If I thought Carter was dedicated and intense before, I was dead wrong. In the last week, he’s thrown himself even further into his training. He gets up at six each morning to go running, and he doesn’t return until I’m getting ready to leave just before eight.
His days are crazy busy. And I’m not to contact him during the day unless it’s an emergency, and if that’s the case I have to call Mase, because Carter isn’t to be unnecessarily distracted. I kind of miss being able to just chat to him whenever I want, but the gallery keeps me busy, so it’s not too bad. And Carter stays with me most nights.
“Are you supposed to be getting so skinny?” I ask him, when he walks into my room from the shower with nothing but a towel wrapped around his trim waist.
He looks down at his even more defined torso, “Yeah, it happens leading up to the fight. You gotta be the right weight for your category. I’m middle weight, so I won’t drop much more, but I’ll shed.”
“I don’t know what any of that means, so all I’m going to say is, just stay healthy,” I tell him, because I really have no idea what anything he just said means.
Carter grins, closes the door behind him, and stalks toward me, “Baby, a nutritionist makes all my meals. I eat three decent meals a day, as well as protein shakes throughout. Next week that will change a little though, and it’ll be five or six small meals spread through the day instead.”
I frown, “Someone makes your lunch for you? You lazy bastard.”
He laughs, “Yep, and my breakfast, and dinner too,” he ends on a wink.
“I wish someone would make all my food for me,” I grumble under my breath, tugging on my jammie shorts.
“New PJ’s?” Carter asks as he drop his towel.
I don’t even register his question because, dear god, will I ever get used to seeing him naked? I really hope not, it’s like unwrapping the best present in the world every time he takes his clothes off. I just stand there slack jawed, staring at him in all his naked glory, thinking I’m the luckiest damn girl in the world.
Until he interrupts my musings, “Uh, baby, my eyes are up here.”
“Yeah, I know, but I’m too busy to look in your eyes right now,” I tell him.
He chuckles, “Uh-ha, busy doing what, exactly?”
“Being a perv, dah,” I say, “I’ve been hanging around you too long, and this is what you get, you’ve rubbed off on me, Carter.” I say all of this without making eye contact. As I already pointed out, I have other things to look at besides his eyes.
Next thing I know Carter’s naked body is pressing into me, lowering me down on my bed, “I love rubbing off on you,” he murmurs before kissing me senseless, as he slowly removes my new Marvel PJ bottoms that I’d just pulled on.
Then he proceeds to show me that yes, I am in fact the luckiest girl in the world.
As one week merges with the next, Carter slowly begins to change. At first, it’s not really noticeable, and I put it down to him being tired from his training regime. But as each day comes and goes, he’s becoming broodier, and irritated with the slightest thing. He’s tense all the time, and it doesn’t seem to matter what I do, it doesn’t help.
When I finish editing the photos from Bella’s shoot, I decide to take some in to show him, thinking he’ll be happy to see how incredible they turned out. And hoping that a surprise visit from me might help snap him out of this dark mood that seems to have fallen over him.
I arrange my favourite pictures in an album to show him and then I’m planning on giving it to Bella as a gift. Sliding it gently into a velvet lined bag, then into my satchel, I poke my head in to see Hux and finding Kass with him in the break room. “Hey, I didn’t see you come in. When’d you get here?”
“Got here half hour ago, you were busy doing whatever it is you do,” he grins.
“Smartarse,” I grumble, “Anyway, the gallery is quiet so I’m ducking out for a bit, do you want me to bring lunch back for you two?”
Hux nods, “Sure, that’d be great. You going to give Bella the album?” he asks, seeing the top of it poking out of my bag.
Smiling I nod, “Yeah, but I want to show Carter first, then I’ll go drop it to Bells.”
Kass swivels in his seat, “I’ll come with you, I’m free the rest of the day, and we haven’t seen each other in ages, since you’re too busy adulting and shit.”
I can’t stop my smile, “I know, crazy right? Who would have thought,” I chuckle.
“I’ll catch ya later, Pup’s,” Kass says to Hux with a tilt of his chin, then he joins me.
“Text me if you think of something particular you want for lunch,” I call to Hux over my shoulder to as I skip to the exit, Kass giving me a weird look as I go.
Ten minutes later, I check my watch as I pull into a spot in the gym parking lot. It’s almost twelve and I’m pretty sure that’s when Carter breaks to eat, so I jump out and head for the entrance I’ve only been through once before.
I feel a little apprehensive, but that’s just because of what happened last time, right? I mean, I can totally handle it if he’s still training and he has to hit someone in front of me. Can’t I?
“Are we going in or are we standing here like a pair of fangirl stalkers?” Kass asks when I don’t move.
I’ve been standing at the front door for a good five minutes, not being able to make myself push through it. I’m being ridiculous, I know I am. But the feelings swirling around in the pit of my stomach don’t feel silly or stupid. It feels like a warning, a foreboding sense that I should not pass the threshold of this building. A shiver runs down my spine, but I shake it off. I’m being paranoid.
Giving Kass the side eye I tell him, “I’m not a fan of this place, and that was before I found out about Hux and Papa.”
A dark look comes over Kass’s features, “Hmm,” is all he says.
Taking a deep inhalation, I press my hand against the cold steel door and push it open. Glancing around, I don’t see anyone I know, so I walk further into the space and see Mase standing beside the ring, calling out things and waving his hands around.
The closer I get to the ring, the worse the feeling in my stomach gets. Shake it off, Chance, just shake it off like Taylor Swift, I tell myself.
But when I get close enough to have a clear view of what’s taking place in the ring, bile rises in my throat. I squeeze my eyes shut, I can’t have seen what I thought I just saw. My brain is messing with me. Showing me things that aren’t real.
I grit my teeth and straighten my spine then open my eyes again, and this time I see Carter in the ring with an unknown guy and Carter is on top of him, straddling his waist, pounding his fists into the guy’s arms as they block his face.
Blinking long and slow I take in the man I love and then before my eyes his features change and he looks like someone else I love, Papa. And the man beneath him is now my brother.
My hand flies to cover my mouth and I turn to bolt before they see me, but I’m too late. Mase is hot on my heels as I push through the exit and once again, stagger to the bushes as my tummy churns and clenches, forcing its contents up my throat.
Mase approaches from my side, cautiously he places a hand on my back and begins to rub it soothingly, “Why’d you come here, C.C., when you know it upsets you?” he asks.
Tears seep unbidden from the corners of my eyes, “I wanted to show him the pictures I took of Bella, I thought he would be on lunch or something, I thought I could handle it,” I whisper.
When I’m sure I’ve got nothing left to purge from my stomach I straighten. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I let the tears fall. “It wasn’t Carter I saw in there just now, it was Papa and my brother,” I sob, and Mase instantly pulls me into his chest, one arm holding my waist, the other cupping the back of my head as I cry.
Seconds later the door flies open and Carter is standing there, sweat dripping from his brow and fear radiating from his body, “Baby, what are you doing here?”
Mase doesn’t release his hold on me, “Give her a minute man,” he warns Carter.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to shut out the vision in my head, burrowing my face into Mase’s chest.
“What the fuck? What’s wrong with her?” Carter demands.
Mase’s entire body goes ridged, “I said, Give. Her. A. Damn. Minute,” he seethes.
It wasn’t Hux, it wasn’t Papa. It wasn’t Hux, it wasn’t Papa. I chant over and over inside my head. It wasn’t Hux, it wasn’t Papa. My body slowly begins to relax, my heart stops its irregular sprint, and my breathing returns to normal.
Glancing up at Mase I smile awkwardly at him, “Thanks,” I whisper.
He continues to hold me tight, one of his big palms smoothing up and down my back, “You okay, C.C.?” he murmurs.
I nod, “I think so.”
His eyes narrow, “I’m going to need more than that.”
Closing my eyes again, I take a deep breath, pulling fresh air deep into my lungs, then slowly release it and look back up into Mase’s concerned face, “Yeah, I’m good. Thank you.”
I’d completely forgotten that Kassidy had come with me, until I see Carter slamming into the wall from the corner of my eye. My head whips around to see what just happened, and Kass is up in Carter’s face, yelling.
“Kass, stop!” I demand, trying to pull away from Mase, but his arms are like steel bands, holding me in place.
Carter’s expression dims, something I’ve never seen before blanketing his features. “Touch me again and I’ll make sure it’s the last time,” he says to Kass, and I hardly recognise his voice.
Kass smiles, he freaking smiles! “Go on, I dare you. Maybe then Chance will see you for the psycho you are,” he taunts.
What the hell? Why is he acting like this? “Kassidy,” I hiss.
Carter grits his teeth, his jaw clenching so hard the veins in his neck and temples bulge with strain. “You need to leave, now,” he seethes.
Kass continues to smile casually, “Nah, I think I’d rather hang around here and try figure out why Chance is still with your crazy arse. I mean, you’re just like her father. Split personality or some shit like that. I’m going to write an article on MMA fighters and the mental health issues that are prevalent in the sport. That’s why you do it right? You get off on causing others pain, that screams psycho to me.”
My heart is in my throat again, why is Kass doing this? How did I have no idea that this is how he felt about Carter? And why is what he’s saying making sense to me?
One minute Mase’s arms are wrapped around me, and the next I’m stumbling to regain my balance as Mase flies toward Carter, pinning him back against the wall to stop him from launching at Kass.
“You two should go,” Mase says to us, all the while never breaking eye contact with Carter.
Kass wraps his hand around my forearm, dragging me away from a struggling Carter as he calls after me, begging me not to go. And I let Kass take me away.