Flow (The Beat and the Pulse #6) (2 page)

S
aturday
, I got dumped at a wedding.

Saturday night, I picked up a random chick at The Underground.

Sunday, I kicked her out.

Sunday night, I was strung out.

The only place I knew would be open and willing to suck dry what was left of my hopes and dreams was the source and the savior of all my problems—The Underground.

Sunday’s were usually dead around here. A few fights went down, but they were just for shits and giggles. None of them counted toward the Championship, but a night this place was closed was a night they weren’t making money. So, this classy establishment was a seven days a week kind of place.

Leaning against the bar as the cage behind me was prepared for the first fight of the night, I stared at the bottles of liquor. All kinds of poison was lined up along the wall. Top shelf booze, middle shelf, lower shelf, bargain basement shelf…all the shelves I could think of. Money was money, I guessed.

“Hey.”

I glanced up at the woman who stopped in front of me. She wore a tiny black T-shirt that clung to her slender frame and acid-wash jeans that were torn at the knees. Her hair was black with a stripe of blue at the front, and her eyes were dark with makeup. Josie had been her own kind of wild, but this woman looked like she’d invented the word. Rock stars throwing TVs out of hotel room windows kind of wild.

“You look strung out, fighter,” she said. “What can I get ya?”

“Whisky,” I said, being a totally predicable Irishman. “Lots of it.”

She laughed and turned to the shelf, plucking a bottle from the middle. Grabbing a glass, she asked, “Rocks?”

“No ice,” I replied, tapping the top of the bar. “Just give it to me straight up.”

“Not fighting tonight?” she asked as she poured whisky into the glass she slammed down in front of me.

I shook my head, finding her ballsy attitude kind of refreshing. “Nope.”

“Oh.” She placed the bottle back onto the bar but kept her fingers curled around the neck.

“I got dumped.” The words were out of my mouth before I knew it, and I downed a mouthful of whisky, the liquor burning a trail right down my throat and into my stomach.

“
You
got dumped?” Her eyebrows rose.

“What’s that meant to mean?” I asked, scowling at her.

She shrugged and topped up my glass. “You know, they say the best way to get over someone is to get underneath someone else. Or in your case, over.”

I raised my eyebrows, and she winked.

“Tried that,” I said, my gaze crossing with the chick I fucked and kicked out last night. She was one of those chicks who hung around looking to attach themselves to a cashed-up fighter—all fake tits and orange tan. She’d moaned like a porn star, and I’d gotten off, but that was the extent of it. It was hollow. So I did the typical male jerk thing and kicked her out the second I was done.

Fake Tits sneered and glared at me with all the hate I probably deserved.

The woman behind the bar began to laugh, placing her palms on top of the bench. “I can see that didn’t go well.”

I rolled my eyes then looked her up and down.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she instantly bit out at me. “I’m not one of those girls you fuck behind the shelter shed. I do not do the walk of shame.” She wiggled her index finger.

I snorted. “Aren’t you refreshin’.”

“Not all women around here want to spread their legs for a muscled fighter.” She glanced toward Fake Tits and her friends and rolled her eyes. “Substance is an amazing thing, Goblin.”

“So you do know who I am,” I said.

“Why wouldn’t I? I’ve worked this shithole of a bar long enough to know the players.
All of them
.”

“So what they say about bartenders is true, huh?”

Leaning her elbows on the bar, she tilted her head to the side and asked, “And what’s that?”

I smiled and raised the glass of whisky to my lips. The liquor went down more smoothly, so I downed the glass.

The woman shook her head, her lips quirking, and reached behind the bar, retrieving a cardboard coaster and a pen.

I watched as she wrote on it, wondering if I was about to get in her pants and trying to gauge how wild it would be, when she said, “You’re not getting lucky, FYI.”

“Damn, and here I was picturin’ you naked.”

She winked, her eyes twinkling. “Was it as good for you as it was for me?”

Damn
.

She slid the coaster across the bar with a long, slender finger. Her nails were painted black, and I suddenly realized she was kind of cool. A no bullshit kind of woman. One hundred percent not Josie and one hundred percent not interested in banging behind the bleachers. I couldn’t remember the last time I was ‘just friends’ with a chick. I don’t think I was ever just friends with one to be totally honest.

“What can I say? You’ve caught my interest,” she said, filling my glass again. “If you ever want to talk like human beings, give me a call…
Goblin
.”

“And what’s your name?” I glanced up, but she’d already moved down the bar, serving the next lot of customers.

Peering at the coaster, I grinned. She’d scribbled her name and number on the coaster in blue pen. Lori. Suited her down to the ground.

Lori.

She didn’t even look back and bat her eyelashes at me. There hadn’t been boobs in my face when she’d served me, either. She was genuine and said shit like it was. I wondered how long she’d been here, hiding behind this bar where I never saw her. One little conversation and it was like I was looking at a diamond in the rough, its surface uncovered and the depths it went to still waiting to be excavated.

Glancing down the bar, I watched her reach up and grab a bottle from the top shelf, her T-shirt riding up and revealing what looked like a large tattoo across her back. Not one of those ugly tramp stamps but an entire back kind of badassery.

Lori, huh?

Somehow, I reckon I’d just learned a lesson in not being a self-absorbed asshole.

* * *

T
he coaster was burning
a hole in my jacket pocket.

I guess going to The Underground to get drunk was a good thing—even though I’d left mostly sober—because my eyes had been opened. I’d been lording it around that place like I was a king, never looking outside of what was right in front of me.

Josie was always straightforward and to the point. She had directness down to a fine art, but I supposed that’s why she was so good at her job as PR manager for the Hayes Twins. At the thought of those pansy-ass wankers, my blood began to boil. My girl had feelings for another man. She hadn’t said it, but I saw the way she’d looked at Dean at the wedding. She looked at him like she wanted to drop to her knees and suck his cock.

Pulse Fitness was quiet this morning. The gym my best mate, Ash Fuller, ran was top of the line, but I didn’t expect anything less from the man. When he opened up the place, I’d come to check it out because that’s what friends do for one another, but now I was a regular. It was a proper fighter gym and catered for hard-asses like me.

After a couple of turbulent days, I was keen to hit the weights and think about nothing but repetitions for a couple of hours. Things had been good for months, then all of a sudden, they’d gone boom. If it weren’t for gravity, I wouldn’t know which way was up.

“Hey.”

I glanced up as Ash appeared beside me. I wasn’t surprised to see him here at the ass crack of dawn considering he lived in his fancy apartment upstairs.

I’d been fighting at The Underground for something ridiculous like five or six years, and I’d known Ash since the day he’d walked through the front doors. He’d steamrolled everyone in that joint in record time, including my ass on several occasions, and somehow, we’d become friends despite the time he’d broken my ribs in six places.

We were the same height, but he was a great deal heavier than I was. His muscle mass was off the charts compared to mine. If this were the AUFC, I’d be in the welterweight division and he’d be in the heavyweight. Two vastly different worlds.

I didn’t want to bulk up anymore than I already was. It worked for me, so I ran with it. Brawn didn’t always equal a guaranteed win against a smaller guy or create equal ground with a dude in the same weight class.

“I didn’t expect you until later,” Ash went on.

“I needed to feel the burn,” I replied, trying to sound nonchalant about it.

“So,” he began, crossing his arms over his chest. He was wearing a navy blue T-shirt that said trainer over his right man boob. To Ash, the word translated to therapist when it came to dishing out advice. It was always unsolicited, too.

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t even say it, mate.”

“How can I not say anything?” he asked. “Everyone saw…and heard.”

Remembering how everyone’s eyes burned into us while Josie ripped out my heart like a pro, I scowled. “Don’t remind me.”

“Are you good?” he asked. “Because I’m around if you need—”

“Spot me,” I interrupted, nodding to the bench press.

Ash raised an eyebrow but didn’t try to rub it in. “Right.”

Once I’d secured the weight I wanted to lift, I laid down on the bench and gripped the barbell, positioning my spine and shoulders. Last thing I needed was to add a couple of torn muscles to the pile of things that were already broken.

Doing a couple of lifts, I felt the familiar burn through my muscles. The movement was so familiar I let my mind wander a little. Instead of going to the obvious source of my heartache, it went to The Underground and Lori. That was a mystery if I ever saw one.

“Hey, did you ever know that chick behind the bar at The Underground?” I asked as Ash helped guide the barbell back into the brackets so I could take a short breather.

Ash grinned. “You trying to get over Josie by getting laid?”

“Fuck you. You’re such an asshole.” I lifted the barbell off the brackets again as he spotted. “I did that on Saturday night after the weddin’.”

He let out a laugh. “
Dude
. How did that work out for you?”

I rolled my eyes. “How do you think, asshole?”

“Who behind the bar?” he asked after a moment.

“The one with the black hair. I think some of it is blue, too.” I knew her name, but I wasn’t keen on letting Mr. Muscle know that I’d already spoken with her. It seemed a little soon after Josie to be chasing another woman even though Lori implied she wasn’t looking for anything sexual.

Ash snorted. “You mean the rocker chick behind the bar? The one with the tattoos?”

“Shit, even you know her.” I slid the barbell back into the bracket and sat up. I was thoroughly annoyed now.

“Yeah, but you never go to the bar.” He shrugged. “Until Josie broke it off with you.”

I scoffed. “What else was I meant to do? I got my dick wet, and that didn’t help. I tried to get drunk, and that didn’t help.”

“Want some advice?”

“I never understand why you ask,” I complained. “You just dish it out anyway.”

“True that,” he said. “Look, Hamish…I know you had your heart set on her, but she wants different things. I never saw her giving up her career, and I definitely never saw you giving up The Underground.”

He was right. I’d always known my life was too small for Josie, but I had tried to make things work. I couldn’t give up fighting, but that was my burden to bear. It was also my choice. I couldn’t force that on Josie if it made her unhappy. I also couldn’t force her to love me.

“I know,” I said, wiping my palms on my shorts. “You don’t have to lay it out like that.”

“So you’re cool with this?”

“No, I’m not cool,” I snapped. “She ripped my heart out in the middle of the dance floor at your weddin’. She’s all about timin’, that one.”

“Ren wasn’t pleased with her,” he said. “Causing a scene like that.”

I grunted. It didn’t matter anymore. Going after Josie again after our umpteenth split was suicide. Even I was smart enough to realize this was the last time. There’d be no obliterating make up sex in our future.

“Why were you asking about the bartender?” Ash asked, doing a complete one-eighty and changing the subject.

I shrugged.

He thumped me on the back. “Don’t hold out on me now.”

“Nothing happened or will happen.” After the disastrous one-night stand I’d had on Saturday night, I wasn’t keen on a repeat performance.

Ash raised an eyebrow. “So?”

“What do you want me to say?” I barked.

“What do you want
me
to say?” he shot back.

“She gave me her number,” I blurted, fed up with this whole bloody conversation. “But she just wants to be friends.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“Since when have I been friends with a woman?” Never in my entire life. Women were for fucking and for marrying when you found the right one. Damn, did I really think that was the right way to treat them? God, no wonder I couldn’t keep my mitts on Josie.

“You’re friends with Ren,” Ash stated.

Fucker
. “I hate how you’re always right.”

“I think you should take a stab,” he said, thumping me on the back again.