Uncaged Love: Volume 6 (Uncaged Love #6) (3 page)

“I’m sure you’ll know the perfect thing.”

Pete pulls away from the entrance of the building and out into traffic.

“Your sundress is lovely,” Eve says. “We’ll have to go to a girly restaurant after, since we don’t have the brutes with us.”

“That sounds fine,” I say. I feel calmer just sitting with her. Eve always has that effect on people.

We visit a fancy flower shop and pick out candles, dried flowers, and shells to be part of the centerpieces that will be shipped to Hawaii. They look a lot like the dried lei I received from my mother when I first met all her family. I was eager to get back to Oahu to get to know my teenage brother better. And see what sort of relationship I could patch together with a mother who left me in the hospital the day I was born.

We’re seated at a quiet little cafe with white linens and a vase of pink roses on every table when Eve folds her hands together on the table. I can see her grip is tight enough to make her knuckles white. This is big.

Immediately I go on guard. Nothing ruffles this woman, yet whatever she has to say is seriously getting to her.

Her voice is hesitant. “Jo, I’m not sure you’re aware of what’s happened since your interview with that awful woman last night.”

I glance at my boob as if my cell phone can spill the information through my dress top.

I have to work hard to avoid letting my voice quiver when I say, “She seemed to think I was single-handedly destroying the feminist movement.”

“You’re being targeted in a campaign with an agenda,” Eve says. “They are using all the footage they can find of the wedding plans, anything Colt has said.” She pauses. “It’s disgraceful, really, how these people take things out of context to further their own causes.”

My mouth goes dry. I can’t get things right even when I’m not trying to do anything at all. “What should I do?” I ask. “Give an interview?”

I’d rather die, really, but Eve is obviously upset.

“Oh, no, we’re not going to give any of them the satisfaction.” She smiles kindly at a waiter, who sets down a tray of crackers covered in God-knows-what. Bits of cheese and seeds and green things I don’t recognize. Eve always eats like this.

I just sip the tea that’s gone cold and wait for her to tell me what I am going to do.

“Colt’s father and I discussed it, and he actually had a good suggestion.”

I want to groan. I never like what The Cure has to say.

“We think it might be delightful for you to go on ahead to Hawaii now instead of later. You can reconnect with your family there and oversee your brother’s progress. He’s training full-time now, and I hear he’s coming along quite well.”

This makes me relax. My brother Hudson is training to be a boxer. He wants to be just like The Cure. I’m hoping he only gets the punching part right. The rest of The Cure is not an act to follow. “I can do that,” I say. “But I’ll miss Colt’s challenge match. And training my girls.”

Eve waves her hand. “The match for Colt is nothing, and it was only some backroom deals that got him in the cage with this guy. He’ll beat this little upstart inside a single round.”

She is probably right on that. There isn’t anyone on the horizon who can beat Colt, although there is some real talent low on the circuit, working their way up.

“But Sammy. She has one more match before the wedding.”

“Did you already arrange for someone to take over while you’re on your honeymoon?” Eve asks.

“Well, sure. Killjoy was going to handle her,” I say.

“Then he can just start early,” Eve says. “Easy enough.”

“Does Colt know you are suggesting this?” I ask. I can’t imagine Colt knew his parents were pushing me out of LA and didn’t tell me.

“He won’t want you to leave, of course,” Eve says. “But if you’re happy with the idea, he will agree. We came to you first.”

“Won’t there be reporters in Honolulu?”

“Nothing like here. You saw how isolated we were during Colt’s recovery.” Eve picks up one of the cracker concoctions and peers at it. “We’ve arranged for a house for you near the gym. If you need a car, we’ll get one for you. I imagine you’ll be spending a lot of time with your family.”

I do want that. Arriving just a week before the wedding, which was the old plan, seemed sort of stressful. Now I can take my time.

“Okay,” I say. “When do you think I should leave?”

She relaxes, relieved I have agreed without a fuss. “We have a private plane on standby whenever you want it. Tonight, or in the morning perhaps.”

I hold on to my teacup with an iron grip. “Okay. I’ll talk to Colt.”

“I’m so glad you are going,” Eve says. “I hate that those reporters were going to make such a mess of your last weeks before the wedding. It’s such a special time.”

The waiter brings more tea, and Eve is generous enough to keep a light conversation going without me, as if she knows I have a lot to think about now.

Chapter Four

The next morning, Colt drives me out to the private airport on his Harley. My bags were sent ahead with the driver, but he wanted to see me off himself.

I hold on to him, firm and sure, glad we get to be so close for these last moments together. The city whizzes by, but I barely notice, feeling his muscles shift and move with the turns of the motorcycle.

We pull into the airstrip and park by the plane, which has a steep staircase leading down to the tarmac.

Colt kills the motor, but doesn’t move. Neither do I. Suddenly it seems like a bad idea to go.

I press my cheek against his back and squeeze him more tightly. He holds on to my arms, and I can feel him sigh.

Finally, I swing my leg over and pull away. The pilot comes up to shake Colt’s hand. “Always a pleasure to see the champ,” he says.

I can tell Colt still thinks those words should be about his dad. He can’t get used to them being about him. “Take care of my girl,” he says, and grabs my hand.

“You know I will.” The pilot turns to me. “You can come up when you’re ready.”

Colt pulls me against his chest. “I’ll fly down after the match. I won’t go a whole month without you.”

I look up at him. There’s no dimples today. His face is all serious. “I’m sorry I didn’t handle that reporter well,” I say, as if I’m being sent away for being naughty.

“It wasn’t your fault. They had the whole thing planned from the beginning. You didn’t even say anything.”

“But I should have. I don’t know. I should have fixed it.”

He kisses the top of my head. “There’s nothing to fix. When people decide to tear you down, they’ll just do what they have to do. It won’t matter in the end. I know who you are.”

But he took me to my apartment. He was thinking the same thing as everybody else.
Why won’t she fight?

“I’ll train with Hudson,” I say. “Who knows, maybe I’ll cut down every female fighter in the Pacific before you get there.”

“That’s my Jo,” he says. “I love it when you talk trash.”

He brushes his lips against mine, gently, with tenderness. The engine starts up on the plane, and I know I have to get up there or mess up their flight schedule. “I love you, Gunner,” I say to him.

“I love you right back, Hurricane,” he says.

I try not to wince at my old fight name. “Talk to you after the puddle jump.”

He pulls away, and I run to the base of the steps, turning to wave before I climb up.

Once I’m inside the cabin, I feel despondency creep over me. I’ll have to make do without him. But he’ll visit, like he said. And I’ll have Hudson and my mother and all those crazy aunts and uncles, and my grandfather and Tutu.

I’m completely alone in the cabin with the chairs that rotate and the built-in sofa Colt was strapped to when we took him to Hawaii for rehab. I buckle myself into the same chair I sat in before, as if I shouldn’t take The Cure’s or Eve’s seats even in their absence.

The pilot tells me we’re about to take off. A young man in a white shirt and black vest comes out to ask if I’m hungry. I tell him not now and he disappears to wherever he came from.

We taxi down the runway, and it feels so strange to be here, alone in this fancy plane. My life could not be any more different from a year ago.

I stare at the diamond on my hand. After wearing it two days straight, it no longer feels heavy and strange. I worry I should have a safe or something for it since I won’t wear it to the gym.

I pull my knees up and rest my chin on them. I should have brought something to do, MMA magazines, anything. But I’m alone with my thoughts and worries and fears. I should have asked Zero to come.

I pull my phone out, then laugh. I’m way in the air. Colt and I have refused to get satellite connections, so we have times when no one can reach us. Today I’m regretting it.

I scroll through pictures of me, Colt, the girls I train, the gym, Colt’s matches, and Zero. I go all the way back to when I got the phone, through my past, and pause on the pictures from the last time I was in Hawaii.

My brother Hudson was lanky and goofy looking, standing outside the gym. There are pictures of the beach, including the spot where we’re having the ceremony, near a pavilion where I first met my mother’s family.

I haven’t talked to her much since I was there last, almost a year ago. Just a few phone calls, and a couple emails. It’s still hard to have a relationship with her. I understand now why she left me as a baby, but I don’t agree with her decision. It didn’t have to be that way.

I pull up a shot of her, laughing with Tutu, her mother. I cock my head, trying to see anything of myself in the two women. Colt was the one who first noticed my resemblance to my mother, Marianna. It’s in her chin, the angle of her neck, and her slight build. I’m sure Tutu, when she was younger, looked the same.

The pilot comes on. “Just twenty minutes to touch down in Honolulu. You can see the islands if you look out now.”

I swivel in my seat. At first all I see are clouds, but then we break through and the water sparkles pale blue as far as you can see, right to the fuzzy bend of the horizon. Then we turn and I see them, the islands, some green, others a grayish brown.

Colt used the island as the training ground for his incredible comeback.

Maybe, just maybe, I can too.

Chapter Five

Hudson arrives within an hour of the taxi dropping me off at a small one-bedroom house in the middle of a nondescript working-class Honolulu neighborhood. I’m surrounded by my suitcases as well as boxes Colt’s mother sent with me of things for the wedding: candles and crystal and silver cardholders for the tables.

“This place is awesome!” Hudson says, looking around at the bright red furniture and hanging plants in every corner. “I got here in like ninety seconds!”

He motions me out onto the porch and points through the trees across the street. “Just cut through there and BOOM, you’re right at the back side of the gym.”

“Wow,” I say. “That
is
close.”

He goes inside and flops down on the sofa. He’s changed incredibly in the year since I was here. He’s not scrawny and awkward anymore. His arms are muscled and his face scruffy with facial hair. He’s starting to look like a fighter, although still on the light side. He’d be classed as bantamweight now, I’d guess. A good deal up from strawweight.

“So can you keep a secret?” he asks.

I sit in an armchair, trying to adjust to this strange family moment we’re having. I grew up with only a stepbrother I feared and a stepmother I despised. I haven’t seen Hudson in a year, and yet, here he is, acting like we’ve known each other all our lives, and not just for a few weeks when I was last in Hawaii.

“I think I’m pretty good at those,” I say.

He sits up. “Good, because I’m doing a boxing match on the down low in two days.”

I lean forward. “Why is it a secret?”

“Akoni says I’m not ready for a bout.” He smacks his fists together. “I think I am.”

Whew. Dilemma. I have a feeling his trainer has reasons for saying that. “Did Akoni tell you why?”

Hudson’s brows furrow. “Get this. He says I don’t have enough experience. How am I supposed to get experience to do a fight if I don’t do a fight to get experience?”

“I see what you’re saying,” I tell him. And I do. But I also know what Akoni means. That Hudson isn’t showing fight maturity. Until you’re in it, you don’t know what it’s like to have someone trying to bring you down. You need some hard sparring rounds to get comfortable with it. To know how you’re going to react to real blows, real attacks.

But I’m not sure I am the one to say that. I’m his sister, not his coach.

“You want me to come?” I ask him.

“Heck, yeah!” he says. He throws some air punches. “I need a witness to my domination.”

I know I should be giving him some good fighter advice, and probably discouraging him from going in the ring before he’s ready.

But I can see he’s not going to back down from this match. All my negativity will do is get me uninvited. And he’s going to need someone to pick him up if his opponent is more experienced than him.

“So tell me about the guy you’re going to pummel,” I say.

He stands up then, his feet shifting, his fists hammering air. “He’s done a couple fights. Nothing big. He’s a weight class below me, so I figure it evens out.”

“Sounds like you’ve thought this through,” I say.

He stops punching. “I’m not crazy. I’m not going to jump in the ring with some heavyweight all-star. I don’t want to ruin my pretty face for your wedding pictures.” He steps closer to me and punches the air around my chair.

I shake my head. I think I adore this kid. He might look grown, but inside, I can see he’s still young.

I hardly know him, but I see so much of myself in him. It’s obvious we have the same wild, impulsive mother.

I wonder how much he knows about his dad. The one time my mother and I talked about it, she said she had to give Hudson to her family to escape the “monster.” I have a feeling he’s not a nice guy.

I was lucky. I knew my father for eight amazing years. I push it from my thoughts, though, or I’ll get bogged down in regret that he won’t be here to see me get married. I feel like my life has just now gotten back on track after a decade of being a disaster.