Then I’ll know whether or not I’ve got a chance.
But regardless of what happens with my professional life I know I’ve got a lot more than a chance with Gavin.
It’s a sure thing. Him and my love for him.
And I’m already imagining making love to him as we climax together as he fills me with his seed and we begin our family…together.
CHAPTER 10
Gavin
I walk into the South Boston Boys & Girls Club completely at peace.
There are so many things that will come out in the next few days and they will all be “scooped” by my investigative journalist woman.
I don’t know if I’m more excited for myself, knowing that this is my final fight while no one else but the two of us do, or knowing that she’s going to make a big name for herself in the media world within days.
If it was up to me she would never work. I’d have her with me all the time, but I also know that she wants a career, and being able to help her be the best at what she wants makes me feel like even more of a man.
A man who can provide financially for sure, but can also provide the things in life that money can’t buy.
Hassan takes the scale first and weighs-in right on the number.
I take the scale just after and land right on the number as well.
But what many people don’t know is that from this moment until the start time we will hydrate to a point where we’ll both gain well over ten pounds, likely closer to twelve to fifteen.
So by the time you see us both tomorrow we’ll look like different people.
But first he needs to see me one more time. To look in my eyes as I look in his and see the fear that I know is there.
We get face to face in the famous stare down position that boxing fans love. And I love it too, because the body language and the eye movements are all “tells,” just like in a game of poker, that reveal things the opponent doesn’t want revealed.
I’m so calm it’s almost scary, and I can see the fear in Hassan’s eyes, but I also see a bit of a smirk on his face. Normally those are forced reactions to cover up anxiety and worry, but his looks more legitimate than most.
After about ten seconds we’re separated and I turn to go, knowing what fate beholds him tomorrow.
But just as I get to the steps I hear a voice behind me.
“Gracie ain’t gonna be your saving grace, McGregor. And you’re not gonna be able to save her either.”
My blood boils at the sound of someone else using my woman’s name.
My hands tighten balling up into fists as my nostrils flare.
“Let it go, champ,” my coach says to me. “It’s just a bunch of garbage. We both know it.”
If he were saying something about me it might be different, but not when he says something about my woman. I will never tolerate that.
I spin and run right at him and just before all hell breaks lose, ten uniformed Massachusetts police officers, all at or around six and a half feet and well over two hundred and fifty pounds, step in-between us. And that’s in addition to other MMA members who are there.
But I don’t care. I’m going to get to him now and show him what a real bare-knuckles knockout looks like as I sock him in the eye.
But the storm of big bodies is just too many and as much as I push and shove and try and break through the line I can’t, not to mention I’m not going to shove a uniformed officer.
I still continue trying to break through their line until I feel a forearm around my neck from behind and a man at each of my feet, and three more at my side as they take me down flat on my back as I find the cold concrete below me.
I was the one who demanded that we hold the weigh-in here so all money generated from the telecast and tickets we sold could go to the kids.
And when I feel that concrete below me I see just how badly the place needs it.
The floor feels like getting body slammed on the sidewalk by The Mountain from Game of Thrones.
And it doesn’t feel good, or sound good either when I hear my shoulder pop and something in my back snap.
“Get ‘em outta here,” I hear one cop yell in a distinctive Bostonian accent.
I feel my body rise up from the floor as I’m carried out to the Hummer in the parking lot and we peel out and head back to camp.
“What the fuck, Gavin! What’s wrong with you? You’re supposed to get into their heads, not the other way around.”
“I don’t tolerate disrespect to women coach.”
“What woman? Who’s Gracie?”
“How did he know?” I ask.
Everyone gives each other a dumbfounded look.
“Pull over,” I say. “First convenience store you see.”
A minute later we spot one and I get out of the Hummer feeling the stiffness in my back and my inability to inhale deeply. I walk in and see it right away. The Boston Globe.
And apparently everyone else has seen it too, because every single customer in line has a copy as well.
“Here,” I say, putting a fresh hundred dollar bill on the counter and showing the clerk that I’m just taking a newspaper. “Keep the change,” I say.
“Holy shit!” the man about my age says. “Holy shit!”
And just like that everyone in line has their camera phones out and I feel the flashes as I duck out of there and back into my ride as we take off trying to get outta there before someone tries to follow us.
I put the paper in my lap and look at the front-page headline.
A Proper Irish Man
An exclusive one-one-on sit-down with the man you thought you knew but didn’t, local hero Gavin McGregor.
I don’t care about that right now. I look for the byline and see it right there looking back at me.
By Gracie Gallagher
I swell with pride as I see a small picture of her there next to her name.
“You did it, babe,” I say to myself.
“Who did what? Who’s babe?” my coach asks.
But I barely hear him and my mind doesn’t even process the fact that I should answer. I just dig into the article immediately feeling the emotions in her words, and to be honest a bit of sting. But sting is good. Sting is what keeps readers reading.
But as much as some parts might sting me they’re the truth. And that’s what I admire about her most.
She didn’t try and sugarcoat anything or hold anything back, as I told her not to.
She told the truth, and her honesty is just another of the many reasons I love her.
“Gavin. Gavin!” my coach says, placing his palm over his phone. “It’s the Massachusetts State Athletic Commission. They heard your shoulder snap and your back pop and they need to look at you to make sure you’re fit to fight. They’re not letting you fight if you’re injured.”
“I’m fine. Tell them whatever they want to hear, coach. I’d fight Hassan with one arm tied behind my back and blindfolded right now after what he said.”
“They need to talk to you,” he says handing me the phone.
“Gavin, Rod Walkey here. I’m the chair of the Massachusetts State Athletic commission. We heard some popping when you were taken down to the ground a few minutes ago. Our doctors need to come by and take a look at you before the fight can go on.”
“What’s that, doctor,” I say pretending to breath hard. “I’m running right now.”
“You’re running? Aren’t you trying to add weight before the fight?”
“Just a quick 10k first, Mr. Walkey. Thanks for calling but the only popping and cracking you heard earlier was the sound of Hassan’s confidence when he tried to stare me down.”
I can hear the commissioner laugh just a little. It’s more of a hard exhale. “You sure you’re okay, McGregor?”
“Never better, sir. Sorry have to go. Uphill part of the run coming.”
“McGregor!” he says.
“Yes, sir.” Damn, I was just about to end the call, but he caught me. Can’t really han
g up on him now.
“Gavin, I’m from Dover, Massachusetts myself.”
Oh no, the last thing I need right now is a fanboy or a spiel.
“And there’s one thing I know we Massachusetts men do not tolerate and that’s disrespect to our women. Now go out there and kick his ass!”
And with that I hear a dial tone and I have to admit I’m completely shocked.
But shock turns to “oh shit” when I see my phone light up with an incoming call from Grady.
I grab it quick and hit the green icon.
“We need to talk. Boston Common. Half an hour.”
“I’ll be—”
And just like that I get hung up on again.
And he’s apparently very hung up on the idea of me being with his sister.
This can’t be good.
CHAPTER 11
Gracie
I am so angry at my boss right now, and so sorry for Gavin.
This story wasn’t supposed to come out now and I can only imagine how big of a distraction it is for him.
I go from the weigh-in back to the office but when I arrive I see a swarm of media outside of the building our newspaper is in.
And they want pictures of me.
I bring my forearm up to cover my face as I push through the scrum, suddenly gaining a newfound empathy for people who we as media professionals subject to this every day.
I’ve never been on this side of the camera, or pen, before and it’s a side I won’t soon forget.
When I get upstairs Brenda flashes me a smile.
“There she is! The dame of the day.”
“Dame? What are we in Britain all the sudden? Damn is the right word. As in dammit! What in the hell gave you the right to publish my piece.”
“In my office,” she says.
“No! You pulled that from my drawer. It wasn’t supposed to be released now and it wasn’t yours.”
“The work you do on company time at company offices is owned by this company. I was looking for a stapler and when I pulled open the drawer and saw it I read it and made an executive decision to run the story. That’s my job! Pull yourself together. This is the biggest story of the year and you’re damn right we’re going to run it right now while it’s hot. I’m the editor and I make the decisions and if you don’t get your act together real quick you might be on the receiving end of my next decision…to terminate you.”
“You can’t because I quit!” I yell and storm right back towards the elevators.
“Gracie! Wait,” Doug, Brenda’s boss, yells to me but I don’t even turn around. I just keep going and next thing I know I’m right back on the sidewalk in the middle of this mess I started.
And I’m not even famous. This has got to be absolute hell for Gavin.
I hail a taxi and jump in. I see a few paparazzi on motorcycles trailing me. Oh my god, this is intense.
I pull out my phone and dial Gavin but it goes straight to voicemail. Either his phone is off or it’s dead.
Or maybe he’s just blocked me and our relationship is now dead too, all because of timing.
Fighting relies on timing. One well-placed punch at the right time can absolutely change everything.
And I’m definitely on the receiving end of a punch to the gut right now, metaphorically speaking.
The question is will my knees wobble, or will I get knocked out?
Dammit I’m from Southie! I’m not going down without a fight.
And I’m not losing him. He’s mine.
CHAPTER 12
Gavin
I enter Boston Common, the oldest city park in the United States, from Arlington Street and Commonwealth Avenue and realize the chances of me finding Grady are pretty slim especially considering half the city is trying to find me at this point.
I pull my baseball hat down on my head and turn the collar up on my jacket as I follow the lakeside path north from the western end of the bridge.
As I approach the third bench I see him. I look both ways to survey the area before walking over to the bench and sitting down next to him.
We both stare out at the lake, neither looking at the other.
“You weren’t supposed to find out this way,” I say.
I watch two swans move peacefully across the water, but Grady says nothing until finally, “That’s supposed to make things better?”
“That’s supposed to make things right. To do it the right way.”
“The right way? At what point is hooking up with my sister the right way?”
“It’s not hooking up, and those are your words, not mine. What we have is real. I respect her and I respect you and our friendship. And I’m doing this the right way. I’m telling you first before anything goes down between the two of us.”
“You’re telling me first? That’s strange, because I seem to remember reading about it in the paper this morning just like the rest of the world.”
“I don’t know why it was published today. It wasn’t supposed to happen like that, but I’m sure Gracie knows and has a good explanation for it, not that she needs one.”
“Not that she needs one, huh? So now you’re standing up for her. For the two of you. For what you two have been up to behind my back. I thought you were my friend, and not only that but my best friend. And then you go and make a move on my sister?”
“I didn’t pull a move on anybody, and neither did she. If you want to know the truth when I saw her four years ago I realized things had changed. She wasn’t some kid anymore, but still I did nothing.”
“When she was eighteen? You’re sick man. And how do I know you didn’t start looking at her in that way before then? Just thinking about it makes me want to punch you right in your mouth, and you know I can and I will. I don’t give a fuck if you’re some famous fighter I’ll throw blows just like we did when we were kids. At least I’ll go down swinging…and with my pride and my honor.”
“I told you. Something different happened at that eighteenth birthday party. But out of respect for you, and for her education, I stayed away. And as the years went by I thought about her more and more but I did absolutely nothing because of our friendship and because she needed time to finish her studies and get started doing the things she wanted to do in life.”
“So you were like a snake in the grass, just waiting for the right moment to strike then. I see how it was.”
“It wasn’t like that at all. See, that’s the thing Grady. You don’t get it because you’ve never been in love, and the one time you were close, you broke it off because things were starting to get too real. Well things are real between your sister and I and there’s no way in hell I’m breaking it off, because I’m not like you. I’m not scared of commitment when I know I’ve met the one I want to spend the rest of my life with. And I’m committed to her just like I’ve been committed to our friendship all these years. Just like when we were kids. When somebody wanted to fight you that meant they had to fight both of us. And that attitude has never left me. And that’s the same attitude I have with Gracie. I’ll protect her to the death today, tomorrow and forever.”
Grady mumbles something but I’m losing my empathy for him fast and incoherent noises aren’t helping at all to bring it back.
“Times change. People change. Gracie grew up. She’s a woman now and she can make her own choices, and so can I. And we choose to be together. I was gonna tell you after the fight, but this story got leaked or something early so here we are now. But I don’t really care about the timing anymore. The sooner the world knows she’s mine the better, and by now everybody knows it and the people that want to accept it? Great. The ones that don’t? Fuck ‘em.”
I pause.
“I love her, man, just like I love you as my best friend. Yeah, I’ve never said that to you and it’s not the way guys like us from where we’re from talk, but it’s true. You were my first friend when I came here and you’ve always been my best friend and that’s meant more to me than you could ever know. And now wha
t happened between Gracie and I. I just hope you can accept it because we both want you in our lives.”
He says nothing.
“Your move, chief,” I say as I stand up from the bench and walk away.
Possessive Boston Irish American MMA Fighter: An Older Man Younger Woman Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 77) Page 5