Never Choose Flight (A Fighter Romance Novel)

by Danielle Forte

  “I want to take you out,” he said.

  “Isn’t that slang for assassinating me or something?”

  He laughed. “Yes. But that’s not what I meant. I meant take you out to dinner.”

  “That would be nice,” I said. “Or we could just go to your place. I bet you can cook a great dinner.”

  “Eh,” he said, “I’m mainly a breakfast aficionado.”

  I laughed.

  We finished up in silence, staring into each other’s eyes. It felt so nice and romantic. I just wanted to pounce onto him right there in the cafe. I couldn’t imagine how crazy I’d go if we ended up going to a fancy restaurant sometime.

  He walked me back up to the office, and we past by Derek again, but he didn’t say anything. I could tell that Malcolm felt a bit bad about that whole thing. We kissed goodbye, but before he left he said. “So I’ll pick you up at six?”

  I just stared at him, head tilted to one side.

  “For the dinner out?”

  “You wanted to do that tonight?”

  “I can’t see why not.”

  “Six?” I confirmed.

  “Yep. Wear something nice.”

  “Alright,” I said.

  And he gave me another peck and then left. I stood there, dazed for a minute. This man moved fast. Like, I understood that we’d already had sex twice, but it still seemed fast. It’d be our third date-like-thing in two days.

  I guess I was still smiling as I walked past Samantha. “Good lunch?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sounds like I’m going out to a fancy dinner tonight.”

  “How fancy?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. He said dress nice. Whatever that means.”

  “When a man like that says those words, it means it’ll be somewhere really nice. Is he rich?”

  That was a question that I’d literally never given any thought to. Clearly he was well off enough to have a place. But I still didn’t think he had a car. So how would he pick me up. And was he still fighting for money, or did he just do it for fun? “I have no idea,” I responded.

  “Sounds like you’ve still got plenty of surprises in store with this guy. That’s good.”

  “It is good,” I said. “I just hope they’re all good surprises.”

  “I’m sure they won’t be,” said Samantha. “But you’ll get through them. Or you’ll dump him. Either way, I think you’re in for a good time.”

  “I’ve already had a couple good times with him,” I said.

  She raised her eyebrows at me. She knew exactly what I meant. “Didn’t you start dating, like, yesterday?”

  I just gave her a wink and then walked over to my desk. I looked back once I had sat down and she was smiling, shaking her head to herself. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I think she was jealous. Of me. Of the incredible man I’d landed. The man who I got to have dinner with.

  The rest of the day flew by. I tried to figure out what to wear. What makeup I’d put on. How I’d do my hair. There’s a reason girls never suggest dinner dates on the day they’re going to happen. A lot of planning needs to be done to make sure everything goes just right. But I had a feeling everything would go just right anyway. What could go wrong?

  Derek didn’t speak another word to me. We just both worked, getting sales done, and then he left ten minutes early. He never normally left early. He really did seem like a different man.

  Chapter 9

  I sped all the way home. I only had an hour from the time I was off work until I was getting picked up. I had no idea what I was getting picked up in, but I knew that it was happening soon and that I had a lot of getting ready to do.

  I got home and hopped in the shower for a quick rinse, trying not to get my hair wet. I put on a pair of panties and a bra that matched. Black with a bit of lace around the edges. I looked in the mirror and felt how he’d described me. Womanly.

  I never wore dresses, but I did own a few. So I pulled one on - a dark blue on that went halfway down my thigh. It looked good enough, and somehow I only had twenty minutes left to get ready so I went with it.

  It felt very freeing to wear a dress. I always felt too ugly for them. You never see women like me wearing sexy dresses. Never in magazines or on TV or anything. If you see a woman like me at all, she’s always in jeans, and often being made fun of. But I felt good. I felt free. And I felt sexy.

  The makeup was simple. I wasn’t very good with makeup, so it kind of had to be. I pulled out a box of makeup that I’d almost never used. I had my regular stuff that I used every day, and then I had this stuff. The fancy stuff. Christmas and birthday gifts from over the years.

  It was mainly things that I thought were too bright for me. Things that would draw too much attention. Things I never thought I would wear.

  But I pulled out a tube of red lipstick and applied it, puckering at myself in the mirror. And damn if I didn’t look sexy in it. I powdered my cheeks lightly, and then applied the smallest amount of blush with a red that complimented my lips.

  I applied a thin line of eyeliner, and then went with some mascara and an eyelash curler. Then just the tiniest amount of blue eye shadow. It worked together well with my dress.

  I stood back and looked at myself. Looked myself up and down, like I was a guy checking me out. And I liked what I saw. I really, truly did. And that sensation was still so new to me.

  I loved it.

  Then I put on my only pair of black high heels, and threw on a black cardigan. One more glance at myself in the mirror, and then there was a knock at my door. I waited a minute. I didn’t want to seem too eager, for some reason. Didn’t want him to think I’d been doing nothing but wait for him ever since I got home. I mean, that was basically the truth but it wasn’t the right kind of romantic for the moment.

  I opened the door, and there he was. He wore a simple, well-fitted black suit with a blue shirt underneath. He was totally clean-shaven. He looked gorgeous.

  “Oh. My. God,” he said, looking me up and down. “You look stunning. Absolutely stunning.”

  “You don’t look half bad yourself,” I joked.

  He stepped towards me for a hug, and then over his shoulder I saw it. A limousine.

  “Holy fuck,” I said, I thought just to myself.

  He turned around and looked at it too. “Yeah, I don’t have a car and I didn’t think a taxi would be nearly nice enough.”

  I couldn’t help but smile like a crazy person. No one had ever, ever, picked me up for a date in a limo before. It was incredible. “I can’t believe it,” I said.

  He took my hand and walked me to it. The drive was standing there, and he held the door open for us. I stepped into the back and it was incredible. Exactly like in the movies. It was more luxurious than my house.

  He stepped in after me, and smiled at me. Reached for the mini fridge, handed me a glass, and popped open a bottle of champagne. “Normally,” he said, “I don’t drink. It lowers reaction time. But I don’t think anything is going to go wrong tonight. Not with you here.”

  He poured us each a glass as the limo smoothly pulled away from the curb, and I smiled at Malcolm uncontrollably. No one had ever treated me this well.

  “Cheers,” he said, holding his glass towards me. “To us. And to whatever may happen.”

  “To us,” I repeated.

  Our glasses clinked, and we each took a sip. It was bitter, and it bubbled on my tongue, but I loved it.

  I looked down at my outfit. “I sure hope I’m dressed nicely enough,” I said.

  “You’re dressed perfectly,” he said.

  “So where are we going?”

  “Funnily enough,” he said, “we’re going to Joe’s. But not the same Joe’s. It has the same name, but it’s opposite in every other way. The full name is, like, Joe’s Ristorante Italiano or something.”

  “Sounds very fancy.”

  “It is,” he said, “but you deserve it. We deserve it. I haven’t been out to a nice dinner in a long t
ime.”

  “I guess you don’t really need to go out when you can cook as well as you can.”

  He laughed. “You’d be surprised,” he said. “I really am not joking around when I say I’m only good at breakfasts.”

  I laughed. We both laughed, and drank more champagne. He sat real close to me, muscular arm resting over my shoulders.

  “You really do look incredible,” he said. “I thought I’d already seen the most beautiful woman ever, but then you went and broke your own record.”

  All I could do was smile.

  We finished our champagne just in time for the limo to come to a stop and open the door for us. I watched Malcolm pull out a large stack of bills and pay the drive, and then we were there. At Joe’s. But not the same Joe’s. Joe’s Ristorante Italiano.

  He took me by the arm and we walked in. Everything was going perfectly. A fancy date. A handsome boyfriend. I was on top of the world. But, of course, that didn’t last forever. It didn’t even last very long.

  * * *

  We were taken to a very fancy table in the back of the restaurant. A private room behind a curtain. He’d reserved it for us, and it was as romantic as you can possibly imagine. Fresh cut flowers on the table. A candle burning in the middle. Red curtains. Way too many utensils. It was perfect.

  We sat down across from each other and just got lost in each other’s eyes. Eventually he said, “We should probably choose something to eat.”

  “Right,” I said, coming back from cloud nine.

  The menu was just one page. The only option was a four course meal. You simply need to choose your soup, your salad, your entree, and your dessert. Everything looked amazing, but I wasn’t entirely sure what any of it actually was. We laughed together at how impossible to decode all of the names were.

  I noticed that there weren’t any prices on the menu. And there was a rule about that which I’d learned. When there aren’t prices on a menu, that means that if you have to ask then you can’t afford it. I wondered about Samantha’s proposition that Malcolm might be rich.

  He didn’t seem rich. He didn’t act rich. But he certainly did some things that would require a fair bit of money.

  We ordered our meals, not knowing at all what we were getting ourselves into. We laughed. We were having a wonderful time.

  Our salads arrived and we dug in. They did that fancy thing where you get very little food on your plate, but that food looks wonderful.

  Malcolm looked down at his three leafs of artistically placed spinach and laughed. “It’s like they ran out of ingredients but they’re pretending that this still counts as a salad.”

  I laughed too. I ended up letting him share mine, which was a bit heartier.

  We both leaned in close. Almost close enough to kiss over that candle. Once we were done, the waiter came by and traded our empty plates with our soups. I gobbled mine up, as did Malcolm. The food really was delicious. No matter what Malcolm was paying, I felt like this was worth it.

  And then the waiter came by and picked up our soup bowls. There was a lull between soup and entrees, so Malcolm and I just held hands in the middle of the table.

  “So what do you think,” asked Malcolm, “where all of my worries unfounded?”

  “It’s certainly looking that way,” I said.

  Then a man walked in. He wore a suit, not unlike the one the waiter had been wearing. I assumed he was a busboy at first, but he walked right up to the table. He towered over us, and stared right down at Malcolm.

  “Excuse me,” he said in an accent from the other side of the continent. “Are you the Beast?”

  Malcolm only had time to look at me quizzically before it happened. Lightning fast the man’s fist cross Malcolm’s face with a sickening crack. I thought I saw a tooth fly out, but it may have just been spit.

  Malcolm went to stand, but part way up this giant man’s hand landed on his chest and pushed him backwards. There was nothing Malcolm could do.

  He fell back, into his chair, and then the chair tipped over backwards. His feet crashed into the bottom of the table, making all of the glasses jingle a bit.

  The man got down and pressed one knee into Malcolm’s chest. He positioned his face directly above Malcolm’s, and stared down at him.

  I had no idea what to do. Nothing like this had ever happened to me either. I didn’t know if I should scream or try to help somehow. And that not knowing caused me to just stay still, frozen because of my lack of knowledge on the subject.

  The man leaned in closer as Malcolm struggled to escape from under him. But he was just too large. Getting away was not going to be easy, if possible at all.

  Once the man, who had a big goofy face with a fair number of scars, got close enough, he smiled. He was definitely missing a few teeth. “You don’t look so tough,” he said, close enough to Malcolm that I’m sure they could smell each other’s breath.

  Malcolm didn’t say anything in response. The man lifted up his other leg for a moment, letting his full weight press down against Malcolm’s chest cavity. I heard something crunch.

  Then the man stood up. He turned to me. “Apologies, m’lady. For interruptin’ the dinner.”

  I didn’t have anything to say. My eyes were wide and my mind was racing. Who was this man? How had he known where we were? Was Malcolm going to be able to stand?

  “And you,” he said, turning back to look down at Malcolm on the floor. “You better understand what you’re getting yourself into. Undefeated. Think you’re some big champ”

  He offered a hand, but Malcolm lifted himself to his feet without assistance, grasping his sides.

  “I’m just here to let you know,” continued the man, “that you are nothing. You are not a threat. You will not remain undefeated for long. And if you keep this up, things are going to go downhill for you. Fast.”

  “Who are you?” asked Malcolm.

  And then again, lightning fast, a fist whipped across his face. This man was good at that. Throwing punches from a casual position. Malcolm spat blood onto his plate.

  “It doesn’t matter who I am,” said the man. He turned to me. “Have a nice night.” And then he walked out.

  I could tell that Malcolm wanted to jump at him. Beat the shit out of him right then and there. But he resisted that urge. He picked up his chair and sat back at the table. And then we were seated there again, like nothing had happened.

  “Shit,” he said, as soon as we were settled in. “Shit.”

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “Apparently,” he said, “that doesn’t matter.”

  “But like, who do you think it was?”

  “Some thug. Probably hired. Just here to fuck with me.”

  “Has that happened before?”

  “Once or twice,” he said. “Trying to psyche me out before a fight.”

  “So what fight, then?”

  “I have no idea,” he said, earnestly. “The fight this Sunday isn’t against a big name or anything. Definitely not someone who could hire that kind of man power.”

  The waiter showed up with our entrees. He placed them down and cleared the plate that Malcolm had spat onto. He acted as if nothing was amiss.

  Once he left we continued talking. “So what do we do?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted.

  I just stared at him. The danger, the excitement, that was his part of the relationship. He was supposed to know how to deal with this stuff. Not me. “So what are we going to do?” I asked.

  “I just need to think a minute,” he said. “My brain’s been bashed around a bunch, sometimes it takes me a bit to figure things out.”

  I cooled down on the questions, letting him think. I toyed with my pasta for a minute, but I didn’t eat any of it. I wasn’t hungry. Not anymore. Even though it smelled wonderful and looked impossibly creamy.

  “So they found me here,” he said, slowly. “I didn’t make this reservation until this afternoon. It’s not like I wrote it down anywhere.
”

  “Did they bug your phone?”

  “That’s unlikely,” he said. “It’s much more probable that they know where I live, and that they followed me.”

  “Okay,” I said. I wanted him to keep thinking. Hoping he’d arrive at some conclusion.

  “And if that’s the case,” he said, “that means they also know where you live. And now this thug came in and saw me having a very romantic dinner with you.”

  “Shit,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “This… this could be really bad.”

  “So what do we do?” I repeated.

  “I think we need to leave. We need to get out of here. Catch a cab. Get you home. And then I’ll leave, and just hope that they follow me instead of staying with you.”

  “Okay,” I said. “That’s fine. We’ll do that.”

  He looked me in the eyes and said, “I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. I didn’t think this would happen.”

  “You did warn me,” I said. “You told me that this exact thing might happen. I knew it, and I accepted it. It’s just amazing that it happened this quickly, you know?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Amazing.” He stood up. “Let’s go.”

  I stood up as well. He tossed a couple of hundreds onto the table and then we left without touching out entrees.

  So much for our perfect dinner date.

  * * *

  It was raining as we stepped out into the road. Heavy. I hadn’t even noticed the clouds earlier, but I guess they’d been forming for a while. And the storm that had brewing was finally starting to come down, and it was coming hard.

  He hailed the first cab we saw, and we both got in. It felt ridiculous, the both of us wearing such nice clothing in the back of some dirty old cab. We told the cabby my address, and he took off down the road.

  “So, what are you two up to tonight?” asked the driver.

  Malcolm shot me a look that convinced me not to tell the truth. I guess the stuff he does is illegal enough that he doesn’t want strangers to catch any whiff of what he’s into.

  “Just a nice dinner,” said Malcolm.

  “Excellent. I thought so. A beautiful couple like you. Enjoying a night on the town. Was the food good, missy?”