Chapter 33
Mari
“He doesn’t need me to do shit? Davina and I are single-handedly keeping everything afloat. How dare he?”
I angrily type away on my laptop, drafting a mock apology post. I’m anticipating the worst.
“Angsty, I love it. Y’all are hilarious, it’s not even that deep,” Quinn says, jostling her phone when she sets it down to grab her crochet hooks.
Using Freya’s GTFO agenda, Quinn convinced me to GTFO of my hotel room and down to the hotel bar. She suggested I go on a little e-date with her to de-stress. I bargained with her to meet me halfway and allow me to bring my laptop to do some work.
“I’ll show him not doing shit. I’ll quit,” I snap.
“Yet here you are, prepping content at ten p.m. You’re like Pi.”
“Irrational,” we say.
“Let’s not act on our emotions. Now, can you order a shot or something? You’re boring me,” Quinn says, her phone making a noise when she plugs it into charge.
“I’m not drinking and you’re not even here.” I sigh defeatedly.
None of the team apart from me and Davina have spoken to each other since the discovered steroids. Violet and Devon are busy enjoying their vacation, and for the first time in weeks, I feel lonely.
“Another one?” a bearded waiter asks, nodding to my almost depleted glass of Diet Coke.
“She’ll have a tequila shot,” Quinn says, the waiter unable to hear her through my earphones.
“Another Diet Coke, please.” I shimmy up my bandeau top and the waiter stares a little too long at my chest before turning away to make my drink.
“I remember why I hate bandeau tops. Any sudden movement and I risk giving the entire bar a show.”
“You look good. I can see your traps coming through a little.”
I flex my bicep into the camera for Quinn to see the gains I’ve made since making use of the gym some days. “I’d hope so, considering Olive Ward is probably out to get me.”
“I doubt you’ll cross paths with her,” Quinn says.
I swivel on the barstool so that my back is to the bartender and gaze out through the entryway of the bar into the ground floor corridor, only slightly distracted by a cold, wet sensation skimming my forearm resting on the bar. When I’m about to retrieve the newly made drink, a tall, dark-headed figure breezes past the large archway.
A tall, dark-headed figure I’d recognize anywhere—Kas.
A very pissed-off Kas.
“Who are you looking at? Is the hot bartender still trying to hit on you even though you, for some reason, rejected him?”
“Kas.”
“What?”
I lean off the barstool to see if I can catch a little more than a glimpse of him. “Kas walked past the bar. He didn’t see me.”
“Where did he go?” Quinn presses. “Your big head is blocking my view.”
“I don’t know! It looked like he was leaving the hotel.”
“Follow him then!”
I swivel back to face her. “Oh yes, stalk the coworker. Brilliant idea, Quinn. Your thought process is so ...”
“Genius.”
“Creepy. Just like that picture of the guy you don’t know on your phone case.”
“I’m not gonna go into detail again, but it’s a K-pop photocard. He’s my bias, you wouldn’t get it.” She tuts.
“Well, I don’t care where Kas is going.”
“Fair enough. He’s young, Vegas at night is probably primetime for him. Booze, babes, and boogying.”
“He’s not that type of guy,” I answer with embarrassing speed.
Anxiety swirls within me as I rest my lips around the straw of my drink.
“You’re freaking out,” Quinn says.
“I am not freaking out.”
“You’ve been around this guy every waking second for the past few weeks, and you’re not just a little curious about where he’s going? Your periods are probably synced up at this point.”
I snort at Quinn’s joke. “Not curious enough to stalk him.”
“What else are you going to do tonight apart from talking to me and working?”
I peer at the laptop charger hanging out of my purse and then Bill’s keys which I used about half an hour ago to retrieve the very same charger because I left it in the van.
I could totally follow Kas right now.
“I can’t drive in heels,” I argue.
Quinn does the loudest sigh ever and hooks me in with a firm stare. “Then take them off.”
Driving Bill’s corroded, shabby van with no shoes on was a pain. I lost track of Kas after fifteen minutes when I was unable to merge into his lane. Luckily, the direction was familiar because it was the same route Davina and I take each morning to the gym.
“Go in already.”
The parking lot is dark, and the only light emitted is from the van’s headlights and my phone with Quinn’s face spanning the screen.
“And do what?” I ask Quinn. “He snapped at me the last time we spoke.”
“Anything. Literally, anything is better than sitting in the van for another fifteen minutes.”
The distant bass from nearby clubs thumps through the night.
“What am I meant to say? Hey, Kas, followed you here for no reason. Oh, by the way, you were kind of an ass.”
“Yep, that works.”
“Ugh, how do I look?”
“Miss ‘I don’t care where he’s at,’” Quinn mocks. “You look amazing, love that you picked out your hair a little. Boobs out, hair out.”
I reach over to the passenger seat and snatch the heels I dumped there before driving. “Right, I’m going.”
“What? You aren’t taking me with you?”
“No.” With a wink, I hang up on Quinn’s pouting face.
I walk hesitantly to the entrance of the gym. When I step through with a scan of my pass, it’s dim; Kas hasn’t bothered to light the rest of the gym and uses a singular spotlight that’s hung over the ring. It’s quiet aside from the rapid whipping of his jump rope and the squeakiness of the door as it closes behind me.
I can see why Kas comes here some evenings. No Davina bossing us around, no grumbling Bill, and none of Dash’s loud phone calls.
“Hey,” I say like I’ve never spoken to him in my life.
Kas stops jumping rope and paces around the mat like a raging bull—my presence does nothing to break his obvious anger.
“Where did you go?” he asks.
Kas’s rope hangs limp in his hand and his entire body is rigid with annoyance. On the raised platform of the ring, he looks gigantic. The lighting casts half shadows against his bare torso and he gives off such a villainous aura, that I don’t know whether to step into the ring with him or drive right back to the hotel.
“I went out for e-drinks with Quinn at the hotel bar,” I explain.
“E-drinks?” Kas’s shoulders drop a little. “Thought you went out with someone. I heard you leave your hotel room in nice shoes, smelled your perfume in the hallway too.”
“Oh.” I glance down at my toes encased in the thin straps of my heels. “Why would that matter?”
He hesitates to answer and intensely examines the length of my body. “Because you look beautiful and I didn’t get to see you.”
Kas’s voice is dangerously low, and I fidget under his gaze. From anyone else, the reply would be considered flirtatious. From Kas, it’s unhinged honesty.
“You came here angry because you didn’t get to see my super cute outfit. That should be the least of your concerns right now.”
“If you’re referring to the steroids, I’m sorry for snapping, but I don’t care about my reputation or career if rumors start,” he mumbles.
He doesn’t care?
Kas starts jump roping again, and the whooshing of it becomes a gradual annoyance.
“If you test positive, it could ruin everything. Your fight is the whole reason I’m even here.”
“Mari.” He drops the rope and stalks up to the edge of the ring, chest heaving. “I’m finding it really hard to care about the fight.” His voice gets louder and more aggressive toward the end of his sentence. “I don’t care what the media thinks of me, I don’t care about the PEDs, and I don’t care if I win or lose. I’d be grateful if I didn’t have to fight at all. The fight isn’t what has my attention, and I’m sick of it.”
I force my next words out through my rapidly tightening throat. “All you have to do is show up and win, something you do regardless of this specific event. I’ve been working my ass off for you in a job that is way over my head.”
I’m tired of sugarcoating Kas’s attitude to this. I also refuse to argue with him like some fan at the side of the ring. I kick off my heels and hop into the enclosed space, forcing him back into the center of it.
He towers over me with sweat beading on his brow. “You’ve become a little controlling since coming to Vegas, Mari.”
A dry laugh bubbles out of me. “Controlling? Maybe I’m controlling because I’m working for a fighter who cares so little, I have to try to convince the general public that you give a fuck!”
Kas’s face, though composed, holds a hint of frustration. My endless work over the past few weeks has reaped countless fans, a following of over one hundred thousand people, sponsors, and interviews. Kas’s career is thriving because of me.
“You’re just unhappy because I’ve adapted to this fight and you haven’t. You’re being immature, I’m not,” I say, pressing my finger into my chest.
Kas rolls his eyes. “How does it feel to sit on your high horse preaching about immaturity when it took you weeks to block your ex’s number? And then you reject moving into mine because of a fucking kiss?” he counters.
“You don’t know my situation. My ex has nothing to do with your fight, refraining from entering another shitty living situation is my choice, and my personal life has nothing to do with you .” My words are precise, aimed to kill. “If you’re going to use my decisions against me, then we’re done here.”
“Your decisions are very questionable when you can’t stomach living with me, but you’re open to having me inside of you,” he snaps.
I suck in a paralyzing breath. He’s right. I hate that he’s right.
“Go ahead, stoop low. Because I’ll go much lower,” I warn through gritted teeth.
The corner of Kas’s lip tilts upward. “You followed me here because you wanted to berate me for my attitude? What about your attitude? Speak with your chest, Mari.”
I bark out a humorless laugh. “My attitude? I’m scared of what’s going on between us because I am terrified of making the same mistakes I did with Isaac. It’s why I’m searching for my own place with the early paycheck you gave me.”
I latch onto Kas’s blue eyes and watch his complacent grin turn into a scowl. “That’s unnecessary,” he says. “You can stay at mine for free.”
“If my paycheck allows me to get my own place, there’s no reason to stay with you.”
I know exactly why I’d stay with Kas. My brain is telling me to be realistic and cautious, yet everything else is telling me that I should stay with Kas because I like him.
He’s the most attractive man I’ve ever seen, he’s impossible to dislike because he has a heart of pure gold, and he feeds me donuts most evenings. If sleeping a few feet apart in a Vegas hotel room has been this enjoyable, I don’t doubt that the home he shares with Devon will be anything but fun.
I’m just not prepared for things to go wrong, not again. I’ve learned my lesson with Isaac.
“Where is this argument even going?” I question with a flail of my arms.
“I don’t know. But what I do know is that you keep living your life as if your past mistakes will come back and bite you in the ass. Know what you want and demand it,” he says with a look that makes every single hair on my body stand up. “It’s painful to watch because I know what I want, and I know what you want too.”
His words ignite each of my nerve endings like tiny sticks of dynamite.
“What do I want, Kas?” He shrugs modestly. I walk purposely to him. “Nothing?”
“You know the answer, just admit it.” Him.
“I know the answer? I know the answer?” My voice enters a cadence slightly higher each time I say the phrase. “You—you’re so infuriating! What is going on?!”
“Go on, let it out,” he says, blue eyes gleaming with amusement. “Hit me, if you want,” he urges.
“I’m not going to hit you.”
“You’ll feel better. Hit me if—”
I interrupt him with an embarrassingly weak slap.
“If the answer is me,” he finishes on a whisper.
Hit me if the answer is me.
My mouth drops open, and my pulse shoots sparks through my body.
He chuckles breathily with his tongue rubbing the inside of the cheek I just hit, a smile growing wide across his handsome face. He takes my still-raised forearm and spins me so my back is against his front.
“You tricked me,” I whisper.
“Earlier, you said that you control everything. You know that’s not true, right?” He bends down, slanting his body into me until his nose brushes against my earlobe.
Kas runs his lips from my ear and down my neck to arrive at my shoulder. He hits the back of my knee with his shin. I buckle and he spins me to face him on my descent, lowering me to the mat. It winds me when my back hits the firm surface, though the loss of breath has little to do with the impact and more to do with the man on top of me with a muscular thigh resting between my own.
“Even if you’re not under my roof, I’ll always have control over you when you’re under me like this.” He pushes my top over my breasts, kissing the underside of one. “Writhing.” He kisses the other. “Flustered.” Then, he brings his lips to hover above my own. “And begging.”
As quick as he took me down to the mat, he’s off me.
I blink a few times. Then I blink some more.
Kas steps back with his arm across his broad chest and a pleased grin sneaking across his lips as he looks down at me.
Without another word or a glance at him, I leave the gym. Like the journey there, I forgo my heels to speed back to the hotel like a bat out of hell.
Our interaction bounces around my skull when I scream into my crisp, white hotel pillows. I want Kas, and I’ve reached a point where every one of my excuses are falling flat.
The only reason he acted the way he did tonight was because he knows that too.