Fighting Solitude (On The Ropes #3)(93)

Sure, we all had wives now. They had kids. We owned homes—huge ones. Our bank accounts held more zeros than we could have ever imagined. Yet, somehow, we were still the three broke kids in stained shirts and dirty jeans, eating ramen noodles in our filthy kitchen.

And that was exactly how I knew we had truly made it.

Till, despite the fact that he’d been forced into parenthood at twenty-one years old, still smiled with the crooked grin and mind-blowing confidence I’d spent my entire life trying to mimic.

Flint walked with a cane, yet every single step he took had a purpose. Whether it was digging clothes from the free bins at the local church or negotiating a sixty-million-dollar contract, he’d always been there for me no matter what.

I wasn’t the only champion in the ring that night.

So, with Till on my right and Flint on my left, I lifted all of our fists in victory.





“I’M NERVOUS!”

Quarry laughed and shook his head. “Why?”

“What if my voice is annoying?”

He looked at the audiologist. “Any chance this baby comes with a mute button?”

I slapped his leg. “I’m serious!”

“So am I!” he teased, brushing my hair over my shoulder.

Rolling my eyes, I crossed my arms and rested them on my swollen belly.

Quarry had been wrong the day he’d proposed. Nothing stays the same forever. Over the years, everything had changed for us. However, it wasn’t a bad thing, because we’d changed together.

After the Davenport incident, my life had flipped upside down. The press had launched full force on the community center when the story broke. While I had been insanely proud of everything I had accomplished while working there, it had been clear that it was in everyone’s best interest for me to resign. Once Quarry had won the title, he’d been even more famous than before, and as his wife, my life had been slung into the spotlight right along with him. I couldn’t teach anymore, but sign language was still my passion. So I became an advocate and spokeswoman for the National Association of the Deaf. With a little help from Q, we were able to raise enough money to fund over twenty new ASL programs across the country.

Three years after Quarry had first won the title belt, his hearing suddenly took a significant turn downward, and within a few months, he was completely deaf. As to be expected, I flipped. He just laughed and held me. I was six months pregnant at the time, and what I had expected to be a meltdown as my husband entered the world of silence turned into a hormone-induced fit of epic proportions. Quarry wasn’t concerned in the least though. He was sad that he was going to miss hearing the baby cry for the first time, but he simply stated that holding his son safe in his arms would be more than enough to make up for it. And the day March Leo Page was born, I knew he’d been right. Watching my husband—my soul mate—tough, tattooed fighter, Quarry “The Stone Fist” Page, holding his son was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen. And that said a lot because Quarry had given me a beautiful life.

Kids were another thing that changed our lives tremendously. March was born with my dark skin and eyes, but he was one hundred percent his father’s brand of trouble. And that did not bode well for us. We adored being parents, but we both questioned if we could handle another one. We loved March more than life, but one was enough for us.

Or so we thought.

After Ash and Flint adopted a little girl, baby fever hit me—hard. I feared Quarry’s head was going to explode when I told him that I wanted to try for another child. March was starting first grade, and we’d already made several large donations to his private school to ensure he wouldn’t get kicked out—again. Things were finally starting to calm down for us, so Quarry put his foot down on the baby thing. Which caused me to put my foot down and reject his definitive no. We argued for weeks until he finally shut down all further conversations in order to focus on his next fight. I was pissed, but he swore we could revisit the topic afterwards.

Quarry successfully defended his title eight times over the course of his reign in the ring. And, even after he’d lost it, he remained a substantial competitor in the sport. Proof being that, even at thirty-three years old, he was offered another shot at his old belt. A shot he not only took, but also won. That wasn’t all that shocking though. He’d been born to be a champion.

However, it was at the press conference after the fight where he truly surprised everyone—including me—by announcing his retirement. When a reporter asked him what he was planning to do next, his gaze had bounced to mine as he proudly answered, “First, I’m gonna knock up my wife. Second, I’m getting a cochlear implant so I can finally hear my little man screaming at me. And, lastly, I have no f*cking clue. But one and two are more than enough to keep me busy for a few years.”

Yep. He was still breathtakingly unapologetic. That would never change.

And that was how I ended up eight months pregnant with our daughter, Quinn Eliza Page, and sitting in a doctor’s office, anxiously waiting for them to activate my husband’s cochlear implant. The entire Page family was not-so-patiently waiting in the hall. Actually, it seemed like Quarry was the only relaxed one. Even March, who was digging through all the doctor’s drawers, seemed edgy.

“You ready?” the doctor asked from behind his computer.

“No!” I exclaimed.