Текст книги "Worth the Chance"
Автор книги: Vi Keeland
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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
Chapter 30
Vince
It’s starting to get dark as I begin my run back to the hotel. I have no idea where the time went. The five mile run to Arlington Cemetery couldn’t have taken more than a half hour, which would mean I spent four hours wandering around and sitting at my father’s graveside. I’d seen pictures of the cemetery on TV, but nothing could have prepared me for the emotions I felt walking in and seeing miles and miles of stark white headstones perfectly lined up, many with American flags waving in the afternoon breeze.
Thoughts of lives lost and other kids growing up without a parent should have been what consumed me, but instead I sat next to his grave and played the What If head game I’ve been playing with myself since I was a kid. What if my father had come home instead of being lost at war? Would my mother have been different? Maybe not strung out for most of my childhood? What if he’d been there every night when I came home from school?
All around D.C., I pass families walking together as I run back to the hotel. They’re taking in the sights and having a good time. A young boy and his father pose in front of the Lincoln Memorial while the mom takes the picture, all three smiling at the memories they’re creating. It makes me run faster. Anger rises from within me, anger for my father not coming home, but even more anger for my mother not stepping up and being the parent she needed to be.
I don’t even remember the last mile of the run, sprinting the entire time so fast that I still haven’t caught my breath when I walk back into the hotel room.
“Hey.” Liv looks up from where she’s sitting on the bed, typing on her laptop. I don’t respond. Instead I stalk to her and ravel her hair around my hand and yank her head back, giving me access to her mouth that I so desperately need.
She doesn’t complain, even though I’m completely drenched in sweat and just marched in like a complete asshole. She kisses me back. Hard. Almost like she needs it as bad as I do.
“Need you,” I mumble into her mouth without letting her come up for air.
“Need you too,” she whimpers, her words barely heard, smothered under my kiss.
* * *
“How was your interview?” An hour later, I finally ask the question I should have asked walking in the door. But I just fucking needed her. Needed her to erase all the shit going through my head. Help me get rid of the anger. I know it’s not fair, she doesn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of my shit, but I just couldn’t help it. Loathing myself for the way I treat her deep down inside, I try to soothe things over, even though she never complained.
“Okay.” She’s being tight lipped and I don’t blame her. Probably thinks if I was really interested, I’d have asked when I walked in the door…like a normal fucking person.
“What did you do all day?” she asks, her head resting on my chest. I stroke her hair, it brings me peace, the urge to wrap it around my fist and pull gone with my pent up frustration, thanks to Liv.
“I went to Arlington Cemetery.”
Lifting her head, she props her chin up on her hand resting just over my heart, and looks up at me. Her voice low and full of concern, she asks, “Is that where your father is buried?”
“Yeah.” I stroke the hair back from her face. She’s so god damn beautiful.
“Have you ever been there before?” Playing with the dog tags resting on my chest, she runs her finger over the swollen letters embossed on the ID.
I shake my head no.
“I would have gone with you. You shouldn’t have had to go alone.”
The fucked up thing is it never even dawned on me that she would want to go with me. I’m just so used to taking care of myself, going there anything but alone wasn’t even a thought.
“Thanks. It means a lot that you would have gone.”
Tilting her head to the side, she holds my gaze for a minute before speaking. “Vinny, it’s not that I would have gone, I want to be there for you.” She pauses. “There’s a difference you know.”
Maybe I’m dense, because I don’t see the damn difference. But Liv was always better with words. I shrug my shoulders.
Chapter 31
Liv
I’ve never been to a professional fight before. I know it’s just an exhibition, but I’m still excited to see it. See Vinny doing what he lives for.
Because it’s not a sanctioned fight, each pair of fighters only spends one minute in each of three rounds, instead of the usual three or five minutes. Since Vinny’s got a championship fight coming up, he’s the headliner of the exhibition, so he goes last, like the rock star after the opening act.
We enter a small room under the building where the fights take place just above us. An older man greets us. It’s clear the two men are fond of each other.
“Preach, I’ve missed you, you old bastard. The place just isn’t the same without you.” The two exchange a guy hug, a sort of combination hand shake and one armed half hug chest bump.
“You don’t miss me you stupid little shit, you miss Nico having someone else to fight with.” Smiling, their teasing says a lot about the strength of their relationship.
Preach catches me out of the corner of his eye. “Who you got with ya…this girl’s too pretty to be hanging around with a goof like you.” He smacks Vinny in the back of the head as he passes by on his way to me.
Coming to stand before me, Preach ignores Vinny’s attempt at answering his question, and Vinny looks on from behind, laughing and shaking his head. “Hiya pretty girl, I’m Preach, and I’m single if you’re interested?”
Laughing, I extend my hand, “I’m Olivia, it’s nice to meet you, Preach.”
Preach takes my hand and shakes, but doesn’t let go as he talks to Vinny while still looking at me. “Elle told me all about this one when I talked to her last week. Says she’s special and I have to be nice.”
“Elle’s right there.” Vinny walks up to Preach and puts one hand on his shoulder from behind. His response is to Preach, yet he speaks it to me, “She is special.” He pauses and I watch as his eyes take their time to travel over me slowly, from head to toe before he continues. “Now how about you let go of my girl’s hand and come wrap up my hands, old man?”
The three of us hang out in the small locker room for another hour, the two men catching up on different fighters. Preach was Nico’s trainer and retired when Nico did. The three men have a lot of history together, and I get the feeling that they’ve become Vinny’s family in many ways.
Eventually, as it gets closer to the time for Vinny to fight, I take my seat inside the arena. Vinny made sure I was on the end of an aisle, almost directly behind the corner where he will be, just two rows back from the cage. I watch the end of a fight and then the announcer comes on. My heart starts to beat wildly in my chest before he even speaks. “Ladies and Gentlemen, in the red corner, standing six feet tall, weighing in at one hundred eighty-three pounds, the man you’ve all been waiting for, the contender for the upcoming middleweight champion of the world title, the ladies love him, the men fear him…I give you Vince ‘The Invinnnnnnciiiiible’ Stone!”
The crowd goes crazy as Vinny makes his way down the aisle, his black robe up, shielding his face as he passes, but it doesn’t stop women from screaming like fans at a rock concert. A woman two seats over from me is jumping up and down, tears streaming down her face, as she holds one arm out to him and screams, “Vince, Vince, I love you, Vince!”
Almost on cue, as if he’s responding to her, Vinny jumps up into the cage and then slowly turns, finding me in the crowd, and winks, a damn cocky grin on his face. I roll my eyes and he smiles, turning his attention back to the announcer in front of him. He has no idea he’s made the day, maybe even the year, of the poor clueless woman sitting two seats over. She’s holding her friends arm in a death grip and screaming so loud, I can hear her every word, even though the crowd’s still cheering. “Did you see that? Did you see that? He just winked at me!”
The announcer goes on to introduce Vinny’s opponent and then rattles on about a bunch of rules I’ve never heard of, nor understand, and the fight begins. Sitting on the edge of my seat, I watch as Vinny takes control of the fight almost immediately. He strikes hard and fast, hitting his opponent with first a kick to the chest and then immediately follows up with a right-handed strike to the face. Every muscle in his back flexes as his strength and raw power leaves the man wobbling not ten seconds into the fight. But the wobbling doesn’t last long. Seemingly out of nowhere, Vinny foot sweeps his opponent, turning his momentum against him and the man is quickly on his back with Vinny on top of him. It all happens so fast, I can’t even figure out how he did it, even though I’ve watched the entire thing happen less than ten feet away. Seconds later, the fight is over when Vinny does something to the man’s arm and he screams loudly, right before tapping the mat. The entire fight couldn’t have lasted thirty seconds. I’m not even sure if Vinny broke a sweat, and he definitely never got hit.
Undaunted by the brevity of the fight they paid good money to see, the crowd goes crazy, yelling and screaming as the referee holds up Vinny’s arm in victory. Preach is laughing as the two pass by on their way back out, Preach carrying Vinny’s robe that he doesn’t bother to put back on, to the pleasure of the women declaring their love as he passes by, a cocky grin firmly in place. He knows the crowd loves him. It’s a surreal experience, one that has my heart racing, and leaves me wondering how many more days until I get to see him do it again.
* * *
Even though I have a pass allowing me access to the downstairs area, I still wait on line with the others, many of which don’t have passes. I wonder to myself why people would even wait, with the size of the security guard checking for passes, until I catch on to what’s actually transpiring in line in front of me. Those with passes are let through quickly, those without are sized up. The nice looking women with short skirts and nice legs are all slipped passes. The ones deemed not worthy are turned away. It makes me wonder how many women have found their way into Vinny’s room for post-fight celebrations in the past.
Trying my best to ignore the pang of jealousy I feel deep inside, knowing I can’t control either of our pasts, I make my way down to Vinny’s room in a fog, not paying attention to where I’m going. Clumsily, I walk directly into someone as I’m engrossed in my own thoughts, just before reaching Vinny’s door.
“Liv?”
The voice is familiar, yet I can’t place it. I look up, confused. “Jax? What are you doing here?”
He smiles, a genuine smile on his face, he looks surprised, but I can tell he’s happy to see me. “I could ask you the same thing.” He narrows his eyes playfully and leans in, “Are you following me around trying to get me to bump into you, so I have to hold you again?” He’s teasing, I know. Although I don’t get the chance to respond, when the door we’re standing in front of opens and Vinny steps out.
He takes one look at Jax’s hand on my arm and his face changes. “I don’t know who you are, but get your hands off of her or you’re gonna find the beating the guy just took in the cage was just a warm up for you.”
Frozen in place, the sight of the two men standing next to each other makes me unable to respond. The resemblance is so much clearer when they are both within my vision.
“Liv?” Jax looks to Vinny and back to me, a confused question on his face.
“Liv.” Vinny’s voice is pure growl.
Tension resonates from the two men, and I can sense Vinny’s about to explode as he takes one step closer to Jax, the two men coming nose to nose.
Snapping out of it, I move to Vinny’s side, taking hold of his arm to gain his attention. “Vinny, he was kidding, I know him. It’s fine.” My words do little to calm the beast standing before me. Worse, Jax shifts his shoulders back, his fists balled at his sides, readying himself for what might come next.
“Who is this guy, Liv?” His words might be directed at me, but he’s still standing toe to toe with Jax, the two men having a staring showdown.
“His name is Jackson, he’s the son of the politician that I interviewed yesterday.” Attempting to refocus his attention, I tug harder on his arm.
“That doesn’t explain why his hands are on you.”
“I walked into him…he kept me from falling. Really, it’s fine, it was my fault. He wasn’t bothering me at all.”
I watch his face as he deliberates over the information for a few long seconds, sizing up the man standing in front of him. Relieved when I see his jaw relax slightly, I exhale a long breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding.
Vinny takes a step back, and nods to Jax, “Sorry man, I read it wrong. I see a lot of crazy shit down here.” Pulling me to his side, he wraps his arm around my shoulder possessively.
Jax nods back, and I think maybe we all might walk away unscathed, until he opens his mouth. “No problem. Don’t blame you for being protective of Liv. You’re a lucky guy.” Jax smiles a cocky grin at me.
Is he insane? Or perhaps he has a death wish. Vinny’s grip on me tightens and I brace for his response...concerned it won’t be a verbal one. Luckily, Preach steps out, calling Vinny’s attention away for a few seconds, so he misses Jax’s wink at me.
Seriously?
“Gotta go talk to some reporters. You ready?” Preach catches sight of me on the other side of Vinny and smiles, “Our boy looked good out there, huh, Liv?”
I can’t help but smile at Preach, even though I’m still freaking out inside at the two men standing in front of each other. “That he did.” I smile up at Vinny, and I’m rewarded with a proud smile. His arm slung around my shoulder slides to the back of my neck and he squeezes it lightly, turning me toward him, taking my mouth in an unexpected kiss. He doesn’t care that two men are standing within feet of us, forced to watch as he kisses me senseless, and eventually, I don’t care either.
Releasing my mouth with a low growl, I turn to find Jax still standing there. His cocky grin is gone, replaced by something I can’t read. Jealousy perhaps?
“Alright, alright, you two can celebrate in private later. Let’s get this show on the road, lovebirds,” Preach teases.
Vinny begins to lead us away to follow Preach without so much as a word to Jax. Never one for being rude, I turn my head to say goodbye, “Take care, Jax,” and I feel every hair on my body stand on end when I look past Jax and find Senator Knight stopped at the other end of the hall, eyes locked on Vinny.
Chapter 32
Vince
The exhibition behind me, I need to focus on my upcoming fight. A shot at the belt. And a real shot at it too. Junior Lamaro. He drops his left, leaving himself open to my power right. He’s tough, but wrestling is his strongest discipline. Keeping away from the ground is the key to my winning.
I should be in the gym tonight, practicing my technique, but instead I’m in a fucking bar I haven’t visited in almost a year, looking for dirtbags that helped drag me down. Drug addicts. Dealers. Total fucking losers. Guys I used to consider my friends. Friends that were only too happy to keep me as fucked up as them when I was footing the bill.
I can’t seem to focus on what I need to with my mom’s shit still hanging over her head. Over both our heads. As usual, when her own self-induced pathetic life drags her down, I grab her and try to pull her out. Most of the time it winds up dragging me down with her.
The first three guys I talk to haven’t seen Jason in weeks. Guys that aren’t tied down to much easily disappear off the grid. But I’m finding this fucker. Probably beat him till he’s barely breathing for making me waste my time chasing after his ass when I should be training. The last breath I’ll let the two goons keeping tabs on my mother take care of.
A hand reaches around from behind me and grabs my groin. She’s lucky I didn’t respond with a punch, most of the time my reactions are automatic. It’s work for me to stop and redirect against something I’ve spent years training to respond to. Grabbing the hand reaching for me, I turn to find it’s attached to Krissy. Great, just fucking great. Could my night get any worse?
“Where you been, Vince?” She rests her two hands against my chest. I remove them quickly.
“Busy.” Turning my back to Krissy, I find her friend close behind me. Like two pack wolves, they box me in. I’m pretty sure the friend gave me head in the bathroom when I was at my low, getting high every day. I don’t even remember her name. Not that I care to anyway.
“Hi, Vince,” her friend purrs.
“Not interested.” Not here, not now, not ever again.
“I can make you interested.” She reaches up, makes it close to my mouth with her long red fingernail, but I catch her hand in mine before it touches me. Squeezing her little bony hand too hard, I think how easy it would be to fucking crush it, so I force myself to let go. But she gets my point.
“You know, Vince, the two of us could make you forget whatever is bothering you,” Krissy purrs from behind me. It makes me wonder how I ever stomached being with her. “We have enough for the three of us to party.”
Finally, something she says gets my attention. “You know Jason Buttles?”
“Maybe.” Krissy smiles, rocking back and forth. She’s being coy and thinks it’s cute, but it’s not, I find it god damn annoying. But I know how women like her work. I’ll get more from her giving her what she wants.
Turning to give her my full attention, I wrap one hand around the back of her neck and lower my face to hers as if I’m about to kiss her, but I don’t. I smile instead, “Can you get in touch with him?”
“Probably.” The two hands I removed from my chest are back, but this time I leave them be, even though it disgusts me to have them there.
“Do that for me.”
She pouts. “Why should I?”
My other hand snakes around her waist and pulls her close to me. “Because I need to talk to him. And once that’s outta the way, I can party with you ladies,” I lie.
She leans into me, bringing her mouth even closer to mine, she expects me to kiss her. No fucking way I’m touching that with what I got now. I pull my head back. “Call him.”
“He doesn’t have a phone.”
Who doesn’t have a god damn phone? Yesterday I saw the fucking homeless guy that lives on the north side of Nico’s gym talking on a cell. “How do you get in touch with him?”
“Beeper.”
Beeper? What is it, nineteen eighty-two? “Beep him.”
Pulling out her phone, she spends a minute pressing buttons and then smiles back at me. “Done”
Great, now I have to wait with these two.
An hour passes and Jason never calls back. I’ve kept the two of them strung along enough to keep them close, but far enough away not to have to actually spend time talking to them. Luckily for me, a few guys from the gym come in, helping to pass the time.
But I’ve had enough waiting around. The loser is probably passed out somewhere or doesn’t have a damn quarter to use a payphone and call her back. “Listen, I have to run. If you hear from Jason, call me, okay?”
“What about our party?” Krissy pouts.
“I’m gonna have to take a rain check until I hear from Jason.” I’m out the door before either of them can respond.
Chapter 33
Liv
After work today, I finally unload my whole story on Ally over a glass, no a bottle, of wine.
“So do you think it was a coincidence that they were at the exhibition match?”
“I don’t know…Jax is a fighter, not professionally, but he sounded pretty passionate about it. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had tickets. The arena was just outside of D.C., so when I first saw him, I thought it was a coincidence.”
“What changed your mind?”
“The look on the Senator’s face. He was just staring at Vinny.”
“Maybe he’s a fan?”
I take another sip of my wine and close my eyes, remembering the look on Senator Knight’s face. “It was more than that. Something just tells me he knows.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Collapsing back onto the couch, I look at my best friend. “I don’t know Al, if I give the water bottle to the paper to test, they’ll know the results and it won’t matter what I decide. They won’t wait for me to write a story.”
“So have the results tested yourself. Take something of Vinny’s and put the two samples into a lab under a fake name. Find out for sure before you go crazy trying to decide what to do.”
“I guess I can do that.”
“Do it. You never know…maybe it really is all one big coincidence. The blue eyes, the fighting…everything. Stranger things have happened.”
I attempt to smile at my best friend. “Thanks Ally. I feel so guilty keeping it from Vinny. But I don’t want to hurt him. He loves the memory of his father. I can’t explain it…he just believes that’s where the good comes from in him. I can’t tarnish that memory if I’m not absolutely sure.” And I’m not even sure I can do it if it turns out to be absolutely true.
“Look at it this way. If it is true, at least it’s you, and you can protect him from what the paper would do if it was someone else writing the story.”
* * *
I get little sleep, tossing and turning half the night, guilt wreaking havoc on my brain’s ability to power down. Trudging into the office, barely making it on time, even though I’ve been up for hours, I’m greeted by an overly zealous fake smile from Summer.
“Morning, Olivia.” Summer’s smile is full of sugar, yet far from sweet.
“Hello, Summer.” Taking the high road, I respond professionally, as if she hasn’t spent the last three weeks ignoring me and slamming things every time I was near.
“How’s Vince?”
What the hell is she up to? “He’s great, thank you.” I somehow manage to maintain my professional demeanor.
Sitting on the edge of my desk, she folds her arms over her chest and crosses her long skinny legs. “Had dinner with Daddy last night.”
“That’s nice.” I pull out a file and power up my laptop, trying hard not to feed into whatever game she’s playing.
Leaning down to me, she whispers through her smile. “Can’t wait to see how much he likes your little story.”
Feeling the sting of tears behind my eyes, I stand, blinking them back before allowing Summer to see them. The thought of yet another person knowing such a powerful secret about Vinny crushing my spirit, I force anger to replace the sadness I’m truly feeling. “I’ll admit, when I first met you, I was a bit jealous. Such a beautiful girl, with all the right connections. But after getting to know you, jealousy has turned to pity. Why don’t you stop worrying about my life and get your own, Summer. I’m sure there are plenty of men that are into skinny, self-loathing, and desperate.”
I pack the laptop I was just firing up back into my bag, no way I can sit here all day and look at her. Catching sight of Sleezeball out of the corner of my eye, I plaster on a cheery face as I continue quietly. Venom bleeding out from beneath my smiling lips, I warn, “Keep the hell away from Vinny.”
Smiling back, looking thoroughly satisfied for ruffling my feathers, she responds through gritted, perfect, white teeth, “I’m a patient woman. Someone’s going to need to help him pick up the pieces when you tear him apart. Might as well be me.”
* * *
I spend the day working back at my apartment, finishing off a story that I owe and researching labs that do DNA testing. Printing off a list, I decide the first few are too close. Maybe putting some miles between my life and the lab will make it feel less risky.
My phone rings and Vinny’s voice calms me, even though he’s the subject of everything else in my life that brings tension these days. “Hey.”
“Hey, Beautiful.” His voice warms me after a long day of feeling cold.
Sighing loudly, I give in to what I’m feeling, even if I don’t fully understand it. How did I go from running from him to his voice bringing me comfort? “It’s good to hear your voice.”
“Bad day?” I can tell he’s smiling on the other end of the phone, even though I can’t see him. Male satisfaction throaty in his voice, he likes the thought of making me smile so easily.
“Yeah.”
“Wanna talk about it?” The irony doesn’t escape me.
“No, but thank you. How was your day?”
“Spent it in the hospital.”
“What happened?” Real concern takes hold of me.
“Elle’s having the baby. For real this time.”
“Wow, how is she?”
“She’s doing good. Though the doctor said it’ll be hours still. I’m going to run home and shower, came here in the middle of a workout. Think the nurses are eyeing me because I smell.”
As confident as he is, sometimes he’s totally clueless. “The nurses aren’t eyeing you because you smell. They’re eying you because you’re easy on the eyes.”
He laughs, “Well, I wouldn’t notice. I only have eyes for one woman these days.”
“Good to know.” It’s the first genuine smile I’ve had in two days.
“How about if I pick you up after I shower and we can grab a bite to eat and come back to the hospital. Hopefully the little guy will be around by then.”
“I’d love that.”
