by Leslie North
“Yeah?”
“Stop me before I kiss you.”
8
Maggie had debated animal rights in testing and the death penalty and euthanasia—some of the most polarizing issues of their generation, but at that moment, she couldn’t formulate a logical reason to stop Henry from kissing her.
Right up to the end, she fought him. “No,” she whispered against his lips.
He hesitated.
“I mean, no, I won’t stop you.”
Slow blinks overtook him, as if he was already drugged by the premise, had already made the decision and was just waiting for her strong, opinionated mind to stall his intent. When it didn’t, his lips met hers and backed away, dancing like the footwork of two opponents in a match—advancing, evading, sampling.
She expected—imagined—his kiss to be commanding, the way she had seen him take control in the ring and never let up until his opponent surrendered. She expected a wide hand threaded into her hair and held in place, relentless, fearless. She expected a fighter’s kiss. Instead, Henry’s kiss was steady, strong, patient.
Zero tongue but on the ten-point MMA scoring scale she had googled, a perfect ten because it would have been a grappling takedown had she been standing. Jell-O knees. KO-ed dizziness. Heavy breathing.
She engaged her belly breathing in time to sense him pull back. A shadow crossed behind his eyes. He yanked the truck’s gear shift into drive and pulled out into heavy city traffic. For the remaining six blocks back to the south side, nothing but radio static.
Maggie felt bruised from the inside out.
If staring was his secret weapon in the cage, Maggie was fast learning that silence was his greatest defense in all the ways outside the cage that really mattered.
One block north of Sol’s gym, they saw the flames.
Henry had barely shifted his truck into park, right in the middle of the street where everyone else had stopped to gawk, before he was off and running toward the gym. He left his truck idling, his door ajar. Sirens wailed from a distance. His entire body was lodged inside his throat at the idea of losing everything—his new equipment, the old equipment he’d trained on when he was sixteen, everything of Sol he had left.
Flames licked the gym’s southeast corner from below. Windows in the vacant Asian market had been busted out, the thickest smoke billowing through the spidered glass. He scanned for the closest fireplugs, helpless, wanting to summon the firetrucks faster, direct them before they had to waste time assessing the situation.
Henry turned and searched the street. His truck was no longer there. Maggie had slid over to the driver’s seat and parked it at a distance. All he may have left of Sol. Goddamn it, where were the fucking fire engines?
He should have been here. This wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been pussyfooting about on a fucking bridge, playing protester and grab-ass outside police headquarters. That morning, he suspected Maggie was a mistake. Now he knew that was the case.
She waited until the brigade was in place, the fire mostly out, before she approached him. His entire body felt tense, coiled, decimated.
“Go home, Maggie,” he snapped, because he couldn’t stand the thought that somehow this was the universe giving him a sign. They had been on opposing sides once, sixteen years earlier. There was no reason to believe anything had changed. He was still a fighter; she was still a nine-year-old, aiming to please her headstrong parents. Two worlds united through one kid was not enough to sustain one round, let alone anything close to twenty-five.
He stewed for hours, felt like a total jerk where Maggie was concerned. The fire chief came to brief him on the status of the fire, the investigation into the cause. Not a total loss, but a quarter of the structure needed gutting, and it was just enough damage to screw him where the insurance was concerned. He had raised the deductible to keep afloat. Now he had no money. Less than no money. He wasn’t going to Marcus or Chase about this. They’d tell him fuck no, that this was his sign from the universe, that they’d been right all along. The only way he could raise that kind of cash fast was to enter the cage again. Take his manager up on arranging the vaunted fight that never was.
Henry picked his way through Sol’s office. Most was salvageable. The smoke and water took the corner items. He studied Sol’s coat rack—what was left of it. A wave of self-pity washed over him at a ripe memory: Sol hanging one of his many hats on that rack every fucking day, saying some shit about how hats got a man noticed for something other than being bald. Henry crumbled to the mess covering the floor.
He didn’t see the leather band with the golden eagle until he awoke near midnight.
His first thought when he saw Roosevelt’s stepfather’s bracelet beneath Sol’s desk: Maggie.
His second: Get to Maggie. Warn her.
She wasn’t picking up her cell. He climbed into his truck and left a voicemail message for the fire marshal on his way over to Affleck-Martin. The first floor of the Victorian was still illuminated when he drove up.
At the front door, he knocked softly.
A drapery panel at a nearby window shifted. Henry didn’t see her, but he knew she was there.
“Maggie, it’s Henry. Open up.” He kept his voice low, even. He glanced over his shoulder at the darkened street several times in the span it took her to slide the chain off and unbolt the heavy oak door.
As soon as she gave him an opening, Henry charged through.
A rent-a-cop approached the porch from the street side.
Maggie stepped out to talk to him. Henry overheard her say, “It’s okay, Jerry. Thank you.”
She closed the door. Henry stood in a cloud of his own stench. He reeked of smoke, disgusted himself.
“Did you get my messages?” he asked.
“I had my phone on silent,” she whispered, more a pissed-off hush. Her gaze darted toward a couch in the great room behind her. Roosevelt and Layla were both crashed out under a knitted afghan. “What are you doing here?”
Her hair was tousled and mesmerizing in its capacity to hold such defined, sleek curls after everything they’d been through that day; her words were relaxed, as if he had pulled her from sleep. When she wasn’t stirred up like a hornet, her features were nice, pretty. Scrubbed clean, her skin was radiant, white and pink, like one of those fragile, old-fashioned dolls. She wore pink flannel pajama bottoms, a hoodie draped loosely from her shoulders, and a plain t-shirt. Her crossed arms lifted her breasts, breasts that moved too freely beneath the cotton to be inside a bra. He imagined how they would move inside his hands; he twitched fucking hard at the thought.
He knew this all, of course. Had caught himself in his truck in a moment of curiosity, weakness. In the mile and a half it took him to drive her back to the south side neighborhood, he had reasoned the kiss away as loneliness. It certainly wasn’t the first time he had seized an opportunity handed to him by a vulnerable woman. But this. Dammit. The temptation hadn’t gone away. If anything, he wanted more.
So he thought of Caliban. Enough to ice his dick right there.
Henry pulled Maggie aside, away from the great room and the sleeping siblings.
“I think Roosevelt’s stepfather set the fire.”
Her eyes went crazy-wide. “What?”
“I found evidence at the scene.”
“Do the police know?”
“I’m headed over there now. Listen, I need you and Roosevelt and Layla to be careful. Keep them here if you have to. I can hire some extra security.”
“Already done. The director said the boys reported some strange things in the past twenty-four hours—someone watching the house, approaching them as they got off the bus, asking about Roosevelt.”
Henry’s brain throbbed. He stalked off to give his body movement, preoccupation.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Shh!” She glanced back at Roosevelt and his sister.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Henry repeated, not much of a whisper at all. He was pissed. Containing the wha
t-if fear took more than he had left inside him right now.
“I thought you’d go all cowboy vigilante. Roosevelt told me what happened at his house.”
“Just words, Maggie. That’s all.”
“That why Layla gave us an animated recap? Your hands at the man’s throat? All that? She thinks you’re Batman. Some dark knight who dishes out justice, come to save her and Roosevelt. Only I can’t seem to bring myself to tell her there is no justice in the world.”
How had his mission to warn her warped into something close to shame? It was his opening. Perfect time to tell her the truth. Well, not perfect. He should have coughed up his connection to her uncle the first time she came around the gym after that Sunday morning. He should have taken the opportunity to come clean, ended any chance at them ever being more than just casual acquaintances, but her eyes had rounded into exposed pools, stripped of the veneer of toughness, real and imagined.
Henry stepped away. He needed the space to think, to gaze upon something not her. At the far end of the great room, closer to the sofa, a task lamp spread a warm cone of light on a bridge. A bridge of intricate detail that included pools of multicolored surfaces for footpaths, tons of natural green space, solar panels brilliantly woven into the design, and iconic elements that rose high above the span and reminded Henry of hands reaching from each side. Tiny to-scale cars and pedestrians finished off the piece.
The bridge was magnificent.
“What do you think?” Maggie whispered at his shoulder.
He thought he had never seen anything built with such talent, that maybe Maggie was right—maybe the best thing for Roosevelt was to get away from these streets, this environment with an unstable stepfather, and go out into the world to make things that moved people the way this model moved Henry. He thought that maybe he had failed the kid—that Maggie could see in Roosevelt all the things he hadn’t, all the potential, where he saw only a strong right hook and the instincts he used to possess. After seeing the fruits of Roosevelt’s hard work, Henry thought there was no way he could ever suggest Maggie keep Roosevelt here. He had to get to New York, to the final judging, even if Henry had to take them there himself.
Henry’s manager Vitalis lived in New York, in a safe, high-security penthouse, having signed five fighters who made a name for themselves after Henry. Henry had made Vitalis a legend, rich beyond anything his sorry ass would have unearthed on the streets. Marvin owed him. Big time.
“I think I’d better build a crate for this so it doesn’t get damaged in the back of my truck on the drive to New York.”
Quite possibly, Maggie thought she heard him say he would give up MMA and become a tree-hugging missionary in Ghana by the way she launched into his arms. Her soft curves contoured his rock-hard front, the potent contrast nearly unhinging him. He smelled like he had walked through a hundred-acre forest fire, but she either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Her strong hands on either side of his face, she closed in for a kiss that left little mistaking her intent.
Her first offensive move was all his insides needed to ignite.
He matched her tongue for tongue, completely fucking unsatisfied with their predicament—the kids on the sofa, his libido staging a full-on revolt against sanity. His peripheral vision snagged a darkened hallway ten paces away. He scooped her legs around his waist, carried her to the secluded space, and planted her back against the wall.
“I’m sorry I told you to go home,” he whispered against her heated cheeks.
She accepted his apology by plunging her tongue back into his mouth.
His erection inside his flimsy basketball shorts was already straining to bust free—out, down, up—any way he could satisfy his powerful ache by pressing it against her core. Her breaths were wild, totally out of control against his mouth, equal match to his own. They took turns thrusting their tongues into unexplored territory, nearly combustible from the intensity, each wanting more than the other until they had worked themselves into a fever unmatched inside any cage, inside any other woman he had ever been with. Her passion was a fucking firestorm, as he’d suspected it would be, but he had an intensity of his own that, when left unchecked, could scorch.
They had managed all of this cloaked in silence, but she released a mindless groan against his mouth that nearly caused him to lose it, right there. Take her, right there.
But there was a shuffling in the great room. A little girl’s voice.
Henry and Maggie bounded apart like sparring partners after a glove bump. His lungs strived for air as they had when he had been scuba diving in Mexico once and had to remove his mask to pass through a narrow underwater cavern. This time, the deep-fathomed well was desire. Foolish, unwise, intense desire.
Maggie recovered first, shuffling back into the dim light. Henry faced the darkened hallway, unable to con his mind back into a limp dick. Christ, what the fuck was he doing? The stupidity of it all, of messing with a woman who would crumble at his secret, at who he had been, nearly knocking what little wind he could recover right back out of him.
“Hey, sweetheart,” cooed Maggie. “What’s wrong?”
“I had a bad dream,” said Layla.
Maggie scooped the little girl into her arms, as natural as if the girl were hers. She was sweet with kids, as dedicated as they came—as evidenced by her ball-busting tirade about her motivations to work the inner city. His brain, still untangling from his hard-on, projected her into the future, with kids of her own, holding picket signs on bridges and sitting outside the octagon, cheering him on.
Never fucking happen. Ever. Not pacifist Maggie. Not the niece to the guy he almost killed. Not the guy who raped justice out of her progressive world.
“I gotta get to the station.”
Henry brushed past them to the door. He heard Layla say something about “Wall-ace.” He didn’t stay to decipher the rest.
9
While Roosevelt took a turn with Henry inside the octagon—to celebrate finishing the bridge, Roosevelt’s choice—Maggie cleaned what she could of the gym’s corner impacted by the fire. Henry told her not to, that it wasn’t her responsibility, but she inspired the kids in the gym that evening to help. Soon, between the old-timer boxer friends of Sol hanging heavy plastic tarps from the rafters to cordon off the more severe damage and everyone else spending their training time wiping soot off all the equipment, polishing windows, and scrubbing the floors, the gym was largely back in order.
She hadn’t attacked Sol’s office. Henry had quietly insisted that space was off limits. He had a strange, almost savage attachment to the space, like a grieving widow who kept her husband’s closet the same as when he had been alive, down to the dirty socks. Maggie suspected it kept Henry from moving forward, especially since he had forfeited his own apartment to bunk down on Sol’s office cot. Still, she respected his wishes.
Cal, a boxer who had been around since Sol’s days, settled beside Maggie. He handed her a paper plate with a few slices of sausage and cheese pizza Henry had ordered for the cleaning crew as thanks then dug into his own dinner. He had a face like a bulldog, pronounced jowls and all, but he had the demeanor of a teddy bear.
“Tell me about Sol,” said Maggie.
“What do you want to know?”
Cal spoke slowly, deliberately. She knew Cal had been a boxer. He told her so when they had wiped down floor mats. She felt awful attributing his speech delay to perhaps too many blows to the noggin. Instead, she settled into his slower pace and cadence, found it relaxed her.
“What was his relationship to Henry?”
“Suppose as close to a father as anything. Sol was a religious man. Turned many boys here into good men, decent men, a revolving door of philanthropy he felt called by God to do, but Henry…There was always something special there. Henry has his way, Sol’s contributions won’t be forgotten. He always wanted to paint a mural of him on that far wall over there, fill it with quotes. Sol was always saying something worthy of a book. Shoulda been a preacher,
I suppose. Henry never got around to the mural. Never enough money to fix this place up the way he wanted.”
“Where does the money come from?”
“Donations, primarily. Lots of professionals come in here when they spill outta them high-rises a few blocks away—bankers, CEOs, surgeons. Don’t want to mess with them gyms in the suburbs. Fancy equipment, no heart. All the training they need right here with a champ. Rest of it come out of Henry’s winnings. Poured darned near everything he had into keeping this place open so the kids would have a safe place to go after school. Place to keep them on track. Kids gotta toe a straight line to get in that door. Henry won’t have it any other way, same as Sol.”
They watched Roosevelt and Henry in the cage, Henry teaching Roosevelt defensive moves—ducks, fist positioning near the temples, shoulder placement—and Roosevelt being a captive student of the discipline, much like all other subjects.
Cal munched on his pizza for a bit then added, “Henry coulda been out defending his title, racking up endorsements. Hell, he even got an offer from Hollywood to be a body double in an action film. All of that fell by the wayside when Sol took ill. There was no question after that. Gave it all up. Hired the best nurses, ’round the clock care, but still insisted on doting on him and running the gym. Took him ringside at Madison Square Garden in his final days. Ain’t no way Sol was going but on his terms.”
The pizza soured in Maggie’s stomach. She had cast all fighters into the same cage, driven by nothing but an unquenchable desire to prove toughness, some inflated sense of ego driven by society’s narrative of the ideal alpha male. But Henry was not all fighters. He had sacrificed at the pinnacle of his dreams. He had remained loyal to those who helped him achieve success, to those he loved.
Her gaze drifted to the crate he had constructed in the corner. Not simply a man of words but of action. Could someone who spent her days on protest lines say the same?
Henry sat in Sol’s office, Maggie’s bag in hand. She had left it behind when Cal offered to drop her and Roosevelt back at Affleck-Martin. Henry knew he had to get it to her, but mentally, it was like preparing for an epic cage match against himself. Kicking his own ass for not telling her his secret seemed preferable to chancing what happened in that hallway occurring again. He didn’t like the loss of control he had around her. His usual instincts and methods of containment were powerless against her. Since the truck encounter, he had tried to puzzle out why.