18. BEIN MYSELF
18
BEIN' MYSELF
JACK
W ith an almost shy smile, she pulled out a piece of paper from an envelope. Slid it across the clean surface of the island so he could have a look. It was an ultrasound picture with what looked like a black hole containing an indistinct blob.
He’d never been KO’d before but looking at this picture, Jack almost got knocked the fuck down. On unsteady legs, he gripped the edge of the island and got himself seated just in time. Was this for real? He flipped the paper over as if the image would somehow change. Flipped it back.
It didn’t look like the pictures he’d seen on TV of a tiny human with a big head and a thumb in its mouth, but this was it. Their baby. Their hope. Sneaking onto the scene when he thought it might take longer or possibly not even happen like this at all.
“I think it was that night in the maze. Our first time. Or sometime that weekend. At least that’s what the doctor says based on the development, and I agree with her.”
“When did you see a doctor? When did...?” Overcome, he rubbed his jaw and stared at the pic.
“Around the time I agreed to start moving in. I’d been feeling kinda off. My boobs hurt, which isn’t unusual when I get my period, except…it didn’t show up. I wanted to be sure before I said anything in case I was wrong or there was an issue. But the doctor said the baby’s doing good, considering I’m officially a ‘geriatric mom.’ Can you believe those two words together? Geriatric mom. It’s got to be an oxymoron of some kind.” Talking fast, her eyes flickered from the image to his face as if she was suddenly unsure about how he was taking the news. Quietly, hesitantly, she asked, “H-how do you feel about it?”
How did he feel? Like he’d won a secret lottery, like he’d been gifted a castle full of diamonds and pearls, like someone had handed him a picture of a dream. All at the same time.
His heart hurt. No, maybe hurt wasn’t the right word. His chest was cracking open; that’s what this was. Cracking wide open with love. For her, for the second chance at a life he hadn’t dared to believe would ever be his. With his eyes suddenly wet, Jack got up from his stool, wrapped her in his arms, and held on tight for a long, long time.
Despite Jack’s overwhelming desire to let everybody and their mama know about the impending addition to their families, as Penny would put it, he was instructed not to say a word to anyone.
“Until it’s safe,” Penny said every time he brought it up.
He wanted to run out and buy up the best of the best for the nursery, but she put a halt on that, too.
“It’s a jinx. Don’t do it,” Penny warned.
Grumbling but understanding her concern that it was still really early in the pregnancy to blast the news or fill the empty room with baby gear, he settled instead for adding pregnancy and baby lit to the mantle where he kept his favorite reads. Penny obviously thought it was very amusing to find him on the couch reading one of the books while Trixie had her head on his lap.
“Still the hottest owl I’ve ever seen,” she’d declare, then kiss him and keep going.
Jack had already gotten used to having her within touching distance ever since their weekend at the FitzGerald’s. It was even harder now not to hover, trying to anticipate what she might want or need so he could provide it. A foot rub, a back rub, giving her twice the usual serving at dinner. That sort of thing.
After about a week of that, Penny had had enough.
He was sitting on the couch reading one of his books. Penny had just finished setting up the last of the Christmas decorations and was critically examining her garland work. She’d done it in a flurry with only days left to go until the holiday.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“Looks grand. This book says pregnant women are prone to getting Charlie horses. Those hurt like a bastard. Come sit on me lap and watch TV with me. I can give you a calf massage.” He put the book down and patted his thigh.
All his concern was rewarded with a huff and her hands on her hips. “Look, you’re doing the most. My legs are good. I am good. I’m going to the disco to play for a little while.” That was what Penny called his gym since she started using it to practice, it being the only soundproofed room in the house. Jack got up from the couch, ready to follow, but she halted him with a hand to the chest. “Nope. Not you. Just me. Go read a book. But not that book. One of your fun ones, where everybody knows kung fu and people get murked.”
Reluctantly, he kissed her, squeezing her butt and then giving it a smack before she went.
“Alright. Go enjoy your practice. But if you get a twinge, I’m here.”
Barely hearing a thing after she closed the door, Jack got settled on the couch with Trixie at his side. He did pick up a Tom Clancy as she suggested, but ten pages in, he was restless. Maybe Justice League again? He put the book and his glasses down and clicked on the TV, going to the screen with the streaming channels. The SportsZone app was right there, beckoning him. Maybe he’d watch a fight or two.
His hopes to watch a good match were soured instantly upon seeing La Roque’s smirking face on the screen for an interview with one of their anchors, former champ Atlas Walters. The same man Jack beat for his first title. They were public enemies but privately liked each other a lot. Walters was a good man.
It said the interview was live. Jack’s eyes flickered to the hallway off to the left leading to the gym. No sign of Penny. He clicked on it and leaned forward.
“…. alright, alright, so…what’s the latest? What’s the latest, man?” Walters asked in his fast-paced New Yorker accent. He always had a smile on his dark bronze face that hinted at mockery. He was pleasant, even jovial with the guests and the other anchors, but always managed to pass out underhanded insults disguised as jokes. “Last time you were here a month or so ago, you said, and I quote…” Leaning over an index card, Walters read, “’The title fight with Jack Valentine is on. I will meet him in the cage in March of next year. And I will destroy him.’” Walters leaned back in his swivel chair and grinned, clearly enjoying the moment. “And I will destroy him. Whew!” La Roque kept grinning. “You said there’d be a match. We’re a few days away from Christmas. New Year’s is next week. Where’s the match, man?”
“There will be a match,” La Roque said, a red flush creeping up his neck.
Jack smirked at his discomfort. “Fucking liar.”
“C’mon, man, come on,” Walters said briskly. “There haven’t been any formal announcements from league representative Trent Jameson or the head manager Beau McAllister. No pressers with Valentine and no contracts signed. No comment from his agent, his manager, or anybody on his team. From what we hear, he’s out living his best life running his gym. Even heard a rumor he just got married.”
Jack grinned at that. He loved his privacy but didn’t mind one bit if people believed he and Penny were already husband and wife. Briefly, he wondered if someone from the ball had spilled that rumor.
Walters continued. “It looks to me…. like Jack Valentine ain’t even thinkin’ about you, man. You mean nothing in his grand scheme of things. You are so far off his radar, you — you might as well be on a different planet . What would he have to gain by getting back in the cage with you?”
Walters placed the flat of his palm on the desk for emphasis. He waited for La Roque’s response with a quiet air of enjoyment at his embarrassment.
“We have history.”
“What history?” Jack and Walters asked simultaneously.
Shrugging, La Roque continued smiling. “He knows what he’s done.”
“Like bleedin’ hell I do,” Jack exclaimed to Trixie, who looked up at him quizzically. “And they call me punchy?”
“Don’t play the Sphinx, man, spill it!” Walters demanded. When he got nothing else from La Roque, he moved on. “Okay, so y’all have history. I still don’t see him getting in the cage with you when he’s got nothin’ to prove and nothin’ to gain.”
“Every man has something to prove.” La Roque turned to the camera and stared into it. And damn, if the hair on the back of Jack’s neck didn’t fucking rise at those flat eyes and that fucking grin . “Yeah, he’s doing real good. I’ve seen his house and his nice, cushy wife. But I think marriage has made him as soft as her ass. And by the way, you might want to redefine successful. She’s kind of a drop from them fly model types he used to date.”
Motherfucker.
“I’m gonna warn you once. We don’t allow negative comments about peoples’ significant others or their families on this show,” Walters interjected sternly. He propped his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers. “Back to the facts. Jack Valentine retired at the top of his game after three successful title defenses. He was one of the highest, if not the highest paid mixed martial arts athlete in the world with a reported net worth of over $225 million when you add his endorsements. He brought in revenue for the league in excess of $500 million from all accounts. And he did all that by the age of thirty-eight. The man still has an extremely high favorability rating among fans. Kids are still walkin’ around with his face on their shirts.”
La Roque listened to this recitation with a deepening brick-red flush mottling his entire face all the way up to his hairline.
“Now you’re thirty. You’ve got nothing but KOs under your name in the amateur leagues and in the pros. You’re top-ranked and you’ve got the potential for a great career ahead of you. But you have some problems. You’ve got a reputation for fighting dirty. You’ve got more disqualifications than you have wins. How can you hope to get anywhere near as successful as Valentine did by the time he retired if you keep this up? Now I’m not insulting you — no, no, no. I’m just asking because you don’t seem to want to let this particular challenge go when it’s getting you nowhere. What could Jack Valentine possibly get out of facing you in the cage that would be worth coming out of retirement for?”
“His balls back.”
“Aw, get outta here, man….” Walters chided. “Are you saying he’s afraid to fight you?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying,” La Roque said with a nod. His legs were splayed in his chair, and he leaned back like he was in his own living room. “I mean, it could be he’s drunk on new pussy juice, and he’s not allowed to leave the house. I’d almost respect him if that was true. But I think most likely he’s hiding at home because he’s scared of me. Everybody knows he barely beat McCready in his last fight. They gave him that fight because he was the pretty boy that everybody liked. Never met a judge or a ref whose dick he wouldn’t suck. He knows if he steps in the cage with me, there’s no favors that are gonna save his ass. He’d be dead. Knocked out with one punch, bruh. One!”
Stunned, his fists balling, Jack stared at the screen. Rage washed over him like a dark vat of oil, oozing down his back, spreading its black tendrils through his chest and his gut, and finally surging upward to his face.
Walters paused, giving La Roque a hard stare. “You were warned not to bring the spouse into it.”
“You brought the bitch up first,” La Roque retorted with a laugh, his palms up.
“Alright, we’re done.” Speaking to someone off camera, Walters said, “Get his mic off. We’re done. I told y’all he’s inappropriate. Just inappropriate. Get the hell off my set, man.”
La Roque sat there, laughing, his teeth sharp in his wide mouth. The ugliness pouring off him came through the screen. Jack clicked it off before the man’s inexplicable hate could seep onto the carpet and soak it.
Jack got up and strode to the gym door, cracking it slightly. There was a TV in there. Even though he knew Penny wouldn’t watch SportsZone by herself, he had an irrational moment where he thought she might have heard the ugly way La Roque had referred to her.
New pussy . Not a fly model type .
He was going to break that bastard’s neck.
The jittery pulse of his heartbeat calmed down slightly to hear the strings of Penny’s banjo resonating through the crack. But it did nothing to ease the hot impulse rising in him for murderous destruction. He’d be in there hitting the bag to get it out of him, but she was already in that space.
He cracked the door again. “Penny, I need to check on something at the gym. Charlie says there’s a leak.”
Immediately, she paused playing. He couldn’t see her from this side of the door, but her voice came back, uncertain, as though she’d heard the strain in his own voice to sound normal. “It’s late. Do you need to go now?”
“I won’t be long. Be right back.”
“Okay.” She still sounded unsure.
On his way to the training facility, his phone started beeping and ringing with calls and texts, along with notifications from his social media accounts. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who’d watched that bizarre interview.
“Mans is out of his mind,” James left on his voicemail in that distinctive Mancunian lilt sprinkled with the slang he’d picked up in South London. “Don’t take the bait, Jack.”
Meg left a text. “ If that psychopath says one more word about you or Penny…! ”
Jack shuddered at that last message. Nobody, absolutely nobody, needed to be on Meghan Rourke’s bad side. Not even him.
He was too wound up to respond to anybody. Instead, he exploded on the heavy bag and the wooden dummy in the gym until he was panting, and his arms and legs were reddened. They’d be bruised in the morning. But although he’d gotten some of the ugly out, it wasn’t enough.
La Roque’s taunts replayed themselves over and over in his head like a spinning wheel. Not just the disgusting way he’d referred to Penny. That alone would have been enough.
It was the sneaking suspicion that Jack had been carrying in the quiet depths of his soul since before the McCready fight. All the things that had been whispered backstage and finally said out loud on camera. They’d winnowed their way into his ear, into his brain, where they’d lodged and festered into an infection that had never been cleansed.
…You’re too old… Too soft… The fire is dead… Not on your game... It’s a miracle you won.
Was it all luck? Did you even earn any of it?
With a vicious grunt, he punched the bag so hard he almost broke his goddamned hand. He grasped the bag to stop it swaying, leaning his head against it, worn out, torn down. Shaking, he let go and stood back, forcing himself to slow his breathing. In, out, release that shit. But he knew it was still in there, that old wound blistering fresh and hot.
Jack pulled out his phone, his finger hovering over his agent’s number. They typically only communicated in emails and texts these days over his endorsement contracts, or the random appearance promoting one thing or another. This call was going to be about a particular contract, the one he’d pored over but hadn’t signed.
Then he pictured Penny’s face. Not gazing at him lovingly, not full of erotic passion in his arms. It was marked with fear and grief after he’d hit that bodyguard.
“ They’re just words, Jack. Just words. ”
He remembered the catch in his own voice when he’d promised her no more fighting, ever.
When he got home, she was already in bed, dozing with a book in her hand. His heart squeezed at the sight of her. Jack kissed her on the lips and went to shower. When he slid into bed, he took the book and put it on her nightstand, wrapping her in his arms. Even from under the damned scarf keeping him from touching it, the scent of her hair filled his nose. That calmed him enough to pull him into sleep with her.
Walters had been right. He had way too much to lose to go back down that road.
The next morning, two reporters were outside the house when he and Penny were at breakfast.
“What’s going on? Why are they here?” she asked.
“Some stupid thing on TV last night. Ignore them,” he said, taking a sip of juice. Its acid burned on the way down.
“What thing?”
When he wouldn’t say, she left the table. She returned with her phone in hand, her face composed. A hell of a lot more composed than he’d been last night or felt right now.
“He’s jealous, baby. You don’t even need to respond.” Penny slipped onto his lap and pulled his head toward hers to kiss his forehead.
“The things he said about you do deserve a response,” he ground out.
She huffed with amusement. “Please. You think a Black girl married to a white boy traveling the country music circuit and playing a banjo didn’t get some negative attention? I’ve heard way worse. Seen worse. So, no, it doesn’t deserve your time or energy. We do not give attention-seeking losers what they want.” Then she batted her lashes at him. “As long as you think I’m pwetty.”
Jack gave a reluctant chuckle, squeezing her waist and kissing her full lips. “Yes, you’re very pretty. You’re beautiful, angel.”
“Then I don’t care what anybody else has to say about me.”
He felt marginally better now. “But wait,” he said, pulling back to squint at her. “When that fucker at the music festival talked shite about you and your book, you definitely cared. What about that?”
“Thaaaat was different. Anyway,” she said with a light laugh, “I was going to handle it with my big girl words, not a punch to the face like someone I know. Now, let’s forget about all those clowns, okay?”
“Distract me,” he demanded softly, and she obliged with the sexiest smile.
They were kissing again, and it was getting deeper, hotter when his phone rang. Reluctantly, he pulled his lips away to see who was calling.
It was Charlie. “That son of a motherfucking bastard bitch!...”
Jack let Charlie rant while Penny slid her hand under his shirt and lavished him with more delicious kisses. He clicked the “end call” button and pulled her panties off. Released his cock from his pants and groaned when she sank to the floor on her knees and took charge of it with that teasing mouth.
“I don’t want to come like this,” he hissed when it was too good and he was too close.
“Fine,” Penny said. With a wicked smile, she got back on his lap and slid down on him. He watched his cock disappear into her wet heat, his mind shutting off at the delirious pleasure. Glorious.
Jack lifted her up, still moving inside her, while Penny held onto his shoulders. He walked through the kitchen, fucking her slowly, still taking it gentle with her. Leaned her on the island after sending everything on it crashing to the floor with a sweep of his arm and filled her, going in deep, still thrusting gently, slowly, sucking her nipples after pulling down her nightgown and then swallowing her moans down his own throat.
With her legs hooked around his waist, she moaned his name, fucking him with that needy, grasping, thoroughly soaked pussy. Squeezed him with her walls and drew him back in, overwhelming him with the scent of her arousal until his cock was harder and bigger than it had ever been. All for her, only for her.
“Penny,” he groaned. “Come with me, love. Come all over my cock.”
He pressed her open wider on the island, baring her pussy to him. He pushed his thumb in her mouth and made her suck it, and when it was wet enough, he rubbed a circle on her hardened little clit. Jack didn’t know what he wanted more, to see her lovely face crease with passion or watch the place where their bodies were joined in a slick, slippery rhythm.
“Right there, right there,” she moaned. “So good…I’ve never had it so fucking good.”
A rough laugh escaped him. “Same.” He meant that. It had never been this good for him with anyone. But then he’d never loved anyone before her.
The thought undid him. His orgasm ripped through him, rocketing up his spine and through his body. He yelled hoarsely as he soaked her insides. But he wasn’t lost enough to forget her needs, keeping the pressure on her bud and plunging in and out until she cried out his name. They were locked together as they rocked together. Jack pulled her up against his chest and held her, stroking her back, holding on tight, lost in her.
And for a while, all was right with the world again.