Chapter 16
Jace
I stand in the middle of Rebels Advocate surrounded by a sea of people. Tonight is a big night for us as we're hosting a huge fight night between our fighters and a few of the other local fighting clubs. Our fighters have been working their asses for this over the past couple of months. They’re so excited as for some of them, it’s their first chance of getting their names out there.
It’s been widely advertised and we’ve had unbelievable amounts of interest, which apparently, by the way the club is standing room only, has definitely paid off.
The first fight starts within the next half an hour and the boys and I race around the place making sure every last thing is done. My parents and Jessie have shown up and I’ve made sure they have the best spot in the house to watch the show.
Even all the trainers, staff, and fighters from our new Rebels Advocate franchise have turned up and are giving us a hand with any last minute tasks that need to get done.
Cole and Caden disappear out the back, probably to help the fighters warm up while Luke, Xander, and I work on getting some of the weights out of the way to allow room for more spectators.
It’s absolutely ridiculous how big this turn out is. I mean, we have the fucking media here who had requested approval to do a story on the night, which naturally we all agreed to.
As the time grows nearer to the start of the fights, I find myself looking around for that one particular face. I had hoped she would turn up, but I should have known she wouldn’t. I guess I was holding onto the hope that she’d be here to support the boys. Maybe I pushed her just a little too far this time, or maybe she’s coming with the girls later on and I’m just overthinking the whole thing.
As I continue searching around, my eyes come to a stop on my sister who’s staring right at me. I give her a look as if to say ‘what the fuck do you want?’ and all she does is raise her eyebrows while being a smug as fuck little turd. She knows exactly what I’m doing and exactly who I’m looking for.
Damn her. Why does she have to be so good at reading me?
I ignore the grin that rips across her face and get back to work.
Ten minutes later, I come to a standstill beside the fighters from our other club and take note of the excitement in their eyes. Tonight should be good for them. Some of these guys have never seen a fight before and I’m sure this will go a long way to keep them encouraged and motivated to get where they want to go.
Though, on the other hand, they could possibly have shown up just to cast their eyes on the famous Xander Phillips who’s the current heavyweight champion. He returned from his honeymoon a few weeks ago and since then he’s jumped straight back into training for his third big fight of the year that’s going down in two months. It’s been publicized everywhere, so I wouldn’t be surprised if these fighters were hoping for a bit of demonstration from him.
The door of Rebels Advocate opens once again and I watch as a pram is pushed through followed by a bunch of women, two of which are starting to become very pregnant.
I can’t help but feel disappointed as I realize Cami isn’t with them but I slap on my game face and go to greet them. “Wow,” Izzy says as she looks around. “I didn’t think you guys were capable of drawing such a crowd,” she teases. “What did you do? Promise each of them a blow job is they showed up?”
The girls laugh as I roll my eyes. “Shut up,” I say. “We can draw crowds like this in our sleep.”
Each and every one of them scoffs and grin like the idiots they are. I give in, realizing that when the girls are like this, you just have to roll with the punches. I lead them over to the seats we’ve saved for them by my parents and I make sure they have everything they need, as the first fight starts soon and knowing them, they’ll want something right in the middle of it.
As I go to walk away from them, Jessie latches onto my arm and pulls me down. “Why isn’t Cami with them?” she questions.
I don’t want to get into it right now but from my cringe, I don’t need to. “Jace,” she scolds. “Get your shit together already. I don’t want the random whore you impregnate to be my sister-in-law. I want Cami.”
“I know, I know,” I groan. “I’m working on it.”
“Really?” she grins. “You’re not just saying that, are you?”
“No, I’m actually working on it,” I groan. “Now, let me go. I’ve got shit to do.”
She rolls her eyes and does as she’s asked, allowing me to get on with it.
I head out the back and do what I can to help the fighters warm up for their fights when I hear Luke over the speakers welcoming everyone to the club. It’s almost comical how the atmosphere back here changes. One minute, the guys are calm, cool, and collected, the next, they’re freaking out as the nerves begin to rattle them.
For most of these guys, this is probably one of the biggest fights of their professional careers to date, so I can understand the nerves, but if these guys want to be fighting in stadiums filled with fifty thousand people, then they need to get this shit under control.
We hear Luke announcing the first fight and calls Alec out. The boys cheer for him as Cole puts his hand on his shoulder and double checks he’s ready. Within the blink of an eye, they walk out the door to get this show on the road.
We hear the muffled sounds of the crowd going nuts on the opposite side of the wall and for some of the boys, it seems to help, where for others, it just makes their nerves skyrocket.
The boys get distracted by Alec’s fight when they should be keeping themselves warm and preparing for their own. “Oi,” I call out, making them all whip around faster than they even knew they could move. They all stand straight and give me their undivided attention, throwing me way back into the past when Luke and I were in training for the military.
We get the boys moving again and I stand before Rock, holding up some pads while he goes over a few combinations. “Again,” I tell him as his finishes off a set. “Bring it down a notch. You don’t want to exert yourself too much. Save the energy for the fight.”
He nods and puts his game face on before getting straight back into it. While Rock takes a quick break, Michael takes his place and on and on it goes.
The crowd on the other side of the door cheer and from how long Alec has been out there, I’d say he’s nearly completed his second round. I have no idea how the first one went, but judging by the fact there was more cheering than boo’s, I think it’s safe to say that Alec won the first round.
The boys have all been killing it in their training, especially over the last few weeks where they have all had to cut weight for their divisions. They had the weigh in last night and I have to say, it was like a proud father moment watching them all achieve their goal weight.
They were so proud of themselves that they desperately wanted to go out and celebrate, but then they were all exhausted that they didn’t have the energy, not that we would have let them go out anyway. That’s what tonight is for.
As the boys take a quick break from their warm-up, I shove my head out the door to see what’s going on. A grin takes over my face as I watch Alec in his third and final round with his opponent in a headlock. It’s a pretty decent headlock even by Xander and Cole’s standards, so it’s not surprising when the guy can’t get out of it.
Twenty seconds later, they’re both on the floor of the ring and Alec has just won his first fight.
Fuck yeah. The grin on his face is intoxicating and I want nothing more than to run in there and celebrate with him, but I don’t, instead, I keep my cool and close the door so I can focus on getting Rock on his feet as he’s about to be shuffled out the door for his fight.
Two hours later, I stand next to Luke while Cole, Xander, and Caden run around the empty gym like fucking idiots. We’re all high on life. Every single one of our fighters took out the win. I mean, what’s not to be happy about? They all killed it and it’s all because of the team we have here. Their hard work and our dedication is an explosive mix, and clearly, we’ve shown that it works.
Having Xander train with us and Cole’s name attached to Rebels Advocate has put us on the map, but shit like tonight is what proves to people that we didn’t just get lucky and that we are still the number one gym in the fucking country producing elite fighters.
Fuck yeah, it feels good.
This fight has lined us up for another great year of competing and puts us in the prime spot. Rebels Advocate is quickly becoming a well known name and tonight has gone a long way in adding to that.
Cole, Xander, and Caden finish what they're doing and make their way over to me and Luke. “What do you say we hit The Dark Room?” Cole asks with an excited grin.
“I’m in,” I say, “But don’t you need to be home with Rylee?”
“No,” he sighs. “She basically begged me not to come home.”
“Huh?” Luke grunts. “What’s up with that?”
“Don’t know, man,” Cole replies. “I think she’s just tired. Isaac keeps her up at night. I should cut back on a few things so I can be there a little more often.”
“Yeah,” I say, nodding my head. “Not a bad idea. Give her all the help you can.”
“I don’t know,” Caden says. “I think she probably just wanted to bed to herself for the night.”
Cole lets out a booming laugh. “You’re probably right,” he says. “Now, are we heading to The Dark Room, or are you pussies going home to sleep it off?”
Twenty minutes later, we pull up at The Dark Room and I jump down from my truck with a grin. I’ve had the best night and having a night out with just the boys is exactly what I need. Don’t get me wrong, I love it when the girls are here, it’s always fun to watch them drink a little too much and embarrass themselves, but when it’s just us boys, it’s like old times.
We push through the doors of the club and I get hit with that familiar vibe that comes along with being inside The Dark Room. The place is awesome and it invites you in, giving you this feeling that you never want to leave. Rylee has done a great job with the place so it’s no surprise that we all feel this way about it.
We walk across the dance floor to get to the table we like to steal when I feel a particular set of eyes burning into me. My back straightens and I turn towards the bar. Sure enough, she’s right there, staring straight back at me.
The second I see her, all the images of that night come flooding back and paralyze me with need. She’s so fucking beautiful. Just thinking about that night and the way she threw her head back when she came has me desperate for it again.
But right now, it’s look but don’t touch. Besides, one big question is shooting right through all the images of her naked body on mine and coming straight to the forefront of my mind. What the fuck is she doing here?
“Yo,” I say to Cole as my eyes pierce into her. “What’s Cami doing here?”
“Oh, didn’t you know?” he questions. “She’s practically been running the place since Rylee’s been home with Isaac. She’s doing a really good job too.”
My eyebrows pull down as I consider what he’s telling me. “Shouldn’t she be working on getting her store up and running.”
“I guess,” he shrugs. “But it’s not like there’s a lot she can be doing for that right now, not until they’re finished with the re-build.”
Hmm, makes sense, but for some reason, I just don’t like it. I can’t figure out why though. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that her dream is Style me Crazy and not The Dark Room, or maybe it’s the fact that she’s working behind a bar with every male’s eyes in the room on her. Hell, it’s probably because I simply didn’t know about it.
I should have known she’d be here. It was stupid of me to not have worked it out myself. Cami has always loved this place, hell, it would come in a very close second to Style me Crazy.
She tears her eyes away from mine to concentrate on the customer demanding her attention and I have to admit, I absolutely hate it. Having her eyes on me is like a drug. It gets me high and makes me feel fucking invincible.
All I know as I take a seat at the table with the boys is that before the night is up, I’ll be talking to her.
“First rounds on me,” Cole says as he gets up from the table and heads over to the bar. Jealousy shoots through me. I’d like to head over there but I’m not about to ruin her night like that. I roll my eyes at Cole’s back. Of course, the first round is on him. Every round will be on him because he’s the boss’s man. He drinks for free, and now, for tonight, so do we.
The longer I sit here, the wider my grin gets. As I watch her, she grows more and more distracted. She’s usually extremely good behind the bar, but right now, she’s fumbling around and blushing with her eyes constantly looking over here.
I hate that she’s distracted but, fuck, I absolutely love that it’s because of me. I love it, even more, when our eyes connect through the throng of dancing bodies and that beautiful smile takes over. It makes me feel like I’m on cloud fucking nine.
The doctor jessie had found me for my PTSD has given me some medication for my blackouts, while I’ve also been seeing a therapist for the past month who has been working on helping me to move forward from the guilt and self hatred, but I’m not there yet.
Since I’ve been on this medication, I haven’t had any blackouts and things are starting to look up, but I don’t trust it yet and that scares the shit out of me.
But what this medication and therapy has done for me is make me see what lies in my future, and all I see there is Cami.
So, when some douchebag walks up to the bar and grins at my girl as though he has a shot, it has my teeth grinding together and killing my mood in an instant. Even more so when Cami looks over at me and smirks before giving the guy her undivided attention.
Shit. If she wants to play games, then it’s on.
Her eyes cut across to me just as I push myself out of my seat. I smirk right back at her as those eyes widen at my approach. Cami turns back to her douchebag friend and gives him a flirty smile that drives me insane as that smile is supposed to be mine.
I make it to the bar and squish in beside the guy who’s in the middle of asking if she’s ok because it would have hurt when she fell from heaven. Like, come on, dude. That’s the worst pick up line around. Chicks don’t actually fall for that shit.
She giggles and bats her eyes lashes at him while placing her hand on his forearm. “Stop,” she smiles. “You’re so silly.”
“Ugh,” I groan to myself as I hold back chunks and roll my eyes.
Game time, baby.
I slam my hand down on the bar in front of me, making the both of them jump in surprise. Cami whips her gaze to me in shock while the douchebag watches me in curiosity. “Why didn’t you tell me about the baby?” I demand.
Her mouth pops open. “What the hell are you talking about?” she questions with narrowed eyes as she tries to work out where I’m going with this.
“Don’t try to deny it. I found the test,” I roar. “I’m not ready to be a father.”
“Jace?” she yells as the douchebag looks back and forth between us, wondering what the hell is going on here.
I’m having far too much of a good time to stop here. “You’re on your own, babe,” I tell her before turning to the guy beside me and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Congratulations, man You’re going to be a dad.”
“Woah,” he says with wide eyes as both his hands fly up “I’m… ah. I’m out,” he says before backing away and bolting out of here like his ass is on fire.
“What the hell are you doing?” Cami demands as she crosses her arms over her chest and gives me her best glare.
I can’t help but laugh at the whole scene. “I’m sorry, babe,” I say. “I couldn’t help myself. I was protecting what’s mine.”
“Jace,” she demands. “I’m not yours to protect.”
I give her a hard stare and make sure I have her undivided attention. I lean in and take her chin in my hand. “But you will be,” I tell her.
Her arms drop from her chest and the heavy scowl instantly turns into shock. “Jace?” she whispers, and even though the sound of the club is almost deafening, I hear her perfectly well.
Without saying another word, I wink and walk away before I throw myself over the bar and crush my lips to hers.