Mace (Cocky Cage Fighter #4) (21 page)

Mace

Hailey thinks I don’t know she’s been pretending to sleep for the past two hours. It sucks because the silence has given me too much time to think. My mind has come up with every possible thing I could say to her before she gets on that plane, and not a single thing seems likely to change her mind. I’m frustrated and freaking out and so damn depressed I don’t know what to do.

Each sign that tells me how many miles from Raleigh we are is like another dagger to my heart. My chest is heavier than ever before. I’ve lost people I love, so you would think I would be used to it, but it’s different with Hailey. She doesn’t have to say goodbye, but she
wants
to. The other times, well my mom and sister didn’t have a choice when they left me. It makes me angry that Hailey could so easily agree to this working out, and she just fucking refuses to do it for whatever idiotic reason. That’s the other thing I’ve tried to figure out without any luck over the past few hours.

All too soon, I’m pulling up at the unloading zone at the airport. It’s nine-forty-five, so I know Hailey needs to hurry up and start trying to get through security.

“Hailey, we’re here,” I tell her with a shake to her shoulder. She actually did fall asleep after pretending for so long.

“Oh, okay,” she says softly, still looking dazed and drowsy when she blinks her eyes open and sits up. My apartment is only a half an hour away; I want more than anything to take her back to it and put her in my bed. That’s not gonna happen, so I climb out and grab her bags from the trunk while she gets out next to the car and stretches. Coming around to her side, I set her bags down and thread my fingers in the back of her thick curls to pull her to me, kissing her silly before I let her go for good. After her initial surprise, she holds me just as tightly around my waist, and kisses me back with just as much enthusiasm.

When I feel her palms pushing against my chest, I know it’s time to say goodbye. “Fine,” I pull back and mutter into her hair. “I love you, Hailey, and maybe I’m stupid, but I’ll wait for you; however long it takes. Weeks, months. In three years if you haven’t had babies, I’ll give you babies. I’ll give you anything you want, because there’s no one else I would rather be with-”

“Don’t,” she says as she slips away from my arms. Grabbing her luggage, she walks away without even a backwards glance.

I’m so fucking angry that I can’t follow her onto that plane, it feels like I’m about to snap and lose control.
Havoc
is closed, which sucks because I need some way to try to work off my frustration.

Nothing left to do, I get in my car and drive back to my apartment. Seeing Sabrina’s black Prius in my driveway usually cheers me up, but not tonight. I want to be alone and she’ll only remind me of the domestic normalcy I’ll
never
have with Hailey. 

When I quietly walk in the door, I avoid my dark bedroom and go straight past it to the kitchen. I might be underage, but there’s still liquor in my cabinet, one of the benefits of dating women older than me. I’m standing with my back against the counter, chugging
Jack Daniels
when Sabrina finds me. Wearing nothing but one of my white tees, her shoulder-length brown hair is pushed behind her ears, and her sleepy, almond eyes blink from the glare of the overhead lights.

“Hey,” she says softly with her approach. “I didn’t think you would be home until tomorrow night.”

I freeze when her arms wrap around my waist, unable to reciprocate her hug. Instead, I tip the bottle up and chug more
Jack
.

“You okay?” she asks, pulling back to study my face. I can’t even look her in the eyes. It just feels so wrong for her to be here, so warm and ready to fuck me. All I can think about is that I’ve been cheating on her for a week, and how much I miss Hailey. I should feel guiltier than I do, and I’m an asshole because I don’t.

“No, I’m not okay,” I eventually respond. After almost two years with this woman I care about and even love, I want nothing more than to push her off me. I slip out from underneath Sabrina and go slump into a leather chair in the living room. She follows me.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, climbing up on my lap. “Can I make you feel better?”

I finally touch her then, removing her hand from the button on my pants.

“Mace, baby, what happened? Is Claire okay?”

Hearing the worry in her voice has me thawing slightly. “Claire’s fine,” I assure her. “Married and happy.” 

“But you’re not?” she asks.

“Nope,” I reply, taking another swig of
Jack
. “I’m not married, and I’m definitely not happy.”

“Oh,” she replies at the same time her shoulders slump. “Does this have something to do with the smell of an expensive woman all over you?”

I bark out an unhumorous laugh since her assessment is so spot on. Hailey is an expensive woman that I can’t afford to be with. I can’t even afford to go see her. 

“I’m sorry,” I tell her sincerely, finally meeting her gaze. “You’re right, and I shouldn’t have been with her behind your back.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” she agrees, blinking back tears. “So why did you?”

“Because I knew as soon as I saw Hailey that she was supposed to be mine, and nothing else mattered.”

“You mean no one else mattered,” she corrects, wiping away a tear.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her again. “I had no idea this would happen…”

“So, this is it, huh?” she asks with a sniffle. “We’re really done because of someone you were with for a
week
? After two years of waiting for you, I thought one day you’d feel that way about me.”

Oh fuck. Now I feel guilty and even more depressed. Will I still feel this way about Hailey in two years? Loving her while she lives her life without me? I guess I deserve to feel so shitty. Karma biting me in the ass.

“Yeah, well, isn’t it ironic that she just got on a plane and left because she doesn’t feel the same way about me?”

“But you still don’t want me, do you?”

“Not the way I want her,” I admit honestly.

“So, do you want me to move out?” she asks, climbing off my lap.

“Yeah,” I reply, swirling the brown liquid around in the glass bottle.

“And the others?”

The thought of touching anyone but Hailey makes me feel nauseous.

“I can’t anymore,” I admit to Sabrina. Tomorrow I guess I’ll have to go see Erica, Monica, and Lena to tell them we’re done.

“Okay,” Sabrina says on a sigh. “Just…just give me a few days.”

“Of course,” I agree, cringing at the sound of her sniffling. “I’ll, ah, sleep on the couch until you find a place.”

She nods and then, without another word, she walks back to my bedroom without me.

…

Hailey

I didn’t sleep a wink on the plane, and when I got home around two a.m. I woke my roommate Elle up and cried on her shoulder while I told her about the entire crazy week. The longer I’m away from Mason, the more I miss him. Like when I opened one of my suitcases and found a big slice of wedding cake wrapped in saran wrap. There was also a note tellin’ me that he loved me, and that I was “
perfect and beautiful, so just eat the fucking cake and enjoy it
.”   

So, I sat on the sofa with my phone in my hand, starin’ at his name in my contact list for hours after my interview. The interview for exactly what I had guessed, a wrinkle cream ad that I immediately turned down. I thought I was makin’ progress on lettin’ go of Mason when I put the phone aside to fix dinner, healthy veggies that I didn’t throw up. But when I was headin’ to bed, I saw a text from him. Just three words, “I miss you.” So here it is, nine p.m., twenty-four hours since the last time I saw him, and my stupid finger is hoverin’ over his name. I press it, and it starts ringin’.

“Hello? Mace’s phone,” a woman answers. Why is a woman answerin’ his phone?

“Um, is Mason around?” I ask.

“No, he had a sorority birthday party tonight and left his phone on the charger. Is this Hailey?”

“A sorority party?” I ask. “Who is this?”

“Oh, I’m Sabrina. Mace told me about you when he got home last night.”

“He-he did?” She was at his house last night? After tellin’ me he loved me at the airport, he went home and was with
her
?

“Yeah. Do you want me to have him call you when he gets home? It’ll probably be after midnight before he can escape all those horny, drunken girls.”

“Right. No, that’s okay,” I say before I hang up, hatin’ myself for callin’ him in the first place.

Mace

God, what a long fucking night. Ready to head home, I pull my sweats back on and search around for my wife beater, not sure where the hell it was tossed to in the dimly lit room. Sure, there’s a wad of cash in my hand, on top of a flat fee I was paid when they scheduled two weeks ago, but I’ve never felt so dirty for it as I do now. I’m just doing what I can to try to earn enough money to go see Hailey. Even driving up to New York will take money for gas that I don’t currently have. 

“Aww, no, are you leaving?” Vanessa Clark, the Delta Gamma President, asks over the blaring music when she saunters up to me, tossing her long, stick straight blonde hair over her shoulder.

“Ah, yeah,” I say, spotting my shirt haphazardly thrown on a chair across the room. I manage to maneuver through the sweaty, gyrating partygoers with only a few grabby hands rubbing on my chest and abs. After I slip the fabric over my head, I turn around and Vanessa is right in front me.

“I hate you have to go,” she says with a stupid, fake pout. When she yanks on the elastic waistband of my sweats, I look down and watch as she crams a folded green bill down the front of my tight, black briefs. Hell no, I don’t wear a G-string. Wait, is that a hundred-dollar bill? I don’t have time to figure it out before Vanessa’s hand wraps around my cock. “Are you sure you can’t stay a little longer?” she asks, stroking my shaft. “We could go up to my room.”

Well, I can’t say it’s the first time I’m been propositioned for sex after stripping, but unlike other times when I may have been somewhat tempted before turning a girl down, I don’t want anything to do with the slut this time.

“Sorry, but I’ve gotta go,” I tell her as I grab her hand and remove it from my cock before getting the hell out of dodge. Fuck if I offer back the Benjamin, either. I would say an inappropriate sexual assault is worth a hundred dollars. Besides, that one bill puts me a little closer to New York.

Glad to be back in the house after spending six hours in the gym, coming home only long enough to grab dinner and a shower before shaking my dick for the sorority girls for three hours, I am beat.

I have to take another shower because I just feel dirty, and then I sack out on the sofa, my new bed until Sabrina gets an apartment. My phone is on the end table charging since the battery keeps dying on me. I need to buy a new one, but that’s not in my budget right now. Leaving it on the charger, I scroll through spam emails and respond to text messages from Monica and Erica telling me that they’re free for tomorrow night. This morning before the gym, I broke things off with Lena who took it pretty well, so by this time tomorrow, I’ll be a single man for the first time in over two years. I figured that’s the first step in convincing Hailey to be with me.

When I pull up my call log, I see that there was an incoming call from her. Tonight. Two hours ago. What the fuck? She actually wanted to talk to me? I call her but it goes straight to voicemail. Fucking hell. Hold the phone. The log says the call was answered and a two-minute conversation took place, but I wasn’t even home.

“Sabrina!” I yell for her even though it’s almost one a.m. before I jump up and storm into my bedroom.

“Hey, you’re home,” she says when she sits up in the bed. “You wanna join me?”

“No,” I snap. “Did you answer my phone when Hailey called?”

“Ah, yeah.” Shit. If Hailey knows she was here at my place, she’ll get all sorts of wrong ideas.

“What the fuck did you say to her?” I demand.

“Um, that you were out and had left your phone here.”

“No, I want word for fucking word, hers and yours, during the entire conversation!” I yell.

When she complies and tells me what was said, I know I’m fucked with Hailey. I didn’t tell her Sabrina was living with me or how I make ends meet.

Over the next twelve hours I text and call Hailey multiple times, but of course she doesn’t answer or respond. This is not something I feel like I can explain in a message, so I need to figure out a way to see her.

I refuse to stoop to the level of asking someone to borrow money, even if I’ll be able to pay him or her back, win or lose, after Saturday night’s fight. Besides, no one I know would even be able to spare a few hundred bucks other than Linc and Claire who are on their honeymoon, and…Senn. Fuck that. There’s gotta be some way I can get to Hailey before I leave for Vegas Friday morning. This can’t wait because I know that I’m losing her more with every passing second.

…

Hailey

It’s been four days and two hours since I left Mason at the airport, after he told me he loved me. There’s been fifteen missed calls, six voicemails, and eight unanswered text messages from him. I told him not to call, but of course, the persistent man didn’t listen. Every time there’s a knock on my apartment door, even if I’m expectin’ company or take-out, my heart speeds up, stupidly hopin’ it’s him disregardin’ my orders not to show up.

I miss him. I mean, I knew I would, I just didn’t know how much. A year ago when I came back from Raleigh I thought I missed Senn. That was nothin’ compared to what I’ve been goin’ through the last few days.

It doesn’t help that more and more of the sports channels are showin’ his picture and talkin’ about his upcomin’ fight. There are sound bites, too, so I get to not only see him, but also hear his voice on TV and when he leaves long voicemails askin’ me how I am and tellin’ me he wishes he was with me. Whenever the phone rings, I hold it and my breath waitin’ to see if it will ping with a message so I can listen to it.

“Sure you don’t want a shot?” Elle, my best friend and roommate, asks. She’s sittin’ next to me lookin’ like a million bucks in her short, black sheath dress with her platinum hair pulled up off her neck. Elle could easily be dancin’ with any man in the entire club. Instead, she’s doin’ the wallflower thing with me because I’m too heartbroken to get off my ass. Surprisingly enough, six different guys, really hot guys, have offered to buy me a drink and/or asked me to dance tonight. I’ve turned them all down.

“No thanks,” I tell her. “I’m stickin’ with water tonight.” Alcohol has too many calories.

“Of course you are,” she replies with a roll of her amethyst eyes. I had never seen purple eyes before I met Elle, and for the first few months I swore she wore colored contacts. When I met her mother, whose eyes are just a shade lighter, I finally realized they were natural.

It’s not very crowded tonight since most people have to work tomorrow. I don’t. My schedule is unfortunately clear at the moment.

“We could do the unthinkable and go dance,” Elle says after we sit in silence on the club sofas for several more minutes, listenin’ to the up-tempo beat.

“Nah.”

“Of course not. But at least you took the first step and left the apartment. I was starting to worry you may never come out into the world of the living again.”

“This is true,” I say on an exhale.

“I gotta pee. You coming or staying put?” she asks, gettin’ to her silver stilettoed feet.

“Um, I’m good,” I say since I don’t like to have any witnesses when I go to the restroom. The best thing about a broken heart is I haven’t felt like eatin’, so I’ve lost a few pounds without throwin’ up.

“Suit yourself. Just don’t leave without me,” she says before sashayin’ across the club. She’s not gone for thirty seconds before her seat is taken.

“Sorry, but someone’s sittin’ there,” I say as politely as possible to the man in the three-piece, gray suit. He’s hot in a rich, sophisticated, and arrogant sort of way with short, mussed blonde hair, golden five o’clock shadow, and pale blue eyes.

“Then he’s an idiot for leaving you alone,” the stranger says with a smirk.

“
She
had to use the restroom and will be right back,” I reply.

“Luckily for you, I happen to be very tolerant. In fact, I love lesbians.”

“I’m sure you do,” I say with a shake of my head.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asks.

“No thanks,” I say quickly.

“How about a dance? Your girlfriend won’t mind, will she?”

“No thank you.”

“Is there anything I can do to change your mind?” he asks.

“Nope, sorry,” I say with another shake of my head, glancin’ out onto the dance floor.

“That’s too bad,” he tells me with a sigh. “And you just made me lose a hundred bucks.”

“What?” I ask lookin’ back over at him in surprise. “How’s that?”

“My buddies and I went into a pool with some other guys at the bar. One threw down a bet that none of us could tempt the most gorgeous woman in here tonight into accepting a drink or a dance. That would be you, by the way,” he says. “So far he’s made seven hundred bucks.”

I blink at him, tryin’ to figure out if he’s bein’ serious. It just sounds so ridiculous. “So there’s a bet goin’ on to see who can get me to accept a drink or a dance?” I ask slowly, and he nods. “Is there a bonus prize for fuckin’ me?”

“No, nothing like that I swear,” he says, holdin’ up his palms in front of him. “In fact, the bookie, this big ass dude, threatened to remove our arms and bludgeon us to death with them if we tried anything more than dancing with you.”

“Holy shit,” I mutter, recognizin’ that very specific threat. My eyes start searchin’ him out before I can catch myself and force them to stop. My chest tightens, and I suddenly worry that my heart has sank down into my stomach permanently. He’s here. Not just in the city, but in the same club as me. But how? How did he know I would be here of all places?

“Well, hello, handsome,” Elle says when she walks back up.

“Did you post about us tonight?” I ask her frantically.

“Post?” she repeats, scrunchin’ her face in confusion.

“Yeah, like Facebook check-in, taggin’, whatever?”

She thinks about it for several heartbeats before a lightbulb goes off. “Oh yeah, after I took that selfie of us at your apartment. We look hot!”

“You put that you and I were comin’ here, to
The Griffin
?”

“Um, yeah. Why?”

“Shit,” I mutter.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’,” I say. Part of me wants to find him, jump into his arms, and kiss him like crazy because I missed him so much. But the other part, oh fuck, doin’ that will only encourage him, which means he could do somethin’ stupid like not fight this weekend. He’s already gone so far as to fly in or drive hours to the city. It won’t take much for him to give it all up to stay with me. Besides, I’m still pissed about the woman in his apartment while he wasn’t there the day after he left me at the airport. That means she’s spendin’ the night with him, and she told me he was partyin’ with some sorority sluts!

Even though tears sting my eyes, I stand up and grab the hand of Mr. Moneybags. “Congratu-fuckin-lations, you win,” I tell him as I drag him behind me to the dance floor.

“Haha!” He chuckles. “You know, if you want to throw in that bonus then I’m all for that, too.”

On the edge of the dance floor, in full view of the club’s sittin’ area and bar, I turn around and wrap my arms snugly around his neck, pressin’ the front of my body flush with his and start movin’ my hips to the music.

“Whoa now,” the stranger says next to my ear, tryin’ to pull back to put some space between us. “I’d really like to keep my arms.”

“Huh,” I mutter. “I had no idea pussies could look so sophisticated in suits. Now I know,” I antagonize him.

“Hey, I’m not pussying out. I’m just not stupid. You haven’t seen this guy.”

“Let me guess, about six feet four, two hundred pounds with dark hair, golden-green eyes and black tribal tattoos down his right arm?”

“So you know him?” he says when he stops dancin’. “What, is he like a crazy ex or something?”

“Nope. He’s actually my brother.”

“Brother?”

“Uh-huh.” I leave out the distant in-law part.

“So what’s with him and the bet?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” I say. “He knows I have these…self-esteem issues. He practically paid you just to talk to me so I would get a confidence boost.”

“Really?” he pulls back further and asks. “I don’t know. I don’t think that’s what’s going on.”

“You don’t?”

“No. Because he didn’t pick you. He just said for us to choose the hottest woman in here, and then the other guys and I unanimously decided that was you. Your friend was a close second, but your killer legs sealed the deal.”

“I find that very hard to believe,” I say with a frown, and my neck hurts from how tight the muscles are as I force myself not to turn around.

“See, and here I was thinking you were so beautiful you had to be a complete bitch for turning everyone down. But you really have no idea how stunning you are, do you?”

“Look, you won, you can stop with the BS now, and I think I’m ready to go,” I tell him. Then, I have a horrible idea. “Are you ready to man up or pussy out tonight?” I ask. “Don’t worry, my…brother is all talk with his threats.”