Fighting Solitude (On The Ropes #3)(27)

“I should be able to handle that without a problem. What do you do for your other job?”

I swayed my head from side to side in consideration. “I’m an assistant.”

He chuckled. “So you need an assistant so you can be an assistant to someone else?”

“Pretty much.” I shrugged. “My best friend is a hearing-impaired professional boxer. What started out as translating for him during post-fight interviews as a favor quickly turned into a full-time job. Now, I’m his translator, personal assistant, chef, maid, stylist, and, most recently, acting referee when he gets into arguments with his brothers. That alone could be a full-time job.”

“Wow. You sound busy.”

“You could definitely say that, but I love it. I’ve been doing most of those things for the last four years anyway. At least, now, he pays me. It’s fun too. Quarry and I have been friends forever, so it’s more like just hanging out than really working.”

He leaned in close. “Wait. Quarry Page?”

“That would be him. Are you a boxing fan?”

“Absolutely! I’ve lived in Indy all my life. I remember seeing his older brother fight back in the day.”

“Oh cool. Yeah, Till’s retired now. He still trains Quarry and some of the other kids at the gym now.”

“This is incredible. I can’t wait to tell the friends I’m the volunteer assistant to Quarry Page’s paid assistant.” He smiled teasingly, but I could see the genuine excitement sparkling in his eyes.

It always made me laugh when people thought of Quarry as famous. I mean, I knew he technically was, but to me, he’d always be that boy I’d met in a back alley all those years earlier. Sure, he was loaded now, but our lives hadn’t changed all that much since his career had taken off.

Thanks to fights and a few big endorsement deals, Quarry was worth millions, but it’s not like he was out blowing money all over town. Yes, he had a mild obsession with expensive sports cars, but that was about the extent of his frivolousness. We still lived in the same apartment we had since I’d first moved in.

There was a brief period about two years earlier when he started house shopping. We must have looked at over a hundred.

Big houses.

Small houses.

Expensive houses.

Starter homes.

Mansions.

Condos.

And everything in between.

Quarry was too picky though. I had fallen in love with one, but no matter how nice the place, he’d managed to find something wrong with it. Till had even set him up with the architect who’d designed his and Eliza’s house, but Quarry had hated everything she had come up with.

Eventually, he had given up and decided to buy a huge TV and new furniture for our apartment.

I hadn’t complained because…well, I hadn’t wanted him to move out. I loved living together. He’d also let me pick the furniture out. Win-win.

Leaning across the table that divided us, Don prodded, “So tell me about Davenport. That fight finally gonna happen or what?

I gasped and plugged my ears with my fingers. “No! Don’t say that name! It’s like Beetlejuice or that guy from Harry Potter. We never say that name!”

Garrett Davenport, while he sounded like a pretentious dick, was actually a badass boxer. Not as badass as Quarry, but then again, I couldn’t guarantee that since they hadn’t actually fought yet. Davenport was the four-time reigning world heavyweight champion, and he loathed Quarry Page something fierce.

Over a year earlier, Quarry had been given his long-awaited, highly anticipated title fight. He’d busted his ass in the gym day and night in preparation. However, three days before the match, Davenport sprained his ankle. Quarry was disappointed, but shit happens. However, two weeks later, when Garrett was photographed skiing in Vail with his girlfriend, his injury seemed a little too convenient (read: fake). Over the three months, he was “recovering,” Davenport spewed more shit than a sewage line that had sprung a leak. But he didn’t just talk about Quarry’s boxing. He attacked him personally. It was like a political campaign and he was determined to slay Quarry in the public eye. He cast slanderous shadows on Quarry’s role in Eliza’s kidnapping and, ultimately, Flint’s injury. He even went so far as to bring up Mia’s death, making outlandish accusations that suggested Quarry hadn’t acted quickly enough to save her.

That was when Quarry lost his mind. And not just like he was pissed. I mean we all thought there was a good chance Garrett was going to be found dead with Quarry standing over his bloody carcass.

When it finally came time for their fight, Quarry was still fuming. Thus, when Davenport whispered a sweet nothing in his ear during the weigh-in, he blew up. Punches weren’t just thrown—they were weaponized. By the time the men were pulled apart, Davenport was unrecognizable and Quarry’s right hand was broken. Needless to say, the fight was canceled—again. As the champion, Davenport was assigned a new opponent a few weeks later, while Quarry sucked it up and nursed his injury.

The boxing association stiffly fined them both because of the widely televised brawl at the weigh-in, but that was one check Quarry didn’t mind writing.

It pissed me off though.

I got it. He was hurt and angry. But beating the shit out of a man was no punishment when he still walked away with the belt slung over his shoulder. Quarry deserved that title; he’d more than proved that. But Davenport knew that the only way he could win that fight was if it never happened. So he weaseled into Quarry’s brain, lit the fuse, and then sat back and watched the fireworks.