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Rumors were like assholes, and just as shitty. I’d long ago stopped listening to them. I’d even quit watching tape before fights. Why psych myself out? Yeah, I was cocky, but I also knew what a fighter did last night didn’t necessarily have a thing to do with what he’d do when he met me in the ring.
Maybe I just had a death wish.
I pulled up the hood of my sweatshirt—damn, I missed my jacket—and put my head down against the relentless wind. Vinnie’s was another six blocks away, but determination would keep me warm. Long shot or not, I had to hope I could get Mia’s address out of someone who worked at the bar. What other choice did I have? Asking every guy at the gym if he remembered seeing a pretty brunette with a face full of bruises at a match?
For all I knew, she’d never even been to a fight. Maybe her neighbor bet on them and talked too much. Or her boyfriend. Could even be the one with the ready fists aimed at her face.
Clenching my hands in the pocket of my sweatshirt, I walked faster. I needed to get this handled. I had plenty on my mind already, and loose ends pissed me off.
That jacket would be back in my possession tonight. Mia could count on it.
Chapter Five
Mia
“You sound even more wasted than usual. Were you out partying last night?”
No matter how bleak my world seemed, my baby sister’s bubbly voice always made me feel better. Sometimes I wondered if she was honestly that happy all the time, but we both played the game. She acted cheerful, and I didn’t ask too many questions.
“Partying on a Monday? No way. Some of us work, kid.” Not that I’d been working last night, either at the gym or the bar. But Carly didn’t know I’d been curled up in the fetal position on my couch, sucking on root beer popsicles to soothe my sore lips while I watched grainy tape of one particular fighter’s matches over and over.
The guy whose coat I’d burrowed under last night when I couldn’t get warm.
“You can party any night of the week once you’re old enough. By the way, it’s only a month away now, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re almost eighteen. Like I could ever forget. I hope you don’t think that means you’re getting a license to go buck wild.”
She snorted out a laugh. “With you around? And Aunt Patty?”
We both knew Aunt Patty wasn’t much of a deterrent. I appreciated that she’d taken my sister in when I couldn’t, and she’d taken care of her for the past six and a half years. She’d also taken care of me for almost three. Unfortunately, our aunt considered financial support the extent of her duty toward her dead brother’s children. She’d never been emotionally present for Carly or me.
“Aunt Patty won’t be part of the picture much longer.”
“I know.” Her voice lowered. “Have you figured out where we’re going yet?”
As if I ever thought about anything else. I had a stack of brochures on my coffee table that I’d been collecting for the past couple of years. I’d ordered them from every Chamber of Commerce I could think of, wanting to make sure we considered all viable choices. Obviously money was a factor, but I lived in a crappy place and socked away every penny I could so we’d have as many options as possible. The classes I’d been taking when I could online would eventually allow me to get a job in an interior design place as a trainee. As long as I could find a place that didn’t tie me to a desk all day, I’d be okay. I hated being trapped anywhere for long.
Your fault. You got in that car. No one forced you.
I coiled the cord from the old school phone around my wrist and rested my aching head against the wall. I’d woken up with a headache, and it just wouldn’t go away no matter how many ibuprofens I popped. Thank God the convenience store on the corner was open twenty-four hours, because I’d had to visit in the middle of the night. “I’m working on it. How do you feel about Louisiana? Or…Georgia?”
Carly’s long pause revealed her disappointment. “Aww, Ame.”
Swallowing hard, I shut my eyes. She would never understand why I believed even returning to the place we’d had happy times as a child was better than staying in New York, where all we’d had was pain. Instead I focused on a safer topic. “How’s school?”
“Fine. All Bs as usual.”
“Great job. But why not As?”
“Because I’m not a super nerd like you?”
I sighed. She loved to throw that at me whenever I mentioned school. The irony of our lives was that I’d been the one who’d lived in the library and had only been a cheerleader to show my school spirit, and she was the one who was on varsity for both tennis and swimming and couldn’t fathom why I’d ever started fighting.
Well, besides the money. She understood that part.
But she didn’t get climbing into a cage and facing an opponent who wanted nothing more than to make me bleed. She didn’t understand that I pummeled my self-doubt and loathing every time my fist or my foot connected with a heavy bag or, better yet, flesh.
Then the blissful exhaustion that came after, wiping everything away but the satisfaction of victory. I might not be able to triumph in any other area of my life, but here I could. Here I mattered. In the ring, people knew me as a winner. Not a victim. Not someone to be pitied or feared, in case my bad luck rubbed off.
