by Cate Cameron
“The classes are important, too.”
“No, Zara. Training is a full-time job, and it’s one that needs to be done down here. You want to keep teaching classes up there? How are you going to make that work?”
She had no idea. Helping Zane. Teaching the classes. And Cal, whether she’d mentioned him to Andre or not. These were the reasons she didn’t want to leave Lake Sullivan.
These were the things stealing her focus and making her weak. “I’ll sort things out and get back to you,” she told Andre, and she ended the call.
She stood quietly for a moment, then realized that everyone at the table had stopped talking and was watching her. Waiting. Maybe they’d overheard parts of the conversation, or maybe her body language had given her away. She made herself smile. “They got me on a card, for mid-December. I’m fighting Anna Cade—she’s coming down a weight class.”
“That’s great,” Ashley said cautiously.
“Yeah.” Zara forced the smile just a little wider. “It’s really exciting. I’m looking forward to it!”
“When are you leaving?” Cal asked. His voice was level, but tight. She hadn’t managed to really look at him yet.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Soon, I guess. I need to sort a few things out.”
“I can talk to my parole officer tomorrow,” Zane said quickly. “I think he’ll be okay with me staying alone.”
Yeah, Zane wasn’t going to be sorry to get rid of her.
“And there’s only one more class scheduled for our MMA,” Ashley said. “We were just going to spar anyway, right? So, I mean, it’d be great if you could be there, but we can make it work without you. The center can just grab a random person to make sure we’re safe or whatever. It’ll be fine.”
Another person clearly not too upset about seeing her go. “Yeah, good,” Zara said. “Thanks. That’s all good.”
Everything was good. Everything was getting back to normal, and that was what she wanted. She forced another smile and tried to think about Anna Cade. A strong opponent. A worthwhile fight. It was great! Exciting!
She sipped her juice and tried to pretend she was just stunned from too much happiness.
* * *
“MORE flowers?” Maggie at the grocery store asked.
Cal nodded. “You bet. They make me feel pretty.” He leaned in a little closer and whispered, “You should try scattering the petals over the top of a nice bubble bath. I love it!”
“Uh-huh.” She inspected the rest of his purchases with equal intensity but less comment, and he headed out of the store, bouquet in hand.
His enthusiasm waned a little when he arrived home and found Zara sitting on his front porch steps, her expression somber. But he forced himself to put on a brave face and pulled the flowers and grocery bags out of the back of the car.
“You okay?” he asked as he walked up the path to the door.
“Yeah,” she said. “Perfectly fine. Fit to fight. No worries.”
“And yet I’m worried. Get the door for me, will you?”
“Keys?”
“It shouldn’t be locked.”
“Seriously?” She turned the knob and pushed the door open with a disgusted snort. “I was getting cold out here. I could have been inside?”
“Sorry.” He carried his groceries to the kitchen, set them on the counter, and said, “Has anyone snuck in between times, or can I be the third person to give you flowers, as well as the first and second?”
“The old ones aren’t even dead yet. Not all of them.”
“Are you refusing my flowers?”
It was not a good sign that he still found her eye rolls completely adorable. “No, of course not.” She reached for them and smiled. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He pulled juice out of his grocery bag and poured her a glass, then pulled a beer out of the fridge for himself. “So.” He handed her the glass of juice and nodded toward the sofas. “You’re leaving.” They hadn’t really talked about it the night before. It hadn’t seemed like there was much to say. But he didn’t think he could just let this go, not without . . . without something more.
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “I’m leaving. With the fight scheduled, I need to get back in shape, and I can’t do that here.”
Cal wasn’t sure what part of that he wanted to talk about first. Well, he was damned sure he wanted to yell at her about her head and how she should probably never get back in the ring and sure as hell shouldn’t be doing it so soon. But she didn’t want to hear that from him. Better to wait until he was a bit calmer and could figure out a way to sneak up on the topic. So in the meantime he said, “If it helps, with the parole thing, I can stay with Zane, or he can come stay here. If that does any good.”
She blinked hard again before saying, “Yeah, thanks. I’m hoping he can just live on his own, but if they don’t like that, or if Zane doesn’t like that, I appreciate the offer.”
“So what else can I do? How can I help?”
She looked down at her flowers, poking at one of the blossoms before saying, “I’m moving back to the city. You caught that part, right? I mean . . . thank you. For being so generous and everything. But I’m leaving, Cal. Do you get that?”
“You mean you’re dumping me.”
“Not dumping. But I’m not going to live here anymore. So . . .”
So that was it. He was no longer convenient, so he was out.
He had no right to act surprised. She’d never made a secret of her plans, and he’d been the one chasing her, right from the start. “Yeah, okay,” he said, but apparently that wasn’t quite enough for her.
“What do you want me to say?” Zara demanded. “Am I supposed to quit fighting and come live here forever?”
“Is that an option? Because, hell yeah, that would be great. I could see more of you and you could avoid brain damage—sounds like a win-win.”
“Enough with the brain damage!”
“Why? Because you’re pretending it’s not a possibility?” He wasn’t going to hold back, not if this was his last chance to talk to her about it. “Damn it, Zara, you know it could happen! I mean, anytime you get in the ring with a trained fighter who’s allowed to hit you in the head, it’s a possibility, but in this case? When you’re not recovered from—no, don’t make that face, you’re not recovered from your last concussion. I can’t believe you’re taking the chance. And mid-December? What is that, five weeks? That’s not enough time to get fit, is it? So you’ll be even more vulnerable! Jesus, Zara!”
“It’s six weeks.”
“Oh, okay, then. No problem.” He tried to take some of the bitterness out of his voice when he said, “What if you just said no? You could tell them you need more time to be sure your head’s okay.”
“I already told them it was fine. They gave me a clean bill of health.”
“So tell them things have changed.”
She stared at him. He couldn’t read her expression, but he didn’t think she was angry. Confused maybe, certainly some brand of upset, but not really angry. He softened his tone. “What would happen if you didn’t fight?”
“They could take the title away. If I refuse to fight without a good reason, they could take it away.”
He nodded. He didn’t give a good goddamn about the title, but she did. “So we can either persuade them that you do have a good reason to refuse, or . . .” He shrugged. “If you get better and want to fight again, you can win the title back. Right? And if the concussion stuff keeps on being a problem—I know you don’t want to hear it, Zare, but you’d have to retire anyway. So either way, where’s the harm in turning down this fight?”
“You don’t know how it works. You make one poster for them and you think you’re an expert? It’s not as easy as you make it sound.”
“What, now you’re only
doing things that are easy? Sorry, I didn’t realize.”
“Shut up,” she grumbled. She looked back down at the flowers and said, “Can we just not think about it? For tonight, at least, can we just be here?”
He stared at her for a moment. Forget everything else? Tempting, but possible? “We can try,” he said. And they did. They made dinner, and ate it together, and then they made love, slow and gentle. Cal didn’t want to admit it, but it felt like they were saying good-bye.
Nineteen
ZARA’S FINGERS WERE tight around the steering wheel. It had been so easy physically to load up her belongings and drive out of Lake Sullivan, and so nearly impossible emotionally.
It wasn’t just leaving Cal that was hard. They’d left things open that morning; she was just going to spend a few days in the city and see how training felt, and maybe she’d try to talk to Terry, the head of the organization, if she could think of anything to say. Cal had offered to call him on her behalf and she’d shut him down, of course. She had a manager, and if there was something Andre couldn’t do, then she’d do it herself. She didn’t need her boyfriend—
She caught herself. Boyfriend. That word again. Was that what Cal was? If he ever had been, was he still? The bags of clothes on the seat behind her sure made it seem like she was leaving Lake Sullivan for good, but . . . but what?
Zane’s probation officer had said it was okay for Zane to live alone as long as he kept going to work regularly and Zara checked in on him. And Zane had said he was fine by himself, although Zara wasn’t feeling totally comfortable with that claim. Again, though, Cal had stepped in and said he’d make sure Zane was okay.
It was kind of hard to leave the guy behind when he was still involved in her brother’s life. Kind of hard to leave him behind even without that.
She couldn’t get over the feeling that she should be pulling a U-turn and heading back to Lake Sullivan. But somehow her discipline held and she made it to the city. Her apartment was in Queens, only a few blocks from the gym where she did most of her training, and she stopped there only long enough to empty the car. It wasn’t the best neighborhood and leaving anything inside a vehicle was an invitation for someone to break in and take it. But as soon as that was done, she headed for the gym.
That was what she needed. A good workout, some training with her old crew, and she’d get back into real life with no trouble.
She pushed the heavy door open and slipped inside, then stood there for a moment, just watching. Everything seemed so normal. She’d taken breaks before, of course, and she knew the gym kept functioning even without her presence. But it was still strange to see it happening right before her eyes.
Bonita was the first to notice her, glancing over as she took one of her thirty-second rests from the kettlebell training circuit. “Damn,” she called over the grunts and conversations of the men around them. “I was getting used to having the apartment to myself!”
“Too bad for you,” Zara replied. “I’m back.”
Bonita jogged over for a quick, sweaty hug, then jerked her head toward the mats. “I’ve got to keep going,” she said.
Zara nodded. There were others to greet now, trainers and coaches and other fighters, and they were a good distraction. She set up some training and sparring times, arranged for fight tapes to be e-mailed to her so she could start watching Anna Cade’s technique, and then heard someone from over her shoulder say, “Or you could just wait ’til she shows up and watch her live.”
Zara turned to look at whoever it was. Some young guy she didn’t know. “What are you talking about?”
His smile told her he’d gotten the reaction he was hoping for. “You didn’t know she started training here? Your manager’s the one who set it up.”
She stared at him. “Andre? Why the hell—” She stopped talking. She needed to play this right, and that meant not showing weakness or confusion to whoever this clown was. “Yeah, okay,” she said, and turned away from him.
Damon Malicki, the head coach, had watched the exchange. “Come talk to me,” he said.
She’d been working with him for years. She trusted him, surely. If she didn’t, she needed to go find a new gym fast. But she was pretty sure she did, so she followed him off to a slightly more private corner of the gym.
“Andre didn’t mention that to you?”
“Is he managing her? He set up a fight for me with someone else he’s managing?”
“Not officially,” Damon said. “As I understand it, he’s trying to sign her but he hasn’t done it. Not yet.”
“But you’re training her.” It wasn’t unheard of for opponents to come from the same gym, but it wasn’t anything Zara had ever experienced before. Bonita was still working her way up the rankings, not ready for a title shot yet, and the only other women at the gym were even lower ranked than Bonita.
“I am.”
“So how are you supposed to, like, give me strategies? Are you going to be telling her how to beat me up?”
“I’ll do my best for both of you,” he said. Then he paused as if thinking over his next words. “Andre didn’t tell you about this? I’m sorry, I would have given you a call when I took her on—not to ask permission, just to give you a heads-up. But I assumed he’d already done that.”
“No.” Again, it wasn’t unheard of for managers to have fighters face off against each other. The MMA world just wasn’t that big, and any manager who was trying to make a living needed to have quite a few fighters under contract. But Andre not telling Zara about his plans? There was something wrong. Seriously wrong.
She wanted to call Cal. How weak she’d become, and so quickly! She’d only really known him, as an adult, for a couple months. Only been . . . whatever they were . . . for even less time. And already she wanted to go crawling to him for help. Damn it. She needed to get tough again.
And she was going to start that process by talking to Andre. Without Cal’s help.
* * *
“I just want to keep her safe,” Cal said. He and Zane were at Woody’s, as usual, and Cal was pretty sure he’d had too much to drink. Not sloppy drunk yet, but certainly saying things he shouldn’t. “She won’t let me take care of her, of course. But that just makes me want it even more. Because she’s so strong, but she shouldn’t have to be.”
Zane seemed amused. “There’s nothing wrong with being strong. It’s not what you have to be, it’s what you get to be.”
“Okay. Yeah, okay, good point. But she shouldn’t have to use her strength so often. That’s what I mean.”
“Use it or lose it,” Zane said with a shrug.
“Really? You think that’s true?”
Zane seemed to think it over. “Maybe not. There’s people who can surprise you. They never seem to stand up to anything until one day all of sudden they do.” Another shrug. “And the other direction, too. I mean, I thought I was a pretty tough kid, but after a while it wore me down. It wasn’t making me stronger anymore, it was just . . . killing me.”
“You have no idea how much I wish I’d been more helpful with that.” Cal slammed his beer down on the table. “And now I don’t want to make the same mistake with Zara. I listened to you when you said you didn’t need help, and you were lying, you bastard! So now what if Zara’s lying? What if she does need help, and I’m sitting around here with you instead of doing something?”
“What would you do exactly?”
“I have a long list of possible activities.”
“Do any of them make any actual sense?”
“A couple of them might.”
“Give me the top two.”
Well, that was a little more structure than Cal had been expecting. The top two. Huh. “Well, I think me getting my ass to the city is probably part of both of them. I really don’t think I can do a lot from up here.”
“Okay. And then, once you’re down ther
e . . .”
“I could talk to Terry. Try to figure out some business reason why it would be better for her to fight later, and convince him of that.”
“And then after Zara cuts your balls off for interfering, what’s the next step?”
“Well, yeah, that’s where the plan gets a little sketchy.”
“That was your best idea? Or was it the first runner-up, and you’re about to reveal the beauty queen idea now?”
“The other idea is just . . . hanging around. Being there. Keeping an eye on her, watching if she’s getting dizzy or anything, trying to talk to her. It’s a lot less satisfying than the direct intervention.”
“But a lot more likely to leave you with your balls attached.”
“An important point.”
Zane sighed. “This is serious? The concussion thing, it’s a real risk? She said the doctors told her she was okay.”
“She lied to the doctors. They were basing their diagnosis on inaccurate information.”
“Yeah. That’s not good.” Zane sipped his beer. “You’d really do that? I mean, could you do that? You’ve got a career up here, you know. Might be kind of hard to do it from a distance. And look, Cal, it’s not your job to rescue the Hales. You’re just a guy, not our guardian angel. You didn’t let me down ten years ago. Not before it went bad, and not after, either. You did the right thing. I appreciate it. But you’re not actually responsible for looking after us forever.”
“I want to help you both. Because I care about you both.”
“You and Zara weren’t together all that long. It was intense, I guess, but still, not a lot of time. And she just left town yesterday. You don’t think you should maybe just settle down a little and adjust to the new situation? You’re really going to drop everything and move to the city for her? Just like that?”
Cal knew that everything Zane was saying made sense. But he also knew how he felt, and what he was prepared to do. “Yeah,” he said. “I think so. Well, I won’t drop everything. I’ll set some of it down carefully, and I’ll bring some of it along with me. It’s the slow season at work, and there’s nothing super pressing going on. So really it’s just the moving that’s a problem. But, yeah, I’ll move to the city for her. At least, I’m going to try to. Who knows if she’ll let me?”