Takedown

by Gemma Brooks

  “Of course, daddy,” I said, the sheer mention of Rowdy’s name putting a smile on my face. “Rowdy treats me like a queen. He’s almost too good to me.”

  “Nothin’ wrong with that,” he said, settling back into his easy chair while I scribbled a grocery list on a scrap of paper in the kitchen. “You keeping busy or does he have you locked up in that high rise like some princess in a tower?”

  I rolled my eyes. “No, daddy. I go everywhere he goes. He like having me around. Says I make him feel invincible.”

  “That’s good, that’s good,” he replied.

  “You know you can come visit anytime you want,” I offered, though I’d offered it a million times before. “Rowdy will fly you out. You can stay with us. There’s so much to do there. You’d really love it.”

  My dad’s idea of vacation was usually taking a day or two off from his hospital security job and going fishing out at the lake or catching up on yard work. He was a simple man and nothing was ever going to change that.

  “Oh, Gia, you know I hate those crowds,” he huffed. “Too many people in those big cities. Crazy people. You know you really need to be careful.”

  I laughed at his naïveity. “Rowdy would kill any person who ever tried to lay a hand on me. Believe that.”

  “Still, too chaotic for me,” he said, crossing his hands across his chest and leaning back in his chair comfortably. “I like it right here in good, ol’ Wagner.”

  “That’s a shame,” I called back. “You’re really missing out.”

  “Whatever you say, baby,” he laughed. He was never going to budge on the issue.

  “Okay, well I’m running to the grocery store,” I announced, shoving the list into my pocket. “You don’t even have bread or milk, daddy. And I’m going to hook you up with some freezer meals.”

  “You’re too good to me, Gia,” he said with an appreciative smile. “My sweet Gia. Always such a caretaker.”

  “Maybe later this week we can do some deep cleaning,” I said as I ran my finger along the dusty fireplace mantle as I headed to the front door.

  ***

  “So how’s your dad?” Rowdy asked over the phone later that night. My dad had long gone to bed, and I’d been up until nearly midnight stocking his freezer full of homemade lasagna, enchiladas, and various soups and casseroles he could easily reheat once I was no longer there.

  “He’s okay,” I said. “Just lonely. I don’t think he’s depressed. He’s just not used to being alone like this.”

  “Without you,” Rowdy said.

  “Right,” I replied. “He’s a little more mopey than usual, but he’s going to be fine. I need to just come home more often, I think.”

  “You can go home anytime you want,” Rowdy reminded me. “I’d never stand in the way of your relationship with your father. You know that.”

  “I know, I know,” I sighed, plopping down on my childhood bed and massaging my aching feet. “We’re just so busy all the time. I don’t even think about going home anymore. Vegas is my home. You’re my home.”

  “You can have more than one home, Gia,” Rowdy said, my name lingering on his tongue and making me wish I was lying in bed, underneath his strong arm and snuggled up close to him. I missed his touch, his kiss, his smell. We hadn’t even been apart for a day and I was already going through Rowdy withdrawals.

  “You have that interview tomorrow,” I said, changing the subject. “So is Avery just going to follow you around with her film crew or what?”

  “I don’t know,” Rowdy replied as if he hadn’t given it much thought. “I guess that’s how that works. I don’t really think I’m interesting enough to warrant a two hour documentary, but it’s what the sponsors want.”

  It’s what Avery Sharp wants, I said quietly in my head. “What do you think of Avery?”

  Rowdy laughed. I was sure, to him, my question seemed silly and ill-placed. Having been cheated on before by an ex, I was well warranted to keep my eyes open at all times. I loved Rowdy wholly and completely and unconditionally, but it never stopped me from always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “Why are you asking me that?” he replied, amused. “Are you worried or something?”

  I stayed quiet, trying to quickly decide which way I was going to take this conversation and then swiftly settling on full transparency. He was always open with me. It was the least I could do.

  “Have you seen the way she looks at you?” I asked, my voice oozing all of my insecurities and then some.

  Rowdy laughed again. “Seriously? Is that why you’ve been so weird every time the documentary gets brought up?”

  “Sort of,” I admitted. “I don’t know. Yes.”

  “Gia,” he said, his voice stern and solid. “You’re the one that I want. You’re the one I’m with. There is no one else. There will never be anyone else.”

  “I’ve heard those words before,” I said, recalling my jerk ex and the fifty-million unfulfilled promises he’d made me over the tenure of our relationship.

  “I’m not him,” Rowdy said grittily and irritated.

  “I know, I know,” I said. “I’m being silly. I’ll stop. Forget I said anything, okay? Please?”

  “I miss you, Gia,” he said, changing the subject. “It’s going to be weird sleeping alone tonight.”

  “I miss you too,” I said. “We can talk every night this week. And I’ll see you after your fight this weekend, okay?”

  “It’s going to be weird not having you there,” he said.

  Earlier that night I’d decided to surprise him Saturday night in Tulsa. I’d booked my flight and would pop by his hotel room for a sweet little reunion. I got butterflies just thinking about it.

  “I’ll meet you at home on Sunday,” I lied, hoping he couldn’t hear the smile in my words. “I’ll be watching the fight on T.V. I’ll be there in spirit.”

  CHAPTER 22

  My heart raced as I wheeled my suitcase down the hall to Rowdy’s hotel room. He had absolutely no idea I was coming. The fights had ended hours before, and knowing him, he’d be unwinding in the quiet peace and solitude that only a hotel room could provide.

  It had become a routine for us. After each fight, he’d do his media interviews, sign autographs for his legions of ravenous fans, and then we’d head out. We’d practically run to our hotel room, order a shit ton of room service (mostly for him), make sweet love, and then pass out in each other’s arms to the faint hum of a late night talk show in the background. It was a simple kind of love, but it was our love.

  Rowdy had told me his room number was 4572. I stood in front of his door, double checking the numbers, and smoothing my hair into place. My heart rushed and my body was flooded with electricity at the thought of seeing his face on the other side of that door.

  I wiped one sweaty palm on my jeans and then rapped lightly on the door, my heart pounding in my ears. The racking of the deadbolt signaled the door was about to open, but nothing could’ve prepared me for what, or whom, was going to be on the otherside.

  “It’s definitely not room service,” a smug-faced Avery Sharp said, looking me up and down. She knew damn well who I was.

  Rowdy popped out from the bathroom area, his hair freshly wet from a recent shower and a pair of athletic shorts tied tight around the narrow V of his hips.

  I wanted to ask him why he was shirtless. Why Avery was alone with him in his hotel room without cameras. Why he was still with her at this time of night. And why they had just ordered room service.

  But I didn’t ask any of those things. Visions of walking in on Drew and Whitney flashed through my head, and instantly took me back to those feelings. Those raw, stabbing emotional pains which had become hardened and scar-tissued over the years were suddenly ripped and bleeding fresh all over again.

  “I-I have to go,” I said, not giving Rowdy a chance to explain.

  “Gia,” Rowdy said as he stepped towards me, grabbing a shirt and pulling it over his head. “Where are you going?�
�

  “Just let her go, Rowdy,” I heard Avery say, as if it were any of her damn business.

  “Gia, come back here,” Rowdy commanded, a boom in his voice.

  But I couldn’t. I didn’t want him to see the tears in my eyes or hear the pain in my voice. I didn’t want him to see me weak. I kept walking, each step bringing me closer and closer to the elevator. But the second I reached my hand out to press the call button, I felt his hand grip onto my arm and pull me towards him.

  “Gia,” he said, practically pinning me between himself and the nearby wall. “Why are you running off?”

  “Why did you have another woman in your hotel room?” I asked, my lip quivering.

  He laughed. “Are we back to that?”

  “I knew this was going to happen,” I said, unable to look at him. “You’re only a man. It was going to happen sooner or later. I just…”

  My words trailed off as I attempted to justify my reactions.

  “Gia, stop it,” he said, frustrated. “Nothing happened and it’s not what you think.”

  “What were you guys doing?” I asked, looking up into his blue eyes. He didn’t have the look of a guilty man, but then again, Drew never did either.

  He took a step back and sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. “She just showed up at my door right before you did. I was just getting out of the shower and there was a knock. I wasn’t expecting it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell her to leave?” I asked, crossing my arms.

  “Gia,” he said, laughing at my absurd behavior. “She wanted to go over some notes for the documentary.”

  “At midnight on a Saturday night?”

  “I guess?” Rowdy replied, eyebrows raised.

  “How you don’t see it is beyond me,” I huffed, ducking out from under his arms and heading back towards the elevator bay.

  “Don’t see what?” he asked. I hoped to God he wasn’t playing dumb.

  “Maybe nothing happened,” I said, biting my lip. “But something could’ve happened.”

  Rowdy stepped away from me, running his fingers through his hair in frustration. “So I’m being punished for something you think could have happened but I didn’t do it.”

  I knew I was being unreasonable. I knew I was being paranoid and stupid and dramatic and silly, but I couldn’t help it. Rowdy was the one thing I loved in that world more than anything else. The idea of losing him scared me enough to make me act crazy and do irrational things.

  “I just think it was disrespectful for you to have a woman in your hotel room at this time of night when you’re in a committed relationship,” I stated, holding my head up high and drying my eyes.

  “When you put it that way, yeah, it sounds bad,” he said.

  The elevators dinged and one opened, beckoning me that way.

  “I-I have to go,” I stammered.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, confusion written all over his face. “Just come back and stay here?”

  “Wagner,” I said as the elevator doors closed.

  The instant those words left my lips, I regretted it. I wanted to run back, to do it all over again, to not jump to conclusions and to not throw Rowdy Matthews down the toilet like he meant nothing to me, but pride got the best of me. As soon as the elevator opened, I carried my head high as I walked out of the hotel room and back towards my rental car. I’d fly home the next day, trying to prove a point I probably didn’t have and hoping to God Rowdy would fight for me.

  CHAPTER 23

  “Hey, sunshine,” my daddy said as I walked into his house Sunday afternoon. “What are you doing back here?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.

  “Trouble in paradise?” he asked, prying against my wishes.

  “Something like that,” I said. “We just have some things to figure out.”

  “So you flew out to Tulsa, got into a fight, and flew home? Must’ve been a pretty bad fight,” he said, leaning back into his easy chair and flipping open his newspaper. “Sounds like he’s getting a little too big for his britches.”

  “He’s not,” I said, sticking up for him. Rowdy was a lot of things, but he never once let the fame get to his head. At least up until then. “It’s complicated. I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  I dragged my luggage down the hall to my childhood bedroom and flung myself on the bed, burying my head in my pillow and trying to figure out how to get myself out of that mess. It seemed like things had been bugging me more than usual lately. I cried at the drop of a hat. I let my insecurities get the best of me. Everything bothered me. I wasn’t myself and hadn’t felt like myself in months.

  I flipped over on my belly, instantly noticing a soreness in my breasts and remembering I hadn’t had a period in over two months. Being a nurse, I hit myself for not realizing it sooner. I popped up, grabbed my keys, and hightailed it to the nearest drugstore to get a test. It was all starting to make sense. All of it.

  I slipped a hoodie over my head and pulled the hood up, tucking my dark hair into it as I walked into the local drugstore. A million tests to choose from, but I just wanted to get in and out of there as quickly as possible. Everyone in Wagner knew who Rowdy was and that I was dating him, and the last thing I needed was for word to get back to him before I even had a chance.

  I flicked the pink and white box into my basket and bee lined it for the checkout, thankful I hadn’t yet run into anyone I knew. Third in line, I flipped through a People magazine while I waited and secretly cursed the first person in line who felt the need to have a long, drawn out conversation with the only cashier in the entire store.

  Minutes later, the person left and the line moved ahead. I was next. It would only be a matter of minutes before I could buy this stupid test and be on my merry way.

  “Gia?” a man’s voice called out from behind me. I flung around, completely forgetting what was in my basket for all the world to see, only to be faced with Rowdy’s dad.

  “Mr. Matthews,” I said, my stomach dropping to the floor. I wasn’t expecting to see him there. “What are you doing here?”

  “I should ask you the same?” he said with a slight chuckle. “Why aren’t you with Rowdy?”

  And then his eyes did the unthinkable. They glanced down into my basket where my pregnancy test was sitting there in the great, wide open.

  “Just in town visiting my dad,” I lied. I was sure Rowdy didn’t divulge the details of our relationship to his dad. I had a hard enough time getting him to open up to me. I could only imagine how closed off he was with his dad.

  “Ah, I see,” Mr. Matthews said, resting one grease-stained hand on his hip as he looked me over as if he didn’t buy it. “Well, tell your dad I said hi.”

  “Next,” the cashier called out. I moved ahead as fast as I could and sat my basket down, praying she wouldn’t say anything. “That’s $13.63.”

  I reached into my wallet and pulled out my debit card, swiping it and relishing in the fact that I was just minutes from hightailing it out of there.

  “Declined, ma’am,” the cashier said. “You got something else you can use?”

  Panic spread over me. I’d never had a card declined in my entire life! Rowdy had given me a monthly stipend, though I normally didn’t need to use it since we were always together. I racked my brain, instantly recalling all the groceries I’d bought that week and the back and forth plane tickets and travel costs. No wonder my account was empty.

  “I got it,” Mr. Matthews said, stepping forward and handing the cashier a twenty.

  My cheeks burned hot with embarrassment. “Thank you so much.”

  The cashier handed me the bag and I practically ran out of there, speeding home as fast as I could. I shoved the test in my purse and headed inside.

  “Where’d you run off to?” my dad called from his easy chair.

  “The store,” I replied, intentionally staying as vague as possible as I ran down to the hall bathroom.

  I tore off my jeans and ri
pped open the box, struggling to open the tightly sealed foil packet around the test. Within seconds, I was doing something I never thought I’d have to do. I was peeing on a stick.

  At twenty-three, life was just beginning for me. I wasn’t ready to have a baby. I wasn’t ready to start a family. I was still trying to figure life out for myself. How could I possibly be a mother?

  I pulled the test out and sat it on the edge of the counter as I watched and waited for the big results. The instructions on the side of the box said to wait two minutes. It only took thirty seconds before that big, pink plus sign appeared.