WineBar: The Complete Story
Page 135
“What are you thinking about, momma Amy?” Parker asks me with a teasing smile, and my heart melts as I notice Natalie’s tiny fingers wrapped around his thumb.
“I’m thinking of how perfect life is,” I reply, and he just looks into my eyes with a loving expression on his face.
“It is,” he whispers, and then we fall silent, both of us looking down at the small human we’ve helped create. If that isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is.
Sometimes life’s like that. If you believe hard enough, it might just surprise you with a miracle. My miracle came in the shape of a family.
My best advice? Believe a little. Love a lot. It might work out for you.
It did for me.
Hit & Run
Four hands. Two sets of lips. And two huge…egos.
Can you find love with two hot alpha males at the same time?
Even if they both hate each other?
Hunter and Logan have been rivals in the ring forever.
But now instead of titles, they’re fighting over something else.
Me.
I love them both.
Together they blow my mind in a way that no one man has ever done.
They fill my life with their love.
But that’s not all they're filling.
Will we find our HEA?
Or be torn apart?
I don’t know.
But it’s going to be fun finding out.
Just don’t blame us if you run out of batteries…
Hunter
The ring goes off somewhere and it’s like it sets off something in my body that I can’t even control. Fuck the Russian standing across from me, he’s dead already. There’s nothing that can save him now. He had at least three months to back the fuck off—to not challenge my World Heavyweight title. But he didn’t. Fueled by fucking pride or whatever the hell, the motherfucker thought he could take me.
That false pride and expectation that he's going to make it out of this fight standing up vanishes from his fucking eyes in less than two seconds. I’m not fucking lying to you. I see it. His eyes go dull. It happens right about the time that my arm swings up in a fierce uppercut that would normally just defy the laws of biology and physics. See, you’re not supposed to be hurtling straight for your fucking opponent and able to maintain such strong control over your limbs. You’re also not supposed to be lacing them with so much power that they throw the other person’s head back and send him reeling.
It’s probably been three, maybe four seconds I shit you not. I mean, the fight is on Pay Per View. You probably saw the fucking purse for this. $89 million dollars. This is bigger than anything else. Pacquiao and Mayweather? This is nothing. This is bigger than the biggest. If the Russian loses, you can be sure he’s not boxing again after this.
And if he beats me? You gotta believe that he would have fucking killed me. That’s how big the stakes are. That’s how focused I am on winning. I've never fucking lost in my life. I've never fucking given up. I’m a fucking winner.
The Russian tries to stagger back but my feet have already taken me the five paces to get all up in his fucking face and I land another haymaker straight into his temple.
I hear a crunch and I resist the desire to let it distract me. Everything here is a fucking distraction. From the crowds who are cheering to the fucking whores who are waiting on the front seats, ready to suck the winner’s cock till he explodes. The fucking hustlers taking bets. The promoters counting their money. The photographers and journalists hanging on every single action. It’s all a distraction from the absolutely critical few seconds that exist on this fight.
I’ve known guys who get in the fucking ring and swear that time stands still. They say that the moment they leave their fucking mental bubble in the ring, they know they fucking lost. That it’s all a test to see who leaves their fucking zen state first. You gotta keep pummeling the guy over and over until they realize the world around them and get fucking distracted. Because once they realize the world is out there, that’s fucking it. Their heads are outta the fucking game and you fucking won.
Don’t fucking look at me like that. I mean, sure go ahead and look as I deliver three quick jabs to the stomach of the Russian, which makes him bowl over and then one last uppercut literally shoots his body off into the fucking air. He lands on his back and he ain’t moving.
I stay focused as the ref starts calling the count.
Right, if you’re looking at me now and wanting to know who the fuck I am, I think you can take a guess. The Hunter Bradley Vs. Vladimir Gorbachev fight has been promoted for a while now.
And that’s fucking right in case you just clenched your thighs together. I’m Hunter Bradley. That 6 foot 3 inch specimen of fucking man with the fucking sinewy and sculpted muscles. With the lean face and the mysterious fucking eyes. With the 12-inch cock that swings between my legs like a fucking foot long trouser snake.
That’s right, I'm the Hunter Bradley. The bad boy boxer of the sports world. Breaking faces in the fucking ring. And breaking hearts outside.
The ref is holding up my arm. Shit, it’s already been ten seconds. I must've lost fucking count. Guess you could say I got distracted talking to a fucking pretty lady.
That’s you, darlin’.
But you know that, don’t ya? You know that if you were standing next to the ring right now, it’d be you that I get down from the ring to kiss.
I mean, don’t look at me like that, like I don’t fucking care. The whole fucking fight lasted less than 45 seconds. In tomorrow’s newspaper they’re going to say that the fight was over before it really even began. That I had administered my famous Hunter’s ‘Spring For The Kill’.
Whatever.
All I care about is that I won. Everything else is just stupid fucking bullshit.
As it is, there is no one waiting for me and I make my way toward my changing room. They gave me a pretty nice studio to get ready in and I need to fucking get away from all the fucking cameras and media circus that’s enveloping the MGM Grand right now.
It’s not just that I don’t care much for the media circus.
I just loathe it.
To be completely fucking honest, I need to be as far away from that crowd right now as possible. The media and the preening is good, when it’s needed. But I just fucking won. What else do they need me there for, ya know?
I’m happy to see you’re coming with me though as I make my way through the corridors toward my room, decorated with a giant star on the door. I can fucking see it. So fucking close.
“Hey Hunter,” a sultry voice says from outside my field of vision. I turn my head and see perhaps the most fucking dangerous thing in the world right now—a hot woman after a boxing match. After a boxing match that I just won.
Where I prepared by focusing on nothing else. Where I gave up fucking.
Guess what I’m thinking of fucking doing to her right now.
That’s right.
I don’t even have to fucking say it.
She seems familiar, I think to myself as she saunters over to me. Maybe I fucked her before?
“Thirty three seconds against the big Russian and you knocked him out,” she purrs. I can smell her. I lick my lips. I can almost taste that sweet pussy in my mouth. I want to ravage this woman. She scrapes her nails across my chest.
“Do you think you could last more than thirty three seconds with me?” There’s lasciviousness in the question and my eyes glint. She gives me a look of pure lechery and my hand reaches over and grabs her by the ass.
I squeeze her ass cheek and she sighs loudly, coming close to me.
I can smell her. She’s wet. Horny.
They all are when they meet me.
I push her into my dressing room and kick the door closed with my foot.
She doesn’t even need words for what I’m about to do to her.
Natalie
“Just one article, Ed, that’s all I’m asking for.”
 
; “Natalie,” he says, taking a long puff from his cigarette, “we’ve already been through this. People don’t care about that kind of stuff, and we’re in this business to sell newspapers. Last time I checked, we weren’t doing it to change the world.”
“I know that,” I protest meekly, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. I watch as Ed exhales the smoke out through his nostrils, finishing his cigarette and then crushing it on the overflowing ashtray sitting on his desk. “But I think that good journalism can help the Gazette sell some --”
“No,” he grumbles, reaching for the red carton next to his keyboard and fishing out another cigarette. Perching it up on the corner of his mouth, he lights it up and takes a long drag, the smell of it making me wince.
“But --”
“I said no,” he repeats, resting one hand over his shirt, his overgrown belly stretching the fabric thin. Turning his attention to his laptop screen, he waves one hand at me dismissively, and I know that this meeting is over.
Sighing, I turn on my heels and start making my way toward the door when he calls my name. “Hang on,” he mutters in that hoarse voice of his, a product of decades of smoking like an industrial chimney. “Maybe there’s something you can do.”
“Really?”
“Maybe. Don’t get your hopes too high, kid, I still ain’t taking you out of the sports department.” Flicking the burning ash on the tip of his cigarette, most of it landing over the documents covering his computer’s keyboard, he then looks at me as if he’s sizing me up. “Can you handle something more longform than news articles?”
“Longform?” I ask him, not really sure what he’s talking about. Most of my days are spent writing short and snappy news articles (most of which don’t even end up on the print version of the newspaper, they just make it online), and the word longform has really made me perk up my ears.
“Yes,” he nods impatiently, leaning back. His chair creaks as he pushes his weight against the back rest and, for a moment, I almost think he’s going to fall back. He doesn’t, of course; he just keeps on staring at me with his beady eyes, his gaze cutting through the constant cloud of cigarette smoke that covers his office.
“Well, uh… What do you have in mind? I can handle longform,” I assure him, even though I have no idea what kind of job he’s thinking of. Either way, it has to be better than writing all those fluff pieces about athletes on vacation.
“How familiar are you with Hunter?” he asks me after a long silence, finishing his cigarette and burying it in his ashtray.
“The boxer? He just defended his title last night and --”
“I know who he is,” he growls impatiently, looking at his carton of cigarettes as if he’s thinking of going for another one; he decides against it, though, and just drums his fingertips against the surface of his desk. “What I’m asking you is, can you handle an article on him?”
“Definitely,” I reply with a nod, doing it so fast that I think I might’ve pulled a muscle in my neck. Truth be told, I don’t know that much about Hunter or boxing, but Ed has just thrown me a lifeline; I sure as hell am not going to waste it.
“Okay, good. What about Logan?”
“The light heavyweight champion? Yeah, I know who he is,” I tell him, even though all I know is that his name is Logan and that he’s a boxing champion, and just like Hunter, he’s hailed as one of the best fighters to ever grace the ring.
“That’s the one. Do you think you can handle a profile on these guys?”
“Do you want me to start profiling boxers?” I ask him, not really sure what the interest in these guys is. Sure, they’re two of the best paid athletes in the world, and they’re two households names… But why the sudden interest in the boxing world?
“I didn’t say I wanted you to start profiling boxers,” he growls, slapping his thigh with one open hand, the jowls under his chin quivering as he does it. “I want you to profile Hunter and Logan. They’re the ones that matter.”
“Alright, I can do that… What kind of piece do you have in mind?”
“Something well-researched, long… and juicy,” his lips curling into a thin veiled smile as he says that last word. “I want these profiles to sell newspapers, capisce?” He asks me, his tone making him sound like a don of the Italian mob. “You do that and I might give you a chance at a different kind of story,” he continues, waving his hand at me again, telling me to leave his office.
“Thank you, Ed!” I reply, not sure if I should feel excited about it. Are boxers even that interesting? Oh, why am I complaining? Sure, this might not be the project I’ve always dreamed of but, hey, it’s a start!
Marching out of his office, I close the door behind me and take a deep breath, sending a rush of clean air into my lungs. I don’t know how he manages to spend all day inside his office; he smokes so much that there’s a perpetual curtain of foul fog inside it.
“Is Edward inside?” I hear someone ask behind me, and I look back over my shoulder to meet the steely gaze of a man in his seventies, a scowl on his face. Despite his age, he’s the complete opposite of Ed; instead of fat and with a slouched posture, he’s elegant for his age and stands tall, so much that he looks like he’s always looking down at the world. He’s wearing a black tailored suit with a blue pocket square, and there’s something so intimidating about him that I just feel as if I’m half my size.
“Mr. Moreau,” I cry out, taking one step back. “Yes, Edward’s inside,” I tell him, replying to his question with an awkward mumble. I had already seen pictures of him, but I had never seen the owner of the Gazette in the flesh.
“Good,” he says flatly, opening the door to Ed’s office and stepping inside. Behind him trails a much shorter man with a buzzcut. He’s also wearing what looks like a tailored suit but, unlike Mr. Moreau, there’s no scowl on his face. Instead, there’s a discreet smile, as if he knows something the world had no idea about. He has a pale scar that goes from his chin to the corner of his mouth and, even though it isn’t that noticeable at first glance, it really adds to his disconcerting smile.
“BACK TO WORK!” Ed shouts at me from the inside as he watches me standing by the door. Snapping my heels together, I get out of his line of sight and make my way back toward the sports department offices.
Natalie
Being a journalist has always been my lifelong dream.
Even when I was just a little kid, no older than ten, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. There was something about journalists that drew me in; they were part artists, part detectives, and the romance of the job was too appealing for someone like me to resist.
When I started college, I was no different than my peers, filled with lofty idealistic dreams about changing the world. I know it’s a cliché, but I wanted to make a difference. As you well know, though, real life is never as pretty as the plans we make toward the future.
Still, I got lucky. I landed a job at the Gazette just one month out of college, and I thought that I was on the road toward becoming what I always dreamed of. I wanted to do serious journalism, tackle the big issues facing society, and I thought that working at the Gazette was the way to do it.
One year later and I’m still in the small cramped offices of the sports department, writing short snappy articles about athletes on vacation and their newest girlfriends. When I’m not doing that, I’m covering events, checking results, and reporting on stuff that’ll make absolutely no difference to anyone. Instead of changing the world, I spend most of my day updating the Gazette’s Facebook and website, constantly pumping out a never ending river of drivel.
Welcome to the 21st century, where dreams come to die.
“So, are you going to tell me what Fat Ed wanted?” Michelle asks me, throwing a spitball at me. It hits me straight on the forehead and then falls over my desk. Looking up from my laptop, I watch as Michelle prepares another spitball, crumpling the paper between her thumb and index finger. She has her feet up on her desk, and she looks like she doesn't hav
e a care in the world.
Even though she’s a few years my senior, she still behaves as if she's never left college. If you ask me, the Gazette just crushed her soul to the point she simply doesn’t care anymore. Okay, maybe I’m being unfair; I don’t think Michelle ever cared about anything. She likes taking it easy, and nothing ever seems to phase her. And thank God for that… If it wasn’t for Michelle, I’d have gone insane a long time ago.
“Fat Ed wants me to write a profile on Hunter and Logan,” I tell her, turning a pen over my fingers distractedly. If you’re wondering about why we call our Editor-in-Chief ‘Fat Ed’, that’s because no one really likes him around these parts. More than being fat, he’s always rude and obnoxious to everyone under him on the hierarchy; he’s just like a fat tyrant, perched on his throne and barking orders.
“A profile? On these two?”
“Yeah… He told me that if I made it juicy, that he’d give me a shot at different material. I have no idea what I can do, though. I mean, they punch people for a living… I’m not sure if there’s a story in there.”
“That’s a lot of pessimism, even from you,” she yawns, throwing her new ball of paper straight at my face. This time I duck it just in time, and it bounces off the wall and falls on the floor next to the archive drawers. “Profiling these guys can’t hurt. Besides, have you seen them? They’re hot,” she proclaims wistfully, leaning further back on her chair and staring at the ceiling.
“You’re right… It can’t hurt. Even if their profiles turn out to be boring, I won’t be worse off because of it. Worst case scenario, I’ll go back to tweeting live scores.”
“It’s always a world of joy with you, isn’t it?” she yawns again, raising both her arms up and stretching her back.
“You know me,” I whisper, pushing my chair closer to the desk and resting my hands over my laptop’s keyboard. If I’m going to do this, I might as well start right now. “Alright,” I mutter, typing Hunter’s name and pressing Enter.
I spend the rest of the afternoon going through whatever I can find on Hunter and Logan, and I do it until my eyeballs feel as if they’re on fire. These two seem like the typical star athletes—fame, women, and money, but there doesn’t seem to be any angle in their lives that I can really explore. They’re the best at what they do, everyone agrees, but there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly special or interesting about their upbringings. Sure, a few interviews and some digging might reveal one or two interesting facts about them, but I don’t think that --