Battered Not Broken (23 page)

“He kicked ass, huh?” Cameron was obviously thrilled with the success of his event.

Ally nodded stiffly.

“I’ve already got another guy interested in comin’ out to fight Moore next week. I figure I’ll rent this same place out again. After this, maybe I’ll be able to fill all the seats next week.”

His words brought her down as she leaned against the cinderblock wall.

“Hey.” Cameron seemed to come down from the high of his own enthusiasm long enough to pick up on her lack of it. “Maybe we’ll start holding some women’s nights here, too. When they get a little bigger. Or maybe we could combine some matches with the Friday night events. That’d be cool, huh?”

“Yeah, it would.”

“Maybe I could try it one night – plan it in advance, advertise a little and ask Mel if she could get off work that Friday.”

“I’m sure she’d try.”

“Cool.” Cameron stood a little taller, seemingly buoyed by the idea. “Hey, you goin’ out with Moore again tonight?”

She nodded.

“You think it’s gonna turn into anything serious?”

“We’ve only been dating for a week. It’s kind of hard to tell this soon, isn’t it?” Of course, it had been anything but a typical first week of dating. But it wasn’t like she could tell Cameron about their first night together, or how it felt like someone was squeezing her heart every time she looked at Ryan. “Who are you anyway, Dr. Phil?”

Cameron shrugged and grinned. “Not trying to pry. But Stacey’s got this thing about us goin’ out with other couples. It fuckin’ sucks, but I can’t say that because she loves it. Maybe you and Moore could go out with us sometime. You two would be a hell of a lot better than the weirdoes from her work she sets this stuff up with.”

“Gee, thanks Cameron.”

“Aw, come on. We could talk MMA. Fighting. Training. Business. Whatever. Last week Stacey set us up with a couple of pencil-pushers from her building and all they wanted to talk about was global fuckin’ warming.”

Ally might have laughed if Ryan’s fight hadn’t left her so tense. Anyone who knew Cameron would understand that discussing global warming over dinner with strangers would basically be the equivalent of waterboarding, as far as he was concerned. If it didn’t have to do with MMA, he didn’t care. He spent almost all of his time at Knockout and was constantly scheming to advance Harbor City MMA Events.

“It’s fine with me if it’s okay with Ryan,” she said. “You’ll have to ask him.”

Cameron waved a hand dismissively. “You mention it to him. Get him in a good mood and use your feminine wiles or something. Just let me know when you two wanna go out. If it just so happens to be next Thursday, that’d be great because Stacey mentioned something about getting together with that other couple again that day.”

She rolled her eyes. “Cameron, if I ever muster up some untapped feminine wiles, I’m not going to waste them on convincing Ryan to go on a double-date with you and Stacey.”

As if on cue, Ryan emerged from the locker room, his hair damp and his skin clean. A duffel bag hung from one of his shoulders, presumably containing his fighting gear and shorts. He wore jeans and a long-sleeved black t-shirt that hugged his upper body in a way that almost made Ally forget her worry in a moment of sheer appreciation.

“Here you go.” Talk of double-dating was forgotten as Cameron reached into one pocket and pulled out a folded check. “Made it out to you before the match – knew you’d kick Ivanov’s ass. You in for next week?”

Ryan pulled the check from between Cameron’s fingers, tucking it deep into one of his own pockets. “Yeah.”

Ally felt sick as Ryan wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“See you at the gym.” Cameron’s dopey grin didn’t fade.

“Ready to get out of here, baby?” There was a rumble of satisfaction to Ryan’s voice. He seemed to walk in a post-fight glow, standing tall even after the beatings he’d given and taken, not acknowledging the pain his busted lips and nose had to be causing him.

“Definitely.”

Chapter 13

Outside, the parking lot was full of spectators heading home after the fight. Some lingered by their cars, talking.

“Where’d I park the mustang again?” Ryan rubbed his eyes with his free hand, frowning briefly.

“Right over there.” Ally pointed toward the left corner of the lot. “Hey, are you all right?”

“Seeing silver lights.” The satisfaction she’d heard in his voice while inside was still there, tempered by his confession.

“I’ll drive.” She pressed her lips into a thin line, resisting any temptation to say more. Sometimes her Aunt Elsa saw silver lights before she got a migraine – a precursor to the impending pain.

“You don’t have to do that. I’m not in pain, and you don’t have a license.”

“Not a license,” she said as they approached the mustang. “A permit.”

“Like a learner’s permit?”

She nodded. “I went to the MVA this week and got one. Now I can drive legally with you in the car with me.” She’d had one years ago, when her father had started to teach her how to drive. It had expired later, after her mother had had to sell the car, and she’d never bothered to get another one – until now.

He just stood there for a moment. It was impossible to tell whether he was blinking in an attempt to chase away silver lights, or because he was surprised.

“So what do you say?” She extended her hand. “Now you’re helping me too. Maybe you can sign the driving log they gave me and I can get an actual license sometime.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys.

They were warm from his body heat when they met her palm. “Thanks.”

“Have you been wanting to get a license?” he asked as they settled into the car.

“Until recently, I hadn’t thought about it in a while. I wanted one when I was a teenager, but my father was the only one of my parents who drove, so when he…” A ripple of uncertainty struck her as she gripped the car key and inserted it into the ignition.

She turned it, bringing the car to life. The engine rumbled with latent power, sending faint vibrations through the leather seats. “My father is in prison. When he was sent there I was a teenager and my mother had to sell his car not long afterward. That was the end of me pursuing a driver’s license.”

“So what you’re saying,” Ryan said, “is that I should be afraid for my car right now. The other night – that was the first time you’d driven in how long?”

She glanced toward him, still gripping the key instead of the wheel. “Almost six years.”

He wore a teasing grin as he made a remark about having just got his car out of the repair shop, and in that moment, she loved him for not asking her why her father was in prison. That was something she wouldn’t have been able to handle the stress of explaining while driving.

“I know this is an expensive car and that it means a lot to you.” A little thread of guilt wriggled through her thoughts. “If you really don’t feel comfortable with me driving your car, let me call a cab. I just don’t want you to have to drive with a migraine coming on.” Silver lights, city lights – it might be hard to tell a difference. Combine that with the risk of symptoms like blurred vision or the vertigo he’d suffered from last time and the ride home had the potential to be just as dangerous as the time he’d recently spent in the cage.

“It’s fine. If you want to practice driving so you can get your license, you can use my car. How else are you going to do it?”

Resisting the urge to breathe a sigh of relief, she fastened her seatbelt and lowered a hand to the gear shift. “Thanks. I’ll be careful. Help me with directions just to be safe – I’m not sure I know exactly how to get to your place from here.”

“Take a left out of the parking lot.”

He directed her as she guided the mustang down streets and around corners, her teeth set slightly on edge as she focused on shifting gears smoothly while also maintaining a sane speed and not rear-ending any other vehicles. “I’m not going to have a clue how to drive a normal car after this,” she said. “This thing is so much more powerful than anything else I’ve ever driven – you touch the pedal and it leaps forward.”

Ryan had slumped back in his seat.  He smiled faintly as he let the headrest cradle his skull. “Yeah, it’s nice, huh? I’ve hardly driven anything else in ages, either.”

“How long have you had this car?”

“Over four years now.”

“It looks like new.”

“Yeah, well, I sure as hell won’t be able to afford a new one if anything happens to this, so I try to take good care of it.”

Although she kept her eyes trained on the road, she couldn’t help noticing every time he rubbed his eyes or tipped his head to the side, pressing his fingertips to his temple. “Are you in pain?”

“I took some pills as soon as I finished the fight, before I showered. I started seeing silver lights during the third round, so I knew this was coming.”

“Does that usually work?”

“Not really.”

Silence stretched between them for the rest of the drive, punctuated by his directions. When they finally reached his apartment, it was a relief.

He wasn’t unsteady on his feet like he had been that first night, but a line had formed between his eyebrows, deep and vertical.

They left the car parked and locked and climbed the four flights of stairs that led to his unit. The inside was unchanged since her last visit of a couple days ago, and she remembered it vividly – the amazingly good and the not so good. As he locked the door behind them, she craved what they’d shared during the first half of the visit, before her questioning of his choice to fight had put a discernible distance between them.

“Why don’t you lie down?” she suggested. “Maybe we can head the worst of this thing off.” If anything they did would lessen or shorten his suffering even a little, it would be worth it. “And I could get some ice out of the freezer for your lips.”

“Forget about the ice,” he said, taking one of her hands and gripping it tightly. He met her eyes and then his gaze drifted toward the bedroom, giving new meaning to her suggestion.

She let him draw her across the living area, toward his bedroom door. Along the way, she dropped the large purse she’d stuffed with a few overnight essentials onto the couch.

When they entered the room he sank onto the bed, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her with him. He leaned in as if to kiss her but paused a scant inch from her mouth, as if remembering the state of his lips. Had his desire really overshadowed his pain until then?

She pressed a kiss against the side of his neck, an area that was sensitive but unhurt.

He pulled her closer, against the surface of his chest, which was barely covered by his sinfully-tight shirt, and let the tips of his fingers dig lightly into the flesh of her shoulder and hip.

She stopped kissing him, her lips a bare millimeter away from the thick column of his neck. It wouldn’t be right to get him pointlessly worked up, especially when he was hurting and needed rest.

“Don’t stop,” he breathed.

“I don’t want to be a tease. Not when you—”

“If you think I intend to lie in bed just waiting for the pain to go away, you’re wrong.”

“It’s not that I want to stop. I just don’t want to prolong your pain.”