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

“I miss the devil in the blue dress,” I tell her, unbuckling and getting out to help her load her luggage in the trunk. “But you could probably rock a Mumu and make it look sexy.”

“We should hurry,” she exhales softly, completely ignoring my compliment. That’s fine. I’ll just have to keep giving them to her until she learns to accept them and maybe believes them. “We're already running really late.” Now
that
was a snippy prod at me.

Standing next to Hailey behind my car, I realize she’s switched out her sexy, three-inch, fuck-me heels for flats, so the top of her head only comes to my chin now. Although she’s still several inches taller than any other woman I’ve ever met, I can’t help but suddenly see her as…fragile in the casual clothes with her hands resting in her back pockets, bright blue eyes lowered. The blonde bombshell model from the airport is gone, replaced with a shy, self-conscious girl.

I think I like this casual, girl next-door version of Hailey better. I’d never stand a chance in hell with the sexy devil in the blue dress Hailey, but this version seems just slightly more attainable, even if she is still way out of my league.

The vulnerability I saw in her before is even more prominent now, and the muscles in my arms tense with the urge to reach out and wrap them around her. But noooo, Linc said not to “lay a fuckin’ finger on her.” He should’ve been more thorough in his warning, because he didn’t say I couldn’t lay my cock or my tongue on her or in her. Still, even if the thought of getting naked with Hailey is more than tempting, I won’t touch her because he’s right – I’ll never be good enough for a goddess like her. She might very well be up for slumming with someone like me this week, but then I would only be a distant memory. Probably even a regret. 

Tossing her suitcase in, I slam the trunk and walk around to join her in the front seat of the car.

“Mind if we keep the top down?” I ask as we both buckle up.

“No, it’s fine,” she says, pushing her sunglasses back up her nose. “The breeze is really nice, actually.” The way she says nice is heavy on the ‘I’ sound, so it’s more like “n-eyes,” making me smile. 

“Okay, good,” I tell her. Cranking the engine, Color Me Bad’s old school hit, “I Wanna Sex You Up”
fills the air. Like most songs on the Sirius XM Fly station, it’s a jam older than me, but still one I know well. It’s probably never been more appropriate than at this moment with a centerfold riding next to me.

When I glance over, Hailey’s smirking at me in amusement with her eyebrows raised, making double rainbows over her big sunglasses. She doesn’t say anything, so I just reach over and turn up the volume before we finally start for the highway, heading to the beach.

Seventy miles later, quiet other than me singing along with the radio, my stomach roars at me again to put something in it. “I’m starving,” I shout to Hailey, reaching to turn the radio down so she can hear me over the music and the wind. “Any requests?”

“Nope, not hungry,” she says quickly.

“Did you eat at the airport?” I ask and barely hear her mutter of “Uh-huh.”

She’s lying. I’ve only known her for maybe two hours now, but for whatever reason, this I know for a fact. Instead of saying yes or no she’s making a non-committal response so that she’s not
technically
lying when she lies. So what do I do? I decide to call her on it.

“What did you eat?” I ask, trying to dig for the truth.

“Ah, well…I had a burger and, um, some fries.” Quickly glancing over, I see her fingers fidgeting nervously with the black hair tie on her wrist. I file that particular tell away for future reference.

“Liar,” I accuse, directing my eyes back to the highway.

“Excuse me?” Hailey asks, jerking her head in my direction; and when I steal a quick glance, I see that she’s scowling at me. She actually sounds pissy for the first time all day. Not because I was almost two hours late, and not because the airport lost her luggage, but because I called her out for being a liar and I'm right.

I blow out a depressing huff of air since I’m starting to get a good idea of her insecurities. Linc snapping at me about not using the term “
Amazon
” should’ve been the first giveaway. Maybe it took me so long to figure out because it doesn’t make sense how someone as knockout, punch in the face, beautiful as her could ever think they were anything else.

“It was too early for burgers to be served,” I explain. “You could’ve had a biscuit or a muffin, but not burgers and fries for breakfast.”

When she doesn’t reply to try and push the issue, I know I’ve busted her. And it sucks. A lot. I can’t help but worry about how deep this self-consciousness goes, but you better believe that I intend to find the fuck out.

Since we’re currently driving through the small, rural town of Wilson, there’s not a whole helluva lot of places to eat at. Definitely no convenient fast-food chains for a broke dude like me. I eventually take an exit that advertises,
Parker’s
, a home cookin’ restaurant. Sure enough, as soon as we walk through the door and seat ourselves, I look around and notice that the décor is a few decades old. The red leather booths and chairs are worn and tattered with shreds of cotton lining exposed, and there’s a black and white checkered floor. To me, all those things just add up to the conclusion that the food is gonna be fucking delicious.

“Well, now, ain’t you two just a match made in heaven,” a heavyset waitress with a hairnet covering her short salt and pepper hair says to us when she places plastic menus down in front of me and Hailey.

“Why, thank you, ma’am,” I reply and then wink at Hailey when I see her flustered, wide-eyed, gaping mouth expression, since I fail to correct the waitress’s wrong assumption that we’re together.

“What canna getcha to drank?” she asks with a heavier southern drawl since now we’re getting further away from the city and deeper into the smaller, rural communities in North Carolina.

I nod to Hailey for her to go first. “Diet Coke,” she of course says.
Diet
. What the fuck?

“Sweet tea for me.”

“Comin’ right up, sugar,” the waitress says with a smile and a nod before wandering off.

“So…what are you gonna have?” I ask Hailey as I glance over the menu. When I’m met with only silence, I look up and find her gnawing on her bottom lip, forehead creased like she’s being asked to decide which college to attend or which house she should make payments on for the next thirty years. There’s apparently some type of counting involved in this major life decision of hers based on her twitching fingers and barely moving lips. “Hailey?”

“Huh?” she asks, finally looking back up at me.

“What do you want to eat?”

“I dunno yet.”

“Yes, you do,” I say. “What’s the first thing that popped in your mind?”

“A burger and fries,” she replies with a slight upward curve to her lips.

“There. Now, was that so hard?”

After we both put in our order for cheeseburger plates, we quietly pass the time during the wait on our phones. I’ve got a few texts that came in while I was driving. Two from girls in my “harem” as Linc called it, one from Claire asking me to check in along the way to let her know we were okay, and one from my training partner and good friend, Senn. The two of us are both light heavyweight fighters, pretty evenly matched size wise. Since he’s been fighting at
Havoc
for almost four years and I’ve only been there nine months, he kicks my ass on a regular basis. I get in some good licks and occasionally get lucky with a submission hold when we grapple. The two of us got along right away. We usually hang out a few nights a week and hit up all the local clubs and bars on the weekends. I know he’s glad to have another wingman since his boy Linc fell for my sister, and their friend Nate, the welterweight ginger, is not the most magnetic guy on the planet when it comes to the ladies.

I open up the chat log I’ve got going with Senn, and curse aloud when I read his most recent text.

How’s my girl? Is her ass not the finest thing you’ve ever seen? She said any shit about me?

Sonofabitch. Not only does Linc warn me off  Hailey, but it turns out that the guy who’s practically my best friend also wants her. Sounds like he’s really got it bad too, since the tough guy has thrown his pride out the fucking window and stooped to asking me grade school questions about her. And he called her
his girl
.

Just my fucking luck.

I text back:

We’re on our way, and no, she hasn’t. If you want, I can pass her a note with check boxes. Is it hard to text with your fingers in your vagina, u big pussy?

He instantly retaliates with:

Fuck U.  Get ready for a beat down, dickwhore.

The conversation is pretty much our usual razzing, only now I’m somewhat jealous of the fact that he and Hailey could possibly have a past, or he’s hoping they can have some sort of future. Obviously, Linc hasn’t laid the law down on him about staying away from her. So it’s just me he doesn’t want to be with his sister. Awesome.

The third strike on the whole keeping my hands off Hailey issue would be that, according to my agent, as part of my deal with the IFC, I’m supposed to remain single, date and be seen with lots of different girls before my upcoming fight and after for the sake of the media. Apparently, with Jax, Jude and now Linc settling down, they need new, fresh meat with at least the appearance that I’m available for the female fans’ fuck fantasies.

Seeing multiple women has never been a problem for me. In fact, the more the merrier. So even if I
wanted
to only see one woman, which would be required if I ever hoped to be with a classy, beautiful woman like Hailey, then I’m shit out of luck for the time being. Not that I want to give up my women anytime soon. I have a helluva lifestyle that most guys only dream of. Lucky me. So why do I feel like a lonely, wandering drifter when I climb into my already occupied bed each night? A warm, willing body is always waiting for me in the apartment I’ve lived in for over two years, but it still doesn’t feel like home. Nowhere has felt like home since the morning my mama left for the hospital and never came back.    

Finally, our food is placed before us, gladly interrupting my depressing thoughts. My mood is lifted further when I see it’s a feast fit for a motherfucking king. The biggest double cheeseburger ever made sits in front of me, piled high with lettuce, tomatoes and onions, dripping with mustard and ketchup and making my mouth water. I grab it up, barely able to hold it in both hands and take a bite.

Damn that’s good. I can’t eat shit like this very often, especially not with a fight coming up, but I'll enjoy the hell out of it before I go back to all the healthy shit. Having to make weight is the one thing I hate about being a fighter since I fucking love junk food. Eating healthy isn’t cheap either. Fruits and veggies cost a lot more than the damn dollar menu, that’s for sure. 

While I chew slowly to make the greasy indulgence last, I watch Hailey approach her much smaller, single burger cautiously with a knife, like it might attack and bite her first. She touches the top of the sesame seed bun with only two manicured fingertips as she cuts it in half and then into quarter pieces. Threat apparently neutralized, she puts the knife down and picks up a tiny triangle, eying it for several seconds before nibbling on the pointy edge. It’s a good tiny bite though, because her eyes close and then she lets out a moan that startles my cock awake. The big fella gets hard in a hurry, thinking he overslept and is gonna miss a ride on the pussy train.
Down boy, she’s just eating
. That sound though, and the blissed-out look on Hailey’s face…goddamn that was sexy.

“Best burger ever, right?” I ask. Her eyes pop open and she nods. Her next bite isn’t as small, but she doesn’t make the same noise unfortunately. I look away before I scare her off, like a wild animal coming out of the woods to eat human food for the very first time.  

The entire burger in front of her surprisingly disappears along with a few salty, crinkle fries. I’m finishing up on my own delicious meal when she starts looking around the restaurant. I suddenly have a bad feeling about what's getting ready to go down, or
come up
as the case may be.

“I’ll be right back,” Hailey says, and then she and her purse are gone faster than lightning down the narrow hallway where, according to the sign, the restrooms apparently are.

Fuck.

I wipe my face on a napkin, pull out enough money for the check and a tip from my thin wallet, and stand up to follow her. Halfway to the women’s bathroom, I hear the first sounds of her retching. My chest constricts so hard it feels like it’s caving in. I barely resist slamming my fist through the fucking wall.

How could someone so…perfect lose their grip on reality in such a horribly, drastic way? Did someone say some bullshit that caused her insecurities? Because if so, and I find out who they are, I will choke them to death with my bare hands.

Even though we just met a few hours ago, I feel like I need to do something. She’s probably gonna hate me for it, but that’s tough shit. It’s time for someone to do something dammit! Doesn’t her family know how bad this is for her mentally and physically? Or her friends?