And it didn’t hurt that he was ridiculously, extremely attractive, either.
“You know, he’s got a bit of a reputation as a womanizer,” Trina commented.
“Does he?” I asked, as if I hadn’t picked up on that vibe from day one already.
“Yup. He’s hot and super talented, and I’m willing to bet he’s an incredible lay, but he’s also got a wild streak a mile wide. I don’t think he’ll ever settle down or chill out. Not for a long time, anyway,” she replied.
That was fine by me. Plus, it’s not like anything was actually going to happen between us, anyway. I could always just look and not touch-- as long as he was able to do the same.
CHAPTER 7 - MARC
I still wasn’t able to get the memory of the last session out of my mind. It was like a petulant bee buzzing around me, and there wasn’t anything I could do to clear my head.
It just didn’t make sense, I thought as I paced around my house with a beer, glaring out the window. Gemma was tiny. She couldn’t have been a third of my weight, and there hardly looked to be any muscle at all on that narrow frame of hers. The idea that she could hurt me like that so easily made me cringe--partly at myself.
I tossed the empty beer bottle into the garbage and squared up with the window, looking at my reflection before letting my vision focus on the streets below. This was so stupid. Why was I brooding over a woman I could pick up and toss around on a whim?
The worst of it was just how professional she was about everything. I’d have thought a woman like that would learn to lighten up, but no, Little Miss College Degree had to be all about formality, didn’t she? She was so damn smug about being able to inflict pain on me, too. That was the worst of it.
I had spent most of today out on a date with Selena.
Admittedly, the two of us weren’t as close as we could be. It would be more surprising if we were really tight together, in all honesty. We’d broken up and gotten back together more times than I could count.
Still, today hadn’t been bad. We went out to lunch and got some food, and she asked me how my therapy had been going. I left out the details of what happened last session but gave her a general overview of how things worked--especially the fact that despite what I put lightly “not seeing eye to eye on everything,” Gemma had helped me get some real control of my body back.
“That had better not be the only thing you’ve got control over,” Selena had remarked with pursed lips as we ate. She put on a show of being defensive when it came to talk of Gemma, but in reality, I knew most of our relationship was just a means to an end for her. To be honest, I couldn’t blame her. She was a model currently under contract for some vodka company or other. I had loads of the shit in my freezer. Appearances meant everything to her career.
Still, I assured her everything was professional between the two of us. It wasn’t exactly the truth, but the truth of our power play in the therapy sessions would be even more awkward to explain--and in any case, it wasn’t the kind of response she’d care to hear.
The rest of the lunch comprised of small talk about how things were going for her, some of the latest gossip of her friends, and who was caught in what ugly outfit at this party or that. I was only half-listening. Once we’d gotten on the subject of Gemma, I was lost and distracted by my annoyance.
I knew Selena was noticing my distraction, but she didn’t seem to pay it much mind, and I didn’t pay her much either. It was weird between us, but it always had been. Kenny had introduced us when I first got to Vegas, and while neither of us had ever cheated on the other to the best of my knowledge -and I knew I’d never even think about something like that - I got plenty of action to work off the steam with other women when my on-again-off-again girlfriend and I were in our off-again stages. I’m not sure whether Selena did the same, but that was none of my business.
Kenny was a little less lax about the situation between Selena and me. He straight up thought she was just in it for my money, and that our spotty relationship was just her coming up from air before she dove back down to dig more gold. Part of that opinion might have been guilt over the fact that he introduced us, only to have the relationship become... complicated.
But that was a point of contention between Kenny and me. Selena wasn’t exactly close and open to my heart, but she was no gold digger either. Hell, she was a successful model who was in the spotlight as often as she could be. Latina women in that industry faced enough trouble without guys calling them gold diggers for going after men who did well for themselves.
Kenny.
Snapping back to my brooding over Gemma, I realized that if I was going to drink to dull the pain, I shouldn’t be doing so alone, and Kenny usually had the best advice of anyone. Whipping out my phone, I shot him a quick text, asking if he wanted to meet up for a few beers down at a bar not far from my place.
***
“So I’m laying there, and she’s working out the muscles on my arm and down my side, right?”
“Right.” Kenny took a swig of his beer, both of us leaning on the bar off to a corner. Nobody really tried to crowd us; we were probably the biggest couple of guys in the whole place, so we had a fairly wide berth.
“And then she gets to my leg, and she starts like, swiveling it around, said something about getting the fluids moving or some shit like that.”
“Okay,” he said with a nod.
“Well, then I guess I said something that pissed her off, I don’t know.”
Kenny raised a knowing eyebrow, and I knew I wasn’t going to get out of this one easily.
“Alright, so I might have said something I shouldn’t have. I don’t know, I was pissed, and it felt weird with some college kid prodding and poking me, you know? And I might have, uh...I guess she didn’t like when her ass backed into my hand.”
Kenny’s look was stony.
“And then she puts her hand on my hip and pulls the leg out, like away from me, and before I know what the fuck happened, I’m in almost as much pain as I was when I hit the floor the first day!”
Kenny’s booming voice filled the bar as he roared laughter right in my face, slapping the table as I held my hands out in disbelief at him.
“What the fuck, Kenny, I thought you had my back on shit like this!”
“Sounds like she went easy on you for pulling shit like that, Marc,” he said through his settling laughter, wiping a tear from his eye. “I’ll tell you right now, that’s some poetic justice you had coming your way. She was probably just looking for an excuse to keep your dumbass mouth shut!”
I opened my mouth to protest more, but I shut up silencing myself with a long drink of beer. “Shit, man,” I said at last, defeated, “you’re probably right.”
Kenny wasn’t the kind of guy I could pull funny punches with. He was in his late thirties, all towering muscle and thick, sandy blonde hair, and he was at least ten years’ wiser than me, especially when it came to this kind of thing.
“Look, Marc,” he said, his jovial tone finally settling down to a more serious one as he looked me in the eye, “when I got you out of that little town in bumfuck nowhere, you were a young man with a hell of a lot of potential for fighting and all the energy to make it happen. Now you’re a young man who’s realizing his potential. I know exactly what you’re feeling, Marc.”
I gave him a doubtful look, but he shook his head. “You feel like the whole world is in your hands. Like nothing can stop you. Then something like this happens, and you want to take it out on the people around you, even do something stupid like touch a woman when she hasn’t asked for it.” The look he gave me was deadly serious, and I nodded. There was no way I could defend how I’d acted.
“But you’ve gotta keep focused, Marc,” he said. “you can’t let that kind of pettiness get in your way. If you want to keep up this crest you’re on, you’ve got to concentrate on swallowing your pride and building that body of yours back up into shape, you hear me?”
“I hear ya,” I said, nod
ding for a moment before looking him in the eye again. “But shit, does it have to be from someone like Gemma? She probably hasn’t even been to an MMA fight in her life, how can I expect her to get me into shape?”
Now Kenny almost laughed again, raising his eyebrows. “Wait, are you serious?” He waved at the bartender. “Hey pal, give us another round, we’re gonna be here a while.”
I rolled my eyes with a smile before he turned his attention back to me. Kenny was like an older brother to me in a lot of ways. He was always around for advice and to back me up when things got hairy--and they did get hairy in Vegas--but he was as quick to keep my ego in check with shit like this, too.
“Gemma Knight was a runner back in college. One of the best, in fact. I saw her run once when I was scouting for MMA talent a while back, and I still haven’t seen anyone like her.”
I raised my eyebrows, genuinely surprised. “You’re kidding me. Why hasn’t she been out at the gym, then?”
“Switched careers while she was still in college,” he said, shaking his head. “Had something to do with her family, but I’m hazy on the details. I’ve heard her talk about taking care of her little sister, though, and my guess is it had something to do with that.”
My brows furrows in thought, and guilt started to replace the brooding frustration inside me. Shit. I really did fuck up.
“Whatever happened, she switched to studying physiotherapy so she could have a steady job, and she’s the youngest physio at the gym relative to her skill, without a doubt. Still loves sports, too, but god knows when she’ll have a breather to go enjoy herself every now and then.”
“She’s legit, then,” I said, swirling my beer around.
“Not just that. She’s the perfect kind of person to get you back on track - any way you need it, apparently!” he cracked, letting out another round of thunderous laughter, but this time, I laughed with him as we clinked our beers together and drank.
“Alright, alright,” I said with a deep sigh, thinking for a moment before looking back up to Kenny. “I guess I should give her a second chance, huh?”
“More like you’d better shape up your act and hope she gives you a second chance, my man,” he said, slapping our tab down on the table with a generous tip. “You know I’m not a fan of Selena, but I’m not gonna have the Marc Montoya I know pulling anything he’s gonna regret. Especially when Danny’s hopes for the outcome of you two working together are so high.”
“I gotcha,” I said, stretching and standing up from the bar as the two of us started to head out. “I’ll...I’ll see what I can do at the next session. Maybe we’ll figure out some way to make the next few weeks doable.”
“That’s the Marc I know,” Kenny said with a grin. “Now come on, let’s get out of here.”
Both of us turned more than a few heads as we made our way out, and it was something we were both used to. But Kenny was right. Fooling around--in more meanings of the phrase than one--was something teenaged boys did, not professional fighters.
Especially not Marc Montoya.
CHAPTER 8 - GEMMA
Ever since the ass-grabbing incident during our third physiotherapy session, I had been more than a little worried about how the rest of my work with Marc Montoya was going to go. After talking to Trina at the cafe, I felt slightly better about the whole situation, but I was still concerned about the way Marc would act during the fourth session. I guess my concern must have showed in my face, because Alice came right out and asked me what was going on.
“Gemma, you’ve been really jumpy and weird for the past few days. What happened? Are you sick? Did I do something wrong?” she asked one night over dinner. She’d set down her fork after picking at her pasta for ten minutes, then propped herself up on her elbows. I knew when she gave me this look, there was no way of avoiding her. It was the same look my dad used to shoot me when he could tell I was lying about something. Alice was basically his carbon copy, except female and tiny. With much more attitude.
“No, no. Everything is totally fine,” I lied, shaking my head and swirling some veggie fettuccine around my fork before popping it into my mouth. She couldn’t interrogate me while I had my mouth full, could she?
Turned out, she definitely could.
“Don’t lie, Gem. I can always tell when you’re lying. You do this weird eye-twitchy thing, every single time,” Alice scolded me, rolling her eyes.
I shrugged, pointing to my chewing mouth.
“Well, swallow your damn fettuccine and then answer my question,” she said. There she went again with the potty-mouthing. She knew exactly how to push my buttons. And it worked.
I swallowed hard and set down my fork with a clink.
“Alice Knight, you know I don’t like when you talk like that,” I began sternly. But she merely raised her eyebrows and looked at me expectantly. Damn it. She always knew exactly how to get me wired. It must have been genetic.
“Just something weird happened at work, but it’s none of your business, okay? Don’t worry about it. Eat your pasta. And eat the actual vegetables in there, too!” I added.
“How about I eat one veggie for every question you actually answer properly,” she bargained, a smile pulling at her lips. She was infuriating, but god, she was fun. Sometimes I wished I could be half as silly and clever as she was. Dad always said that I got the book-smarts and Alice got the street-smarts. I was a straight-A, straight-laced girl with single-minded ambition, while Alice was more of a free spirit who used her wit to make jokes and play games rather than to write essays and slay the debate team.
And here I was, about to get gamed by a high school sophomore. Unreal.
“Okay. Fine. But this is not gonna be a regular occurrence, alright? This is a one-time thing. No more trading interrogations for nutrition at the dinner table from now on,” I said, laying down the rules. Alice giggled.
“What happened at work?” she asked, spearing a piece of squash with her fork and holding it poised in front of her mouth.
Reluctantly, I replied, “A patient I’ve been working with crossed a line during a session.”
She popped the squash into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “See? That wasn’t so bad. On to the next question: what exactly did he do?”
I frowned. “How do you know it’s a he?”
Alice clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Nope, I’m the one asking the questions. Now spill, or I will never eat another zucchini again!” she threatened, grinning. That was a flat-out lie, a totally empty threat. Zucchini was one of her favorite foods.
Sighing, I answered, “Okay, okay. He got a little handsy with me and now I’m worried that things are going to be weird tomorrow at our next session.”
Her blue eyes went round with interest. “Handsy? Oh my god, Gem! What the hell did he do? Are you okay? I am more than willing to kick his ass for you.”
“Language, Alice!” I laughed, but I felt rather pleased to have a little sister ready to stick up for me, even if she did only weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. Though, I assumed that once she realized the guy she wanted to fight was a tournament-winning MMA fighter, she just might back down.
She seemed to drop the question-for-a-vegetable act in light of my revelation, looking truly worried about me. “Seriously, is everything okay? I can tell this has you really freaked out, Gem. I don’t like the idea of some skeevy guy making you uncomfortable at work.”
I went on to explain to her the situation-- without mentioning the presence of Marc’s erection, nor his full name. Alice and I spent the rest of the evening just chatting about how things were going, confiding in each other like we used to. I loved my sister and how much she cared about me. Our lives were so busy and we didn’t get to spend as much time together as I would have liked, but when we did manage to squeeze in quality time, it was awesome.
* * *
The next day, when I woke up for work, I felt considerably more relaxed.
And thank god, because I needed all the strength an
d calmness I could muster to face a session with Marc. I walked into the building with my head raised high, looking totally killer in my tight black Lycra leggings with a flowy, purple tank top. I’d braided my hair into twin fishtails and put on just the slightest hint of makeup. It wasn’t so much about impressing or intimidating Marc-- he spent a lot of time surrounded by beautiful woman fawning over him. It was about helping me feel powerful. And it worked.
I don’t know if it was because of some little extra kick on my part, or if the events of our third session merely changed Marc’s perspective, but the session went surprisingly well. He didn’t make any rude remarks, kept his hands to himself, and most importantly-- he was nicer to me overall. His demeanour had shifted ever so slightly, but it was a noticeable change. It was like he’d gotten a rude awakening from someone. I doubted it was because of anything I did, but whatever it was, I appreciated it.
Game On (A Bad Boy Sports Romance) Page 21
