WHEN SHELBY SAW THE PHOTOSHOPPED pictures of me and all of those women, I didn’t exactly know how she felt until I saw the ones with her and Kyle. If I had to see her in pictures it probably would’ve been easier to see her with twenty different men than it was seeing her with that fucker.
“You know, I thought you were going to be the one to screw up with Shelby,” Garrett confessed. “I even warned her about you, but she was the one who ended up—”
“Garrett, shut up,” Carter cut in. “That’s the last thing the boy needs to think about right now. He needs to let her go.”
Shelby.
So much was going through my mind that I didn’t even realize she was gone until Carter said the words ‘to let her go.’ I didn’t want to let her go. It wasn’t her fault and she needed to know that.
Jumping to my feet, I marched to the door and looked down the hall. “Where did she go?”
“Uh … she’s gone,” Garrett pointed out awkwardly, “she walked out of here a couple of minutes ago.”
“Where to? Did she leave?”
Carter put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed when I started to take off down the hall. “No, I don’t think so, son. She didn’t go out the exit, so I’m assuming she went to the arena. Would you like to tell us what’s going on?”
“Kyle’s what’s going on,” I spat. “I know you think Shelby cheated on me with him, but that’s not what happened. Somehow he got to her weeks ago and pretended to be someone else so he could use her to mess with me.”
Mouths gaping open, they were stunned into silence until Garrett came around first and replied, “Wow, I didn’t think the guy had the brains to pull something like that off. Surely, he wasn’t the mastermind behind all of that.”
That was true, but who? I was going to have to have a long talk with Gabriella as soon as the fight was over.
“All right, you two, it’s time to go. There’ll be plenty of time to figure out who did what after the fight,” Carter exclaimed.
As usual, once we got to the arena door where I’d enter through the crowd, I had just made it in time to hear the announcer call out my name. The cue for me to get ready came when my song blared over the speakers; “Bad Company” by Five Finger Death Punch. Once the song hit the forty-five second mark where the beat ratchets up it was time for me to make my appearance.
Carter slapped me on the back and smiled. “Knock ’em dead, son.”
The curtain pulled back, and like I always did, I jumped in place a couple of times and punched the air in a series of jabs just to hear the crowd cheer. Once that was over, I kept my pace down the aisle, keeping my gaze on the target in the ring. The ladies screamed at my sides, grazing their hands and nails across my skin as I walked past, but I kept going. I used to love it, to know that I was the one the people cheered for and wanted, but at the moment my mind was a jumbled mess of seeing Kyle and Shelby together.
I wished it was him in the ring. I wanted to make him suffer, to make him bleed, but in the end all of that was just physical pain. Physical pain you could heal from, emotional pain was a torment that could stick with you for the rest of your life. That son of a bitch didn’t even have a heart to know what that felt like.
When I got into the ring, I did my rounds and waved to the crowd thinking I would see Shelby sitting beside my sister, but her seat was empty. Where was she?
Gabriella knew what I was thinking when I looked at her and shrugged in response, mouthing the words ‘I don’t know’ at me. What the hell, I thought. If she wasn’t there then that meant she left.
“Matt, wake up,” Carter yelled. As soon as he said that my head snapped to the side as Jeremy landed a punch to the right side of my face. The pain brought me back to the fight. Immediately, I recovered and got into fighting stance.
The bell had rung and I completely missed it.
With a smirk on his face, Jeremy—thinking he could best me—tried to swing in for another hit, but I blocked him and countered with a kick to his shin. I hated cocky bastards, especially ones that outright loved to gloat. Usually with newbie fighters, I’d extend the fight if they were genuinely good people, just to give them time to be noticed by others, but guys like the one I was fighting could kiss my ass. I didn’t want to waste my time on cocksuckers like that, especially when I really needed to find Shelby. Jeremy tried to get in a jab to my ribs, but I turned on my heel at the last minute and landed a strong, left handed punch to the left side of his face, knocking him flat out on the mat.
Once it was clear he wasn’t getting up, the crowd cheered and the announcer yelled, “Ladies and gentlemen, your victor for the last Heavyweight fight of the evening is MAATTTTT ‘The Destroyer’ REEYYNOLLLLDDDSSSSS!”
He lifted my hand in victory and I smiled at the audience. As soon as he let me go, I jumped out over the side of the ring and straight down to Gabriella. “Where is she? Have you seen her at all?” I asked quickly.
Shaking her head, she narrowed her gaze at me. “No, I haven’t seen her since I left your house. I was going to go to the back and look for her, but I kept thinking she’d eventually make it in here. Did something happen between you two … again?”
“Kind of,” I muttered, taking her elbow and ushering her away from her seat. “And before you start getting in your little angry sister mode it’s not what you’re thinking. It wasn’t Shelby’s fault this time. It happens to be someone else’s.”
“Who’s causing problems?” she asked curiously. “If it’s a girl I’d be happy to kick her ass for you. I think you’ve taught me enough of your moves to where I could be a professional fighter.”
“I’m sure you could, and I might let you once I figure out who it is.”
She gaped at me. “You mean you don’t know who it is? Why does that not make sense to me right now?”
The further we got to the back of the arena, the less people there were milling about so I pulled her to the side. “Have you told any of your friends about my past with Shelby? I need you to be honest and tell it to me straight. Who exactly have you told?”
Hesitating for a second, she opened her mouth, shut it, and then stuttered when she spoke, “I–I do–don’t … why would you ask that? What does that have to do with anything?” She tried to laugh it off, but I knew better. Once she got tired of me glaring at her, she sighed and shook her head. “Okay, fine. I told a couple of them, but it’s not like it mattered anyway. What’s the big deal?”
“All right, let me rephrase the question so you’ll understand what I’m getting at.” It was awkward enough talking to my sister about certain things, especially about her friends I’d messed around with. “Have there been any of your friends that I might have pissed off or done something with who have been asking personal questions about my relationship with Shelby?”
“Ah, so those friends,” she remarked sarcastically. “Yeah, there are a couple of those that asked some questions … you know, trying to get an idea of what type of girl you like, so I always mentioned Shelby. However, I don’t really talk to them that much anymore. They only wanted to hang out with me in hopes of getting close to you.”
Now that I thought about it, I never saw her around the friends of hers that I’d messed around with. In my defense, I only slept with one of them and fooled around with a couple of the others. I pissed off some of them because I wouldn’t sleep with them, but would that actually make someone angry enough to want revenge on me?
“So, other than the friends you don’t talk to anymore you haven’t said anything to the ones you hang out with now?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Nope, because believe it or not, my friends like to know what’s going on with me … not you,” she teased. Pausing for a second, she gazed up at me nervously and bit her lip. “With all of these questions, you don’t think I’m the cause of this so-called problem right? I mean, I know I might have spilled some personal things about you and Shelby, but that was a long time ago. Why would the problem arise now after all this time?”
“I don’t know,” I replied with a shrug of my shoulders. “That’s what I’m hoping to find out.” Just then, her eyes locked on something over my shoulder. I figured it was because she saw Shelby, but when I turned around it wasn’t her at all; it was Ryley, one of the Jameson twins.
“Dude, I was hoping you’d get back this way. You wouldn’t happen to be looking for your girl now would you?”
He had the biggest grin on his face, and I knew whatever he was going to tell me wouldn’t be so funny to me. “So you’ve seen her?” I asked him.
Ryley burst out laughing and slapped my shoulder. “Of course I’ve seen her, but she’s not exactly here right now. She got taken away in a police car, which, to be honest, I think was a little overboard.”
“What?” Gabriella and I both gasped.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking when I saw it happen. I’m surprised she got kicked out since it was Kyle who initiated the whole fight to begin with. Anyway, I knew your girl was a pistol in practice the other day, but I didn’t think she’d have the balls to go up against Kyle. She punched the shit out of him.”
“No way,” Gabriella shouted in amazement. “I’d like to see the damage on that one.” She glanced up at me and said, “Hey, isn’t Kyle the one you don’t get along with? I think I heard you mention his name before.”
“Yeah, he’s the one.” Turning to Ryley, I said, “But what I want to know is what happened.”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly close enough to hear what he said, but I knew he was taunting her. What’s funny is that no one expected her to do what she did. One minute she’s just walking up to him and the next, bam! She didn’t waver, though. She punched him square in the face and walked off as if nothing happened. I’d be surprised if she didn’t break some bones in her hand. Anyway, security was called and they escorted her out to the police car and took her away. I tried to tell the officials what I saw, but Kyle had his buddies say that she was a psycho fan or something.”
“You have got to be shitting me,” I hissed. “They actually said that?”
Ryley’s grin faded and he nodded. “Yeah, but don’t worry, nothing’s going to come of it. They left with her not long ago, so you should be able to catch her at the station before they let her go.”
“Thanks for telling me,” I said to him before turning to Gabriella. “Are you coming with me?”
Sheepishly, she smiled and shook her head. “No, I think I’m going to hang out here for a little bit longer before I head back home. Tell Shelby I said ‘way to go’ when you get her out of jail. She’s turned into an all-out bad girl, hasn’t she?”
Shelby was full of surprises and I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen the last of them. After telling them good-bye, I rushed off down the hall to my room and busted through the door. I grabbed my bag and the box of pictures someone had piled up for me, and ran straight out of the arena to my truck. Before getting on the road, I searched for my phone and found that I had missed some text messages from Shelby.
Shelby: I’m sorry I’m not there. I’m kind of in trouble, but hey, at least Kyle has a broken nose now.
Shelby: I hope you win tonight.
Shelby: If you’re wondering where I’m at, I’m at the police station. I just called Lexi to come pick me up.
Not if I get there first, I thought.