Page 51 of The Boss
And I’m already aching from the hours of walking.
“Ugh!” I grunt as I skip over a fallen branch.
Maybe Quinn is right and I am outmatched here.
I’m proud, but I’m not an idiot. If you find yourself the dumbest one in the room, you suck it up and learn something. And if there’s one thing that man can teach me, it’s how to fight.
•••••
“Why hand to hand?” I ask loudly the next day. Same clearing, same fighting. Quinn is watching as two men I don’t know fight the hell out of each other.
“Why do you think?” Quinn replies without looking at me.
“Because you’re a hundred years old and stuck in the dark ages?” I huff, to the chuckles of a few of the men.
“I’m not even ten years older than you, wife.”
“Might as well be fifty years. Where are the knives? Gun range?”
“You saw both of those inside,” He says, “Watch your ribs!” He yells, then finally looks at me. “Ask what you really want to ask.”
“Why outside?”
“Because it’s real,” he studies me as he talks. “Most fights end up man to man outside. No tech, no shelter, no weapons.”
I step forward. “I want to try,” I say.
“Finally, you say it plainly,” Quinn grins, then says, “And the answer is no.”
“So much for ‘not that old fashioned,’” I make air quotes with my hands. “Can’t a woman learn to fight, husband?”
“No need, you have me to protect you.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, suck up my pride, and try a different tactic. I look him in the eye, “Please?”
He stares at me, stoic and unreadable.
“Finn,” he finally says with his stupid, all-knowing smirk.
“Yes, boss!” Says an eager Quinn junior, the smallest guy in the group and definitely the youngest.
I fight a smile as I walk forward.
Finn stands across from me, loose and cocky. He’s tentative though, since I am the boss’s wife and he’s pushing nineteen. If that. Still, the boss said fight, so he will. His grin says he doesn’t take this seriously—I’m just a woman, after all.
“Go easy on me,” I say with a fake smile.
Finn’s grin widens to a genuine smile. “Of course.”
“She’s a liar and a purple belt in Jiu-Jitsu. Don’t go easy on her. That’s an order.”
Finn’s smile dies. “Yes, boss.”
Damn it!
My heart thuds in my ears. Quinn shifts to leaning against a tree on the edge of the makeshift ring, arms crossed, amused and maybe curious, too. Casual. Smug.
Fuck, I hate my husband. But this isn’t about him. This is about me. I lift my chin and my hands, pride coursing through me. I will not be humiliated.
