Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) (52 page)

The next two rounds were a lot of back and
forth. I did notice that Paul only threw one or two punches to each one of
Wilson’s three or four. He was so fast on his feet and graceful that it was
almost like he was dancing and he didn’t throw a punch unless he knew it was
going to land. He didn’t waste his precious energy at all. Every so often a
kick or a punch would land against his pretty face or body but he was usually
moving when that happened so the connection didn’t have the full effect that
Wilson intended. Wilson was getting winded by the fifth round and Paul amped up
his hits. He’d throw a cross and then a hook and a jab and then he’d do that
awesome little spin thing he did and his foot would land against anything
Wilson left open. The champion was getting worn down, which was very obviously
Paul’s intention. In the beginning of the sixth round, when it looked like
Wilson was on his last leg, that was when Paul threw a left cross that stunned
and then immediately landed a right uppercut to the underside of the jaw.
Wilson’s body literally flew backwards three or four feet in the air until he
landed unconscious on the mat. I watched Paul as he waited for the ref to check
the other man and make sure he was still breathing. I wondered what went
through a fighter’s mind while that was going on. It was always a possibility.
As soon as he knew Wilson hadn’t done anything stupid like dying, a slow smile
spread across his beautiful face. He’d just won the match and he had looked
like a pro doing it.

The ref announced Paul as the winner and
when they opened the cage to help Wilson out, he was starting to come around.
Paul came out next and the crowd was going wild, cheering for him like crazy.
He saw us in the front row and the men were all high-fiving him. Bodies were
pushing and shoving up against other bodies and I found mine close enough to
Paul’s at one point that if I’d wiggled just a fraction of an inch we’d be
chest to chest.

I looked up at him and said, “Wow, you
were amazing.” He was smiling and looking down at me with those sexy blue eyes
and suddenly it was like we were in a vacuum. I couldn’t even hear the rest of
the crowd, all I heard was the sound of his breathing and the pounding beat of
my own heart in my ears. It was that feeling that you got right before you
kissed a man for the first time and I swear he was thinking about it. I was so
sure of it that I was inching up on my tiptoes. That was until there was
suddenly a female hand on his shoulder and he turned away from me. He hugged
the woman tightly, picking her up off her feet as he did. She was facing me,
then, and she had the exact same color of eyes as Paul. I told myself it was
his sister…it had to be.

CHAPTER
FIVE

I went to sleep that night still buzzing
with the sexual tension that I’d felt when Paul and I had stood so close after
the fight. I dreamt about it that night. In my dream he actually kissed me and
it was one of those kisses that you want to last forever and one that you know
you’ll never forget. I woke up the next morning and it was once again the first
thing on my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I’d felt when he stood so
close to me no matter how hard I tried. It was crazy. It wasn’t like we even
kissed. Here I was acting like we’d spent a passionate night together. There
were hundreds of other people there and he was standing so close to me because
the crowd kept pushing him forward. I told myself that I wasn’t going to blow
it all out of proportion. Then I took a cold shower. It didn’t work.

I was still thinking about him after I
showered and while I dressed for work. While I had my coffee and a couple
pieces of toast I actually let myself wonder if maybe he was thinking about me
too. I thought about it again as I drove to work. The more I thought about it,
the more I found myself wanting to believe that he felt the same chemistry as I
had and I let the magic of that moment last right up until I drove into the
parking lot and saw all the police cars.
 

I had to pull back out on the street and park
because our lot was so full. When I got out of the car and started toward the
front of the gym I couldn’t believe my eyes. The two huge glass windows in the
front were completely shattered. I walked up to the door and was stopped by a
police officer.

“I’m sorry, miss, you can’t go in there.”

“I work here,” I told him. He started to
say something else when I saw Sam approach us from inside.

“It’s okay,” Sam told him. “You can let
her in. She’s the one who locked up last night.” The officer stepped aside and
let me in.

“What the hell happened?” I asked Sam.

“Greg got a call from the alarm company
early this morning. Whoever did it was gone by the time the police got here.” I
looked around once I was inside and saw that some of the equipment was missing
and other pieces were lying on their sides or broken. Trash had been dumped
everywhere out of the trash can in the parking lot and the big metal can was
lying on its side in the middle of the room. “The police want to talk to you
since you were the last one here last night.”

I nodded. I was numb, feeling so bad for
Greg and Yolanda. This was going to be a huge setback for them. They poured
their souls into this place and Yolanda even kept her day job so to speak to
help support it. That day, the gym was completely unusable. I hoped it was at
least all covered under their insurance.

Sam led me over to the lead officer and
that was when I saw Paul. He looked really pissed. He was standing inside
talking to Greg and one of the officers and I could almost feel the rage
emanating from him. I wondered if he was like me and just pissed because Greg
was a friend, or was there something else on his mind?

“Miss Cooper?” the officer asked.

“Yes, Jessie Cooper,” I said.

“You closed up last night?”

“Yes, I did.”

“You set the alarm?”

“Yes, I always do when I’m the last one
out. It went off, right?”

“Yes, it did. I’m just trying to get a
timeline here. What time was it when you left?”

“Maybe four forty-five or five p.m.”

“Did you clock out before you left?” I
thought about it. I was bench pressing…showing off to Paul and then I’d stood
up next to him and my insides had turned to Jell-O and I’d ran out…I didn’t
stop to clock out.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Was there a reason for that?” he asked.

“No, not really,” I said. “I just forgot.
I do that sometimes.”

“Was anyone else around when you left?” he
asked. I looked back over toward the door. Paul was standing off by himself now
but he was still obviously fuming.

“Um, yeah. Paul Delport was our last
client. He left at the same time I did.”

The officer looked at Sam and he nodded
and said, “The other officer was just talking to him, he’s over there by my
boss.”

“Was anyone hanging around outside, any
vehicles in the parking lot that shouldn’t have been there?”

“Not that I noticed…I know that my car and
Paul’s truck were the only ones in the parking lot.”

“Okay. Miss Cooper, were you here
yesterday when an incident took place between Mr. Delport and another man?”

“Yeah, I was here.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Victoria was trying to close up and the
guy pushed his way in. She told him we were closed but he came in anyways. Paul
was minding his own business and working out over there on the bench press.
That maniac just barreled up to him and got in his face.”

“Did you hear the words exchanged between
them?” I wasn’t in the habit of lying to or withholding things from the police
but I didn’t know all of the details, and anything I said about it could be
taken out of context.

“Not really. I heard a lot of cussing coming
from the big guy. I had stepped back out of the way. I couldn’t hear what they
were saying clearly,” I told him.

“Can you describe the man that fought with
Mr. Delport?”

“Yeah, he was about six four…really big
guy, maybe two-fifty or two-sixty…dark hair, and dark eyes…white guy. I think
he had some tattoos on his arms.”

“Okay, thanks. Do you mind giving me your
phone number in case anything else comes up?”

I gave it to him and he thanked me. Then I
went over to where Paul was standing. “Hey,” I said. “Are you okay?”

He looked at me with an angry look still
etched into his features as he said, “Victor’s dad, Mitch, did this.”

Now it made sense why he was so angry.
“Are you sure?” I asked him.

“Who else would do this? It wasn’t a
burglary.”

“They did take a couple of the machines…”

“If they were going to burglarize this
place they would have taken more than one or two machines out of the front
window. The place was more vandalized than anything else. This was Mitch,
pissed because I won’t tell him where my sister is, and because I kicked his
ass yesterday. You and Greg both heard him say we would be sorry before he
left…” He was so angry that his voice was shaking. I was suddenly worried about
what he planned on doing.

“Hey, why don’t you and I go out for a run
and get some fresh air? I’m a little bit pissed myself and exercise always
helps me.”

Paul looked around the gym. Realizing
there was nothing for him to do there he said, “Yeah, okay. Let’s get out of
here.”

I told Sam we were taking off but to tell
Greg and Yolanda to call me if they needed anything. Sam said the police would
have the gym most of the rest of the day and we’d probably start clean-up in
the morning.

Paul and I went back out the front and I
stopped at my car to leave my bag in the trunk. Paul was already bouncing up
and down like the energy built up inside of him was about to shoot out through
his fingertips if he didn’t do something with it. We started off actually
running down the sidewalk and away from the city toward a nice little
residential area where I knew there was a park with a lake and some jogging
trails. I didn’t know if he was purposely holding himself back and matching his
stride to mine, but we ran along evenly step for step until we got to the park.
Paul had been silent that whole time, but when we hit the trails he suddenly
slowed his pace to a walk and started talking.

“I feel kind of like this is my fault. I
feel bad for Greg.”

“This is not your fault.”

“It’s just…I don’t know…Mitch is my fight,
not Greg’s. I know Mitch did this. He’s a terrible person and this is actually
mild for him. I tried to tell my sister that I could just sense it the first
time I met him twelve years ago. I was just a kid and even then he gave me a
bad feeling. He treated her like shit…and then all of a sudden she was
pregnant. I think she felt trapped, like she had to stay with him, then. He was
pushing for her to marry him and my mom and I were begging her not to. She was
hard-headed back then, and I think she was feeling so badly about getting
pregnant and having to drop out of high school that part of her self-induced
punishment was staying with Mitch. She was also getting fifty different kinds
of hell from my father over it which didn’t help at all. I guess we’re lucky it
only pushed her out of the house and she didn’t actually marry him. She stayed
with him for five years. I don’t know how she managed that. I was so happy when
she called me and said that she’d left him finally about six years ago…right
about the time Victor started school. She got a job and her own place and Mitch
left her alone for the first couple of years. I’m not sure what he was doing
during that time…maybe he was in prison or something and couldn’t bother her.
Anyways, he found her and he slowly started coming back around. She’s had to
change her phone number three times, she can’t have a Facebook page and she
even had to pick Victor up and move him and make him change schools…The bastard
doesn’t even care what he’s doing to his own son. Now he’s saying that he wants
joint custody. Screw that bullshit!”

“Is he abusive?” I asked.

“My sister wouldn’t tell me if he was.
I’ve never seen her hurt or beat up…lucky for him. She knows that if I find out
that he ever laid a hand on her I’d probably wind up in jail. She protects me
by not telling me exactly what she’s going through sometimes. If he hurt her…I
wouldn’t be able to control myself.”

“What about to Victor? Do you think he
abuses him?”

“No…not physically. My sister would have
killed him herself in his sleep for that. Victor is her world and she’ll do
anything to protect him. Mitch has this mean streak that Victor shouldn’t have
to put up with. He should never have to see it as far as I’m concerned.
Victor’s a good, quiet kid. Being around someone like that, especially if that
someone is your father, it can ruin a kid. I know that for a fact. Being raised
by an angry man only makes an angry kid and later on an angry adult. He was a
horrible boyfriend and he would be a worse father. Marie, my sister and I have
experience in that department.”
 

“Your sister and nephew are lucky to have
you,” I told him. I was more impressed by his love and affection for his family
than I had been at his skills in the cage the night before. “It’s nice that you
want to protect them so badly.”