Battered Not Broken (21 page)

And she couldn’t stop him from stepping up to meet it any more than she could paint the sky pink instead of blue. So she stood beside him and hoped his infallible confidence would rub off on her.

“How did you get into MMA, anyway?” They had time to talk as they lingered near a locker room in the facility Cameron had rented. Ryan’s match – the evening’s main feature – wasn’t until later, after dozens of lesser fighters had already exhausted themselves. “You fight like you’ve been doing it forever.”

“Not forever,” he said, leaning against the wall beside her, his arms crossed over his chest, which was covered by a black hoodie, “but almost. I was that quintessential kid who loved to watch karate movies and started begging my parents for lessons when I was about five. I got into MMA when I was a teenager. I guess everyone has to find something to do to piss their parents off around that age. But I loved it. Still do.”

Ally thought of her mother sitting dutifully in the audience of her every fight. “Your parents didn’t like your choice of sport?”

“They hated it. As far as they were concerned, anyone would have to be half brain-dead to want to waste their time giving out and taking beatings inside a ring.”

The word brain sent a little ripple of unease through her every time she heard it now. No longer just a point of anatomy, it was the second letter in TBI, those three little letters she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since Sunday. “What about now that you’re an adult? Do they still hate it?”

He lifted his shoulders in the slightest of shrugs. “I’m sure they do.”

“I guess I’m lucky. I originally got into MMA because of my parents. Well, because of my mother.”

“Really?” His eyebrows rose, erasing the line that had recently formed between them.

“Yeah. She signed me up for a women’s self-defense class when I was seventeen.” She spoke the words like the fact they were, refusing to let accompanying truths and emotions claim much of a presence in her mind. “That was mostly just being taught to shout ‘no’ and strike your attacker in sensitive areas, but it turned out my instructor was a female martial artist, and I signed up for some other classes under her. I got into jujitsu and boxing that way, and then a couple years ago I started training at Knockout.”

“Did you compete before you came to Knockout?”

“Just in a few tournaments my instructor chose for me. Not for money – just to see if I could and what it was like. I liked it more than I thought I would. I started competing for money a year ago when Cameron started up his women’s nights. What about you?” She’d be damned if he’d never competed before, but suddenly found herself curious about the why and how.

“Yeah, back in New York I competed in just about all the amateur events I could make it to.”

“Really?” There it was again – one of those moments that reminded her how much more there was to Ryan Moore than she knew. She could now count what she knew about his pre-Marine Corps life on two fingers – he’d lived in New York and his parents hated MMA. It was better than knowing nothing, but at the same time, those two facts only inspired a hundred other silent questions.

“Yeah. Lived in New York my whole life until I enlisted, so that was where I got into MMA.”

“Why’d you choose to live here when you got out?” Since their first date, she’d wondered more than once why he’d chosen to take up residence in Baltimore.

He shrugged again, his gaze drifting past her to the ring, where two strangers were locked in sweaty combat on the mats. “Had to live somewhere. Didn’t want to stay on the North Carolina coast where I’d be looking in from the outside on the Marine Corps every day, so I decided to get out of the area. Didn’t want to go back to New York, either. So I ended up here, about halfway between those places. Got an apartment and a job.” His shoulders rose and fell again. “Here I am.”

“Will you stay?”

“Don’t know where else I’d go.”

Curiosity naturally prompted her to wonder about his family and former home in New York, but she resisted the urge to pry. She’d already pressed him about fighting while recovering from TBI, and it wasn’t like she didn’t understand that blood didn’t always equal family.

She’d rather start over in a strange city too than associate with a relative like Manny, or her uncle Carlos. A little bit of bile rose up into her throat at just the thought, and she consciously worked to ease the tension in her jaw as she followed Ryan’s gaze, watching the two lightweights grapple in the eight-sided cage Cameron had acquired for the event. “Were you undefeated in New York?”

He turned to look at her, his mouth quirking faintly at one corner. “Afraid not. But don’t tell anyone here that.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

“I know.”

The match ended when one of the men tapped the other out, to the general excitement of the crowd, which was large. Cameron had managed to fill about three quarters of the seats, guaranteeing himself a profit.

“Won’t be too much longer now,” Ryan said, standing tall and rolling his shoulders, stretching.

It wasn’t much longer after that – or at least, it didn’t seem like it. The next few matches seemed to fly by. Ally resorted to mentally cursing the fighters for hitting too hard and tapping out too soon, resulting in matches that ended more quickly than she would’ve liked. The clock moved resolutely forward, and soon she was watching Ryan finish wrapping his hands, preparing for the night’s main attraction.

“Don’t forget your mouthguard,” she offered lamely as Cameron hovered around them like a buzzing bee on speed, mumbling garbled encouragements and giving Ryan tips.

“Got it.” He showed her the curved guard he held in one hand, molded to fit his teeth and cushion them against punishment the rest of his mouth, face and head would be left open to.

He had teeth worth protecting – straight and white – but the sole safety measure still seemed woefully inadequate as he prepared to face Ivanov, the undefeated fighter who’d come down from Philly. “What are you waiting for?” she asked as he stood there holding it in one cupped palm, staring down at her like he thought he could devour her with his eyes.

“For you to kiss me for good luck.” He flashed her an unexpected grin.

She placed one hand against his chest, letting her fingertips curl against his pec as she leaned in and stood on her tiptoes, ignoring Cameron’s continuing monologue. “I’d do a lot more than kiss you if I thought it would affect the outcome of the fight.”

His grin stretched wider. “Why don’t you go ahead and try anyway? You never know.”

“We have a plan, remember? After the fight we go to your place and I spend the night.” It would be their first time together since their movie night, when incredible sex had left her feeling closer to him than ever – a feeling that had been quickly dampened by the disagreement that had followed.

He nodded. “Believe me, I haven’t forgotten.”

Cameron was obnoxiously close. Whether he was actually listening to their conversation was up for debate – could he actually hear what they were saying over the sound of his own voice?

Still, she reined in all the things she longed to say. Like pointing out the fact that she might very well end up spending the night taking care of Ryan instead of in bed with him. Not that she would have had the heart to say that to him anyway – not before his fight.

“Just a kiss,” she said, leaning in and brushing one against his lips. “The sooner this fight is over, the sooner we can do more.”

“I won’t fuck around with Ivanov,” he promised, a look in his eyes that reminded her of the way he’d looked during their very first conversation. “Not when I could be doing that with—”

“Cameron, you’re breathing down my neck,” Ally said loudly, as much to cut off Ryan before he could finish his sentence as to force Cameron to back off. “What are you doing?” She turned to find him standing behind her like a tall, overly-muscular shadow, a bottle of water clutched in each hand.

“Hydration is important,” Cameron said, as if he were chastising a child.

“He already has a bottle of water.” She took a bottle from Cameron. “I’ll save this for when the first round is over.” Maybe she was taking her stress out on Cameron, but that was better than taking it out on Ryan – anything was better than that. She needed him to enter the cage in the best mental and physical condition possible, and emerge the same way.

“Come on.” Cameron motioned toward the ring as the noise level in the large, open gymnasium rose. “You’re up.”

Ryan popped in his mouth guard and put on his fingerless, lightly-padded gloves, the finishing touch on his sparse fighter’s wardrobe. He gave Ally a last look as he turned – one she knew she’d remember, especially if the fight went badly.

In that moment, she re-memorized every little detail about his eyes – the many shades of blue and the surprisingly fiery orange-gold rings around the pupils. Mostly, she noticed the confidence reflected in them and tried to internalize it as he entered the chain-linked cage.

Chapter 12

Ivanov was slightly taller than Ryan and thick, his limbs roped with muscle and his eyes dark and fierce beneath a head that was almost bald.

Ryan faced him like he would anyone else, with poise controlling his expression, the planes of his muscles and the perfect set of his shoulders. He believed he would win, but he wasn’t like the stubbornly hungry fighters who sought to do so through sheer viciousness – he would combine the force of his will with skill and shrewd judgment. Maybe the Marine Corps had instilled the fierce brand of self-control into him. Wherever he’d gained it, it was his best line of defense against Ivanov, or any opponent, for that matter.

There was no way of knowing if it was an advantage he held over Ivanov, though. Ally had never seen the man fight. The only judgments she could make as he faced Ryan were based on his size, build and stance – all impressive, of course. There was obviously a reason why he was undefeated.

A ring girl paraded around the cage, her stride proud and steady despite the spike heels she wore. Ally begrudged her every measured step. With each moment that stretched by as she made her round, Ally was forced to watch Ryan stand locked in eye contact with Ivanov. Now that they were both there and ready, on the inside of the black chain-link for better or for worse, she wanted nothing more than for the first round to be over.

Finally, the ring girl’s pacing display was over. The crowd broke out into a dull roar of anticipation, and then, in the blink of an eye, the fight was on.

They circled briefly, neither of them lunging in for an immediate attack. As Ryan moved, the black inked-in knots sprawling across his back blended with the black chain-link walls of the cage, making him appear as if he moved in a cloud of his own personal haze, like a desert mirage.

Cameron’s words rang in her ears –
hydration is important
. Her mouth was suddenly dry as she watched, waiting.

She clutched the bottle of water tighter, resisting the urge to unscrew the lid and drink it down. Even though Cameron had a dozen more bottles on hand, she’d save it for Ryan because it was the only thing she could think of to do that felt like helping him, even if it was in such an admittedly small way. Her heart beat erratically as she gripped her modest offering, its plastic sides crackling beneath her fingers as she waited for the first blow.

She didn’t have to wait long. Ivanov slid forward, his movements smooth and quick as he threw a jab toward Ryan’s face, following it up with a punch aimed toward his ribs.

Ryan dodged the first one, bobbing to the right, and the second one glanced off his side.

There was hardly time to breathe a sigh of relief before Ryan retaliated with a left hook.

Ivanov leaned but wasn’t quite quick enough to avoid the blow entirely. Ryan’s fist clipped the top of his head, the blow less powerful than it could have been.