IT’S a testament to the volume my friends are capable of reaching, the fact that I’m able to hear their arrival over the loud music threatening to burst my eardrums.
Tugging off my headphones, I turn as they tumble into the locker room, a tornado of excited, intoxicated energy—looks like they’ve already taken advantage of the open bar, as they do every time they come to one of these things.
“There he is!” Cass hoots, leading the guys in a messy chant of my name, and I can’t tell whether I’m amused or horrified by the attention. Hands slap my shoulders and aim fake punches at my ribs while voices chat my ear off but I barely register their presence. Like a magnet, my attention slams to the woman swaying in the doorway looking unsure as to whether she’s welcome.
When I summon her over with a jerk of my head, Amelia wobbles in my direction, her lopsided smile tipsy and bordering on shy. “You came.” I feign surprise, pretending I didn’t see her mere hours ago, that I didn’t watch her try on what felt like a hundred pieces of clothing before settling on her current outfit—a knee-length dress such a dark shade of green, it’s nearly black in a shiny material that’s almost as soft and silky as her skin. The chunky black boots on her feet mean that when she comes to a stop—about half a foot too far away—she barely reaches my chin instead of barely reaching my shoulders.
Some of her timidness drips away when, discreetly so the guys don’t notice, I close the gap between us, brushing my hand against hers. Her pinky hooks around mine, squeezing quickly before releasing. “The girls are here too. They say good luck.”
“Nicolas Silva doesn’t need luck,” Cass scoffs playfully, hooking an arm around my neck and giving me a shake. “You’re gonna kill him.”
I roll my eyes but I make no attempt to shove him off. I’m in a good mood, pumped full of adrenaline, and even Ben’s yippy voice can’t pierce it. He’s flitting around like an over-excited puppy—the annoying kind, a little ankle-biter—and cooing over the small arena housing the event, fawning over the other boxer, assuring me not to worry because I’m still his favorite, and I must be high as fuck on pre-fight jitters because I laugh at his antics.
“How much have they drank?” I mutter to Jackson, the only other sober person in the room.
A wince is the only answer I get.
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure they don’t break anything.” Jackson’s gaze flits from the guys to Amelia and back to me, the corners of his eyes crinkling as his lips turn up. “I’ll keep an eye on her too.”
I don’t trust myself not to say something incriminating—even a thanks feels like it could drop me in hot water—so I keep my mouth shut. A short hum of acknowledgment is all I offer before I shift my attention to Tweedledum and Tweedledee, resisting the urge to let it fall back to Amelia because suddenly, I’m overly aware of prying, inquisitive eyes.
Only when I hear a throat clear, quiet but pointed, do I risk a sideways glance and meet a curious green gaze. “What was that?” Amelia murmurs under her breath, jerking her head toward Jackson who’s currently trying to referee a mock fight between the tipsy menaces we call friends.
My hands itch to smooth out the furrow in her brow but I resist. “No idea.”
“Did you tell him?”
I quell the tiny spark of irritation brought on by her narrow-eyed accusation. “No.”
“I think he knows.”
“Yeah, well,” I shrug, ignoring the way my chest pangs at her blatant disapproval—I have no right to be hurt, we both more than willingly agreed to the secrecy. “Like Kate says, we’re not actually masters of subtlety.”
Frown falling, Amelia lets out a conflicted groan. “I don’t know how I feel about you and her suddenly being best friends.”
I snort. Far from it—we’ve simply come to an understanding. Formed a mutually symbiotic relationship founded on the knowledge that we both have Amelia’s best interests at heart. She’s an easy person to get along with—a wicked dry sense of humor, an admirable protective streak, and a slightly terrifying intuition—but like her best friend, it takes effort to get there.
“If you’re so worried about people finding out,” God, I hope her alcohol consumption has dulled her senses so she doesn’t catch the minor note of bitterness, “why did you come back here?”
“I wanted to wish you luck.” It’s pathetic that a fucking pinky finger gets my blood pumping but as it wraps tightly around mine again in the only contact she’s willing to risk, it does. She’s not exactly stingy with her affection—I think it isn’t something that comes easy to her. Like she’s not used to such displays, like it was something she was reprimanded for before. Shit, a couple of months ago, I wasn’t used to it, it didn’t come easy to me, and now I can’t keep my hands off her. And when that energy is returned, I revel in it.
Amelia smiles sweetly up at me but a brief flash of concern crosses her features, her gaze flitting over my face and bare chest. “Be careful, okay? You just got pretty again.”
God, I fucking hate my friends and their insistence on being here. And I hate our fucking secrecy pact too. All I want is to kiss the concern right out of Amelia, taste whatever’s softening her disposition but I can’t. All I can do is hang onto that single finger, and I hate that too.
Everything is going perfectly until it isn’t.
The moment I step into the ring, a familiar feeling of powerful control rushes over me. I know what to do, a voice in the back of my head reminds him. I got this.
And I do have it. Round after round, I have it.
Until my opponent opens his big, bloody mouth.
I’ve fought Brett Reynolds before. There are few people in the world I can say with full confidence that I utterly despise, and he’s one of them. A bleeder with a glass jaw who relies on dirty tricks and evasive maneuvers. A cocky, rude jackass who fucking begs to be knocked down a few pegs, and I’m more than happy to do it. I do it for four rounds before the guy has had enough, spitting blood as a result of that last uppercut and sneering at me, “Got some pretty girls cheering for you tonight, Silva.”
At first, I brush it off. I ignore the words, finding humor in the gargled way they sound due to his mouthguard. Goading tactics aren’t uncommon and they’re not unfamiliar to me. But, to my opponents’ chagrin, I’ve never had anything worth getting all riled up over, nothing important enough to pin as a sore spot.
Until now.
Brett waits until I swing again, evading me by some stroke of luck and spinning around to hiss in my ear, “The redhead looks real worried.”
Don’t fucking react.
“I won’t fuck you up too bad, pretty boy.” Red-stained teeth glint at me. “Just enough to get some tears out of your girl. But don’t worry, I’ll cheer her up nice and good.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Four words and he knows he’s got me.
I make the mistake of giving in to the lure of distraction, of stealing a glimpse in Amelia’s direction. It’s only a split second but the lapse in concentration costs me. Brett notices, his tone foul as he leers. “Shit, look at her. She’s a hot little thing. Bet every guy in here wants a piece of that.”
My next punch is sloppy, miscalculated, fuelled by anger instead of technique, and Brett dodges it easily. He’s on my ass in a second, catching me off guard when he aims below the belt. I backpedal with a curse, realizing too late that I’ve backed myself into a corner, barely ducking in time to avoid the full force of his offensive punch; it glances my cheek, not damaging but rattling. Frustration bubbles up, steering the left hook that I throw at Brett’s stomach, closely followed by the right hook meant for his chin. Both land, but the wave of triumph that crashes over me dries up all too quickly.
“I gotta know man,” Brett wheezes, the shot to his liver knocking the breath out of him but that smarminess goes nowhere. “Is she as wild a fuck as she looks?”
My blood runs cold, freezing me in place.
“Nah, don’t tell me.” He cracks a sickening grin as he glances toward Amelia, a blackening eye dipping in a wink. “I’ll find out myself.”
I’m on him before I can think better of it. Punch after punch is thrown and landed, none of them regulation but I don’t give a fuck, I want fucking blood. Rage blinding me, I can’t even see Brett but I hear his grunt of pain, I feel when he starts to fight back. Slimy fucking worm that he is, he manages to slip from my grasp, and my right kidney aches as gloved knuckles connect with the sensitive spot on my lower back.
I spin around, ready to go for him again, but I get yanked away. Restrained by either arm, voices yell at me to calm down but I can barely hear them over my own yelled threat. Spitting on my mouthguard, I repeat on a loop, “Talk about her again and I’ll fucking kill you.”
You’re disqualified, someone is telling me, shouting in my ear that I’m banned for a length of time I don’t catch but I couldn’t care less. Brett’s bloody face is so fucking worth it. I’m shaking with anger as I get dragged from the ring, away from the raucous crowd, down the familiar hallway leading to the locker rooms. A clamoring of noise follows in my wake.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Nick, what was that?” Cass is yelling, Ben is yelling, even fucking Jackson has raised his voice above a gentle murmur for probably the first time in his life, but I’m not focused on them. Nor on Luna or Kate or Sydney as the former shoots me a discreet, wide-eyed thumbs up, the latter shifts nervously from one foot to the other, and the middle wears an expression way too fucking all-knowing for my liking.
It’s Amelia who holds all my attention, as she so often does. Lingering on the edge of the group, she looks unsure of what to do, and my first instinct is to go to her. Shaking off the security guards gripping either side of me, I take a step toward her.
She takes a real fucking loud step back.
Eyes wide, she casts a pointed glance toward our audience, and I hate it so much it makes me sick. I hate the secrets, I hate her ex-boyfriend, and for one long, angry second, I hate how much of me I’ve let her have when she doesn’t even want it, not really, not enough.
Her mouth forms my name but if she says it, I don’t hear; the bitter laugh that leaves me overrides everything else. I take off, storming into the locker room, the door slamming off the wall with a loud bang as I barrel through. Tossing my headgear aside, I unlace my gloves with my teeth and rip them off. I pace the length of the room in a vain attempt to calm down, barely doing a single lap before a tornado swirls into the room.
“What the hell, Nicolas?”
I glare at a seething Kate. “I’m not in the mood.”
Undeterred, she strides towards me, not stopping until she’s close enough to cuff me upside the head. “What is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with you?” I retort, rubbing the spot she whacked. God, put her in a ring and she’d win any day.
“What happened?” Kate adds to her endless list of questions yet she cuts me off when I open my mouth to respond. “Hit me with that ‘nothing’ bullshit and I swear to God, Nick. Tell me the truth, and it better be damn good because if you scared the shit out of her for nothing, I will fuck you up.”
Guilt vanquishes my anger in a single sentence.
Fuck.
“I scared her?” Of course, I did. Of fucking course, I did.
When I sink onto the bench separating one row of lockers from another, Kate sighs down at me. “I think she was scared for you more than anything.”
“He was talking shit about her,” I explain with a wince, preemptively adding, “Don’t ask me to repeat it.”
There’s a pause before Kate makes a noise of acknowledgment, the wooden slats beneath me creaking as she sits beside me. “You looked like you were mad at her.”
“I’m not. I’m…” A defeated breath leaves me. “I’m mad at the situation.”
I don’t need to explain further; thank fuck for those seemingly telepathic abilities of Kate’s. Shifting closer, she sets a hand on my knee, squeezing gently in a gesture as placating as her tone. “You know she’s giving you everything she can.”
I do know, and I feel like a dick for wanting more anyway.
“Give her time, okay? She’ll get there. Don’t mess it up before she does.”
All I can do is nod because I can’t find the words to tell her that I’m actively doing everything in my power not to fuck this up, yet I’m failing anyway.
