“What the hell’s going on?”
She pressed to her toes and placed a lingering kiss on my lips.
It did nothing to answer my question though.
“Rocky?” I growled.
“Everything’s fine.” She looped an arm around my hips and tucked into my side. “Let’s get the kids upstairs and I’ll tell you, okay?”
“Bullshit,” I gritted out, studying her eyes, which I now noticed were red-rimmed. “Were you crying?”
Resting a reassuring hand on my chest, she answered, “Stop. I promise I’m okay. Let’s just get the kids situated so I can tell everyone at once.”
The room fluttered around us as my family caught the angry chill that had begun to fill the room. My imagination was running wild as I paced a hole in the carpet in front of the couch. Ash and Eliza settled next to Flint on the sofa, while Liv sat in the recliner, chewing on her thumbnail.
When Till reappeared from upstairs, he didn’t settle next to Eliza. He eerily walked beside me and got all up in my space. Not touching me. Just looming.
Fucking hell. He was bracing for the explosion. Whatever she had whispered in his ear must have been really fucking bad.
“Talk,” I demanded.
“Okay, so, ummm, Davenport was waiting for me outside when I left the community center tonight.”
The room erupted into a combination of gasps and curses. Five sets of eyes all landed on me, but mine stayed leveled on Liv.
“He was waiting for you?” I asked in a malevolent whisper, my muscles going taut.
“I’m fine,” she reiterated.
Which was fantastic. I needed her to be fine because I was as far from fine as a person could get.
I sucked in a deep breath and then held it. Cracking my neck, I motioned for her to continue, hopefully to the part where he had been hit by a truck when he’d left.
“I guess he saw the picture of us together. And…uhhh, well… He came to say congrats. Sorta. But it was fine. He left. All’s good. Don kinda saved the day.” She was rambling—and lying some kind of serious.
Davenport was a big enough asshole to show up just to piss me off, but with our fight less than two months away, he wouldn’t have left without delivering a message.
“What. Happened?” I pushed.
Her eyes jumped to Till’s then to Flint’s. Then she moved toward me. “Turn around.”
I shook my head.
No way I was going to let her to bury her face in my back, hiding the truth in her eyes so she could feed me more glossed-over shit. I wanted the entire motherfucking story, especially the little details she was going to try to leave out.
“It wasn’t as bad as it’s going to sound,” she whined.
Which only meant it was far worse and she was trying to soften the blow for me.
I ground my teeth and prepared myself. “I’m not asking again, Rocky. Tell me all of it.”
Her shoulders fell, and she rolled her eyes. “He called me a whore. Pinned me against the car and then kissed me.” She rested her hands on my chest and rushed out, “But I swear to you, I’m fine. Please don’t kill him.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“He kissed you?”
“Oh my God!”
“What the fuck.”
Those all echoed behind me, but I couldn’t make out who’d said what around the blood roaring in my ears.
Liv could beg every day for the rest of her life, but I was still going to kill him for so much as breathing her air.
Blinding rage consumed me.
The last thing I remembered was Liv standing in front of me, pleading for his life, before I found myself being physically restrained across the hood of my car.
“Stop!” Till said, wrestling me down.
“Let me the fuck go!” I seethed, rearing back to head-butt him.
He quickly dodged it and forced me back down. “Chill out and get your shit together. Davenport will still be an asshole in ten minutes. Liv is freaking the fuck out right now though.”
My senses started to return to me, one by one, and I heard Liv screaming my name from inside the house. Flint was blocking the front door, but his gaze was aimed over his shoulder at me.
“Shit,” I breathed, the fight ebbing from my system.
My knuckles ached, and my lungs felt as if I’d just gone ten rounds.
“There you go,” Till encouraged. “Now, take a damn breath and calm down.”
“Let me go,” I replied, my voice jagged.
I was slowly coming down when Liv shrieked my name again.
“Let me go!” I repeated, becoming agitated all over again.
He didn’t. He leaned into my ear. “I know how you feel, Q, but I swear to God there is nothing you can do to Davenport right now. And all you are going to do is ruin your own career by trying. Let’s call the cops. Let’s call the boxing administration. Let’s call Slate and get him to throw some weight at this. But you, right now, need to get your ass inside and take care of your girl.”