Chapter Four
Griff
While countering Mac’s hard jabs and right hooks in the ring, Griff had been unwinding the details of how he was going to rearrange his Lego room to best display the Taj Mahal when he completed it. There were pros and cons to moving the Death Star closer to the Millennium Falcon, and he had been working through them when a woman’s voice cut into all the noise in his head.
All the background racket stilled.
Mac’s punches shifted into slow motion.
It was just this voice, thick like honey barbecue sauce with a snap of something tart in it to balance out all that sweet.
He delivered a swift one-two combination that had Mac back on his heels just so he could listen to that voice. Thirty seconds. Tops. That’s all it took for her to silence Eddie and Phil, who’d been having the same three debates every day for the past week and a half (she was correct on all three counts, even if the argument could be made for Manny Pacquiao) and put Eggsy’s shithead friend Wade in his place. Hell, it probably wasn’t the first time someone had threatened—or wanted—to stab Wade with a fork, but it still had probably moved the asshole back to his spot behind the front desk. Griff had planned on telling Tommy what he was doing wrong with the mop bucket as soon as his match was over, so she beat him to the punch there as well.
Whoever she was, this woman was someone special, and out of all the gyms in Harbor City, she’d chosen him—no, his gym, not him. Aunt Celeste and her tarot readings were not influencing his thinking on this. Hell, he hadn’t even had a chance to turn and check out the woman the voice belonged to yet—or her ring finger. Not that he gave a shit about that, of course, because he was happily staying single.
“Hey, Griff!” his sister called out, ending the silent spell and bringing all of the noise crowding his head back into play. “I brought Kinsey by.”
He muttered a few words that were practically a six-page monologue for him while his brain tried to unravel what it was about that woman that clicked with him. Then she went into a no-doubt-about-it monologue about The Great British Bake Off hosts, and everything clicked. Her logic was impeccable. Her defense of her position passionate. Her diatribe was lengthy but fucking fascinating.
Time seemed to stop.
Everything went silent.
He was already at the altar before he’d even seen her.
It took only as long as his inhale to have all the details about Morgan’s friend fall into place. Country bumpkin who was new to town. Working for the enemy. The closest person his all-acquaintances-and-few-friends sister had to a bestie.
On the exhale, he glanced over at Morgan, and then for the first time his attention traveled over to the woman next to her. The one who had Wade looking sheepishly at her while Eddie and Phil were in awe. The voice, it had been her.
It was like there was a blast of lightning from the heavens followed by a crack of thunder that shook him down to the soles of his boxing shoes.
It wasn’t until he was on his way to the mat that Griff realized it had actually been Mac’s fist crashing into his jaw with enough power to lay him out flat right in front of the woman he was going to marry.
Way to make a first impression, dumb-ass.
Chapter Five
Kinsey
Kinsey and Morgan sprinted to the ring. Kinsey’s hands pressed to the springier-than-expected mat, her heart hammering against her ribs as she stayed on the outside of the ropes as close as possible to where Griff fell while Morgan did her damnedest to practically hurdle the three rungs and get to her brother.
Griff’s long, thick eyelashes rested against his cheeks. For once, Kinsey didn’t know what to do. Call 911? Flag down a cop? Scream for a medic? Shut up and stay out of the way? In the ring, Morgan was shooting daggers at the wiry guy who had gotten to Griff first.
Eggsy smacked a palm against Griff’s cheek. “Stop being so dramatic, Beckett. Get up.”
Kinsey glared up at the other man. Had he not heard of concussions?
Griff groaned, a sound that made it seem as if he were half dead—or wished he was, then opened his eyes and sat up. “What the fuck happened?”
“You dropped your hands like a dumb-ass.” The other guy let out a disgusted snort. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think it was your first time in the ring. Rookie fucking mistake.”
Griff’s gaze landed on Kinsey again, and all the haziness went out of it. A zing of awareness zipped through her, settling low in her gently rounded belly. For a woman who was never at a loss for words or gonna turn down a second order of Meemaw’s biscuits—thigh cellulite be damned—she couldn’t put together a string of thoughts right now.
“Not a mistake,” Griff said, still looking right at her.
“Oh, you meant to let Mac knock you on your ass?” the other man asked with enough sarcasm to slather on a pork chop.
The question seemed to take a second to register, but once it did, he sat up and rolled his neck. “Never doubt that I have a plan.”
“Yeah, well, how about instead, you have a care for that ugly fucking mug of yours and keep your damn hands up,” the man grumbled as he stood from his crouch over Griff. “Losing my biggest investor would be hell on my business.”
“You know what would be worse?” Morgan asked, jabbing a finger into the other man’s chest. “Imagine dealing with me on a mission to make your life hell because my brother got hurt.”
There were more threats, promises, and dire warnings, but Kinsey didn’t hear them because Griff turned and locked his focus back on her again. His eyes were the same violet-tinged blue color as the wild blueberries that grew on bushes in the backyard at Meemaw’s place, and looking away wasn’t an option even if she’d wanted to.
“Fuck me,” he said in that low, rough voice of his that made her want to purr as he got up, rubbing his jaw and shaking his head. Then his gaze landed on her face again before dropping down to her hands clasped together in front of her, and his expression went from fierce to granite. “Shit. You’re a fuckin’ disaster.”
His proclamation stopped her cold.
A disaster?
They’d just met, and he had already declared her a disaster?
After being the youngest person in Caldwell County to graduate high school, she was going to be a disaster?
After putting in the work to get a full academic ride to the University of Virginia and graduating at the top of her class while pulling overnight shifts to cover room and board, she was going to be a disaster?
After getting her master’s in pharmaceuticals and drug delivery systems and then going straight into earning her PhD in pharmaceutical sciences while carrying a teaching course load and helping Meemaw take care of Kinsey’s brother and sister, she was going to be a disaster?