“What did you say?”
Yep, he did. Christ, she must think he was a wicked idiot or something. “I said Xan is the king of the underground fighting around here. He likes to fight in the underground MMA tournaments out near Sullivan. So when we moved here, we put some things together that keep him in shape for that.”
She crossed to a metal folding chair a few feet away from him and got comfortable. “What’s MMA?”
“Mixed Martial Arts. It’s when you fight using multiple disciplines of fighting, not just one. You ever see the fights on TV when they’re in an octagonal cage?”
“Oh, yeah, I guess I have. Those fights are brutal, aren’t they?”
“Can be. But it’s not like both guys aren’t in there for the same reason. If one of them wasn’t trained for it or didn’t want to be in the fight, then that would be one thing. But every fighter who steps in that cage loves the feel of getting hit just as much as he loves doing the hitting. You gotta respect that kind of passion.”
“Is that why you guys moved here, for the underground fights?”
“That’s what Xander’s doing here.”
“And you?” she asked.
He choked back the acid in his throat at the thought of continuing to lie to her. Turning back to the bag, he rolled his shoulders a few times before throwing a combination as hard as he could, then answered her with a half truth. “I wasn’t doing much in Boston, so I figured I’d check things out down here.”
Aiden continued to punch and kick, hoping it would deter further questions. He hated this entire fucking situation. Hated that she was in danger. Hated that he was lying to her. Hated that he wanted her a hell of a lot more than he could afford. And he sure as fuck hated that his best friend might want to fuck her, too. Nothin’ like a little salt to add to the wounds.
With every strike and every kick, he imagined the hard bag of sand as everything that stood in the way of Kat’s happiness and safety. She deserved a better life than the one she was leading, and he wanted to do whatever he could to give that to her.
That meant winning the Four by Four and getting Sicoli and his hired goons off her back. That meant giving her the remaining ten grand of the winnings that he didn’t tell those assholes about so she could start over. That even meant possibly watching her get together with his best friend when all he wanted to do was keep her for himself.
“Irish!”
Stopping, he faced her with his hands on his hips, his breath sawing in and out from the exertion. “What?”
“I said, did you ever fight?”
He stared at her for a few long moments, unsure how much to tell her. As much as he hated talking about his past, he felt he owed her a certain amount of reciprocation for her honesty with him last night. But he was afraid if she knew the whole truth, she’d leave, and he couldn’t risk her doing that until he made sure she was in the clear with Sicoli. The Internet made it way too easy to enter a name and have all your secrets spill out in the form of clickable blue links. But Kat didn’t seem the Googling type. Hell, she didn’t even have a cell phone that he knew of. So he’d give her as much as he could for now. That would have to be good enough.
Crossing to the mini-fridge, he grabbed two waters, cracked them open, and offered her one before flipping around the other metal chair and straddling it. “I used to, a long time ago.”
She took a long pull from the bottle and his mouth went dry watching her throat move. When she’d gotten her fill, she leveled him with those baby blues and asked the million dollar question…
“So why’d you quit?”
…that he couldn’t answer.
Not truthfully, anyway. He shrugged and hoped to God she wasn’t a human bullshit detector. “The sport isn’t made for a long career. It’s hard on the body. So instead of risking a major injury, I quit and became a motorcycle mechanic.”
“And doing that makes you happy?”
Fuck no. “I like bikes, I can turn a wrench, and it pays the bills. What more do I need?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said with extra sarcasm, “maybe some of that fire I saw in your eyes when you were talking about the sport you so obviously love?”
“All right, smarty-pants. What would you be if you could do anything?”
“That’s easy. I’d be a superhero.”
“Come again?”
“You know, someone with superpowers like the ability to fly or read minds or—”
“Kat, I know what a superhero is. But you don’t exactly strike me as the sort of girl to dress up and attend ComiCons.”
“You’re right, I’m not. But you said if I could do anything, right?”
His mouth quirked up on one side. “I did indeed. Okay, kitten, enlighten me. What kind of superhero would you be?”
“Well,” she started thoughtfully, “as cool as it would be to have any kind of superpower, I would want super strength.”