The big guy looked me over from head to toe and must have determined that I didn’t look like too much of a threat. “He’s in the center ring. Should be done in a few minutes.”
So my new stepbrother was a boxer of some kind, I determined. I stepped inside the door and found myself in a narrow hallway. I could hear the sounds of working out coming from down the hall. I stood there for a moment as it seemed my feet were unwilling to move. I was nervous.
It wasn’t just because this was my first real job. It was also because I was meeting someone who was going to be more than a simple client. His dad was marrying my mom. If things didn’t go well over the next four months, there was a good chance I’d still have to see him at random family functions. That would be awkward, and I didn’t do awkward that well. I realized that I wanted to make a good impression. The best way to do that, I decided, was to be as professional as possible. Sure, we were going to have a personal relationship of some kind, but if I started it off with clear working boundaries, we could go from there.
“Okay, you can do this,” I said trying to pump myself up. I gave a small, mirthless laugh. I would play it cool. I could do it.
Propelling my feet forward, I moved toward the doorway that appeared to lead into the gym proper. As I emerged from the hallway, I saw that there were three rings in the gym. There were two smaller ones on either side of what was clearly the main ring, which was octagon shaped. One whole side of the gym was paneled with glass mirrors. Weights and punching bags hung in front of it.
“What is it with these guys and needing to stare at themselves?” I said under my breath. Then I moved my gaze back to the middle ring. My feet stopped altogether when I was halfway there. I recognized one of the fighters in the ring. He was hitting boxing pads on the hands of a much older man in a sweatsuit. It was obvious that the younger man was the one I had been directed to, and I felt my heart start to beat faster.
Fate must be having a good laugh at my expense. My new soon-to-be stepbrother was Shayne “Ice” Malone.
CHAPTER TWELVE -SHAYNE
“You’re going soft,” Maury growled at me. “Too much drinking and too much pussy.”
When Maury got crude, I wanted to smack him upside the head, which was part of the reason he did and said what he did. I started to hit the pads on his hands harder. “I’m in the best shape of my life,” I said as the sweat rolled down my face.
“Bullshit. You’re going to get your ass beat by Jenkins in two weeks.” Marv “The Hammer” Jenkins was my next opponent on the books. His specialty was a single-punch knockout. The fighters who had gone down as a result said it felt like taking a hammer to their head, hence Marv’s nickname.
“No, I won’t,” I snarled back at him. Maury was the best coach in the business, and I paid a pretty penny for his services, although sometimes I wondered if it was a sustainable relationship. I was as pissed off most of the time as doing anything productive with him.
“You gotta cut back on all the distractions, kid,” Maury said. “Get your head in the game.”
“I beat Dread, didn’t I?”
“That kid has no business being in the ring with anyone. That’s like bragging that you beat up your little sister,” Maury said with a sneer.
I slammed the boxing pads with all my strength, and when Maury began to backpedal, I knew I had him. I brought one more punch down hard right onto his left palm and heard the ‘oomph’ blow out of Maury’s mouth.
“You were saying about this supposed little sister?” I said with a smirk. That’s when I heard a murmur outside the ring from the guys who had stopped their training to watch me spar with Maury. I thought that it was about my moves when I saw the woman standing there staring at me with her mouth open.
I took in several details at once. The skirt that hugged every inch of her trim hips and showcased her long legs. The swell of her pert breasts underneath what looked like a silk blouse. A leather briefcase slung on her arm. Sun-kissed, blonde waves streamed around her shoulders and made me want to bury my nose in them. Then I saw the beautiful face that I had been dreaming about for the last week.