But what use was any of my success, if I couldn’t even give my kid sister a better life than that?

  The front door rattled under the pounds of a fist.

  “Come in,” I yelled.

  The door shoved open and Troy strode in. He had switched out that dumb suit to just jeans and a button up, but he still managed to look like white trash chic. By the time I started winning UFC sanctioned pots, he might actually have learned to look the part of a manager.

  “You alright?” he asked. “We need to go to the hospital?”

  “Na, just rough night.”

  He lit up and perched on the arm of the sofa. “Nice, player. You really did a number on that chick huh?”

  I really had, though not in any way I had planned. “It was alright. Just couldn’t get much sleep.”

  “I bet.” He peeked over to the bedroom. “She’s not still here right?”

  I wagged my head against the cushions.

  “Too bad, would have liked to see how she was walking this morning.”

  “I can get you walking bowlegged, if that’s what you want.”

  “I’m good. Shove over.”

  I groaned up to a seat and Troy sat where my feet had been. He watched the TV edged in like he was in the front row of the actual fight.

  “Man, that Randy Pareno’s got nothing on you. I can see his kicks coming a mile away. You should be in that ring.”

  My mind was clear enough to remember the details of this fight. “Randy gets creamed in this one.”

  “I did say you were better.”

  I rubbed the cobwebs from my eyes. “Alright, so get me in there.”

  “Trying to, homie. We’re working our way up.”

  He had his phone out and glowing in his face. I rose and opened the curtains. The light rushed in.

  “Here for business?” I asked.

  “Nope, just keeping the party going. I did want to run the next date past you. You think you’ll be good by Friday?”

  “Pssh.” I waved him off. “I’ll be fine by the end of the weekend.”

  “Yeah, but you need to be good. This next guy sure is.”

  He held up his phone and I grabbed it to scan the pic. The guy was tall, black and stacked with muscle.

  “This dude’s in my weight class?”

  “Barely. Probably dried his black ass up before weigh in.”

  Black ass. I had the urge to tell him to shut the fuck up. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, but it had given me a flash of Gabi with her rear hanging in the air and her legs on my shoulders. She’d been loving me then. Why hadn’t that part stuck with her after?

  “You worried?” Troy said.

  “Na, let him come. He’s gotta fall sooner or later.”

  “Alright then, we’re good with the business.” He popped to his feet and clapped his hands. “Ready to party?”

  “Yeah, fine. Gimme a minute.”

  I shucked off my shorts for jeans and an official UFC shirt. One day they’d have these with my name on them, but the logo would do for now. Let people know what this body was about.

  On second thought, I went to the mirror and shaved down my stubble and gelled up my hair. Some girls dug the just-awake look, but an unkempt face just reminded me of Pop. I needed class to get the sort of ass I wanted.

  Gabi flashed again in my head, this time lost in the throes of ecstasy. Yeah, that’s how I wanted to remember her. The girl possessed by my body, not the toy I’d broken.

  A couple seconds into the memory, though, and my pants were straining at the crotch. Christ, she had been good. Taking a girl like that in my brand new SUV - that was a true pleasure.

  She should know how good it was for me. Maybe then she’d understand that it was nothing to be ashamed off. Maybe if I made it right, I could bring her back here and settle this crazy feeling I had in my head. Brain injury or not, that should fix it.

  Troy was at the door jangling keys when I ventured back out. “Where you wanna go?” he asked.

  “I’m starving.”

  “Alright. Mexican? Eat some tacos before we eat some tacos?”

  “You know, I didn’t really eat Italian last night,” I said. “I think I need to call a redo and experience that place proper.”

  Troy balked. “You serious man?”

  “Lunch menu’s cheaper.”

  “That’s not the issue. Just… it’s not fucking Mickey D’s you know, to go through drive through twice in a row.”

  I shrugged. “It’s what I want.”

  Troy sighed. “Alright.”

  We hopped into his used Audi and drove the few blocks over. The place looked different in day, not all warm reds and yellows. With daylight streaming through the tall windows, the entire room sparkled like a giant glass trophy.

  I scanned the place as I walked in for any sign of Gabi, instantly seeing what a dumbass idea this had been. She didn’t need to work back to back shifts in a place like this.

  The hostess came up, bright and chirpy. Even she was different from the night before.

  “Hi gentlemen,” she said. “Reservation?”

  “No,” I said, still looking around hopefully.

  “No problem. Let me see what I can get you.” She tapped her monitor a few times and said. “Table by kitchen ok?”

  “Yeah, fine.” I leaned over her screen, but it was undecipherable. “Hey, you know if you have a Gabi working the lunch shift here? Gabrielle’s her full name.”

  “Gabrielle?” The woman looked at me like I was talking about a ghost. She tapped the screen a few times. “Gabrielle Williams?”

  “She black?” Troy chimed in.

  “Uh, I don’t have that information here. I don’t really know her. I think she only serves at dinners, but I don’t have her schedule.”

  I chewed my lip to keep from cursing. “Alright, never mind.”

  “Mexican?” Troy whispered.

  “Yeah, whatever.” My appetite had vanished.

  We turned and walked out. This was just dumb all around. Troy seeing me acting like some lonely puppy was gonna bruise my rep. I could get a dozen girls who looked like Gabi tonight. No need to sit around like some teenager waiting for a text.

  Text.

  “Hold up,” I said, as Troy opened the door. I jogged back to the hostess.

  “Got paper?”

  She handed me a post-it and a pen, puzzled. Didn’t know why. It was crystal clear to me.

  I wrote down my cell number and underneath wrote: You ok from last night’s fight? Let me know either way.

  “Get this to her, alright?” I said, passing it back. I started to slip a twenty from my wallet, but she held up a hand.

  “Oh no, that’s fine. I’ll see the note gets passed on.”

  I shoved her the bill anyway. “Make sure.”

  She nodded and I headed back to Troy. He had a brow raised, but I didn’t give a shit.

  Gabi might not want to see me, but I needed to know she was ok.

  Then maybe I could let her go.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Gabrielle

  I was almost back to normal by the time Jada and I got to work the next day. My mind didn’t run at that super-fast pace anymore. But as I walked through the kitchen towards the dining area, my heart began skipping beats.

  There was no reason he’d be back tonight. We hadn’t exactly parted on the best terms. Maybe that was why I wanted to see him to begin with: to let him know that he’d stirred up my life in a good way, not bad.

  Romance had been a series of predictable interactions, no different than any chemical reaction. Take a dash of sweet words, stir in a tender kiss, finish it off with a properly paced invitation up to your bed and repeat until you had a relationship.

  To go from eye contact and flirting straight to sex in a van? That was wildly unstable. Now the whole world looked full of possibilities.

  My breath caught as I pushed open the door. The first diners were trickling in, but it was just our usual upscale crowd. I moved up to Alice at the hostess booth and checked through the glass lobby for any black SUVs in the garage across the street. All I saw were Mercedes and Cadillacs.

  “Looking for something?” Alice asked.

  “No, I guess not.” I sighed. “Do you have a table for me?”

  “Yep. But I’ve got something else for you first.”

  She smiled a coy little smile and handed me a piece of yellow paper. I unfolded it and read the note.

  Sean.

  My heartbeat pounded in my ears, and I could barely hear Alice: “Guess the thing you were looking for found you, huh? Didn’t realize you guys were only fighting in his car the other night.”

  I looked up to see her full on grinning. “You know?”

  “I saw the guy drive the SUV out back. I saw it rocking when I came out. I saw your car still there. Everything fit.”

  I held down the urge to run away. Guess I wasn’t free enough to let people see when I was getting the business. “Maybe I was in trouble,” I said. “Did you come check?”

  “Nope. Cause I also saw the way you guys were looking at each other all night.”

  Was I really that much an open book around him?

  Alice welcomed an elderly couple, then turned back to me rocking her hips. “I gotta say Gabi, I didn’t know this side of you. I always took you for the cautious, analytical type.”

  “I did, too.”

  “So when are you gonna call him?”

  “I’ve got to decide if I’m gonna call him.”

  “Riiiight.”

  Her pale eyes saw what I wanted even before I did.

  “After the shift, I guess.”

  The dinner ran for four hours, but the time crawled like days in my head. I had plenty of time to talk myself in and out of saying another word to that boy.

  What are you even doing considering this, Gabi? I wondered on more than one occasion.

  He was fun. He was hot. But he was dangerous. Guys like him weren’t looking to play for keeps. They took what they wanted and got out. I’d been lured by his type once or twice in college, but I’d managed to keep my panties on.

  This guy hadn’t given me a chance to back out, which meant he must be better than most. Did I really want another chance to get more attached to him?

  Once a bond forms in the chemical world, it takes energy to break. In reality, usually one person finds the energy and leaves the other with the wreckage. I knew on which side I’d fall.

  But some deep part of me kept tugging me to call. I had fun right? I had lived something I’d never lived before. Why not just run with it? Maybe I could use some wreckage to look back on.

  By the time I stood in the parking lot with my cell, I was trembling so hard I barely could punch in the numbers.

  It rang once, twice, three times.

  Every instinct in me screamed for me to hang up. The guy was already busy tonight. I was just another Sunday for him. The note meant nothing. Maybe I was his backup. Maybe it wasn’t even -

  “Hello?”

  Music blasted through the background, but even in the cell’s tinny speaker, his voice seeped into me like dark chocolate.

  “Yo?” he said again.

  “Hi, uh, yes.”

  The speaker hissed with the intake of breath. “Cadbury.”

  “Sean…” Even at this distance I felt inadequate, like a human talking to a tornado. What would this man want with me?

  “You done for the night?”

  “I am. I thought I’d finally use that note.”

  “Does this call mean that you weren’t troubled about the other night’s festivities?”

  “I’m ok with them. I’m…good, even. I had a good day.”

  “You’ve got no idea how relieved I am to hear that, baby.”

  The last word crawled down my body firing up every nerve available to feel with. I could barely speak. “Thanks.”

  “Thanks? Thanks for what?”

  “It was new. I think I liked the experience.”

  “Is that right?” The music went muffled, and his voice came in a whisper. “If that’s the case, then I’d love to get that thanks in person.”

  Of course that’s where this led, where it had been heading ever since I dialed. But his words still hit me like the force of a truck.

  “What do you say?” he asked, his voice a seduction in my ear. “Shall I come pick you up?”

  I could handle another bout with him, and that was all I was agreeing to. The loud part of me that usually cared about the future of things had gone quiet.

  I started to nod, then realized and said, “Yes.”

  He chuckled and the music came back on. “Well, alright then. You stay right where you are.”

  I paced the glass front of the restaurant after he hung up, trying to convince myself to just leave. I could, rationally speaking, but deep down, I’d never been so sure of needing something in my life. Already I felt a space in my body for him.

  It hadn’t been ten minutes before one of the sets of headlights whipping by on the street ahead, slowed instead and pulled into our roundabout and next to me. I couldn’t see through the tinted windows, but the passenger door nudged open.

  I climbed in. Sean sat reclined in his seat, hand on the wheel like the car was driving itself and he was just directing it. His tan skin glistened in the blur of street lights, and his grin dazzled in them.

  He swooped an arm around me and tugged me in for a kiss.

  Neither of us had said a word before he pulled back onto the road. My mind returned to me.

  “Where are we headed?” I asked.

  “To my place.”

  “Oh.” Down the long boulevard, I could see down the banks at the lower class suburbs mangy with light. They weren’t unsafe for me or anything, but I didn’t feel comfortable making my way back alone if I had to either.

  Right as I was about to voice my thoughts, he pulled off into Lafayette Park, then turned into the lot of a fenced off complex. I gaze up at the lofts - not towering, but tall for Detroit.

  “You live here?”

  “Surprised?” His voice was littered with a smile.

  “Nope.” I wasn’t going to admit that, but it did make me revise my opinion. How good a fighter was this guy?

  He parked the car and escorted me by the elbow in to the elevator. The silence persisted as we stood waiting, and his muscles tensed tighter around me. I could feel the strength of him barely concealed by the sleeves of my uniform top. It coiled tighter around me, passing his fire to me.

  Finally, the doors dinged open. Sean hit the fourth button then turned on me, pressing me into a corner. His mouth crushed down on mine and trapped my head between his strength and the unyielding wall. It probed me tenderly, then insistently and then his hand cupped my chin and his tongue mingled with mine.

  The elevator rose slowly. I felt I was floating up into the clouds, lifted by this madman at my lips. His other hand started working at my chest. I moaned into his mouth at the swell of sensation tearing down from his touch and it echoed in the confines of the room. By the time the doors dinged open, my clothes were already unbuttoned and his hands were inching down my bra.

  He half-led/half-dragged me back to his place. In the moonlight, I got glimpses of cream walls, minimalist but elegant furniture and modern art pieces perched atop them. Then Sean shut the apartment door and unleashed on me.

  His hands yanked down my pants and scattered my bra to the hardwood floor. I started getting his shirt off and he finished, mouth on me in between pulling the cloth over his head.

  His muscles rippled in the pale night light as he staggered me back towards his room. When we finally arrived, we were both bare and I fell backwards onto his sheets. I had finally descended onto his cloud. He landed over me, a giant white beast, his grin spreading like a wolf.

  “You look so fucking good,” he growled.

  “You look fierce,” I murmured.

  “Glad you see what you’re about to get.”

  His mouth sank down over a breast. I cried out at the ceiling as he slathered it with attention. I could feel his hunger pulling me open, just like he had the night past. Now I could spread my legs as wide as the longing for him I felt between them.

  He probed me there and came back up with glistening fingers.

  “You’ve been aching for this,” he said.

  “Ever since I woke up the next morning,” I sighed. “Take me. Take me how you want.”

  The shimmer of his eyes narrowed as he finally understood how mad I was for his body. He shifted himself over me and entered smooth and deep and full. The sound that erupted from me was one I’d never heard myself make.

  The sound came over and over, and I came with it several times that night. He had me on my knees and my back and my side and my stomach, and even overhead. I felt him buried deep in me as I thrust on and off him, heard the wild sounds of our union and the groans from my man.

  Finally, he came over me one last time; a hot, tight finish with his hands trying to fasten my body to his. When he released me, the sheets were a tangle of our sweat and more. We lay loosely in each other.

  All the energy he’d put in me that day was gone, spent and returned back to him. He looked just as exhausted as me though. His eyes were already shut, and all of his fight was gone. I had a notion to leave, and knew I should, but his arm lay tight around my shoulders and there was something soothing about the way his breathing was off pace.

  He had held nothing back from me. He was the kind of man who would risk everything and anything. That gave me a moment of terror. I could only imagine how he fought.

  But then my mind started to fade, and I thought it wasn’t such a bad way to live your life. Whatever else he was, he lived honestly.

  At least lying here with him, I could start to feel a little bit the same.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sean

  I opened my eyes and saw Gabi heaving peacefully next to me.

  I blinked a couple times and pinched my thigh and she was still there.

 

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