“Yes, please,” I say, eyeing Leah from my peripherals as he comes in with his phone. He shares her contact information with me, and I thank him before Dylan heads out of the room, leaving Leah shaking her head.
“You can go to great lengths to deny that I’m right, but that doesn’t change the fact that you know yourself that something is different with you.”
My only response is a terse grunt that makes her chuckle, and we turn our attention back to the laptop. But in the back of my mind, I know she’s right. Damnit.
That doesn’t mean that Veronica and I won’t enjoy a lovely steak dinner, and perhaps Dylan’s cousin will be enough to make me forget the waitress—what’s her name?—for good.
* * *
Meg. Her name is Meg. I haven’t forgotten.
Dinner with Dylan’s cousin did absolutely nothing to make me forget the sexy waitress back at Club Limelight. In fact, now, an hour after I dropped Veronica off, I’m standing in the gym, beating the living fuck out of a hanging sandbag, wondering why I just wasted a couple of hours of my life.
Her voice is still grating on my last nerve as I whale onto the bag, giving it a right hook, a left jab, and another right hook. “So…what do you do for a living, Hunter? I’m a model. People think that modeling is so easy, but it’s not! It’s really, really hard! I have to look good all the time, and even though it’s easy for me, I still have to get up super early to do my hair and makeup!”
She’d gone on and on in a high-pitched, nasally wheeze that made me want to take the chopsticks we were using and cram them through my ears. So much for steak. She’d insisted on Chinese, which was fine, except she didn’t like anything on the menu.
She’d eaten a bowl of rice…
“You seem angry.” I hear a voice over my shoulder and see a guy who hangs around the gym a lot taping up his gloves as he saunters over to me. “Bad night?”
“I guess you could say that,” I reply, letting loose another punch on the bag. I watch it swing for a second and realize I should probably introduce myself. “I’m Hunter.” I can’t shake his hand, but I stick out my right glove, and he pounds it with his.
“Name’s Ryan,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”
He’s a big dude, probably almost seven feet tall, with well-defined muscles, but I’ve seen him in the ring and he’s slow. I think he’s probably in his thirties or forties. Maybe he’s just getting back into boxing after a rest.
“You wanna spar?” he asks me. “I hear you’re pretty tough.”
I didn’t come here looking for an actual match, but I don’t see any reason not to. He might be taller than me, but I’m pretty sure I can take him. “Sure,” I say, and we approach the nearest empty ring.
“This is a nice place,” he tells me as we walk alongside one another. “Way better than the last place I used to practice, though it’s been a while.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty nice,” I say, looking around like I’m not sure, like I don’t own the place. I don’t think he knows I do. I don’t plan on telling him.
The two of us spend quite some time in the ring, boxing, having fun taking shots at one another. He gets me good a couple of times, but for the most part, I dominate the round and even have to pull a few punches to keep from doing some major damage. I’m used to sparring with my bodyguards and bouncers, not just some random Joe, and I feel like this guy isn’t as skilled as most of them are, but it’s still fun, and by the time I look up and realize it’s past midnight, I decide I should probably get back to the club. After all, it’s likely busy, and the fact that I’m not there always makes me nervous.
“That was fun,” Ryan says, his busted lip bleeding a bit as the two of us sit down to take off our gloves and dry off the sweat that trickles down our faces.
“Yeah, it was a good time,” I tell him. I hesitate to ask him if he wants a job at this point because I’m not too sure of his skills, but if he keeps working out here, I think I may be able to bring him on eventually. If he’s trustworthy and not a criminal himself.
“See you around,” he says with a wave, and I wave back before gathering my stuff and walking out to my SUV. I usually take a shower at the gym, but I’ve decided to go ahead and wait until I get home this time.
Home. That’s an interesting thought.
I head back to the club, thinking about what it might be like to actually have a home to go to. I have a room off of my office in the back of the club. I have a garage where I keep my cars. I also have a storage unit where I have a bit of furniture from my last apartment, mostly pieces my mother gifted to me that have been in the family for a while.
But I don’t have a home. I don’t have anything away from the club to call my own, and since I am a prominent businessman in the community, as I pull into my parking spot, I think perhaps I should talk to Leah about getting my own place.
I don’t like to be away from the club—but maybe I should be. Maybe I should start putting some space between Hunter the businessman, Hunter the club owner, Hunter The Fixer, and whoever the fuck is left behind when all of that is stripped away from me.
Stepping into my office, I take a look around. This isn’t my home.
It’s time for me to find my home.
CHAPTER12
MEGHAN