IMAGINES: Celebrity Encounters Starring You (27 page)

“Yes,” you replied unsurely, an awful feeling settling in your gut. The conversation had abruptly taken a turn for the worse. Was he going to
fire
you? Had Max put in some good word for you? “But I work part-time
because
there are too many employees,” you added in an attempt to save your ass.

“And because you have another job. As a cashier at some marketplace, correct? That’s what your résumé said, at least.”

You just looked at him.

“Relax. I’m not firing you.”

You relaxed, but only slightly. By the tilt of his lips, Nick appeared to be toying with you, and you couldn’t understand why. Was he . . . flirting?

“Unless . . . you don’t meet another one of my requirements as an instructor here. In that case, I’m going to have to fire you.” He flashed his pearly whites.

“Your
requirements
?” The first thought you had was that he was looking for sex, and that pissed you off. “What do you mean,
requirements
?”

“A test of skill.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “My first order of business here is to test everyone’s capabilities. I was planning on announcing it at an employee meeting later.”

“A test of skill?” you echoed dryly. “Are you going to turn this place into the Hunger Games?”

Nick didn’t laugh and clasped his hands behind his back. “I’m going to make you and the other employees fight me, one on one. I’ll determine who gets fired from the outcome, and the skills I see during the fight. I feel that’s the best way to gauge who belongs here and who doesn’t.”

Does he think he’s a king?
“Is there a weapon of choice?” you asked.

“Bo staff.”

You would have felt relieved had you not seen the way Nick had performed in that sparring room. He was exceptional. You’d give him that. But you were highly competitive and liked a challenge.

“When do we fight?” You crossed your arms over your chest.

“When I’m hosting the employee meeting, in two hours.” He mirrored your position and crossed his arms over
his
chest. “You’re the only female employee, and I’d like you to go first. To set the bar for everyone else.”

“You haven’t even seen me spar, let alone fight, and you think I’ll set the bar?” You shifted on your feet. “And what does me being a
woman
have anything to do with the fight?” Did he think you were the weakest fighter because you were a woman?

“You can go second, if you want,” he said, ignoring all of your questions. He was acting like an asshole. You imagined that was because he’d lost his dog and you also couldn’t stop giving him attitude, but you didn’t like being talked down to, and that was that.

“May I speak freely, Nick?”

“Of course.”

“You’re trying too hard to prove yourself.” Merely saying that out loud allowed a weight to lift off your shoulders. “And you were right before. About me not liking you. But I originally disliked you simply because you’re not Max and I felt like you were replacing him. I have my problems and that’s why I felt that way. But now? Now I don’t like you because you’re an asshole. You think you can just waltz in here all smugly, like the LA surfer boy you are, and turn this place upside-down. I think you’re out of line with this game of yours. I might not be buddies with the other employees here, but I know they all have families, and I know they’re more underprivileged than you’ve ever been. For some people, this job is what’s keeping them on two feet. If you
need to cut back employees, fine. I get it. But don’t make a degrading show of it.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment and just looked at you. It was hard to tell if you’d gotten through to him because he appeared to be more offended than heartened. When he stepped closer to you, for some reason the hairs at the back of your neck rose slightly. “May
I
speak freely?”

“Yes,” you said quietly.

Nick raked his eyes
again
over your small frame and scrubbed a hand over his shadowy jaw. “I don’t give a
fuck
what you think about me. Max selling me the center was a business decision because I was the strongest candidate to help this place. Period. Now I need the strongest employees to back me up. If you don’t like my methods, then leave. And don’t let the door hit you in the ass when you do.” Then he stalked past you and headed out of the locker room.

Well, shit!

“SOME OF YOU
might have heard the news that I’m retiring,” Max had begun at the employee meeting. “I can say wholeheartedly that I value each and every one of your efforts these past months. This place”—he gestured to the sparring room you were all gathered in—“is a part of me, and you’ve proved that it’s a part of you too. I know you’ll take care of it when I’m gone.”

Gone. Gone
was a word to describe your father. He was dead and he wasn’t coming back. Max’s words resurrected darkness inside you that you sometimes had trouble suppressing. You felt a wave of emotions build up and your chest tightened. Perhaps your number one fear was losing Max, and today marked the first of many days that you would not see him first thing in the morning. Just the thought of that made you sad.

“I put everything into this center—blood, sweat, and tears—and I
loved
every second of it,” Max continued, as you tuned back in to his speech. “They say to pick a career where you’re doing what you love every single day, and if you do that, you won’t work a single day of your life. And that’s been my life in this place. But the fact of the matter is . . . I’m a chicken running with its head cut off when it comes to managing my money. Why do you think my ex-wife is an accountant?”

That got a few laughs from the employees, including you.

“But really, guys”—Max ran a hand over his jaw—“this place has been suffering financially and it’s only gotten worse. And as much as I hate admitting it, I’m not getting any younger. I can’t keep up with today’s technology and the connections businesses need to make now to stay relevant. I’m going to miss the hell out of you all, but I know in my absence, you’ll continue making me proud and guide the students here in the right direction.” His smile was sad and you could tell this was hard for him, but then he looked over at Nick, who was leaning against the wall in a corner of the room, and visibly brightened. “Without further ado, I would like to introduce you guys to the new owner of the center, Nick Bateman. Nick, the floor is all yours. I’ll respectfully leave you to your new employees.”

Max nodded at Nick, saluted us, and left the room.

Nick got a round of applause from everyone (including a few silent claps from you) and pushed off the wall, swinging his bo staff into a shoulder spin as he walked. “I know what you’re all thinking.” He swept his mischievous gaze over the employees. He locked onto your eyes. “What is this LA surfer boy doing in NYC?” Then he looked away from you, and you couldn’t help but feel like shit. “Well, actually, I was born in Burlington, Ontario, which is in Canada, where I began my martial arts training as a child. I eventually moved to LA once I got into modeling,
but before you make any judgments, know that I didn’t intend to become a model. I was picked up at one of my tournaments and decided to give it a shot. For years now, I’ve built myself as an individual in the modeling and acting world. . . .” He paced the floor, absently twirling the bo staff around and around in his hand. “I’m
here now
because over the past few months, I’ve realized that I chose a path that steered me away from my true calling. When you’re dedicated to something as strongly as I once was dedicated to martial arts, that commitment never quite leaves you. It becomes part of your routine, and with modeling and acting in the mix, I lost that part of my routine. I lost a part of myself. I learned things from karate that shaped me as an individual in ways that modeling and acting could not. Karate taught me to push myself, but also to be patient when I can’t reach a goal. It taught me to put my all into everything that I do, because if you don’t put your all into tasks, then you’re not reaching your full potential as an individual. . . .

“And most importantly, martial arts taught me to take care of myself. There’s nothing more imperative than helping
you
. We run around all day, stressing about all the work we have to do for tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. And we get anxiety, we break down, we feel the world on our shoulders, because in today’s rapid, growing world, we don’t stay in the here and now. We don’t take care of ourselves. I’m here because I want to help people develop these skills through martial arts and even boxing. I’m here because keeping in touch with followers I have on social media means
nothing
when I can no longer stay in touch with myself.”

Nick paused to look at everyone gathered, his new employees sitting on the floor in front of him. “Don’t get me wrong. I learned important life lessons from my career as a model and actor. But that doesn’t have to do with this center. I hold Max in
the highest regard, but he’s right. This place is going to go down if someone doesn’t do something about it. I think I can be that someone. I might be some
LA surfer boy
to you, but I can bet my left nut that I can kick all of your asses in a fight. And right now, I’d like to test that. Not to prove that I’m better than you, but to test each of your skills. I need an army behind me to save this place. I need dedication. I need
you
to give me your all because I am going to give you my all. And if you’re not willing to show me what you’re capable of
right now
and fight me, then it is my understanding that you won’t have the strength to save this center.”

He looked at you, and you could tell he was furious. Still, you couldn’t hide how impressed you were by his speech. He was well-spoken, and now that he was explaining himself, you agreed with a lot of his perspectives. Maybe even his perspective on the center. Still, you had some clear attitude issues that prevented you from liking him completely.

“Who wants to go first?” Nick scanned the rest of the employees. Your heart started to race. Since you’d agreed to go first, you figured he’d pick on you. However, he looked right at you, then picked one of the guys at the front, Danny.

Somehow, that irked you. He’d done that on purpose. The two men shook hands. Nick tossed Danny one of the training bo staffs from the wall, and soon enough they were fighting. Nick was the aggressor for the majority of the match, yet appeared to be going easy on Danny. Eventually, he knocked Danny off-balance and chose another opponent. He continued to fight each employee one by one, carefully avoiding your gaze at the beginning and end of the rounds. He’d grin at each employee once the fight was over, have a quick conversation with the person, then ask him to leave the room.

By the time it was your turn, it was just you and Nick. You
were prideful and hadn’t waited for him to call you up. He clearly wanted some sort of rouse out of you and you wouldn’t give it to him. Not yet. You went to the wall and selected a training bo staff, then met Nick at the center of the room. A thin layer of sweat covered his tanned skin, and he was breathing slightly harder than normal. He stalked back and forth on the floor like a panther waiting for his prey. His eyes were sharp and a scowl was carved into his handsome features.

He nodded as you came forward.

Without a word, you lined up in front of him, a good ten feet apart, and turned to your right, placing the bottom of the bo staff against your inside right foot, perpendicular to the floor. He fell into the same position. You stared each other down. In unison, you bowed forward.

He leaped into action first and moved toward you. You kicked up your bo staff and met him halfway, blocking his first hard strike. You both froze there and silently communicated. He’d made it clear with that first move that his intention was to knock you flat on your ass as quickly as possible.

Thinking on your feet, you turned your block into a cross-strike, swiping his staff away, and punched forward with the weapon, aiming for his jaw. He ducked and swept his staff into a strike for your legs. You jumped up and performed another strike. He blocked and shuffle-stabbed, hooked, swept his weapon in a spin as you changed positions, and punched forward, forcing you to stumble back to avoid his attack. This mistake kept you on defense and he came forward again, twisting his body and spinning the weapon from side to side. Block. Strike. Block. Strike. This went back and forth for what seemed like hours.

“You’re going easy on me,” you panted out, once the two of you broke away.

“No chance.”

You both knew he was. You struck forward and blocked once again.

“You’re weak on your left side. But for a
girl
, I’m impressed. Did Max teach you how to fight or are you self-taught?”

“Stop chatting with me and fight like a man,
pretty boy
.” You struck forward and missed his head by a hair. The insult must have made him angry, because now he was the full-on aggressor and you were struggling to keep up with his attacks. Suddenly, your back hit the wall hard and he pinned you there with his weapon.

A grin framed his face. “It’s cute that you think you can beat me.”

“AARRRRGH!”
You pushed him back and attacked again, moving around the room. You thought you had him with a combo, but then he surprised you with a strike to your left side that ended in his slapping your ass with the training staff. You stopped and stared at him in shock, and he spun into a sweep, clearing your feet right off the ground. You hit the floor hard.

“What the
fuck
was that?” you growled.

“I slapped your ass and swept you off your feet,” he said matter-of-factly.

Definitely
not
funny. You’d put up a good fight and then Nick had the nerve to slap your ass, knocking you down a notch. And now he was smiling all
smugly
about it. No way in hell would you be able to work with this man.

“I quit.”