Unspoken(72)

Panting, I pulled up and jacked a number into my phone.

“Yes?”

“I need a fight. A big one. Someone who legitimately stands a chance at beating my sorry ass. Do you have someone like that or do you just trade in little girls dressed up and pretending to be men?” I snarled.

“Come to the Casino. We’ll hook you up.”

“Twenty minutes,” I confirmed.

I ran back to my car, which I’d left in AM’s parking lot. I tried to think only of the lights of the Casino, the raised boxing stage, the springy mats. I envisioned the type of opponent I would have and how I’d feint and jab. Do a power kick.

I sped out of the lot as fast as I could, thinking that distance would help me forget her, but all I could see was her hair spread across my pillow. Her lips swollen from my kisses. Her body flushed with arousal. Her face white with fear. Fuck me.

My hands twitched with the desire—no, the need—to get back to AM and throw myself at her feet so I could beg for forgiveness. But I forced myself forward. I was too afraid to go back. Too afraid I was going to use my fists on something other than the wall. I ignored the pain in my gut, the coin burning a hole in my pocket, and the wetness on my cheeks to prepare for the fight ahead.

The lights of the Casino blinded me as I pulled into a reserved spot for employees near the rear entrance. I pulled out my gym bag out of the trunk and unzipped it. There were shorts, a wife beater, and some wraps. No shoes. I didn’t need shoes. Grabbing the bag, I went to the staff entrance and pounded. It opened immediately to reveal Noah, Finn, Adam, and Mal. The four of them wore thunderous looks.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I barked.

“That’s the same damn question I have for you,” Noah spat back.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m here to fight.” I lifted my gym bag.

“You look like you were in a fight already and lost it,” Mal observed, his nonthreatening voice making the words seem all the more disheartening. It was Mal’s connections that likely brought them all trooping out here. Either that or someone from the fighting community ratted me out to Noah.

I rubbed a hand down my face. On top of everything, I didn’t need a lecture from these guys, who were supposed to have my back.

“Am I five?” I asked Noah.

“No,” he replied.

“Then I get to make my own decisions. I’m going in to fight, and either you guys are with me or you go home.” I waited, arms crossed. Noah and I stared at each like gunfighters in the old west, but finally he gave in and moved aside.

“I’ve got your back, always,” Noah said as I brushed by him. “It’s just that sometimes that means keeping you from danger instead of running behind you into it.”

“We were Marines. We laugh in the face of danger. We lean the goddamn whole way into danger.”

“If we’re smart Marines, we avoid it until we have a plan to defeat it.”

“I’m trying to defeat it right now, Noah,” I told him tiredly.

Noah sighed. “Okay then. Let’s go beat the shit out of danger.”

AM

THE BUZZING WAS INCESSANT. I thought it was my dream, but then I realized it was someone downstairs wanting to come up. Ellie wasn’t responding. I dragged myself out of bed and answered the phone in the kitchen.

“Whosit?” I mumbled.

“Noah Jackson. Can you let me up? It’s urgent.”

“Um, yeah.” I pressed the access code. I was barely awake, and Bo’s roommate and best friend was bringing urgent business to my apartment at a godforsaken time in the morning. I peered blearily at the microwave. The clock said it was two in the morning. A knock, more like a pounding, woke me from my reverie. I walked like a zombie and opened the door. The sight at my doorstep jerked me out of my stupor.

Noah and Finn held a beaten, nearly unrecognizable man between them. Noah immediately muscled his way inside, pushing me aside. “Sorry,” he said, but he wasn’t sorry at all. “Which bedroom is yours?”

I pointed numbly down the hall. None of my synapses were firing here. I couldn’t really process this scene or having a half-bloodied man being dragged into my apartment and put on my bed. “Is that Bo?”

“Yes,” was the clipped response from Noah.

The sounds of our voices must have roused him because I heard noises coming the battered and bruised face. I crept toward the bed.

Bo’s eyes were both swollen shut. He had cuts above his eye. His nose was taped. There were abrasions on both cheeks and a cut on his right cheek. His upper lip was split and swollen.

I leaned down because I couldn’t make out what he was saying. “I’m sorry, AM,” he breathed against me. “So sorry.” I didn’t realize I was crying until I saw tears drip down on top of his cheek. He winced slightly, a tiny drawing up of his cheekbones. Even that small pressure was painful. My heart clenched.