Cuff Me

She put her head down on her folded arms. I was raising my voice again and killing her brain cells at the same time. “No, I’m not seeing him again.” I heard her mumble.

“Good, I’m glad.”

She raised her head just an inch. “What about you?”

I scowled at her. “I just told you, Josh and I had no spark.”

She sat up even further, grabbing a bottle of water and sipping it slowly. “I wasn’t talking about Josh. I was talking about that fighter guy. He was hot as fuck, and watching you like you were a piece of meat. You have to call him.”

I sighed, ready to admit my failure, “I didn’t get his number. I still can’t believe he saved me like that, like it was nothing. He just made me feel so… safe.”

Naomi smiled at me. “Are you sure he didn’t also make you feel hot and bothered?”

I blushed in spite of myself. “Yes, he made me feel that way too. But I know hardly anything about him.”

She had a spark in her eye that meant that she was hatching a plan. I waited for her to drop it like a bomb. “Then why don’t we just accidentally bump into him again?”

I raised an eyebrow at her, “I don’t think I’ll be hanging out in anymore creepy alleyways in the middle of the night for a long time. Not even for a guy.”

“There’s another fight, Thursday night. We should go! You have got to see this guy again. I just have this feeling, it’s like a fate or something.”

I didn’t think it was fate, but I wasn’t going to argue with her either. I was desperate to see Dillon again, to feel the connection between us. And if I got to see him with his shirt off, that was just a bonus.

SEVEN

DILLON

I trained hard at the gym all that week. Every time I smashed a guy’s face I imagined it was one of those two thugs who had gone after Berkley. I was fighting better than I ever had, anger sitting deep in my belly that came out through my hands. I was just toweling off after another round in the cage with a couple of rookies when a man I had only seen at fights approached me. He was older than me but not by much and in a black suit with shifty eyes. I could tell right away that something was off about him.

“You had a good fight last week. You won a lot of people a lot of money.”

I looked at him, deciding whether or not he was even worth my time to talk. “I’ve had a lot of good fights, I win a lot of people a lot of money. People like that.”

He smiled crookedly. “Yes they do. But fighters deserve a bigger cut, don’t you think?”

He passed me his business card, and it was for a gym on the other side of town. I’d heard of it in passing, but the fighters there weren’t good enough for me. “What’s my fighting to you, anyway?”

“When I see you, I see opportunity. I’m sure you’ve heard of the underground fights in town. My gym hosts them.”

So that’s who this asshole was. The guy who got fighters so beat up in underground fights that they could never go legit again. There were no rules. That wasn’t the type of reward I was interested in.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of them. But I’m strictly legit, man,” I attempted to hand the business card back to him. I looked over to my right and saw Leo eyeing me closely. I could tell he was preparing to intervene, chase this guy off.

“I’m not saying you’re not. I’m just saying that there’s a ten grand payout on Saturday night if you’re interested.”

He didn’t move to take the card back.

“Ten thousand? What’s the payout for the fighter?”

He lowered his voice to a whisper, “Eighty percent, bet that’s better than what you’re making here. You keep that card. Call me if you’re interested.”

He turned and walked away just as Leo arrived next to me. I slipped the business card inside into my left hand. Eight grand was more than I made in a month, if I could make that from one fight that would set my mom up for the next few months. She could finally take a break.

“Who the hell was that?”

I rolled my eyes and played it off. “Nobody important. Just some guy who might want to do some advertising with me. I don’t need another sponsor, though. It’s just more time away from the gym. Nothing to worry about.”

He studied me closely. He knew I was lying. He always did. “You listen to me son. You stay in this cage at this gym, you understand that?”