Pushing the Limits

by Jennifer Snow

  Hands on his hips, he took a deep breath as he heard Lee’s voice yelling his name from the office at the far end of the bar.

  Tasting copper, he wiped at a stream of blood trickling from his lip as he continued to catch his breath. Picking up the radio he’d dropped midfight, he pushed his way through the crowd, not noticing anyone as he made his way to Lee. He nodded for him to follow him into his office, where his cousin sat.

  Damn it.

  The smug look on the jerk’s face told him everything before Lee could even speak. He turned to his boss, squaring his shoulders. “Do you want me to at least finish out the shift?” His voice was hard. Years of being treated unfairly had taught him to keep emotions in check. They hadn’t gotten the best of him out on the floor; they wouldn’t break him in here either.

  “No,” Lee said, looking torn and disappointed that he had to fire him.

  Dane nodded. “Okay.”

  “You can pick up your final check in a few days,” Lee said behind him as he left the office.

  * * *

  “So, what’s the story with this Dane Hardy guy?” Colby asked as she applied the bright red to her lips the following Friday evening. After surviving the scariest free climb from hell earlier that week, she was more determined than ever to get the story she couldn’t stop thinking about. She could feel this would be a great one, which was why she’d returned to Xtreme Fight for yet another humiliating night.

  This time she knew the story angle she was after and she was there to start collecting intel. Dane returning to the octagon to fight Mendez would be good, but if she could get the real story about what happened in the Consuelos fight, that would be the gold. After reviewing more news footage from the night of the incident, she was convinced there was more to it than had been reported. A brief image of Dane being brought into the police station that evening, looking distraught and terrified, had stuck with her, and the words he’d mumbled before being warned to remain silent—“Shouldn’t have been in there”—had her convinced this story went a lot deeper than just an unfortunate accident inside the cage. Who shouldn’t have been in there—him or Consuelos? And why not?

  Unfortunately, it looked as though she’d said the one name no one mentioned around Xtreme Fight. Ella and Lucy stopped applying their makeup to stare at her.

  “What did I say?” she asked.

  “We don’t talk about him around here,” Ella hissed.

  Colby frowned. “I know he killed a guy . . .”

  “Not just any guy—a fighter,” Lucy said. “Wherever you’re going with this, you need to stop.”

  Her mouth went dry. She didn’t want the girls to find out why she was there. Any chance she had of their opening up and sharing information with her would disappear if they knew. “I’m not going anywhere with it. I was just curious.”

  Ella shot her look that said she wasn’t buying it. “Look, obviously you have your reasons for being here, but consider yourself warned. If Cameron hears you asking around about D and that night, he’ll fire you immediately.”

  “It spooks the guys. The mere mention of Da—the name—freaks the fighters out.” Lucy lowered her voice. “These guys like to think they’re invincible. They can’t confidently walk into the cage with that . . . event . . . on their minds.”

  So they turn a blind eye to the real possibility of getting seriously hurt? That was smart, Colby thought wryly, continuing to apply her lipstick. And the fact they thought the mere mention of Dane would bring bad luck or something was absurd. “Okay, I was just wondering what the situation was.”

  Lucy tossed her blush into her makeup bag. “Look, it was a legal kick, and Marco didn’t walk away from the fight. It was almost a year ago. No one wants to remember that night, so drop it, okay?”

  Colby nodded, even though she had no intention of dropping it. There was more to this story than people knew. She could feel it in her gut, and there was more to Dane than just a fighter whose career had ended with a tragedy. But, obviously, she wouldn’t get anywhere with the girls.

  Which was where her newly thawed-out credit card came in. “Another round?” she asked the fighters later that evening at Red Velvet Night Club just off the strip. Inviting them all out after the fights—or rather inviting herself along to their after-party at the dark and dingy club—had been the only way she could see to get them to reveal anything about the organization and the Consuelos fight.

  She bit her lip, mentally calculating the bill if they all said yes. Forty dollars . . . fifty maybe. She could probably swing another round, maybe two . . . but soon someone had to start talking.

  She had to start talking. Asking these guys about Dane was proving more challenging than she thought. The three fighters and the other ring girls were having a great time celebrating their wins inside the cage that evening and there didn’t seem to be a lead-in opportunity to start asking questions.

  Maybe this wasn’t such a terrific plan, after all.

  And if the fighter sitting next to her kept touching her, she was going to break his arm, she thought, sliding farther into the booth, away from the grubby hands of Mike “The Slayer” Mayer, who’d won his featherweight match that evening. His overinflated ego had already doubled its size.

  His hand fell off her leg onto the leather booth seat and he turned to face her. “You’re new, right?” His words slurred slightly and the smell of beer on his breath made her queasy.

  She needed answers, but the idea of making fake small talk with this guy once again made her wonder if there was an easier way to get her promotion. She sighed, looking across the table where the other two victorious fighters seemed more than happy to keep drinking on her tab while they attempted to pick up the other two ring girls.

  She supposed she should feel lucky to be getting any attention from Mike. Judging by the looks of envy that could pierce a hole through her forehead from some of the other women in the bar, she figured she should be flattered he was trying to get her into bed.

  She wasn’t. She just wanted him to talk. “Yes, I am. And I really know little about the sport,” she lied. Plastering a fake flirty smile on her face, she added, “Maybe you could explain it to me.”

  “Sure,” he slurred, moving closer, draping one arm around her shoulder. “Why don’t we go back to my place?”

  Her heart raced. There was only so much she would do for a good story. She glanced at the guy’s beer. If he chugged it, he’d probably be too drunk for much anyway . . .

  Oh, my God! Was she seriously considering this?

  He leaned even closer, lowering his head toward her neck. “What do you say? I can show you my championship belt.”

  Women fell for that line? “Uh . . .” She hesitated, glancing frantically around the bar.

  Then her heart soared. If she ever believed in miracles, this was the time. Across the bar, the man she’d googled repeatedly over the last seven days sat on a bar stool talking to a redheaded woman behind the bar who worked furiously, shaking her head no. He kept talking, getting up to follow her from one end of the long mahogany bar to the other as she worked.

  “Well, are we leaving?” Mike was saying.

  She was. Colby grabbed her purse and stood, shuffling her way past him out of the booth.

  “Hey, where are you going?”

  “Uh . . . I’ll be back in a minute.” Or never. Hopefully never, she thought as she made her way to the bar. “Hi,” she said to Dane a few seconds later.

  Dane looked preoccupied, but he smiled briefly as he recognized her. “Eye Gouge—how are you?” he asked, keeping one eye on the bartender as she disappeared into the back room of the club.

  “I’m good. How are you?”

  He sighed, watching the redhead disappear. “I was trying to get a job.” He shrugged.

  “Well, I wanted to say thanks again for the ride the other night,” she sai
d.

  He checked his watch. “Yeah, no problem. Anyway, it was nice to see you again . . .”

  “Colby,” she said.

  “Right. Well, have a good night.” He turned to leave and panic strangled her.

  She couldn’t let him walk out. This was her chance to get to know him. Find out the truth about what happened that night in the cage. A night no one wanted to talk about. “Hey, can I buy you a drink?”

  He stopped, and for a brief moment she thought he might say yes, but he shook his head. “No, thanks, I really have to take off.”

  Think fast. “Oh, okay. Well, um, can I get another ride?” She could pick up her car from the club parking lot in the morning. She needed a few minutes with him. Feel him out. Find out anything and everything she could.

  He frowned. “Aren’t you here with friends or something?” He looked around the club.

  “They’re not ready to leave yet and I’m”—she forced a yawn—“exhausted.” She shot him a hopeful look.

  He sighed, but nodded. “Okay. Sure.”

  She smiled. “Thanks, I really appreciate it.”

  He nodded and looked uncomfortable, as though he were about to change his mind any second as she quickly settled the tab, trying not to wince at the three-hundred-dollar bill she’d jacked up for no reason. “Okay, I’m ready,” she said, hurrying toward the door as she noticed Mike approaching them.

  “So, why are you looking for a new job?” she asked as they headed toward his truck in the parking lot.

  He held the passenger-side door open for her. “I got fired from my last one for doing my job,” he mumbled before shutting the door.

  She watched him walk around the front of the truck. Of all the crap luck. This guy couldn’t seem to get his life on track at all. He looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and she suspected most of it had to do with feeling guilty for Marco Consuelos’s death and his walking away from the sport he used to love, the sport he was good at. She knew from her countless Google searches the past week that his fight record hadn’t been the best in the league, but he’d always given the fans a good fight. He was a crowd favorite inside and outside of the cage. She’d seen pictures of him at fighter meet-and-greet events, posing with young kids from local group homes, and she knew he donated part of his fight-win money to the Sports for Kids program, an organization that helped underprivileged kids participate in sports.

  He was a good guy whom life had decided to deal a shitty card.

  When he climbed into the driver’s seat, she already had a solution for him. “Are you only considering nightclubs for work?” she asked.

  He turned the key in the ignition. “Nightclubs, casinos, anywhere needing security,” he said.

  “Would you consider a career change?”

  He glanced at her with a puzzled expression. “I’m not sure I’m good at anything else.”

  “Well, my father owns Edwards’ Propellers. Have you heard of them?”

  Obviously he had, as he was staring at her wide-eyed. “Your dad makes propellers for airplanes?”

  She couldn’t quite understand his interest. Or was it disbelief that a woman from an obviously successful family had chosen ring girl as her profession? She was tempted to tell him the truth in that moment, but decided to focus on helping him with a job. It helped to ease a little of the guilt she felt for lying to him. “Yes. My brothers, Doug and Marshall, work there as well. And Dad’s always looking for muscle.” Which Dane had plenty of. Her cheeks turned red as she looked away from the big biceps straining against the fabric of his gray dress shirt. He was a gorgeous guy, and while he didn’t fight anymore, he was built like a fighter—thick shoulders, muscles on top of muscles in his arms and chest, a solid waist that she suspected contained a far-too-tempting six-pack. She shook it off as she said, “So, do you think you might consider manufacturing work?”

  She’d obviously caught his interest as he said, “What would I have to do?”

  “Mostly labor-intensive work. Sanding, painting . . . that kind of thing.” She shrugged. She’d worked in the small plant for a few hours a week while in high school to help raise the money she needed for college. Her parents had set aside money for their children’s education, but they’d encouraged her and her brothers to make their own. She’d liked working with her dad. He would talk for hours about the different propeller designs and the projects they were working on. She knew he’d wanted to get his pilot’s license, but with his heart condition, her mother had always talked him out of it.

  Dane stopped at a red light and studied her. “And he’s hiring?”

  She nodded.

  “Can I go see him tomorrow?”

  His eagerness surprised her, but she was glad he was willing to accept her help, instead of playing the I-don’t-need-any-help macho role. “Tomorrow is Saturday. The shop is only open from Monday to Friday.” She rummaged around in her new purse for a pen and tore a piece of paper from her notebook. She scribbled the address to Edwards’ Propellers and her father’s name and handed it to him. “But you can go see him first thing Monday morning. He’s usually there by seven.” She would also give her father a heads-up that Dane would be coming. Her brothers watched the MFL fights on pay-per-view sometimes, so they might recognize him, but she doubted her father would. She knew Dane’s history would have no effect on his decision, but it would be better if she prepared him for the information, in case it came up. “Tell him you’re a friend of Colby’s.”

  “A friend?”

  “Sounds better than chauffeur, don’t you think?” she asked with a grin.

  He smiled. A real smile, one she hadn’t expected, one that rocked her to her core. Her stomach gave an involuntary flutter. Shit. He was gorgeous. And he was a source. Therefore, this fluttering in her stomach needed to fuck off already.

  “Friend it is,” he said, tucking the paper above the visor.

  As he turned onto the busy Las Vegas Strip, she sat forward and bit her lip, wondering how to approach the subject she really wanted to discuss. She was desperate to learn more about that night a year ago, but it wasn’t exactly something she could blurt out. She doubted he’d be any more eager or willing to talk about it than the other fighters at Xtreme Fight were. Less so.

  “Go ahead and ask,” he said, surprising her a second later. He shot her a glance as he switched lanes in the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the neon-lit, pedestrian-packed street.

  Her eyes widened. “Ask what?”

  “Whatever question is burning in your mind.”

  He was perceptive. And though he was giving her the green light, something held her back. “There was nothing,” she said, not even convincing herself.

  “Yeah, right. Look, you know who I am. Your expression the other night made that obvious, so go ahead. What do you want to know? Was I on anything that night? Did I intend to kick him that hard? There’s nothing you can ask I haven’t been asked a million times before, so what is it?”

  She hesitated. Sensing a cold remorse in his aching tone, she decided now wasn’t the right time. She barely knew him, and she didn’t want the standard responses to the questions that he’d obviously repeated a million times. Ari was right when he said this story had been hashed to death the year before. She needed something new, a fresh angle, something painfully real to make this a good story. That was the only reason she held back, she told herself. She released a sigh. “Actually, I was wondering if you were hungry.”

  He shot her a curious look. “Am I hungry?” he repeated slowly, as though it were a trick question.

  “More specifically, for Chinese food.”

  He smiled again and she had to sit on her hands to resist the temptation to touch a dimple in his right cheek. What the hell was wrong with her? She’d convinced him to give her a ride she didn’t need to get closer to him, to ask him questions, to see if he
’d let his guard down. Not to offer to help him get a job, invite him out to dinner, and start to develop an unhealthy, career-endangering crush on him.

  Though, maybe that was one way to get answers.

  He was staring at her as the light turned green and a horn honked behind them. “Well, are you in or not? Either way, I’m stuffing my face with eggrolls in ten minutes,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Okay, yeah,” he said finally. “I could do Chinese food.”

  “Great,” she said, turning her attention out the window.

  Just great.

  * * *

  Dane stared at Colby’s plate half an hour later. There was no way her tiny body would be able to consume all of the food she’d ordered. Deep-fried lemon chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, ginger beef, and fried rice threatened to spill over the sides of her plate as she ignored the fork and opened the chopsticks.

  He’d be there all night if he tried using those. He glanced around the tiny, nearly empty Chinese restaurant she’d insisted had the best food in town. Only one other person was using chopsticks, so he stabbed a piece of broccoli from his vegetable medley with a fork and popped it into his mouth. Across from him, he watched as she swallowed a piece of lemon-flavored chicken, trying not to regret his own mainly vegetable-dish choices. “You like the fried stuff, huh?”

  “Yup.” She scanned his plate. “Are you some kind of health freak?”

  He used to be. He shrugged. “Just hoping to live beyond fifty, I guess,” he said, eating a mouthful of jasmine rice.

  “What’s the point of living a long life if you’re not enjoying it?” she asked, sipping her tea.

  She had a point. Reaching across the table, he stabbed a piece of her ginger beef and ate it. He closed his eyes as the garlic teased his tongue. He hadn’t trained in almost a year, but he’d kept up his healthy diet and worked out at home. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten anything with real flavor.

  “Good, right?” she asked with a grin.

  “Best thing I’ve had in my mouth in far too long,” he mumbled, his mouth full.