Page 7 of Shallow

“I watchFight Club, old man. ThatKarate Kiddude is a pussy.” The words are barely out before he drives two hard punches into mygut.

I have to get up. Frankie and I are cool, but I also don’t feel like spending the rest of the afternoon getting my face stitched up. Plus, the incessant hollering from the sidelines is getting on mynerves.

Frankie’s fist pulls back for another gut punch when I find my opening and draw my knee in. With a hard heel to his ribcage, I knock him off balance and onto his ass. I daze the kid, but only momentarily. He’s not the one who’s just spent the last thirty seconds having his spleen shoved halfway up hisesophagus.

That shit kind of hurt if I’m beinghonest.

Frankie shakes his shaved head like a charging bull, flinging sweat across the ring. The moment he runs toward me, I counter with a round-house kick to his jaw and…bam.

Lights out,junior.

Not really. Frankie’s just stunned. In seven years of training, I know what hurts, what maims, and what ends lives. No one fucks withme.

“ThatKarate Kiddude caught a fly with a chopstick, you cheesedick.” I lean down and offer him my hand. “That’s some real gangster shit.” After accepting my hand, we lock gazes and something passes betweenus.

It’s called respect. I have it—from Frankie, hell, from all ofthem.

Applause fills the gym as the boys give Frankie grief for losing to me and toss magazines at him as a consolation prize. Eventually the scowl fades from hisface.

“Yeah, sometimes you just gotta let the old fuckers have their moment.” Flashing me a bloody smirk, Frankie holds the ropes open and motions for me to climb out. “Age before beauty,boss.”

Frankie’s a good kid, and maybe I give him special treatment because I see potential in him. It’s one of the reasons I’ve taught him to fight mixed martial arts. I push him on purpose because the kid’s temper goes from zero to blackout in the blink of an eye. The aggression inside him needs anoutlet.

I shouldknow.

I just hate I can’t give the boys a real MMA cage like they’ve seen on TV. That shit’s expensive, so a ring with ropes is the best I can do. But one day I’ll have the realthing.

Oneday.

Tired of the boys treating my community center like a shithole, I grab the magazines and toss them back, hitting Romeo and Tiny in the chest. “Clean this shitup.”

“Boss, have you laid eyes on that?” Tiny, whose nickname is a joke at almost six feet four inches tall and three hundred pounds, picks up one of the magazines and opens it to the middle spread. “Dude, it’s Shiloh West.” He grabs his dick and gives it a tug. “Can’t wait to get a look at her. I’d hit that sohard.”

The magazine is ripped from his hands as Romeo, one-fourth his size and named for his tendency to have a new girl every week, smacks him across the face with it. “What are you gonna do when that fifteen seconds isover?”

I’m quiet as they trade fantasies about what they’d do to the famous model as her half-naked body draws my eyes to the magazine in Romeo’shands.

I listen, and I can feel my blood boil. Not because of what they’re saying. I don’t give a shit what they say about Shiloh West. My stomach churns because even though I hate her, I can’t disagree withthem.

I want Shiloh down on her knees, offering herself to me over and over. I want her screaming my name so loud I go deaf—so loud that she’s hoarse for days from that oneword.

She’ll beg me to fuckher.

Then I’ll tell her to go fuckherself.

Because Shiloh West, international model and every man’s wet dream, ruined my goddamnlife.

* * *

Eight Years Ago

December

“Carrick!Oh my gosh, it’shere!”

Ringing out the mop, I glance down at my mother from the second-floor walkway. She’s waving a white envelope in her hand and with every step she rushes up, my hold on the plastic handletightens.

“Not now,” I mutter, slathering the wet mop inside room 246. “It’s almost check-in time and I still have to finish the floors and sanitize theroom.”