by Emilia Finn
But then Miles Walker arrived at my family’s gym eighteen months ago, his eyes… well, they made my romantic heart sigh. Wow, I remember thinking. Who is this guy? And then – damn my romantic heart – he stumbled over his words.
He’s a fight fan, as many are, so he blushed when Smalls introduced us. She said my name – Kincaid – and he nearly giggled.
Miles Walker is definitely not the first guy in my world that fangirled because of my name. Before him, there have been hundreds, perhaps thousands, who tried to get my attention simply because of who my father is.
But that’s not what Miles did.
He stumbled on his words, stared around in awe, and then Smalls put me in charge of Alyssa for just a minute, just long enough to get the guy signed in, and in that moment, his excitement flipped to something much darker.
Do not fuck with my little girl.
Those beguiling eyes were no longer awed, they were no longer struck by fame and excitement. And shit, the fact I was a Kincaid didn’t mean a damn thing to him anymore. If I messed with his baby, he was going for the throat.
I expected he’d go home after the tournament, and I’d go back to living my life… but he got a second thought. A third. He came back for Stacked Deck’s second year, and gone was his awe, but friendliness was there, a quick grin and a happy memory because I hadn’t fucked with Alyssa the year before.
He got a fourth, and fifth, and sixth thought, when I was so determined to keep my thoughts to myself.
And then the bomb was dropped at our table over breakfast – Iowa was moving to town. Now he’s in my pool, and Alyssa is giggling in a way I’m not sure I’ve done since I was her age. Being a daddy’s girl, having that strong fighter always willing to catch you – to toss you in a pool, sure, but to be there to catch you again and brush the hair out of your face… damn, my father made me a romantic.
It’s hard not to be, when you grow up watching Bobby and Kit Kincaid love each other.
Some of the kids in my school swore that their mom and dad never touched, never kissed, never anything, and vowed that if they were to witness such behavior, they’d be scarred for life. Meanwhile, I’m not sure I’ve ever lived a day when my mom and dad haven’t kissed with a little tongue. Dad would grab Mom’s ass while the coffee pot was filling. Other times, giggles would filter into the hall – except the shower would also be going. Me, Bry, and my little sister Emma learned long ago to get over it, to leave them be, to let them be happy, because when we did, Mom and Dad would always be smiling when they came downstairs.
And what kind of family doesn’t want smiling parents?
“Throw me, Daddy!” Alyssa races along the concrete on the outside of the pool – Miles grits his teeth much the same way I do, watching and praying she doesn’t slip – then she stops on the opposite side and makes him swim to her.
The sun beats down on them, tanning Miles’ broad shoulders – those effing fighter shoulders – and sparkles off the top of his dark hair. I let my eyes scan his back while he watches Lyss, but I’ve seen him in the gym too, in the octagon during a tournament; he has no visible ink, unlike most of the fighters I know.
He wears a baseball cap at least half of the time, but not right now, not while he’s swimming. It lays discarded along with his shirt on the chair beside the one the teddy bear is sunning itself on.
“Let’s go, baby.” Miles claps his hand, a little exasperated, if I can read him right. “Get back in the pool and stop running around. You’re going to burn up if you stay out for too long.”
“Okay.”
The girl backs up a dozen or so feet, pops her bubble butt and wiggles her hips like she thinks that’ll help her go fast. She bunches her shoulders, much the same way her father does when sparring, and lowers her head. Then she pumps her arms and takes off at a sprint, only to belly flop a couple feet short of where Miles stands in the water.
Shaking his head, he swim-runs to her, and pulls her up with a laugh when she emerges and sprays water up like from a whale’s… insert college-educated knowledge here. Blowhole? I should Google that, then challenge myself to use it in my story tomorrow. Like a word of the day thing.
“Baby!” Miles’ laughter makes me smile. The way he throws his head back, the deep chuckle that rumbles along his broad chest.
Damn him and his fighter’s chest.
“You need to do head or toes first. Not your belly!” He flips her in his arms, lays her on her back so she floats and lays on one supporting hand, then he uses the other to rub her belly.
She trusts him implicitly, floats on that one hand, when I know it took me a long time to do the same.
I didn’t like the sensation of water filling my ears, or the sun in my eyes, as I had to trust and look to the sky.
“Lay straight,” my dad would say. Water sparkled off his broad fighter’s chest, and hair hung in his eyes, long enough to curl around his jaw and make me think of pirates. My imagination was strong, even back then. “Trust me, Brookey. Daddy won’t let you go under.”
“I love you, Daddy.” My eyes refocus on the couple below my window. As Miles’ hand continues to rub circles, and Lyss’ arms and legs open until she’s a starfish. “How much do you love me?”
His smile is blinding. It’s enough to make a romantic already fancy herself in love. “I love you so, so, so, so, so, so, sooooooo much.” He picks her up, and brings her in until her arms and legs wrap around him like a baby koala. “I love you more than I love ice cream.”
“Oh my gosh!” The girl throws her head back with a laugh. “That’s a lot!”
“Uh huh. Daddy loves you more than he loves milkshakes.”
“For real?” She already knows the answer, but it would seem this is a game they know well. “For real life, Daddy?”
“Uh huh. I love you more than I love the Flintstone’s movie.”
“Oh wow.” She curls into him and snuggles in like she knows she controls her fighter. Her warrior. “I love you too.”
“Are you ready to go home, baby? We can go in, have a snack, then Daddy can do a little work. After that, we can have dinner and burrow in for the night so you’re ready for your second day of big school.”
“Okay. I’m ready.”
“Alright.”
Without releasing his girl, Miles makes his way to the stairs built into the end of our pool. There’s no reason for him to look up; I don’t move, I make no sound as I sit in the window and watch their story play out, but still, his eyes snap to mine and dig in. His chest broadens for a moment, fills with adrenaline as his instincts decide friend or foe?
Then he relaxes. His eyes soften. And his lips – damn those romantic lips – curl up into a gentle smile.
He lifts his chin the way guys do in lieu of a hello, and when I lift a hand for a subtle wave, he taps Lyss’ shoulder and gestures toward me.
“Oh, hey!” Her body, which was relaxed a second ago, now turns taut and excited as she lifts her arm and waves with what could only be described as exuberance. “Hi, Miss Brooke!”
I wave for her too, and mouth the words “Hey, Lyss.”
They won’t be able to hear me unless I shout, and I don’t want to shout, I don’t want to shatter the story playing outside my window. It’s a peek into another world, a happy family, even if it’s not the traditional kind. I don’t want to ruin that with loudness, so I just wave and smile, and when Miles stands at the safety gate in shorts and nothing else while the sun sparkles off his wet chest, and his hair hangs over his forehead, I sigh and wonder if I could write a tiny fairy princess into my story. She would have long, brown hair, whiskey-colored eyes, and a red belly – I’d write it and say that maybe she was testing out her new wings, and skidded along the forest floor in an emergency landing. Of course, she would need a security detail – not a fairy, but something else… maybe an elf, the sexy kind like in Lord of the Rings.
They won’t fit into my current work-in-progress, but something else. I could start somet
hing else just for them.
Miles stands at the gate while Lyss runs around and collects her things – a towel, her bear, his shirt and hat – and when she meets him at the exit, his eyes come back to me one last time. He tips his chin, flashes a grin that makes my heart sigh, and then he leads his little girl through my yard and out of sight.
Until tomorrow.
With my heart and mind full of brand new inspiration, I race back to my bed and snatch up my laptop. My fingers fly over the keys, but where I left off with a sense of dread for an upcoming battle, instead I write a quiet conversation between Tallulah and Roman DeLuca. Her best friend since birth, her soldier, the man that would fall to save her. What was slated to be a scene of bloodshed becomes soft touches, whispers, smiles, as she half dozes with her head nestled on his muscled thigh, and his callused fingers sliding through her hair.
“I promise to keep you safe.”
They whisper it to each other, because they’re both strong, they’re both soldiers.
“I promise not to let you down.”
Miles
Training in the Afternoon
“Walker?” Bobby Kincaid’s booming voice ricochets from outside and slides into my home like bullets in a steel box. His shout terrifies me, though it shouldn’t.
My stomach drops as I stand at the kitchen counter and listen to Alyssa read a book about fish – the story is written from a bear’s point of view, and though nature says he should eat them – the fish – he’d rather befriend them.
“Miles Walker?”
Lyss’ eyes, wild and wide, flip away from her book and stop on me. “Daddy?”
“Hold on a sec, baby. You stay here.” I rest a hand on her shoulder when she turns to slide off her stool, and step away from her to place distance between whatever Bobby Kincaid wants and my daughter.
I cross the ornate kitchen – the kind that without the Kincaids, I would never be able to provide for Lyss – pass through the living room, and step into the fancy foyer until I stop with my hand on the doorknob.
Since Karla walked away, I’ve lived so much of my life in fight mode. To fight Lorna for my daughter, fight the authorities when they wanted to pin my girlfriend’s disappearance on me, fight the medical system when my daughter needed help. So Bobby’s booming shout sends me straight to that place again, the mentality of taking care of business.
But then I remind myself that these people aren’t our enemies. They’re not looking to hurt us or take my daughter. So I open the door – but still, I block the way with my body before he can barrel in.
“Coach?”
He spins with a playful grin; it’s enough to set me at ease, but also to piss me off, since he didn’t have to put me on guard in the first damn place. “Hey, Iowa.”
He takes a step forward to let himself inside, but I remain in place, and stand my ground when he lifts a brow in surprise.
“I wanted to…” He frowns. “Uh… You okay?”
“Don’t come around shouting my name like that, coach. You scared my daughter, and you made me think I was walking toward a war. If you have something to say, I’m gonna need you to turn it down a notch so my adrenaline doesn’t go racing while I think of somewhere to stuff my daughter until the war is over.”
“Oh… right.” He nods. Clears his throat. “Sure. Sorry. Around here, I’m kinda conditioned to have to shout to be heard.”
“Yeah? Well in my world, I’m conditioned to be kicked in the guts every two seconds. More so when I find a reason to smile, which I did a lot of today. I don’t wanna live in that world anymore.”
Again he nods. “I get it. I apologize.” He extends a hand, a fist to bump, and stands a little easier when I oblige. “I’ll be more mindful in the future, I swear.” Then his eyes cloud. “I scared Lyss?”
“Little bit.”
I finally step aside, allow him to enter, and walk back to the kitchen to find her exactly where I left her. Where I told her to wait.
“It’s Mr. Kincaid, baby.”
“You can call me Bobby.” He moves forward, and folds a little to meet Lyss on her level. “I’m sorry I scared you, beautiful. I didn’t mean to do that. I was just being loud and silly.”
“S’okay.” She turns back to her bear book and holds it up for him to see. “We were reading.”
“Yeah?” Bobby takes the book as I move around the counter and pull the fridge open.
I keep an eye on them, and pull a pitcher of lemon water from the top shelf. It’s literally water with slices of lemon thrown in for the flavor. I put it in the fridge this morning, knowing I’d have a bitch of a day in the heat, and I’d want something fresh to drink when I was done.
“Is it a good book?” he asks as he flips through the pages. “What do you think of it?”
“I like it.” Lyss sits taller, proud, as he flips back to the front cover and scans the title. “The bear is friends with everyone. There’s another one with a lion.”
“No way?” Bobby’s eyes light up with faux excitement. “What does the lion do?”
“He’s the leader of his pack,” she answers easily. The bear book is part of a series that we’ve read every single one of. “But his pack is full of baby lions.”
“Cubs.” I pour three glasses of water. “They’re called cubs, baby.”
Lyss nods for Bobby. “They’re called cubs. He’s the boss of the cubs, and he helps them be brave.”
“That sounds so cool.”
He gently places the book on the counter, then accepts the water from me. “Thanks.” He takes a sip and groans. “It’s hot as Hades out there. This is perfect.”
“You wanted something, coach?”
“Yeah,” he chuckles when my tone comes across exactly how I meant it – impatience. My blood is yet to slow, and it’s because of him. “Our gym is a family, right? So a couple times a year, we do things that include the whole family.”
“Like the Christmas Day barbecue?”
“Right, like that.”
Making himself at home, he slides onto the stool beside Lyss, and makes her giggle when his elbow bumps hers.
“We host a lock-in a couple times a year.” He nods when I lift a brow in question. “A lock-in is as the name implies; we get everyone inside the gym, all of the kids, we lock the doors, we fill them up with popcorn and soda and sh–” He stops, looks to Lyss, changes course. “And stuff. We put some movies on, have a little fun, then everyone sleeps on the mats. One big family.”
“Sounds like hell.”
He barks out a loud laugh. “Basically is. It’s noisy, kids are running everywhere. It’s bedlam, and the sugar doesn’t help. Kids stay up chattering all effing night, and at the end of it all, we have to sleep on the floor. But it’s fun, too. It’s energizing, and family-building. Plus, for a lot of the moms and dads of the kids that train with us, the lock-in is the only day a year they get without the kids. So it’s kinda multifaceted, and it earns us a hell of a lot of goodwill, since we become babysitters for the night.”
“You’re telling me about this, because…? You’re looking for volunteers? I don’t recall seeing ‘babysitter’ in my contract.”
He chuckles. “Just building the scene. We’re doing the lock-in soon; late next month, but that’s not really my point. By then, after two months with us, you’ll wanna be there, you’ll be too intrigued to say no. But another one of the family things we do is we camp.”
I lift a brow. “Marshmallows over the fire, sleeping in tents? Not really my jam.”
“You got attitude, ya know that?” He laughs. “Last year, you were excited to chat with me, but now you’re tossing ‘tude at me like it’s confetti. Catch your period or something?”
I look to Lyss, pray she doesn’t ask about periods anytime soon, then back to my hero, a fighting legend. I run a hand through my hair. “Sorry, you’ve got me all hyped up. You scared me five minutes ago, and it takes me a minute to come down off that.”
I set my water in the mi
ddle of the counter, then walk to the doorway that leads into the hall near the laundry. Reaching up to a beam I installed just as soon as we unpacked the car, I hold on and simply… hang. I drop my weight, lift my legs, use my shoulders, stretch my spine, tilt my head to the sides. Then I breathe out and dangle.
“Sorry, coach. I’ll stop being a douche now. I know you didn’t mean to set me off.” I continue to hang. Plan to hang for a minute or two. “Okay, camping. Tents?”
He chuckles. “Not tents. We actually get a hotel room, but it’s away from here.” He nods toward the front door, like the venue is right outside. “You’d have passed through the spot on your way here. They have a river pass through the town, a nice hotel right on the water. We go every year, we get hooked up with the buffet, and we train for a couple days straight. We train in the water, we mess around, have a little fun. Girls are invited too, though they rarely come. It tends to work out to be our core fighters every year; my brothers, our kids, some of our contracted fighters, a couple regulars. Smalls comes, since she’s more fighter than she is girl. Bean used to come every year, though I’m not sure what she’ll do this year. She’s looking at something other than fighting these days, so…”
“Dancing?”
He grins. “Exactly. Basically, we end up with family there, and since you’re one of us now…”
“You want me to come?”
He nods. “It’s not in your contract, and you won’t get flak if you don’t come, but there’s a lot to be said for the family-building we do while there.”
“We’re training all day long?”
He nods.
“Running around, moving, in the river?”
Again he nods.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, coach, but I’m the sole guardian of a little girl that can’t run the ten miles you expect of us. I could put her on my back, I suppose…”
“No kids.” He clears his throat. “That’s not to say she’s not allowed to come, but more that it wouldn’t be practical. It’s hot, it’s grueling, it’s–”