Burn (Indigo) Page 6

  “Man, that’s five months away,” Karl complained.

  “And some of us need every second of that time to train.” Gian pressed a key on the remote clutched in his hand. The television blipped on and he hit another button, this one powering the DVD player.

  “Ever done it in a recliner, Gian?” Karl asked, fooling around with the chair’s back and footrest settings.

  “If that’s an invitation,” Gian started, “I’m flattered but not interested.”

  Chip and Cory laughed, which made Karl launch himself out of the chair. Sionne, incredibly agile and fast for his size, popped off his ottoman and blocked Karl’s path to the sofa.

  “Guys, c’mon,” Gian sighed. “The faster we get through this meeting, the sooner you can get out of here.”

  Glowering at Chip and Cory, Karl resumed his seat. “So how ‘bout it, Gian,” he persisted. “You ever done it in this chair?”

  “The day I discuss my sex life with you, will be the day—”

  “What sex life?” Karl mumbled. “I thought you were married to Sheng Li.”

  “At least I’m not married to my right hand,” Gian replied.

  “Oh, snap,” Cory shouted, drawing his knees to his chest in exaggerated paroxysms of laughter.

  “Who was that girl I saw you with at the Tropicana last night, Cory?” Karl sneered. “Her ass looked like two bowling balls wrapped in basketball skin.”

  “At least my girl had an ass,” Cory coolly responded. “Yours had a billboard booty.”

  “It’s ’cause I keep her on her back,” Karl said. “You’re such a pig, man,” Chip muttered.

  “Better a pig than a Boy Scout,” Karl scoffed. He grabbed the bulge between his legs. “I got females begging me to feed their kitties. All you got outta your girl last night was a walk.” He clasped his hands under his chin and batted his eyelashes. “Oh, how sweet,” he started in a teasing falsetto. “Opie took Frieda for a walk down Limp Lover’s Lane.”

  Sionne belched. “Who’s Frieda?”

  “For cryin’ out loud, I could smell that,” Gian winced. “Did you have hotdogs before you came here?” “Who’s Frieda?” Cory asked.

  “Cinder White,” Karl said. “Gian’s private lesson. Or maybe she’s into Chip’s privates now.”

  Gian’s jaw hardened.

  “Why do you call her Frieda?” Chip asked.

  “Frieda is a black girl’s name,” Karl smirked.

  “Actually, it’s German in origin,” Cory said. “It means ‘lady.’ My sister and her husband are having twins. All they do is talk baby names.”

  “If they’re girls, she could name them Frieda and Hazel,” Karl said. “Or Leroy and Tyrone, if they’re boys.”

  “Why don’t you shut up, you ignorant prick,” Cory snapped.

  Karl kicked the footrest back into place and sat taller in the recliner. “Why don’t you make me?”

  “You know I can,” Cory warned.

  “Let’s dance, Lionel.”

  Both instructors stood and started to square off, but Gian quickly stepped between them, Chip taking Cory’s arm in a brotherly grip.

  “Settle down, guys,” Gian said, his tone reminding them that he could take the both of them if he had to. Fast, slim, and strong, Cory was the youngest reigning Junior Regional Martial Arts champion ever, and the first African-American to win the honor. Karl rarely competed, but his mean streak and the solid muscle packed on his large frame might have been enough to give him the edge in a fight with Cory. It was a match-up Gian would have enjoyed watching on the mat, not in his house.

  Karl and Cory returned to their seats, although they continued to give each other the stink eye.

  “Save this for the tournament,” Gian told them as he paced the room. “The footage you’re about to see will show you what you’ll be up against. You’re gonna need everything you’ve got to win. And winning this tournament is about more than prize money or trophies. This is where the best of the best meet to prove who most deserves that title. You take everything you have to the mat, and you spend it, every bit of it. When you walk into that arena and face off with your opponent, you’ll do it for honor.” He glanced at Chip, then Cory. “You’ll do it for respect.” He threw a glance at Karl.

  Gian stepped around the cocktail table to pull Sionne’s plate from him before he could dive into a third helping of pasta. “You’ll do it to show your peers that you’re a champion on and off the mat.”

  Gian returned to the armoire and pushed PLAY on the remote. “You four are Sheng Li’s best chance for a team title and to medal in the individual fight classes. I’d like each of you to nominate a student or two who you think would make a good showing in the exhibition matches. Competitors will be matched up according to skill level alone, not weight, so keep that in mind.” He turned to Chip. “I’ve already got Zae Richardson on my list, so I’d like you to choose two of your other students.”

  “Which belt class are you putting Zae in?” Chip asked.

  “Any one she wants.”

  They chuckled, each of them having survived in-house run-ins with Zae.

  “Put her in the black belt class.” Cory grinned. “I’d love to see her tear up that bulldog from the Philippines.” He pointed to the television. “Did you see his takedown?”

  They quieted to watch the fight footage, Gian’s animated play-by-play providing insight to the styles and habits of the men they would likely face in the tournament. Once the DVD was over, Gian dismissed them with copies to study on their own time.

  Chip volunteered to stay and help Gian clean up the kitchen. “My mother’s baked ziti normally feeds twelve,” Gian said, scooping the half-cup leftover portion into a small plastic storage container. “Or one Sionne.”

  “Karl made off with the last of the ribs,” Chip said. “Gian, he’s totally outta control.”

  Gian plunged the empty casserole dish into a sink full of hot, soapy water. “Maybe he wanted something to chow on while he watches the Cards tonight.”

  “I’m not talking about him stealing your leftovers.”

  Gian glanced up from the dish he was washing and sighed. “Yeah, I know. He’s gotten worse ever since he lost his job at the auto plant.”

  Chip leaned against the counter nearest Gian. “That’s not your problem. But sooner or later, he’s going to become yours. He’s always been obnoxious, and now he’s downright mean.”

  His white shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, Gian stared forward as he washed the ziti dish. Through the wide, bare window before him, he watched a hawk soar above the treetops. The hawk either lived in or planned to prey on something scurrying through the organized wilderness of the Shady Creek Nature Conservatory abutting Gian’s big backyard.

  “I can’t fire him,” Gian finally said. “Sheng Li is all he’s got left.”

  “So why’s he trying to throw it away?”

  “He’s in a bad place right now. You and I know what that’s like. It’ll pass.”

  Staring at his flip flops, Chip grabbed his left elbow with his right hand. “Are you sure?”

  “No.”

  “He’s got a real burr in his saddle about Cinder.” “You noticed?” Gian asked wryly.

  “He’s not the only one preoccupied with her.”

  “Cory asked about her yesterday.” Gian laughed. “Not that he’d know what to do with her if she was into twenty-year-old college juniors.”

  “I don’t know,” Chip said. “Cory’s got his goofy moments, but I don’t see anything wrong with a younger man seeing an older woman.”

  Gian nearly dropped the freshly rinsed casserole pan. “You wouldn’t mind seeing Cory with Cinder White? Our little Cory?”

  “Not if that’s who she wanted to be with. But he’s not who she’s into.”

  Gian pulled the stopper from the drain and the stainless steel sink emptied with a soft sucking sound. He dried his hands on a white, waffle-weave kitchen towel. “I’d love to hear all about your love conne
ction with Cinder, but I got laundry to do and some yard work that needs—”

  “It’s not me, Gian,” Chip cut in. “I think it’s you.” Gian’s interest in the conversation renewed instantly. “Did she say something? How do you know?”

  With a tiny grin, Chip shook his head. “The ol’ Kish charm didn’t move her one bit last night. She only wanted to know about you. I don’t think she even realized it until I pointed it out.”

  Gian’s chest seemed to inflate and his step was lighter as he went to the refrigerator. Karl’s fingerprints in barbeque sauce were on the door handle, but Gian didn’t seem to care. He simply wiped them away with paper towels. “There’s something about her. It’s like with Lucia.” Forgetting about his laundry and yard work, he took a couple of beers from the refrigerator and handed one to Chip. “They’re so different, but they’re so much alike.”

  “You think so?” Chip followed Gian back into the media room.

  Gian sank into a loveseat while Chip took the recliner. “I want to be wrong,” Gian said softly. “I hope to God I’m wrong.”

  Chapter 4

  “Is there something wrong with you?”

  Zae had stopped in the middle of the baking aisle in Freddy’s Market to bark her question. Mindless of stares from housewives dropping flour or sugar into their carts, Cinder drew to a halt, her response to Zae’s question succinct. “No.”

  “Chip Kish asked you out, and you’re only telling me now, two months later?” Zae started piling two-pound bags of confectioner’s sugar into her cart.

  “What are you going to do with twelve pounds of powdered sugar?” Cinder asked.

  “Make twelve pounds of frosting. Why did you turn down Chip? What did he do wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Cinder moved closer to Zae, almost toppling a floor display of discontinued brownie mixes in the narrow aisle. “I haven’t felt anything for anyone in such a long time, I’m not sure I’m capable of it anymore.”

  “You need to see a doctor,” Zae deadpanned. “Chip Kish is sick.”

  “Sick with what? He looked fine when I saw him at Sheng Li last night.”

  “Sick means good,” Zae explained. She chose two packages of shortening sticks and set them on top of her confectioner’s sugar. “It means fine. Handsome.”

  “You’ve been reading Dawn’s e-mails again, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, once Eve translated them into English for me.”

  They left the baking aisle for the Deli & Meat counter at the back of the store. “Why don’t you go after him yourself if you think he’s so sick?”

  Zae bent over to peer more closely into the glass case housing the prepared salads and heat-and-eat entrees. “It doesn’t sound right when you say it.”

  “Why don’t you ask him out?”

  Zae stood and, with one hand planted on her hip, said, “Woman, heal thyself. Once you pull a Lazarus on your own love life, then you can try to rebuild mine.”

  Cinder held Zae’s gaze. Cinder’s experience maintaining a blank expression served her well, but she had never been able to cloak her feelings from Zae.

  “I’m sorry.” Zae ran a consoling hand along Cinder’s bare upper arm. “I shouldn’t be so defensive. Or so resistant to . . .” She took a deep breath to force out her next words. “Starting over.”

  “You don’t have to apologize,” Cinder assured her. “You’re right, about all of it. There is something wrong with me, and I’ve known it for a while now. I just don’t feel right. I don’t feel at all.”

  “It takes time to fully recover from what you’ve been through. It hasn’t been two years.”

  “I don’t mean that way.” Cinder lowered her voice. “I haven’t had that urge, in so long. I can’t remember the last time I felt . . .” She widened her eyes and tipped her head to one side, hoping Zae would know what she meant.

  “Horny,” Zae blurted.

  The apron-clad butchers behind the counter looked up from their cutting and wrapping.

  “Mind your meat, man,” Zae directed them before turning back to Cinder. “You have to do something about that. You can’t let what happened back East permanently change your life.”

  “But it did.”

  “You’re in charge, kiddo. You can determine how it’s changed you. Whether it’s for the good or the pitiful. You’ve already made positive strides toward putting the you back in you. You moved to Webster Groves, you’re learning at Sheng Li. You won’t ever be the woman you were before everything went down back East. You’ll be better.”

  “If I can rebuild my life,” Cinder started pointedly, “then so can you.”

  “I set myself up for that, didn’t I?”

  “Good advice works both ways.” Cinder smiled. “It’s been eight years since Colin died, Zae. You’re still young . . . relatively.”

  “Girl,” Zae said, warning in her tone.

  Cinder laughed.

  “It’s good to see you smile again,” Zae said, her own brightening.

  “I’ll say.”

  Cinder turned, Zae looking over her shoulder, to see who had spoken.

  “Good afternoon, ladies,” Gian said. His eyes on Cinder, he added, “I’m with Zae on this. It really is good to see you smile.”

  In two months of training her, she hadn’t cracked so much as a grin. Now her smile, lovely as it was, seemed permanent as the heat of a blush gave her face new radiance. This was the first time in weeks that he’d seen her in something other than a gi, and he spent a moment studying her.

  The voluminous jacket and pants of her gi hid the elegantly sleek muscles of her arms and the fuller, more defined muscles of her legs, all of which were on display in her pale sleeveless top, denim cut-offs, and high espadrilles. He’d noticed the subtle changes in her face that had come with her hard work at Sheng Li and a healthy weight gain. No longer gaunt, her cheeks were sensuously plump. Her eyes appeared vibrant and relaxed rather than sunken and wary.

  The sadness she carried with her remained, but it only added to her mystery, her beauty. Chip’s revelation, that he thought Cinder had an interest in him, had fertilized the seed that had been planted the first time he had seen her. Standing in front of the meat counter at Freddie’s Market, Gian’s feelings for Cinder began to bloom.

  “What can I get for you, Mrs. Richardson?” the butcher asked, a wide smile beneath his thick white mustache. “I’ve got slab bacon on sale.”

  “I’ll take three pounds,” Zae said.

  Cinder nudged her.

  “Make that five,” Zae amended.

  “Someone’s having a big breakfast in the morning,” the butcher exclaimed, tearing off a sizeable piece of white paper from the roll behind the counter.

  “It’s this one here.” Zae bumped Cinder with her hip. “She could live off bacon.”

  The butcher winked at Cinder. “Is that so?”

  Gian hung his shopping basket over his right arm so he could stand closer to Cinder to hear her answer.

  “Bacon is proof of God’s existence.” Cinder’s placid tone contradicted the passion of her words. “If there was bacon juice, I’d drink it. If there was bacon perfume, I’d wear it. I wish there was such a thing as bacon ice cream. If—”

  “See what I mean,” Zae interrupted.

  “What other foods do you like?” Gian asked Cinder.

  “Donuts,” she and Zae answered together. “LaMar’s vanilla long johns are my favorite,” Cinder told him. “Mine, too,” Gian said.

  Zae stepped around Cinder to face Gian. “She once put three strips of bacon on top of a LaMar’s long john and ate it like an entree.”

  “I’ll have to add that to my recipe collection.” Gian chuckled.

  “Me, too,” the butcher said and laughed.

  Zae took her massive package of bacon from the top of the counter and asked for bone-in chicken breasts and lamb chops. Cinder peered into Gian’s basket. Then she looked at his face. “This is what you live on?”

  “Sure.” He
shrugged one shoulder.

  Cinder inventoried his selections. “HoHos, Cool Whip, Velveeta—”

  “Velveeta is great for nachos,” Gian said defensively.

  “It’s great for sealing cracks in your bathroom tile, too,” Zae muttered.

  “How do you stay in such great shape eating stuff like this?” Cinder wondered.

  Gian patted his abdomen. “You think I’m in great shape?”

  Her blush deepened, but she maintained eye contact with him. “Yes. I do.”

  It was Gian’s turn to blush, and he dropped his chin in a weak attempt to hide it.

  “Gian?”

  The high-pitched, nasal squawk came from a tall, skinny woman in white low-rider shorts and a plaid halter. She exited the dairy section and headed straight for Gian. “Well, hey, what brings your hot buns into this neck of the woods?” The woman grasped the handle of her shopping basket in both hands, and she stood in such a way as to use her basket to create a gap between Cinder and Gian.

  “Hi, Tracy.” Embarrassment flared in Gian’s cheeks. He cast an uncomfortable glance at Cinder and Zae, who whispered in Cinder’s ear. “I’m conducting a karate class at Clark this afternoon.”

  Tracy’s heavily lined and shadowed eyes widened in exaggerated surprise. “If I’d known you were teaching an Afternoon Enrichment class at the elementary school, I’d have signed my brood up.” She held up a finger and craned her long neck to peek down the dairy aisle. “Garrett! Chesney! Emory!” she shrieked. “Mommy is getting extremely impatient with you! Climb down and come here, right now!”

  “Where’s Granddad with his belt,” Zae muttered.

  Cinder laughed out loud at Zae’s reference to the way Granddad from The Boondocks would have handled unruly children in a grocery store.

  Gian snickered, certain he could have held a straight face if Cinder’s laugh hadn’t been so contagious.

  Three children with shoulder-length blond hair barreled out of the dairy aisle and zoomed past the meat department. Tracy stepped in their direction to watch them race into the produce section. Cinder took that moment to lean toward Gian. “Are those girls or boys?”