Takedown

by Gemma Brooks

  “Wait,” I stopped him. “How do you know he even wants to hear from me?”

  Eastwood’s mouth twisted into a big grin. “Trust me. The kid would love to hear from you.”

  I tried to hide my excitement. “Are you sure?”

  “Wasn’t it obvious?” Eastwood laughed as if I should’ve seen it all alone.

  “Not really. He was pretty distant,” I said. “Sometimes hot and cold. I never knew what he was thinking. Never could get a read on the guy.”

  “What do you expect?” Eastwood said as he raised his hands in the air and shrugged his shoulders. “The kid lost his mom when he was young. Raised by his dad his entire life. Didn’t know the first thing about loving a woman.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I half-whispered. “About his mom.”

  “You have to work to get him to open up,” Eastwood added. “I learned that the hard way. But once you get him to open up, it’s worth it. It’s hard to get inside his head and know what he’s thinking. Makes him a great fighter but a lousy boyfriend.”

  On the outside I smiled, but on the inside I kicked myself for walking away from him the way that I did.

  “You know, Rowdy told me anytime I want to see him fight to let him know. He’s got a match this Friday in Vegas,” Eastwood said. “How’s about I get us a couple of tickets? Ringside and everything. Backstage pass. The works.”

  My stomach did somersaults at the thought of seeing him so soon, especially when I never thought I’d see him again.

  “Sure,” I blurted. He didn’t have to ask me twice.

  CHAPTER 8

  I’d never left the state by myself before, but I’d never looked forward to it as much as this. The two-hour car ride from Wagner to Las Vegas was practically a straight shot down I-15. With the windows down and the music cranked and Eastwood leading the way in his car in front of me, I let the warmth of the sun that poured through the windows wash over me. In mere hours, I’d be seeing Rowdy for the first time in months. I crossed my fingers and hoped that Eastwood knew what he was talking about when he said Rowdy had liked me. I’d look like the biggest idiot if he was wrong and I’d shown up to see him fight uninvited like this.

  Flat lands turned into dessert, which then turned into canyons, which later turned back into desert as we approached Las Vegas. The sun had begun to set and the flickering and flashing of buzzing neon lights illuminated the streets around us. I tried to focus on the road and Eastwood’s path in front of me, but there was so much to look at. Everywhere I turned there were tourists, busses, limos, taxis, dancers, dealers and high rollers.

  My fingers gripped the steering wheel and my mouth went dry as soon as I saw the Mandalay Bay sign and Eastwood flipped his turn signal on. We were almost there. I’d be seeing Rowdy soon.

  By the time we got inside and found our ringside seats, my heart was about to beat out of my chest. My excitement began to dissipate as I realized I didn’t even know if Rowdy wanted to see me. Maybe Eastwood was wrong. Maybe he had a girlfriend now. I could only imagine that he had his pick of the litter.

  “Why you so quiet?” Eastwood asked as he nudged me. “Thought you’d be excited to be here.”

  “I am,” I said with a forced smile. I wanted to see Rowdy’s face when he saw me. That would tell me everything I needed to know. Until then, I’d be nothing but a ball of nausea and nerves.

  The space was a lot smaller than it looked on T.V. and more intimate. We were closer to the ring than I expected. I’d be mere feet away from him once the fight started. As fans and spectators began filing in, the small space was grew louder by the second.

  “People have signs for him,” I said to Eastwood. “He’s got a lot of fans.”

  “Oh, yes,” Eastwood said as he crossed his arms proudly. I knew he was still on cloud nine for having discovered Rowdy.

  My eyes scanned the room and watched as cameramen and producers and folks wearing headsets and earpieces scrambled to get everything ready. I’d forgotten, for a moment, that this was going to be televised.

  I rubbed my sweaty palms on my thighs and took a deep breath. Any minute now, Rowdy was going to come bursting through that door. The suspense was killing me.

  The announcer took his spot in the middle of the ring and music began to burst from the speakers in all four corners of the room. Eastwood nudged me excitedly. He was as giddy as a school girl as he waited for the show to start.

  “In the blue corner…” The introductions began.

  The crowd went wild. Nuts. It was insane. People hooted and hollered and stood up as he entered the ring, and I couldn’t help but join in on the action. My excitement for him couldn’t be contained any longer.

  As Rowdy made his way to the side of the octagon closest to us, my eyes were locked on him. He briefly raised one hand to the crowd and they went nuts once again. His eyes scanned the room as he nodded and half-smiled to his adoring fans, but the second he saw me. Something in him changed, almost like the wind had been knocked out of him.

  “Did you tell him I was coming?” I yelled to Eastwood and hoped he could hear me above all the commotion around us.

  “Was I supposed to?” Eastwood laughed. I didn’t know if he was joking or not, but by then the fight had begun and the noise from the crowd had dwindled to a hush. The conversation had ended before it had begun.

  With Rowdy and his opponent in a clinch position, I watched with bated breath as Rowdy threw jab after jab and kick after kick. I bit my nails as Rowdy got him in on the ground and laid on top of him, pinning him with his rock solid mass. Rowdy wouldn’t stop. Or maybe he couldn’t stop. The man was still a freight train, and I almost felt sorry for the other guy.

  With the match ending in a tap out from the other guy, the referee raised Rowdy’s arm and declared him the winner of the match. He beamed from ear to ear before a serious look returned to his face. His coach ran up into the octagon and patted his back as he yelled something into his ear. The crowd was going nuts once again over their new hero.

  “You wanna go backstage and see him?” Eastwood asked as the crowd began filing out at the end of the night.

  I nodded, though reluctance coursed through me. I hadn’t come all that way to not talk to him, but his reaction earlier only worsened my anxiety.

  He yanked a couple of laminated passes out of his pocket and stood up, shuffling his stiff legs over to the backstage door where two larger-than-life security guards dressed in all black examined our badges.

  With access granted, we headed down a long corridor before landing in front of a door with Rowdy’s name on it and gobs of people coming in and out. His locker room was so full of people, I couldn’t even see around them to even get a glimpse of Rowdy. I fought my way through the sea of news reporters, fan girls, trainers, coaches, and building personnel until I pushed my way towards the front of the crowd.

  Sitting on a bench was Rowdy, answering questions and signing autographs as some of the people, namely women, nearly fainted in his presence. I stood patiently and waited for my turn.

  Rowdy greeted fans and signed rosters and posed for pictures. He was like a well-oiled machine, greeting one fan after another after another like this was some sort of normal, everyday thing for him now, and I supposed that it probably was.

  “And what’s your name,” he said as he looked up at me and then stopped. His palm clutched around his black Sharpie. His crystal blue eyes locked into mine and he froze.

  “Hi,” I said. My cheeks reddened. I wasn’t usually that bashful.

  Rowdy’s eyes never left mine as he leaned over and spoke something into the ear of the man to his left. The man nodded.

  “Okay, people, let’s move it on out,” the man began to yell over the small cluster of folks that filled every inch of that room.

  Fans grumbled and groaned as they shuffled out, and the waves of movement seemed to pull me along with them.

  “Not you,” Rowdy said, his eyes burning into mine. “You stay.”

&n
bsp; When the last of his adoring fans had exited the room, he walked over, shut the door, and slid the chain lock across.

  “Why’d you come here?” he asked as he stood less than a foot away from me.

  I raised my face towards his. “Eastwood invited me.”

  “Don’t lie,” he said. “Why did you really come here?”

  I sighed. “Because I wanted to see you.”

  As if the admission was too hard for him to bear, he stepped away. Rowdy paced the room with his hands on his hips before sitting back down.

  “I shouldn’t have run out of there like that,” I said. “When you had your big moment. I should’ve been happy for you. I hate myself for running out like I did.”

  Rowdy sat in pure silence, and I would’ve killed to know what he was thinking right then and there.

  I walked over to where he was seated. A cut above his eye began to bleed and as if instinct kicked in, I grabbed the nearest towel and began cleaning it up. As I stood in his space with the heat from his body radiating towards mine, I wanted nothing more than for him to let me in. His silence was beyond frustrating.

  As soon as he was cleaned up, I realized my hand had been resting on his solid, muscled shoulder the whole time. I slowly removed my warm palm from its resting place and took a step back.

  The air was ripe with tension, but before I could attempt to ask him what was on his mind, there was a knock at the door.

  Rowdy glanced up at the ticking clock on the wall and pursed his lips before standing up.

  “I have a press conference,” he said. He leaned down and grabbed something out of his gym bag on the floor. It was bright cobalt blue, just like his shorts, and covered in the Zanical XT logo. They practically owned Rowdy Matthews now.

  His fingers brushed against mine as he handed me something small, thin, and plastic before jetting out of the room. I opened my palm to reveal the keycard to his hotel room.

  CHAPTER 9

  My palms rubbed against the smooth comforter of Rowdy’s king sized hotel bed. Any minute now he was going to come through that door, and I hadn’t the faintest clue what to expect. I crossed my legs then re-crossed them in an attempt to get comfortable. My foot bounced nervously as I bit my nails.

  The room was a little chilly, so I bumped the air down a bit and paced around the room to try to warm up. The beeping from the keycard reader startled me backwards onto the bed as the door swung open and Rowdy appeared.

  “Hi,” I said, once again bashfully.

  He loosened his gym bag from his shoulder and let it fall to the ground. His silence both scared and excited me, as I waited for him to speak. I perched myself on the edge of the bed as he took a seat next to me.

  “So you missed me, huh,” he stated. He raked his fingers through his buzzed off hair and scratched his head.

  “You didn’t seem very happy to see me,” I said. “When you were in the octagon earlier, you looked at me like I wasn’t supposed to be there.”

  Rowdy let out a single chuckle. “I was just shocked. That’s all.”

  “Shocked good? Or shocked bad?” My eyebrows were raised in anticipation of his answer.

  “A little of both,” he replied. At least he was being honest.

  “Oh,” I said. My shoulders fell. “I wanted to see you again. Things ended so…”

  Rowdy nodded, seemingly in agreement. “I know.”

  For once I was getting somewhere with him.

  “Why did you kiss me that night?” I asked. “Outside the diner? And then you just ran off.”

  He laced his strong fingers together and stretched his arms behind his head before answering. “Because I was falling for you.”

  My jaw about hit the floor at his admission. It was the last thing I expected tight-lipped, closed book Rowdy to say. “So why’d you run off like that?”

  His eyes focused on the patterned hotel carpet beneath us. “I knew I was about to get an offer. I’d been talking to that scout for a while. You were going to complicate things.”

  “Me?!” I leaned away from him. “Sorry you thought I was going to ruin your little dream.”

  Rowdy chuckled. “You did try to talk me out of it. But that’s not what I meant.”

  “Okay, so?” I crossed my arms.

  “I knew you were falling for me too,” he said. “And you don’t deserve to be with someone who can only come home a few times a year. You don’t need a boyfriend who lives on the road, who trains 24/7. You deserve better than that, Gia.”

  “That’s not for you to decide,” I snipped. “You didn’t even give us a chance, Rowdy.”

  “Hey,” he said. He inched closer to me. “I seem to recall you being the one who ran off the second time. The moment you heard about my sponsorship you bolted. Because of that, I just assumed I’d made the right choice.”

  “Maybe I wanted you to fight for me,” I whispered. I didn’t even think those words, I just said them.

  Within seconds his lips were pressed against mine, hard and wanting. My fingers traced the smooth muscles along his forearms as he pulled me closer. I willed him to continue and not stop. I wanted him. I wanted to be with him more than anyone I’d ever wanted before.

  Our bodies moved in tandem as he gently laid me down on my back and climbed over top of me, his lips tracing down my neck and leaving soft kisses in their place. His right hand ran down my side, following the outline of my feminine curves. My hands rested at his hips as I struggled to catch my breath before running them underneath his shirt and gripping his back.

  The scars.

  The sensation of several thick, gnarled, linear scars that ran the length of his back jolted me out of the moment. I’d nearly forgotten about them.

  Rowdy tensed up, stopped kissing me and slowly rolled to his side, leaving the cool hotel air to take his place.

  “What’s wrong now?” I panted. My body began to shiver from the cool air.

  Rowdy’s eyes were distant as he situated himself on the pillow next to me.

  “How did you get those scars?” I asked. I placed my hand on his forearm, subtly willing him to open up to me.

  He wouldn’t look at me. He only stared at the ceiling above us. “My mom.”

  I remained silent, praying he’d continue. I wanted to get close to him. I wanted to know him better. But I couldn’t force it.

  “When I was eight, I found her drug stash,” he said. He pinched his eyes closed like he was reliving everything all over again. “I threw them down the storm drain in the street. She caught me.”

  I nuzzled in closer to him and rested my head on his shoulder, slowly wrapping my arm around his side.

  “She yanked me back into the house and started throwing things at me,” he said with a strained voice. “Next thing I know, she had grabbed an extension cord that was laying on the floor.”

  Hot tears filled my eyes as I pictured a sweet, innocent little blond-haired boy being attacked by his drugged out mom.

  “She beat me within an inch of my life,” he said, eyes still pinched. “My dad came home just in time. Had he been a minute or two later, I might not be here.”

  “Oh, my God,” I said as I covered my mouth with my hands, appalled. “Rowdy, I’m so sorry.”

  “My dad rushed me to the hospital,” he said. “I’d lost a lot of blood. Was in a lot of pain. When my mom realized what she’d done, she got the hell out of town. We didn’t hear from her for days. Then we got a knock on the door one night. A cop said they’d found her body in her car down in Arizona. She’d overdosed.”

  I squeezed him as tight as I could. No one deserved that, especially not him. No wonder he had a hard time opening up. The one woman who was supposed to love him unconditionally and care for him, nearly killed him.

  I thought about telling him that I knew exactly how it felt to lose a mother, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it. How could I even compare losing my amazing, beautifully wonderful Godsend of a woman to a monster like his?

  My lips
sealed, I rested my head on his shoulder. I’d have to tell him about her another day. This was his moment.

  CHAPTER 10

  Something felt different the second I opened my eyes the following morning. Bathed in warmth, someone had their arms wrapped tight around me. For a brief moment, I thought I was dreaming. And then I saw him. Rowdy. Through groggy morning eyes, he was the most beautiful thing I’d seen in a long time.

  He slept peacefully, inhaling quiet breath after quiet breath, his brut arms wrapped around my lithe frame as he held me tight. He was letting me in, little by little, piece by piece.