Brooklyn's Baddest: A Bad Boy Fighter Romance (8 page)

She nodded and gave him a smile. “Thank you for taking a chance on him, Uncle. It is important to me.” She stepped toward him, and he wrapped his arms around her in a hug, holding her close to him.

Chapter4

Lisa met Bonnie for coffee at their favorite café the next morning, before each of them went their separate ways. She held her coffee mug in her hands, sipping at the frothy foam of steamed milk at the brim of it before setting it down and looking at Bonnie.

Her best friend was eyeing her with anticipation. “So? I want to hear what’s going on with the hot new guy at the dojo!” she bubbled effervescently.

Lisa couldn’t resist a smile and shrug of her shoulders as she looked down into her coffee cup before answering. “Listen, he’s only been there a couple of days. There’s nothing to tell. I found him fighting at this ratty old gym, he had good style and form, and I saw some potential-”

“Potential for what?” Bonnie giggled wickedly as she grinned and winked at Lisa.

Lisa rolled her eyes with a sigh. “Potential for a good champion for the dojo. That’s it.” She let out a little more breath and bit at her lower lip. “Though… he does make it really difficult,” she said, looking up at Bonnie through her eyelashes.

Bonnie pounced on possibility. “Difficult for what?” she drawled slowly with a grin.

Lisa bit her lip again and looked away before shifting her eyes back to Bonnie. “Difficult to keep us both focused on the training and the dojo. He’s a terrible flirt. Every time he’s around me, he gets so… close, and he’s so… forward. He already asked me to sleep with him on the very first night.”

Bonnie’s mouth fell open. “He did not!”

Lisa raised her eyebrows and nodded slightly. “Oh yes, he did. I drove him from the gym to the dojo the day I found him, and when he was done at the dojo, I drove him home. He asked me that very first night. God… he’s so hot, and he’s so persistent. He just flirts so… intensely, and I keep telling him that it’s just business, but he doesn’t care! It’s like he’s hell bent on getting…” she hesitated and eyed Bonnie meaningfully, “what he wants.”

Her best friend giggled gleefully. “Good! What about you? Are you into it? Do you like him at all?”

Shaking her head in frustration, Lisa knitted her brow. “No! I mean… it doesn’t matter, it’s not a possibility! I can’t like him! He… he flusters me, and he… he makes me… god, he makes me so nervous. I just… I can’t let him do that. We both have to concentrate on our purposes there, and nothing else! I just wish he wouldn’t make it so damn difficult!”

Bonnie raised an eyebrow. “Does he make it difficult?” she asked curiously.

Lisa groaned miserably. “You have no idea.”

“You like him!” Bonnie gasped excitedly.

Shaking her head and waving her hand dismissively in the air, Lisa sat up and looked right at Bonnie. “It doesn’t matter what I like, or what I think… or how he makes me… um… how I feel when I’m around him. It doesn’t matter. It’s just been a long time since anyone was interested in me, that’s all. It’s just… been a long time, and I am just going to have to ignore that and focus on my work and he has to focus on his training, and that’s all that there is to it.”

Bonnie pouted in disappointment. “Why? Why would you turn down something like that? A hot guy… right there under your nose, and he’s super interested in you… why would turn that down?”

Lisa sniffed as she lifted her coffee cup halfway to her mouth before answering. “Because he’s capable of causing trouble, and I want him to stay focused on being capable of success, and because I have a family to think of. It isn’t just about me. It isn’t just about going with hot hormones. There’s so much at stake here, Bonnie, and I have a duty to my family and to the dojo to think of them first. I also have to think of his future. He has to concentrate on training, not…” she felt her cheeks warm at the thought of what he concentrated on when he was around her. “Not anything else.”

Bonnie sighed in resignation. “That’s terrible. I haven’t seen you react to a guy in a long time. I wish you’d let yourself go on this one. Even just for a tangle in the sheets. I mean, seriously, what is it going to hurt if you two spend a night or two together? That’s not going to do any damage.”

Lisa pressed her lips together tightly and shook her head. “No. Absolutely not.” She answered. She was determined that it wasn’t going to happen at all.

Bonnie sighed and her shoulders slouched downward. “Okay. I know when to give in with you. I swear, sometimes you are so stubborn! I just… I wish that it could be different for you, that’s all.”

“I know, and I appreciate that, but this is not the right time, and he is not the right guy. Family first,” Lisa replied adamantly. Bonnie nodded in resignation.

When their visit over coffee was done, Bonnie and Lisa hugged one another goodbye, and Lisa drove to the dojo, positive that things were going the way that they should, and hoping with everything in her that Jake would be the champion that she believed he could be.

She was careful to stay out of his way every morning, and she silently watched him now and then throughout the days, every day, for a week as he stood in the water, doing his kata over and over again, relentlessly pushing forward when he struggled to stand, continuing to get back up every time he fell, and lifting his head high when his body trembled with pain and he forced himself to keep doing the kata.

Every evening after, Koichi, having watched him and meditated before him for the last part of the day, let him finally get out of the water, Lisa would be there waiting for him with a dry towel and hot tea in her office. Each one of those late afternoons, Jake would be too tired to flirt with her, and almost too tired to really think or talk, and he would speak only a little to her. They would smile at each other, and she would encourage him, telling him to keep going, that he would make it and that he was getting closer to his goal. Most of all she would tell him that she believed in him.

After a full week of his work had passed, he was sitting on the sofa in her office, sipping the afternoon tea with her, when he looked up at her in what she suspected was defeat.

“I know you think I can do this…” he said quietly, his hands trembling as he tried to hold the teacup still without spilling any tea, “but, Koichi is pushing me harder than I thought he would. I have done everything that I think I can do, and I’m not sure that I can go forward with this.”

She felt panic seize her stomach and she shook her head, sitting down beside him. “I know that you can do this. You can’t give up! You know, most often it’s when we are just about to give up on the hardest and most difficult things that they finally come through and work for us. Did you know that? I’ve seen it so many times. I’ve never seen anyone come as far as you have in as short a time as you have.

Most of the men who go through training similar to yours can’t even stand at the end of the first week, but there you were today, still standing, still moving and doing your kata, even though it’s so difficult for you. You’ve kept going. Jake, you have such determination. Trust me when I tell you that you’re much closer than anyone else has been at this stage. At least, anyone that I’ve seen and I’ve seen this for years. You just have to keep pushing. Keep going at it. I know it feels like you might never see the light at the end of the tunnel, but you will. You’re so much closer than you were.”

He looked up at her and managed a smile through the burning pain that he felt in every part of his body. Somehow, her smile and faith in him helped to bolster him. “I don’t think I’d have stayed as long or tried as hard if you weren’t here helping me and encouraging me. You know, I look forward to seeing you bring that towel to me every afternoon, and to the tea you make for me. Seriously, it might be the only thing that’s really kept me going every day… just knowing that if I keep going a little bit more, it will be towel and tea time and I’ll get to see you. It really means a lot to me that you believe in me, Lisa. Thank you.” He carefully tipped the teacup back and swallowed the warm liquid.

Jake stood slowly, wincing from the soreness and pain that wracked him. He looked at her with humble gratitude as he reached out a little way to hand her the teacup. “You know, I haven’t had that many friends, and it feels like you are a friend. A real friend.” He smiled a little again. “Thank you.”

She felt her throat tighten and she tried to swallow the lump there and stop her eyes from stinging with tears as her dark eyes looked into his cool blue ones. “I’m going to be here every step of the way, making sure that you reach your goal, and that you prove to yourself and everyone else that you are the champion we both know you are inside.”

He gave his head a slight shake. “That’s what keeps me coming back every day. I’m not going to let you or myself down. I’ll see you in the morning, Lisa. I promise.” With that, he turned and walked slowly and carefully from her office, and she went to the doorway and watched him as he made his way past the courtyard and through the wide gate. She admired him deeply for the dedication he was giving to what he was doing.

Many people would have given up,
she reminded herself, and several people had given up and walked out too soon, but for the ones who stayed; for the ones who worked hard and pushed themselves past the limits of what they believed their endurance to be, those people had earned a level of success that few people ever reach. More than anything, she wanted to see Jake realize that triumph.

***

Jake eased his car into his driveway and shut the engine off, breathing an enormous sigh of relief to be home. All he could think about was a hot shower and his bed. He stepped from his car gingerly, closing the door behind him and walking carefully toward the steps on the front porch. There was a noise behind him, but before he could turn all the way around to see what it was, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head, and suddenly he was vaulting through the air toward the ground. He landed with a thud on his chest, his hands planted flat on the hard ground in front of him.

Shock registered through him and he groaned as his body screamed at him with shooting pain through every part of him. Something closed hard on his shoulder and he was flipped over onto his back. The sun had set, but even in the descending darkness, he could see Patrick standing over him, glaring down at him hatefully.

“You rat bastard son of a bitch!” Patrick seethed at him as he curled his fists tight around the shirt that Jake was wearing. He yanked Jake upward, and Jake could not find the strength to stop him.

“My brother is still in the hospital from the fight the two of you had. He’s still suffering because of you! I told you I was going to kill you for it, and now your time has come!” Patrick pulled his fist back almost farther than Jake could see, and he launched it like a rocket at Jake’s face. He tried to look away, but just as he turned his head, Patrick’s knuckles landed on the side of his face and the blow knocked him backward out of Patrick’s grasp, back onto the ground.

In a moment, Patrick was on him, pinning him down, throwing punch after punch at him, beating him furiously. Jake tried to find the anger in him. He searched through the memories and emotions of hatred that had been so true to him, that had seen him through every fight, but the anger could not be found. The memories felt more like shadows; unreachable, untouchable, and panic set in to him.

As fear washed over him, adrenaline surged through him and without even thinking about it or knowing how he had any will or strength to do it, Jake planted his flat hands on Patrick’s midsection and shoved as hard as he could while turning his body. Patrick was thrown from him and stumbled backward, landing face up.

Jake pushed himself to his feet, and searched again for his anger; for the hatred he had always relied on to win every fight, and as Patrick came at him, he steeled himself and tried what he knew to block the fist that came careening toward his chest. It hit him squarely and he sailed backward again, landing hard on the ground. Grunting deeply, he pushed himself back up just in time to see Patrick coming toward him again. As Patrick headed toward him, he dodged and Patrick didn’t have time to stop himself, landing hard against the wood of the porch.

Jake made it several feet away and as he stood there, he realized that he had moved like Koichi; he had been like water, fluid in his motion and absent when the attack came at him. Koichi’s words about the Lee quote came back to him in the back of his mind,
“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water.”

Focusing on those thoughts, he took his kata stance and began to move as he had been moving over and over for countless times during the entire week. Patrick turned and stared at him for a moment.

“Oh… you think you’re going to do something to me with your street fighter karate?” Patrick shook his head and with a deep growl, he came straight for Jake.

Jake focused on Patrick’s chest, watching the core of him closely. It was one of the first things he figured out as he learned to maintain his balance standing on the moving sand in the water; if he could keep his core balanced, he wouldn’t fall. It made perfect sense to him then, that to take Patrick down, he was going to have to throw him off balance, and the best way to do it was to hit his core.

A strange sensation began to come over him, and the rushing adrenaline and fear that had gripped him seemed to dissipate. A peaceful calmness began to fill him and he watched Patrick almost as if he wasn’t in the fight at all. He realized that because he was so focused, he could see exactly what Patrick was going to try to do just by his actions and his direction, and it was almost like being two steps ahead of him.