Break Me (Alpha MMA Fighter) (30 page)

He didn’t hear Maggie. More importantly, he didn’t feel her presence anymore.

“You’re
that
eager for a rematch?”

He spun round to face the main aisle. It was Rose approaching. The others weren’t with her. She wore a denim jacket and carried a candy apple.

“How did you know I was here?” he shouted.

“Are you kidding? Half of Vegas knows you’re here by now. One of Luca’s pals stopped us outside, told us he’d seen you come in.” She glanced behind her, to make sure no one was following, then climbed into the ring. “So I thought I’d better give you the heads up, before the circus arrives. I figured you’ve done enough press for one day.”

“For a lifetime,” he said.

She roamed around the ring, eating her candy apple, gazing wistfully out across the arena. Avery put his arm around her waist, and they made their way to one of the corner posts. They gazed out together.

“What changed your mind—about coming to Vegas?” he asked, stealing a bite of her apple.

“I asked Cate. Told her I wanted to come, but if she didn’t, I wouldn’t either. You know what she did?”

“What?”

“Threw a pillow at me. Said I was nuts for even thinking about not coming.”

“Well, I didn’t want to say anything…”

She shook her head. “You’re determined to eat canvas, aren’t you?”

“You were right about your sister. She was worth it.”

“True. She’s a good girl.”

“So what now?” he said.

“I guess we head back, and you catch some serious sleep before—”

“What now for us, I mean?”

“Let’s let fate decide…” She tossed her candy apple at the nearest trash receptacle, missing by a country mile. “Okay, I was hoping for a dunk there. Sorry. I guess that means we’re in for a rough ride, Champ.”

“Cute. But I was being serious. Do you think we should stay in Mitre? Or move somewhere bigger, like L.A.?”

She considered it for a few moments. “As long as I’m with you, it’s all good. But right now, if I had to choose? Mitre.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the one place in the world where people know my name and where they’re starting to, you know, respect me. I’ve never had that before. You, on the other hand, are Mr. Easy-pants. You can get a free lunch anywhere. Me? I’m a slow-burn kinda gal. I take a while to make my mark.”

“Not with me, you didn’t.” He moved behind her, snuggled in, and kissed her cheek. He rested his chin on her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her waist. “So you want to go on working at the gym?”

“Definitely.”

“And Cate? I mean she can stay as long as she wants, but maybe she’s got plans of her own?”

“College. She really wants to go to college. And she’ll ace it. She’s way smarter than me. I just need to figure out a way to pay for it. Hey, maybe you can give her a job.”

“Sure, maybe.”

But he’d already decided, his present to Rose was going to be to put Cate through college. It would mean more to her than anything else money could buy.

“And what about
your
career in the ring?” he asked.

She cocked her head to one side. “You think I could get to fight here someday?”

“Are you kidding? You
belong
here.”

“Then who knows? Maybe I’ll make it happen.”

Avery loved that note of self-confidence in her voice. It had grown since he’d met her, and it practically defined her now. “Well, I’ve learned my lesson on that score,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“That when you set your mind to something, only an idiot would bet against you.”

“Avery, can I tell you something?”

“Mm?”

“I love you.”

He slowly spun her round so that their faces were almost touching. Her cheeks were the color of her name, but she held his gaze like she’d held his heart all this time—in a special kind of indescribable magic.

“I love you, Rose,” he said.

For the second time that night, Avery Wright met his match in the ring. But for the first time in his life, he was glad to lose.

EPILOGUE

She’d known bittersweet before—she’d known it well—but in her former life, the bitter had dominated. Cate had provided most if not all of the sweet. But now the reverse was true. Rose had become content in her new life, living with Avery
and
Cate was sweet, real sweet. She had it all: a boyfriend, a job, friends, and she never wanted for anything, thanks to Avery’s windfall earnings from the Grillo fight. If things would only stay that way, she needn’t taste the bitter ever again.

But Cate was leaving for college in a few minutes. The announcement had blindsided Rose; she’d been expecting her kid sister to drive to L.A. on Monday, not today, which was Friday. Not only that, but Luca was driving her instead. It was now just the two of them taking the road trip Rose herself had been looking forward to—and dreading—for months. Cate had decided she didn’t want her big sister along for the ride after all. That long goodbye would be too upsetting, she’d said. She’d thought it was better that Luca, her new boyfriend, with whom she didn’t have quite so much emotional history, take her instead.

Farewells didn’t get any more bittersweet than this.

The guys insisted on lifting Cate’s luggage into the car, but Rose ignored them. She packed Luca’s Jeep herself, and stuffed far too many Oreos, Cate’s favorites, into the glovebox. Avery hit her with an adoring, lopsided smile when he saw that. When he was being sweet like that, she had no defense against him; his gesture opened a sluice inside her, spilling the bittersweet she’d been trying her best to dam up. And it was suddenly all too real. Losing Cate. She felt the moment approaching. The sponges behind her eyes began to fill. Resisting it only squeezed harder, pressing the bitter.

The tears flowed, but she didn’t sob. She would save that for later, when no one was watching. She wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands.

Cate breezed out the front door, blue-jeaned and excited. She laughed over her shoulder at Luca, who carried the last of her bags. She hugged Avery, and he kissed her on both cheeks. They said their goodbyes. Short and sweet.

Now came the
real
bitter.

But no. Cate must have seen how painful it was for her big sister, so she lifted Rose’s chin and looked her right in the eyes. “Don’t cry,” she said. “We did it. We won. Now there’ll be no stopping us.”

“When will I see you again?” asked Rose. The tears flowed warmly.

“As often as we can. And regular Skype—like, every day, okay?”

“Deal.”

“Take care of Avery. He needs you.”

“I will,” said Rose. “And you, look after yourself, okay? You get into any trouble, any at all, call me right away and I’ll come bust some heads.”

Cate’s giggle slid into a river of happy-sad tears. Rose cupped her little sister’s pink-and-white face, then touched foreheads. “Have a safe journey. Do everything I wouldn’t do.”

“Then I’d be the most boring girl on campus,” replied Cate. “Rosie, I aim to be
exactly
like you.”

“In that case, God help the City of Angels.” She lifted free and winked. “Go get ’em.”

“You too.”

Cate jumped into the car and opened the glovebox. She laughed when she saw the Oreos. Tore open a packet. She held one up to Rose, then stuffed it in her mouth.

“You’ve created a monster,” Luca told Rose. “An Oreo monster.”

“Yeah, she’ll eat you alive if you’re not careful.”

“Looking forward to it,” he said and waved as he pulled away.

Rose and Avery waved after them until the dust kicked up behind the Jeep clouded it from view. And just like that, Cate was gone. Out of her life. About to start a new one of her own.

But now that the farewell was over, Rose felt differently about it. Almost relieved, and hopeful—for Cate. This was what she’d wanted all along for her kid sister. The world was now Cate’s to discover. And Rose had made that happen.

Yes, there was definitely more sweet than bitter about this day.

***

Avery put his arm round her. “Come on, I’ll drive you to the gym.”

“What for? It’s my day off. Manny’s got—”

“I know, but there’s something we’ve forgotten to do. It won’t take long.”

She groaned. “Can’t it wait?”

“Afraid not. It really needs sorting out ASAP.”

Rose slid her hand into his pants pocket and fished out his car keys before he could react. “All mine,” she said.

“Hey, you sneaky little…” He chased her around the front lawn but couldn’t catch her. He was still in his slippers.

“Let’s go,” she said and locked the front door.

“Wait! I need to get changed. There’s something—”

“Nope. We’re going right now or not at all.”

He threw his hands up, then let them flop at his side. “Keep it under forty,” he told her.

“I’ll think about it.”

She started the Camaro and immediately revved it into a full three-sixty doughnut on the gravel of his driveway. Avery held on for dear life, while she yelled out, exhilarated. It felt like letting off steam, so she did it again.

Avery shook his head, and she laughed hard. “Not too keen on surprises, huh?”

“Just…get us there in one piece,” he replied, patting his jacket pocket, over his heart.

“You’re the boss.”

It was as busy as ever on Van Buren, maybe even busier. There were no free parking spaces within quarter mile of the gym. Ever since Avery’s big win in Vegas, gym attendance had skyrocketed, even higher than it had in the wake of the Reno incident. For the first time, they’d had to turn away prospective members, and, for peak times, current members had to book in advance to ensure the gym didn’t become overcrowded.

This wasn’t a peak time, but looking at the parking, it might as well have been. It was the farthest they’d walked from car to gym since Rose had started work here. “In and out,” she said. “I don’t care how much Manny’s struggling, this is my day off.”

“Mine too. It won’t take long, I promise.”

“I wonder where they are now,” she said. “Outside Mitre? You know, Cate had hardly ever left Mitre before I flew her to Vegas.”

“I know. But I don’t think they’ll be out of Mitre just yet.”

“No? Driving Miss Daisy, huh?”

“Something like that.”

Avery opened the front door for her. It was surprisingly quiet inside, and there wasn’t much activity. In fact, there was none. She stood and stared, mentally scrambling to figure out why everyone was packed around the ring and looking at her expectantly, like those characters at the end of
Titanic,
when Kate Winslet reunited with everyone she knew from the voyage. It was surreal, seeing so many faces she knew, apparently waiting for her, but not giving away the reason why.

There was her good friend, Marlon Washington, wearing jeans and a shirt. He wasn’t here to work out. Manny Etcheverria, who ran the gym when Luca and Rose weren’t in, towered over most of the others. Tony and Troy. And Barrett Tolliver was here. So was Rory O’Dell, the resident cutman, who’d been in Avery’s corner in Vegas. There were so many fighters and regular fitness members she’d helped out in so many different ways this year, all gazing her way, she felt the shame-heat spread across her cheeks. She swallowed.

Then she spotted Ashley and Lena Culver. What were
they
doing here? Sure, Rose had become quite close with them after Reno, but what were they doing here, today?

It got better. And even more surreal. Luca and
Cate
were here, too! Not on the road to L.A., but here. All ideas and insights that were trying to form in her mind suddenly vanished. She had no clue what was happening.

Avery whispered in her ear, “Not too keen on surprises, huh?”

She blinked at him.

“That’s too bad,” he said, “because I’ve got an announcement to make.” The crowd parted for them, and he lifted her up onto the side of the ring, then climbed up after her. “Thanks for coming, guys,” he said. “I’ve known most of you for years. We’ve fought alongside each other; we’ve worked hard to make this place great for MMA fighters, and an exciting place to work out. But we had it rough over the last year—the fight-fixers took a few chunks out of us—and things got real dicey for a while there. And then Rose turned up. And I’m sure you’ll agree, everything changed.

“Now, she’s no Mary Poppins. We all know that.” A gentle wave of laughter spread around the ring. “But she was just what we needed, and she arrived exactly when we needed her. So maybe she’s
our
version of Mary Poppins, the MMA version. Her magic four-letter words get us off our butts and into gear. She can’t fly, but she can make us laugh when we need it, and she works miracles in that office.”

Rose pulled an embarrassed face and didn’t know where to look, so she kept her gaze on Avery, and realized she loved him more than ever, if that were possible.

“But more than that,” he went on, “she knows this sport inside out. While we’ve been checking out our muscle tone in the mirror, Rose has studied hard, learning the latest fighting and training disciplines. She’s the best motivator I know, because she doesn’t start anything unless she intends to finish it. Which leads me to what I came here to say. Rose, we’d like you to become an official coach at Wright Hook’s, so you can teach us all how to never give up. What do you reckon?”

She looked down across the faces she knew and found herself tongue-tied…but only for a moment. “Ah, sure. I mean yeah,
of course.
Are you fucking kidding me?”

A roar of laughter, followed by a round of applause, filled her with elation.

Then Avery lifted the ropes for her to climb inside the ring. She’d forgotten he was wearing slippers. It suddenly made her feel more at home; it grounded this whole event a little. When they reached the center, she joked to him, “I’m so getting you back for this.”

“You promise?” He pulled a small jewellery box out of his jacket pocket. He flipped it open. Inside was a beautiful engagement ring. Two tiny silver dolphins formed a circle around the diamond in the center.

He got down on one knee.

Rose wanted to cry, then she realized where she was. To most people, this would be the least romantic spot imaginable. To Rose and Avery, it was practically their church. It took her breath away, how perfect the moment was.

“Rose, will you marry me?”

She gazed at the ring, then at him, and then closed her eyes to savor the moment. When she opened them, he looked a little nervous. He swallowed a lump in his throat.

“Rose—”

“You bet your ass I will,” she said.

The swell of cheers and applause filled the gym. It seemed to raise her feet inches off the canvas. Then Avery did lift her, high, high above the ring. Higher than she’d ever been.

So this was what it felt like to win a title. The most important one in the world for Rose, the only one she cared truly about:

Mrs. Avery Wright.

And no one would ever take that away from her.