Beat (The Beat and The Pulse #1) (7 page)

Chapter 11

Ren

Staring at the slip
of paper the ATM had spat out at me, I grimaced.

Funds were getting
low and worry began to spike in my stomach. I had some money saved from the
epic garage sale after Mum died, but it wasn’t much at all. What little was
left was getting eaten up by bank fees and things I needed that I’d never ask
Dad to pay for.

I thumped the cancel
button on the ATM and snatched my card back. Money had always been the bane of
my existence. Having a sick mother who couldn’t work all the time meant I had
to pick up the slack. There hadn’t been anyone else and medical bills were
expensive. I knew how to budget, but without an income, there was nothing to
budget
with
. Sighing, I shoved my card and the receipt into my pocket
and shelved it for later.  

Rounding the corner
onto Sydney Road, I caught sight of Josie coming the opposite way. Waving, we
met out front of the coffee shop and pushed inside. We must have unconsciously
synchronized watches at some point between now and the first time we met,
because it was the same pretty much every morning.

“Sup, Ren,” she
exclaimed as we went inside and pulled up chairs at our usual table.

“Ugh,” I exclaimed.

“Like that, huh?
What’s up?”

“I’m worried about
money.” I fiddled with a packet of sugar.

“Oh, aren't we all,”
she said with a laugh. “I might have this shit hot office job, but rent’s a
killer
.
I swear over half of my pay goes on it.”

“Rent costs that much
in the city?” I exclaimed.

“Oh, you better
believe it. You want to rent a place?”

“I need a job first.”

Josie waved to Seth,
who gave her the thumbs up. It was our code for,
the usual
.

“If I ever want to
get out of Beat, I need money,” I said. “It makes the world go round and all.”

She looked at me like
I’d sprouted a second head. “Why would you want to leave Beat? You’ve got free
rent, free food, free gym...”

“Josie, why would I
want to stay there? I’m treated like an annoyance more than anything. Dad
doesn’t want me to meet his wife, Monica is a bitch, Ash is an asshole. The
Twins are okay. If it wasn’t for you, the gym equipment and this cafe, then I’d
probably waste away.”

Josie’s face melted
into a smile. “Aww, really?”

“Don’t get a big head
or anything.”

“Ren!” she squealed.
“I love you, too.”

“Thanks, but I like
doodles.” I rolled my eyes. “Unfortunately.”

She waved me off,
picking up her coffee. “Oh, you know what I mean.”

“I don’t have that
much in savings and free rent only cuts it for so long,” I went on. “I need to
find something to get me out of that toxic air. Part time, full time.
Anything.”

Seth chose that
moment to put our order on the table. “You need a job?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, I’m
looking.”

“Joseph!” Seth yelled
out at the top of his lungs, making me flinch.

“Yeah?” A gruff voice
called from out back. A second later, an older looking Italian man with salt
and pepper hair shoved through a door behind the counter, a tea towel slung
over his shoulder.

“Joseph, Ren. Ren,
Joseph,” Seth said. “Ren’s looking for a bit of work.”

“Work, eh?” Joseph
turned to look me over. “You've got a bit of muscle on you, young lady.”

Josie started to
laugh.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I
take classes around the corner at the boxing studio.”

He looked surprised.
“Beat? You don’t say.”

“Ren’s in here
practically every morning,” Seth chipped in, giving me a shy smile. “We could
do with a little help with the morning rush.”

Joseph eyed Seth
before turning to me. “You got an hour or two to help us this morning?”

My eyes widened. It
couldn’t be this easy to get a job. Wasn’t there a multiple interview and a
resume process?

“Give it a shot,
Ren,” Josie elbowed me. “We’re in here anyway and it’s around the corner from
Beat.”

“Sure,” I said.
“Whatever you want me to do.”

So, that’s how I
found myself cleaning up tables and washing dishes for the rest of the morning,
my thoughts firmly fixed on the task at hand rather than on the mess my life
was. It was refreshing and distracting and at the end of it, Joseph shoved a
twenty in my hand and patted me on the shoulder.

“You don’t complain,”
he said in his thick accent. “I like that.”

“Um, thanks?” I
didn’t break, drop or spoil anything, so I guess that meant I did okay.

He laughed at my
reaction. “Okay, come back tomorrow at seven and we’ll get you on a couple of
shifts to see how you go.”

It was just a job in
a cafe cleaning tables and serving customers, but it was probably one of the
better things that had happened to me since Mum died. I beamed at Joseph and
nodded. “You got it.”

I was officially one
step closer to independence.

Independence and my
own identity. Shit, yeah.

My fist slammed into
the heavy leather bag, the impact jolting up my arm and absorbing into my
torso.

The only light was from
the back row of fluorescents I’d switched on over the ring. It was dark, murky
and helped me pretend I was someplace else. The drama from the daylight hours
was gone and it was just me and the darkness. Exactly the way I liked it.

I began another set of
punches, hair sticking to the sweat beading across the back of my neck.
Structure. This was the only thing that was predictable in my life and I needed
predictable.

Stance. Guard. Punch.
Guard. Repeat.

There was a loud
cough behind me and I spun on my heel, heart thumping in my chest, and my gaze
collided with Ash’s.

“Fuck,” I exclaimed,
holding a hand over my heart. “Don’t fucking do that, Ash.” Typical. The
creeper was being all creeper again.

“What are you doing?”
He stared at me, his gaze hovering a little too long on my bare midriff.

I steadied the bag
with one hand, taking deep breaths. “What does it look like?”

“I’ve never seen…” He
trailed off and I wondered if I’d finally made the Golden Boy lost for words.

I turned my back so I
didn’t have to look at him. “What? A woman in a sports bra? Highly doubt it.” I
rolled my eyes and wiped my forehead with the back of my arm. Even though I
couldn’t see, I felt his gaze burning into my skin and I suppressed the urge to
squeeze my thighs together. Infuriating, self-absorbed, arrogant…

He appeared beside me
and stepped behind the bag, bracing it against his body from shoulder to hip.
“Let me spot,” he said.

I didn’t know how
long he’d been watching me, but suddenly I felt embarrassed and my skin began
to flare. He was a pro, beat the shit out of people for a living and I was…
Well, I was just some chick with too much time on her hands.

Stepping back, I
said, “It’s fine.”

“
Ren
.” Ash’s
voice was firm and commanding and involuntarily, I stood to attention. “You were
doing good. You just need a spotter. Those other bags are too heavy for you.”

He eyed me from
around the bag and I flexed my fingers. “Fine.”

Guard up, fists at
the ready, thumb over fingers, right foot forward, left back. Punch, right then
left and guard up. One. Two. Three.

I hit the bag gently
at first, testing the resistance and it felt better. There was no swing, so I
increased my strength until I was hitting as hard as I could. I couldn’t see
Ash behind the bag, but he was there, his feet firmly planted on the mat.

I lost myself in the
repetitions until he called time.

“Good,” he said.
Nodding at the wall of mirrors, he went on, “Show me your guard.”

Realizing he was
giving me some pointers, I rolled my shoulders once and showed him what I’d
been taught.

“Now, take a couple
of swings at the bag.”

I went through the
motions, punching first with my right and then following through with the left.
Then Ash was standing behind me, his big paws landing on my shoulders and I
froze.

“You favor your upper
arm too much,” he said, his breath hot against my neck. “Punch something the
wrong way like that and you’ll shred your arm. When you punch, use your
shoulder and your body.” He held onto me, rotating my right arm, showing me
what he meant. “You’ll get more force into your blow and you'll land harder.”

“Thanks.”

He sniffed, standing
back. “You’re welcome.”

I glanced up at him
and saw the unspoken question in his eyes. His mother fucking green eyes that were
staring right at me. Eyes that were attached to a handsome face, a jaw coated
with a day or two of stubble and lips that I instantly thought about sucking
on. Shit.

Pre-empting his
question, I cast my gaze onto my hands and said, “I don’t like an audience.”

Ash shifted next to
me, creeping forward across the mat. “But, I’ve seen you at classes.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“The Meathead Twins
would have a field day,” I began, laughing wryly. “I don’t want my Dad knowing,
either.”

“What about me?”

His question
blindsided me for a moment. I didn’t think he gave a crap what I did, but
obviously he’d been watching me for a while if he knew I took all the classes.

“You’ve got better
things to do that pay attention to me,” I said, shaking my head. “Seriously, since
when have either of us been nice to each other?”

“Do you want me to
apologize?” he asked, beginning to sound pissed off.

“I don’t want you to
do anything,” I snapped. Total lie. He could lick me between the legs if he
wanted.

“I saw you cleaning
up tables at that cafe this morning,” he said out of the blue.

“So? I was doing a
trial.”

“Why do you need to
do that?”

“Because some people
need jobs to earn money, Ash. Not all of us have endorsements and sponsors and
crap.”

His eyes narrowed.
“Coach-”

“Put me in a storage
closet,” I growled at him.

Silence tore at us,
opening up a chasm of who the fuck cared.

“Do another set,” Ash
commanded, his lips thin, and I was more than happy to oblige.

This time he
shouldered a shield bag and dug his heels into the mat and I gave him
everything I had. I kicked and punched the shit out of that padded bit of
leather fantasizing it was his body I was pounding into. Fuck, the word
pounding
.
Whenever I thought about the guy, it was all appendages, licking, humping, mouths
and orgasms. That was what pissed me off, right? The fact that Ash drove me
wild in an animalistic way, not that he was an asshole, right? He
was
an
asshole, but my body still wanted him. Personality had nothing to do with it.

He made no move to
touch me other than showing me the correct way to hold myself. He didn’t want
me like that and I didn’t know how much more obvious he could make it. He
probably had a string of women on speed dial.

The thought of Ash
fucking someone else, fucking
Monica
, made me see red. I kicked the bag
so hard, he stumbled back slightly and Ash was the kind of guy that never
stumbled. Ha. Take that.

“Shit, Ren. Whose
head you picturin’?”

“Yours.”

He grunted and set
the bag aside. “Better?”

“I’m done.” I ripped
off my gloves and tossed them on the bench, reaching for my towel.

God, I couldn’t do
this. Watching him work out during the day was hard enough, but doing it
together in the middle of the night,
alone? 
This was a whole new
merry-go-round and I wanted to get off. I didn’t want to ride anymore.