Tap Out: BTU Alumni Series Book #2

by Ciz, Alley

  “You’re a real riot, Pita. You know that?” Gage cupped a hand over her knee as they sat, a bolt of heat shooting up her leg at his touch. She kept waiting for the time when his touch wouldn’t cause an instant reaction, but so far it had only intensified instead of waning.

  “Pita?” One of her brows lifted with the question.

  “Yup. Elizabeth”—Gage dragged out the syllables to prove a point—“has been a pain in my ass since these two started sniffing around each other our freshman year.”

  “I was not a pain in the ass. You were just too much of an idiot to appreciate my charms, Dumbass.”

  Again, she tried to hide her reaction behind her hand without much success.

  “What’s so funny, Blue?” Gage pulsed his hand against her ribcage, tickling her side. She squirmed in her seat to get away.

  “Oh, nothing,” she hedged.

  His tickling picked up speed, not believing her for a second.

  “Okay, okay.” She tapped on the corded muscles of his forearm. “I’m tapping out.” Her breaths heaved as she tried to get herself back under control thanks to the unexpected attack. “I was thinking about how much fun Beth would have with The Coven.” She whispered it as if they were some sort of secret society.

  Gage’s blue eyes sparkled with mischief as he considered the implications.

  “No. Way,” Wyatt said. “I’ve heard the guys talking about your little group of friends around the gym. I’d rather sit back and enjoy my cousin being with a member than be married to one.”

  “You run into burning buildings for a living. Yet you’re scared of a group of girls?” Rocky taunted.

  Gage snorted beside her.

  “You still chose to date me,” she said.

  “Ahh.” He stroked a finger along the underside of her jaw, her head moving to follow the movement. “But I’m more of a man than my cousin.”

  “Fuck you, cuz.” Wyatt flipped Gage off with a smile.

  She enjoyed hearing embarrassing stories of Gage growing up. It seemed only fair since he heard something about her on an almost daily basis. One downside to working with your family.

  “How do you handle working with your brother every day?” Beth asked, rubbing her belly. “I think it would drive me insane.”

  “It’s actually fun.” She loved her brother, maybe not so much when he was serving as a cock block, but since then, she made sure Gage always locked his door. Especially now that they needed to make the most of their private time since they were restricted from spending any time together while working. A fact she still hadn’t forgiven her father for.

  “I couldn’t do it.” Beth shook her head vehemently. “Going through high school with these two was bad enough.”

  “Yeah, because you were such a walk in the park.”

  She liked this new playful side of Gage.

  “Please.” Beth rolled her eyes. “Should I tell your girlfriend how you both wanted to go to prom dressed in tuxes straight out of Dumb and Dumber?”

  “They did not?” She slapped a hand over her mouth to cover her shock, having a hard time picturing Gage in a powder blue tuxedo with a ruffled shirt. The picture just didn’t compute.

  “They did,” Beth confirmed. “Thank god I went with them when they went to rent their tuxes.”

  “What?” Gage shrugged. “It would have made my eyes pop."

  When they finished consuming an impressive amount of food, they settled back to digest instead of automatically getting up to clean up.

  “I still can’t believe you never said anything about Gage being your cousin," she told Wyatt. "You work out at a fighting gym, for Christ’s sake.”

  Gage absentmindedly twirled a section of her hair. He was always finding ways to touch her throughout the day, even with their new restrictions.

  “I didn’t want to seem like a name-dropper,” Wyatt said with a shrug.

  “It wouldn’t be name dropping. He’s your family. You don’t consider it name dropping when I talk about my friends and they’re professional athletes too.” Her eyes bounced between the cousins. “Though now that I know. I can’t believe I didn’t put it together earlier. You guys look a lot alike.”

  They both had the same crayon-bright eyes, and while Gage kept his short, Wyatt’s longer hair was the same chocolatey brown shade.

  Being a firefighter was a physically demanding job and Wyatt’s body was a finely tuned instrument, but it had nothing on the defined bulk of muscle earned from years of training as an MMA fighter.

  Gage wasn’t overly bulky like muscle-head gym rats. His dense physique reminded her of Henry Cavill in Superman, with the exception of his buzzed hair. He was sinewy around each bulge and ridge of muscle and she loved to run her hands, and tongue, over every inch.

  He was so much more than his panty-ruining good looks. All week he’d been her rock, her anchor during the emotional storm she had been put through by her father. Anytime she came close to breaking, he was there holding her together, reminding her it was a temporary setback in the grand scheme of things. The conviction with which he spoke made her believe the ban inside the gym wouldn’t last forever.

  Wanting a break from her once again spiraling thoughts, she offered to help Beth clean up when she waved off Wyatt’s attempt to do so.

  She was happy Gage had people who loved him to help him adjust to all recent changes he’d made for his career.

  She was putting the last of the dishes in the dishwasher when she heard Beth let out a gasp. Her head snapped up, locking onto Beth’s wide brown eyes.

  “What's wrong?”

  “Ummm. I’m pretty sure my water just broke.”

  Having been with Jordan when she went into labor with the twins, she managed to tamp down any feelings of panic and took charge of the situation.

  “I’ll get the guys.”

  With hurried steps, she retraced the path to the back porch, pausing inside the doorway and clearing her throat.

  “Looks like we’re going to have to take this party on the road, boys.” Two sets perplexed eyes met hers. “It’s baby time.”

  BETWEEN SETTLING IN to his life in New Jersey, aiding in Vince’s training for his upcoming fight, starting things up with Rocky and the drama surrounding it, Wyatt’s work schedule and Beth’s pregnancy, Gage hadn’t spent as much time with his cousin as he would have liked.

  While Wyatt had been wifed up since his freshman year in high school, Gage had never brought a girl home to meet his family. Bringing Rocky to have dinner with them tonight was technically meeting his family, but it wasn’t anything like the pressure he had to face at the Steeles' earlier that week.

  Being personally connected to all six members of The Coven, he could understand Wyatt’s balking at his wife joining the fold, but it didn’t make it any less comical.

  Jake had told him once that he was sure if the girls put their minds to it, they could take over the world and have the people thanking them for it. Gage didn’t think he was far off with the assessment.

  “I saw you were trending this week,” Wyatt said, uncapping a bottle of beer for each of them.

  He thought back to the pictures he saw posted on his social media thanks to his new PR firm. It was after hours since that was the only time he could be with Rocky in the gym, and he was messing around training with her. One of the guys—he assumed Vince—snapped the pics of him doing pull-ups wearing Rocky. In both shots, she was wrapped around him like a monkey. In the first picture, he was hanging from the bar with his arms fully extended while she looked at him with a devil may care smile on her beautiful face. In the second one, his body was crunched up, his legs creating almost a table for her to sit on, as the two of them shared a kiss above the pull-up bar he lifted himself over.

  Thanks to her father's treatment, his girl had not been herself anytime they stepped inside the gym. The night the pictures were taken, he'd made a conscious effort to bring the joy back to the place she spent the majority of her time.


  He had no idea anyone took a photo of them until it blew up on the internet. Since his post announcing he was officially off the market, the public had been real interested in learning more about the girl who was able to capture The Kraken.

  It didn’t help that The Cutter commented on every one of his posts and even tried to get at him through Rocky’s accounts. It had gotten so bad she made her accounts private.

  He didn’t bother trying to understand the guy’s motives. Cutler already had his next fight lined up so it wasn’t like he needed Gage for his career. It was ego more than anything else.

  He couldn’t give a shit. All that mattered was that the asshole stay far away from his girl.

  He did agree the pictures were hot, and they may or may not have been the new background on his phone. Don’t judge.

  “You know," Wyatt said, regaining his attention. “I’d never thought I’d see the day.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The day you fell ass over head for a chick.” His cousin had such an elegant way of putting things. “Being in love suits you.”

  He froze.

  Love?

  Is that what this is?

  Could he really have fallen for Rocky that fast?

  Holy shit. I love her.

  The realization hit him like a knockout punch.

  “I’m happy for you, bro.” Wyatt’s smile was knowing, probably because the fucker could read his mind.

  He may have been in the middle of a lightbulb moment, but he didn’t get any more time to obsess over the discovery because Rocky was clearing her throat from the doorway.

  “Looks like we’re going to have to take this party on the road, boys.”

  Wyatt was as clueless as he was.

  “It’s baby time,” Rocky explained.

  They both froze.

  Then, like someone hitting the play button on a remote, they jumped from their seats, rushing around the room like two chickens with their heads cut off.

  “Will you two chill?” she advised—the woman he had just figured out he was in love with—and if that wasn’t enough of a banner moment, now it looked like his goddaughter wanted to make her entrance into the world a week early.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The day of a fight was a long one for all those involved. The fights listed on the main card didn’t start until nine o’clock, and Vince was the headlining fight, which meant he wouldn’t step into the cage until closer to midnight. With weigh-ins done the day before—Vince coming in at exactly two hundred and five pounds—they had spent the time rehydrating him and helping him put back on some of the weight he'd cut.

  For the most part, Vic tried to keep his fighters close to their natural weight, giving them the advantage of not losing strength from severe weight cut practices. Some fighters were known to cut upwards of fifty pounds to make a weight class—which was both unhealthy and could affect a fighter’s ability to fight.

  The team from The Steele Maker took over the entire upper floor of a hotel across the street from Madison Square Garden. The Presidential Suite had a full-sized kitchen—one Gemma was currently using to cook Vince’s next meal now that he could eat again—while he took one of many naps throughout the day.

  Most of their friends had already arrived—each of them also getting rooms in the hotel a few floors lower—and now they were all gathered inside the Steeles’ suite. Rocky sat with her back resting against Gage’s side, his arm looped over her shoulder and resting down her chest, while Jordan, Skye, and Vic discussed the possibility of him defending his title for the third time.

  Vic scowled every time he looked at how they sat together, but they weren’t at the gym so Gage would do whatever the hell he damned pleased. He didn’t miss the way Rocky flinched anytime her dad let out a passive aggressive comment and he hated it.

  He wasn’t sure if it was the continued distance with her father or not, but she had been even more distant, almost even closed off, as they got closer and closer to Vince’s fight. He hadn’t broached the subject with her, not wanting to pile on to what she had to already be feeling.

  It looked like it was finally time for him to take it to his tribe to see if they could help him help his girl.

  As the others continued to discuss his career, he knew there was no way to put it off any longer. It had already been more than six months since his last fight.

  “Our office, and your agent, have been fielding countless calls on when you’re going to announce your next fight,” Jordan explained as she pulled up something on her iPad.

  “The biggest question they’ve been asking is who your next contender will be. We know there have been musings that Cutler has been looking for a rematch, but you have been unwaveringly against it.”

  Since the day he took the belt from The Cutter, the guy had been trying everything in his power—even now goading him through Rocky—to get him to accept. As the current title holder, he had final say on his opponent. It wasn’t that he was scared to lose—he worked hard at being at the top of his game, hip pain notwithstanding—it was that a rematch with The Cutter would be more of a grudge match than a title fight, and he had no desire to give in to the juvenile taunts.

  “I know I need to arrange my next fight. This has been one of my longest breaks between fights, but when I pick an opponent, it won’t be Cutler,” he said vehemently.

  “Doesn’t matter either way to us,” Jordan said. “We just want you to be prepared to field questions on the topic. Between announcing your switch to The Steele Maker, the promotion for Vince’s fight, and all the pictures of the two of you”—she pointed at them—“your media presence—both social and news-wise—has grown considerably.”

  He could attest to the accuracy of the statement. Since signing with ATS, he'd landed himself two more endorsement deals, a rarity when not coming off a fight, but these two women sure knew what they were doing. He understood why the Donovan/Donnelly boys were financially set so early in their careers.

  “We can help run interference tonight. Skye and I always have passes to be in the backrooms before fights with Vince, so if anyone gets too aggressive, send them our way.”

  He eyed the five-two dynamo in front of him. Most people would take one look at her and laugh at the thought of her protecting his six-seven self from hordes of reporters, but he’d witnessed firsthand how much of a pit bull she was. Her husband was famous for blocking shots in the net, but Jordan was a true goalie of life.

  A door clicked open and a bleary-eyed Vince entered the room, collapsing into the open chair in the room with them.

  “Have a nice nap, princess?” Jake teased.

  “Bite me, puck head,” Vince retorted with a smile.

  “Sorry, bro. I’m a one-woman kind of man. I save all the biting for my wife.” He leaned down to nibble on his wife’s earlobe. The two might have married young and had two babies already, but the sexual tension still radiated off them constantly.

  “Eat this.” Gemma came into the room, a plate loaded with food for Vince. “And drink this.” A liter of water was placed on the floor beside his chair.

  “How very Alice in Wonderland of you, Gem,” Vince stated, already digging in.

  “Yeah, well, if you don’t listen, I’ll go all Mad Hatter on you, smartass. So be a good boy and do as you’re told.” She patted him on the head like a child.

  “Damn Coven,” Vince mumbled with a full mouth.

  He held back his own laughter, already knowing this was a look behind the curtain to what he could expect the day of his own fight, once it was booked.

  “You’d think you’d be used to it by now,” Jase said from where he lay on the floor playing with his nieces. “You do live across the hall from three of them.”

  “Oh, yeah? Then what’s your excuse when you complain about them? One of them might be my sister, but one of them is your twin.”

  “Ahh. But she’s their faithful leader, so it’s like ten times worse.”

  Vince flip
ped him off.

  “No fair. Mom doesn’t let me give anyone the bird,” Sean pouted, entering the room with plates of food for him and Carlee. Anytime Gage saw one, the other wasn’t far behind.

  “That’s because you’re eight, dude,” Ryan supplied.

  “Not fair.”

  “Life’s not fair, kid.”

  “You’re gonna kick this guy’s ass tonight, right, Vince?” Sean asked.

  “Language, little man.” Maddey ruffled his hair. “Your mom doesn’t want you to flip someone off, do you think she’ll want you cursing?”

  “Yeah, careful or she might not let you hang with us anymore,” Deck added.

  The youngest member of the Donnelly clan was a trip. There was no way he had been that cool in elementary school.

  Since Vince wasn’t fighting for a title, he had no obligations until his fight later that night, so they spent their time relaxing. They tuned in to watch the Fire take on the Liberty for the afternoon game and at some point between eating and napping, Vince and Jake disappeared.

  Being at a fight that wasn’t his own was a new experience for Gage, but he couldn’t complain. There was good food, ridiculous conversation with friends, and the girl he loved by his side. Now if only he could work up the courage to admit his feelings.

  * * *

  Fighters had their routines and traditions before a fight, but they had nothing on how superstitious hockey players were.

  But one of the things Vince always did before a fight was have Rocky wrap his hands. For some of his fights, she would be a corner person for him also, but even on the fights she watched in the audience instead of cage-side, she always wrapped his hands.

  With an official from the UFC and the chief second of Vince’s opponent watching to sign off, she went through the process of wrapping her brother’s hands. She’d done it so many times she didn’t even need to speak to get him to do what she needed.