by Alexa Davis
She sighed. “Fine, let’s go find Michaela and Ethan and see if they want to do some shopping.”
“Shopping I can get on board with. I still need to finish my Christmas shopping.” Hand in hand, we walked toward where the craft kiosks were. I saw Karli eyeing the ice skating rink, so I tried to pull her a little faster so she wouldn’t get any ideas, but to no avail.
“Let’s go ice skating!”
“Um…no.”
She laughed. “Why not? Come on; you said no about face painting and the bounce house.”
“I did say yes about shopping. Shopping is nice and safe, and you get to keep your tennis shoes on.”
“Aw, is my big, bad fighter afraid to put on a pair of skates?”
“Skates? The kind with four wheels, no. The kind with a blade the size of my pocket knife that’s supposed to support my nearly three hundred pounds on a slippery, cold, wet surface? Yes. Yes, I am.”
She laughed again and then she turned on the cuteness. “Please,” she said, actually batting her eyes. You’ve got to be kidding me. She reached up and put her hands behind my neck and pressed her sexy body into me. “I don’t ask for much, do I? I want to hold your hand and skate around the Christmas tree…pretty please.”
Three hundred pounds of muscle was no match for a hundred and twenty-five pounds of feminine hotness. Damn. “Okay, but if I break an ankle or a leg before my big fight, you’re telling Charlie.”
“Oh…you’re right, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even asked. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I felt bad. She was right. She never asked for anything. “Hey.” I tipped her face up to mine. “I was kidding, babe. I’m an athletic wizard. I’ll ace this shit in no time.”
“You’ve never done it before?”
“Nope, but I’m sure it’s not as hard as it looks.”
She smiled. “Actually, it is. But if you really want to try it, I’ll hold your hand.”
I grinned down at her. “How could I refuse that offer? Come on, let’s do this.”
It was as hard as it looked. Thank goodness I was used to large fists pounding every part of my body or falling six times on solid ice might have hurt. When Karli was finally satisfied that I’d taken enough abuse, we did some Christmas shopping with Ethan and Michaela and finally agreed on a Christmas tree we both thought would fit in my living room.
When we got back to the house, Karli made cookies and hot chocolate while I dragged the tree in and set it up. When that was finally done, I collapsed down on the couch to rest my poor, tired body that felt like it just went three rounds with the world champion.
“Hey,” Karli sat down next to me and handed me a mug of hot chocolate. She’d just sat a warm plate of homemade cookies on the table down in front of me.
“Hey.” I took a sip of the chocolate and was left with a mustache of whipped cream. I started to lick it off, but she said,
“Wait! Let me.” She leaned in and used her tongue to clean off my lips and face. It was hot and I felt it in every part of my body.
“Mm, thanks. And, thank you for today. You know, I’ve never done all of this.”
“All of what?”
I waved my arm at the tree and the bags of decorations we’d bought. “All of this Christmas stuff. If I got to go home for Christmas, there would be a tree and presents that the staff set up and bought. The house was always decorated to a T and Christmas music played constantly.
“But it was all for show. Ethan and I never got to be a part of it. These past few years, living on my own, I considered doing this,” I said, waving my arm again. “But it just never seemed right…or worth it, by myself. Today was amazing – you’re amazing. Thank you.”
She sat her cup down and picked up my arm and snuggled into me. “Thank you for letting me be a part of your first time.”
“You popped my Christmas cherry,” I said with a laugh. She poked me in the ribs and said,
“How is it you can make anything dirty?”
“It’s a gift.” I pulled her in tighter, and we sat there like that for a long time. Karli was the one that finally broke the silence by asking,
“Are you nervous? About the fight?”
The biggest fight of my career was just over a week away. Physically, I was ready. Mentally, I was at a better place than I’d ever been in my life. But psychologically, there was still a part of me that refused to believe I deserved all of this. Part of me expected it to all come crashing down in front of the 17,000 people in the arena and the millions watching from home, and then what would I do? I’d lose my endorsements and I’d have to get a real job – but doing what?
“I guess I’m always a little bit nervous before every fight.”
She looked up at me and smiled. “A little bit?”
I smiled back at her and kissed her forehead. “Okay, maybe more than a little. I shouldn’t be. I know I’ve got this. I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been in and I’ve studied Chavez’s YouTube videos until I couldn’t see straight.”
“So, nothing to be nervous about,” she said. I could tell by the way she said it that she was trying to coax me into a conversation. It was another thing I was having a hard time getting used to: talking about my feelings. That was brand new, like so many other things in my life lately.
“Okay, I’ll admit that I am a little bit more nervous about this one. I just keep thinking if I lose this, what am I going to do?”
She pulled out of my arms and sat up. “First of all, from what I’ve seen and what Dad says, you are not going to lose. But if you do by some crazy fluke, babe, you have a whole world of opportunity. You can go to school-”
“For what?”
She laughed. “I don’t know. You would have to figure that out. What do you like to do?”
“Fight and fuck.”
She hit me in the shoulder. “Stop it, I’m serious.”
“Me, too. It’s what I’m good at.”
“You think so?”
“You don’t?” I shot her a look.
She laughed again. “Yes, I have to admit that you’re the best I’ve ever known at both. You could always train.”
“Fighters or fuckers?”
“Stop it!” she was laughing. When she stopped, I said,
“I’m not sure I have the patience to be a trainer. They might all hate me.”
“Do you like my father?”
I cleared my throat. “Um…”
“It’s okay. I know Dad is an acquired taste, and I know you have respect for him. But my point is that you don’t have to like him to learn from him, right?”
“Your dad is the best trainer I ever had and worth every penny of money I pay him. And yes, I do respect him. I guess you’re right…”
“You don’t like my dad!” She said it so seriously that I hesitated for a second until her face broke out in a smile.
I grabbed her and started tickling her. We took that to the next step and suddenly the Christmas tree and the fight were forgotten. I was falling in love with her, but I hadn’t been able to work up the nerve to tell her yet. It was just one more brand-new thing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
KARLI
It was finally Nick’s big night and I was a complete wreck, as if I would be the one in the cage with Chavez. The fight was sold out, and the crowd was a force to be reckoned with. They were more amped up individually than any fighter I’d ever seen. Collectively, they were a little scary.
Ethan, Michaela, and I took our seats in the front row to wait for it to start. I’d left Nick at the door of the locker room a little over an hour ago. I kissed him and wished him luck and for a few minutes, he held onto me like I was his lifeline. I wanted to hold onto him, too, to keep him safe.
For the first time in my life, I was scared to death of what the outcome of a fight would be. I wondered how he would handle it if he lost. I was finding out as I spent more and more time with him that his cocky exterior didn’t penetrate all the way throug
h his bones. He knew he was good-looking and he knew he was a good fighter, but he’d kind of boxed himself into thinking that was all he was.
I knew he was also smart enough to go back to school and become anything he wanted to be. He was willing to work hard enough that he could make a living doing whatever he decided to do, but I was sure that he thought if he lost this fight, he’d be seen as a failure by everyone.
That couldn’t be further from the truth where I was concerned. I was crazy about everything about him and one fight wouldn’t change my opinion of him at all. I watched him every day as he revealed just a little more of his heart to me, and I was beginning to have a hard time imagining life without him.
He’d taken Kevin under his wing and between Dad’s training and the patience that Nick didn’t think he had, Kevin’s performance in the cage improved phenomenally in only a few months’ time. He didn’t take any credit for that, though; he just said that Kevin always had it in him and just needed someone to help him bring it to the surface.
The question I had predominantly in my mind tonight was how could I convince Nick that, win or lose, he would go on to someday do even bigger and better things? Michaela kept telling me to just keep loving him, and eventually, he’ll see what I see.
The funny thing was that I hadn’t even been able to tell him that I did love him yet. As happy as we’d been the past few months, there was still that nagging little fear in the back of my mind. I trusted Nick, but in spite of that and falling in love with him, I was still holding onto some of the PTSD from my past relationships.
The other reason I had been holding back on telling him was that I was a little bit afraid still of scaring him away. I stay at his house a lot. We do almost everything together. He’s gone from being a player and a party animal to a guy that cuddles on the couch with me and watches movies on Friday night in a very short time. He seemed comfortable with it, but I worried – maybe irrationally – that telling him how I feel aloud was going to make him realize just how fast things changed, and that maybe he missed his old life, but he’d been so caught up in this one he hadn’t noticed yet.
It was all terrifying, but for tonight, I resolved to put it all away in a box and focus on nothing but the big, sexy, incredibly hot fighter about to dance down the aisle and climb in that cage and kick some ass.
“This place is insane; these people are crazy!” Michaela yelled to me although I was sitting right next to her. The place was packed and the tempo was loud. Television cameras were everywhere and people were holding up the signs they’d made for their favorite fighter, trying to get their fifteen seconds of fame.
“Yeah, and funny how many women are here,” I said with a roll of my eyes and a smile.
She smiled, too. “Don’t worry, honey, they only get to look. You get to touch.”
Ethan was the one that rolled his eyes now, and when I said, “Mm, I’m looking forward to some heavy touching with the heavy-weight champ tonight,” she laughed.
“Do you two mind? This is my brother you’re talking about.”
“Aw, sorry, baby,” Michaela told him. Then she turned back to me and said, “I think Tricky Nicky is rubbing off on you. I’ve never heard you admit to being horny so easily.” Ethan groaned and I laughed.
“I didn’t say anything about being horny.”
“I saw it in your eyes,” she said with a wink. She reached for Ethan’s hand, and he shook his head, but gave it to her. She smiled sweetly at him and then leaned in close to my ear and said, “I’m kind of horny myself; can you see it in my eyes?”
I laughed. “I never have to worry about searching your eyes for anything. I’m sure that you’ll tell me whatever is on your mind.” Michaela giggled just as I realized there was a shadow blocking out the bright lights that shone down on me only moments before. I looked up and saw Kevin. Sweet, little, blue-haired Elaine was standing behind him, clutching onto his shirt like a child that might get lost if left alone. I keep meaning to ask what brought her to that fight where they met in the first place. Even when Kevin is not the one in the cage, she doesn’t seem to be comfortable with any of it.
“Hi, guys!” I had to yell again. The lights had begun to dim so the roar of the crowd was becoming even louder.
“Hey!” Kevin’s face was beaming. “It looks like our boy is the fan favorite, judging from all the signs and people dressed in dark green.” I had noticed that, especially all the woman in skimpy tank tops and micro-minis with the “Tricky Nicky” logos on them.
I pushed those thoughts away again and smiled back up at Kevin. “Well, he’s going to win, so it makes sense.” Kevin and Eileen sat on the other side of Ethan. There was one other empty seat in the row. The seats all belonged to Nick. The venue had given him the front row on the right for his family, and Chavez had the one on the left.
I glanced down at the empty seat and thought about Nick’s father. Nick hadn’t spoken to him since Thanksgiving. Michaela said that Ethan gave in and started taking his calls again, but swore he wasn’t going to let things go back the way that they used to be.
The arena went completely black, just for an instant. Then, Manuel Chavez’s theme song began playing loudly. The colored lights in the octagon started flashing and the row between the seats lit up as the beams of light seemed to be dancing in time with the music.
The whole place vibrated as the announcer said, “Ladies and Gentleman, the fight you’ve all been waiting for is about to begin. Get on your feet and put those hands together and welcome the three-time world heavyweight champion, Manuel “Bone Crusher” Chavez!”
I had thought the crowd was wild before, but now they went ballistic. Yells, screams, cat-calls, and raucous applause rocked the house so loudly that the almost deafening music could hardly be heard. Chavez’s trainer, a guy my dad despised named Nathan Wright, jogged down the aisle first. Behind him came a circle of huge security officers in black polo shirts, and in the center of them was Chavez.
He was a big guy, at least as tall as Kevin, and his biceps were the size of an average person’s thighs. Chavez started underground fighting in Mexico when he was just a teenager. Nathan “discovered” him on a vacation to Ensenada and brought him back to the U.S. He started fighting in the MMA matches within a year, and that was six years ago. His head was shaved and that and his face were the only exposed skin on his body not showing ink. His tattoos were as dark and frightening as his eyes and I actually felt short of breath at the thought of Nick being locked in that cage with him.
Chavez had never lost a single fight, which gave him and Nick something in common, at least. Neither man intended to lose this one, either, and as I watched Chavez step into the cage, I shuddered slightly and said a silent prayer that if Nick didn’t win, it wouldn’t be because this giant man incapacitated him.
Once Chavez was pacing and preening around the inside of the cage, Nick’s theme song began playing. I could actually feel my heart speed up as I listened. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, we have our home-grown hero. This young man started fighting at the age of twenty. He’s been fighting for the MMA for three years now. He’s worked his way up to the spot he’s in quickly, without a single loss…and today he’s here to challenge the big man for the big title. Fighting for the title of world heavyweight champion, please welcome Tricky Nicky Storelli!”
We all got to our feet as the colored lights began to swirl around overhead and the spotlight searched the arena until it landed on my beautiful man as he came out the doors that led from the locker room area to the arena.
My Dad was in front of him and his entourage, but I had to admit that I barely saw him. It was like Nick’s body held some kind of magnetic power that my eyes couldn’t resist.
He was wearing his green, satin shorts and a black hoodie pulled up over his head, but unzipped so his beautiful, ripped abs and hard pecs were showing. I looked up at the television monitor because I knew they’d be doing a close-up as soon as he walked out. Sure enough, his beautiful,
blue eyes were looking down at me, and he smiled, just slightly. I smiled back, like he could see me and blew the monitor a kiss. Security surrounded him and kept him just out of reach of the screaming, grasping women as they escorted him up the aisle.
They all stopped at the end of our row and surprisingly, two of the men stepped aside to make a small path. Nick crooked his finger at me and grinned. I moved through the path and as soon as I was inside, they closed it back up. Nick kissed me then, hard and passionate, taking my breath away.
When he broke the kiss, he looked me in the eyes and said, “I love you, Karli.” I was in shock and I couldn’t speak. I reached up and touched his face as I heard one of the security officers say, “Nick, we have to get in there.”
He winked at me and before I knew it, I was once again on the outside of the protective ring and Nick was being let into the octagon. I looked up at the television monitors again. They were speculating about what Nick stopped for and someone had gotten a close-up of my face as they led him away. Even to myself, I looked shocked and shaky. Damn…I should have told him I loved him, too. Just as I had that thought, I heard a male voice saying,
“Excuse me.” I looked up into a pair of the same color eyes Nick had been looking at me with only moments ago.
“Mr. Grant.”
“Hi, Karli.” He looked at Michaela and then Ethan, and his features softened. I would have sworn that judging by the look on his face, he was considering an apology. Instead, he cleared his throat after a few seconds and said, “Would it be okay if I take the empty seat there on the end?”
“Of course,” I said. Michaela looked at Ethan, who nodded numbly. Mr. Grant gave me a half smile and made his way past Michaela, Ethan, Kevin, and Elaine to take the seat on the end of the row.
I looked back up at Nick and wondered if he could see him. The bright lights had come back on, so I doubted it. That was probably a good thing – it might make him nervous. I’d hate for him to have one more thing to resent his dad for.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
NICK