AEDAN
Great, now I’ve pissed her off. She hates me. I hadn’t meant to shut down the conversation. But my family was one thing I couldn’t talk about. I should never have mentioned my brother.
And then it got worse.
A hand slapped down on my shoulder. There’s a certain way that cops do that, to let you know who’s boss. And there was only one cop who’d have the guts to walk up and do it to me.
“Hi, Charlie,” I said tiredly.
He stepped around to the side so that I could see him.
He was barely taller than Sylvie—barely taller than me, sitting down.
I’d never understood how he got past the academy’s height requirements.
Maybe he’d stood on a box the entire time.
“How you doing?” he asked, which is cop-speak for are you keeping your nose clean?
“Good,” I said. “Sylvie, Charlie. Charlie, Sylvie.”
Charlie eyed our clothes. “You training again?” His jaw tightened. “Back at The Pit?”
“No. Teaching.” I looked at Sylvie.
“Yeah,” she said, picking up on my look. “Like a personal trainer. Boxercise.”
Charlie stared at us just long enough to let us know that he didn’t buy it for a second. Then he nodded. “Stay out of trouble.” And, with another pat on the shoulder, he walked off.
Sylvie waited until he’d gone. “Who’s that guy?”
“Someone I did a favor for, once.”
“He doesn’t seem all that grateful.”
I winced. “He kind of repaid that debt, already.”
To my relief, the food arrived. A generous steak and two eggs, sunny-side up.
Her eyes bulged. “Are you kidding me? You eat that for lunch?”
“No,” I said seriously. “This is breakfast. We’re catching up.”
“I don’t eat that much meat in a week!” she squeaked.
I furrowed my brow. “What do you eat?”
She shrugged. “Noodles. And a lot of breakfast cereal.”
I sighed. “You’re in training now. We need to build up your body. Real food.”
She eyed her steak. “I can’t afford this much real food.”
“I’m paying.” And then, because she still looked doubtful, I blurted, “I’ll pay for your meals.”
She stared at me as if I’d offered her a ruby necklace. “Thank you,” she said at last. She looked down at her food as she started to eat, but she kept glancing up at me as if I was the second coming.
Jesus, no one’s ever given her a present before?
No one’s ever done anything nice for this girl?
What the feck were all those other guys thinking?
She should be getting real presents—dresses and jewelry and a feckin’ Mercedes with a bow tied round it on her birthday.
And all that romantic stuff—chocolates and flowers and those stupid scented soaps and candles that women like so much.
She shouldn’t be getting excited about some free meals.
“I don’t get you,” she said, frowning. When she frowned, she wrinkled her nose like a rabbit and I wanted to pull her out of her seat and snog her so bad. “One minute you’re riding me about how badly I’m doing. The next you’re being nice to me.”
I looked down at my plate. “Just trying to do the right thing,” I mumbled.
I could feel her eyes burning into me. “So, do you have many brothers?” she asked.
“Lots,” I said. I thought of the tattoo on my back, as if it was glowing through my t-shirt.
“Where are they?”
“Around.”
“Around New York?”
“Around America.” I knew I was being cagey so I tried to turn it back to her. “It must be weird, living with your brother.”
She nodded, her mouth full. Given that she’d said she wasn’t hungry, she was wolfing down the steak and eggs. I wondered how long it was since someone had given her a decent meal.
When she eventually swallowed, she said, “He can get a little overprotective, if I bring a guy back. It’s cute.” She smiled for a moment and then it crumbled. She must have remembered where her brother was. Ah, hell.
“Does that happen a lot, recently?” The words were out before I could snap my mouth shut. Shit! Had I just sort-of-kind-of asked if she was single?
She looked up at me. "No. Not recently."
I could almost feel it throb in the air between us, like a heat haze. It wasn't just my imagination. She did like me. Which was bad, because I liked her even more.
She poked at her steak. "Paying for my meals is nice. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
But she wasn't finished. "I didn't know stevedores made that much money, though."
We didn't. I shrugged.
"And you don't fight anymore, right? So you're not making it that way. So what is it?" She leaned forward. "Are you smuggling stuff into the country? Like in The Wire?"
I stiffened. "Not all dock workers are on the take." I knew it was a shitty job, but it was my shitty job.
"Okay, sorry. So what is it? You're a secret millionaire?"
"It's only steak and eggs."
"Yeah, but you didn't even think about it. You just paid for it, and said you'd pay for my meals while we trained, which by the way I'm not even sure I'm totally comfortable with. I agonize for an hour over whether I can afford laundry detergent."
I leaned forward, putting my forearms on the table. It creaked. "You’re annoyingly sharp."
"Why, thank you. So what's the secret income? Drugs? Are you a part-time gigolo?"
I sighed. "I don't earn any extra money. I just don't spend it."
She seemed taken aback. "Oh." Then, "Really?"
"Really."
"You mean you don't get out much?"
"Look—" And then I didn't know what to say. It had all been going so well, back at the gym. Slow progress, true, but she'd been trying really hard. And now suddenly, as soon as we'd got to the diner, everything had changed. I felt antsy and off-balance.
And then I realized what it was: I wasn't in control anymore. Fighting—that was my world. I understood that. I was good at it. In here, talking to her...that was the life I'd left behind when I'd retreated to my apartment.
Since that night I’d quit fighting, the closest I'd gotten to small talk was a few minutes of muttering in some woman's ear, just before I grabbed her hand and dragged her off to a cab so we could go to her place and have sex.
Suddenly, I was back out here, talking to a woman, actually having a conversation, and it was jarring and weird and annoying as hell and.
..wonderful. It was bloody wonderful. I hated to admit it, but I was enjoying myself more than I had in a long time.
I looked at Sylvie across the table. She'd thrown on a loose t-shirt the same bright blue as the sky outside and her usual tight jeans.
There wasn't anything inherently sexy about the t-shirt—it didn't even have a low neck.
But every time she leaned forward or twisted, there was just a hint of the warm pressure of her breasts, pushing out the front of it.
Even when her body was hidden, it was sexy as hell because then I could imagine it.
I am out of control with this woman.
"What about you?" I said gruffly, trying to get things back onto safer ground.
"Hotel maid," she said simply. "Picking up sheets and trash and sometimes dildos."
"Dil—"
"Don't worry, they give us gloves. You wouldn't believe some of the things people leave in their beds.
The pay's shitty and the guests are always trying to get into your pants, but it's work.
" She finished her food and put down her fork.
"I was in college, for a while. Dropped out when my dad died. Couldn't afford it."
I nodded sadly. Inside, though, what I felt was anger. Anger at fate for loading the dice when it came to her life. One crappy roll after another. No one did that to my angel. It wasn’t fair. There were people who deserved that sort of luck, people like—
People like me?
I stood up. “I gotta go,” I said. “I got a shift.” I did, but it didn’t start for another couple of hours. But I had to get out of there. For a second, while I was getting all righteously annoyed on her behalf, I’d thought of myself as one of the good guys. Like I could be the one to save her.
I could train her. Nothing more. The deeper I got into her life, the worse it would be for her. I wasn’t any sort of good luck charm.
“What should we do about training?” she asked. “I’m kind of busy—I was thinking of taking on some extra shifts—”
I shook my head. “Don’t. Cancel anything in the mornings.”
“The whole morning? Every day?”
“You’re in training, now.”
“I need the money!”
“Money’s no good to you if you’re dead. Win the fight and you can pay the bills with your winnings.”
She considered. “Okay,” she said at last.
“Get some rest. Meet me at the docks, tomorrow. Wear running shoes. We gotta work on your stamina.” I tossed some bills on the table to pay for lunch. “6:30.”
I walked away before I got in any deeper. But I heard her call after me, “6:30 am?”