Jackson looked curiously at her again. “Was she?” He sipped
his whiskey this time, didn’t gulp it like water. “Well, maybe Lila’s a
natural-born fighter. Maybe we should get her in the ring.” He broke eye
contact with her and turned back to his parents.
“It was a great fight,” Lila spoke before she had time to
think. “I mean, you went into a zone there at the end and just walloped him.”
Jackson brought his eyes back to hers, an amused glint in them now, and took
another sip of whiskey.
“Yep. I did.”
The bell rang again. Lila hadn’t even been paying attention,
but they’d been setting up the next fight this whole time. “Whoops,” Lila
panicked, turning to Raechelle. “Should I have been serving drinks that whole
time?”
Raechelle laughed at her. “Nah, I guess we can make an
exception for you to meet the Boss’ son. But next break, you get your cute ass
out there and sell those drinks!” Raechelle pretended to crack a whip at Lila.
Cassandra shushed her playfully.
“We structure the night pretty easily for y’all,” Cassandra
said. “This break was a short one, most people know to get their drinks at the
last break when they actually have time.” Lila was surprised to hear such a
confident tone in Cassandra’s voice. Despite giving off the impression of being
silky and sweet, maybe Cassandra did have an edge of business to her. Lila made
a note of that.
“You can watch this fight and then we’ll let you go for the
night,” Raechelle added. “You did your work, you did it well, no point in
running you into the ground on your first night. There’ll be plenty of time for
that when you’re not training anymore.” She winked at Lila.
Lila laughed. She couldn’t believe it—was it really this
easy? Her life felt like it had already become better, new,
exciting
.
She turned to the arena to take in the next round of fighters, and that’s when
her eyes landed on the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.
She wasn’t sure if it had happened on purpose—if he’d been
staring at her, waiting for her to look at him—but his eyes were directly on
hers, and they were unwavering in their stead. Lila felt like she’d been dunked
in a cold pool. Her knees buckled slightly and her lips parted in a gasp of
desire. He held her gaze for a moment more, then broke away to let his trainer
put his mouth guard in.
A cold sweat had broken out on her back, and a single drop
of it was cascading down her spine, slowly, tantalizingly. Lila’s world had
gone flat and silent outside of herself; all she could see, hear, or feel was
the current rushing between her and this gigantic, almost frightening,
devilishly handsome man.
The fighter wasn’t big like Jackson—he might’ve clocked in
at 5’11” and was leaner, there was less of him—but the space he saved in his
overall form, his muscles definitely made up for. Lila had never seen such
huge, defined muscles. His biceps looked like rocks placed upon his arms. His
abs weren’t a washboard, they were a stone walkway. His dirty blonde hair was cut
close to his scalp, kind of messy on top, and he was one of those guys who
looked a little dirty all the time in the sexiest possible way. His five
o’clock shadow drove Lila insane, and she could imagine so clearly what his
scruff might feel like against her face.
Lila hadn’t yet looked away from him when his eyes flew back
to hers, and he realized she was still looking at him. His eyebrow flew up,
cocked smugly, and then he actually
blew a tiny kiss at her
. Lila’s
instantaneous reaction was to huff and roll her eyes, finally breaking the eye
contact and looking away. Her surroundings came back to her, but the second she
tuned back into them, the bell rang again, and the fight began.
Whereas Jackson was all fight and no show, this mystery
fighter was a lot of show—and people hated him for it. Lila could have blocked
it out while she was taking him in, but she realized, as the fight began, there
was a constant stream of
boos
in the fighter’s direction, that ebbed and
flowed with his level of conceit. And he, like the best arena villains, ate it
up. He jeered back at people, grabbed his cock and shook it at women who
berated him, shouted “
Fuck you!”
all with the biggest smirk on his face.
Lila couldn’t stop watching him, and that both annoyed her and intrigued her.
The fighter danced around, feinted, laughed in his
opponent’s face. He was matched against a man about his size, bald, tanned, who
offset the fighter’s circus act by being totally stoic and focused. Lila knew
that every cell in her body was pulling for the cocky man to win, whether she
liked it or not.
Her brain defiantly thought,
No way this cocky asshole
stands a chance against this bald Zen master
. Just then, the mystery
fighter struck out, almost faster than she could register, and in a split
second, the Zen master was in a torturous-looking choke-hold. The fighter’s arm
was wrapped tightly around his throat, and one of his legs was forced in
between and around the Zen master’s legs, rendering him totally helpless. The
crowd was hugely displeased, and the fighter made sure to show off his hold to
every possible angle of the arena.
“Here we go,” said Jackson. Cassandra and Lyle both shook
their heads in agreement.
“That’s Barrett Wade,” Cassandra leaned over to tell Lila.
“Great fighter, huge jerkoff.”
“Gorgeous, and he fucking knows it,” Raechelle added, adding
her own head shake to the mix.
“Shouldn’t be long now,” Lyle said, looking down at his
Rolex, feigning interest in the fight. He gave Cassandra a kiss on the cheek
and squeezed her with the hand he had around her waist. “We got to get back to
work, darlin’,” he drawled in her ear. She rose, smoothed her red dress out,
ran her tongue over her teeth, and turned to Lila.
“Hang out and have fun for as long as you want. I’m gonna
text you our home address, I want you over for dinner tomorrow night, ya hear?
We’ll figure out the schedule here and work you into it.” She lightly pinched
Lila’s cheek, beaming at her. “Happy to have you in the family, Lila.” She
smacked the air next to Lila’s face with her lips, winked once at her for good
measure, and then walked off.
Lyle lingered a moment later, still looking at Lila with
that strange spark in his eyes. He didn’t move to touch her at all, just gave
her a short nod of his head and said, “’Til tomorrow, girlie.” Then he too
followed in Cassandra’s wake.
Lila’d looked away from the fight to watch them go, barely
registering that Cassandra had just asked her over to dinner. Immediately, her
eyes were back on the ring. Barrett was still enjoying the extent of his hold
on the Zen master, taking a little bit of time to slowly, ruthlessly, twist and
press his body into obviously painful contortions. The crowd was livid, they
couldn’t taunt or degrade Barrett enough. Even Jackson scoffed next to her.
“Prepare yourself,” he said ominously, tipping back his
second whiskey and tossing some money at Raechelle, who grinned and shooed him
away with her hand. “See you tomorrow night, I guess,” he touched Lila’s
shoulder lightly, and she felt that same strange, warm sensation in the pit of
her stomach.
“Yeah, see you,” she finally got out as Jackson turned and
left.
Lila turned her head back just in time. The Zen master had
an arm across Barrett’s back to brace himself against the hold. Barrett grabbed
this arm with his free hand and swung it over his head, never letting go of his
opponent’s throat. This move twisted the Zen master into an excruciating
windmill, with all of Barrett’s weight and power pressing down right on the
fragile conjunction of the Zen master’s shoulder.
A scream escaped the crowd, the pink-lipsticked bouffant
lady tearing at her hair in agony this time. The worst cry, though, came from
the Zen master, who shrieked loudly over everyone else. Barrett bit his bottom
lip, enjoying every second of the Zen master’s pain. Lila could see that, while
he was clearly hurting the Zen master with whatever he was doing right now, it
was nowhere near how much pain Barrett was capable of causing from this
vantage. Half sick, half turned on, and thoroughly confused by all of her
feelings, Lila knew that Barrett wasn’t about to stop there. As if on cue,
Barrett turned his eyes back to Lila’s. She didn’t want to look at him this
time, because she knew exactly what was going to happen. She averted her eyes.
She heard Barrett bear down as much as he possibly could.
She heard the crowd losing its mind, hating every second of Barrett’s
forthcoming victory. But most of all, she heard the awful wail, the absolutely hair-raising
squeal, of the once stoic Zen master. It felt, to Lila, like it went on
forever, that issue of sound, but she was sure it couldn’t have been more than
a second or two. The last thing Lila heard, the thing she hadn’t even thought
of hearing, was the pounding on the mat, the frantic slapping of the floor. She
faced the scene again to confirm—it was definitely the Zen master tapping out. A
tap-out! She couldn’t believe it. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that that was
an option. But there it was. The bell rang a death toll, and the Zen master had
lost the fight in less than five minutes.
If a knockout like Jackson’s was the noble way to go out,
this win-by-submission of Barrett’s was the polar opposite. He released the
crumpled Zen master, who just folded into nothing on the mat where he landed,
and Barrett threw his arms up in victory. He was met with no kind of
celebration. Cups, bottles, food, and napkins were hurled at him, littering the
ring. People screamed at Barrett the nastiest things Lila’d ever heard in her
life. He toured the ring one time around, cupping his ear with a hand to egg
the patrons on, waving his hands to amp up their volume, grinning the whole
time. Barrett clearly didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought. Or, if he did, he
owned up to that by swinging entirely the other way, and almost basking in the
hatred.
He left the ring and only ducked his head slightly to avoid
some of the more dangerous projectiles aimed at him. He was headed to the bar,
still sweating, and certainly still shirtless. Lila seized up, not sure if she
should run to the bathroom or stay and risk interacting with Barrett. Raechelle
ended up making the decision for her.
“What do you want to drink, girlie?” she asked. “Better get
it before I get too busy.” Lila tried to decline, but Raechelle didn’t let up.
“Nope, nope, won’t hear it. I bet you’re a…hmm…” She disappeared for a moment,
grabbing a couple things too fast for Lila to see and shaking them all
together. When Raechelle began to pour it, Lila laughed out loud.
“You made me an Old Fashioned!” she cried.
“A
perfect
one,” Raechelle winked.
“Cheers to you,” Lila said, picking the glass up and toasting
the redhead. “I don’t know how you guessed it, but I do love these. And I’m
going to judge yours hardcore, because I can make a fucking
perfect
Old
Fashioned.” She giggled and took a sip. Before she had a chance to critique
Raechelle’s concoction, Lila realized Barrett had made it all the way up to the
bar and was now standing at her side.
“Laphroaig, Raechelle, neat.” His deep voice resonated in
Lila’s core, and instantly, every hair on her body raised up, and that cold
sweat came back with a vengeance. Her breaths came slow and shallow, and her
heart seemed to beat visibly through her dress.
“Idiot, I know your drink order by now, Jesus,” Raechelle
jabbed, half joking.
“Ah, I left an impression then?” he volleyed.
“Fuck you, asshole,” Raechelle rolled her eyes, passing him
his scotch. He tossed it back easy, which was when Lila turned to look at him.
She watched the amber liquid disappear quickly down his throat, watched his
Adam’s apple bob as he drank it down. He set the glass down on the counter,
empty now, and slid it back over to Raechelle.
“Another,” he said definitively. She obliged this time
without talking to him, sliding it back to him full again. “You know, they
don’t allow escorts in this club,” he said, and even though he wasn’t looking
at her, Lila realized his comment was directed at her. Any fear she’d had of
him turned to a piping hot mixture of adrenalin and courage.
“Oh, I’m not an escort,” she shot back immediately, “I’m a
babysitter, actually. I’m here to pick up some problem child named Barrett, but
I can’t seem to find him.” She’d turned entirely towards him now, feeling overtaken
by some bravery that she’d never before tapped into. She’d always had a mouth
on her, but she’d learned to keep it in check, especially at work. It was freeing
to feel like she could let go a bit, and mouth off to this insanely sexy and aggravating
man who was standing so close to her.
Barrett finally brought his gaze to hers, smirking—he’d
obviously enjoyed her joke, or was at least impressed that she’d made an
attempt at a come-back. “You want to babysit?” he purred, holding her eyes with
his own, the upturned corners of his mouth driving Lila crazy. “Come sit over
here,” he patted his thigh, “and I bet we can give you a baby to watch over.”
Finally, all that time put in at the Dirty Pint had paid off, because Lila no
longer reacted to statements like these. She’d learned long ago to control her
reactions to crude remarks, and it definitely came in handy here.
“Thanks for the invitation, but I hear steroids have real
negative affects on a man.” She picked up her drink and took another sip,
breaking the eye contact.
“Well, this isn’t a fair introduction,” he laughed lightly.
“You already know my name and my drug habits, and I only know what you look
like more or less naked.” Lila had forgotten that so much of her was showing
right now, forgotten how that dress sat on her, showed off her legs and her
back and her shoulders. When she realized that she
was
practically
naked, and so was he, she felt her center clench. They were so close to being
naked together, and that was not lost on Lila, if the tightness between her
legs was any indication. “So,” he asked amusedly, not missing the beat of
Lila’s silence, “what’s your name?”