Rough Around the Edges (9 page)

“Have you decided?” He broke the silence when he pulled up to the curb in front of her home.

“Decided what?” Her eyes searched his as he sat, his hand still on the gear shift, the crescents of his short nails digging into the grip as he anticipated her answer.

“When I can take you on a second date.”

“You’re fighting tomorrow night, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to get something to eat afterward, like you suggested last time?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then it’s a date.”

Relief and satisfaction hit him hard, like a one-two punching combination.

He leaned forward, across the console, buoyed enough by the thought of their next date to dare to kiss her again – until he caught sight of a distinct silhouette visible through the house’s glass storm door. The more solid door behind it had been left open, and without it in the way, it was easy to see exactly what was going on inside the kitchen.

“I guess I’ll have to wait until then to kiss you again, though I think I’d be tempted to try again now if I couldn’t see your mother waiting inside with that huge weapon of a spoon.”

“What?” Ally turned so fast that the ends of her hair whipped his jaw. The soft lashing was one he’d gladly have taken again, but the attention she’d been paying him had been rapidly refocused on her mother.

When she finally turned to face him again, she wore an apologetic expression. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be. You have no idea how hard it is for me to hold back when I look at you. There are so many stupid things I want to do – even stupid things I want to say. I could use a lady with a makeshift weapon and a dose of maternal instinct to keep me from spoiling our perfect first date.”

“Perfect?” For a second, she almost looked like she was going to laugh.

“What, you didn’t have a good time?” He couldn’t resist grinning at her.

“I had a great time.”

“I thought so. You don’t seem like the kind of woman who’d agree to a second date if you didn’t.”

“What do you mean?” She raised a gracefully-shaped brow.

“I mean I heard you crush Cameron when he asked you to fill in as a ring girl. You don’t have a problem saying no, do you?”

“I never used to think so.”

“Used to?” Now it was his turn to raise a brow.

“Never mind.” She dropped her gaze. Was it just a trick of the shadows and streetlight that filled the car, or was she blushing?

“All right. Your mother is approaching with that spoon, anyway.”

She snapped her head around again and he couldn’t help grinning as her hair whipped his jaw.

When she turned back around, she was smiling again. “I wouldn’t want to send you home with any bruises,” she teased. “Good night.”

He was about to say the same when she leaned forward with a fighter’s speed and precision – outside the ring, in such a calm situation, it startled him. Frozen to his seat, he was motionless as she brushed his jaw with her lips.

The kiss – if that was what it was – was so light that he expected it to be over as quickly as it had started. But she lingered, warming his stubbled skin with her breath and lips, simply
there
. When she finally pulled away, it hit him that he hadn’t breathed the entire time.

He exhaled as subtly as possible, willing her not to notice.

“Thanks for rescuing Melissa.”

“I was beginning to think I’d never get my due.” He shook his head in mock disappointment that hopefully disguised the way her simple gesture had left him breathless. “All I got from her was a thank you. No kiss.” And he was much happier to receive one from Ally than from Melissa.

“That,” Ally said, reaching for the door handle, “is because she’s a good friend.”

As she stepped out of the car, he thought he heard a faint sound before the door fell shut – the ghost of a sigh like the one he’d just barely suppressed.

He didn’t stop staring in her direction until several moments after she’d disappeared beyond the front door. After that, he finally leaned away from the console and slumped against his seat as something indescribable washed through him, tingling in his veins and leaving him just as unexplainably breathless as her innocent kiss had.

Chapter 5

“You want some overtime this weekend, Moore?”

Ryan paused at the foot of the ladder, one dusty boot already on the second-to-lowest rung, and turned to face his foreman, Lowell. Forget wanting overtime, he needed it, like most of the other guys on the crew. “On Saturday?”

He’d hoped to ask Ally to do something that day, but maybe that was pushing it, anyway. They were already going out to eat together after his fights on Friday night. He could always ask if she wanted to get together on Sunday.

“Saturday and Friday night.”

“Won’t it be too dark to work Friday night?” They always quit by sundown. It wasn’t like they could build roofs in the dark. At least, not roofs worth living under, anyway.

“It’s not a typical job. Government building downtown needs some repairs and coating installation done. They want the work done at night and over the weekend, when nobody’s using the building. We’ll be pulling some late nights on Fridays and Saturday shifts for the next few weeks. I need three more guys who want some overtime.”

A sense of mingled regret and surprise filled Ryan, sinking his enthusiasm. He’d only been a part of the crew for about nine months, which made him relatively new. Being invited to take advantage of an opportunity for some serious overtime was nothing to shrug off. “I can’t work Friday nights. Sorry.”

Lowell looked at him like he’d just grown another head. “You got a second job or something?”

“No.” Yeah, the Friday night fights brought in some extra money that he needed badly, but not as much as two days of overtime would. Fighting wasn’t just about the money. It was about staying sane – feeling alive, even if it was just for one night a week.

“New girlfriend, then?”

Ryan’s entire body heated a little at the thought of Ally, but he shook his head.

Lowell made a sound in the back of his throat, one that seemed to imply he thought Ryan was lying. “Your loss. I thought you’d want a spot, but I’ll see if Krause wants to pick up the slack.”

The slack? Ryan gripped the ladder hard enough that his knuckles and the tips of his fingers ached. How was there any such thing as slack when there were at least half a dozen guys who’d jump at the chance for extra hours?

Just like he would have, if it hadn’t been for the fights. The tips of his fingers, pressed hard against steel, tingled for a few seconds before numbness began to creep in.

Loosening his grip a little, he climbed the ladder, dirt and gravel raining from the soles of his boots as he went. The faint sound of pebbles bouncing off the steel rungs below was drowned out when someone above turned on a drill. The mechanical whine struck a chord somewhere in Ryan’s mind, matching the biting pressure that was whirring against the inside of his skull, just between his eyes.

As he reached the roof, he pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead and willed the feeling to subside. There were still four more hours until quitting time. He wasn’t dizzy. Maybe the pressure was just a false alarm – a byproduct of the
what the fuck
feeling his exchange with Lowell had left him with. Either way, it didn’t matter. He’d spend the next four hours on the roof.

* * * * *

The rest of the world faded in a blur of light and sound as Ryan fell to the mat, arms around his opponent, anticipating the impact with relish. He didn’t ever really think about the crowd when he was fighting. Fighters who thought about the people who were watching them instead of the people they were fighting lost. But when he was on the mat, he wasn’t even aware of the crowd in the tiny corner of his mind that registered its presence when he was standing. On the mat, his world was confined in a few square feet of sweat and clashing wills.

He liked it. On the ground, he was skin-to-skin with his opponent, and a body he could touch was a body he could manipulate to his will – a body he could defeat. His opponent pummeled his sides with blows, but the only acknowledgement he gave was an especially sharp exhalation as he thought past the pain and reached for his goal – the other man’s neck.

He almost got the hold in place. He was halfway there, his sweat-slicked arm sliding against the man’s throat, when he rolled with surprising force, dislodging himself from under Ryan, who’d purposely fallen on top of him.

The other man had moved with more strength than Ryan had anticipated, but it hadn’t been a smart move. As he twisted, the knotted crest of one muscled shoulder bobbed in the air, exposing his back to Ryan.

Slamming his chest so tightly against his opponent’s back that the hard knobs of several vertebrae dug into his sternum, he took advantage of the lapse in judgment, wrapping one arm around the other fighter’s neck while pressing the other against the back. When the man’s pulse hammered in the crook of Ryan’s elbow, the deal was practically done.

He cinched the hold, counting the seconds as he exerted pressure. One, two, three… He knew what the other man was feeling: the sudden block in the flow of air and blood to the head, the suffocating pressure that was more intense than the pain and eventually, if enough time passed, black spots that flashed in the air, half-blinding harbingers of unconsciousness.

The man slammed a hand down against the mat, pounding out a rhythm of defeat – victory, for Ryan.

Ryan relented and released the other man, rolling, feeling light without an extra hundred and eighty pounds crushing him against the mat. As he rose to his feet, it was like surfacing from deep water. With an abruptness that would’ve been startling if he hadn’t been insulated by the high of victory, he became aware of the world again. Sound, light and motion beyond the bounds of the ring – it hit him all at once. The crowd was roaring; they were glad he’d won.

Not as glad as he was. Ignoring the tremors that sliced through his calves and thighs after three matches, he climbed out of the ring, scanning the audience for a certain face.

She was there, in the second row back. Picking her out of the crowd was like picking a diamond out of a pile of rocks. Waves loose around her face, she sat smiling – at him, his heart emphasized, pounding against his ribs and showing no signs of slowing now that the match was over.

He made his way toward the locker room, gaze drawn to where Ally was picking her way through the sea of folding chairs, heading for the same place.

Cameron got there before she did. “Next week,” he said, fixing Ryan with an intense stare. “Next week you’ll be kicking ass somewhere a hell of a lot bigger than here.” Grinning, he reached out and clapped a hand down on Ryan’s shoulder. “I’ve almost got it all worked out. Should know for sure by Wednesday. I’m looking at a place over on…”

Ryan tuned out, not because he didn’t care, but because Ally was approaching and her presence annihilated his ability to pay attention to anything else so completely that an atom bomb might as well have been dropped on the part of his brain responsible for giving a shit about what Cameron was saying.

He popped out his mouthguard and held it in one gloved hand, running his tongue along his teeth as he remembered the way hers felt against his lips.

When she reached them she ducked under Cameron’s arm, bobbing and weaving like she was dodging a punch. “Hey.”

There was a distinct light in her eyes as she looked up at him, cheeks faintly pink. He imagined that she was radiating an energy to match his, a sense of satisfaction she shared because… Because why? He couldn’t say. But when he’d met her eyes after his match there had been a split second when he’d felt a connection so definite that the sheer shock of it had fractured something inside him. The crack left in its wake was filled by the sight of her face, the sound of her voice.