DS Fight Club Box Set (Volumes 0-3)

by Josie Kerr

  “Well, if you like them, why not? It’s the little things, right? Like snazzy sneakers.”

  “Enjoy the little things is exactly right. That’s why I have my sweet tea and bacon every day. I’m eighty-six years old—I’ll be damned if I’m going to give them up now. I already gave up cigarettes.” The little man leaned close to her and looked around conspiratorially. “Though, I have a plan to have one cigarette a month once I turn ninety. Don’t tell Tig.”

  “Oh, I won’t.” Nanda zipped her lip, fighting a grin. “But I will buzz him and tell him you’re here.”

  “Much obliged, Miss Nanda.” Mr. Johnson winked and made his way back to the locker rooms before stopping and turning around. “I don’t know if these jokers have said anything, but you’re a wonderful addition to the team. There’s a whole different tone around here since you’ve been on board.”

  “Why, thank you, Mr. Johnson. What a nice thing to say. I’m glad you feel that way.” What a great guy.

  In the six weeks that she had been in Atlanta and at DS Fight Club, Nanda had turned the gym into a finely tuned machine. Classes were booked and stayed booked, fees were paid on time, and all the supplies that kept the gym running were readily available.

  And the longer she stayed at DS Fight Club, the more at home she felt, both in and out of the gym.

  Atlanta was a good kind of different. Growing up, Nanda had never been one for girlfriends, a trend that continued into her adult life. Not that she was one who could never be without a boyfriend, quite the contrary—she often went months without a date, much less a steady beau—but most of her close friends were male. Her eldest sister, Marta, said it was because she was surrounded by women at home and had grown up without a strong male presence since she was only three when her father was killed in a work accident and Junior left for the Army when she was eight.

  The few women in her social circle back in Jersey were actually her guy friends’ girlfriends, and they weren’t necessarily the best influence, generally being one domestic disturbance or DUI away from substantial jail time. The Newark squad was completely different from the women who befriended her in Atlanta.

  These women were decent girlfriends—women that she was friends with first,—for the first time in her thirty-six years. Not just one, but several girlfriends, all around her age: Bailey, Colin’s wife, was sweet and fiery and didn’t put up with any nonsense from anyone; and Charlotte, Tig’s fiancée, had a sparkling personality that matched her sparkly accessories, and never failed to offer encouragement or a kind word. And then there were Em and Ashley, two slightly older women who worked with Bailey and Charlotte. Nanda didn’t know them as well, but the few times she had ventured out for a girls’ night, they had been at the small neighborhood pub and had surprised Nanda with their foul mouths and frank talk about sex.

  And the whole living with Junior on a full-time basis was very different. Although she had had serious boyfriends, she had never officially moved in with one of them. From the time that she had earned enough to get her own apartment, she had lived alone, no roommates, no boyfriends. Gene was the closest thing she had come to living with anyone, and he drifted in and out, never staying more than two or three nights in a row, and not sleeping over for weeks at a time. Now, sharing a space with a man, even though it was her brother, took some major adjustments on both of their parts. Nanda had to admit, though, that it was nice having someone around on a consistent basis.

  She had given Junior a check for half the rent when she first got a paycheck, but he had never cashed it. The next month, she had given him cash, but somehow she ended up with twenty and forty extra dollars in her wallet every few days.

  Stubborn butthead.

  “Hey, Nanda, can you add nosebleed plugs and nitrile gloves to your next supply order?”

  “Sure, Ryan. Do you need anything else?” Like maybe for my brother to stop dicking around and ask your adorable ass out?

  “Nah, I’ll be good if I get that stuff. The guys have been good about not beating the shit out of each other lately. I think it’s been three days since I’ve stitched someone up.”

  Nanda frowned. “You had to stitch someone up? Who?”

  Ryan fidgeted.

  Nanda rolled her eyes. “It was Colin, wasn’t it? And he was sparring with my brother, wasn’t he?”

  The cutman flashed an embarrassed grin. “Yeah, on both counts. They made me promise not to tell you.”

  Nanda shook her head. She had wondered why Colin had been slinking around, avoiding looking directly at her, and Junior had been extra pleasant.

  “Nanda, while we’re tattling on Junior, can I ask you something?”

  Ryan leaned up against the front desk counter, his long fingers tapping out a nervous rhythm. He was the twitchiest guy Nanda had ever met that didn’t have some sort of drug habit.

  “You can ask, but I don’t know if I can give you an answer.”

  Ryan nodded. “Fair enough.” He waited a beat. “Is he leaving?”

  Fuck. Exactly the question that she didn’t want him to ask.

  Junior had gone back to New Jersey several times, to officially run training sessions with fighters at Manny’s gym. She knew that with MMA now legal in New York State, the demand for experienced trainers like Junior, especially trainers who didn’t have a fighter that they worked with exclusively, were going to skyrocket. The potential payday was huge. She also knew that Manny had joked, but not really, about what it would take for Junior to move back to Newark.

  What Manny didn’t know was that it might not take as much as he imagined. Derek Martin lived in Newark once again, and Nanda knew that Junior had seen Derek on those training trips. Derek Martin, the man who had broken Junior’s heart twenty-odd years before, now seemed intent on rekindling their relationship.

  “Oh, I don’t know. There’s a lot of opportunities up there now that MMA is legal in New York. But I know he really likes Atlanta. If he didn’t, why the fuck did he insist on me moving down here?” God, please let that answer satisfy him.

  And she could tell that Ryan saw straight through her not-quite-lie.

  “Yeah, okay. That’s what I thought.” Ryan gave a final tap on the desktop. “Thanks, Nanda. Tell me if you need purchase codes or something for the supplies.”

  “Hey, Goody Gumdrop, what’s up?”

  Ryan managed a weak smile and proceeded to shoot the shit with Dig, but Nanda could tell that his heart wasn’t in it, and it broke her own heart just a little.

  “Hey there, Nanda. You’re looking especially beautiful today.”

  Nanda groaned. The last thing she wanted to do was deal with Dig “Women Beg for My Cock” DiGiacomo. She actually heard the big ass say that—that women begged for it. Not that she doubted it, because the jerkwad was as charming as he was handsome.

  “Thank you, Dig.” She waited for another cheesy comment, but Dig turned his attention back to Ryan. Huh.

  “Dig, isn’t your ass supposed to be in the cage with Junior?”

  Spared by the Beard. Thank God.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m going. Just wanted to see what these two were gossiping about.” Dig cracked his neck. “Bye, guy and gal. Don’t talk about me too much.”

  “Good God A’mighty, if his head were any bigger, he’d never fit on the Jumbotron,” Ryan muttered, eliciting a snicker from Colin and a burst of laughter from Nanda.

  “Speaking of big heads, heard my brother pegged yours, C.”

  Colin glared at Ryan, who held up his hands in surrender and stammered, “She guessed!”

  “Uh-huh. Hmph.” But Colin grinned. “We actually kept it from you longer than I thought we would.”

  “Mm-hmm. You’re one lucky fucker, Gordo.”

  Ryan groaned. “Okay, you two are getting ready to get into an insult war, I can tell. I gotta go to PT anyway. Thanks again, Nanda. Bye, C. I’ll be in tomorrow.”

  “If you need to take it easy, do, Ryan. D
on’t overtax yourself. That’s not going to do anyone any good.”

  Ryan waved as he walked out the door, his gait hitching about every third step.

  “Oh, that doesn’t look good,” Nanda murmured.

  “It’s not. Hopefully, the PT can work some magic on him, and cross your fingers, talk some sense into him.”

  Nanda snorted.

  “Yeah, I know. Good luck with that. The guy’s about as bullheaded as your brother.” He got ready to say something else but then snapped his mouth shut and shook his head.

  “Oi! Colin!”

  “Yeah, Paddy?”

  Paddy Doyle, namesake of the DS Fight Club, stomped up to the front of the gym, barking instructions to various gym patrons along the way.

  “Why the fuck am I getting calls from reporters?”

  “What? Raptor Pryde hasn’t even announced the title elimination fight yet.”

  “It wasna about any title elimination fight, but I want to talk about that, too, because this is the first I’ve heard of it. ’Twas about illegal matches, bare-knuckle brawls and whatnot.”

  Paddy cursed some more and then told Colin and Nanda about a call he received from a supposed sports reporter about Paddy’s opinion on underground fighting.

  “But he didna seem to know what he was talking about, yeah? More like, he was asking if I knew where he could find a fight. It was a strange conversation.”

  “Well, shit. I’d hoped that we’d heard the last of a big underground fight club, but I’m guessing not.”

  Nanda frowned. “Paddy, did you take that call on your cell?”

  “No, on the club phone. It rang on the desk. You didna patch him through?”

  Nanda shook her head. “No, the phone hasn’t rung for a good twenty minutes.”

  “Shit. That means someone’s got your direct line.” Colin’s brow furrowed into a worried frown. “I’m not liking this at all.”

  “You gonna call Johnny?”

  “Yeah, I’m gonna call Johnny.”

  Nanda looked between the two men. “Who the hell is Johnny? And what the fuck about illegal fights?”

  Paddy barked a laugh. “C, you can tackle that topic. I need to see how my heavyweights are doing.” With a wink at Nanda, Paddy jogged off toward the octagon.

  “Paddy Doyle, don’t you think about getting in that cage! I’ll tell your missus!” Colin shook his head and turned to Nanda. “He’s gonna get in that cage and get knocked around, and Sheila is going to have my hide. Shit.”

  “As amusing as I find that you’re afraid of a little, older Irish woman, I wanna know about the damn illegal fights and who the fuck Johnny is.”

  “First off, the wrath of Sheila Doyle is not something you fuck with, and she expressly told me to not let him spar with anyone except Mr. Johnson.” Colin yanked on his hair, something that he did only when he was at his wit’s end. “Let me grab a shake, and I’ll tell you all about everything.”

  Nanda cocked her head to the side and eyed the sign critically. The sign announcing more women’s classes and welcoming female fighters didn’t quite fill up the space on the side of the building, which it needed to do in order to be effective.

  She halfheartedly tried to figure out how she was going measure the length of the wall with the small metal tape measure, but her mind wandered back to the conversation she’d just had with Colin. She could understand Tig’s situation and the lure of earning easy money to quell the desperation that he had to help his family, but Ryan’s involvement was a harder thing to understand. Did the former Navy corpsman really just want to make sure that the participants at these underground fights stayed safe, or was there something bigger at play? Now that Nanda knew a bit more of his story, she wanted more than ever to sit down with him and get into that head of his.

  What really upset her was that Junior didn’t say anything at all about the fights at any time, but especially since Nanda had begun working at DS Fight Club. Colin had made excuses for Junior, saying that they hadn’t heard of any more illegal fights, but still. She needed to know these things, especially since the fights might be starting back up again.

  The fact that Paddy got a direct call, or rather, the timing of the call, bothered her as well. Colin said that there seemed to be no fights going on for the past few months, ever since his ill-fated expo fight against Damon Pierce. There were rumors that one of the owners of DS Fight Club’s biggest rival club, Raptor Pryde, had been scouting fighters from these illegal fights, and Tig and Ryan could confirm that, as Tig was one of those fighters at one time. Colin and the DS Fight Club crew assumed that Jett Raptor couldn’t handle the scrutiny to his club, so he backed off, but Nanda wondered about the timing. Surely there wasn’t a connection between Nanda and Junior’s presence in Atlanta and the renewal of illegal fights?

  A sudden wave of nausea passed over her. She dropped the corner of the sign and leaned against the side of the building. Taking calming breaths, she closed her eyes and willed her stomach to settle.

  She had just turned around and started dealing with the errant sign when she heard the roar of a motorcycle engine. Swiveling her head around in the direction of the rumble, she saw the unmistakable bulk of Dig pull into the parking lot on a big cruiser.

  “Damn,” was all Nanda could say.

  Dig coasted up beside her and pulled up the visor of his helmet. “Hey, beautiful.”

  This was their routine: he would compliment her, she would scoff and snub him, and then he would pretend to be hurt and stomp away. Today, Nanda decided to mix it up. Why, she didn’t quite know. Oh, hell, she did know: he looked really, really good. There was nothing sexier than a big man straddling a beast of a bike, and Dig, who was sex personified even when he was wearing a pair of pajama pants with beagles on them, in his leathers? Just . . . damn.

  “Ooh, papi. Nice bike.”

  Dig got ready to pout, but when Nanda didn’t respond like she usually did, he snapped his mouth shut and frowned. “What?”

  Nanda huffed and rolled her eyes. “It’s a nice bike. It suits you.”

  Dig’s eyes crinkled, and he revved the motorcycle’s engine. “Yeah? In what way?”

  “It’s loud and overly masculine and kind of obnoxious.” And it’s sexy as hell.

  Dig revved the engine again and wiggled his eyebrows.

  “You’ve got that big, beautiful monster throbbing between your legs, and all you’re doing is letting it idle. You can at least let me ride it.”

  Dig threw his head back and laughed. “You want a ride?”

  Nanda’s eyes swept from the top of his helmet down his body to those long legs. She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “We should go for a ride sometime.”

  Nanda stuck her hip out and crossed her arms over her chest, challenging him, and it was Dig’s turn to scoff.

  “Damn, girl. I wasn’t being dirty. I like riding, and you said you liked riding. We could take a day trip up to the mountains—it’s not that far.”

  “That . . . actually sounds like a lot of fun. It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a bike with someone who actually knows how to ride.”

  Dig grinned. “All right. It’s a date, then.” At Nanda’s expression, he rolled his eyes. “Sheesh, not a date date. Just, you know, a . . . something. Get-together.”

  Nanda snorted. “Okay, when?”

  Dig grinned again. “Tomorrow morning? Sunday morning ride, get some breakfast, look at some waterfalls, be back by supper time?”

  “Hmm.”

  “Come on, Nanda. Do it. Do it. You know you want to.”

  Damn, that’s half the problem, Dominic DiGiacomo.

  “Fine. But only if you help with this stupid banner. I absolutely have to get this done today.”

  “Sure. Give me ten.”

  Chapter Six

  The prospect of riding on the back of Dig’s big Wide Glide excited Nanda, maybe a little too much. She didn’t want to ex
amine why it was that she was so thrilled, but it kept gnawing away at the back of her mind. Was it the prospect of riding on the back of the bike itself, or was it because she would be getting on the back of Dig’s bike?

  As she smoothed on her eyeliner, she thought about Dig, how he was actually a lot more considerate and contemplative than she realized. He was fiercely loyal to his friends and family, and the first to volunteer to help out whenever anyone needed anything, be it help moving or attendance at a fundraiser. Dominic DiGiacomo was a man that anyone would be proud to call a friend.

  And that word, friend, gave her pause. Over the previous months, she and the big fighter had settled into a bantering, flirty relationship. An actual friendship, something that she’d never really had with anyone she’d previously dated except Gene.

  Nanda swallowed hard. Gene. God, she hoped he was staying safe. Every time she talked to her sisters, which had just decreased to every other day, she asked if either of them had seen or heard about that infuriating man she’d been involved with for so long. They always said no.

  Junior had been back to Newark as well, both because of Derek and because of new clients at the Striker fight club, and she asked him also. This time, he hesitated just a moment before answering, making Nanda believe that he knew more than he admitted.

  Shit. Nanda pinched the bridge of her nose to stop her tears, then touched up her smeared eye makeup and began to dress, dreading the inevitable scrutiny when Junior found out she was going out with Dig, regardless of whether or not it was an official date.

  Which Nanda wasn’t quite sure that it wasn’t.

  As she predicted, Junior had raised his eyebrows when she emerged from her bedroom, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt and boots when the sun had barely risen. Nanda was not a morning person and could easily lounge all day in her pajamas if she didn’t need to be anywhere.

  “Don’t say a word, Junior. Not one word.”

  “Wasn’t gonna.”

  She leveled a stern look at him. “Liar.”