Tapped (Totaled Book 2) (25 page)

            “Banished? Oh, fuck that! You’re the reason that place even functions. What do you mean banished?” I loved that she was appalled and pissed.

            “Not
banished
, exactly. I just can’t be around when Drew is. My dad still doesn’t want us seeing each other.” Trying to stifle the sadness in my voice was futile. I missed him. All I wanted was to see him. It was all I could think about.

            “Well, how’s that supposed to work? Don’t you do everything for that place? Who’s going to open in the mornings? Who’s going to close? Who’s going to clean everything? Don’t tell me Coach Pat is actually going to bust out the bleach wipes and pitch in!” Her voice was sharp and seething and while I was only slightly annoyed before, I was growing more and more resentful the longer she spoke.

            “No, I can’t imagine he is. I told him I would go in at night, once everyone was gone, and take care of everything.” I started folding laundry to busy my hands and distract my mind from becoming angrier while we talked.

            “Excuse me? You’re going to go in at night? Like in the middle of the night?” She was all-out yelling at this point.

            “Yeah. Nurses do it. I’ll be on night shift for a while. It’s not a big deal,” I explained, trying to defend my decision. The truth was, I was dreading it.

            “Night shift nurses also get paid more to live that shitty zombie schedule. What about Drew? Does
he
know this? Does he care at all that you’re rearranging your whole life for him?” Her words stung and I had to sit on the edge of my bed and take a breath. I guess she sensed it, or hell, maybe she heard my deep breaths in my pause to answer. “Bree, have you even heard from him?”

            “No,” I whimpered. “Not at all.” I swallowed and tried to keep my emotions in check, but there was no point. “I sent him a gift with a note, basically telling him that I wasn’t giving up on him, but I haven’t heard anything.” I started crying, the feeling of humiliation and defeat taking over.

            “This is ri-goddamn-diculous, Bree! Listen to yourself. You’re trying to force something that just isn’t there.”

            “I know it’s there!” I whined. “I
know
he loves me.” The pathetic sound of my voice echoed against the walls of my bedroom and I felt my pulse throbbing in my temples. “I think he’s just scared.”

            “How would you even know what he is? You haven’t seen or spoken to him since the night he almost
killed
you! Do you need to be reminded of that? Don’t you remember what you looked like?” she pleaded.

            I did remember. I couldn’t possibly ever forget. But I knew it wasn’t him.

            “He may be scared, but he’s making a choice. He’s choosing to ignore you out of fear of jeopardizing his career. He’s
choosing
work over you!” she insisted sternly.

            “You don’t understand. He’s doing the best he can. He has a lot going on. I just have to support him right now and be patient.” I could hear her roll her eyes over the phone. “I’m
choosing
to wait for him.”

            “Fine. You do whatever you want. But I
know
this is a mistake. I know you can do better than this. You deserve so much better than this bullshit!” she hollered, her voice biting and sharp. “BULL! SHIT! All caps. Explanation points.”

            “What?
Explanation
points?” I asked, completely lost.

            “Yeah, like, we’re on the phone so you can’t see them behind my words, but I’m calling bullshit with explanation points behind it.”

            “I think you mean exclamation points,” I retorted. “The line with the dot at the bottom?”

            “Whatever. Don’t change the subject. Just know that I don’t approve.”

            “I’m sorry you don’t approve. I love you for sticking up for me, but I have to ride this one out,” I insisted. I knew what she was thinking. She’d said it to me a thousand times before… “You teach people how to treat you,” or something to that effect. It was something she picked up from an Oprah episode years before and she’d made it her mantra.

            “It’s fine. I’ll be here to sweep up the pieces when he finally breaks your heart completely,” she replied with sass and bitterness. “I have to run, class is about to start,” she said before I heard her car door slam shut over the phone.

            We said goodbye and I sat staring at the walls, hyper-aware of the uneasiness in my stomach. I ignored it, determined to follow my heart on this one even if it was trying to lead me astray.

            The doorbell chimed and I glanced through the slit of my blinds in time to see the brown uniformed man walking back to his package truck. My mood lifted and I rushed to the front door with a smile on my face, knowing just what had arrived. I sliced through the tape and was greeted by the item I had ordered yesterday and paid an enormous amount of money for rush shipping. The next-day shipping was triple the amount that the item cost, but it was worth it. It was beautiful and perfect. I only hoped he would love it just as much. I hoped I wasn’t digging my grave even deeper.

            It was mid-morning; I knew he would be in training and breaking for lunch soon. It didn’t give me much time, but if I drove to the gym and put the package in his locker while they were all gone, he could get it today. It could work. I could put a “Closed for Cleaning” sign on the locker room door for a few minutes and sneak in. All of our lockers had a keypad mechanism to allow people to input their own four digit combo, but I had override capability. And I knew which locker he always chose. I could totally do this. I
had
to at least try.

Chapter Thirty-One

DREW

            Something about training when you have a specific opponent in mind makes it all a little more intense. It means more, the weight of everything you do or don’t do just slightly heavier. The stakes were high on this and Pat was obviously stressed about the ramifications should I blow things. I overheard him griping to Tony earlier. “I can’t teach speed. You either have it or you don’t. Knox has it. Even if I could get Drew faster, he can’t do it in two weeks.”

            As much as it pissed me off, he was right. Knox was fast, impressively for his size, and I knew the only way I was going to beat him was to be one hundred percent in tune with his every move. I had to anticipate him and beat him to the punch. He was eager and fierce and I couldn’t afford to sit back on him. I had to be more aggressive and when that didn’t work, I had to outsmart him.

            We met at six am for training but we didn’t start until almost six-thirty. Coach let us all in and during stretching insisted we have a little “family meeting,” as he called it. He stood before our small circled group, taking charge with confident assurance and began his speech.

            “Now listen up, girls! I’ve spoken to each of you individually about the opportunity before us and you’ve all made a commitment to me and to Drew to help get him ready. We have two weeks. That’s not a long time to prepare for a fight of this magnitude. But it is what it is and because we’re down to the wire, my tolerance for any bullshit will be very low. We
will
be training every single day, most days twice. That means weekends too. So go ahead and let your wives and girlfriends know now to not expect to spend much time with you for a while.”

            The realization that I didn’t have that problem tormented me; I clenched my fists at my sides to fight the emotion. He went on to warn us all that discretion was of utmost importance since my “time off” was interrupted by the prospect of this fight and that everyone needed to support me in whatever way was called for. His closing remarks before we got up from the mat were strict and unyielding.

            “The only other thing I want to address is for us all to have an understanding.
I
am the coach—the manager—of this team. I will not be disrespected or defied in any way. The next few weeks are going to be chaotic enough without any hiccups. I don’t want to be questioned. You follow my rules and this will all run smoothly. Now let’s get to work and bring home another win!”

            He looked right at me when he said the bit about following the rules. I knew exactly what he was referring to.

             Our session was exhilarating and it was refreshing to get back into it on a competitive level. Things were just amped up a bit more when you had an actual fight ahead. I craved the soreness. I coveted the challenge on my body and mind. We all were spent and starving, everyone opting to go home and rest since we had to return in two hours to go at it again. I desperately needed about four thousand protein-heavy calories and a shower. I walked into the locker room and was surprised to see Brock Woods. He appeared to have been hitting the gym hard lately. He was by no means a heavyweight, but he was looking bigger and more cut than I remembered. The regular open gym clients must be starting to trickle in for their workouts.

            He turned when he heard the door open and greeted me with a menacing smile. “Well, lookie who’s back… Pat’s golden boy,” he teased, a look of bitterness lingering on his face. “Ya know, we’re not all happy about your return around here.”

            “Oh yeah, why’s that?” I humored him, really not giving two shits what he was happy about. He was a dick and I’d never cared for him.

            “I have to rearrange my work schedule just to get in gym time since all your sessions are closed. It’s bullshit! Like you have a prayer against Knox anyway,” he muttered venomously.

            “So sorry to disappoint you,” I replied, my voice heavy with sarcasm.

            The metal crash echoing through the locker room as he slammed his locker shut was loud and obnoxious, just like his personality. He picked up his gym bag from the bench and walked past me, his body coming just close enough to violate my personal space. I noticed something slip off of the bench where his bag was and fall onto the floor. I reached down to pick up a small syringe with a needle on the end.

            “Woods?” I called out to him. He turned to meet my gaze and I held up the syringe. “You forgot this.”

            His face instantly paled; fear, stark and vivid, flickered over his features. He pulled his shoulders back and lifted his chin, boldly and defiantly staring me down. “That’s not mine,” he denied.

            “The fuck it’s not. I just saw it fall out of your bag!” I yelled back, squaring my chest at his cocky stance.

            “No. You’re mistaken. Maybe it fell out of
your
bag.” His face was menacing and he gave me just enough of an eerie vibe to squash the need to pound his face in.

            I didn’t need this shit right now, especially from him.

            “Whatever,” I mumbled, tossing the syringe in a nearby trashcan and turning to find my locker. I thought he would leave it alone and go on his way.

            “Your girl was lookin’ real cozy the other day, leaving with some guy.” He was trying to get a rise out of me. “Nice looking dude. He came in here asking for her and she went off with him right out the front door. Liam said he was a Marine.”

            I snapped my head around, having heard enough. “Fuck you. You’re full of shit.”

            “Nah, man. I’m serious,” he insisted. “She didn’t come back after she left with him. Gone all day. Sucks y’all couldn’t make it. That’s a fine piece of ass we’ve all been after all these years,” he conceitedly ground out, biting his lower lip like he was imagining violating
my
girlfriend.

            I cleared the bench between us faster than an Olympic hurdler, gripping his shirt in my fists and slamming him up against the wall of lockers. “You listen to me, you piece of shit! Don’t you
ever
talk about her like that again. Don’t even fucking think those thoughts about her again or I will fucking end you. Try me!” I dared him. “No amount of those bullshit steroids you’re injecting can make you strong enough to take me.”

            “Relax, Drew. You wouldn’t wanna do that,” he sing-songed. “It’d be a shame to have to cancel your big boy UFC fight because of an assault charge.”

            Now this asshole was threatening
me
?

            I unpinned him from the wall and muttered, “You’re not worth it,” spitting in his face before I turned around.

            He didn’t say another word and walked briskly out of the locker room, just in time, because I was a heartbeat away from killing the son of a bitch. I changed my shirt and got the hell out of there to go home for a while and decompress.

            Not even a cold shower, a huge meal, and the sound of the ocean could shake my mood. Brock had set out to get under my skin and it’d worked. What did he mean, she looked cozy leaving with some guy? A Marine? What the fuck? How could she proclaim her love to me and send me gifts and then turn around and go out with some other guy? I’ve never even heard of her knowing a Marine.

            Two hours came and went in a matter of minutes, what with me driving myself crazy over Bree and her mystery Marine, and before I knew it, I was pulling into the lot for our afternoon session. It didn’t go unnoticed that her car was nowhere to be seen, surely a mandate set by Pat. It was probably for the best since I really didn’t need the distraction. But our avoidance of each other was almost an even more prevalent distraction. Shaking it off, I walked in to find activity dying down inside the gym. People there for their workouts were being told to wrap it up. I felt kind of guilty for inconveniencing people, but we truly did need closed sessions. No distractions. No unnecessary personnel or observers. It would only be for two weeks, so people would just have to suck it up.

            I went to stash my bag in my locker and was surprised to find stuff inside when I opened it. I was about to slam the door, pissed that someone else had put their crap in the locker I always used, when something caught my eye. Inspecting closer,
my
locker held a package with
my name
on it. I quickly darted my eyes left and right to make sure no one was watching me, pleased to find no one else in the locker room yet. The tag read “To Drew. Open when you get home.” It was her handwriting.