Feint and Misdirection Page 3

  Desiree whirled around, coffee sloshing dangerously close to the wide rim of her mug. “That monster!”

  “Right?” Imogen reached out for her own mug, bidding Desiree to fill it since she was closer to the coffee machine. “And I so felt like busting a move.”

  “Hang on to that thought. We’ll go out tonight.”

  “You don’t have to work?” Imogen asked. Desiree’s own place of employment saw her warming up the stage for bigger acts in a burlesque club. She sometimes joined Imogen at the gym to train, but the kind of bodies that were prized in her line of work didn’t lend well to sparring.

  Imogen had offered to teach her how to swing her fists, but Des was adamant she didn’t need the added incentive to punch rowdy clients. She wore knuckle-dusters whenever she left the house and matched her pepper spray to her outfits. But she liked a good time and she was easy on the eyes, which explained why between the two of them, Desiree was rarely ever single and Imogen struggled to attract any male attention.

  “I’m off tonight,” Des said, grinning. “Do I get to do your makeup?”

  “Only if you promise not to make me look like a clown.”

  “As if.” Des gave her chin a squeeze and let her not-so-faint Italian accent seep through. “Face like yours, my brushstrokes could do miracles!”

  Imogen blew her a kiss, the tease glancing off like a toy arrow. “Okay, so tell me about this new girlfriend. Did the neighbors call the cops on you again?”

  She knew she was in for something scandalous when Desiree flashed her a Cheshire Cat grin and brought the coffeepot over to the table.

  * * * *

  Imogen slid her gloves on, cinching the Velcro tight across her wrists. She was still breathing hard from fifteen minutes on the skipping rope and another twenty doing push-ups. It would’ve been too much to pretend that at no point did hurt feelings enter the equation.

  “You ready?” Russell asked, holding up the practice mitts. He only came out of his glass box of an office to heckle or put her to work. He refused to spar, however much Imogen begged him.

  Being her coach, he consistently got his way.

  Imogen answered with a hard jab against his right hand, a blow so emphatic that it sent him staggering back a pace.

  “Easy on the shoulders, kid.”

  “Mine or yours?” Imogen snapped, inching forward to deliver another punch, this time to his left palm. It annoyed her to find Russell take the impact without wavering.

  It annoyed her that he hadn’t called and it annoyed her even more that she cared.

  Russell ignored her query. “You missed the debrief.”

  “Did I?” She knew she had. Oversleeping had all kinds of foreseeable but unpleasant consequences. Imogen had spent the whole day so far feeling like she was trying to catch up to her usual rhythm.

  “We’ll do it after,” Russ said, like a teacher threatening detention.

  “Can’t.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t,” Imogen repeated, throwing a series of sharp jabs into the padded mitts before ducking. Russ had height on her—and strength too—and she if she wasn’t quick enough, he’d sooner whack her upside the head than graze her temple.

  “Do you think they’ll take it easy on you in the ring?” he’d asked the first time he’d sent Imogen sprawling to the mat. “You want to fight Luz, you’d best learn how to take a hit.”

  It had been months since then. Imogen shot upright and chased his blow with another brutal cross. Never mind taking it easy on her shoulders. She wanted to hear him breathing hard for a change.

  “What do you mean you can’t?” Russell prompted. “This ain’t negotiable—”

  Imogen shrugged, dancing on the balls of her feet. “It’s going to have to be. I’m busy tonight.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Going out with Des.”

  His glower was enough to make Imogen wonder if her roommate wasn’t at least partly right about Russell. He could be controlling, sure, it wasn’t as though she hadn’t had any warning. He’d told her when she’d first come to him, asking to be trained, that he wasn’t easy to work with. Imogen had pressed the point, badgering him until he came around. She didn’t regret it. Her form had improved, her footwork was solid. She was halfway through the tournament with a fighting chance. At least forty percent of that was down to Russell.

  Imogen spun on her heel and thrust out her right leg in a sloppy roundhouse kick aimed mostly for the practice mitts. Russell had to recoil to avoid getting her foot in his face.

  “Sorry,” Imogen wheezed. “I overshot it.”

  Russell narrowed his eyes. He didn’t look convinced and he didn’t look pleased, but Imogen dug deep and ripped out her guilt by the roots, like a weed. She had a right to live her life like a normal twenty-eight year old, even if she was training to be the next big thing in the world of female MMA.

  “When were you planning on telling me this?” Russ asked, gesturing for her to attack again.

  “When it came up.” Imogen huffed a breath. “Why, do you need advance notice? Pretty sure the gym closes at ten anyway.” Not that she was planning on sticking around until then. She had promised Desiree to take care of the grocery shopping—a habitual thing, since she was responsible for most of their food vaporizing when she binged.

  Russell feinted a punch to her stomach, but Imogen caught it, parrying with a bruised forearm. “You know, a little common courtesy wouldn’t kill you.”

  “Common courtesy?” She laughed, mirthless and overloud. “You’re my trainer, Russ. You’re not my parent or my boyfriend—let’s face it, you don’t tell me how you spend your spare time, either.” She was glad when her voice didn’t catch on boyfriend but less pleased with herself as Russell’s right mitt caught her in the shoulder.

  In the arena, that could’ve been a potentially crippling blow.

  “You’re distracted,” Russ accused.

  No shit. “I’m fine,” Imogen shot back. She knew she was letting frustration get the better of her, but her coach always said never to go into the ring if you weren’t hungry for a win.

  She spent herself in the next few blows, muscles burning by the time a solid jab of Russell’s mitt sent her staggering back into the ropes that hemmed the ring. Her breath caught on something that might have been a shout if she had any cause to feel indignant.

  Russell caught her eye, though, and it was hard to remember why she was supposed to resist the urge to snarl. “Glaring at me won’t help, chickadee,” he chuckled, opening his big arms wide.

  “Bite me.” She made to regain her position at the center of the ring and put her fists up, but Russell didn’t follow. “What’s the matter? We done?”

  “You’re done for the day,” he said.

  “I’m just getting warmed up here, pal.”

  His gaze hardened. “I’m not your pal. I say you’re done, you’re done.” He was like an animal showing teeth as he pried open the Velcro straps.

  “Come on…” Imogen threw up her hands. “Are you serious?”

  Wanting to fight him had nothing and everything to do with training. Imogen smothered the urge to lunge at Russell even though he had already removed his gloves. It wasn’t done. Her first day at the gym, Russell had bodily thrown a guy out because he wouldn’t quit hammering his sparring partner after they’d called an end to the fight.

  She gritted her teeth. “If you want me to stay—”

  “No, you go reclaim your lost youth,” Russell threw over his shoulder, words meant to wound but not so far from the truth as to be false.

  Jerk. Maybe Desiree was right. Maybe this was all an exercise in control for him. Whenever Imogen bucked his authority, he got all closed-off and churlish. She tossed her gloves into her bag, trying hard not to imagine it was Russell’s face she was using for target practice.

  Screw you. Her throat was tight with an emotion she couldn’t name. She would go out tonight, whether he liked it or not. She had something w
orth celebrating, a victory that would’ve been well outside her reach only six short months ago.

  She was suddenly, fiercely glad she hadn’t asked him to join her at Sherry-Ann’s wedding. It was naïve to hope that Russell would ever want to hitch his wagon to hers. As long as it was something Imogen wanted, he’d stand in her path just to prove that he could.

  If she didn’t need him to win, Imogen was sure she would’ve cut ties with Russell Espina already.

  * * * *

  The hours passed quickly enough once Imogen put the gym behind her and focused on more relevant things. She took care of the groceries at the 7-Eleven two blocks from the apartment she shared with Des and made use of the laundromat next door to wash last night’s sheets while she peeled her way through a very sour green apple.

  She was feeling pretty good about herself by the time she returned home, but the sentiment was short-lived. It evaporated like fine mist as she stood before the closet, ready to put together an outfit that would make heads turn. To say that most of her wardrobe consisted of baggy shirts and mom jeans would’ve been an understatement. Fashion had never been her strongest suit—not for lack of trying. The curse of her short height should’ve opened the door to countless platform shoes and sexy kitten heels shunned by taller women. But Imogen had been working minimum wage until recently and spending upward of ten hours a day on her feet. Sexy shoes didn’t lend themselves to that kind of lifestyle.

  She did own six pairs of sneakers, all in various stages of decomposition, and a plethora of tank tops she could change in and out of if she didn’t feel like doing laundry. Yet as far as slinky dresses, Imogen’s wardrobe was sadly wanting.

  Desiree found her on the floor of her bedroom at nine p.m. that night, a bag of beef jerky open in front of her and an episode of Days of Our Lives gracing the television screen. She gasped, clutching at her chest. “Oh, honey… We’re gonna have to stage an intervention.”

  “I’m not going. I have nothing to wear,” Imogen whined.

  “Seriously? Do you hear yourself?”

  Imogen did. She sounded pathetic, but for once she had solid facts to back up the incidental gloom. Guy problems had been the source of her sour mood that morning. Come evening—well, it was still a guy, but her disappointing sartorial choices were a close second. Imogen bit off a piece of jerky, chewing mournfully in Desiree’s general direction.

  “It’s possible I’m having a quarter life crisis,” she said, apropos nothing in particular.

  “Sounds good, but not tonight, okay?” Des held out a hand, wiggling her fingers. “Fairy godmother’s here to help, sweet pea.”

  “You’re two years younger than me.”

  Des brushed the distinction aside. “Our fictitious family is very odd.” She wouldn’t take no for an answer. Normally that was something Imogen admired, but with the seed of doubt planted in her head, the sum total of her insecurities were jumping to the fore, shooting down suggested outfit after suggested outfit. Some she refused because she felt they were too revealing. Others because they weren’t revealing enough.

  Eventually—and largely because Desiree was beginning to sound vaguely murderous—Imogen settled on a pair of black boots with almost no heel and a black dress cinched at the waist with a thin red belt.

  “You look hot,” Des said, clasping her shoulders with both hands.

  “Thanks, Tim Gunn.”

  “Anytime. You’ll buy the first round, right?”

  “And the next three after that,” Imogen promised. She didn’t underestimate Desiree’s help in transforming her from basket case into something approaching womanliness.

  There was nothing to be done about her bulging biceps, visible under the short sleeves of the dress, or the cuts still healing on her brow. The bruises disappeared under a dash of foundation set with loose powder. Minor chinks aside, her new armor made for a vast improvement on the usual barefoot-and-perspiring trappings of daily training. Once in the waiting line outside the club entrance, Imogen almost believed she blended in with the other men and women dressed up in their Friday night best.

  “Will the girlfriend be joining us?” she wondered, rocking back and forth on her short heels.

  Sometime in the third month of living with Des, Imogen had given up trying to keep track of her lady friends. There were so many that sometimes Desiree herself became confused. But this last one seemed serious, perhaps even in it for the long haul. Imogen racked her brains trying to recall her name.

  “Alice? Nah,” Des said. “She’s working tonight.”

  “She’s got an evening shift?”

  Desiree arched a brow as they reached the head of the line. “Honey, she’s a stripper.” Like me, she might’ve added, but there was no need.

  The bouncer took one look at Desiree in her shimmery silver top and skinny jeans and gestured them right in. Imogen barely had time to pick her jaw up off the sidewalk before they penetrated the club.

  The first thing that caught her attention wasn’t the loud music or the sumptuous display of liquor bottles behind the bar, but the overwhelming and irrefutable presence of men.

  “You brought me to a straight club?” she asked, pitching her voice high over the music. A couple of heads turned, but their confusion went unacknowledged.

  Desiree flashed her a smile. “I know, I know. I’m the best roommate ever, right?”

  Imogen had never been one for public displays of affection—something to do with not getting hugged enough as a child—but for once, she found it hard to stop herself as she embraced her friend. “Effigies will be built in your name, Des. Temples!”

  “Shut up and buy me a drink,” Desiree said, laughing. “I’m feeling dehydrated.”

  They wove through the crowd as best they could. The tight press of bodies reminded Imogen of the arena, but here at least she could see individual faces instead of a murky, amorphous mob.

  Desiree ordered a rum and coke, her staple whenever she went out with an eye for dancing rather than picking up a warm body to share her bed. She rolled her eyes when Imogen went for the same, only asking the bartender to hold the rum.

  “Russ has you on a tight leash, huh?”

  “Let’s not go there,” Imogen pleaded, well and truly sick of devoting another second to her know-it-all trainer.

  Des held up her hands. “I’m just saying, he’s not here. How will he know if you let your hair down for a change?”

  He wouldn’t, but that wasn’t the point. Imogen shook her head. “I know you’re all attached now, but do you see anyone you might like?”

  “Well, hey now. I went on a couple of dates, I’m not getting hitched yet,” Desiree protested, arching her back as she cast a judicious glance around the club.

  Imogen hid a smile behind her glass. There were a few attractive women dancing in their near periphery. Imogen noticed a brunette with long tresses who seemed like Desiree’s type, but she seemed engrossed in whatever was being whispered in her ear by a heavily tattooed guy. He was brushing his fingers lightly across her upper arm, so she probably wasn’t interested in what Desiree had to offer.

  Imogen knew it would’ve been polite to glance away as soon as her gaze drifted over the pair, but seeing two people so wrapped up in each other that they didn’t seem to notice they were in a crowd did something to her. She felt her cheeks flush as the man’s hand brushed across the woman’s hip, gathering up the flimsy material of her dress. It didn’t hurt that he resembled Russell more than a little. Damn it.

  “Hey! Earth to Imogen!” Des snapped her fingers in front of her nose, startling Imogen out of her trance. “Did you see something you like?”

  “What? Oh, no…”

  “You did, didn’t you?” Des peered in the direction of the pair, but she didn’t seem to notice them. “You really should date more, you know. I can’t stand that buzzing coming from your room when I’m trying to sleep.”

  Imogen paled. “Oh, my God. You can hear that?”

  “Our walls ar
e made of paper and rats,” Desiree deadpanned. “Of course I can hear.” She patted Imogen’s arm with a companionable hand. “Don’t worry, I promise the neighbors hate me more than you.”

  That was true. Desiree had a habit of bringing home women who either couldn’t hear themselves or simply didn’t care that their voices carried for a five-mile radius. It still didn’t change the fact that Imogen felt suddenly, deeply mortified.

  She took a deep pull from her drink, realized it was only soda and grabbed Desiree’s cocktail instead.

  “Right on,” her roommate laughed and flagged down the waiter. “We’re gonna need another round. And then I’m getting you,” she added, jabbing a finger into Imogen’s knee, “on the dance floor. You’re bursting at the seams for a good time.”

  Imogen didn’t deny it. She could barely taste the sweetness of the rum by the time she downed the rest of Desiree’s drink. The fog of awkwardness seemed to have ebbed a little in the meantime.

  The bartender set another glass in front of her. “This one’s paid for.”

  “On the house?”

  “Nope.” He jerked his chin down the length of the bar. “You ladies have an admirer.”

  Imogen balked, but she couldn’t stop herself looking. A man in a black shirt raised his glass to her. She would have guessed he was thirty, maybe thirty-five, figured that with his slicked back hair and pasty skin he must’ve been an office bee of some kind. Beside him, his ginger-haired companion was making eyes at Desiree.

  “Oh, God.” Her roommate groaned, glancing away. “They’re coming over.”

  Somewhere between being offered the drinks and not immediately refusing them, their implicit consent seemed to have been assumed. Too soon, the two men had made their way down the bar.

  The Don Draper wannabe smiled at Imogen, but addressed them both. “Good evening, ladies. May we join you?”

  “We’re not actually—”

  “Sure,” Imogen said before Desiree could send them packing. Her friend meant well, and between the two of them, she was usually the more diplomatic one. Imogen tended to do her talking with her fists, in a language that Russell Espina had long since mastered. She wanted to make a change tonight, to strike out on her own. “I’m Imogen,” she said, holding out a hand. “This is Desiree.”