“What do you think?” I ask Melanie as I adjust my shoulder-length blond wig.
“Awesome. You look cheapish. Now let me paint you.” She smears a makeup cake on me while the prospect of seeing him makes my heart wham excitedly into my rib cage. “Mel, my pores are drowning.”
“Tut-tut! Hush! Now me.”
I eye myself in the mirror as she does her own face. “Okay, I look like a prostitute. They’re going to ask us how much we charge.”
“You ding-dong, we have to make you not look like you.”
“But you still look hotter! You’re a hot grandma—why can’t I be?”
“Because I’m the one who can still walk, and you’re the one in the chair.” She pushes me closer to the mirror and we look at ourselves in our floral dresses. Mel added a little cashmere sweater to hers and a flower to her gray-and-white wig, while my blond wig has an Alice-in-Wonderland black headband holding the hair in place.
I look completely unlike me, and if I added the big glasses we got, I would look even doubly less like me, but they’re so big and disturbing to wear, I tuck them into my dress pocket as we head out to the elevator. “I don’t want to distract him, all right? Remy can’t see that I’m there. He might get angry. I don’t even know what he’ll do—he’s too unpredictable. And we’ve never really fought without breaking up before, Mel.”
“My darling chicken, judging by the roses he’s sent, he wants to make up. And don’t you worry! I will have you back here in an instant, and in the meantime we’re getting you out of this GODDAMNED ROOM! Woo-hoo!”
? ? ?
THIRTY MINUTES LATER we discover that the Underground is not a handicap-friendly place. We learned this when Mel tried to get me out of the cab, then into the chair, then into the nightclub, down the elevator, and into the Underground. She’s huffing and puffing and telling me she doesn’t look all that cool anymore, “thanks to you, pregnant chick.”
I’d be laughing over how ridiculous she looks trying to get people to let us pass, but as we enter the crowded arena, it feels a little bit like coming home, and the mingled feelings of happiness and frustration over not being invited collide in me in a complicated little combo.
This is where I met him. Where I lost my heart in one breath. Where he fucked my name. Where he kissed my lips. Where he took the ring by storm, before he took me.
After about a thousand “excuse me, sorry, coming through” notices, Melanie finally draws me up to our seats. I had to buy tickets with my own card and I splurged, so I got us front-row seats, although not exactly center. They’re good, and I’ll be able to devour every inch of my Riptide from up close. He’s not anxious to talk to me? Not anxious to see me? I’m dying for a mere glimpse.
“Remember to look the part of an older woman, Mel,” I whisper as the first fighters of the evening start pounding each other’s faces in.
“That woman keeps following us,” Melanie says worriedly and points behind us, but I can’t even turn. “She’s like a she-male. A little scary.”
I scan the area for Pete and see him, and right next to him, in the seat I usually occupy, is my sister Nora, grinning and flirting with him.
“Wow, Nora got Pete to get her a ticket?” Melanie says.
I don’t know why, but seeing someone, anyone, even my sister, in my seat, sparks a thousand snakes of jealousy awake in me, and I am angry all over again. Not angry. Furious all over again over Remington telling me I couldn’t come here. Bastard.
Suddenly the ring is vacated and I think I see Riley starting to walk over to take his place near the corner of the ring, and my pulse skyrockets.
“The last time he came to this arena, he gave us a record knockout and chased after one of our very own. . . .” The voice through the speakers flares, and the women scream and my heart just heats as I remember the way he came after me. “You know who I’m talking about. The MAN you are HERE to SEE! Say hello to the one, the only, Remington Tate, youuuuuuur Riiiptiiiiide!!!!!!”
Melanie holds her breath, then murmurs, “Ohmifuckinggod, I see him.”
My pulse has shot up to the ceiling as I strain to see a flash of red, trotting toward the ring, but I can’t see anything from this stupid chair. “I can’t see him!” And god, I hate that everyone can see him but me.
“Dude, he’s coming to the ring! Some chicks are coming over, but he’s pushing through. He’s a god, Brooke. Oh my god . . .”
And then I see him at last, and my heart literally stops and my stomach immediately constricts with emotion. I love him I hate him I love him.