Katy Evans - Mine

Arizona today is an inferno of heat, and on the trail outside our hotel, I pull on my cap and quietly stretch my quads, trying to concentrate on the second thing I love most in the world after Remington: running. I know it’s going to make me feel good—if not good, then at least better.

We haven’t talked about it.

We haven’t kissed.

We haven’t touched.

Since I bawled like an idiot in his arms last night. When I woke he was looking out the window, his profile unreadable, and when he turned, as if sensing me, I had to close my eyes because I’m just afraid that if he’s gentle with me I’ll break again.

Now he bounces in place as I stretch. He’s wearing his gray hoodie and sweatpants, every inch of him a running boxer you would die for. Kill for. Leave your entire life in Seattle behind for.

“Okay,” I whisper to him, nodding.

“Let’s hit it.” He smacks my butt gently and we start running, but the sleepless night means I don’t really have the speed that I want. Remington looks just a little tired today, quietly running beside me, pumping his fists in the air.

I keep waiting for my endorphins to kick in, but my body isn’t my friend today, and neither are my emotions. I want to sink into a quiet corner and cry again, until I cry it all out and it doesn’t hurt anymore, until I’m not angry at myself anymore, or at him, for saying yes to everything, anything, he could get his hands on while for months he refused to put his hands on me.

I’ve stopped running and put my hands on my knees, sucking in a breath to calm down. Remington slows down and pumps his fists in the air as he comes back. I want to groan in protest over how shitty I feel when he looks more than decent. He stops close to me, and I use my cap to shield my stupid face.

“If we’re running to the gym, we need to get there today,” he whispers in amusement, reaching out and tipping my hat back. I bite down hard on my lip as he surveys me, forcing myself to hold his gaze.

He smiles down at me, his dimples popping as he stands there. A little arrogant, a lot hot, Remington Tate, the man of my dreams. In that gray hoodie. Those blue eyes peering at me. He’s so aerodynamic as he runs; even when tired, he defies gravity. His shoulders, rock hard, stretch the material of his sweatshirt as his feet tap the sidewalk.

Just please somebody kill me now.

“I think I’ll walk there,” I tell him, kneeling down to add another impulsive knot to the laces of my tennis shoe, so I can look at my Nikes instead of him. “Go on without me and I’ll be there.”

I’ve never refused to run with him. This is our time, this is special, but I feel weak and faint and miserable.

Dropping to his haunches to level with me, he pries my cap off and surveys me, no more dimples on his face. “I’ll walk with you,” he tells me easily, putting my cap back on as he straightens.

“You don’t have to. Coach Lupe is waiting.”

He seizes my chin and pins me down with tormented blue eyes. “I. Will walk. With you. Brooke. Now give me your hand and let me help you up.”

He spreads out his hand and I see it, and I want it, and it’s there. I get up on my own and start walking.

He laughs softly as he steps to my side. “I don’t fucking believe this,” he mutters.

He shoves his hands into his sweatshirt, dark head bent as he glares down at the sidewalk and ambles next to me. His hoodie fell when he bent to offer his hand, and his black hair is an adorable mess, and god, I want to rumple it and kiss it and pretend I’m strong like I used to be, but instead I’m nauseous and feel as strong as a little stick.

“How many were there? Do you know?” I hear myself ask.

He makes a low, growling sound and pulls two fistfuls of hair before dropping his hands. “Just tell me what you want me to do. What do you want me to say? You won’t stop crying, you won’t fucking eat, you circle around my touch. Why the fuck are you letting it matter?”

“Because you don’t even remember; you don’t even know what you did to them, who they are. One could be pregnant with your fucking baby as we speak! They could take pictures of you. They could . . . take advantage of you!”

He bursts out laughing and looks at me in tender amusement, as though nobody could ever hurt him, but they can. Fucking smug asshole—they can!

Even when he is the strongest, most powerful human being I’ve ever known, when he’s black, he’s both reckless and vulnerable, and he could hurt himself and he could definitely get hurt. The thought that anyone, especially some tarts, had access to him when he was like that, makes me feel like going nuclear. I wipe an angry tear and keep walking, then he crowds me with his body and purposely brushes the back of his hand to my own. He rubs his thumb over mine. “Just take my hand, little firecracker,” he softly prods.

Dragging in a breath, I force my pinky finger to move, and he hooks our little fingers around each other. I feel the warmth of his touch race up my arm, and I think he notices I can’t suppress a little shudder. He teases me, in a low voice that melts everything in me, “I give you my hand, and you give me your pinky?”

“Remington, I can’t do this right now!”

I start running ahead, and he just joins me at the gym, unzipping his hoodie and slapping his gloves on. He starts pounding his bags without a single glance in my direction and with very, very hard slams. I stand by the sidelines, tense by the way the air crackles between us, like a suddenly haywire electrical circuit about to combust. Coach looks at him, and looks at me, and Riley comes up, equally concerned as he surveys us both.

Nobody talks to him and nobody talks to me.

I go to the bathroom and start throwing up.

THE HEAT IN the Phoenix Underground arena is oppressive.

The costly seats are crammed together, one after the other, and about five hundred people are now wildly screaming as Butcher and Hammer have a go up in the ring. Then wham! Smack! And Hammer ends up bloody and motionless on the floor.

“Wow, that was unfortunate for Hammer,” Pete says.

Kirk “the Hammer” Dirkwood hasn’t even twitched since he dropped splat on the canvas.

Butcher, though, is an enormous fighter. So meaty he’s double or triple the size of any other fighter, his fists look like iron balls, and his knuckles look like spikes. He’s just been announced the victor, and now he yells out a string of curses to the crowd, tells them he’s the “greatest motherfucker this ring has ever seen!” and suddenly, the canvas shudders under his feet as he angrily starts marching in the ring, yelling even louder, “BRING ME RIPTIDE! Let me have a fucking go at Riptide!!!! ”

They’re dragging an unconscious Hammer out of the ring, and my stomach is knotting up by the second as Butcher bangs his chest like a gorilla and keeps yelling in a voice that is frighteningly craggy and monster-like. “RIPTIDE!! You hear me? Come out, pussy! Come face me like you did Benny!”

“He’s chums with you-know-who,” Pete tells me with a roll of his eyes. “And now, thanks to last year’s final, he thinks he can beat Rip too.”

The crowd gets restless. I notice that the Butcher’s hunger has only aroused the public. They heard the name, and it spreads like wildfire across the stands, starting with murmurs and rising to a crescendo: Riptide! Riptide! RIPTIDE!

Immediately I know, with every fiber in me, that they’re going to bring him out. He’s wanted, not only by Butcher, but by the entire screaming arena.

“ Riptide! Riptide! RIPTIDE! ” they chant.

I feel like a ginormous fist is squeezing the contents out of my stomach as I wait for a glimpse of him. He’s angry at me. He’s angry at me because I’m being ridiculous and I hate that I can’t stop being ridiculous and then I’m angry at myself.