Page 17 of Rebel Hawke

I turn back around in time to catch the corners of his lips twitch.

“Nice attempt to change the subject. I’ll let it slide for now.” Coen motions out over the club. “Turns out half the club staff got the flu.”

“No shit.”

He nods and gives me a hard smile. “Yeah. So, when they’re short-staffed, who are they going to call?”

Not me.

I made it very clear to everyone at a very young age that I had no intention of working for the family. Not falling in line with the Hawke vision of my future makes me the rebel, and choosing to enter the ring professionally—against Nana’s explicit wishes—might as well have labeled me as a pariah. But Coen is a closesecond when it comes to bucking tradition and rejecting familial expectations.

His inability to commit to any one path in life has left Uncle Stone and Aunt Nora reeling, especially since Isaac always had such a clear picture of what he wanted and how he was going to get it.

That’s left Coen twisting in the wind…and the go-to man when anyone needs help with any of the businesses, especially on short notice.

“Well”—I swirl my scotch—“if you had a real job, my dad and Savage wouldn’t always rely on you to fill in for everything.”

He scowls at me. “I do have other things going on, you know. I can’t always be at their beck and call.”

I smirk at him and take another sip of my drink. “Oh, yeah? Is that why you’ve been MIA the last couple of weeks? What have you been so busy with?” I raise a brow at him. “A girl?”

Coen shakes his head and points his finger at me. “Oh, no. If you’re not going to tell me what has you looking like somebody pissed in your Cheerios and got you out here at this godforsaken hour, then I’m not telling you what I’ve been up to, either.”

I raise my glass to him. “Fair enough.”

He turns back to put the bottle in its place and grabs a few beers for one of the waitresses. I spin around and sit with my elbows on the bar, wincing at the tug on my shoulder as I watch Mabel on the pole.

Her lithe body wraps around the metal elegantly, and she moves her hips to the beat of the song, swaying effortlessly and enticing the men along the edges of the stage to throw money at her mindlessly.

She spots me and winks, and I incline my head toward her in acknowledgment.

Of all the girls, she’s always been one of my favorites.

Sweet and somehow innocent despite what she’s doing for a living.

She tips her head back, and her long, flaxen hair cascades down her back. Watching her move, she quickly morphs in my head from the blond bombshell into the stunning, dark-haired beauty I saw this morning for the first time in twenty years.

Christ, she’s beautiful.

I haven’t been able to get her out of my mind since I left her in her studio space, replaying every word we said to each other, every look we exchanged.

Wren coming back to town has thrown me off my already fucked-up game. The sole thing I should be thinking about right now is how I’m going to beat Vince Gordon and take that belt. With training camp starting, having that woman working right next door is certainly going to make it a lot harder to concentrate on what I should be over the next three months.

It’s the fight of a lifetime.

Though, something tells me Gordon isn’t going to be my hardest opponent.

WREN

The glasscleaner barely cuts through the years of grime on the windows. I spray it on thicker and swipe at it again, over and over, until it finally starts to look shiny and clear the way it should.

I can’t really blame the Hawkes for not maintaining this side of the building when it has been empty for so long. After all, they only bought this place from Gramps all those years ago becauseheneeded the money, not really becausetheyneeded to own the gym.

Gramps never would have kicked out the Hawkes or refused to train Atlas—not with the history he shares with them.

The insane loyalty and love he feels for that entire family goes far back, well before I was born, to when he trained Sam. And it is undying.

Part of me thinks he puts so much work into Atlas to try to make up for what happened to his grandfather. Even though Sam’s death wasn’t his fault, I can still see the pain in his gaze when he talks about him. Just as I could when I was little and watching the other Hawkes in the ring.

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