Crash Read online

  Taking a deep breath, I left the books behind and walked into the gym, watching Ash beat the punching bag that hung from the roof. He had so much energy that most times he had trouble burning it off.

  “Sup?” he called, catching sight of me.

  Swallowing my fear, I said, “I’ll take it.”

  “Huh?” He leaned forward, placing a hand behind his ear and pretended he couldn’t hear.

  Taking a few steps into the gym, I repeated myself, knowing he was taking the piss. “I’ll take the job.”

  He bounded across the mat and scooped me up in his arms, squishing me against his sweaty chest. Ash was the only guy I’d let touch me and the only one I trusted, so I didn’t flinch when he pinned me against him.

  “Gross,” I complained. “You stink.”

  “I’m so fuckin’ stoked,” he exclaimed, setting me down. “You won’t regret it.”

  I squirmed out of his grasp. “You better pay me.”

  He ruffled my hair, the biggest grin on his face. “Best paid admin assistant out there.”

  Two

  Lincoln

  Staring off into space, the words that sealed my fate for the next six months repeated themselves in my head like a broken record.

  Shoulder injury. Sidelined. No training. No fighting for at least six months.

  Doctor’s bloody orders.

  I sat in my car in the underground carpark at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and thumped my fists against the steering wheel. I’d felt the tear, I fucking felt it, and I kept fighting when I should’ve called time. I made the whole thing worse.

  I guess that’s why Josie insisted I come back to Melbourne to get my follow-up scans. She’d been in cahoots with the AUFC doctors and knew I’d be out for a few months at least. This way I would be at home and not in Sydney, moping like a big fucking baby. Some PR manager, she was now acting like my mum.

  My phone pinged with a text and I picked it up, glancing at the screen.

  Dean: Call me when you get the deets, bro.

  Dean was my identical twin. We were both tall with dirty brown hair, green eyes and hard jawlines, but there were slight differences that set us apart. I had a dimple whereas Dean didn’t, but temperament was the big difference. Dean was hotheaded and a fucking smart–ass, and I was often told I was the more sensible twin. Calm and collected. I thought about shit before I did it, whereas Dean just dove straight in and messed it up. Guess who the cleaner was. From childhood until now, nothing had changed.

  Unlocking the screen on my phone, I called my brother, knowing that he’d want to know what the quacks said. We’d been inseparable in everything, even fighting and our pro careers, up until now. He was back in Sydney with Coach Miller and Josie, still on course for the season…and I was rotting here in Melbourne, away from all the action. It fucking burned.

  He answered the call immediately.

  “What’d the Doc say?” he asked without saying hello.

  “Six months.”

  “Ouch.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, bro.”

  “Anytime.” I wanted to punch the fucker already. “Listen,” he went on, “they know their shit. If they say six months, then that’s how long it will take to get back into the cage. You wanna be at one hundred percent.”

  “Six months is a long fucking time,” I replied sulkily.

  “Yeah, but if you come back too early and fuck your shoulder right up…”

  “Fair enough, whatever, but what am I going to do?” Fighting was everything. I wasn’t good at anything else. Actually, I wasn’t so sure about that last bit since I hadn’t needed to try any other career. I’d been training for this since I was fourteen, and at twenty-four, ten years of my fucking life was a lot of turn my back on. I wasn’t about to do anything stupid.

  “Did you talk to Coach about Beat?”

  “Coach doesn’t need anyone,” I replied. “He said he had it sorted and to rest. I’m too wound up to rest.” The doctors said I could do some cardio but no weights or fighting. That equaled no punching bags or sparring. Running and cycling were pretty much it until their say so.

  “Man, dare I suggest it?”

  I narrowed my eyes, knowing exactly what my brother was getting at.

  “You can always go and check out Ash’s new place,” Dean went on when he didn’t get a bite. “See what all the fuss is about.”

  Ever since he’d opened the place, Ash had been big news in the fighting circuit. He’d declined an attractive contract in the league to branch out and do his own thing. Considering the fanfare that signaled his departure all those years ago, getting back in from a ban was a hot topic. His declining, along with his girl and my mate Ren, had only sent everyone into a tailspin. A lot of people thought he was brave, but more than that, they thought he was an arrogant tosser. It was all over the AUFC websites, the newspaper, all of it. Everyone was expecting his venture at Pulse to fail.

  “I guess,” I replied.

  “I know it’s an ass, being out for so long, but—”

  “Yeah, I know,” I interrupted. I just didn’t like the fact my identical twin was still out there competing without me. He’d leave me behind, that’s what I was worried about the most. “I’ve got nothing to lose, I guess.”

  “That’a boy!” Dean exclaimed. “Scope it out for us.”

  “Right.”

  “Follow the Doc’s orders, too,” he reminded me. “You’ll be back in no time. Listen, I’ve gotta go, but text me.”

  I sighed. “Later.”

  “Later, bro.”

  The line disconnected, and I tossed my phone into the center console. Check out Pulse, huh? I supposed I didn’t have much to lose other than some time. Ash and I had always gotten along better than he did with Dean. I hadn’t exactly been best mates with the guy, but after everything he’d done for Ren with that douche, Hammer, from The Underground, it had me thinking twice. Especially when I found out what the guy had done for his little sister, Violet.

  At the thought of the youngest Fuller, I felt my skin prickle.

  It’d been years since I’d seen Violet, but it didn’t mean that I hadn’t stopped thinking about her. It was a missed connection, a chance I never took and lost out. I guess I regretted being a pansy ass fuckwit and not asking her out when I had the opportunity. There hadn’t really been anyone else since—or ever. A few girls, a whole lot of one-nighters. Nothing solid. There weren’t that many women out there who got the kind of schedule I had to keep. Violet would get it. Her brother was a fighter, an unconventional one but a fighter nonetheless.

  I seriously doubted that she’d be at Pulse, but I remembered seeing her fleetingly over a year ago when she came to see Ren at Beat. Nothing had changed, except she looked frightened. I always remembered her as this feisty, hot as fuck girl who could hold her own in the world of male dominated MMA. Now that I knew what had happened to make her disappear, I couldn’t blame her for leaving fighting behind.

  Gunning the engine, I checked for cars behind me and reversed out of the car park, fishing for the ticket to get me out of the gate. I guess I was going to Pulse. It wasn’t like I had anywhere else to be.

  **

  It wasn’t that much of a stretch to get from North Melbourne to Abbotsford, but the traffic was killer. Circling around the block, I got a glimpse of the exterior of Pulse as I coasted looking for a park. It looked like it had been a factory or warehouse at some stage, and the brickwork had been sandblasted and rendered, making it look brand fuckin’ new. A set of tinted glass doors sat at the entrance that was bookended with large box hedges. To top it all off, there was a huge sign painted across the facade that read ‘Pulse Fitness’. The logo was of a chick with boxing gloves on, and I wondered if Ash had gone as far as to use Ren as a model. Probably did.

  Turning the car down a side street, I found a space, parked, slid out and chucked a few coins into the meter. As I walked down the footpath toward Pulse, I wondered what A
sh would say when he saw me. I knew Ren would be supportive if I ran into her, but her boyfriend was another thing entirely. Fighters got injured all the time, it was part of the gig. Pro athletes had to train and work a million fucking times harder than guys who just did it for kicks, so shit was going to happen. I just didn’t want to let the Golden Boy himself rub it in as well. My pride was shot enough as it was.

  Ash Fuller had been the bane of Dean and mine’s existence ever since we first set foot inside Beat as kids. He was one of those guys who was just good without even trying all that hard. We had to work for it, and having a guy like that rub it in our faces, had done nothing but harbor ill will and fierce competition. Things had gotten better between us after everything that went down with him and Ren and that fucked up underground fighting circus, but we weren’t ever likely to be best mates.

  Standing out the front of Pulse, I took a deep breath. After so many years at Beat, it was like crossing enemy lines. Fuck that shit. I pushed the door open.

  Other than the faint sound of music from speakers set in the roof above, the sound of flesh hitting leather was the first thing I heard. There was no front desk, just a little bench with some flyers sitting on top, so I just wandered in and began nosing around.

  The whole place was fully kitted out. A separate room housed a range of machines like treadmills, cross-trainers, rowers and bikes—while out on the main floor there was another row of machines and freestanding weights. On the far side of the room there was a full mat area and a padded cage set up for one-on-one MMA training. Bags, speedballs and other equipment had its own space as well. Total state of the art. Beat had everything a fighter could need, but Pulse had it with style.

  The place still smelt faintly of paint, but it looked schmick. Totally classy and had Ash Fuller written all over it.

  “Fuckin’ hell,” a familiar voice boomed. “Is that the motherfucker Lincoln Hayes?”

  I turned to find Ash Fuller striding toward me through the racks of weights, a huge ass grin on his face.

  “The one and only,” I drawled, not sure how he could tell the difference. Most people couldn’t when Dean and I were apart.

  He looked me over. “What the fuck are you doing here? Kicked out already?”

  I grimaced. “I did my shoulder.”

  His expression fell. “Shit, I’m sorry mate. Tough break.”

  I shrugged. “Doesn’t hurt so much, but the Doc says I did some damage to the ligament, and I could tear it if I keep fighting. So, I’m out for at least six months.”

  “Ah, fuck, man,” he said, running a hand through his messy hair. “I’d wave a magic fuckin’ wand if I could.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Ren was good for him it seemed. He hadn’t been an asshole about my injury once. I glanced around the gym, taking in the group of heavy-set dudes working out on the mats. “I’ve got time to pussyfoot around, so I thought I’d check out your set up.”

  Ash beamed, obviously proud of his baby. “It’s fucking amazing, hey? If you had of seen this place when it was a shell…fuck.” He let out a slow whistle.

  “You must’ve pumped some serious cash into the place.”

  He pointed to a set of stairs that sat beside the entrance to the change rooms. “We’ve got upstairs as well. Office and apartment. We’re still working on that.”

  I laughed, shaking my head. “I knew it. You’re going to live here.”

  “Fuck, yeah. I breathe this shit, man.”

  I glanced around again, feeling slightly jealous.

  “What are you going to do for six months?” he asked, watching me.

  “I dunno. I’m not allowed to do much.” The thought of being idle already had me fidgeting. Ash would get it—the excess energy fighters got from their diet and exercise regimen hit them hard when they were injured. It’d only been a couple of days, and I was already chomping at the bit.

  “You wanna help out here?”

  Turing back to Ash, I cocked my head to the side. What the fuck? “You offering me a job, Fuller?”

  He shrugged. “I know what it’s like, having time on your hands. I could use a guy to help out with those bozos.” He nodded to the guys going through their repetitions on the bags. “Having a dude who’s in the mix with the big guns would blow their minds. We’ve got after school classes and all kinds too. Could use the extra set of muscles.”

  Grinning, I asked, “What does it pay?” What I didn’t ask was when I would get to see Violet. She obviously wasn’t here, and I wondered where she was hiding out.

  “Cheeky bugger.”

  “Don’t worry too much about it,” I said, waving him off. “I’m not hard up for cash.”

  “Nah, we’ll put you on the books, but it’s not pro wages or nothing.” He grinned wickedly at me. “But there’s one condition.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “You have to come to the opening party. Having an AUFC champ’ll make me look good,” he declared with a grin.

  “Party?”

  He clapped me on the shoulder, and luckily, it was the uninjured one. “Friday night at seven.”

  Shrugging, I gave him nod. “Yeah, I could do with a bit of a party after my fuck up of a week.”

  Ash began to back away and pointed a finger at me. “Wear something nice too.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  Friday at seven. Maybe I’d be lucky and get a minute with the illusive Violet Fuller. Maybe I would hit the jackpot and get more than one.

  A man could dream.

  Three

  Violet

  I’d been thinking about the party non-stop since Ash dropped it on me. Fuck him and his conditions, what a loser.

  It had scared me more than the actual job and that was saying something. I’d take a full-time job in an office over a few hours in a gym full of people any day. It was official. I was actually going insane.

  I’d hardly slept a wink thinking about what I was going to wear, what I would say, and how I should act. It was a vicious circle because I didn’t have any answers, and everything kept going around and around in my head like a tumble dryer.

  When I finally gave up and went downstairs, it was six thirty in the morning, and I was in serious need of coffee. Strong coffee. Actually, make that mind-melting coffee.

  “Hey,” Ren said as I shuffled into the kitchen.

  I went straight for the coffee machine and pulled the top open. Grabbing the strongest pod there was, I stuffed it into the top.

  “Hey,” I replied, pressing the button and watching the dark brown liquid fill my cup.

  Ren raised her eyebrows but didn’t press. She’d hung out here often enough to get that I’d had a bad night. Ash had filled her in pretty early in their relationship, and usually, I’d be shitty with him about it, but Ren had proved herself to be a woman of her word. She gave a toss and that mattered.

  Curling my hands around the cup of steaming coffee, I inhaled the scent like it was some kind of drug that’d calm me down. I was stressing about the job and about having to leave the house for an extended period of time, but I was mostly anxious about the opening party. There’d be lots of people, friends, fighters and media… They’d recognize me and ask questions I couldn’t answer. Having a breakdown in front of Australia’s sports media didn’t really float my boat.

  Ren opened the fridge and began rustling around inside.

  “I didn’t hear you come in last night,” I said.

  She glanced back at me. “Good.”

  “Rabbits,” I retorted and she laughed as Ash walked into the kitchen looking bleary-eyed. Ugh, the thought of hearing my brother having sex… I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

  “Big news,” Ash chortled, clapping his hands together. How dare he be so cheery in the morning.

  Ren glanced around the door of the fridge, her lips quirking. “What news? This better not be another one of your pranks.”

  “Violet’s coming to work at Pulse,” Ash said, smiling at me
.

  “Holy hell, that’s ace,” Ren exclaimed, throwing her arms around my neck and making me almost spill my coffee all over the both of us. My eyes widened, but it was Ren, so I let it slide. My circle had opened up to include Ren and her best friend, Josie, a while ago now. Since my brother’s girlfriend was a fighter, touchy-feely didn’t bother her in the slightest.

  “But,” Ash went on, “she has to come to the party on Friday.”

  “I don’t have anything to wear,” I complained, making a last ditch effort to get out of it.

  “She’s trying to get out of it,” Ash said to Ren, totally reading my thoughts.

  “Hey, I hate dresses, and I have to wear one because girl.” Ren gestured to herself, waving her hands up and down her body. “I have this thing at Myer in the city at eleven. Come with me.”

  “Thing?” I asked, flinching at the word ‘city’.

  “Personal shopping.” She pretended to throw up. ”Josie set it up. Otherwise I’d be going in jeans and a T-shirt.”

  “A sexy T-shirt,” Ash declared, pinching her on the ass.

  I smiled as she squealed and darted around the table, but it didn’t reach my heart. It was great that he’d found his happy ending with Ren, but I couldn’t help feeling jealous. They’d overcome everything, and I was still floundering. Maybe this was it for me.

  “On me, Vee,” Ash said, flipping open his wallet and pulling out his credit card.

  “Oh fuck, he’s pulling out the platinum,” Ren exclaimed, making a grab for it.

  Ash pulled his hand out of her reach and slipped the card into my dressing gown pocket. “Buy yourself something flashy.” He pressed a kiss against the top of my head.

  “Thanks,” I muttered, shoving my hand into my pocket and running my fingers over the raised numbers.