That mixed martial arts thing had been a part of my life for a long time.
Dad had been at me for years, especially once he opened his new state-of-the-art mixed martial arts and then some training facility in Martinsburg, less than fifteen minutes from where I’d been attending college at Shepherd University. God, I’d been so pissed when I’d discovered that my family had practically followed me to college. Dad would’ve stayed at the Philadelphia location, but one of my five thousand uncles would always be with stalking distance.
Dad had wanted me to come back home and work at the center in Philly, but he’d finally caught on about two years ago to the fact that was never going to happen. Ever. There were too many memories there, too much that reminded me . . . reminded me of him and of the way I used to be.
But about six months ago, Dad started on me again. So did my mother. So did Uncle Julio and Dan and Andre and, oh my God, the Limas were like mogwai fed after midnight. The pitch had started off differently this time. Andre, who was currently the General Manager of the Lima Academy in Martinsburg, wanted to move back to Philly by the beginning of October, because I guess West Virginia just wasn’t cool enough for him. Dad wasn’t offering me the GM position, but the position of assistant to the GM—a manager position that hadn’t existed before at the Martinsburg location. The assistant manager would oversee the day-to-day functioning of the Academy while helping expand services. He wanted someone he could trust and who knew the business while he found a new GM. The offer was, well, very tempting, but I’d turned it down.
Then Dad showed up at my apartment and handed me a piece of paper that had my salary written on it, along with a slew of benefits, and I would be the stupidest and most stubborn person to refuse that, but even though the offer was amazing, it wasn’t the real reason why I finally accepted it. He just came at the right moment, when I just . . . just was so damn tired of the windowless room and working a job I didn’t give two craps about. The offer poked and prodded at the Jillian I used to be, and a part of me knew that was who Dad had been trying to reach this entire time with one crazy job offer after another.
“I do,” Cam confirmed, breaking me out of my thoughts.
“We know.” Avery sighed. “We all know.”
“So, you . . . you really have no clue what my last name means?” I asked, finding it somewhat freeing that there was a red-blooded man who didn’t secretly wish he could climb into the Octagon and walk back out in one piece.
“Not really. Is that a bad thing?”
“No.” I dipped my chin as I smiled and peeked back up at him. “It’s a . . . a good thing.”
His gaze met mine. “I’m happy to hear that.”
My face heated again, so I focused on my plate. I poked at the cheese fries as my stomach grumbled. If I was at home, I would’ve already consumed half my plate, but I forced myself to not eat like I hadn’t seen food in a week.
The dinner went . . . surprisingly smoothly.
Cam and Avery kept the conversation flowing naturally, picking up whenever the gaps of silence started to stretch out too long, which didn’t happen often. Grady was easy to talk to, guiding me into conversation. There were only a few times when Cam or Avery had spoken to me and I hadn’t heard them, so Grady had to catch my attention. This didn’t seem to bother them, which made it easy for me to gloss over it.
Our main dishes arrived while Grady was telling me about a new art exhibit that had come to Shepherd. The way his eyes lit up as he talked about the exhibit, you could tell that was the kind of stuff he was into.
And it was cute.
“Sounds like it’s an amazing thing to see,” I said, picking up my fork. “I haven’t gone to many art exhibits recently.” Or ever. Like, seriously. I didn’t go look at art. Not like I saw anything wrong with doing that, but it just wasn’t something I did.
Then again, there wasn’t much I did.
“I can take you,” Grady offered, grinning. “I’d love to.”
My lips parted at the unexpected offer. We were getting along well, so I wasn’t sure why the offer caught me off-guard, but it did. I started to respond, but realized I didn’t know what to say, because I wasn’t sure if I was excited about what seemed like a genuine offer or if I was wholly unmoved by it.
An all-too-familiar feeling swept through me, the one that usually hit me in the middle of the long night, keeping me awake. It was how I had felt when I’d been dating Ben; it was the feeling that had kept me with him, because I didn’t see anything better for myself. Not because I didn’t deserve better, but I . . . I gave my heart so completely, so fully to someone else, that when my heart was broken, those pieces I’d freely given away weren’t mine any longer.
My heart wasn’t complete.
And that might sound silly and overdramatic to some, but I didn’t care. It was the truth, and I wasn’t sure I could ever feel that way about someone else again. So I had settled with Ben. Would I be doing that again with Grady, if it got to that point? Settling?
Oh God, wait a second.
Was I really sitting here and thinking about settling after I just met this guy an hour ago?
I needed to get a grip.
“Jillian?” Grady said, and I guessed he thought I hadn’t heard him.
“T-that would be nice,” I managed to force out.
He studied me for a moment too long, and I wondered if he could sense my growing nervousness.
“I’ll be right back.” Placing my folded napkin onto the table, I rose and stepped around the chair. I could feel Avery’s concerned gaze on me, and I didn’t want to make a big deal out of anything, but I assured her I was okay.
I just needed a minute.
Or three.
Making my way through the narrow pathways between the tables, I headed back toward the bathroom. Only once I pushed open the double doors and stopped in front of the water-spotted mirror did I realize I’d left my purse at the table, so there’d be no reapplying my lipstick.
I pumped soap onto my hands and waved them under the facet. Water flowed, washing away the suds as I slowly lifted my gaze to my reflection. Normally when I looked at myself, I didn’t really pay attention longer than was necessary to put makeup on without ending up looking like a tutorial gone wrong.
Standing here now, I really looked at myself, though.
I used to wear my hair up all the time, but I’d stopped doing that every day. My hair now hung in waves and the ends curled over the tips of my breasts. I also used to have heavy bangs, but thank God they were long gone. I’d finally learned how to put on eyeliner. That was another miracle. The slight flush of my face darkened my naturally tan skin. My lips were fuller and my nose straight.
My hair was parted to sweep to the left so it shielded my cheek . . . and my cheek didn’t look that bad, especially considering how it looked the first time I’d seen it after . . . after days in the hospital.
Hell, my entire face had been one hot mess.
There was a deep indentation in my left cheek, almost like an icepick had been shoved in there, and as I stared at my right jaw line, I was still amazed by what reconstructive plastic surgeons could accomplish. Half my face had literally been pieced back together with an iliac crest graft with a reconstruction plate and a crap ton of dentistry to give me back a full set of functional teeth.