What is that?” She stopped a few feet away from the door and stared hard at the wall. Part of it looked as if it had been painted recently, but she could still make out the curling script under the paint.
Jacob stepped past her and held the door open. “Someone tagged the building.”
She ignored him and shoved the sunglasses up on her head to peer at the words better. There had been a day when this would have been unthinkable. How far the world had fallen.
“Any idea who did it?”
Jacob sighed. “There’s another gym owner named Greg. They think either he did it, or the fighters that train with him got drunk and did it. No one really knows.”
“That’s a real grown-up thing to do. Here, let me piss on your toys.” She rolled her eyes, but sadly understood the mentality far too well. When they’d opened So Inked on Greenville Avenue there had been two other tattoo shops and a lot of nonsense until one of their competitors went out of business. It was the way of things, but she didn’t have to like it.
A slim blonde woman walked past her and flashed a smile at Jacob, who held the door for her. Kellie waited until she’d entered the gym to step inside.
Though the building had housed her grandfather’s gym, the gym she stepped into was not the same one, in design or layout. Instead of the boxed-off reception area, the walls had been knocked out. Beyond the reception desk, rows of workout equipment and lightweight-training gear were there to satisfy the casual patron’s interest. Beyond that, mats and punching bags and the newly installed octagon ring defined what was different about this gym. Especially to her.
Kellie leaned against the wall to keep herself upright. She hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself a year ago, but the gym had been in serious disrepair. The floor mats had been the same since she was a child and the décor dated back to the seventies, but it had been her second home.
When the gym had opened, a sparring mat had taken center focus, since ultimately the gym had begun as a place to teach first-generation Korean children martial arts and discipline. The equipment had come later as they diversified, but at heart, the gym had always drawn from its heritage. That was gone now.
She’d thought the change in ownership didn’t bother her, but looking at it, she realized she missed what the gym had been. Knowing it was a good move didn’t make it better.
Jacob stood silently beside her, occasionally taking a pull of water from a bottle he carried.
She cleared her throat. “How is business going here?”
He studied a poster instead of looking at her. “Things are going well. The new owner is good.”
“Show me around?”
Jacob began talking about the new equipment, pointing out the differences between a typical gym and what had been brought in to fit the specifications of the fighters. He waved to several men in various stages of working out, most of whom sported gym t-shirts like his.
“The owner is still trying to get some of the teachers from before to come on here. There’s a dedicated staff of coaches and trainers. A lot of the guys also double as personal trainers, but the customer pool isn’t that big yet. Most of the fighters are guys he brought here, so they don’t have clients they can bring.”
“It’s nice. It’s not the gym I remember, but it’s nice.”
“Yeah.”
She heard Jacob talking, but his voice faded to a buzz. Across the gym, on the main mat behind the punching bags, Quin lifted his mouth from the face of the blonde woman who’d passed them. He went down on one knee and snatched a little girl with wild curls against his chest in a hug. She squirmed with her back at his chest, grin splitting her face and she had the bluest eyes. The same color blue as Quin’s.
That couldn’t be his child.
He shouldn’t be here. He worked… Where did he work?
There was an air of familiarity between the three. Watching them, it felt as if someone had sucker punched her in the ovaries.
“Kellie?” Jacob put a hand on her shoulder.
She shrugged off his touch and stalked along the wall.
He’d told
her he wasn’t seeing anyone, hadn’t he? Or had she told herself that to feel better? They’d had an arrangement, an agreement that had grown into friendship, on her side at least. To find he had a family, that he was with someone else—it sickened her. Maybe they were estranged. It would explain the large house, all the room for their family to grow. What had she been? A diversion?
Quin must have felt her gaze. He glanced up, down at the child and then his head snapped back to her. His blue eyes widened.
Oh yeah, I caught you, you two-timing fucker.
She crossed her arms over her chest and glared. Pissed she might be, but she would not sink so low as to come between him and his family. She was no home wrecker.
Quin rose, one hand on the little girl’s head, and spoke to the woman. She laughed at whatever he said and wrapped her arms around his neck. He dwarfed her, accentuating her delicate figure and model-type physique.
The dissimilarities between the blonde who had to be the child’s mother and Kellie could not be more pronounced. Kellie was tall, the blonde was short. Kellie was athletic, the blonde was petite. Kellie’s boobs were each the size of her head, the blonde had demure little apple-sized breasts. What was Quin doing fucking her instead of his blonde bimbo?
Kellie watched, her world slowing to the brush of blondie’s lips against her man’s cheek. No, Quin wasn’t her man. He was a guy she’d screwed out of desperation, but not again. She wasn’t that kind of woman.
Quin walked the two to the edge of the mat, the little girl twisting around to wave at him. Kellie could read the child’s parting words of “Bye, Daddy, I love you” clear as day. She continued to watch Quin watching his retreating family.
Did he still feel her gaze on him? Was he aware of the can of whoop ass she was going to open up on him? Because no one used her.
Slowly he turned toward her, one hand rubbing his jaw while the other perched on his hip. He looked straight at her, his brow creased, lines of worry bracketing his mouth.
She didn’t wait for him to come to her. She stalked across the mat to him and stopped before she could ram her fist into his face. Maybe his jugular if she didn’t feel like seeing him pick himself up again.
“Kellie, I know what this looks like—”
“What this looks like?” she asked with deadly calm. The sounds of metal clanking against metal faded, drowned out by the blood rushing past her ears.
“Just calm down.”
She ground her teeth together. Calm down?
“It’s over between Penny and me.”
“You should have been honest with me.”
It hurt to think that this man she’d so easily trusted with her body was not who he seemed to be. If she wanted to blame someone, it should be her. She could have been more discerning and careful.
He stepped toward her, crowding into her personal space and grabbing her elbow. “I was going to tell you I bought the gym, but I didn’t know how. Come to my office.”
She automatically glanced toward the office she’d played in as a child, where her grandfather had proudly displayed pictures of every student that attained a black belt at the gym. It was too much. Between the changes, Quin’s blatant display of affection for another woman and now learning he was the new owner, she was close to a tipping point. She felt the precipice, one that would be too easy to step off and plunge into something deep and dark. She’d always been aggressive, it was why she’d first begun martial arts, to keep herself in check. It was also why she’d begun to spar and fool around with mixed martial arts. She liked the strive for domination.
Now she just felt dangerous. A woman pushed too far, stretched too thin and deceived.
“I don’t fucking care. Fuck you, Quin.” She jerked out of his grasp and stepped around him.
She didn’t need the gym.
She didn’t need him.
His hand closed around her elbow again and he pulled her back. So if she wasn’t going to listen to him, he’d manhandle her?
“Let go of me.”
“No, listen to me.”
Grasping his wrist, she turned and twisted, breaking his hold and wrenching his arm around and behind him. He pulled out of her hands by sheer strength alone and pivoted, a scowl on his face.
“Kellie—”
“Fuck you, asshole.”
“Talk to me, damn it.”
“I’m not interested in what you have to say.”
She backed away one step, then another. Their gazes locked, two dominant personalities striving against each other. He wanted to bring her to heel, and she’d be dead before she’d obey him.
Turning toward the doors, she saw him move out of the corner of her eye. Felt his grasp on her wrist. She growled deep in her throat. He wanted a piece of her? She’d give it to him. Throwing her weight back against his chest, she turned and brought her elbow up, cracking it against his cheek bone, or maybe his brow. A sharp stab of pain shot out from the nerves in her joint, but it felt good. Pain through the haze of stomach-churning anger was welcome.
Quin released her, his hands going to his face. Drops of red seeped between his fingers. She didn’t relish the sight of blood, but maybe now he’d feel some of what she felt.
Free to leave, she stalked out of the gym, aware of every eye on her as she left. But she exited with her head held up and not a drop of remorse in her veins.
* * * * *
Quin tapped his hands on the steering wheel to the beat of the music without paying attention to it. His focus was on the entrance to the alley. He didn’t know whether Kellie worked today, but if she did, he’d catch her before she went into the building. His ass was sore from sitting in one place for so long, but he wasn’t giving up his vigil.
His phone blared to life, startling him for a moment before he snatched the device up from the console. He didn’t recognize the number, but he answered it anyway.
“Quin speaking.”
“Quinton Berkus?”
“This is him.”
“Hello, I’m the organizer for the DFW MMA match we’re going to have in two weeks. We’ve selected Mike for one of the bouts. Does he still want to compete?”
Quin lodged the phone between his shoulder and ear, groping for the notepad and pen he’d stashed in the console. “Yeah, that’s fantastic. Let me grab something to write with real quick.”
He furiously jotted down the details and gave the organizer the number of his administrator at the gym, who also theoretically would handle the paperwork for the fighters.
Take that, Greg.
Quin hung up the phone totally pumped. In two weeks he’d get to debut his fighter, with his gym represented in the octagon. Local people would be there, and if he could get promo together, maybe he could pick up some fresh blood and more clients.
Glancing toward the back of the tattoo shop, he did a double take. Kellie’s Scion Cube sat parked in a spot that had been empty a few moments prior.
He snapped the button on his seat belt and climbed out of the truck. He’d finally had a bit of good news tossed his way, and it was time to face down the only woman he’d met who could go toe-to-toe with him. He brushed his fingers across his forehead and the new stitches. He’d bled like a stuck pig when she elbowed him, but it hadn’t hurt until after. Even then it hadn’t been his stitches that hurt.
He’d misled Kellie intentionally. Not about Penny, though he understood how it must have appeared to her.
The sun-soaked asphalt cooked straight through the soles of his shoes as he crossed the alley. There weren’t any other cars parked in the spots marked So Inked, and the back door was slightly ajar. Frowning, he slowly pulled the door open. Kellie needed to be more careful with her safety. Anyone could walk in, as he was about to prove.
He stepped into the hallway and the low, pulsing tones of some electronic rock band wrapped around him. The hall was dark, the shop lights were off. The only illumination came from the front windows and the square of fluorescent light coming from the office.
He paused to allow his eyes to adjust before moving into the doorway and setting his shoulder against the doorjamb.
Kellie sat with her back toward him, a flat screen computer monitor booting up and makeup spread out over the desk. A pedestal mirror sat within arm’s reach, but she didn’t seem to have made use of it yet. She selected a dark-blue tube and tapped it against her hand. Her sigh slid through the music to his ears, sounding tired.
He’d hurt her and she’d hurt him. He didn’t consider them even, not yet. His transgressions were worse than hers. On one hand, it felt good to have his secret out in the open. Maybe now they could figure out this thing between them, because it wasn’t casual.
Kellie pushed away from the desk and spun in her chair toward him. She froze with one hand on the desk, the other in her lap. She stared at him, her jaw hanging open slightly.
“Hey,” he said through the muscles clenched around his throat, constricting his breathing.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” She bolted to her feet and took two menacing steps toward him. “Get out.”
“Kellie.” He held his hands up. “I just want to talk.”
Her gaze narrowed, making the dark circles under her eyes more pronounced. She crossed the distance between them and got up in his face, a finger jabbing at his chest. “I don’t want to hear your damn excuses. You’re a liar and a cheater. You disgust me.” She said more, but he couldn’t understand the dulcet tones of Korean spilling from her lips. At least he assumed it was Korean.
“Kellie,” he tried again a little louder.
She placed both of her hands on his chest and shoved. He stumbled back, unprepared for her strength.
“Damn it, Kellie!”
“I’m calling the police,” she growled, and slammed the office door shut.
He hadn’t expected a peaceable conversation by any means, but involving the police went a little far. He grabbed the door handle and rattled it. “Unlock the door. I just want to talk.”
“Fuck you!”
“I’m coming in there whether you unlock this door or not.”
“Ha! I dare you.”
“Stubborn woman,” he growled, his patience evaporating.
The Harder He Falls: 2 (So Inked) Page 14