Chapter Two
Kinsley
“Mavick Black vs Drew Johnson, ‘The Fight of the Night’, UFC Fight Night 72 will be tonight at the Smoothie King Event Center. Black, also known as ‘The Dark Assassin’ will fight for the first time since a light heavyweight title loss to champion Beau Jones. Prior to that, Black was undefeated with 12 wins, 8 of them KOs.” I’m reading the newspaper, looking at a front-page picture of the man who sent me spinning last night on the roof top. “So his name is Mavick. Mavick Black.” I sip my coffee and start an internet search, hoping to find out some more information about the man I can’t seem to get out of my head.
Mollie is still in bed, but at least she let me in before she passed out completely. Luckily this apartment is segregated enough that I can have some privacy, even though the moaning and head board slamming got on my nerves through the night. Most of the irritation was because it wasn’t me making those noises after how worked up I was. Thankfully, I have a pair of earbuds that helped drown out the sounds of sweet ecstasy while I laid there annoyed and alone.
Tossing the last of my coffee back, I find myself looking at hundreds of pictures with Mavick fighting and only a few of him outside of that. He’s obviously a decent fighter, but it’s the intensity in his eyes that keeps capturing my attention. He has a passion for it and it’s very easy to see the more I creep the internet. I quickly find that it’s easy to find out about Mavick the fighter, but what I want to know more about is the man himself. The man I met on the quiet roof top that had me laughing one second and hot as fuck the next.
It’s obvious all his social media accounts are handled by some sort of agency or something. They’re all very focused on marketing and the business side of his life. I can’t believe I didn’t even ask him his name last night. His directness silenced me before I had the chance to think clearly. Everything that happened with him was so unlike me and now that I’ve had time to think about it, I’m embarrassed by what I did. I don’t think I can go see his fight tonight; my own humiliation will prevent me from being able to move once I walk in anyway.
Mollie stumbles into my room, her hair looking thoroughly fucked and out of control. “Shit, what time is it?”
“Noon.”
“Damn. Sorry, I suck.” I don’t disagree with her, wanting her to realize this was supposed to be a girl’s trip. But then again, I wouldn’t have had that once in a lifetime encounter on the roof last night if she wouldn’t have been busy with her own memorable night.
“I’m going to kick that guy to the curb here in a few minutes. What do you want to do today?”
“I figured I’d go to a museum or something.” I choose to leave out the fight idea for now, not wanting to go into detail about what went down last night. I’ll let her think she was the only one that got any sort of action and it’ll be easier on me today. I’m sure she’d lose her shit if she even thought I talked to a guy, but then again, she’s been so wrapped up in her own lack of attention lately, she hasn’t pointed out mine like she has in the past.
“I’ll take a shower and lose the dick. Be ready in about thirty minutes?” She looks in my direction, questioning me before she sees that I’m already dressed with makeup on, hair done and my shoes propped on the coffee table in front of me. “Well, it looks like you’re ready now, so I’ll hurry.”
She rushes off and I listen to her mumble in the bedroom while she works to get the guy out of her bed. He staggers through half naked a few minutes later with all of his stuff in his arms. “Yeah, yeah. It was great and all that, but you have to go. I’ve got shit to do today and you can’t stay here.” Mollie follows him, pushing his back while he moves toward the door.
He reaches for the door knob and opens it wide without even looking out before he does. A dark black hoodie hiding the same figure from last night stands in the door way. His eyes meet Mollie’s fling at the same time my heart flies into my throat. What the hell is he doing at our apartment. Mollie is the one who rented it, so there’s no way he could’ve known I was in here.
“Ummmm. Well, hello.” I hear Mollie’s voice just as Mavick steps around the half-naked man to look past her and directly at me.
“Kinsley.” He drops his head in a single nod before he bolts down the stairs, leaving Mollie with her jaw on the floor while she tries to understand how he knew my name. She slams the door on her guy and storms straight over to me. I hold my hand up to calm the frantic look on her face, not sure what she’s going to say. I can only imagine what she’s thinking; hell, I don’t even know what I’m thinking.
“Ok… talk. Now.” She sits on the arm of the couch, turned toward me, staring into my eyes with a stern look on her face. I can’t help but laugh at her as her face twists and shows proof of just how many questions she wants to ask me.
“There’s nothing to talk about. I met him on the roof top last night when you were busy leaving bodily fluids all over this place.” I move to take my coffee cup to the kitchen and do my best to change the subject. “What if we do some ghost tours?”
“We can do whatever you want when you tell me the rest of the dirt on that hot as fuck guy that knows your name.”
“Mollie, take a shower and get ready or I’m going to leave your ass here.”
“Fine… but this convo isn’t over. You know I’m relentless and the fact that you’re acting weird only makes me want to dig even deeper.”
“Alright, we’ll talk more on the tours. But for now, I just want to get out of this apartment and do something. We didn’t come to New Orleans to stay shacked up in an apartment talking about my non-sex life while your hair is matted from your own sexcapades from last night.”
“I can respect that. Orrrr you could just come tell me while I shower and we’ll just kill all the birds at once.”
“If you’ll get in the shower, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” She jumps from the couch and flies across the room, pulling her t-shirt over her head before she turns the corner, disappearing into the bathroom. I wait until I hear the water and the curtain slide over the curtain rod before I take my seat on the toilet. This is something we’ve done many times, but usually it’s her ass sitting while I’m in the shower having to listen to her.
“So tell me all about this guy.”
“I met him on the roof top. We talked some and then he asked me to come see him tonight. Other than that, there’s not much to tell.” Except that part where my hand was gripping his cock and I was internally begging him to fuck me into exhaustion.
The curtain flies open allowing her to stare at me while the water drips from her drenched hair. “See him where?”
“At some fight.”
“What? Did he tell you where? Is this like a date or something?”
“Not exactly. He’s in the fight.”
“Holy shit. Kinsley, he’s a fighter.” She slides the curtain closed quickly. “You need new clothes. We need to hurry.”
“No I don’t. I’m not even going to go.”
“The fuck you aren’t. I’m not going to listen to your ass for the next three years while you look back on this missed opportunity because you’re a pansy ass that wont take this chance. Worst case scenario… he loses the fight and you end up getting ditched while he licks his wounds.” The smell of soap fills the air as her words sound rushed while she continues to hound me about what to do. “Or better yet, he loses and then lets you lick his wounds… but even then, you’ll get to go to a fight and it’ll be something you’ll never forget.” The curtain opens once more, so she can pull me into her glaring look again. “We did come here to do shit we’ve never done before. This is the perfect chance.”
“Fine. He said there’d be two tickets. Looks like we’re both going. That is, if you ever get ready so we can leave the damn house.” I leave the bathroom as I say the last bit, not giving her a chance to throw out any more excuses as to why she’s made me wait to do anything this morning.
It only takes her about an hour to get her hair and makeup on, which is faster than normal. I purchase us two tickets online for the ghost tour that starts in about an hour, refusing to let her force me into a full afternoon of shopping.
The tour bus stops at a few creepy hotels and the guide fills us in on all the legendary stories that are meant to send chills up our spines, but it isn’t until we make it to the grave yard that I feel the chill.
Ornate tombs fill the cemetery, quickly reminding us just how old this town is and how many lives have passed through here. The rumors of vampires and ghosts leave me unsure how to think, but I guess anything is possible.
We move around the cemetery in a group, even though I keep getting drawn in by the tombs inscriptions, making up my own story as to how each one may have died. Mollie follows the group, leaving me behind out of her own boredom.
I’m stepping around an elaborate tomb that’s overly decorated when I see him in the distance. I know it’s Mavick the second I see the hoodie. He’s resting his forearms against the walls of a tomb, his head lowered while he doesn’t move a muscle. I watch him for a few minutes, neither of us shifting from the position we started in.
Seeing him like this does something to me. Something I can’t explain, but somehow it makes me feel even more connected to him. I want to go to him and wrap my arms around his waist and just let him know he’s not alone. And another part of me is dying to know who’s tomb he’s here to see. Is this something he does before he fights?
I take a single step and regret it instantly because a stick cracks under the weight of my foot. He turns his head at the sound, our eyes connecting instantly. His face is red and tears trace down his cheeks before he catches them with his sleeves. He doesn’t say a word, but the intensity in his stare says everything. We’re both just frozen in time saying so much, yet nothing at all.
My hand moves to my heart before I can stop myself. He watches until I spread my fingers flat against my chest, then he pulls the hood further down over his face and turns to run in the other direction.
Curiosity has me wanting to read what the tomb says that he was so connected to, but out of respect for him I walk the other way and don’t give in to the temptation of being nosy. It’s obviously someone that meant a lot to him and I’m not about to disrespect his privacy when it comes to something like this.