Driving Her Wild

“That’s what that’s called, all that rolling around in a karate outfit you were doing the other day? Joo jitzoo?”

Lordy. At least he hadn’t called them pajamas, she supposed. “It’s called a gi.”

“But it’s basically wrestling, right?”

“Brazilian jujitsu evolved from judo, and yeah, it’s a grappling-based martial art. But I don’t get greased up in a sequined bra and booty shorts and body-slam other women.”

“What do you do?”

“Have you never seen cage fighting?”

“Not really.”

That would never do. She sat up straight, chair back snapping to attention.

This wasn’t how Steph had planned on spending her evening, but she might as well make good use of the time by educating yet another person on what MMA was all about. She went to the shelf, finding a VHS of one of the best pro events there’d ever been from way back in the sport’s more lawless days. Patrick had to help her, switching the video input to the VCR.

“See?” he asked, crouching beside her, switching cables, close enough for her to catch the annoyingly pleasant scent of his skin. “I’m not completely useless.”

Steph hit Play and they returned to their seats. “Now pay attention and I’ll show you exactly how un-like pro-wrestling this is.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you ever watch boxing?”

“I don’t follow it, but yeah, I’ve seen a few matches.”

“Kickboxing?”

“Does that Van Damme movie count?”

“Nearly. Anyhow, MMA is way more like boxing than pro-wrestling. For starters, it’s real.”

The event coverage started up and she fast-forwarded, skipping over a particularly bloody preliminary match.

“Whoa,” Patrick muttered.

She stopped when the tape reached the main event. It was an epic fight—nonstop action, the perfect mix of stand-up and grappling, a million exciting reversals and near-submissions.

“So, wait,” Patrick said halfway through the first round.

She turned, finding his lips pursed, brow furrowed adorably.

“Yes?”

“So you actually do this?”

“I do. Or I did. I’m just a trainer now, so I won’t be doing much more than sparring. I’m getting old for it.” Some fighters could stay professionally viable all the way to forty, but Steph wasn’t destined to be one of them. She could feel the sport taking its toll in her joints, and her post-match aches and pains lingered far longer than they had when she was twenty.

“But you got hit in the face and stuff?”

“I did. Plenty.”

Patrick’s blue eyes studied her. “It doesn’t show.”

“Well. Thank you.”

“Except for your nose, but that’s my fault.”

She waited for him to get predictably obnoxious with the topic, and ask if rolling around with women turned her on, if anybody ever had wardrobe malfunctions, if perhaps she’d like to wrestle with him, here and now. But after a moment’s contemplation, all he said was, “Huh.”

“Huh what?” She hit Pause on the remote.

“I dunno. That’s cool. Can you...”

Can I what? Pin you? Come on, out with it. I’ve heard them all.

“So can you stop somebody from like, attacking you?”

She blinked, surprised at the question. “Not if they’ve got a gun. But yeah. I fought off a mugger once. And one time I was hiking with my friend and somebody’s dog attacked her, so I kicked it.”

His eyes grew wide with horror. “You kicked a dog?”

“It was attacking my friend! It should have been on a leash.”

“Poor dog. It was probably just protecting its owner.”

“It punctured her skin!”

“Poor dog,” Patrick said again, and Steph realized he was winding her up.

“You own a dog, don’t you?” How could he not?

He frowned. “I did. I lost her in my divorce.”

Divorced. So Patrick Doherty wasn’t just floating through his easy life, drifting blindly from one opportunity to the next on a cloud of lovability.

“What breed?” she asked.

“Pug.”

She had to laugh.

“What?”

“I dunno. You just seem like a Golden sort of guy.”

“Well, I wanted a black Lab, like I grew up with. But my ex was in love with those pugs. And she was a great dog—really sweet. Just not the kind you can toss a Frisbee for on the beach.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-five in April.”

“Were you married long?”

“Almost four years. We split up the Christmas before last.”

As someone currently hell-bent on finding a partner, Steph couldn’t help but want to ask what had gone wrong for Patrick and his. She held her tongue.

He smiled at her, a warm and disarming gesture. “You can ask what happened. I can tell you want to.”

She bit her lip. “What happened?”

“I kinda wish I knew.” Leave it to poor, charming, clueless Patrick to not even know what had ended his marriage.

“I was really happy. I loved my wife, I loved our home. I loved how we spent our free time. I was just checking my watch, thinking we’d probably socked away enough money to start talking about the whole baby thing.”

“But she hadn’t been thinking the same?”

He shook his head. “Not the way I was. She told me, ‘I want to be able to stop working when I become a mother, but that’s never going to happen, is it?’ She’s a corporate accountant—she made way more money than me. I said hey, I’d be happy to only take weekend work and do the stay-at-home-dad thing. But that wasn’t cutting it for her. I wasn’t cutting it.”

“Ouch.”

“All this resentment came pouring out of her like a volcano. All this anger I’d never even realized she felt toward me. I just...” He shrugged, looking utterly lost. “My own wife thought I was a failure, and I didn’t even have the first clue. I’d thought we were fine. It was so weird, like we’d been living in these two completely separate realities.”

Steph’s heart hurt for him. How often had her dad beat himself up with those same feelings of provider inadequacy?

“You said you’re really a carpenter?”

He nodded. “I’m a great carpenter. Craftsman-type stuff, ornate trim and cabinetry. I moved to the North Shore thinking there’d be tons of work, restoring all those amazing old colonials.” His eyes lit up, simply talking about it. “And at first, there was tons of work. Everyone was buying and flipping fixer-uppers during the boom. I was turning jobs down left and right, cherry-picking the coolest ones. That’s how things were when I met my wife.”

“Then the real-estate bubble burst?”

“Yeah. Now I’m lucky if I get even one job a month, fixing somebody’s deck for a quarter of what I might charge doing the custom stuff I’m really good at.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Trust me, I wouldn’t be here now, wrecking your day, if I didn’t need the money. My mortgage was steep to begin with. Take away my ex’s income and it’s a bear, even after the refinancing.”

“Can you not sell it?”

His gaze dropped to the armrest, where he rubbed at the worn leather with his big fingertips. “Maybe I could. At a loss, though. And I’ve put so much work into that place...it’d break my heart. It’s a great old house—not huge, but right on the beach, in Newburyport. I’ve put years of my life into fixing it up, thinking it was where my kids would grow up. And I mean, they still could. Who knows? But not if I can’t keep up with the payments.”

She nodded, sadness deepening. She could appreciate that—pouring your heart and soul and sweat into a purpose for months and months, only for it to come to naught. She’d trained for and lost enough matches in her career to understand that heartbreak perfectly.

“That sucks,” was all she could think to say. She reached over and gave his forearm a commiserating pat, same as she would have if one of her brothers had broken some bad news. But this touch felt nothing like she’d expected. The contact zinged straight up her fingers and arm, dropping through her middle like a gulp of hot chocolate, warmth sinking right into her toes. Oh no.

She snatched her hand away, clasping her fingers. No no no. She was not entertaining this attraction for a second.

This was all wrong.

It was probably pushing 1:00 a.m. She might’ve been kissed by Dr. Dylan Benedetti already, had this evening gone to plan. Yet here she was, locked at work with the embodiment of every guy she’d ever dated and sworn to put behind her...and he’d just zinged her. It had to be some kind of test.

But she could admit Patrick wasn’t quite like all those exes. He was in his thirties for one, with a marriage already under his belt. Lovable cloddishness aside, he was a man, not a guy. He’d suffered more disappointment and shouldered more responsibility than she’d have guessed. And these extra dimensions only made her sexual attraction feel all the more charged and unwieldy. And reckless.

Steph hit Play. They watched the tape through to the end of the match, and she stole sidelong glances, smirking at the way Patrick winced.

She shut it off. “So that’s MMA.”

“That’s barbaric.”

“The rules have gotten stricter since that event. No knees to the face once a guy’s on the ground, that kind of thing.”

“And that’s what you do? Or did?”

She nodded.

“On TV?”

“Not always, but a few times.”

“It must pay well.”

She shrugged. “At the top, yeah.”

“Were you at the top?”

“No. But it’s what I love. I made enough to make it worth it.”

“Until now.”

She stretched, and let her arms flop along the back of the recliner, feeling the hour. “I’ll be thirty in a couple weeks. My body doesn’t bounce back the way it used to, and I’m tired of all the traveling. I’m ready to settle down.”

“With a hot doctor.”

She smiled. “Wouldn’t hurt.”

“Blind date, right? Who hooked you guys up?”

Her cheeks warmed. “The matchmaking agency upstairs.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of trying that...I’ve had crappy luck doing the bar scene again, and the online stuff intimidates me. I have no idea what to say to make myself sound interesting. Going through an actual service must be expensive though.”

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