6. Chapter 3
Mari
M onday rolled around a lot quicker than I had expected. JJ and I had spent the entire weekend cleaning up the gym for the ‘new coach’ to arrive.
What a pain in the ass that was.
JJ was good like that though. Whenever I’d call, he’d always answer.
Anything that needed to be done, or if any of us needed help with, he was always the first to offer.
It didn’t surprise me anymore, being friends with him all of my life, but I would never stop being grateful for what he’d done for me and mine.
With a head of black curly hair, rich deep brown skin, and brown eyes similar to mine, JJ was not short of feminine attention.
Being a strong, talented, heavyweight fighter only added to his resume with local women and passers-by of Soggla.
But JJ was nothing more than a brother to me—which had been solidified the year we both got gastro together.
Nothing, and I mean nothing , could ever attract me to JJ after seeing and smelling that.
Al and Nan had pitched in on the cleaning where they could too, which was usually providing snacks and beverages for us.
Jobs that hardly ever get done, got done.
Everything had been cleaned—gloves, shin pads, head gear, mitts, pads and mats no longer reeked of sweat and stale BO but instead of a very expensive, very thorough, lemon-smelling cleanser.
Bathrooms had been scrubbed until we were all getting borderline high off of bleach fumes.
The decades-old corner of the office that Al occupied, the one that was lovingly across from mine, had been cleared out.
Pictures had been taken down, trophies packed away, old cigar butts tossed.
I had tried to move all of his things back home for him, but found certain pictures kept making their way back onto the walls.
His own championship photo from back in the day.
My dad’s collage of championship photos, all with Al by his side.
Countless all-stars that had passed through here to train alongside The Allen Burke over the years.
I forced him to keep the one of him holding pads for me for the first time when I was four—hung it up in his hallway myself.
Point is, the gym was cleaner than I had honestly ever seen it. Knock’s isn’t a dirty place by any means, but keeping a martial arts gym spotless is like selling wood to a lumberjack—requires a lot of patience and an ass that won’t quit.
I zipped up the onyx black and burnt orange merch bag I had ready for the new coach and put it on top of what was soon to be his desk, a long shiny timber workspace Al had built himself.
It had taken every last dollar of my dad’s and Al’s to get Knock’s up and going in the beginning, so they’d taken a few shortcuts that they’d never bothered to have fixed.
It took a brave face and a solo tear session to acknowledge that all of the little things of Al’s were no longer on his desk or scattered through the office.
His dingy old radio wasn’t spewing muffled music, leaving the room too quiet.
A cigar wasn’t smoking off in his colourful but faded ashtray that I’d painted for him when I was ten.
Discarded coffee mugs weren’t scattered about with half a sip left.
Everything was just so fucking clean . Wiped free of one of the most important men, if not the most, in my life.
The office was a stretched out shared space between all of the coaches and staff. My father and Al set it up this way as they believed, down to the bone, no one was above another; a chain was only as strong as its weakest link.
I dumped the black manilla folders of paperwork on the bare desk, straightening the pile before checking they were in order. I nodded and gave myself a mental pat on the back for the colour-coordinated organisation.
“You’re gonna give the poor lad a stroke with all of that crap.” Nan’s sudden voice startled me. I gaped at her. She was never crass, never used any sort of foul language. But an amused smirk sat on her face.
“It’s everything he needs to know about our gym,” I fumbled, fiddling with the corners on one of the piles.
“And more?” She raised a thin eyebrow at me, pursing her red-painted lips.
“No more than I would give to anyone else. He’s got big shoes to fill, Nan. I’m just trying to give him the tools to fill them.”
She nodded disbelievingly before walking out. I turned around and removed one of the smaller piles off the table and threw it in the rubbish bin.
~
I was refilling the sugar packets in the overcrowded, hexagon-shaped kitchen, as Nan had had nervously had three cuppas this morning.
Not that I hadn’t downed a couple myself.
Welcoming someone new into the team was always stress-inducing and daunting.
For Nan and me, it was almost as personal as welcoming someone into our own home.
That was the thing about Knock’s; it was a special place to so many different people, everyone had their own history within the walls.
Knock’s was where Al and my dad had taken Nan in when she had nothing but her car and a daughter in the back.
Knock’s was where that same daughter had found love with my dad.
Knock’s was where I had been born and where I took my first steps.
Knock’s was where Nan and I had spent all of our time after Mum passed and Dad was in constant training camps for fights.
“He’s here, dear.” Nan poked her head in the door and gestured behind her. Her white hair was out from her usual high bun and flowed down her back. Sapphire-studded earrings glittered in her lobes and matched the colour of her glasses’ frames today.
I sighed, ready to get this over and done with. There was no way whoever this guy was would last—they never did. There was a reason people came here for fight camps—because camps ended and they could get out of this town that was in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere.
I came around the corner to the open mat space to see the man of the hour.
His muscly figure cast a tall shadow on the concrete floors as JJ squeezed him in a tight hug.
His wavy, blond hair reached a few inches past his shoulders and was pushed off his face by a pair of sleek black sunglasses.
The midmorning sunlight glistened on some of the strands, making his skin look even more the rich olive shade it was.
Al was smiling ear to ear. Standing from the front desk chair, he opened his arms and embraced the god-like man in front of me.
My mouth fell open, unable to hide the irritation and shock that had just slapped me in the face.
It was him. The asshole from Lozza’s.
“Chance, my boy! How was your trip? Hope the roads were good to ya’,” Al said.
“Roads are always easy when you’ve got a great destination.” A charming smile warmed his face as he and Al pulled apart. For an old man, Al was still pretty tall at six feet, but this guy had probably two or three inches on him. And definitely a truckload more muscle.
“That’s the way!” Allen replied. “Chance this is Marilyn, part-owner of the gym.”
Right before my very eyes, my seventy-year-old grandmother swooned over this man.
His straight teeth parted through his full lips into a heartbreaking smile as he bent down a little to address Nan.
Did he have to be so good looking? What’s with the chivalry too?
There had certainly been no chivalry, no offering of hands or help when I’d run into him with a dozen pizzas on Friday night.
“Pleasure to meet you, Marilyn. I’ve heard so much about you,” he told her gently.
Kiss ass.
A sliver of his long hair fell over one of his high cheekbones.
A stark contrast to the tight-fitted black athletic shirt he was wearing above a set of navy blue jeans that had been worn in to the shapely figure of the obviously muscular legs he carried beneath them.
And that ass ? Could men really have a good ass? Apparently so.
I knew my grandmother had noticed too.
“Oh, dear, the pleasure is all mine!” she flirted.
I couldn’t hold back a scoff, which landed his blue eyes on me.
Shit … look at that blue.
Time somehow seemed to pause for a second, just a moment, when his stare locked onto mine.
I was trapped in that gaze, the same vibrant colour of forget-me-nots.
Ironic, since I could guarantee I would never forget the colour of those eyes.
The lock I had on my jaw loosened, and his lips tilted up slightly.
A rush of heat tingled in my chest before spreading up to my face.
Fuck, he noticed me staring.
“We meet again, Sunkist.” He smirked an obnoxiously attractive smirk that made me wish I had that Sunkist bottle to pour on him all over again.
“You two have met?” Nan asked.
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Chance said at the same time.
“Chance, this is Mari,” Al stated, appearing at Nan’s side. “Pretty much full owner of the gym.”
Nan’s eyes were darting between the both of us, and Al scratched his neck nervously.
I knew why, of course. I wasn’t exactly easy to impress, or all sunshine-and-rainbows towards the prospects making attempts to fill Al’s shoes.
They’d all come in, reciting the same things, until they read the letter.
“Elijah Trevino is my hero.”
“I can’t wait to continue his legacy here.”
“This is an opportunity of a lifetime.”
What a load of—
“Chance Riordan,” he said, extending his hand towards me, that devious smirk still plastered on his face.
Is he puffing out his chest right now?
“Mari,” I stated, grasping his hand. “Good to see no one shit on your Coco Pops this morning.”
The briefest flicker of surprise washed through those blue eyes, but it vanished as quickly as it had appeared. We stood there, locked in a stare as I waited for his next move. To my surprise, his mouth tilted up into a smirk behind that undeniably sexy layer of mouse-brown stubble on his face.
I mean, seriously. Why is it the hottest guys are always the assholes?