Silver and Chrome: A Bad Boy MC Romance (73 page)

Joel felt his nose
explode on impact, covering his mouth and chest in hot, wet blood. The power
behind the bigger man's punches seemed impossible to him, each one like a
wrecking ball. He'd been hit in the head plenty of times before, but never so
hard.

As his opponent raised
his fist again, Joel leapt forward, pushing past the pain and dizziness and
thrusting himself inside of the big man's reach as he slammed his own fist into
the side of his huge head.

The Executioner's chin
moved to the right on impact but then snapped back, a
humorless
smile plastered across
his face. He reached around Joel's neck and grabbed him in a iron-gripped head
lock. Joel threw his knees and elbows at each exposed part of his captor's
body, but each one may as well have been thrown against a brick wall.

Suddenly, he felt that
massive fist crash into his face again, and then again. A pressure was forming
around his head as it was squeezed, reminding him of when he'd try to pop a zit
back in high school. His last thought was whether or not his head was going to
explode in a similar manner as the room darkened around him.

"Oh my god, what the
hell happened?" Amber cried out as Joel staggered through the door. She'd
never seen him like this, not even after he'd lost the fight the night they'd
met. His face was a mess. His nose looked crooked, and there was dried blood
everywhere. His left eye was black and completely swollen shut.

He opened his mouth to
say something but then began to cough into his hand. When he brought it away
she saw the bright red shine of fresh blood on his palm.

"Shit, Joel, you're
coughing up blood? You might have an internal injury, we need to go to the
hospital!"

"No," he
croaked. "It's just from my mouth." He opened his mouth to show her
his left canine was missing, the gap still oozing blood.

Amber gasped at the
sight, but a thrill of relief flooded through her as she realized it wasn't
something more serious. She was still horrified at the sight of him. She
reached forward and put her arm around him, leading him to the couch.

"I'm going to get
some ice," she said after sitting him down. There was a welt on his
forehead the size of a baby's fist. "What happened?"

She hurried to the
kitchen, putting some ice in a paper towel and worrying about her boyfriend.
The last time he'd been injured seriously he'd had a concussion that was left
untreated for a while. If he was hurt badly this time as well, he'd never admit
it.

Joel was laying down
across the couch with his eyes closed when she returned. He still hadn't given
her an answer. Her lips pressed tightly as she pressed the ice to his head. He
opened his eyes in surprise at the sudden cold.

"You were fighting
in alleyways again, weren't you?" she accused.

Joel closed his eyes
again, but he mumbled a response.

"What?"

"I said it was an
abandoned factory, actually."

Amber pressed down hard
with the ice against his welt, causing him to gasp in sudden pain.

"You promised me you
were done with that," she said.

"I know. I'm
sorry."

"Why the hell would
you do this again, Joel?"

He didn't respond for
about a minute, and Amber wondered if he had fallen asleep or passed out. Then
he took a deep breath and opened his eyes again. At least, she thought he was
trying to open them both. The swollen one was too battered to tell.

"I wanted to live
with you. I wanted this to work. But the only way I could convince myself to do
it was if I could pay my way."

His voice was quiet and
weak. Was it because he was tired and hurt or ashamed? She wasn't sure.
"There's no job at Rock House, is there?"

Joel's head moved
slightly before he winced. "No. I'm sorry, Amber."

She let out a long and
shuddering breath. She was angry that he lied, and even more so that he put
himself in danger again. But now wasn't the time to deal with that. "I
know. Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital? I think your nose is
broken."

"It is," he
said. "But no hospitals."

"Fine," she
said. She removed the towel from his head and took the ice out, placing it on
the table next to the couch. Then she gently wiped away the dried blood from
around his nose and held the towel against his nostrils. "Blow."

The towel turned crimson
as he did.

"How long ago did
this happen?"

"I don't know, maybe
30 minutes? I took a cab back afterward."

It was cutting it close,
but she could still help. She raised her palms and brought them together and
then lowered them so that they were touching the top of his nose. "This is
going to hurt," she said.

She pressed firmly as
Joel exhaled in pain, bringing the bottom of her hands together under his nose.
Then she pulled her palms down the sides of it, putting pressure until it
looked to be roughly straight again.

The final step was
inserting a finger into each nostril, aligning it from the inside as well.
Picking up the towel, she instructed Joel to blow out again. More blood and pus
came out.

"Where'd you learn
that?" he asked when she was done and started to stuff tissue into his
nostrils to help keep it set and absorb any more blood.

"The benefits of
having a wannabe nurse as your girlfriend," she said, shrugging. "But
you really should see a doctor. I don't know if it's going to stay
straight."

Joel grunted. "I
wouldn't be the first fighter with a crooked nose."

She shook her head at his
stubbornness. "Well, you might as well sleep on the couch tonight, I don't
think you're in any shape to clean up and I don't want you bleeding all over
the bed." And she was still mad at him. "We can re-evaluate in the
morning after we see how you look."

"Okay," he
agreed. His eyes were already closed again. Amber stared at him for a few more
moments before sighing and turning toward bed herself.

Joel's nose looked a bit
more crooked in the morning than when she had left him, but it was still a lot
better than when he had first come home.

"It's going to set
that way if you don't go to a doctor," she said, standing behind his
shirtless body as they examined him through the bathroom mirror. Now that they
had washed away all of the blood, it was easier to evaluate his injuries.

The bump on his head had
already receded a bit, so Amber wasn't that worried about that wound. His nose,
although crooked, would be fine as well. But his eye was completely swollen
shut and he couldn't even open it this morning. He had some other pretty angry
looking bruises on his body, but they were less serious. When she had pressed
along his rib cage, although he was tender, she could tell that nothing was
broken.

She scoffed at him when
he mentioned possibly still going to Rock House. "Are you kidding me? Are
we looking in the same mirror?"

He shrugged and turned
away, walking back into the living room and returning to the couch.

"I think I'm in
trouble," he said.

Her heart sped up and she
sat down next to him. "What do you mean?"

"Rock House has a
policy of no outside fighting. Shawn basically said if I continued I would be
kicked out."

Amber took a deep breath
and closed her eyes as she let it out slowly.
 
Then
why the hell didn't you stop?
 
She
knew the answer, though. His twisted sense of obligation to not feel indebted
to anyone. If he wanted to live here, he needed to help pay the bills.
"You'll have to lie," she said.

"What am I going to
say? It's pretty obvious this came from a fight."

"Okay, so tell him
you got in a fight but it wasn't because you were competing or anything. Tell
him it was a bar fight."

Joel raised his eyebrow.

"Shawn knows me, he
knows I work at a bar. He knows you're a hot head. Tell him you came to the bar
where I was working last night and saw some guy giving me a hard time. One
thing led to another and you ended up like this."

"I think he'd
probably question why I couldn't defend myself against a drunk," he
argued.

"Fine, tell him it
was a group of guys if that satisfies your macho need to look tough," she
said. "Anyway, if he questions how beat up you look, just say 'You should
see the other guys.'"

Joel laughed. "That
might work."

"Tell him to call me
if he doesn't believe you. I'll convince him."

Joel smiled and leaned
forward, giving Amber a gentle kiss on the lips. "You're amazing," he
said. "No matter how much I fuck up, you're always there to bail me
out."

She kissed him back.
"How about you stop fucking up for a little while?"

Joel kissed her again.
"I'll try, Amber. I promise. I know living with me isn't simple."

"Sometimes I think
getting in the ring with you might be easier," she teased.

Joel's look became
serious as he pulled his head back a bit to look at her. His blue eyes seemed
to draw her in as she waited for him to speak.

"I think I love
you," he finally said.

Her heart was pounding in
her chest. She hadn't been sure he would ever be able to tell her that. "I
love you, too," she replied. "And I don't have to think about
it."

He leaned forward and
their lips met, and then he bent down and swept an arm under her knees, lifting
her from the ground with a little wince as he carried her to the bedroom.

"Are you sure you're
up for this?" she asked, giving him a little kiss on the earlobe as she
held tightly around his neck. He was injured, but she still hoped he'd say yes.

Joel nodded and smiled at
her as he lowered her onto the mattress and slid alongside of her. "Just
be gentle with me."

She giggled and swung a
leg over her waist, pulling herself on top of him as she looked at his battered
face. It didn't matter what he looked like, she really did love him. "Fat
chance of that." And then she lost herself on his lips.

Joel took a couple of days
off to heal before heading back to Rock House, at Amber's insistence. When he
returned, Shawn asked him to come into his office.

Joel was impressed when
he stepped into the owner's private room for the first time. Plaques and framed
magazine covers adorned the walls from when Shawn was still a competitor. There
were trophies and medals on display as well, but he didn't have time to examine
them as much as he would have liked.

"So a bar fight,
eh?" Shawn sat down behind his desk and picked up a little blue stress
ball, working it in his hand as he looked up at his young protégé.

Joel nodded, sticking to
the story he had already gone over on the phone when he had called to tell his
trainer that he wouldn't be in for a couple of days.

"Joel, I know I made
myself clear the first night that you weren't supposed to continue your
after-hours fighting, although obviously if this was really just a case of you
defending your girlfriend, that's another situation altogether."

"If you'd like, you
could call and talk to her. She should be home, she doesn't work today."

Shawn's gaze drilled into
Joel, his bottom lip pulled down below his teeth before he finally put the ball
down and exhaled heavily. "I have no doubt she'll tell me the same
thing," he said. "Look, Joel, I don't know what happened for sure.
Maybe your story is true, and maybe it isn't. And since I don't know for sure,
I'm not going to do anything about it. But let me be clear. If anything like
this happens again, you're out.

"I know shit goes
down, but you're going to have to learn to walk away. If something comes up
that makes you think you can't handle shit on your own, I want you to come to
me first. Let's see if we can come to a solution together. I know you haven't
had an easy time of it, which is why I gave you a shot here. I see potential in
you. Don't fuck it up."

"I understand,"
Joel said.

"Now get out of here
and go train. Lay off the sparring for a few days while that nose heals a bit
more. You don't want it any more crooked than it already is."

As soon as Joel closed
the office door he let out a long hard breath that he'd been holding. Shawn
obviously didn't completely buy his bar fight story, but at least he was still
training. He needed to make sure he didn't fuck up again. He may not have
earned anything from his fight with the Executioner, losers never did, but he
already had enough money from his previous fights to keep paying rent for a few
more months. Until then he had time to figure something else out. Maybe he
could ask Shawn if there really were any odd jobs around the gym that needed
doing - turning his initial lie into a reality.

For now though, he needed
to do as Shawn suggested and double down on his training. He needed to stop
being distracted by other things.

He walked over to the
free weight section. Most importantly, he needed to start working on his power,
like Chris had suggested. He wouldn't let brute strength be his undoing again.

It was already past
dinner when he left that night, one of the last ones to go home. As he walked
through the parking lot toward the bus stop, he heard someone calling his name.
It turned out to be the bald guy that he'd seen at his fights a couple of
times.

"Hey Joel, how's the
face?"

"It's healing,"
he said. "I hope that other guy's fists will be okay though."

The other man laughed.
"At least you can joke about it."

Joel nodded. "What
are you doing here? Looking to join a training camp?"

The other man cocked his
head. "You don't remember me, do you? I didn't think you recognized me,
but I wasn't sure. I looked a bit different, of course. Had a goatee."

"Have we met
before?"

"Not officially. I
was one of the fighters in the tournament at Golden Dragon. My name is
Darien."

As soon as he said it,
Joel remembered him. He'd fought against Carlos and gotten creamed. "Oh
right, I remember now. Sorry I didn't recognize you before."

Darien shrugged. "No
worries. Anyway, I still train at Golden Dragon. With Carlos."

"Oh," Joel
said. "I guess you aren't one to hold a grudge then."

"A fight's a fight.
Nothing personal. Carlos is damn good and he beat me. I figured if I'm going to
train from someone, it should be someone like him."

Joel didn't say anything.
He had his own feelings about the big Hispanic.

"You hear he was
signed to a fight with Titan? It's going to be television in a few
months."

Joel nodded. It was a big
opportunity for a fighter. If you did well in one of these smaller televised
events, it sometimes led to a bigger contract shortly after with a more
well-known organization.

"Anyway, he wants to
talk to you. He asked me to find you. He told me you were training in the Rock
camp now."

"What does he
want?"

"You'll have to ask
him yourself. I have a car here, we can go right now."

Despite his feelings
about Carlos, Joel was intrigued as to what the other man could possibly want
to talk to him about. As far as he knew, the enmity between the two of them
went both ways. He nodded and followed Darien to his car, but his body felt
tense. He would be ready for anything.