Read Online Challenge: A Contemporary MMA Romance: Oni Fighters Book 3 by Natalie Gayle - Free Book Online

insensitivity. If I opened my mouth further, I was almost certain to regret it.
    If having Seth laid up wasn’t enough, it suddenly seemed like I was going to be looking for a new job as well.
    My hands shook in frustration and fury on the steering wheel all the way to the hospital. I couldn’t even begin to describe how angry I was at the way John had treated me.
    For the last year, I’d worked my butt off for that prick. Each day, I’d gone to work diligently and done every shit job and met every request he’d thrown at me. Not once had the arsehole said “thank you” or given me a hint of praise. Praise I could do without—common manners were another thing.
    Something else became clear to me as I drove to the hospital. I’d been kidding myself. I’d been convincing myself I just had to work harder and keep proving my abilities to him—prove to John that I was worth mentoring. I’d never critically looked at our working relationship.
    Fucking idiot .
    I’d been used.
    I had two weeks to figure out what I was going to do and so much of that depended on how Seth was doing.
    When I walked into the ICU a little later, I was greeted by Xander and Eden. They saw me from beside Seth’s bed and immediately came over. We went into the family lounge.
    “What’s up?” Eden took one look at me and knew there was something wrong.
    “I’ve just come from talking to my boss about some time off.”
    “Didn’t go well?” There was worry in her eyes.
    “Nope…he’s a prick. He begrudgingly let me have two weeks holiday leave but that’s it. You’d swear Seth conspired to have the accident just to cause a problem for him…seriously, ahhhh.” I felt like screaming in frustration and I probably would have if I hadn’t been in the middle of a hospital.
    Xander and Eden looked between them. Something unspoken was said and I saw her nod slightly to him. They were so right for each other. Whenever they were in the same room, they just seemed to gravitate to one another. Two pieces locking into place—yin and yang.
    “How about we try and fit in a training session this afternoon? Dane’s going to come in around lunchtime. We could train then you could head back here for the evening.” My brother-in-law knew me well. Xander knew I needed regular activity, otherwise, I started to go stir crazy.
    Martial arts training served as activity, plus, it was something I loved to do. In fact, just last week, Xander had suggested I might want to start working towards fighting seriously. There was an amateur card coming up in a few months. I was keen to give it a shot. It seemed like the natural progression for me from all the training I did. I had no idea if that would even be possible now.
    I glanced over at Seth and I felt torn. “Umm, I…”
    “A couple of hours out of here will do you good,” Eden suggested. She didn’t say that none of us had any idea how long we’d be here. For that, I was thankful. Somehow, it was easier if we didn’t voice the obvious.
    “Okay, Gem, let’s go get something to drink. I’m sure Soph will want a bit of time with Seth.” If I didn’t know the context, Xander’s words could have almost been dirty. Yeah, I could forget anything like that with Seth for the foreseeable future; right now, all I could think about was him opening those stormy blue-grey eyes again. Then, I started to panic about what would happen when he did.
    Seth was still very much an unknown quantity to me. He went to great lengths to keep everything light and easy between us, just two friends hanging out, that liked to take it further frequently—very frequently. We’d both sidestepped the conversation about our relationship status. Instinct had told me it would have him running for the hills.
    They wandered off for a while and I headed into Seth’s room. A middle-aged looking woman was taking his obs and writing in his chart. She looked up from her notes when I moved in.
    “Hi, I’m Nancy. I’ll be Seth’s