Against the Cage (Worth the Fight #1) (11 page)

His heart fell at the thought of her leaving, and apparently Drogo felt the same
way, because he whimpered.
Dude, where’s your loyalty?
Jack thought.

“You’re not going to stay and talk to Slade?” he asked.

“What does it matter? Slade made it clear he’s going to do whatever he wants. I might as well go back home and deal with the mess I left behind.”

“What mess?” he asked.

She waved her hand and shook her head. “It’s nothing, really. Let’s just say I’ve had a shitty few days.”

“Well, it’s about to get shittier. I have to tell you something.”

“What now?” she groaned, pushing back her plate. She rested her elbows on the table and buried her forehead on her palms, obviously bracing herself for whatever bad news lay ahead.

Jack got up from across the table and walked over to her. Startling her, he pulled her chair out from under the table and turned it sideways. Drogo growled at him. “What the hell? You’re my dog, Drogo,” he scolded the dog. Then he grabbed the chair next to hers, turned it, and sat down so they were facing each other and their knees were brushing. He took her hands in his.

“I went next door this morning. I know why he needs money. It’s not a bad thing. It’s not for anything illegal. I hate to admit, I thought it would be, since he was being so secretive,” he said as he lazily caressed the tops of her hands with his thumbs. “He wants to open a training center for boxers and MMA fighters. He realizes that his shelf life in the fighting world is about to expire. He’s had too many concussions.”

Her hand involuntarily squeezed his. “Concussions? Plural?” she said. “I know that for a professional fighter, concussions are the norm, but how many are we talking about here? Has he had MRIs? Has he—”

He interrupted her. “Listen, Chrissy. He knows he can’t continue fighting. Haven’t you noticed the slight shake in his right hand?”

“I saw it the other day at the diner, but I didn’t think much of it. He’d just been released from a night in jail, and … I don’t know, I just let it go.”

“It’s just the way it goes,” he told her. “I fight for fun, but I have a job, a career. He doesn’t. Fighting is his life. It’s his career, it’s his fun, it’s his everything. He wants to open a gym and train others. He’s always told me about his dreams, but I wasn’t sure how serious he was.”

Her back straightened, and a smile began curving at the corners of her mouth. “This is good news. He’s maturing. Giving up that barbaric fighting nonsense and opening a gym. A legitimate business. If he has some cognitive degeneration from the concussions, maybe it can be reversed, or at least it shouldn’t progress any further.” She
let out a breath. “Whew—I thought you were going to give me bad news.” She squeezed his hands, and her eyes beamed.

He didn’t want to be the one to dim the light in her eyes, but he knew he was about to do just that. “Chris, he doesn’t have all the money he needs yet. He’s going to fight again in a few days. I’m afraid that because of the big purse in this fight, it’s not going to be an easy one, and I know he’s not going to back out.” And there it was! All the light in her eyes vanished. Her shoulders drooped. The corners of her lips trembled. “I’m sorry, Chris. I thought you should know.”

She sprang to her feet, the dog jumping off her lap to the floor. “No. He can’t! We just have to convince him. This is crazy. There has to be another way. One wrong blow to the head and he’s a vegetable for the rest of his life. Does he understand that?” She didn’t give him a chance to respond. “Of course he doesn’t understand, otherwise he wouldn’t be doing something so insane. He could die, Jack. I have to explain it to him.” She got up, leaned over, and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for telling me. Really, thank you.”

He pulled her back down to the chair, and Drogo immediately jumped back onto her lap. “I don’t think he’ll listen,” Jack told her. “All he sees are dollar signs right now. If I had the money, I’d give it to him. I have a little savings I can—”

“No. No! Thank you, Jack, but no. This is ludicrous. He needs to understand that this is reckless.”

Chrissy thought for a moment. Drogo seemed annoyed, if that was possible for a dog.

Finally she said, “Why can’t he get a loan?”

Jack shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“There are other options. He doesn’t have to fight. I’m going over there.”

She stood up again and started walking toward the front door, the dog right on her heels. “Drogo, stay! Chrissy, wait.”

She twisted back around and huffed, “What?”

The annoyance in her voice made him chuckle, even though Drogo had of course completely ignored Jack’s command and was standing next to Chrissy.

“We’ve already established that you can walk around my house dressed like this anytime. However, I think your brother may have issues with it, especially since he doesn’t know you spent the night here. You
are
coming out of my house dressed in just my T-shirt and nothing underneath.”

She looked down. “Oh. Right. Fine.”

She ran up the stairs. Jack tried not to watch her go, but he couldn’t help his wandering eyes. Damn, she had a nice ass. Two minutes later she was headed back down.
She had slipped on her jeans, and he could tell she had not bothered with a bra.

“You don’t mind me borrowing your shirt, right?” It was more of a statement than a question. He shook his head, and before he had a chance to say anything, she stormed out. She was a woman on a mission, and apparently Drogo was her sidekick, because he went with her. Jack followed after them. He loved this fiery side of her.

“Slade, I know you’re here. Open up.” Chrissy pounded on the door, and Drogo barked.

“Fuck, Chris. You’re going to wake the entire neighborhood,” her brother said as he opened the door and stepped aside so that she could walk in. Drogo immediately began growling and gnawing at the bottom of Slade’s sweatpants, so Chrissy bent down and scooped him up.

“What the hell? Be careful with that thing. That dog hates people,” Slade said as he took a step back and put his hands up in surrender. Then he saw Jack right behind her. “Wait a minute! Where’d you come from, Chris?”

“From Jack’s.”

Slade looked Chrissy over, top to bottom. “Why the fuck were you at Jack’s? And why are you wearing one of his shirts?”

Chrissy looked down at her shirt. Perhaps she should’ve chosen one of Jack’s plain white tees. Instead, the shirt had the logo of Jack’s gym, WtF Academy, emblazoned right on the center. It looked bad. Jack took a cautious step back as Slade glared at him.

“ ‘WtF?’ ” Chrissy asked. “Your gym is called ‘What the Fuck’? That’s an awful name.”

Jack shook his head. “ ‘Worth the Fight.’ Not ‘What the Fuck.’ The old man doesn’t know about the modern-day acronym.”

“Oh!” Chrissy cocked her head. “Someone should really think about telling him.” Chrissy squared her shoulders and glared at Slade. “Anyway, that’s not why I’m here.”

“What the hell were you doing at Jack’s and why are you wearing his shirt?” Slade repeated, his arms crossed and his legs shoulder width apart. He looked like a bouncer.

“Is that really what we’re going to talk about?” She crossed her arms, mimicking his stance.

“You bet your ass that’s what we’re going to talk about.” He took a step toward his best friend. “What the hell, Daniels? You had a lot to say earlier today but forgot to mention my sister was sleeping at your house.”

Chrissy quickly got between the two men as Drogo continued his relentless yelping. The dog really didn’t like Slade. “Oh my God. Relax. My car broke down, he
picked me up from the side of the road, and I stayed in his spare room. Not that it’s any of your business, considering that all I am to you is a bag of money. You don’t give a shit about me.”

“That’s not true, Chris. You’re my kid sister.”

“I don’t want to talk about that now. He’s not my type, anyway. You know how I feel about violence. And anyway, I’m not Veronica. So I’m sure I’m not his type either. We’re just friends. Listen, I want to talk to you about this fight.”

“Wait, what? Who’s Veronica?” Jack stepped forward, looking confused as hell.

“Seriously? We are not having this conversation right now. Let’s focus, boys! I want to talk about the upcoming fight, Slade.”

“It took you all of ten minutes to go blabbing about the fight. Thanks a lot, Jack.” Slade hissed at Jack.

“No, wait. Time out!” Jack grabbed Drogo from Chrissy’s hand and set him down, then took her wrist and pulled her toward him, forcing her to look at him. “Who is Veronica?” he repeated slowly, but Drogo evidently didn’t like his tone and was furiously barking. “Oh my God! What have you done to my damn dog? I think I liked him better before. Can you please shut him up?”

“He probably doesn’t like you because you’re mean to him. Don’t tell him to shut up. Speak to him nicely.” Chrissy crouched down, patted Drogo, and in a stern yet friendly voice commanded him to hush and to sit, which the pup did.

“Un-fucking-believable!” both Jack and Slade exclaimed simultaneously.

“Anyway, who the hell is Veronica?” Jack repeated.

“Don’t play dumb, Daniels. Veronica. My best friend in high school? The one you slept with and never spoke to again. Thus causing her to never speak to
me
again. You ruined our friendship with your little one-night tryst.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Chris. Is that what had you so mad at me?”

“Yes. That’s why I didn’t speak with you for months my senior year. I needed my friend, and I lost her because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants. But it was a long time ago. I don’t want to talk about it. Although the fact that you’ve had so many women you don’t even remember her makes me think you’re even more of a jerk than I thought.” She pulled her hands away from him and turned back to face Slade.

“Dude, I didn’t know you bagged Veronica too,” Slade said, and reached toward Jack for a congratulatory fist bump. Jack kept his hands by his side, still looking confused. Slade dropped his hand and said, “Anyway, about the fight, I’m—”

“Wait—what? You slept with Veronica too?” a completely shocked Chrissy
interrupted Slade.

“Fuck yeah! Your friend was a hot piece of ass. You were at a party and you left with someone that night … Jack, I think. If I remember correctly, Jack was angry you were there and he took you home. Veronica was pissed off that she was left behind. One thing led to another and she was all over me. How could I resist? I was young. Hormones controlled my brain back then. You know how that goes, man,” he said, appealing to Jack with his palms out. “I mean, not even you were able to resist. How come you never told me?”

“You’re a pig!” Chrissy slapped the back of Slade’s head.

“Dude, I did not sleep with Veronica!” Jack said to Slade, and then turned to Chrissy. “Seriously, Chris, I didn’t sleep with her. I remember your friend. I would never do that to you. I always thought you had a little crush on me, and that would’ve been fucked up on my part.”

“I did
not
have a crush on you. Are you sure you didn’t sleep with her?” Chrissy asked, still shocked, and now a little embarrassed that Jack thought she’d had a crush on him.

He had always been gorgeous. Of course she’d had a crush on him, but he didn’t need to know that.
And anyway, it was barely even a crush. It was a tiny little infatuation. I only pictured him naked and all over me a few times … a day
.

“Yes. I’m positive. I can’t believe you’ve been mad at me all these years for something I didn’t even do.” Now Jack seemed angry. Very angry.

“Bro, she was hot!” Slade chimed in.

“Shut up, Slade!” both Chrissy and Jack yelled at the same time.

“I had heard through the grapevine that you had sex with her and never called and that because of our connection she stopped speaking to me. She’d always had a crush on you, Jack, and I assumed the rumors were true. I guess it makes more sense that she’d be mad at me because Slade slept with her, since he is my brother.” She threw a glare over her shoulder at Slade. For all these years she had been holding a grudge with Jack over Veronica, and it hadn’t even been him.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid
.

She was consumed by a wave of guilt for having been so mean to Jack after he had been nothing short of great and supportive toward her since she arrived. There was still the issue of his cage fighting, but that was no reason to be uncaring toward him. It just meant she couldn’t date him. She owed him an apology, but that was for another time. There were more pressing issues at hand. “Can we talk about this later?” she said, looking at Jack apologetically. He nodded, his arms crossed over his chest, obviously mad.

She turned to her brother. “In light of everything, I don’t even know where to start.” Chrissy took a step toward Slade. “First, you’re an asshole.” She poked his hard chest. “You slept with my best friend and never called her back. Do you know how much I needed a friend back then? You are so selfish, Slade. I can’t believe you did that. You
knew
how much I needed a friend,” she repeated.

“I’m sorry, Chris. I was young and stupid. I didn’t do it to ruin your friendship. I was thinking with my dick. Honestly—”

Chrissy interrupted him, “Honestly, you didn’t even think about me. That’s what you were going to say, weren’t you?” Slade nodded. “Of course, you only thought about getting laid. It never even crossed your mind that it might affect my friendship with her.”

Her brother seemed ashamed, but it was hard to tell with Slade since he normally seemed so blasé about everything. She decided to change the subject, since there wasn’t much she could do about her broken friendship with Veronica after all these years. “So, I hear you’re fighting … again!” Chrissy yelled at Slade.

Slade threw himself on his couch and rested his arms over his head, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles. Jack grabbed a nearby chair, turned it around, and sat down, his forearms on the back of the chair. He was just there lending his support. To whom? He wasn’t really sure. His loyalty had always been to Slade, his brother not by blood but by choice. Right now, though, he just wanted to grab this feisty little woman who had been holding some sort of bitterness toward him for God knows how long and fix all her problems. Protect her from all harm—physical and emotional. Oh, and make sure she never ever stepped outside his house without a bra again. The sight of her chest unrestrained was for his enjoyment only.