The Fighter's Block (10 page)

Van
hardly
slept that night while he waited for a better time to call Dani. He
told himself to wait until seven, but he
couldn’t hold o
ff by the time it was six-
fifty
. He was sure she’d be up soon enough for work
if she
wasn’t
already
.

“Why did he have to call you?” she grumbled, very annoyed that Paul had gone ahead and done it anyway.

“Because I asked him to. I told him to let me know if anything weird comes up when I’m not around. This
is getting a little out of hand
. I think something needs to be done.”

She
agreed, but didn’t know what to say.

“Dani, I’m gonna talk to management to make sure Brian doesn’t set foot in there again, okay? And
besides in the apartment,
I don’t want you being anywhere else alone, just in case. I’m gonna
make sure he stops ca
lling you
and that he stops with the stalking.”

“How are you going to do that?” she asked, feeling really worried. The last thing she wanted was
to pull Van into this deeper than he already was.

“
For now I have someone that can have a little chat with him legally, just to make sure he stays away from you.”

“And what if it doesn’t work?”

Van sighed to himself. His answer was that he’d take care of it himself, but he knew Dani didn
’t want to hear that. “Then you would need to
file a restraining order against him.”

“That would piss him off even more, Van. I don’t know… Maybe we should just leave it alone. He’s not going to do this for long, and as soon as he decides on his own that it’s over between us, then he’ll move on. The more that’s done to provoke him, even if I have every right, the madder he’s going to get. I know him, Van. I think we should just give it some time.”

He agreed with her about Brian’s personality. He was the type to do things out of spite. But Van wasn’t so sure about letting the last incident slide. He didn’t want Brian to be around Dani at all, and lurking around the apartment building—and lying to Van’s neighbors
about who he was—was already crossing the line
.

But
he
agreed with Dani and decided not to do anything just yet. She basically pleaded with him, claiming that it would only cause a bigger problem. But
he
wasn’t going to let down his guard—
not even a little
—and
he
made Dani agree to a couple of things first. He only wanted her to be safe, and he didn’t want Brian to have any opportunities to be alone with her.

He couldn’t remember a shift feeling so long, and by the
time Van left the firehouse the next
night, he was relieved to be heading home. He knew that Dani was still at work since it was barely five
, but he looked forward to finally seeing her
when she was done
.

When he entered his apartment he was surprised. It was really clean. He could tell Dani had vacuumed, mopped the kitchen floor, and cleaned the bathroom. Van wasn’t a slob, but he had never seen his apartment look so good. She had even cleaned the windows
and dusted
.
There was a vase of fresh flowers on the coffee table, and even though he wasn’t one to add pretty touches to anything, it looked really nice.

The other surprise he found was on the kitchen counter. She’d made stew in a
slow cooker
and it was simmering on low. He lifted the lid to get a whiff and it smelled amazing. His stomach growled and his mouth watered, and he had to grab a bowl right away. As he carried his dinner to sit down, he noticed the chocolate chip cookies that filled an unfamiliar cookie jar on the counter.

The lengths she had gone to for him… He was grateful
. A
nd
as he sat at the table enjoying the dinner she’d made for him, he was also feeling pretty
damn
happy.
But even though t
here was a part of his life that was finally filled
,
but
he still felt an
xious
.

“I guarantee I’m
gonna
fuck this up somehow,” he muttered to himself.

He looked forward to her arrival for two hours, and by the time it was seven o’clock, he was really worried about her. He didn’t want to seem
needy or overly dependent, but he really wanted to see her.

Dani answered his call on the last ring, just as she was getting out of her car. “Hey, sexy. You home yet?”

“Yeah, I’ve been home for a couple of hours. I thought I told you I get off at four-thirty?”

“Oh. Well, yeah, you did…”

Van
wa
sn’t sure what the pause meant.
“Well, what are you up to? It’s after seven; I thought you’d be back here by now.”

“Back at your place? Oh, you mean…?”

He
paused again, feeling a little perplexed. “Where are you?”

“I’m at Jaime’s.”

“Uh, not for the night, right? You’re coming
here
, aren’t you?”

“Um, well, did you want me to come over?”

Again he was confused, not really understanding where the miscommunication was. “Dani, you’re welcome to still stay here. You don’t have to leave just because I’m home. I didn’t offer my place to you just while I was gone.
I
want
you to stay.
”

Dani considered that for a few seconds. She wasn’t sure
what
she wanted to do with her living situation. She chose not to assume that Van wanted her to stay—she was waiting for him to offer—but now that he had, she still wasn’t so sure.

“Well, I’m dropping off some groceries for my sister right now. I’ll be a few minutes and then I’ll head over and we can talk about it.”

“Okay,” Van agreed, not sure
what there was to talk about. But m
aybe she’d found another apartment or something.

“I’ll see you in about twenty minutes,” she said. “Do you need anything while I’m out and about?”

He
smiled at her thoughtfulness. “No thanks, but you can get your butt over here so I can thank you properly for my dinner and clean apartment.”

She lightly laughed. “Whatever. That’s only a small payment to you for letting me have a place to stay.”

“Dani, you don’t owe me any— Never mind, just get over here, okay?
I miss you.
”

She chuckled again. “Okay, see you in a bit.”

Dani was really excited to see Van, as she had been for three days. She’d talked t
o him on the phone several times, a
nd he’d even told her she could stop by the f
irehouse to see him. B
ut she just felt uncomfortable about
being too much too soon. And s
he was afraid of seeming too compliant. She wasn’t interested in playing hard to get, but she was worried that her previous relationship with Brian had made her too
accommodating
. She didn’t feel like Van would take advantage of her like that, but she was automatically in
cautious mode.
She really had wanted to
visit
him
at work. By t
he second day he was gone she’
d felt way too eager
to see
him. She didn’t know what it was about Van, but he was like a magnet that drew her in.
She had to be careful with that.

But it didn’t help when she got to
his
apartment and he gave her the sweetest, most lovable kiss imaginable. She was weak in the knees, and she was glad when he led her to the couch to sit down.

“So? How was your day?” he asked her.

She had to take a few seconds to compose herself after such an engaging kiss. “Uh, it was fine. A little slow, but now I’m way ahead of schedule. How was your last twenty-four hours?”

He shrugged. “Pretty uneventful.
One small kitchen fire that was already taken care of, and one false alarm.
Nothing too exciting.”

“And what do you consider to be ‘exciting’?” she asked with a smile.

He chuckled. “Uh, well, something a little more than just going for a drive in the truck.”

“So actually fighting a fire, huh?”

“Well, that
is
in the
job
description
,” he teased her.

“I know, but…”

“Don’t tell me y
ou’re actually worried about me,
”
he smiled.

She smiled at the tease in his voice again. “Of course I get worried. I don’t want anything to happen to you. It’s a dangerous job.”

He quietly considered that for a moment, pleased that she cared about him. “Well I worry about you, too,” he told her.

“My job isn’t dangerous,” she laughed.

“Well, no, but I’m talking about other stuff…”

She looked at him for a few seconds and gradually nodded her head. “Oh.”

Van took a moment before he asked, “Nothing else has come up, right? He hasn’t called you or anything?”

“No, changing my number did the trick.”

“For now.”

Dani studied Van for a bit, realizing that he wanted to talk about it some more. She decided to give him
something
, just to be fair
since he tried so hard to look out for her
.

“I talked to Eddie yesterday,” she said. “I know you talked to him too, but I figured I’d go talk to him in person—introduce myself
again
. He was pretty adamant that Brian wouldn’t be coming into the building without him knowing about it. He kind of felt bad that he did see him talking to Marnie that day but didn’t do anything about it.”

“He tho
ught he was a friend of Marnie
’s
or something. It wasn’t his fault.”

“I know, and I told him that too.” She thought for a few seconds and then added, “I like Eddie. He’s kind of a funny guy.”

Van chuckled. “Yeah, he is.”

“Why does he keep referring to this building as ‘the block’?”

Van smiled. “Well, he’s actually referring to
my
floor. The entire fourth floor
has been referred to as ‘T
he
Fighter’s Block
’
because of me. I was the first fighter to move here, and people just started referring to it that way
. When I used
to
fight down at the Divehouse, Mickey used to manage this building as well.
When I turned eighteen and was on my own, he set me up in this place. After that he started to
house
other
fighters here and…it’s just stayed that way ever since.
Now the
whole
floor consists of former or current fight-clubbers.
But
this is still considered
my
block,
”
he winked with a smile.

Dani
returned the smile and
slowly nodded. “Ah, I see
.
The original fighter to reside here, and still the block leader,” she teased. “
So Paul and Cody are MMA fighters?”

“Yep.”

“And
Quincy
?” she asked with a surprised smile.

Van laughed. “Yeah, Quincy used to fight but he’s taken too many hits to the head—too many concussions over the years. Now
he mainly
sticks
to, uh, supervising.”

“Supervising?”

“Yeah, he’s mo
re of the guy in the corner for
moral support.
He loves the sport and has a hard time staying away. I don’t blame him. But yeah, he sticks to coaching and stuff.
”

“Ah, gotcha,
”
she
nodded
.

Brian was pissed that Dani had changed her phone number. If she thought she could shake him that easily, she was sadly mistaken. For now he’d let her have a little freedom, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t going to keep tabs on her. Sooner or later she’d realize that she’d made a mistake, and he could
pretend to
be
patient and understanding until
she came crawling back for a place to stay. She was still helping
to
pay for her brother’s medical expenses, so there was no way she’d have the money for her own place. And she didn’t like staying at Jaime and Steve’s because all they did was
bitch at each other
, so Brian was sure his chances were good. For now he’d just play it cool until Dani created another mess for
him to bail her out of
.