“Good thing I’ve got that picture to keep me company then.”
My eyes widened. I had forgotten all about the picture he’d taken of me in the ring. I watched in astonishment as he pulled out his phone and swiped to something on his screen. His face broke out in a grin as he looked from the picture to my face. “Oh, yeah.”
“Erase that. Right now,” I squeaked.
“Not a chance.” He held the phone up out of my reach as I tried to swipe it from him. I was mortified. I still didn’t know what possessed me to let him take the picture in the first place. I had to chalk it up to a moment of temporary insanity. At least I had hidden my face before he snapped it.
“Ice, you need to get back here and watch more tape,” Maury barked from one of the sofas.
Shayne sighed and slid his phone back in his pocket. “Fine. You win. Duty calls. Later, then.”
“No, there won’t be a later,” I said heatedly.
He winked at me as if my words didn’t register one bit and moved toward the back of the bus. I shifted in my seat. Just his touch on my thigh had caused me had caused a rush of heat in my core. It was going to be a long trip.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN – ALEXA
I sat in the front row and watched in awe as Shayne made his way toward into the ring. The screams from the crowd were even louder than I remembered from the fight in Chicago, and it was obvious that he was eating the attention up. I looked all around me and saw women cheering, and some of them were even holding their panties up. That bothered me more than I was willing to admit.
Shayne caught several pairs of panties that were thrown at him when he walked through the tunnel approaching the ring. His opponent waited for him, and I felt a small amount of fear. I knew that Shayne had been working his ass off to get ready for the fight. There shouldn’t be anything to worry about. I knew he was ready, but I still felt flutters of anxiety in my stomach. I just wanted it to be over. I wanted him to be safe. It was the downside of learning so much more about the sport. I also had read about the number and kind of injuries that occurred in the ring on a regular basis.
Shayne wasn’t the only one who had been watching footage of the Hammer’s last fights. My curiosity had gotten the better of me one afternoon after I’d heard Maury chewing Shayne out for flubbing a defensive move against something that Maury said the Hammer always does in his fights. I decided to do a little Googling and felt sick after watching several of video clips.
The man standing in the corner waiting for Shayne seemed as if he was twelve feet tall. He was a mountain of muscle, and his head was bald. His expression was neutral as if he couldn’t have cared less if the crowd was cheering for him or not. His arms were crossed over his chest as he waited. Shayne took his time moving to the ring. He waved to fans and stopped long enough for several of the more enthusiastic fans to take a selfie with him.
I hadn’t ever thought about it, but he told me that he always gave pictures when he was fresh going into a fight. By the time it was over, he didn’t want to get caught if he was tired or needed a shower. I understood that.
It was the craziest thing, but Shayne had started to enter my thoughts at the strangest times. It seemed as if he was always there no matter what I was doing or thinking about. In the short span of three weeks, there was a shadow cast over my life, and the shadow’s name was Shayne Malone.
Up on the jumbotron, I watched Shayne interacting with his fans. The women were pawing at his chest and his robe even as he gave autographs out. I felt my teeth grinding together, and the ripple of jealousy that shuddered through me was so strong that I almost fell back in my chair. Which was ridiculous. I couldn’t be jealous of something that wasn’t mine, and I especially couldn’t be jealous or coveting my soon-to-be stepbrother. That was fucked up on so many levels it was crazy.
Refocusing on the ring, I saw that the Hammer had started to shift his stance. An expression of annoyance crossed his face. Shayne was taking a ridiculously long time to get to the ring, but the fans were eating it up. The chants started to get louder, and Shayne finally seemed to remember that he wasn’t there to get all the pieces of paper, that no doubt contained phone numbers, that I could see sticking of the pockets of his robe.
I tossed my hair over my shoulder. I was wearing a much more conservative outfit than last time. An off-the-shoulder fitted sweater and a pair of skinny jeans that I knew made my legs look miles long. I stubbornly told myself that I hadn’t worn them because I knew that Shayne liked looking at my legs. It was my story, and I was sticking to it.