by Alex Wolf
Cole Miller.
I can still feel his hand where he smacked my ass and pulled my hair. It didn’t just feel like sex, though. It felt like something more, afterward. My stomach ties itself in a knot. This is not good. Not good at all.
I pick up my phone and scroll through my calendar to see what else I have going on this week.
What. In. The. Fuck.
I almost missed it at first, and I have to squint at the screen, making sure it’s real.
It stares right back at me, clear as day.
My face heats up as the recognition sets in. Cole Miller put a meeting in my phone. When the fuck did he do that? How the hell did he get into my phone in the first place?
I think back. I picked it up and left it on the nightstand when I was in the hotel room getting ready, during the morning walk of shame.
He took it! That son of a bitch!
That asshole had the audacity to not only look at my phone while it was open, but then program a meeting into my calendar.
I squeeze the phone tight in my hand. So tight the whites of my knuckles show and I grit my teeth.
What the hell am I going to do now? He had to know this is the reaction I’d have. He also knew I’d either have to call and cancel or show up.
You could just ghost him.
It sounds like the best move in theory, just not showing up. Let him feel stupid, sitting there all by himself, like a big dumb idiot. It’d be deserved. There’s only one problem.
I can’t do it. I can’t not show up for a meeting that’s in my phone, the same way I can’t not uncheck a task off my daily to do list. I just can’t. It’s not in my programming at the DNA level.
The worst part about it is I’m pretty sure he did this, knowing that about me.
He knows me as well as I know myself.
How?
This is bad. This is really bad.
Chapter Five
Cole Miller
I pull up to the Team Miller gym, just outside of downtown. It’s where Pedro and some of my other fighters train, along with general members of the public who want to learn MMA. Pedro trains during the day, and the other guys come in at night. Bill Perkins runs the place for me. He’s the one who took me in off the streets and trained me when I was a kid. He saved my life. Now, I’m paying it forward with Pedro.
When I walk in, Pedro stops what he’s doing and grins right at me.
“Hey, asshole, you gonna train or smile for cameras?” Bill smacks him on the side of the head.
It doesn’t faze Pedro. He shakes it off and goes back to bouncing around.
Nobody else is in here right now. I’m not even really sure why I’m here. It just felt like the right place to come after work.
I walk over to the mat where they’re training, and after a few more minutes of sparring they both stop.
Bill walks up and smacks me on the arm. “How’s it going?”
“I’m good.”
He eyes me up and down for a long second, then walks off to the office. Pedro stands there, breathing heavily from his workout.
“Make it home after the wedding?”
He grins and shakes his head. “Naw, not at all.”
“Nice. Glad to see your focus is back this morning.”
“How about you, boss? Get lucky?” He waggles his eyebrows.
“We need to work on your striking. I think it can be—”
“Wow. Changing the subject? She must be really hot and off limits. Wonder who it could be?” He taps his chin.
“Motherfucker, can we talk about—”
He bursts into a laugh and walks over and smacks me on the shoulder. “We’ll be fine.”
I reach out for his arm. “Hey, I’m serious.”
His face hardens. “I know. I’m working my ass off. You’re the one who told me to have a good time at the wedding. Now, I’m focused. I’m back here in the gym this week at the ass crack of dawn and don’t leave until it’s dark. I live for this shit. You know that.”
I shake my head. I don’t even know why I was being tough on him. He works even harder than I did. I’m just so… I don’t know, flustered, and I can’t figure out why. I have no reason to be. Everything is going great in my life.
“I know, man. I know. Sorry. I just… You know where we both come from. I want to see you stay out of that.”
“I don’t even go to my old neighborhood anymore. I moved my family and everyone I care about up out of there. I’m never fucking going back.”
“Have you talked with Dexter about the money you made from the last fight?”
He nods. “Yeah, he hooked me up with a financial advisor. Said she’s the best in the city. I told him I wanted the name of the other best one.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “For?”
He shrugs. “I figure I give half to one, half to the other. Even if they’re both the best, if one fucks up, I still have the other half of my money. It’s like a win-win, right?”
I smile. “Okay, maybe you’re doing fine.”
He smiles back and we bump fists.
“I just care about you. That’s all.”
“You’re like the dad I never had, man. I’m not gonna let you down. Or my family. Or myself. It ain’t happenin’. And don’t make me pull you in there and kick your ass around.” He nods toward the ring.
I chuckle. “Shit, kid, you would. It’s frustrating once you pass thirty. Your body stops doing things it used to do. Fractions of seconds make all the difference.” I poke him in the chest, just barely. “That’s why you have to capitalize right now, while you’re in your prime. Yeah, live a little and enjoy, but get everything you can from this career and sock that shit away. You don’t get to work until you’re sixty-five like everyone else and the WMMA doesn’t have a pension.” I grin. “And when your time is up, and you gotta turn in the gloves like I did, maybe I’ll let you scrub the toilets around here for some extra cash.”
“Fucking pendejo.” He chases after me while I laugh.
These really are the best times right now. Maybe that’s why I stopped by the gym. It always relieves all the pressures from regular life. I’ve always felt more at home here than anywhere else.
“Knock that shit off, clowns!” Bill’s voice booms from the office.
I walk in there while Pedro heads off for the showers.
Bill nods to the chair across from his desk, and I have a seat and glance around. It’s dirty and there’s shit everywhere; the building is run down. I’ve tried to get him to let me renovate this place a thousand times and he dismisses the idea every time. Says these places are supposed to be concrete and filthy, it builds a fighter’s character.
Bill sits there, staring at me for a long time. He’s a man of few words, but when he speaks it always counts.
“What’s wrong?”
“Huh?” His question catches me off guard.
He doesn’t respond, just stares.
I finally shrug. “I don’t know. Lot of shit going on, I guess. About to make some major business moves. It’s the right thing to do and I’ve run the numbers a thousand different ways, had experts look at it. All the right people. It just, still makes me nervous I guess.”
“Anything worth doing will make you nervous, kid.”
“That’s the truth.” I sigh. “I guess I’m in that pre-fight mode right now. The waiting and anticipation is the worst part. Once you get in the octagon, everything disappears, you get laser-focused or the other guy might kill you. It’s just the waiting that fucking—”
He cuts me off. “This is all about business?”
Talking to him is like being on the mat and fighting someone. Even when he talks, he tries to catch you off guard. I think for a second and shrug. “Yeah, I think so.”
He nods and makes some kind of grunt that almost sounds like he laughs but keeps it in his chest.
“What?” I ask.
He leans back and smiles. “What do you mean what?”
“I know th
at look, the way you’re… Whatever.” I hold a hand out at him. “Just say what you have to say.”
He shakes his head. “Nothing, you just look like you’re having female problems.”
I shake my head and snicker. “It’s not that.” Harlow Collins flashes front and center in my mind and takes over my entire brain, just when I’d almost forgotten about her.
He leans back even farther in the chair and folds his hands together. “Sure.”
“I’m not lying, you old asshole.” I grin, stand up, and walk out of the office about the time Pedro comes around the corner.
Bill gets up and walks over to him.
“I’m going home, fuckers. It’s been a long day. You better be getting ready because a call is coming for another fight, Mandez.”
Pedro says, “Let us know how everything works out.”
I freeze in my tracks and spin around. They’re both standing there, laughing their asses off. It might be at my expense, but seeing them like this takes me back to when I was Pedro’s age, training with Bill in this same gym.
“What’s so goddamn funny?”
“You call her for a date yet, Mr. I Don’t Do Romance?”
They both start laughing again, like they know Harlow Collins is consuming me from the inside out.
Fortunately, I have no need for a woman in my life right now, and maybe ever. “Call who?”
“Oh please, I saw you staring at her the whole reception. You turn into a different person when she’s around.”
Bill grins his ass off.
I try to think up some witty retort but all I can come up with is, “I… do not!” It may have been the lamest fucking thing I’ve ever said in my life. What is this woman doing to me?
“You kinda do. Just call her. Stop being a pussy.”
“I’m not having this conversation with you two. Get to work.”
Just as I turn around, Bill says, dry as all hell out of nowhere, “Let me know if you need some pointers.”
“Oh what the hell do you know about women, you old bastard?”
“Nothing, but we can go out on the mat and Pedro can teach you how to salsa.”
Pedro looks like he might piss himself, then he does a little dance back and forth.
He’s about to die while he does it, probably because Bill rarely cracks a joke and when he does it brings the house down.
I stand there, doing my best not to laugh, trying to hold it in, but it’s not working. Finally, I just flip them both the bird and head toward the door. Just then my phone goes off and I look down at it.
Well, I’ll be fucked sideways.
It’s Harlow Collins calling.
Because I just have to win, no matter what, I hold up my phone at them. “That’s actually her calling right now. I don’t chase pussy. It chases me.”
Pedro waves a hand out at me. “Pinche mentiroso.”
I shake my head. “Come look at the phone and tell me I’m lying.” I hold it out for a second, then take off walking because there’s no way in fuck I’m letting them hear this conversation.
Mainly because I know exactly what she’s calling for. She found the meeting and wants to cancel.
Not gonna happen, Harlow. Not on my watch.
Chapter Six
Harlow Collins
Who the fuck lets a phone ring eight times before they answer it?
“Hello.”
“Don’t hello me.” I glare and bark the words into my phone.
“Well, I believe that’s the universal greeting, at least in English-speaking countries, so are you suggesting we change an entire culture?”
Ugh, he’s so damn smug and condescending. I could tear his head off. “You know what I meant, asshole. You got into my phone.”
He gasps, audibly. “I most certainly did not.”
My free hand balls into a fist, and my nails dig into my palm. I have to force myself not to grind my teeth. Why is he being a fucking dickhead? Is it impossible for him and my brothers to act like adults once in a while?
Fucking men.
“You put a meeting in my calendar. You took my shit off the nightstand, something that did not belong to you, then rifled through it. I’m pretty sure it was against the law.”
“Gonna press charges on me?”
“I fucking might.”
“Bring the handcuffs, we’ll have some fun.”
I can practically feel this asshole smirking at the phone, like this is all a game to him. It makes me want to kick him right in the nuts. I stand up and pace around my office. I finished my work fifteen minutes ago, but I make myself stay until seven every night and I still have about three minutes to go. If I walk out before then I’ll feel guilty.
“You need to quit that shit.”
“Quit what shit?”
“The flirting, the innuendos. We fucked. It was moderately decent. End of story. Go on our separate ways.”
He scoffs. “Moderately decent.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Know what else you said?”
“What?” I should not have answered that. Goddamn it.
“My name, as you came on my dick. Sounded a lot better than moderately decent.”
I palm my forehead and my cheeks heat up. Damn it, why did he have to remember that part? I stand in front of the door, tapping my foot and checking my phone for it to be seven.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t save any of those naked pictures I saw. I wanted to, trust me. But it felt like a violation of privacy.”
I’ll kill him. No, that’s what he wants, to get a rise out of me. I take a deep breath and attempt to calm myself. “Why are you doing this? Why’d you put that meeting in my phone?”
“Because I want to meet, like those words I typed on your phone say. That’s how that works. There’s no secret message. It means what it means.”
I glare at the wall, shaking my head. “You want to meet and discuss business? And only business?” Why am I even considering this? Because he could bring in a shit ton of clients besides just him.
“Of course.” He snickers. “What else would I want?”
“Use your fucking imagination. You just said you say what you mean.”
“Jesus, you’re so high strung and direct.”
“Yeah, I am, it’s why this conversation is pissing me off.” My phone finally reads seven and I grab my shit and haul ass through the door. I stomp toward the elevator and realize I jab the lobby button so hard it damn near breaks the plastic.
This man frustrates me so much. I want to choke his ass, just long enough so his life flashes in front of his eyes for a second, that’s all. Nothing too serious.
“Now, now. No need to get all verbally abusive. Dex said you could help me a lot with marketing. He says a lot of great things about you. I’m just curious to peruse your offerings.”
I wince the second he says Dex’s name. Then I think about all four of my cousins. How they would react if they knew I fucked Cole Miller. They’d go nuts, and they’d really lose it if I told them it was the best sex I’ve ever had, and that I think there may even be a feeling or two floating around in my stomach. That I might actually want to do it again.
Why do people make life so complicated?
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Yeah you do.”
“Excuse me?”
I look down at my phone and realize this might be the longest phone conversation I’ve had in a month, including business calls. And I’m the one who called him.
“You heard me. I think you want this meeting to happen. I think you want it to be more than just business too. I can hear it in your voice, and if I was there, I’d see it written all over your beautiful face.”
“Yeah, well, this meeting is not happening.” I get in my car in the parking garage and head toward my apartment. The phone clicks over to the car speakers when the Bluetooth connects.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Fucker, you don’t tell me what to
do. You don’t tell me shit unless I want you to tell it to me. Got it?”
He snickers into the phone. “Hey, Harlow?”
“What?” I yell at my dashboard.
“It’s happening.”
Just hang up. It’s so easy to fix this problem. Just hang up on him for crying out loud.
Why are you doing this to yourself, Harlow?
Because you secretly like it.
I lower my voice. “You may be the most arrogant prick of all time.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s not a compliment.”
“Weird, I thought it was. Anyway, time and place is on the phone. Business casual dress. Be ready to present your marketing strategies and tactics and tell me what sets you apart from the hundred phone calls I get every day from other firms who want to work with me. You get all that?”
“Suck my dick. You get all that?”
“You can handle that under the table, after we talk business. Business first, always, Collins.”
“Rub one out under the table solo, because only one person is going to be at that meeting, Miller.”
I pull into the parking garage for my condo. How the hell did he keep me on the phone the entire drive? I know exactly how he did it. I always have to have the last word, and it’s eating me up inside. I need to get off the damn phone. I don’t want to bring this negativity into my home. My home is my sacred resting place to unwind.
“You’ll be there. I’m not worried.”
“What the hell makes you think that? I’m genuinely curious.”
“Because I think you like this.”
“Like what?”
“This little back and forth. I think it gets you all worked up. I think it makes your pussy wet, and you fucking hate yourself for that. It’s the reason you haven’t hung up, when you could’ve at any time over the last what, ten minutes? But you can’t help how you feel and what does it for you. And I think you need my company. Of course, if this thing between us stays strictly business, that’s totally fine with me. I would never want you to think I was trying to use that to leverage you into bed again. That’s not my style at all. If you want to keep things professional, I will totally respect that. But one way or the other, you’ll fucking be there.”