Chasing What’s Mine by Ava Gray
Dax
I’m a little disappointed to see Aiden hard at work in the driveway when I pull up to his auto shop. In my head, I had time to psych myself up all the way up the drive and through the workshop. But no matter how I play this, I know it’s going to be a hard conversation.
My feet feel like blocks of lead as I walk over to him. “Hey.”
A spanner clangs to the concrete and Aiden emerges from under the hood of the ’77 Mustang he was working on.
“Dax, what’s up?” He wipes a greasy hand on the back of his old, smeared jeans before offering it to me.
We do our shake and I ruffle his hair the way I always do. It’s damp with sweat, thanks to the unforgiving sun.
“Bad time?” I ask, giving him the once over.
He’s all red in the face and definitely looks like he’s seen better days. Also, I’m stalling.
Aiden shakes his head. “All good, man. Good to see you walking around without cuffs.”
I know he’s referring to what happened at the club last night. It was already all over the internet by the time I woke up for my 5am training session. Dax Daytona slumming it like the old days. As if the press needed more ammunition to fire at me in the lead-up to my title fight.
“That’s kinda why I’m here,” I say. “I have to talk to you about something, and I need you to hear me out before you say anything.”
His expression changes, and the concern is clear in his eyes.
“Come on,” he says, motioning for me to follow him into the workshop. “I need a drink.”
The workshop is nothing like you’d expect from a mechanic. Neat as a pin, with everything in its place—it’s like an extension of Aiden’s personality. Always walking the straight-and-narrow and doing things the right way.
He pulls two bottles of water from the bar fridge in the corner and tosses me one. “This about last night?”
I crack the bottle and down half of it in one go. The fresh relief is welcome, and so is the stall. I don’t know where to begin, but I also know that I don’t have a choice. Stash isn’t the kind of guy who makes empty threats.
“Well?” he asks, pushing me to say something.
I take a breath and go for it. Like ripping off a band aid. “The guy from the club, he’s someone I knew back when…”
I notice the way Aiden’s face instantly changes. He’s quite familiar with what I mean by ‘back when’.
“I don’t know if you know,” I say, going on, “but he and Ciara used to date.”
“Ciara?” Aiden moves a towel of tools to the side and hoists himself up onto the workbench, feet dangling in mid-air. “He doesn’t seem like her type.”
I scoff. “Tell me about it. Probably why they crashed and burned about a year ago.”
He finishes the last of his water and squeezes the bottle until it gives in. “Okay, so what are you saying? Does this have something to do with her?”
“It has everything to do with her,” I say, raking my hands through my hair.
His brows furrow in confusion like I expected he would. “I don’t get it.”
“Stash—the guy from the club—he wants her back.”
Aiden laughs lightly. “He can go ahead and try, man, but she and Riley are pretty tight. In fact, I haven’t seen him this caught up since Juliette Soles in seventh grade.”
I give a heavy sigh. This is what I was afraid of. “He’s not messing around, Aiden. Last night? That wasn’t the first time he’s gotten all up in my face about it.”
Aiden jumps down from the workbench and comes over to me. “What? Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“Because—I guess I figured it’d go away if I just told him off.”
Aiden nods his understanding. “But it didn’t go away.”
I shake my head slowly. “I only made it worse, it looks like. He’s threatening your whole family.”
“What?”
“He told me that if they don’t break up, he’s going to hurt someone. And I know enough about this guy to know that he means to follow through.”
His shoulders slump, and I can see his thoughts racing behind his eyes at a million miles a second. “That’s insane,” he says, his voice barely a whisper.
“What’s insane?”
We both jump as Riley saunters into the workshop. He must pick up on the alarmed looks on our faces, because he stops dead in the doorway.
“What’s going on?”
Before I can formulate an explanation, Aiden starts rattling it off, his nerves driving the words out of his mouth like a freight train.
“That sleaze bag from the club wants you and Ciara to break up, or he and his thugs are going to come after us.”
Riley looks from Aiden to me, and back again. Then he starts laughing. It’s weird, and we both share a look that says we’re thinking the same thing—Riley has gone off his rocker. He goes over to the fridge, still laughing, and grabs a water for himself.
“You should see the look on your face,” he says, and takes a huge gulp of his water.
“Riley, this is serious,” Aiden says. “Dax knows this guy, and he says he’s trouble.”
“Right,” Riley says. He looks pissed all of a sudden. “Dax knows him. It’s because of Dax that this kind of bad element is even in our lives at all.”
“Excuse me?” I can’t believe I just heard that.
I mean, Riley and I aren’t exactly best buds, but he’s never once expressed such outright disdain for me before.
“You heard me,” he says, glaring at me, his eyes like blue steel.
“Look, man, I’m trying to help you. Stash would’ve found you either way because he’s still hung up on Ciara.”
“Stash?” Riley breaks out in a caustic chuckle. “What the fuck kind of name is that? Some kind of street thug code that we decent folk wouldn’t know about?”
“Riley, stop,” Aiden says, finally jumping in.
“No, Aiden. I’m right, and you know it. For years I’ve stood by quietly and watched this guy drag you into his downhill lifestyle.”
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” I say.
But Riley’s not done yet. “Well, I’ve stood by long enough. Because now it’s me and the woman I love, and I’m not letting anyone get in the way of that.”
“Riley, I really think you should at least—”
Aiden’s words fall flat as Riley pitches his bottle of water straight at his brother’s head. He ducks just in time, and we both watch it splatter onto the wall behind us.
“Are you crazy? What are you so mad about?”
“You need to ask?” Riley stalks right up to Aiden, fuming. “The way I feel about Ciara, I haven’t felt that way about anyone.”
“I know,” Aiden says, holding up his hands to try and calm his brother down.
“You expect me to just roll over because Dax, his royal highness, says so?”
“What is your problem?” I give him a little shove that turns out to be not so little, and Riley turns all that frustration and anger on me.
“I just told you my problem,” he says, shoving me back.
“Hey, come on now.” Aiden squeezes himself between us, using his body as a kind of white flag. “This isn’t going to end well for anyone.”
I take a step back, breathing my way back to calm. It’s purely out of respect for Aiden, because right now I want nothing more than to deck his dimwit of a brother.
“You’re nothing but bad news, Dax,” Riley says. “I don’t care how much you say you’ve turned things around. And now, now I have to pay the price for it? How is that fair?”
The knot of guilt in the pit of my stomach twists and turns. The guy might be a wimp, but he’s not wrong. My dark past has been following me my whole life, and it’s the only stain on the lives of this family who’s as wholesome as The Brady Bunch.
“I tried talking to him, okay,” I say. “I thought I could get him to back off, but—”
“But of course, that didn’t work, or you wouldn’t be here. What’s worse—you were trying to get Aiden to break it to me? Couldn’t find the balls to do it yourself?”
“I just thought it would be better coming from him, that’s all,” I say, starting to calm down. My anger has no place here, I get that now. This is all my fault, after all.
“You, Aiden, Baby Jesus—I don’t care who’s saying it. I’m not breaking up with Ciara. You can give that message to your good friend, Stash.”
Riley strides out of the workshop, slamming the door behind him.
“That went better than I thought it would,” Aiden says with a sigh.
“You know I went to my first AA meeting in twelve years last night?”
From the look on Miles’ face, I’m pretty sure that’s a rhetorical question. So, I stand back from the speed bag and give him time to go on.
“I haven’t wanted a drink so bad since my third wife up and left me.”
“I just have a lot on my mind,” I say. I regret it the instant the words are out of my mouth, because his bald head goes an even deeper shade of red.
“You have the biggest fight of your career in a matter of weeks,” he says, shaking with the effort it’s taking him not to just scream and bite my head off. I know that’s what he really wants to do. “You don’t have the luxury of having other things on your mind. You barely have the luxury of sleep! It’s almost midnight, and I should be home, but I’m here, doing this with you because it’s what’s needed. Not because I don’t have anything better to do.”
Miles throws his towel to the floor and stamps on it to drive home his point. I think having him lose his shit and scream at me would be way better than witnessing this old man tantrum.
“Hey, calm down, okay? I’ll get my head in the game, I swear.” I go over to him, putting both my hands on his shoulders.
It gets the stamping to stop, but he’s still furious.
“I’ll calm down once I see you coming to the party,” he says. “The real goddamn party, not some disco gig or whatever you kids get caught up in.”
“Okay, Miles, I promise.”
“I’ve spent my life working to get you here, Dax. You don’t get to fuck this up now.”
This just makes that blanket of guilt wrap itself even tighter around me. Aiden, Riley, and now the one person who’s been in my corner through it all. Miles is more than a trainer to me, and I know he deserves better.
“There’s some stuff going on,” I say. “Big stuff, and it’s really throwing me for a loop.”
“Then you should’ve come to me right from the start,” he says.
But I shake my head and step back. I wish this was something a good old heart-to-heart could fix. “It’s not like that.”
“How is it then?”
The bell above the gym’s front door tinkles, and we both turn to see Riley coming in.
“We’re closed,” Miles says, practically barking at him.
I touch a hand lightly to his arm, stopping any further protest. “Hey, it’s okay. Can we just have a minute?”
Miles throws up his hands. “What the hell does it matter?” he asks and storms off to the office.
“Shit, man, I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, walking over to him. “That’s his good mood. You should see him when he gets mad.”
We both have a chuckle at that, but it feels kind of strained with the elephant in the room.
“Look, I’m sorry for the way I went off at you earlier,” Riley says.
I shrug, but don’t say anything. I don’t know what there is to say, actually. It wasn’t exactly great news that I was delivering, and if I had to put myself in his shoes, I don’t know that I would’ve reacted any differently.
“I’m still not going to do what you said,” he says.
“Riley, I don’t think you understa—”
“I understand just fine,” he says, holding up a hand to quiet me. “But Ciara’s not some piece of meat that can be passed around. She’s a human being who decides for herself what she wants, and she’s decided on me.”
“That’s how a sensible person would see it, but Stash isn’t sensible. He’s dangerous.” I don’t know how else to make him see that he doesn’t want to be messing with this thing.
Riley nods. “I know,” he says. “That’s why I want you to help me train up. I know you’re busy, but I’ll take what I can get.”
This isn’t what I was expecting. “You want me to what?”
“If you’re right and he’s going to be causing trouble, then I guess I need to be able to defend myself when he does.”
“You must really love her, or be really stupid,” I say.
“I think I’m both.”
I can’t help feeling a great deal of respect for the stringy guy standing in front of me, looking like he hasn’t lifted a weight in his life.
“She’s a lucky girl,” I say, motioning for him to follow me into the gym.