12. Knight
Chapter Twelve
KNIGHT
Doubles were small. I was not small. Trix, well, she wasn’t the tiniest person in the world, but for some reason, that bed was the most comfortable place I’d ever been.
My bones had melted around her, forming one unit of perfect happiness.
The world sang: sirens, horns, all of it the sweetest soundtrack to the best day I’d ever have.
Trixie’s hair was tickling my nose. Her face was smooshed against my chest, one of her hands in my hair, the other fisting the sheet to my right.
Her bare shoulder was so pretty, with its mottling of freckles and scars.
Silken scars, soft as satin freckles. Every scrap of her worth dying for again and again.
She’d talked to me. She’d shown me her pretty, precious pain, and let me help her melt it away. She let me feel like she needed me to help chase her demons away. I needed to feel needed because of my white knight complex, and she’d given me her rare vulnerability. I was so happy.
I ignored the problems and focused on my happiness, right there in my arms, like a miracle. She was so beautiful with that smooshed cheek, sprawled over me like I was her preferred mattress. I should gain some softness. I’d eat some of her mother’s carbs and put on some padding for her.
Someone rapped on the door.
“Time to go,” Marco called, his voice a bucket of ice water.
Trixie shoved off me, eyes wild, hair wilder. “Coming!” she called, sounding frantic. And then she looked at me, really looked at me, and the panic bled away into this soft, sweet smile that plucked my heartstrings painfully.
“Hey,” she whispered, then frowned and started rubbing my chest. “I drooled on you.”
I caught her face and kissed her until she melted against me, giving me zero resistance.
More pounding on the door. “If he doesn’t come out, I’m coming in. Two minutes. He’d probably be more comfortable with pants on.”
Trix scowled a truly terrifying dragon smile that made my heart flip-flop in adoration.
I loved my dragon so much. She was so cute with her rage and her vulnerability and her acres of bare skin as she rolled out of bed and tossed me my pants.
She got dressed while I slowly followed, but it was so hard to do anything other than stare at my wife.
She was dressed in her pajamas and pushing me out the door before I was finished drinking in her beauty.
And then I was in the hall with Marco, who was smiling, but it was the smile of a sadist who was about to indulge in his favorite sport.
“I’ll give you two minutes for the bathroom.”
I grabbed his shoulder and squeezed it. He was my brother. I’d never had a brother before. “Thanks.”
His eyes narrowed slightly, but I hurried to the bathroom before I put him through a wall and went back to my wife.
In this house, likely no one would mind the violence, and I’d pay for repairs.
Although they’d probably make me do it myself.
I’d love that so much, plastering with Trixie.
Should I actually be looking for a house in Vegas with a chimney?
My dad’s house had massive fireplaces in every room.
So many rooms. I needed to take her to visit him so she didn’t feel like I was ashamed of her.
Although he’d probably make her feel less-than.
He’d ask where she went to college, and other pointless things.
Money. He’d want to know her money situation.
Who cared about making money when we could make Christmas magic?
Also, I made more money than I could spend.
For some people, there was never enough, only more.
I should buy this apartment building so I could lower their rent. Also make sure repairs were kept up. I hummed as I shaved and brushed my teeth.
When I came out, a man was waiting next to Marco. He was tall, almost as tall as me, but he had a receding hairline and a gentle expression with sparkling green eyes. He held out his hand. “I’m Trixie’s father.” Was that an Irish accent? How charming.
I smiled and took his hand. He squeezed and kept squeezing and squeezing and squeezing.
He was going to turn my hand into pulp. “It’s nice to meet you, sir,” I said, not minding the pain.
I was going to ask for his permission for his daughter’s hand.
If that cost me my own hand, small price to pay for perfect bliss.
He kept holding my hand, and I noticed the flicker of concern in his eyes. “You married my daughter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you think that you can marry an innocent girl without asking for consent?”
I blinked at him. “No, sir. But it was a surprise wedding. I was surprised.”
“And when you asked her to marry you?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to suggest that she was anything other than feminine, but he knew his daughter. “She asked me,” I finally said as the pressure around my hand steadily increased.
“Dad,” Trixie said, chopping his wrist so he finally let go.
She pushed him back and crossed her arms, defying him with her raw physical energy as much as anything else.
“You’re living in the wrong century. I’m over thirty, live on my own, and pay my own bills.
I’ll marry who I want. And I want Horse. ”
“Ew,” Marco said, grinning and breaking the tension. He was good at that. He must have to do that a lot with so many strong personalities living in the same space. “Save it for later. You can kiss him better when we bring him back from his workout.”
Trixie grabbed her dad’s arm as he started to move, holding him back while she looked at him.
She glanced at me, and I was sure she was going to threaten to destroy him if he hurt me, but instead, “Give him some actual training, okay? He doesn’t have anyone who pushes him, and he lacks the discipline to really push against the pain.
Also has a sloppy right cross. Also needs to work on lightness.
He’s big, but he doesn’t have to be heavy on his feet. ”
Her dad smiled at her, and it lit up his features like the sun coming out on a cloudy day. “Sure, darlin’. We’ll fix his right cross and have him dancing by moonlight. Marco.”
Marco grabbed my shoulder and guided me away from my sweet betrayer, who looked at me with a light in her eyes I hadn’t ever seen before. So pretty.
“Work hard,” she said, like I were her real husband and had to earn the bacon. Burn the bacon, that was me. And then she blushed and glanced at my chest with a little bite of her bottom lip, and my whole body was on fire.
My wife wanted me to come home and burn her bacon. Would there be ravishing? There’d be whatever she wanted. Forever.
We walked through the streets. Mr. O’Hara nodded at several people, but he didn’t stop to chat.
Trixie must get her quiet from him. I kept my mouth shut instead of singing every love song I’d ever heard.
Trixie was all the love songs. Would she freak out if I sang to her?
I wasn’t a singer, per se, but maybe that could change.
I’d play her a song on the piano. They needed a piano.
I could take her to my New York penthouse and play for her while she lay on the top eating turkey sandwiches that I made for her with my own, two, suddenly purposeful hands.
When we got to a corner gym, Trix’s dad pulled out his keys and unlocked the door.
“You work here?”
“It’s my place.”
“Best gym in the city,” Marco said, closing the door as he followed us in.
“Marco. Warm up our friend.”
“With pleasure.” He grinned at me, broad and warm, before he patted me on the shoulder and went to the ring.
I walked more slowly, taking in the atmosphere as well as the pictures on the wall.
Champions. Marco’s picture was there, and Trix’s beside him.
Trix’s scowl was terrifying, but also adorable.
My wife. Had anyone ever been prettier? The other champions of the WBA were there on the wall, names I knew. It felt like home.
“You’re mixed martial, right?” Marco asked, swinging under the ropes, his protective headgear and red gloves on.
I followed after taking off my shoes and putting on the gloves. “Something like that. I’ve been fighting too long for the viewers. I do whatever looks the most impressive for the audience, whether it’s practical or not.”
“Do you lose on purpose?”
I shrugged. “Our rankings are the second highest.”
“That’s what I mean. Trix’s team, Death-Hammer, is number one. Except for the rocket year.”
I shrugged, but a sudden panic in my chest made it difficult. No one could hurt my precious flower. “Trix is hard to beat.”
“And Nix?”
I sighed. “I like Nix.”
Marco grinned and nodded. “I thought so. You have to want to beat people. You have to know when to fight and when to like. You don’t like Nix when you’re in the cage. You have to kill him.”
I blinked at him. The cold, fierce ruthlessness that came out so suddenly after he’d been so smiling and gregarious was disconcerting. It reminded me of me. A psycho underneath the smile. What brand of the serum was he?
Trix’s dad leaned on the ropes from the outside. “Let’s see some basics. Jab, jab, cross. Marco, be gentle with him. He’s been in the desert for a long time.”
Marco was an extremely well-trained boxer. Like Trix, my beautiful wife, who had blushed when she looked at me, and bitten her lip. Marco’s hook came out of nowhere. I shook my head to clear it.
“Mitts up, Horse. You have to fight like you want it,” her dad said in his soft voice.
“Marco’s taking it easy on me. I have to hold back.” I wiggled my eyebrows at my new brother.
He grinned at me. “Now you’ve done it,” he murmured.
Trix’s dad called out, “Marco, don’t hold back. He doesn’t want to hurt you.”
Marco shook his head. “See what you did? You never bring your B game to Pop’s ring. Unless you’re warming someone up. You are going to hurt.”
I did. I hurt so much. I sat in the chair in the back room with a steak on my eye. In the chair next to me, Marco had a steak to his.
“I think you cracked my molar,” he said cheerfully.
“I know you cracked mine. You are fast.”
“And furious. When are you going to ask for my dad’s consent? He’ll stew until you do. He can’t give it unless you ask, and he needs to. Trix is his baby princess, however ridiculous that idea is.”
“It’s not ridiculous. She’s definitely a princess.”
He snorted as I got up and put the steak back in the freezer. Such a disgusting yet charming tradition. I went back into the gym, where it was now filled with athletes and trainers. O’Hara was on the side, intently watching a young girl attacking her opponent. She was good. Fast.
I cleared my throat. “Sir, if I could have a word?”
“Talk.”
Suddenly, I couldn’t remember what I was going to say. Words? How could something so imperfect and impure convey the feelings in my heart?
“She’s my constellation, my northern star, guiding me home, back to myself.
You know who I am, and if you don’t, let me introduce myself.
I’m the idiot kid she saved that day at the track.
The one who sent her a check every year.
A check she never cashed, even though she needed money.
She doesn’t know. She also doesn’t know that I’m a fifth-generation serum psycho.
You can tell, or you wouldn’t have had Marco push me quite so hard.
That would have killed a normal person. Does Marco get the serum from you or from your wife? ”
He blinked at me, eyes hard chinks of emerald. “That’s your question?”
I sighed heavily and ran a hand through my hair. “Can I have your daughter’s hand in marriage?”
He crossed his arms. “You already married her.”
“We haven’t signed the contract. It’ll be here this afternoon.”
He studied me, lips pursed as he took me apart and put me back together. “Do you think that you deserve her?”
My answer was immediate. “No. She’s a goddess. She’s absolute perfection. I’m a mess.”
His eyes softened slightly. “Do you love her?”
I took a deep breath. “Yes.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because she can’t be bought. She’s priceless. She’s…”
He struck like a snake, grabbing my shirt and pulling me in so his eyes, those eyes filled with chains and infinite pain gazed at me. His voice was as irrevocable as death. “If you hurt her, you’re dead. Before you’re dead, pain. Got it?”
I nodded.
He smiled and let go, stepping back. “Good. She’s a tough woman. You’ll have to be willing to fight to keep her. Are you really the father?”
“No.”
He shook his head. “Forget about that. You make this baby your child. You fight for him and you fight for her.”
I nodded, and with that, I was dismissed. I walked out of the gym reeling, and not only from Marco’s excellent right hook. Her dad told me to fight for her. Like it was okay to fight to keep her.
And so I would.