He moved to the center of the octagon when the referee called them both over. Murphy kept his shoulders back when they met in the middle, but Leandro could see fear creeping into his eyes. Apparently, he’d expected more of his fans to follow him over from the NWE, or maybe he was only just now realizing what he’d gotten himself into. The referee explained the rules and invited them to touch gloves. Murphy backed away, refusing.
“I know you’re not used to real fighting. I’ll take it easy.” Leandro couldn’t resist the dig.
“Fuck you,” Murphy said as he moved back to his corner.
When they were both back on their sides, the referee clapped his hands together and said, “Fight.”
They circled around each other. Leandro planned to play it slow, to watch Murphy and figure out his strategy before rushing in.
Leandro tossed out a jab, telegraphing the move to test Murphy’s reflexes. As expected, the guy was slow, blocking the punch, but only because Leandro had moved sluggishly. They moved like that for a solid minute, trading jabs and kicks. Murphy was clearly getting frustrated at his inability to land anything, because he scowled and started punching harder and wilder. Leandro grinned as he blocked them all and started making sure his landed, pissing Murphy off.
Finally, Murphy exploded, charging Leandro in a take down attempt. Leandro welcomed the move, his heart quickening as satisfaction roared through him. He’d been waiting for it. This was his opportunity to beat Murphy at his own game, to prove to everyone and himself that he was the better man and deserved to win. Deserved to have a worthy opponent in his next match. When he could’ve blocked, Leandro let Murphy take him down, and they rolled. Murphy was strong, but Leandro was quicker, more used to fighting with efficiency instead of for showmanship.
They wrestled for dominance, but eventually Leandro got the upper hand and had Murphy in a rear naked choke, his legs around Murphy’s waist to subdue him. It was almost too easy, and in that moment Leandro knew that it’d all be over in a moment. He tried to hold back his smile until the end. He squeezed, managing to get his forearm under Murphy’s chin to apply pressure to his throat. Murphy grabbed at his arm, but Leandro was holding on too tightly for his fingers to pry him loose. Murphy let out a gasp and his face turned red. He lashed out, his fist connecting with Leandro’s forehead, but it lacked any heat. Gratification rushed through him as he tightened his hold.
A few seconds more and Murphy began to noticeably sag against him. The referee hurried over and pulled Leandro off as a medic charged in through the door. The fight was over, and Leandro had won. He looked up at the clock as the crowd started cheering as they realized what had happened. Three and a half minutes. Not bad.
Soon the octagon was swarming with people: officials, Leandro’s team, Murphy’s team, Craig Darcy. Leandro narrowed his eyes when Darcy came over. They’d spoken once in the past week, on the day Ashlynn had gotten fired. Darcy had called him that afternoon to let him know what happened. He’d also informed Leandro that he was being fined $50,000 and officially being put on probation—whatever the hell that meant. Leandro had told him to fuck off and that he wanted Ashlynn to get her job back, not that it had done any good.
“Good fight, Oliveira,” Darcy said.
“Yeah? Good enough to get me a decent opponent next time?”
Darcy grinned and nodded. “You’ve earned it. You get the next man in line.”
“About fucking time.” The challenger for this fight should’ve come from the top five light heavyweight contenders. It still rubbed him wrong that it hadn’t worked out that way.
Darcy wasn’t listening. He’d gone over to collect the belt so he could present it to Leandro. A pissed-off Murphy stood next to the referee in the center of the cage, and Leandro walked over to take his place on the ref’s other side so that Watts could announce the winner.
Everything felt off. Leandro was pumped that he’d won, but he’d also never believed losing was a possibility, so the win felt hollow. The fact that he only had his coaches there to celebrate the win only added to that emptiness. No Thiago. No Ashlynn. Isabella would probably call later; she watched all his fights. He’d probably hear from his brother and his grandfather tomorrow. He had a few friends in the first couple of rows who shouted his name and would go to the after party with him, but they weren’t enough.
Fuck. He missed Ashlynn. He wanted nothing more than to have her there cheering him on. He’d run out of the cage and pull her into arms, kiss her in front of everyone so they’d know she was his. But she wasn’t there, and he hadn’t heard from her since the day she’d broken up with him. He was starting to think that maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe everything would just slowly start to slide back to the way it was.
Only it wouldn’t, because Ashlynn had changed him and he didn’t know who he was without her. The ref raised his arm, and he heard Gary Watts say his name as Darcy slid the belt around his waist. He smiled and pumped his fist in the air. Even though he’d known winning was inevitable, it felt good to have the belt. He stayed in the cage a little longer, celebrating with his team and the fans as Murphy was being led away. Climbing up the side of the cage, he unstrapped the belt and held it high above his head. The arena went wild. Being champion would never get old.
Once again he found himself scanning the rows around the octagon. He saw Jules, but Ashlynn wasn’t with her. Of course not.
After his postfight interview, he made his way back to the locker room, his cheeks sore from forcing himself to smile. He said good-bye to his guys in the hallway backstage, needing to shower and change before meeting up with them at the after party. Though he had a feeling that even tequila wouldn’t shake the heaviness that had come over him.
Turning the corner to the locker room, he drew up short when he saw Gabe Maddox standing there. He had a giant smile on his face as he gazed down at his girlfriend, Megan. Maddox was known for being somber and brooding, and Leandro had never seen him smile like that. As a matter of fact, Leandro had never seen him look particularly happy, but he looked damn near ecstatic.
Megan saw Leandro first, and the smile dropped from her face. Maddox straightened and turned. His smile relaxed but didn’t go away. “Hey, man. Congratulations. That was a good fight.”
Leandro took in a breath, preparing himself for the inevitable anger that he knew was coming. But when he let out the breath, he was surprised to find that he felt calm. There was no anger, no resentment. Just a strange serenity that accompanied the sadness from earlier. “Thank you.”
Maddox nodded, and Leandro was struck by the peace he saw in his eyes. Leandro had thought Maddox was crazy to retire. He was only thirty-one and at the top of his game. It was obvious the man had a few good years of fighting left in him, but he seemed happier now that he’d put that part of his life behind him. Maybe the foundation work suited him better. Or maybe the woman next to him had something to do with it. Leandro thought of how Ashlynn had changed him and wondered if it was the latter.
He started to walk past them, but something stopped him. He didn’t want to go on as he had before, letting things that didn’t matter distract him. It was time to bury the hatchet with Gabe. They’d both moved on since their fight. “I’ve heard good things about the work you’re doing with the foundation,” Leandro said.
Maddox’s eyebrows raised in mild shock, but his smile widened. “Thanks. It’s rewarding work. I think we have a chance to do some good things. We could always use volunteers. The kids love it when fighters show up.”
Leandro remembered how good it had felt to donate to the children’s hospital, but how it had felt like it wasn’t enough. Maybe this was the answer. To actually do something. “Actually, that sounds great. I’d like to try it.”
“Seriously? Absolutely, man. When can you come by? Are you going back to Brazil now that your fight is over?”
Leandro frowned. He’d planned to leave within the next few days. Somehow that felt wrong now. He’d be leaving Ashlynn. Not that he wa
s with Ashlynn, but being in a different country, on a different continent, seemed too final. He felt panic start to squeeze his chest. “I’m . . . I’m leaving next week.”
Maddox nodded. “Give me a call when you’re back in town and we can arrange something. You know how to find me.”
Leandro agreed to give him a call and started to say good-bye to him, but again he stopped. For several years Leandro had idolized Maddox as one of the best fighters in the world. He still didn’t understand how someone could leave it all behind like Maddox had. “What made you walk away from it all?”
“There’s more to life than chasing opponents in a cage. You have to know what’s important.”
Leandro frowned, but he nodded and said good-bye. Walking into the locker room, he sat down on the stool in front of his locker and slowly began to unravel his hand wraps. Thoughts of Brazil, his future, and Ashlynn troubled him. The one thing he knew for sure was that Ashlynn was important, and he wasn’t ready to give up on them. He kept remembering how she’d said that her life and his couldn’t coexist. Still a concept he couldn’t agree with. If they both wanted it to work, couldn’t they find a way? Couldn’t he keep fighting and be with her?
Before he left for Brazil, he needed to figure that out.
24
THANK GOD FOR Pinot Grigio. Ashlynn wasn’t entirely sure how she’d have made it through the past several days without it. It had seen her through more than a week’s worth of lonely nights, of empty days trying to find more work, crying jags, and numb spells. But she knew that sooner rather than later, she’d have to pull herself together and figure out what was next. She needed to find healthier, more mature coping mechanisms than lying around in sweats drinking wine and eating ice cream.
Tomorrow, she told herself as she padded into the kitchen to refill her glass. She’d figure everything out tomorrow. Open up her planner and make a to-do list. Send some emails. Clean her house. Get some fresh air and do some laundry. They were baby steps, but she’d had enough wallowing. Even if her heart still hurt.
Sitting back down on her couch, she pulled her discarded blanket up around her legs and picked up the remote. Hitting play, she snuggled back and took a sip of her wine, watching as Leandro came onto the screen.
She’d recorded his fight last week, even though she’d watched it live, because it felt as though it was all she had left of him. Her throat thickened and her chest tightened as he moved toward one of the officials, ready to be examined before stepping into the ring. He stripped down to his fight shorts, her body warming at the sight of his. She couldn’t help but notice that Thiago wasn’t hovering the background as usual, but maybe the camera just hadn’t caught him. She’d watched his fight so many times she was pretty sure she had every movement, every facial expression memorized. She felt the urge to pause it, to study the contours of his face—the same face she’d learned with her fingertips, her mouth—but took another sip of her wine instead. Really, she shouldn’t even be watching this, torturing herself.
God, she missed him. What she wouldn’t give to have that time machine she’d so sarcastically asked him for—not to undo the two of them getting together, but to undo the bad parts. She’d bail on the dinner with his family, and then whoever had recorded them wouldn’t have been able to, and Leandro’s mother wouldn’t have picked her apart like a goddamn vulture. Then she wouldn’t have lost her job, and wouldn’t have felt the need to blame Leandro and break up with him.
If only. Because while she’d been so convinced that she was doing the right thing at the time, after hashing a few things out with her mom, and spending a lot of time alone with her thoughts over the past few days, she wasn’t so sure. In fact, what had felt like a certainty now felt like a pretty big mistake. In a knee-jerk reaction, she’d blamed him, which had been wholly unfair of her. Fear made people—including her—stupid.
She glanced at where her phone sat on the coffee table in front of her, staring at it for a few seconds, willing it to blink with a notification. But the screen stayed black, no happy little blue light flashing to indicate that she had a text or a missed call. For a second, she debated picking it up and calling Leandro and . . . what, exactly? She bit her lip, playing with the hem of the blanket as she thought, the familiar sounds of his decisive victory coming from the TV. She was on her second glass of wine, it was after eleven at night, and she wasn’t even sure if he wanted to talk to her. She stared at the phone a little longer, but then decided if she was going to call him, she should do it in the light of day, without any alcohol in her system.
Maybe she could call him tomorrow, just to talk, to see where things stood. Assuming he hadn’t already gone back to Brazil. He hadn’t posted much on Instagram since winning the belt, and he’d been silent on Twitter, so she didn’t know if he was still in town. The fact that she hadn’t heard from him since she’d kicked him out of her town house probably wasn’t a good sign. But then again, she had asked him for space. For all she knew, he was already back in São Paulo. That thought made her even sadder. If he’d left, it would feel so . . . final. They already had so much to work through without a continent separating them. If he was willing to work through the damage she’d caused. Her stomach turned in a slow, sick circle as she contemplated the fact that she might’ve taken the best thing that had ever come into her life and set fire to it.
She’d blown it all up, and while she wanted to call him and see if they could pick up the pieces and keep trying, she had to admit that there was a part of her that didn’t want to emerge from the twilight, from the not-knowing. Because if she didn’t call him, maybe they still had a shot. But if she called him and he told her to take a flying leap off the nearest building . . . she wasn’t ready for that.
She returned her attention to the TV, wishing she could’ve been at his fight with him, cheering him on, kissing him in front of everyone after he’d won. Granted, she hadn’t wanted to go anywhere near a WFC event after the humiliation of getting fired by Craig Darcy, but it had still felt a little bit wrong, watching it at home, alone, on TV.
Shit. She’d really messed everything up.
Her phone started ringing, causing her to jump and spill a trickle of wine over the top of her glass. She licked the outside of the glass to prevent it from dripping onto the blanket as she leaned forward to check the phone’s call display, her heart beating hopefully in her chest.
But it wasn’t Leandro. A number she didn’t recognize lit up the screen, and she hit ignore. Her eyes jumped between the TV and her phone, watching to see if the caller left a message, but the icon didn’t appear. Instead, her phone started ringing again about thirty seconds later, with the same number popping up on the screen. Probably some drunk person at a bar or casino dialing the wrong number. She hit ignore again and took another sip of her wine, watching Leandro choke out Declan Murphy. A surge of pride moved through her as she watched him, his bronzed skin glistening with sweat, his muscles flexing as Murphy struggled against him.
Her phone chimed with a text, and huffing out an impatient sigh, she picked it up from the coffee table. It was from the same number that had already called her twice.
Ashlynn, baby doll, please just talk to me.
A chill crept over her skin as she read the text. No way was it from Leandro. He’d never called her baby doll, which was a creepy pet name to begin with. No, there was only one man who’d been trying to get her to give him a second chance since he’d practically assaulted her and she’d refused to see him again.
Jason.
Another text came through.
I know you’ve missed me. I was real patient while you whored around with that Spanish asshole, but I’m not playing nice anymore. So why don’t you let me come in so we can work things out, since you’re home alone?
Her extremities went numb as she read and reread Jason’s text, and she wondered if she should shut off the TV, turn off the lights, and hide. She wasn’t sure if she should respond to the text, or call the police,
or just ignore it and call his bluff.
Before she could make up her mind, a thunderous knock crashed against her front door, causing her to gasp and drop her phone to the floor, her heart vaulting into her throat. She swallowed, her throat dry, as she wiped her sweaty palms on the blanket. She picked up her phone, her mind racing with what to do. Call 911? A neighbor? Ignore it? Yell at Jason to fuck off?
On shaky legs, she managed to push off of the couch, Leandro’s postfight interview still playing in the background. She took the stairs two at a time, her phone clutched in her hand as she focused on getting to her bedroom at the top of the stairs and running to the window that faced the front of her town house, looking out onto the street. Holding her breath, she separated the horizontal blinds with two shaking fingers, her heart squeezing almost painfully as she spotted a very familiar black Jeep parked across the street and a few houses down.
Anger surged through her as another knock rattled her front door. God, he was fucking unhinged, coming to her place late at night, practically trying to break her door down. If he thought that was acceptable behavior, what else would he try? The chilling thought ran through her as she managed to text him back, despite her trembling fingers.
Get out of here, now, or I’m calling the cops!
“You fucking bitch!” His voice echoed up and down the empty street, muffled but intelligible. “Let me in, you fucking little tease! I’m done with it, Ash. I’m here to get what you promised me. Fuck!”
There was an odd tone to his voice that had every hair on her body standing on end. In that moment, she knew that if Jason got in the house, he’d hurt her. Badly. She choked back a frightened sob, her heart racing, her stomach churning as she forced her fingers to dial 911.
Downstairs, the doorknob rattled violently, and she was intensely grateful that her mom had drilled it into her from a young age to always lock her front door.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
No Contest Page 26