Rough Around the Edges (7 page)

No. He wasn’t a total dick. He wanted to see Ally again after this, and again, and again… He’d take things slow in order to avoid fucking up. He’d had to rescue her best friend from two criminals in order to get her to agree to a first date. What in the world would he have to do for a chance at a second one if he messed tonight up?

The radio was on, stuck on his favorite local rock station, as usual. He kept the volume low so they could talk. “So is it just you and your mother, or do you have other family members living at home too?”

“Just me and my mother.”

“I thought so.”

In the corner of his peripheral vision, he could see that she was staring at him.

“The house looked too clean to have any male inhabitants.” He looked away from the street just long enough to flash her a grin. “Plus, there were only women’s shoes and coats by the door.”

“Should I take that to mean that your place is a mess?” She arched an eyebrow as if defying him to claim otherwise, but her faint smile said she was teasing.

A hollow feeling took up residence in his stomach as he thought of the bare off-white walls and nearly empty rooms of his apartment. The unit was small, and still, he didn’t need all the space.
“My place is … Spartan. I don’t have too many belongings, so it doesn’t get very messy.”

“Seems like a good strategy.”

He shrugged as he eased the wheel to the left, turning onto the street one of his co-workers had said he’d find the restaurant on. “Works for me.” It wasn’t disdain for the way he’d grown up that had led him to reject material possessions. He just hadn’t collected many since being discharged from the Marine Corps and moving to Baltimore. If his possessions were in any way a reflection of the life he’d led since then, the past nine months might as well have not happened at all.

“This is a beautiful car.” Ally’s sweet and sultry voice banished thoughts of bare drywall and open rooms from his mind. “Are you sure you build roofs for a living?”

Her question prompted an automatic smile. He should’ve expected her to ask – she was no sheltered society bimbo like most of the girls he’d known back in New York, who’d had about as firm an understanding of finances and how money was made as they’d had of rocket science. It had been a long time since he’d thought of those sorts of females, and the memory of them only made Ally seem that much more glorious in comparison.

He ran one hand over the dash, letting his fingers glide over the familiar, gleaming surface.
“It’s my one indulgence. I’m glad you like it – you have good taste.”

She didn’t question his reply, though he’d half expected her to. That was fine – if she wasn’t going to pry, he certainly wasn’t going to volunteer information. Not on a first date, anyway. He was holding on hard to the memory of the look she’d given him from the audience on Friday and didn’t want to dredge up anything that would smother the spark of her admiration.

“I’ve never seen this car around the gym.”

“It was in the shop for a week. I walked almost everywhere while it was being repaired. Just got it back.” His stomach lurched as his mind presented him with the memory of crunching metal and a hard jolt that had jarred him from head to toe. In comparison to confessing how he’d gotten into the fender-bender that had put the Mustang in the shop with body damage, talking about how he’d grown up seemed downright appealing.

But she didn’t press him about that, either.
“That’s lucky. Not about your car being damaged – that you were walking. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been there to help Melissa.”

He nodded, his mind awash with a strange combination of relief and remembered fear. “It was worth all the walking.
I hate to think what might’ve happened if no one had been there. Plus, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have agreed to this date if I hadn’t helped your friend.”

“I like to know I can trust someone before I go out with them.” Her voice was steady, but even his peripheral vision allowed him to see the extra color that had crept into her cheeks.

“You trust me?”

Enough to go to dinner and a movie with you.”

“That’s a start.” He pulled the car into a parking lot in front of a red brick building, killing the engine. “Here we are.”

Chapter 4

The building managed to be both modest and attractively styled, but the scents that drifted across the lot were what really drew Ryan toward the glass double-doors. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since lunch. That seemed ages ago as he held the door open for Ally and the scent of Italian cooking hit him like a ton of bricks.

Tomato, basil and parmesan were the most prominent notes in an onslaught of aromas that made his stomach cramp in anticipation. The scents reminded him of New York, but he was so hungry he didn’t care. As a hostess led them to a table, he was reduced to an entity of two senses – sight and smell. It would’ve been just as impossible to tear his gaze away from Ally as it would’ve been to stop his mouth from watering. Sex and food – he couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted either so badly.

“Have you ever been here before?” Ally asked as she settled into the seat across from him, picking up a menu from the red and white checkered tablecloth.

“No.
A co-worker of mine told me about this place.
” He hadn’t taken advantage of the opportunity to familiarize himself with a new city’s dining and entertainment options. Since arriving in Baltimore, he’d mostly limited his eating out to diners and small, casual American-fare restaurants. That hadn’t bothered him at all, either, until now. It seemed like his old tastes were finally rising to the surface again. If he hadn’t had Ally to distract him from being reminded of who he’d once been, he might have hated that fact.

When the waitress arrived, Ryan’s eye was drawn to the wine list propped in the middle of the table. Why not? It had been so long since he’d gone out for a real dinner. It would be dangerous to drink too much – he couldn’t risk the likely consequences in front of Ally – but he could have a little, and she would probably enjoy it. “How about a bottle of wine?”

“Okay.” The way she smiled when she agreed made him glad he’d suggested it.

He requested a bottle of Chianti Riserva. The flavorful red would go well with both of their meals. It was far from the cheapest wine on the menu, but he was beyond caring how much the dinner cost. Money meant a hell of a lot less than the happiness of the woman sitting across from him, and besides, he had weekly fights now. He’d win – he’d make up for the cost of the meal, and eventually his insurance deductible, too.

“Tell me about yourself,” he said as he imagined a red bead of wine clinging to the full swell of her lower lip, the same color as her sweater.
“Do you work? Other than competing in Cameron’s events.”

She nodded. “My aunt owns a beauty salon. I’m a nail technician there.”

“Do you like it?”

“It pays the bills.”

He recognized the note of ambivalent indifference in her voice – it matched the way he felt whenever he thought about his own job and the life he was living. “You make it sound like there’s something else you’d rather be doing.”

“Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do if I could choose – if I’d had the chance to go to college, or learn another trade. It was never really an option, you know?”

He’d had both chances – at a college education, and at a totally different path. Still, he knew what she meant. Despite the past privilege of choice, which he’d exercised, he had no idea what he’d choose to do now. Sometimes it felt like he hadn’t chosen anything at all, which was why it felt so good to be training at Knockout. For the first time since being plunged back into the civilian world, he felt in control of something.

“Is there something you would do if you had a chance – something besides building roofs?” She raised an eyebrow in his direction, questioning, like she was really curious.

He leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the tabletop, thinking – about her, mostly.
“I don’t know what I’d choose, either. Sometimes I wish I did. The only thing I really seem to enjoy doing is fighting.”

Her expression brightened at the mention of MMA. “You’re in a different league than most of the guys who show up at Cameron’s events. Have you ever thought of trying your hand in some higher-profile circuits?”

“Thought about it? Yeah. But I don’t think anything like a professional career is in the cards for me.” He’d dreamed about it at one time and had even harbored hopes of joining the USMC MMA Fight Team while enlisted.

Not only had those aspirations been fucked away in Afghanistan, but his entire career had been shattered. His usefulness to the United States Marine Corps had flatlined in the wake of a single second that had left him absurdly whole and alive while crumbling his life – the parts that mattered most – around him. He could still fight, but not like before. He’d never rise above amateur level events like Cameron’s. Bile swirled in his unfilled stomach at the thought, making everything between his heart and his hips burn with emptiness.

The food arrived quickly, but not so soon that Ally couldn’t have asked him why not, if she’d wanted to. But she didn’t. She was either naturally intuitive or extremely polite. In light of the way she’d told off Cameron and then wrinkled her nose at Ryan on the first day they’d met, it was probably the former. Either way, it was impossible not to like her more and more.

“So you said your aunt opened her salon here before you were born.” Forget Afghanistan and every God-damned thing that had happened there. It was stupid to think of that while in the middle of a date with the one woman in the entire city – hell, the entire world – who captured his interest. “Have you always lived in Baltimore?”

She nodded. “My mother was born here too. My father moved here from Mexico when he was a kid. What about you?”

“New York. Grew up in the city. I’ve moved around some since then and wound up here.”

“How do you like it here?”

“I’d rather be here than in New York.”

“I like it here too. But I’m definitely biased.”

When they abandoned giving background information in favor of talking about fighting, it was as if a physical weight slid off Ryan’s shoulders and onto the floor, forgotten. Lost in speculation about the upcoming weeks’ events and reliving the most recent ones, he was mentally suspended in the one subject that distracted him from all others.

All others except for Ally’s beauty, that was. As she told him about how she’d telegraphed a kick during her last Saturday fight and lost the match because of it, he pictured the event as he listened, focusing especially on the way she must’ve looked in a sports bra and shorts.

It sucked that he’d missed it. Really, really sucked.

“I used to have the same problem,” he confessed.

“You telegraphing your kicks? That’s hard to imagine.”

He smiled, unable to ignore a small internal burst of satisfaction. “It was a long time ago.” Back when he’d been about sixteen, to be exact.

“Well if you have any wisdom to impart next time I see you at the gym, feel free to grace me with your expertise.” She grinned as she propped an elbow on the table.

Was it only his imagination that made it feel as if a wave of heat rolled over him as she leaned toward him? Maybe it was the way the position put the lower curves of her breasts level with the tabletop. They rested there, pushed up just enough by the hard surface that the barely-visible buds of her nipples showed against the fabric of her sweater.

“Anytime. And even if Melissa really did straighten out your technique, I won’t mind watching you throw a few kicks to verify.”

He’d seen her practicing her kicks with her friend at the gym that day. He’d watched her then, too. Unfortunately, the sports bra she’d worn then had been made of much sturdier stuff than whatever she had on beneath her sweater now. What
did
she have on under there?

Something thin, that was for sure, and maybe lacy…

“I’m sure you wouldn’t.” She hid a small smile with the rim of her wine glass, sipping the Chianti Riserva.