Chapter 21

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

RUST

"It's the girl," Marquis says after the training session once Brad and the other fighters have left. It's just Marquis and me in his office. He stands, his hands resting on the desk, staring at me, angrier than I've ever seen him. He's actually shaking. "Tell me I'm wrong. Bradley, your best friend, yes? But I see you and her looking at each other and feel it in the air—yes, the tension only a butter knife could slice. I see it, but he can't. He can't think of it. You're oh-so-tough with Cain Cruz, so angry . Tell me, then."

"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about," I roar, and Marquis steps back, his hands raised, looking so shocked I almost laugh, but it's not funny. It's just sad.

"What's happened to you? Where is all this rage? "

"You're pissed, too, Marquis," I snap.

"Yes, but I am always pissed. That is usual for me. You are ice, No Rust. A monk."

"Yeah, well…" I sit down and bury my head in my hands. "Maybe she's changed me."

"Maybe Mary has changed you?" Marquis says, sitting opposite me.

I lean back, knowing I shouldn't tell him, but keeping a lie inside feels wrong. It feels twisted. "Yes," I say, releasing a shaky breath, almost a month's worth of tension. "It was…"

"The trip," Marquis says. "Something happened. I knew it."

"I didn't plan for it," I say. "I just… Hell, when I'm around her, I can't think."

"Brad is your best friend."

"I know. There's no excuse—none. I want to tell him, but Mary doesn't want me to. I don't know what to do for the first time in my goddamn life. I've always had something to aim at—a plan. Here, everything ends in disaster."

"Can't you end this fling?"

"It's not a fling," I growl, feeling that intense protective feeling again over a relationship that shouldn't exist. "It's more than that. Much more. She's pregnant."

Marquis' mouth actually falls open. Of all his theatrics, I don't think I've ever seen this one before. He gapes at me like my brain has just fallen from my skull. "You didn't use protection? "

"I wasn't thinking," I say. "Hell, it was my first time."

"Your first… I do not understand. For sex?"

I nod, gritting my teeth, waiting for him to comment, but he looks more curious than amused. Then he waves a hand like it doesn't matter, which is good. I don't want to talk about how my childhood ruined sex for me, the connection it had with what those losers did to my mother. It's only been with my Mary that I can forget it. With her, nothing else exists, just the moment, just the steam.

"Does she have plans for the baby?"

A smile touches my lips when I think about the hotel room, spinning her around. For those precious moments, everything made sense. I didn't have to wonder or second guess. Everything just was . "She's keeping it. We're going to raise the kid together."

"How?" he asks.

I shift in my seat. "I haven't figured that out yet or any of it."

"How old is she? Twenty?"

"Eighteen."

" Eighteen , Rust."

"I know," I snap. "It's young, damn young. I didn't choose to feel this way about her. It's not her age. Hell, I know how that sounds, but it's not. It's her . I'd find her wrinkles beautiful if she were a wrinkled old woman. Her youth is beautiful because she's the one wearing it. Just like her curves. Just like her everything."

Marquis gives me another who-are-you stare. "You are getting emotional."

"Maybe I am," I snap. "Maybe I can't help it with her."

He waves his hands, snaps his fingers, and then stands up.

"What was that?" I say, laughing.

"That was me forgetting all of this. That was me erasing it from my mind. This is what I need from you, plain and simple. Whatever you gave me during yesterday's practice."

"I was angry," I growl. "It's weird, but thinking about the baby gives me a purpose. If I think about fighting for Mary and my kid, the emotion may work in my favor. This is all new to me."

"I want that Rust," he says. "Everything else can wait. The fight is six short weeks away. The baby can wait. Your lady can wait. Just give me the killer I know you can be."

"You got it, coach," I say, hoping I can do it, but he said something wrong. He said my lady can wait. She can't, and I can't wait for her either.