Chapter 31
Kennedy
“How much is it?”
“Three spectators, ten dollars a person, so thirty dollars.”
I dug through my purse and thrust a fifty at the guy. “Mother, do we really need to argue with the ticket guy? Everyone has to pay the same amount.”
I grabbed the three wristbands and twenty from the guy and moved off to the side.
After three hours of driving, I had finally made it to the Amex tournament with two stowaways, but I had at least made it.
“Let me see your wrist, Mother.” I separated the three wristbands and peeled off the adhesive ends. “We need to get in there.”
My mother wrinkled her nose. “I’m not putting on that neon green thing. I’ll just hold onto it.”
Dad grabbed her wrist and held it out to me. “Vivian, can we just not right now? I’m rather fond of having the wife I married back. Please keep the ice queen on the back burner.”
I looped the bracelet around her wrist before she could protest. She was trying to be a more loving and understanding mom, that’s why she had insisted coming along to the tournament, but she still had Vivian in her back pocket at the ready to throw out barbs and insults. She clamped her lips shut and nodded.
Dad wrapped his arm around her and held out his other wrist to me. “What time does he fight?” he asked as I put his bracelet on.
“Anytime. Kellan texted me that Roman said they were over at the ring fifteen minutes ago. I’m not sure how this all works, but Kellan said just to find ring fifteen, and they’ll be there.” I stuck on my bracelet haphazardly and stepped through the open doors.
“Wow,” Dad gasped behind me.
Wow was right. I didn’t know what to expect when I walked through the door, but it certainly wasn’t this. There were tons of people milling around between large squares that people were competing in. It was insane.
“Look,” Mom called, “over there is a big fifteen.”
I looked to my left and saw a large group of people cheering and hollering with a sign that had a huge fifteen on it next to them. “They must have already started.”
We weaved in and out of the crowd ‘til we made it to the side of the ring. Two guys were dancing around, kicking and punching each other.
“What is with these people wearing so much neon?” my mother asked as she clung to my side. “Do they not know what neutrals are and how to accentuate them? I swear you could see some of these people from the Hubble Space Station.”
Dad put his arm around her waist and pulled her close to him. “I’m not sure your fashion knowledge is appreciated here, darlin’,” he chuckled.
I still couldn’t believe that I was here with my parents. Two months ago, if you would have told me this would happen, I would have told you that you were downright crazy. Add in the fact that I was here for Dante, and I would have died laughing.
Roman was at the far edge of the ring with his back to me, and Dante was next to him. He was wearing a silky type shirt that was cobalt blue with the huge Powerhouse logo on his back. “He’s over there,” I pointed out to Mom.
“Oh my, they really hit each other,” Mom gasped.
One of the guys who was fighting was down on his knees, and the other guy was standing over him.
“Jesus.” These guys were brutal.
The referees or whoever they were called the match, naming the guy still standing the winner. They both left the ring, and my eyes went to Dante as he turned around. He was looking right at me, but it was like he didn’t see me. He was hitting his hands together and moving from side to side. Roman was next to him, talking quietly.
“What do you think the other guy is saying to Dante?” Mom asked.
I shrugged because I didn’t even have a guess. I was new to all of this, and I had just as many questions as she did.
A referee came to the middle of the ring. “Fighting for first and second place, Mylin San and Dante Craig. Fighters, take your corners.”
Dante and Roman moved into the corner across from them, and a bald-headed guy and a squat, round guy moved into the corner in front of us.
“Should we move over by Dante?” Dad asked.
I shrugged. I had the same idea, but it was so crowded all the way around the ring, I wasn’t sure we would find a different spot if we moved. “We should, but I don’t think that there is any room around there.” Dante put on his head gear, and so did the other guy. This was crazy.
Our decision whether or not we should move was made for us when three referees moved to the center of the ring and motioned for the fighters to come forward.
“Two minutes, guys. Nothing below the belt. Let’s keep it clean.” Each guy nodded their heads. Two of the referees moved to opposite corners and motioned that they were ready.
“Fighters touch hands,” the referee in the middle called.
Dante and Mylin bumped hands, and then they both started bouncing around with their hands in front of their faces.
“Fighter’s fight!”
Dante immediately lunged at Mylin and punched him in the head. The referee separated them. “One point red,” he called.
“Red?” Mom asked.
“I think Dante is red and the other guy is blue,” Dad replied.
“Go red,” Mom yelled.
Oh Jesus. This is what I got for wanting a mother who took an interest in things I did. “You can probably say his name, Mom.”
“If I yelled Dennis, do you think it would distract him?” Mom asked.
Dad snorted, and I couldn’t help but laugh. “You might want to just stick to red,” he laughed.
“Mother, just keep to yourself.” I winced as Mylin managed to land a kick to Dante’s stomach.
“He just kicked Dante,” Mom blurted. “He can’t do that,” she insisted.
I put my hand over my mouth and tried to inch away from her. “Thanks for the play-by-play,” I muttered.
The ref announced Mylin scored two points, and they continued to fight.
“Why did he get two points, and Dante only got one?” Mom demanded. “I don’t think that is very fair.”
A guy standing next to us took mercy on us. “Kicks are two points since they are harder to land. Punches are one point.”
“I don’t like that rule,” Mom announced.
“Dante still has plenty of time. I’ve watched him fight many times before. He sits back and watches his opponent and then attacks. Just watch,” he drawled.
I turned my attention back to Dante and saw that was exactly what he was doing. You could tell that Dante was taking in every move that Mylin made and tried to use it against him.
Dante scored four points right in a row, while Mylin scored three.
Mom gripped my arm and held on tight. “Oh, my God, they’re tied, Kenny.”
I turned my head slowly and looked at Mom. “You haven’t called me Kenny since I was like four years old.”
“That’s because you demanded I stop doing it because you said you weren’t a boy. I thought it was cute.”
I shook my head. “I know you’re trying to be a normal mom, but I can’t wrap my head around you thinking anything is cute.”
“Hush, Kenny. You’re going to miss your man win.”
I turned back to the ring and saw Dante was looking directly at me. Like, I knew he saw me. “Oh shit,” I whispered.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mylin lunge toward Dante, and I screamed, “Move!”
Dante ducked without a second to spare and slid to the left.
“Kennedy, duck down or something. You’re distracting the man.” Mom grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me down. “Don’t come up until it’s over.”
The guy who had been nice enough to explain the points to me bent down too. “You okay?”
“Um, yeah. I just didn’t want to distract Dante.”
“Honey, I hate to break it to you, but I heard he’s seeing some chick.”
I whipped my head to look at him. “What? How did you hear that? How do you know Dante?”
“I overheard Roman and him talking yesterday in the lobby. Some chick named after a president, I think. Nixon or Reagan?”
“Kennedy?” I blurted.
“That’s it. I gotta get back to the fight.” He straightened up, and I stayed hunkered down. What a crappy way to watch my first fight.
“Crap, Mylin scored a point. He’s ahead by one,” Mom shouted to me. “Dante keeps looking over here. We should have had you wear a disguise.”
I popped up, and my eyes connected with Dante’s right when Mylin landed a punch to the side of his face. “Oh, my God,” I gasped and ducked back down. “I can’t watch this.”
“Just stay down, honey. The man with Dante called a timeout, and it looks like he’s yelling at him,” Mom informed me.
I’m sure Dante was just loving the fact that Roman was yelling at him. “How much time is left?” I yelled.
“Forty-five seconds,” friendly stranger hollered.
“This is the longest two minutes of my life.” I kept seeing Dante getting nailed in the face, and my stomach rolled. I don’t think I would be traveling with him to tournaments if this is how they went.
“Okay, they’re back. Dante hasn’t looked over here. Hopefully, he can focus on kicking this guy’s ass.”
“Mother!” I had never heard my mother swear in my life before.
“Oh hush, Kenny.”
I closed my eyes, listened to everyone yelling, and noticed that most were cheering for Dante. There were a few shouting Mylin’s name, but you could tell that Dante was the favored fighter.
“Two points to red,” I heard the ref call.
“Did you see that kick?” Dad yelled.
I wish I had. Looking at my sneakers was not as exciting as watching the fight.
The crowd roared, and the friendly guy hunched down by me. “Dante just rocked that guy’s head back. Another two points for him.”
I tried to do the math in my head, but I couldn’t remember who had scored what. “Is he winning?”
“For now, darlin’.” He straightened up and hollered, “Finish it!”
I was going to get an ulcer in fifteen seconds. I couldn’t handle this.
“He won!” Mom yelled.
I shot up and saw Mylin laid out on the mat. “Oh, my God,” I gasped.
“Dante kicked him in the side and knocked him down,” Dad shouted.
Everyone was going crazy, and the ref grabbed Dante’s arm and held it up. “Winner, red,” he shouted.
“He won!” I screamed. I jumped up and down and watched Dante help Mylin up and shake his hand.
“That’s one hell of a fighter,” the guy next to me said. “I gotta get over to thirteen. It was nice to meet you, darlin’.”
He held his hand out to me, and I shook. “You too. Thanks for educating me a bit. And I’m Kennedy, by the way.”
Recognition dawned on his face, and he laughed. “I like Nixon better.”
“Did that man just call you Nixon?” Mom asked as he walked away.
The crowd was diminishing with most people wandering off to watch other rings. “Yeah,” I laughed.
“Kennedy?” Dante had managed to sneak up and was standing in front of me. He had taken off his head gear and had sweat dripping down his face. He had never looked sexier.
“Um, hi,” I croaked.
“I thought Mylin had punched me hard, and I was seeing things. What are you doing here?”
“I went over to my parents today, and we all decided to come and watch you fight.”
Dante looked at my parents then back at me.
Mom piped up. “That was a rather good fight, Dennis.”
Dad busted out laughing, and I couldn’t help but giggle. Dante studied me trying to figure out what was going on.
“Vivian and I had a rather strong talk this morning. We’re both seeing each other in a different light now,” I explained.
“Why don’t we wander around and see what other things are going on,” Dad suggested to Mom. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the sea of people wandering around.
Roman came over and grabbed Dante’s helmet. “I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was staring at until your head popped up for ten seconds and then you disappeared again,” Roman said, shaking his head.
“Um, I’m sorry,” I stammered.
A grin spreads across Roman’s lips. “Nothing to be sorry about, darlin’. Once he realized it was you and not a mirage, he kicked ass. You’re gonna have to be around for all of his fights now. You’re good luck.”
Dante pulled his shirt over his head and shoved it in the bag Roman had dropped at our feet. “I think that was my last fight, brother,” he grunted.
“Oh, come on,” Roman whined. “You kicked major ass out there. Mylin didn’t stand a chance against you. You can’t just walk away.”
Dante grabbed a shirt from the bag and pulled it on. Next, he dropped his pants.
“What are you doing?” I gasped. Both my mother and father were wandering around somewhere. I didn’t need them to see Dante dropping his pants. I put my arms around him trying to cover him up. “Pull your pants back up,” I hissed.
Roman snorted, and Dante chuckled. “Honey, I have shorts on under my pants.”
“Wait, what?” I stepped back and saw that he had a blue pair of Powerhouse shorts on. “Oh, well. I guess that’s okay.”
“I’m glad you approve,” he laughed.
Roman gathered the rest of Dante’s gear, dropped a pair of sandals at Dante’s feet, and ambled off into the crowd leaving Dante and me alone.
“Um, so, hi,” I stuttered.
Dante smiled, shoved his feet into the sandals, and grabbed my hand, threading his fingers through mine. “Let’s go somewhere to talk, honey. I have a feeling you got a lot to say.”
Ha, that was an understatement.
He pulled us through the crowd and out the door I had walked through ten minutes ago.
“Where are we going?” I asked as he led us over to a bank of elevators.
“My room.”
Oh, well. That was somewhere private.
We silently rode the elevator up, and with each floor that passed, my anxiety rose.
Dante stood next to me and looked forward. I mimicked him because I didn’t even know where to start. This man had seen me in the throes of passion, and now that I was alone with him again, I had no idea what to say.
The elevator stopped on the eleventh floor, and I followed him down the long hallway to room one-eleven. He slid in his room key, waited for the green light, and opened the door. “After you, honey,” he drawled.
I squeezed by him and walked into the large room with two unmade beds and clothes all over the place. “Something tells me this isn’t just your room.”
“Nah, Roman and Ryker helped trash the room.” Dante dropped the key card on the desk and flipped off his sandals.
“It’s not that bad.” I leafed through a magazine they had next to the TV.
“You come all the way to Lansing to inspect my hotel room?”
I closed the magazine and turned to face Dante. “Um, no.”
“Thought you and your parents would go for a drive and ended up here?”
I laughed and shook my head. “My parents coming along was not part of my plan at all. I needed to talk to my mom before I came up here, and then before I knew it, they were making me breakfast.”
“I can’t picture your mom making anything but a martini,” he chuckled.
I ran my fingers through my hair. “Yeah, it was pretty strange. I remember when I was really young she was like this, but that was a long freakin’ time ago.”
Dante sat down on the edge of the bed. “I think you’re going to have to start from the beginning, honey.”
“Can’t we just move on to the part where I tell you I was stupid and I’m sorry?”
Dante shook his head and pointed to the bed across from him. “Sit. Talk. I don’t touch you until you talk.”
I pouted my lips, but it didn’t affect him. I plopped down on the bed and crossed my legs. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“Where ever you want, honey, just tell me it all.”
I sighed and clasped my hands in my lap. “I was wrong.”
Dante laughed. “That’s a good place to start.”
I rolled my eyes and forged on. “Karlton made me see that I was wrong for running away from you. I knew the kind of man you were and when I found out you had money, it scared me. I’ve seen the things that money can do to people; I was afraid that you were going to turn into some monster.” I laughed and shook my head. “Now that I say it out loud, I realize how ridiculous that sounds.”
“It’s pretty ridiculous, honey, but I understand why you would think that way.”
“I would say people with money were all just pompous assholes who thought they knew everything. But I acted the same way. I thought I knew everything and was quick to judge. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you or your parents.”
Dante nodded and smiled. “I know you didn’t mean to insult anyone. You were just trying to protect yourself.”
I sighed and nodded. “This morning, I went over to my mom’s. We yelled at each other, and I found out some things about her that I never knew. It helped me to better understand her and the way she acts.”
“She seemed rather different today, even though she called me Dennis.”
I shook my head and smiled. “She has a rather dry sense of humor. Dad and I both had to tell her that she couldn’t cheer and call you Dennis while you were fighting. She settled with calling you red.”
“That’s who kept yelling that? I’m normally pretty focused when I fight, but with seeing you and hearing red being yelled, I was a little off today.”
I was going to have to put a muzzle on my mother if Dante ever fought again and she decided to come. “Yeah, that was a bit crazy watching you fight. Well, what I saw. Mom made me hide after thirty seconds so I didn’t distract you.”
Dante laughed. “I could still see you. It was just the top of your head, but I knew it was you.”
I covered my face. “Jesus. I’m such a tool sometimes.”
“Not a tool, you’re just Kennedy.” Dante grabbed my hands and pulled them down. “So, now I need to hear why you’re here.”
I took a deep breath. “Well, you know how we were doing the whole decoy with benefits thing?”
Dante nodded and smiled. “One of your better ideas,” he admitted.
“Well, I thought maybe we could make it a permanent position.”
Dante pulled me to him and fell onto the bed with me on top of him. “How about we drop the whole decoy bit, and you just be mine.”
I tapped my finger to my chin, thinking. “Well, I suppose that could work, but you’ll have to agree that you’re mine too.”
He brushed my hair back from my face with one hand, and his other one cupped my cheek. “Honey, I’ve been yours since the night I talked you into opening the door.”
I buried my face in his neck. “Can we not talk about that? I was such an idiot.”
“No, honey, you were just protecting your heart.”
I lifted my head and looked down at him. “No, I was just stupid.”
Dante busted out laughing. “I think maybe we should talk about something else before I agree to something I don’t mean to.”
My lips brushed against his. “Such a smart man,” I mumbled.
Dante rolled us over, and his lips crashed down on mine. My hands roamed over his back, pulling his shirt up and feeling his bare skin under my fingers.
“It’s been too fucking long since I felt you underneath me, honey.”
“I missed you, Dante,” I whispered. I had even missed him when I was mad at him for lying to me.
He pressed his forehead against mine and closed his eyes. “You have no idea how worried I was thinking that you weren’t going to come back to me.”
“My badass ninja worried?” I giggled.
“I maybe a black belt, honey, but that doesn’t mean shit when it comes to my heart.”
“Maybe we can work on that together.”
“Work on what?” He trailed kisses along my jawline, and his hands grabbed the hem of my shirt, pulling it up.
“Getting a black belt in love.”
Dante leaned back and his gaze locked on me. “Does that involve having a lot of sex?”
“And frozen pizza.”
“Well hell, you and I got this whole black belt in love thing in the bag then.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down to me. “I bet we have at least fifteen minutes before my mom and dad start wondering where we are. How about we start working on that black belt?”
“Does that mean we’re going to go find pizza or have sex?”
“Sex now, pizza later?”
Dante grunted his approval and dove into his first lesson to become a black belt in love.
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