And the arena knows it’s that time. Riptide. Remington Tate. Brooke’s husband. God of sex—in case I haven’t mentioned him a little, let me just say I know for sure that every vagina in this arena is crushing over him.
The fights in the Underground are never as alive and intense as when he comes out—there’s just something about him. He puts it in the air, excitement, intensity, raw strength, and boyish playfulness.
“My ovaries just exploded,” Pandora mumbles to my left.
Brooke jumps to her feet as Remington “Riptide” Tate leaps into the ring, draped in a boxing robe that is redder than red—and I’m so excited to be here, to see this, to get my mind out of my own insecurities and that stupid debt that I can’t help it, and my body can’t help it, and my vocal chords can’t help it—so I scream.
“Remmyyyyy!!!” I’m on my feet with Brooke, where I can’t resist hugging and smacking her simultaneously. “God, you fucking whore, I can’t believe you do that every night!” I say, shoving her.
She shoves me back, yelling, “Several times a night!”
And that’s when he winks down at her from the ring.
She stops goofing around with me and grins back at him—all her attention on only him. Her husband now. And as he waits for his opponent, he keeps his smile and his sparkling blue eyes on her. And that look? It’s a clear You’re Mine look, but it’s so fucking tender I feel it melt over me. Greyson . . . Greyson . . . Greyson . . . suddenly he’s in my head, his own version of this look swimming inside me. His own version is a little less tender, a little more guarded, a lot more raw, a lot more dark, like there is something painful inside that makes him hurt more when his eyes meet mine. My body feels like a huge void just opened inside it at the mere memory of him. Of us.
“Oooh god, you guys are going to kill me,” I tell Brooke, watching as a big-ass man comes to take the stage. I’m concerned for Remy for a moment as the fight begins, but then, wham! He takes control so thoroughly that I’m not concerned anymore.
“YOU’RE THE SHIT, REMINGTON!” I squeal, pulling Brooke’s face to mine. “Look at you. Wife and mother, dude, he’s so fucking in love with you, I can’t even take it!”
“Oh, Mel.” She sighs and sags against me like she can’t take loving this man any more than she already does.
They bring another man up for Riptide, and I swear these opponents get bigger and bigger as the seasons pass by.
“Remy!” I scream again as the men start fighting up on the ring.
Brooke squeezes my hand, and I squeeze back and lift her hand in mine, high in the air as we watch them fight. “Remy! Your wife is hot for you, Remy!” I scream.
Brooke has always been the reserved one of us two, a little shy about speaking out with conviction, but I know that she loves it when I do the screaming here.
“Remington, you’re so fucking hot!” I scream on her behalf.
And then Brooke stuns me when she leaps up to her feet and cups her mouth so her voice carries farther, and she starts screaming with me, “YOU’RE SO FUCKING HOT, REMY, KILL IT, BABY!”
And he instantly kills it.
The public goes wild as his opponent falls down with a thud, and I stupidly blink at my best friend. “Omigod, so you scream now? And how well trained is Mr. Riptide to immediately please his sweet little wife?”
I’d go on, but Brooke is too busy grinning up at Remy because he’s grinning down at her, all sweaty and lickable, and I fall quiet while something squeezes hard in my heart.
I will never be the first person Brooke turns to now when she wants to cry, or talk something out, or vent, or go out for a run. My best friend is deeply, madly in love with this man who I know would go through hell and back for her—because he already has.
So, in a way, my best friend has a new best friend now. And he’s a husband too, a father to her baby, a lover to her.
But me? My guy likes to fuck me. He says he’s bad for me, but I sense he needs me. I sense he misses me. Is it my gut talking to me, or my silly hopes? All I know for certain is that I’m falling in love and I’m so far in deep now that the sheer gravity of it all makes it seem impossible to stop myself from continuing deeper and harder into this dark, unknown, scary plunge.
God, I’m so fucked.
Brooke seems to notice I’ve fallen quiet, and I hadn’t realized she’d been watching me intently.
“Do you want to talk about him?” she asks me softly, surveying me with the keen perception only a best friend could have.
I nod and I have to lean closer to her in order to be heard through the crowd. “When I don’t have to scream over these assholes!”
When the fights are over for the night, Pandora and I take a cab to our hotel, which, unfortunately, is not where the Tates are staying—their hotel is much too expensive. Pandora didn’t want to take anyone’s “charity” and I’m a world past broke, so we’re staying at a small three-star hotel a couple of blocks away.
Pandora, however, decides to opt out of visiting Brooke’s suite for the evening.
“Why?” I ask her, nudging her in the back of the cab. “Come on, it’ll be fun. I need to see Racer! Last time I saw him he was growing just a little buzz of hair and he smelled like talc and grinned at me with this one lone dimple that’s going to kill a lot of ladies someday. Come on!”
“Nah, I’m tired. You two should catch up. I’ll order pay per view and wait for you later.”
“You sure you don’t want to come?” The cabdriver seems to be getting impatient, so I open the door and wait for a second longer.
“Yeah I’m sure. You know I’d rather pet a dog than a baby.”
I nod slowly because I think I get it. I get her more than she knows. She thinks because I try to have fun, that I don’t hurt, or want anything, or take anything seriously. I laugh away my hurts, but she uses anger as a barrier. And I know it hurts her too when she sees Brooke sometimes, because Pandora used to be in love.