“I didn’t ask you on a date; I extended an olive branch.” He winks and removes his arm from my shoulders.
I feel my face start to flush at the fact that he read into that as me thinking this was a date.
He steps in front of us and waves his hand in front of him. “Follow me.”
I look at Patrick as he puts his arm around my shoulders, occupying the vacancy that Harrison just left. “Let’s go.”
Around the perimeter of an empty, raised ring, a crowd of at least two hundred people, some standing and some sitting on bleachers, wait for the event to begin. Scattered around the crowd are men in red tees with bulging biceps. Security of sorts, I assume.
We follow Harrison behind them to an area roped off by velvet ropes, surrounding crushed velvet seating. I see Miles, Kai, and a few women scantily dressed in evening apparel and wearing heels almost as tall as me. One of them, I recognize, even clothed, as the woman in Tobias Easton’s bedroom just over an hour ago. His girlfriend … Dee.
“I think we’re underdressed,” Brisa says loud enough for Patrick and me to hear.
“Unless you’re planning on getting laid, which you’re not, you’re dressed perfectly.” Patrick laughs.
When Harrison turns around, lips pursed in a smirk, I realize we aren’t the only ones who heard him.
The bouncer by the rope unlatches it, holds it open, and nods to Harrison.
Patrick gives my neck a squeeze and waves his hand in front of him. “After you two.”
I walk ahead of Brisa, ensuring she stays between us once we cross the barrier between us and the rest of the crowd, the one that gives the illusion that we’re safe and of a higher echelon than everyone else around.
Arms crossed over my chest, I stand next to Brisa, looking over the crowd, and fail to see a single familiar face.
When Harrison walks back to us and invites us to sit, I shake my head. “I’m good here.”
He stands next to me. “A thousand for your thoughts?”
“You know this rope doesn’t make you any better than anyone else in here, right?”
He leans in and whispers, “Let’s keep that quiet, shall we?”
I turn and glare at him. He throws his head back and laughs. If he wasn’t laughing at me, I’d think he had a good laugh. But he is, so I don’t.
Smiling, and I think it’s a sincere smile, he nods toward the ring. “We sponsor our favorite fighters, and their opponents’ sponsors are beyond the ring, same set up as we have here. It’s a perk. Like front row seats.”
I lift a shoulder. “I suppose.”
He leans in again. “And don’t look now, but there’s a door behind us. If shit gets bad, or the police bust up the show, we can get out safely. And safety is important.”
“Isn’t it for all of us?” I ask with a scowl.
“I assume in a perfect utopian society, it would be. But look around; there isn’t such a thing.”
“Because greed and power-hungry people make it so.”
“Says the girl who lives in a modest five-bedroom beach house that costs four million dollars, attends one of the top private schools that costs sixty grand a year, which gives you a forty percent chance to get into an Ivy, drives a sixty-five thousand dollar vehicle, summers in Italy, and appears to be perfectly groomed and polished.” He lifts a finger in the air and, from out of nowhere, is handed a drink.
When he attempts to hand it to me, I hold up my hand and shake my head. “I’m good.”
He pulls some cash from his pocket and hands it to the woman who gave him the drink. “Thank you, Claire.”
“You’re very welcome, Mr. Reeves.”
When she walks away, I set out to correct his assumptions of me. “My parents work hard every day and own the house. I didn’t ask to go to Suckshore Academy. As a matter of fact, I’d rather go to public school with normal people who don’t look down on the rest of the world. The vehicle was my mom’s, and I worked to pay for it during the summer when we aren’t in Italy for the two weeks a year we go to visit family.”
He leans in and whispers, “And the grooming?”
When he leans back and takes a drink, I provide an answer, hoping he will choke on it. “Full natural bush.”
He quickly covers his mouth to stop from spitting all over me, swallows, and then laughs from down deep. A real laugh. I have to turn my face so he doesn’t see me smiling, too.
I feel his warm breath against my ear when he says, “Never experienced such a thing. Maybe I will ask you out on a date, after all.”
“Not a chance in hell I’d go.”
“A challenge, Miss Steel?”
I turn and look him dead in the eyes. “No, Reeves, a straight-up denial.”
He holds his free hand over his heart and sucks air in through his teeth as he shakes his head. “You wound me, Miss Steel.”
“Oh, please, Reeves, as if there’s even a heart under that three-thousand-dollar jacket.”
He smirks, wipes his hand on his jeans, and extends his hand. “Then I’ll settle for friends.”
I shake my head, trying to force away the smile as I extend my hand. When our hands touch, the lights flicker and dim until complete darkness fills the room. His hand tightens, and he pulls me against him, causing me to gasp slightly. His breath hits my cheek as he says in a low timbre, “Are you ready to rumble, Miss Steel?”
It all happens in a split-second, and then his hand is gone, but I feel the challenge and the threat of his words course through me as music blasts from every corner of the building and the crowd roars.
A laser show of white and red lights brighten the center of the warehouse, illuminating the announcer in the middle of the ring. He looks familiar, but with the lights flickering, I’m not sure.
“One night. One fight. One winner. One prize. Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to rummmmmmmble!”
The crowd grows even louder.
I look at Harrison. “How the hell are the cops not being notified?”
“Look around!” he yells into my ear so I can hear him. “How much did you pay to get in?”
“A hundred.”
“Multiply that by two hundred and fifty-three people.” He holds his hands up and rubs his fingers together. “Palms get greased, and even the good guys look away.”
“That’s over twenty-five thousand dollars,” I gasp.
“Fifty security officers, rental of the warehouse for the night. Movers for the equipment. Five Gs.”
“And the fighters split twenty grand?”
He laughs. “No, the coordinator gets that. Fighters get money from their sponsors and a cut from the bets. Winner gets an additional grand.”
“Jesus, and you guys do this every weekend?”
He laughs. “Hell no! This is four times a year. Sometimes less. Takes a lot to pull this shit off.”
The flashing lights separate from the chaotic flashes of red and white, making an X over the ring: one white line and one red. Two more beams of light illuminate off to the sides of the ring, and I watch as a shirtless, white short clad Tobias Easton appears, lit up in white.
He bounces up and down on his toes, rolling his neck. He flexes his hands at his sides, wrists wrapped in white tape, knuckles bare. He stretches one arm across his body, and then the next, as he continues to bounce to the beat of the music. His hair isn’t slicked back on the sides, and the top isn’t perfectly placed like it is at school. It’s a mess, like it was when he walked out of his bedroom and caught me red-handed having snuck into his house to get my phone.