Every time she cried, another patch of Rich’s heart turned black toward his father, another vertebra calcified, rock-hard, steeling his determination that he’d never be like his dad. Better a strong, dumb dog than a weak, cowering ghost.
He tossed his banana peel onto the plate, fished out some bills and weighted them down with the otherwise neglected saltshaker.
Back to the grind. Back to the routines that kept this body sore and brain quiet, kept his mind off his anger and worry. Kept his muscles taxed and his energy spent, too beat to succumb to any distracting thoughts about Lindsey at night, in whatever anonymous motel room he called his kennel that week.
“OH, SHUT UP! It’s starting.” Lindsey waved her hands, shushing Brett and Jenna’s conversation about…whatever they’d been talking about. She cranked the volume as the pay-per-view coverage began, heart thumping in her throat.
The announcer ran down the event’s matchups, and she whooped along with Jenna when head shots of Rich and his opponent slid in from either side of the screen, their stats appearing beneath them.
“Wow,” Jenna said. “Second-to-last fight. What a difference a few months make.”
Nine months and three weeks, to be precise, since that fight in Boston. And yeah, a lot had changed.
Jenna was engaged. Mercer had won the money to buy her a ring back in the spring, his first paid boxing match in years. Seemed fast to Lindsey, but the two had been living together since the week they’d met. At this clip, Jenna would be pregnant with twins by Halloween.
Lindsey, on the other hand, was still thoroughly not engaged. So not engaged, in fact, that she and Brett were officially over, even if they’d agreed to share the apartment until Lindsey found a new place she could afford. And in this college town, that wasn’t likely until September rolled around. Five weeks was a long time to cohabit with your ex, civil though things were.
At least work was good. Her own relationship might be over, but she could still drum up enthusiasm for other people’s, and she seemed to be pretty adept at matchmaking. A few of her clients were pains in the butt, but on the whole, she looked forward to going to work. Though some of that could be attributed to her desire to escape her awkward living situation.
Brett stood. “Anything from the kitchen?”
Lindsey handed him her empty beer bottle. “Thanks. And thank you for coming over,” she added to Jenna. “I would’ve thought you’d had it up to your eyeballs with fighting by now.”
“I have to see if Rich wins, live and in color.”
Lindsey nodded, filled as ever by a stupid rush of badgirlfriend adrenaline at the mention of his name. Though she wasn’t anybody’s girlfriend now.
“And a night out is nice,” Jenna said. “Beats watching at Hooters with the guys from the gym and all that testosterone. You’ve certainly gotten into all this—enough to shell out to watch.”
“Oh, yeah,” Brett said, returning to the couch with two bottles. “You should see Lindsey’s porn stash.”
She rolled her eyes as Jenna’s widened.
Brett passed Lindsey her beer then leaned over to pull open the side table drawer. He plopped a few glossy MMA magazines in Jenna’s lap.
“I see.” Jenna flipped one open, then immediately winced at a photo of a freeze-framed punch.
Lindsey nearly distracted her by mentioning Rich was in that issue, then stopped herself. Best not reveal to either of her couch mates that she knew which page he was on.
Her embarrassment preempted as the first match began, Lindsey took the magazines back, leaned over Brett and shut them in the drawer.
This event had cost her fifty bucks to order—fifty bucks that should probably have been put toward a security deposit or moving van rental. She ought to be absorbing every second of it, but all she could concentrate on was the clock, and how soon Rich’s fight would be starting.
Her crush was ridiculous. And harmless? Now, perhaps. But she had to admit, it may have contributed to her permanently breaking up with Brett. It wasn’t as though she’d thought about Rich while she’d been kissing Brett or anything heinous…but she did occasionally space out on the subway, lost in the memory of those minutes in the back of that cab.
Stupid girl. For all she knew, she’d kissed some other woman’s lover.
Whatever the case, they’d never gone out for that drink. And Rich hadn’t been back to Wilinski’s more than twice in the past six months, too busy training in California. She’d seen him during those visits, but they’d exchanged only passing pleasantries, nothing that indicated they’d shared anything special. Not that they’d been alone and in any position to flirt, but still—there hadn’t been any of that old fire in his eye contact. Something cagey, she’d thought, something more than she’d find in a friend’s gaze, but no hot promises, none of the heat she’d glimpsed that night in October, the wickedness she’d assumed came standard with Rich Estrada.
The opening matches went on forever. She knew a few of the names, enough to have favorites to root for, but she was too antsy to concentrate.
“Popcorn?” she asked Brett and Jenna, not waiting for an answer.
As she stripped the cellophane from the packet in the kitchen, she commanded her heart to slow. For the entire three and a half minutes the popcorn bag twirled in the microwave, she counted her breaths. How dumb, to get this wound up over seeing some man she kind of knew on TV.
Why should her heart hurt this way? Well, probably because she’d been stalking his career for long enough to gestate a baby.
Yeah, stalking—she could admit it. She wasn’t alone in her admiration, only alone in denying it. Rich had a bona fide fan base, a digital harem of noisy groupies who called themselves the Courtesans and swooned about him in tactless, filthy detail on message boards.
Did they go to the events? Follow his fights in person from city to city, not just on-screen? Did they toss themselves at him after the matches, and if so, did he like that? Was his hotel bed warmed by some new admirer every night?
And most important, why should she even frigging care?
She sighed as the microwave beeped, frustrated to the bone. With herself, for having gotten so hung up. With her living situation, and for what was surely going to prove the longest August in history. And from a phone call she’d gotten earlier—her mother calling to say Lindsey’s youngest sister, Maya, was threatening to not go back to high school in September for her senior year. Lindsey had promised to talk some sense into her this weekend. As always, the peacekeeper mitigating others’ drama.
Yet even with all that on her mind, her thoughts wandered back to Rich. His face and mouth, those fingers on her neck. Whatever she felt, it was no glimmer, no silly stirring. It was infatuation like she’d never suffered before, made all the worse by the way they’d parted. Some nights she was tempted to demand his number from Mercer, drink half a bottle of wine and text him, What the heck was in that message that made you stop kissing me?
But for all she knew, the reply she’d get would be, We kissed? When was that? Lindsey who?
She carried the popcorn and a roll of paper towels back through to the living room and settled between her ex-boyfriend and her boss.
“Nearly time,” Jenna said, sitting on the edge of the cushion with her knuckles pressed to her lips. “Oh, God, I hate this stupid sport.”
Brett took over the popcorn,