Another loss. Another fucking loss. Another fucking disastrous loss because, not only did Rita Somers kick my ass round after round in my home arena, she knocked me right out in the middle of round five. According to Knox, I was out for almost a whole minute, but I wished I had stayed out longer, to spare myself from having to watch yet another opponent deemed the winner. Winded, exhausted, and in pain, I kept my head low as the ref brought us to our feet and lifted her arm, in time with the announcer declaring her the winner and the crowd going wild with her name on their lips.
Buuurn.
I know.
But I wasn’t a sore loser, so when the ref released me from his grasp, I turned toward a beaming Rita, shook her hand, and called it a good match. Then I made my way back to the locker room with a silent coach on my tail, whose lecture I was already dreading. Storming in through the door, I stripped in entirety on my way to the shower, too furious with myself to even begin to explain what happened in that cage before I had the chance to cool off. The water was ice cold when I stepped in and shut the curtain, but I couldn't care less about the temperature. I was more focused on the blood swirling down the drain, a reminder that although I may have once been Queen of the ring, I would never be her again, at least not with the pros. Was I washed up? Had my ring time expired? Was I supposed to just put down the gloves and quit trying? It’s only been two fights, Hazel, you say? I knew that, but I was one loss away from hitting a losing streak. I'd never had a losing streak with The Underground.
“Baby?” Knox’s voice echoed suddenly and I cringed because I knew he was, without a doubt, disappointed. I could see it written all over his face since I’d come to.
“Not now, please,” I said softly.
“I'm not mad…” He paused. “I'm worried about you.”
“Why me?”
“Because the world is upside down right now and I can't just make it go away.”
His words really hit me. Our world was completely on its axis and there was no instant fix.
“I’ll be fine,” I murmured, stepping directly under the spray as the water warmed up.
Nothing followed that but silence. Knox left, and I couldn’t blame him. After all, I’d told him I’d be fine, right? Then again, he knew when to push, and now was obviously not one of those times. I just needed a few minutes alone to let it all sink in, and then I’d be ready to adult again.
When I emerged with my towel wrapped around my body, Reyna was sitting on the bench beside my bag. She looked at me with a forlorn expression and I hated it. I didn't want anyone feeling bad for me. Yes, losing sucked but I could take it.
“Knox sent me,” she said by way of explanation, shrugging her shoulders.
“Yeah, well, you can stop looking at me like that,” I snapped unintentionally, to which I quickly followed up with, “I'm fine, I promise.”
“Not, you're not.”
“I am.”
“You're not.”
“Yes, I am,” I argued as I came up beside her to grab my clothes.
“No, you’re not, Hazel, but I'm not going to press you now either,” she countered, catching me by the arm. “You don't wanna talk about it? Fine. When you're ready, you know where to find me.”
Hallelujah.
I nodded, my expression softening, grateful that those so closely around me could handle me even in my worst moments. They accepted the way I handled my shit and they didn’t fight me. And I did the same for them. We all cope with negatives in a certain way, but it’s not our job to tell them how to do it.
Slipping into a pair of gray sweatpants and a dark form-fitting tank, behind the lockers, I tossed my towel onto the bench beside Rey and pulled my comb out, walking to the nearby mirror to untangle my hair and assess the damage Rita had done. I knew a portion of my face was puffy cause I felt it, but until now, I hadn't seen it as a whole.
And when I finally did, I was startled. My reflection wasn't very pretty. She got me good, each wound symmetrically aligned with the one beneath, all of them on the right side of my face. My brow was split, the area beneath my eye was both swollen and a mean purple. She’d clipped my nose too, but thankfully it wasn't broken and the bleeding had receded during my shower. That's not all, though. She'd also knocked my lower lip into the teeth, leaving another split.
Basically, I was a hot mess.
“Put anything on those?” Reyna asked.
I shook my head, gently pressing on my cheek bone. “Nothing yet.”
“Sit, let me do it,” she offered, whipping out Knox’s pouch from my bag.
Staring at her through the mirror, I hesitated for only a split-second. There was no point in fighting with her or trying to play the independent card. Knox usually did all this for me, and he wasn't here because he was giving me the space I'd asked for. And if the cut on my stubborn brow needed to be stitched, I couldn't handle that alone. Case in point, I needed help.
She rose from the bench to give me her seat and unrolled the lid on the salve tin. Starting at my brow, she hit each area gently and skillfully, applying a generous amount to my undereye too. The more she studied my eyebrow, though, the more worried I became. I might be able to take hits to the face like a man, but I hated stitches.
“How's it look?” I asked, peering up at her concentrated face.
“Ehhh, you'll live. I think it looks worse than it is cause it's your bad brow. No stitches, me thinks.”
Thank you, sweet baby Jesus.
“She fucked me up, though, huh?’
“Dinged you up a bit, yeah, but fucked you up, naaah. You know we’ve both seen worse and you’ve definitely done worse,” she corrected with a smirk.
Yeah, she had a point. Leilani and Lexi are prime examples.
As she put everything away where it belonged in the duffle, I wrapped a hand around her wrist, offering her a smile. “Thanks for putting up with my stubborn ass, Rey.”
“You put up with me too, remember? I’d say that makes us even.”
“True, but still I want you to know I’m not keeping shit to myself because I don’t wanna tell. I just don’t wanna dwell on it. There’s so much going on right now, I’m overwhelmed, and if I sit here and talk about how I feel like a big ass failure, it’ll only make it worse.”
“Okay, first of all,” she said, swallowing me in a hug, “you are not a big ass failure, and second of all, believe me, I get it. I just wanted you to know that if you did wanna talk about, I was here.”
I squeezed her back with everything I had, truly thankful to have her in my life. Who knew the woman I’d gone toe to toe with, someone who, at one point, meant essentially nothing to me, could mean the world to me now.
“Come on, let’s get out there before your man starts thinking you have a gash the size of Texas.”
When Reyna and I rounded the corner to the main lobby of the arena, I caught sight of Knox by the front doors, chatting with a woman. Well really, she was doing all the talking; he didn’t seem to be entertaining a single word she said, his gruff body language speaking volumes, even from my vantage point across the room. Call it woman’s intuition or whatever you want to call it, but I knew right then and there that the woman standing a little too close to Knox for my liking was Brie.
“Oh. Shit,” Reyna exclaimed, jerking our strides to a halt with her hand at my arm.
I swung my eyes to her frozen form, and her semi-annoyed yet equally worried expression confirmed my every suspicion. This girl, this woman, was more than likely a total knockout, and she was my man’s ex of three years.
“That's Brie, isn't it?” I asked, suddenly feeling insecure, little even.
Two things that seemed to be the ongoing theme for the night. I’d about had it.
Rey nodded, glaring lethally in Brie’s direction. “The one and only.”
“Wonderful,” I conceded.
Running my gaze over the offending brunette from head to toe, I noted our height was really all we had in common, and perhaps the length of our hair. Heavily tattooed with glossy dark waves and dangerous curves, she was my absolute polar opposite, and although I couldn't see her face, I knew she was gorgeous. Alright, so I had my own unique qualities and my body held some curves, too, but Brie made me look like an ordinary twig in comparison.
“C’mon, let's go sneak up on them. I can't wait to see her skanky ass flip out when she sees you two together,” Reyna snickered, linking her arm through mine with purpose.
I laughed at her choice of words and shook my head as we weaved in and out through the throngs of people still lurking about. This was going to be interesting, to say the least. The closer we inched toward Knox and Brie, the more the sight of them together throttled a keen sense of anger through my being. She had some damn nerve chatting him up so casually, after what she'd so idiotically done. But her loss was my gain, and I didn't quite care for her threatening what was rightfully mine.
Grabbing Reyna’s hand, I led us the rest of the way to the front of the lobby and stopped just inches away, walking my fingers up Knox’s back.
“Coach, I'm ready to go,” I purred, raising up on the tips of my toes to kiss his cheek.
Then I acted like I'd just noticed her and turned to face the woman Knox shared three years of his life with. And just as I'd suspected, she was the definition of beautiful. Her eyes were as blue as his, framed by dark lashes and thick edgy glasses that sat on a perfectly upturned nose. Her lips weren't as full as mine, but they were highly defined by a bright red shade of lipstick. Her hourglass figure was a man’s wet dream and her tattoos were undeniably bad ass. Everything about her screamed sexy, and my heart swiftly plummeted to my stomach. How the hell was I supposed to compete with that?
Despite the insecurity dripping through my veins, I put on my game face and arched my brow. “I'm sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met. You are?”
She smiled, but it didn’t touch her eyes. “Brie Dawson.”
“Ahhh, so you’re Brie. Can’t say it’s a pleasure to meet you, cause well, it’s not,” I admitted.
Knox went rigid beside me and Reyna choked out a laugh that lured Brie’s eyes in her direction for a split-second.
“Gee, quite the catch you got there, Carr. Just a word of advice; you may wanna rethink your decision to ink her name on you. Her attitude smells like shit.”
Did this chick have a death wish?
Keeping myself in check was no easy feat, but I stood my ground. She was gonna have to do a lot more than ruffle my feathers for me to snap.
“What are you doing here, Brie?”
“I came to see my friend. Is that a crime?” she retorted.
“It is when we’re not friends,” Knox snapped.
“Oh, please. We’ll always be friends. You know I can’t go too long without talking to you.”
“Well, you better find a way to get used it.”
“Yeah? Or what?”
This fucking bitch…
“You don’t wanna go there, Brie,” Reyna warned.
“Why? Cause she’ll go all big, bad Lioness on me? After that royal flop back there, I don’t think I’m very scared.”
“You should be,” I gritted out, to which she rolled her eyes.
“Give it up, Hazel. Your bravado doesn’t faze me. Anyway” – she fluttered her eyes back to Knox – “come back to the shop this week, and I’ll ink that thing on you if you really want me to, no charge. I promise I’ll be a real good girl.”
Breathe, Perry, breathe…
Stepping in front of my man, I looked her dead in the eye and cocked my head to one side. “What part of ‘leave my man alone’ didn’t you understand the first time he told you?”
“All of it, you wanna know why? Because he was mine first and if I know him the way I do, he’s gonna get tired of that frizzy mop and rugged appearance of yours real soon. Knox is all man, Lioness, and real men need real women with soft curves to devour. And guess who has that? Moi. I’ll always be here to give him what he truly craves when everything else falls short.”
Annnd...SNAP.
In about five seconds, I had her pinned to the wall, my hand wedged just beneath her jaw. Several people, including Knox and Reyna, gasped in surprise. Reyna tried prying me off but I flung my arm, tossing her right into my man. Brie’s blue eyes widened in alarm, her pulse thrumming wildly against my palm, bringing me instant gratification. So much for not being afraid, huh? I inched my face as close to hers as possible, my brows furrowed together.
“I will nail you to the fucking wall if you don’t stay away from him,” I growled menacingly.
“Are you threatening me?” she asked, struggling to speak around my grip.
“Take it as you want. I’m not playing this game with you, Brie. Back the fuck off, or you’ll find that I have absolutely no problem rearranging that pretty little mug of yours.”
She opened her mouth to fire back, but I never got to hear what she said. Reyna yanked me off of her before the words were set free. She pushed me toward the front door while Knox stayed behind, hopefully to finish what I’d started. Were my actions childish? Maybe, but the little tramp deserved way worse. This was the last fucking straw. Regardless of the fact he hadn’t been mentioning it, I knew she was still texting him. How, you ask? Because he always carried his phone around now, or sometimes he’d receive a message and his entire demeanor would go from chill from irate. It’s those little details a woman notices that shoot up the red flags. Then, of course, you have the whole tattoo shop, and now this. Three strikes and you’re out, bitch.
I was done playing nice. If she didn’t slither back into the grimy hole from which she’d emerged, I’d drag her there myself.