Page 3

CHAPTER 3

AJ

This was going to be harder than I’d thought.

My mind was on the edge of blackness when I finally walked over to the mirrors in the club’s restroom. I turned on the water and stared at the stream, my mind filled with thoughts of Rosalie Wells.

The way she’d tasted, the way she’d smelled, the way her voice had spoken my name as a whimper when I kissed her. Nothing had changed, but everything had changed. The way her hair had grown out past her shoulders again, the amount of makeup on her face, the way she dressed, the way her eyes had flashed with fear when he shouted for her.

“Dammit,” I growled as I kept thinking about her pulling out of my arms, walking away and out the door.

Was she letting him put his hands on her body right now? Was she letting him kiss her? I hoped he could fucking smell my cologne all over her, that piece of shit.

At that thought, everything went dark, and before I knew it, I felt the give of something cold break under my bare fist. My breath fast and heavy, I looked up and saw the shattered mirror in front of me. I pulled my hand back and checked. There was blood on my knuckles, where the skin had split against the sharp edges of the mirror. I grabbed some paper towels and wrapped it around my fist. It would have to do. I shoved my hand into my hoodie pocket and stalked out the door before someone else came in and made this a bigger headache than it already was.

When I had come back and Billy told me the rumors about Rosalie—about MY girl—being with some loser who got her mixed up in some seriously fucked-up situations, I knew it might be harder to get her back. Not because I wasn’t confident that there was something still between us. That was obvious after what had just happened in the restroom. But she’d still chosen to go with him, so he had some sort of hold over her.

I clenched my jaw as I walked back over to the VIP couch, where Billy was sprawled out, his eyes trailing over the bodies of the women draped on either side of him. He nodded at me.

“Yo, what’s up, AJ?” he asked as he lowered his shades a bit to look over the top of them.

“I’m gonna bounce.”

His eyebrows rose a bit. “Already? Did you catch up with your girl?”

I nodded as I clenched my fists in my pocket. “Yeah, but I’m still gonna head out. Catch you later.”

“You sure? Party’s just gettin’ started, and there are plenty of gorgeous women to go around if you got dumped.”

My eyebrow twitched, and Billy lifted his palms in a shrug.

“Easy, man. I was just fuckin’ with ya. It was just an offer. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Striding through the club, I turned and shoulder-checked some guy standing in my way by the exit. I wished he had said some shit. I would have loved to blow off the steam by beating his face in. But instead, I just walked back to the motel I was staying at. It was enough time in the cool night air to calm me down a little. But I still couldn’t stop thinking about Rosalie and how it’d felt to hold her in my arms again.

I strode past the front-desk window, and the old man did a double take as I passed by.

“Well, I’ll be damned. She was right. You came back.” He got up from his chair and walked to the key rings, grabbing a deep blue motel key chain with the number ten on it. “She had us put on a new door and locks. Said she didn’t want anyone to mess with your stuff.”

He slid it under the opening of the window, and I grabbed it.

“She?” I asked, even though I already knew who had done this.

“Miss Wells. She paid for a year and then just renewed the lease recently for another one. You’re all good to go up.”

I made my way through the parking lot and up the rusted stairwell to the second floor of the motel. Room 10 was a corner room, one of the larger spaces. I shoved the key into the lock and twisted it. I pushed the door open and walked inside.

It was like time froze here. Everything was exactly where I had left it, including the punching bag hanging in the corner. The only thing that was different was, it didn’t smell like sweat, dust, and my cologne anymore. Instead, it smelled like sunflowers and strawberries. It smelled like Rosalie.

Nothing was dirty. The bedding and towels had been freshly washed recently. Even the few clothes I had left behind were now clean and folded in the drawers.

I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off my shoes, my mind filled with thoughts of her. As much as she had tried to act like she didn’t want to be with me after he interrupted us, this motel room told an entirely different story.

Waking up in my old room at this run-down motel was a surreal feeling after being away for so long.

Hearing the sounds of LA traffic and the loud voice of a Hispanic woman renting a room below me was a lot different from the area of Tokyo I had lived in.

As much as a good place that had been to live, nothing beats LA. The moment my feet had touched the warm sidewalk and I smelled the fresh ocean air after I got off my flight, I knew I was finally home. Nothing would pull me away from this place again.

I knew what I couldn’t live without now. My home and my girl. And I was going to get both of them back and never let someone try to take them away from me again.

But first things first. I couldn’t do much without getting my shit together. Gotta get my cash flow going again and needed to get my car from Rosalie at some point.

I put on my joggers and Air Force 1s, then threw my sleeveless hoodie over my head. Shoved my mask and brass knuckles into my pockets before grabbing my black ball cap, and headed out the door.

I made my way through the back alleyways to Pops’s chop shop. Besides some new street art, not much had changed here since I’d left. There were still the same street gangs with the same beef with each other. The same homeless bums loitering on the edge of the parking lots. And the trap girls on the corners with their pimps watching close by.

When most people mentioned LA, they talked about Hollywood and movie stars, big amusement parks, million-dollar mansions, and sunny beaches. But those weren’t the parts of LA that I loved. My roots were in the ghetto parts of this city, the parts full of different people from different situations, where you hustled for what you got. This was the part that gave LA its heartbeat.

I dapped up one guy I’d seen at the fight club as I passed him at the end of the alleyway to Pops’s. He was surprised to see me back and said he hoped I wasn’t going to join the next circuit or he was going to have zero chance of winning the championship for sure.

I smirked in reply before continuing on to the shop. When I got there, the shop door was rolled up, and 2Pac’s “Thugs Get Lonely Too” was playing loudly on his radio. Pops always did love his classic artists, which was just another reason we got along so well.

“Hey, Pops!” I called back into the garage.

I heard a grunt and the sound of a ratchet turning before he gruffly shouted back, “Be right with ya!” Then, he yelled out to someone else, “BOY! Get over here and finish taking this part off for me.”

I saw the teenager, who Pops had taken under his wing, jog over and slide under the belly of the car on jacks. A few moments later, Pops got up and walked around the hood of the old Chevy Impala he had been parting out. He wiped his hands on an old, stained rag, trying to get the grease off them.

“Well, fuck me. There’s a face I didn’t think I’d see again.”

I smirked at him before extending my hand, which he gripped hard and shook. “You should know I’d never leave LA for good, old man.”

He looked me up and down. Pops wasn’t overly sentimental, but I could see he wasn’t as stoic about me coming back as he was trying to let on. My old man never gave a shit about me, and Pops had lost his only son when he was seventeen, so I was the closest thing he had to family.

He cleared his throat. “New ink and some new muscle. Good to see you didn’t slack off wherever you’d fucked off to. What brings you around here? Looking to get back into business?”

He jerked his head toward the Impala, and I knew he meant boosting cars to sell to him for parts.

“Yeah. Got anything you're looking to pay top dollar for? Or is it just anything that runs?” I asked as I leaned against the garage wall.

“Anything muscle before 1995 or newer sports cars are what’s hot on the parts market right now. Course, I’ll pay a fair price on anything else you bring.”

I nodded. I could score some of those easily enough, especially the muscle. Would have to hit up some car meets to source the sports cars. Good thing I knew exactly who to visit to get that info.

“All right, get a space cleared, and I’ll have something to fill it by the end of the week,” I said as I pushed off the wall.

Pops nodded. “We’ll be ready for you.” He paused before clapping me hard on the arm. “Glad to have you home, AJ.”

With that, we parted. We both had work to do, and now that I had one of my old income sources going, I needed to get my other one back as well.

Time to find T.

I went back to the end of the alleyway and asked the other fighter where T had been held up this season so far. He said I could find him chilling at some beachfront house in Santa Monica.

That works for me. He’s less than three miles from the gym I worked out at on Venice Beach.

A decent jog later, I slowed to a walk as I entered the driveway of a house where T’s lowrider convertible was parked. There was no mistaking his car with its bold paint color and detailed livery, white zebra-stripe interior, and a bobblehead of Mr. T on his dash. As I walked to a gate, I could hear hip-hop music coming from the balcony out back. I tugged on the gate. It was locked. So, naturally, I hopped the fence and made my way to the back.

When I rounded the corner, I wasn’t surprised by the scene that unfolded before me. I saw a wild beach party in front of my eyes. People playing volleyball, and babes sunbathing in the smallest bikinis they could get away with in public. On the patio, fur-covered furniture was littered around a pool, which was also full of gorgeous-ass women on inflatable tubes or swimming while holding drinks. A DJ played music over large speakers near me, so I walked over to it, grabbed the extension cord, and pulled it out of the socket.

Instant silence filled the space. Everyone stopped talking to look around at why the music had been cut off.

“Who the FUCK killed my vibes?!”

I would know T’s booming voice anywhere. The man didn’t even need a mic for announcing things during fight nights. His voice naturally carried.

“I did. What are you gonna do about it, T?” I stepped out in front of the DJ booth and crossed my arms over my chest, smirking at him.

“Well, fuck my eyes. I think I see a muthafuckin’ ghost!” T pushed his way through a group of girls standing between us and came over.

I stood stiffly as he embraced me in a quick, firm hug before he took a step backward.

“Goddamn! Where you been, brother? We gotta celebrate!” He turned his head toward a girl to the right of us. “You! Yes, you, bitch, with the bright-ass yellow bikini, lookin’ like Big Bird-havin’ ass. Get my champion a beer! And, DJ? Spin that shit!”

I followed T over to a large couch, full of more beautiful women. He shooed a couple of girls off the couch close to where he sat between his main two girls and gestured for me to sit in the space they’d created. No sooner did my ass touch the seat than a beer was placed in my hand and some girls rubbed up on me. They draped their arms over my shoulders and down my chest as I leaned back and relaxed.

I took a drink as T wrapped his arms around the women on either side of him, his smile a mile wide.

“So, I’m guessing this isn’t jus’ a house call?”

I nodded. “Much fun as your scene always is, T, I’m looking to fight. Need some money coming in again now that I’m back.”

“Hold up, so you're back for good? No more dipping out after you take all the glory?” He leaned forward to let one of his girls place a blunt in his lips and lit it.

“Yeah. So, put me in the ring.” I knew the fighters were partly through the summer circuit, so the odds of me joining in were slim, but I had to try.

“AJ, my man, you’re basically my brotha from anotha motha, but I can’t do that. Dem’s the rules. But… how would you feel ’bout doing some special fight nights? Call them spin-offs.” T took a long drag from the blunt before slowly blowing the smoke out.

I drank my beer as I considered his offer. By the look on his face, it seemed like he had some stuff ready for my return.

“As long as they are legit fights and the take-home is good, I’m in.”

Fuck it. I needed the cash, and kicking ass would be a good way to make it while getting out my frustrations about my situation with Rosalie.

“Yeah, yeah. I already have a few people in mind for these fights. Gonna pull in a real crowd—that’s fo’ sho. Oh, by the way, ran into your girl a while back. Could have left her to me if you didn’t want her no more. Fuck, she’s tight.”

You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. What the hell was Rosalie doing, hanging around T by herself?

I knew she probably thought it was okay and safe since T and I were cool, but this man ran around with the same crowd that Jabari had been in, and the last time she was around the fight club, she was?—

Nah, I couldn’t keep thinking about that. It was going to tear me apart if I kept beating myself up for not making sure she had been safe that night. I couldn’t change the past, but I could right those wrongs from my actions, going forward. Starting now.

I stood up and stepped in front of T. Grabbing the blunt from his mouth, I tossed it on the ground and stomped it out without breaking eye contact with him. His smile disappeared as he looked at me from over his shades. All the girls on the couch and in the pool next to us turned their attention to us and stopped chatting. The air was full of tension as I flexed the muscles in my arms, tucking my fists back in my hoodie pocket.

“Don’t you ever talk about Rosalie like that again. Keep your eyes and hands to yourself if you value them, T. I’m not fucking with you.”

Our staring match continued, and then T chuckled. When it turned into a full-blown laugh, the surrounding girls started to relax again.

“Shit, man. First, you dumped the bitch, and now, you’re here, pissing all over her like you didn’t ditch her first. I ain’t gonna touch her, but I don’t think she’s your woman no more. Last I heard, she’s been riding with some club from Morrow Bay. Your rich girl likes to live life on the edge, huh? Now, how about you fuck off before one of us does something he regrets over a piece of pussy, hmm?” T reclined in his seat again, and another blunt was promptly placed between his lips and lit.

I gripped my fists tighter. God, I could just knock that smug look off his face after he said all that. But I didn’t because there was some truth to his words.

I had left Rosalie. I hadn’t planned on coming back. Then, one day, I unblocked her number in a moment of weakness and saw the messages flood in, each one sounding like she was giving up more and more. The bright and beautiful girl I loved was nothing more than a broken shadow in her last desperate message to me. So, I’d packed up everything in Japan and taken the first flight back to LA.

I took a step backward, and as I turned to leave, I said over my shoulder, “T, you got my number. Text me when the first fight is.”

A wave of his hand was the only reply I needed. He had gotten the point. Now, it was time I got to work on winning my girl back.