Hard Hitter

by Sarina Bowen

  “No. That’s what you’re going to do.” He took another step closer.

  That was the moment when the dick’s synapses fired completely, and he realized that O’Doul was serious. “Fuck off.” He turned his body squarely towards O’Doul’s in the universal signal of matched aggression.

  At least now they were on the same page. “Go on. I’ll give you five seconds to get the fuck out of here. One. Two . . .” He held the man’s dark eyes, but his subconscious was focused on the brick in the man’s hand. The guy’s fingers had tightened on it. But his arm was still hanging there. And a brick wasn’t the world’s handiest weapon. It could be thrown, but not quickly. “Three, four . . .” O’Doul said. And then he lunged forward and swept the guy’s feet out from under him, dumping him on his ass on the pavement, which was littered with a lot of glass shards.

  “FUCK!” the asshole shouted from the ground. He scrambled up to a kneeling position and then readied his brick hand to swing at O’Doul.

  But not fast enough. O’Doul used his left leg to ruin the arc of the guy’s swing, then landed a punch to his opponent’s jaw with his right hand. The asshole hit the ground a second time.

  “You chickenshit,” O’Doul spat down at him. “Don’t you ever threaten a woman again or I will end you.”

  “Man on!” Ari yelled from above.

  O’Doul whirled and then immediately ducked, avoiding the large fist on a trajectory toward his head. Later he’d marvel at Ari’s perfect use of hockey terminology in the clutch. But for now he was too busy sidestepping the young goon who’d entered the brawl to avenge his buddy’s humiliation.

  His focus narrowed to the two men and their movements. Boss man was still seated, looking shaky. But the new goon circled. Not for nothing had O’Doul been in a thousand fights, both on the street and on skates. His voice was steady and commanding as he addressed them both. “Just beat it. Both of you. How many neighbors do you think are watching right now?”

  The goon’s lip curled.

  “You bangin’ her?” the older man asked, using the brick wall to ease to his feet. “I knew it.”

  “Is that what you think?” O’Doul laughed. “That’s what’s got you breaking windows like a punk?” He stepped slowly around in a backward semicircle, avoiding the goon and putting his body closer to the front door of Ari’s house, and closer to the street. If these morons had any sense at all, they wouldn’t want an all-out brawl in broad daylight. But the new opponent tracked toward him.

  O’Doul moved, watchful, waiting for his opening. The youngster had long arms like a gorilla. He’d have to quickly inflict some pain to put this guy out of commission.

  Then one sound changed everything—the chirp of a police cruiser.

  “Shit,” the older man spat. He moved surprisingly quickly, taking off down the alley, away from the street. After a beat of indecision, his thug followed him.

  When he heard the sound of an engine starting up, O’Doul jogged after them just in time to see an unmarked burgundy van peel away.

  He recited the license plate number out loud twice, then noticed his own pounding heart. He had fight night adrenaline coursing through his veins. He turned around and walked slowly back through the alley, noticing everything, looking up to check out the broken window above. Ari’s face wasn’t in it. So he went onward to the street just in time to see a cop car pass slowly by without stopping.

  “Patrick,” someone gasped. He turned to see Ari in the doorway, her face pinched and white as a sheet.

  “Hey,” he said, closing the distance in two paces and jumping up onto her stoop. Then he did something completely out of character. He wrapped an arm around Ari and pulled her to his chest. “He’s gone. Took off in a van.”

  Her whole body was shaking. “Are you okay?” she stammered.

  “Yeah. Sure I am.” His eyes scanned the street, looking for trouble. He was still locked into fight mode, hyperaware of everything.

  “You’d tell me if you weren’t?” She sagged against him.

  “I’m fine, I swear. But I think you need to sit down.” He lifted his gaze to see her living room just beyond the hallway. There was a comfortable-looking velvet sofa with big green pillows all along the back. It was very Ari. He steered her toward it. “Come on.”

  She sat down heavily on the cushion in the center. “C-c-close the door?” she asked.

  He did, and locked it, too, hoping to make her feel safe. Her front curtains were drawn, and he parted them slightly. But there was nobody out there. “He’s gone, sweetheart.” That word had never come out of his mouth before, but Ari looked so wrecked that the situation required that he treat her gently.

  “That bouncer,” she said, swallowing roughly. “That guy is usually packing.”

  Ah. “That might account for their allergic reaction to the cops cruising by. Did you happen to call 911?”

  She shook her head violently. “I tried. But my phone wouldn’t log on. I almost threw it across the room I was so frustrated.”

  Oh, fuck. “Ari, that’s my phone. We traded by accident at my appointment today.”

  “What? Really?”

  He pulled hers out of his pocket and held it up. “I’m sorry. We have the same case.” The blue and green one. They came in a dozen styles, so this had never happened to him before.

  She took her phone out of his hand and unlocked it with her fingerprint. It flashed to life right away. “Jesus.” Her eyes snapped up to his. “You saw these texts?”

  He nodded slowly.

  Her face reddened, and she looked away. “Sorry.”

  Sorry? “Shit. Don’t be sorry.” He slid closer to her on the couch and pulled her into his arms again. She came willingly. He took a deep breath of her lavender scent and sighed. “No landline?”

  She shook her head against his shoulder. “Nope. My phone wouldn’t work, and I couldn’t think what to do. He started shouting, and I was upstairs trying to e-mail my neighbor from the laptop. Then he put the brick through the window right next to me. Scared me half to death.”

  No wonder she was shaking like a leaf. Sitting there, no way to call anyone, a violent dickhead outside trying to blast his way inside in. “I think you need to do some of that yoga breathing you’re always forcing on us. In for a count of eight, and out for four.”

  “If you’re trying to calm down, it’s the reverse.”

  “My bad.”

  She laughed shakily, her hair tickling his chin. “God, I’m so pissed off right now! My window is broken. And that asshole made me feel unsafe in my own house. And I can’t even fix it because we’re off to Montreal tomorrow.”

  “One thing at a time, okay? There’s no reason to be afraid right now,” he said, hoping it was true.

  She pulled back and gave him a look. “He’ll be back. I had the locks changed on the storage room, because I think he was using it for some kind of dodgy business.”

  O’Doul kept the flinch off his face. He had a pretty good idea what dodgy business it could be. “Do you want to call the cops?”

  She hesitated. “Maybe? Do I have to decide right now?”

  “No. But why wouldn’t you? Are you keeping him out of trouble?”

  “He can hang for all I care. But if the cops arrest him, he’d get out on bail, pissed as hell at me. I’d rather find a way to just be rid of him. I shouldn’t have locked him out. That was stupid of me. But I needed a way to motivate him to leave for good!”

  She was getting all worked up again, her small body tense in his arms. “All right.” He thought about it for a moment. “Let me take a look at your broken window. Can you call the super?”

  “I am the super.”

  “Ah.” He chuckled. “We need a piece of plywood, then.”

  With a sigh, she untangled herself from him. “I have one already, because the kids in the neighborhoo
d have broken windows before. With baseballs, though.”

  He followed her upstairs to have a look at the damage. There was broken glass all over the floor. “You’re not wearing shoes,” he pointed out. “Let me do this.”

  She opened her mouth and then closed it again. “I’ll get the broom and some damp paper towels.”

  Luckily, the room had hardwood floors instead of carpeting. It didn’t take them long to sweep up the mess and fit the board into the window. But O’Doul hated the look of dismay on her face as she stared up at it. “God, if I replace it, will he just break it again?”

  “It’s too late to worry about it tonight, anyway. Are you packed for Montreal?” he pointed at a suitcase against the wall.

  “Yes.”

  He picked it up. “Let’s go. You can’t stay here tonight. And in twelve hours you’ll be on the way to the airport.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Good question. “Anywhere you want. But unless you have a better idea, my place. I’m just on Water Street.” The freaked-out look on her face was having a strange effect on him. He’d do anything to get rid of it.

  “Okay,” she said. “I . . . God, I’m such an idiot.” She was staring at the boarded-up window again, as if trying to figure out how it got that way.

  “Come on now,” he said softly. “It’s going to be all right.” He carried her bag down the stairs and told her to gather her coat and handbag. She did these things as if in a trance, and then she followed him outside.

  SIX

  When they got out to the sidewalk, O’Doul stopped to take a look at the building’s exterior. Ari followed his gaze, wondering what he saw. The first-level windows were guarded by decorative iron bars. That’s how it was done in Brooklyn. There was a fire escape on the rear corner of the building. The ladder didn’t reach very close to the ground, and Ari had never worried about it before. But if Vince were angry enough, he might use it to gain access to the second floor.

  “Who lives up there?” O’Doul asked, pointing to the third level.

  “Maddy, my tenant. That’s her entrance,” she pointed at the door beside her own. “I’ll e-mail her tonight and give her a heads up. She already knows that Vince is a loose cannon, though. She won’t even be surprised.”

  So why am I?

  Two months ago, she’d lived with the man. She would have even said she loved him. Now he was calling her awful names from the street and throwing a brick through her window.

  She followed O’Doul down the sidewalk, trying to wrap her head around it.

  “Vince is your ex?” O’Doul asked eventually.

  “Yeah. Long story.”

  “I’ve got time.”

  Sigh. “I threw him out six weeks ago. But we were together for eight years, since I was twenty-one, and a waitress at his club in Manhattan. I was young and stupid.”

  “Weren’t we all.”

  She gave him a grateful look. “In my defense, he used to treat me really well. He was an older, successful man—he’s thirty-nine now. I was attracted to his confidence. He treated me like a queen for years—until things stopped going well for him.”

  “And then?”

  This part wasn’t easy to tell. “He became overextended. When I met him he owned a club and had an interest in another. But over the years he tried to expand his empire, and it was harder than he thought it would be. I think he got into business with some people he shouldn’t have trusted. I’m pretty sure they screwed him over. Every year it got a little worse. One of the clubs recently had a bunch of drug busts, and they lost their liquor license. And I think Vince owes a bunch of people money. But to listen to him, it’s always someone else’s fault. This past year I tried to ask more questions, and he didn’t like that at all.”

  This story was interrupted by their arrival at the front door of O’Doul’s building. A uniformed doorman opened the door for them. “Evening, Mr. O’Doul. Will you need a car tomorrow morning?”

  “Yeah, thanks. Flight leaves at eight. So . . . seven?”

  “I’ll take care of it.” The doorman gave them a friendly wave, and they proceeded through the grand lobby toward the elevators.

  Ari had been to this building once before with Georgia, who had recently moved into Leo’s apartment. The turn-of-the-twentieth-century warehouse had been stylishly renovated into high-end condos. Several players lived here because it was close to the practice rink and a full-service building.

  It was also expensive as hell.

  This was the new Brooklyn. The old one—kids playing kick-the-can in the streets, and the funny little Italian men’s clubs on Court Street—it was disappearing fast. She was the last Bettini living in Brooklyn now.

  In the posh elevator, with its brass button panel, O’Doul chose the fourth floor. When the doors opened, he gave her a funny smile. “I don’t usually have people over. So it’s . . .” he hesitated.

  “A messy bachelor pad?” she guessed.

  “Not exactly.”

  When he opened the door, though, it was beautiful inside. The ceiling was high, and the exposed bricks glowed with a rosy hue against the lights he flipped on. There was no mess at all. The place hardly looked lived in.

  “It’s all one room,” he apologized. “But you can have the bed.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” His place was all one room—but that room was the size of Grand Central station. “Your couch could seat a family of six. I’m just happy to . . .” she turned to him with a sigh. “Thank you. For chasing him off. This has been the most embarrassing night of my life.”

  “Why?” He tossed his jacket onto a coat tree and reached for hers, which she shrugged off. “You didn’t throw a brick through your own window, right?”

  “I just never thought I’d be that girl.” She let him remove her coat and hang it up. Then she crossed the big room and sat down on his sofa. “The one who needs a restraining order.”

  “We need a drink, I think,” he said, and then smiled. “I don’t entertain. So there’s either Diet Coke or hard liquor. Scotch is my drink of choice. I’ll bring you both, and you can decide.” He moved toward the kitchen.

  “I don’t drink diet sodas. That shit can kill you.”

  O’Doul laughed. “If you feel the same about Scotch, don’t tell me.” He returned a minute later with a tray, two glasses with ice, a bottle of Macallan 18 and two bottles of water. He sat down beside her and poured Scotch into one of the glasses. “You’re in, right?”

  “Hell yes.”

  He handed her one of the glasses, and she took a deep breath of its peaty perfume. “God, I love that smell. So good.”

  O’Doul gave her an approving nod. “I wouldn’t have picked you for a Scotch drinker.”

  “Why? You think yoga teachers sit around drinking shots of kale juice?”

  He snorted. “No. Okay, maybe. But you drink wine with Georgia.”

  “I drink wine with Georgia because Georgia likes the company. And because it’s a habit. My ex didn’t think a lady should drink Scotch. He never offered me any of his.” Hell. The more she said about her relationship with Vince, the worse it sounded.

  O’Doul shook his head, then held up his glass for a toast. “To your health, and to your ex taking a long walk off a short pier.”

  She touched her glass to his and then took a nice deep sip.

  He kicked off his shoes and propped his long legs onto the stylish coffee table. “So what made you finally kick him out?”

  Ugh. This was even more embarrassing than the brick through the window. “He stopped being nice to me. But I hung on a long time hoping things would get better. He’d supported me when I wanted to go to school for massage therapy. So I told myself that I should be there for him even during the rough times, you know? I wanted to be loyal. It was my idea to let go of his high-rent place in the city and mov
e into my uncle’s house when Uncle Alberto moved to Florida.”

  “Nice house by the way.”

  “Thanks. I pay ridiculously low rent in exchange for keeping the place up. But after we moved there, Vince just got mean. At first it was just petty criticism. He started insulting me in front of people we knew.” Another drink of Scotch helped wash the taste of that memory down.

  O’Doul grimaced, as if fighting off the urge to make a comment.

  “Then I got the job for the team, and he seemed happy for me. At first. But I was gone a lot. He hated that. He started questioning my whereabouts and acting like a jealous freak. I thought maybe things would turn around for him and he’d just ease up.” But it hadn’t happened. As she pictured their last night together, her throat began to close up. She took a gulp of Scotch. How long would it take before she stopped feeling so upset over this?

  “Hey,” O’Doul whispered. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “It’s . . .” she cleared her throat, and a single tear shook loose and ran down her face. “He got a little physical one night, and I left him the next day.”

  Concern lined his forehead. “Is that what happened to your foot?”

  She nodded. “But please don’t say anything. I didn’t tell anyone the truth about that, except for Becca. I’d go over to Becca’s tonight, but she and Georgia went wedding dress shopping and then out to dinner. Shit.” She sat up straighter, still a jumble of nerves. “You probably had plans, too.” A single guy with a night off? Of course he did.

  He crossed his feet and took a sip of his drink. “I’m pretty sure the team can get drunk without my help for once.”

  Ari yawned suddenly. The alcohol was turning her bones to liquid.

  O’Doul picked up the bottle and held it over her glass, then hesitated. “Did you eat dinner?”

  “Yes. I was just throwing away my takeout box when the shouting started.”

  He poured. “Good. I could probably dig up some crackers, but that’s about it. My fridge is nothing but ketchup and old leftovers.”

  “Well, you’re on the road half the time. And in New York, nobody needs to cook anyway. I wonder what players do in the flyover states. Starve, I guess.”