“Okay then. Thanks for the heads up.”
“Everything else good with you?”
“All good. You?”
“Same. I’ll let you get back to it.”
I said goodbye and we hung up. I leaned up against the mirror and felt my heart beating steadily in my chest.
For the last year, as I stressed and trained and worked for Skad out in the jungle, the image of beating the fuck out of Trent on live television kept me going. It motivated me, made me hungry, made me learn every new technique and skill that Skad could teach me.
I hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. Ronnie was right, I should have been busy building up my resume, getting back into the game. I may have been stronger and more skilled than Trent, but that didn’t mean a win was absolutely going to happen. Truthfully, it was a real possibility that I could lose, and a loss to someone like Trent so early in my career could cripple me.
But the imagine of pounding his fucking face bloody, over and over and over, kept playing through my head as I finished my workout.
I knew what I’d do. If the opportunity presented itself, I wasn’t going to back down. I just wasn’t that kind of guy.
I wasn’t off the phone for more than twenty minutes when Alexa came downstairs. I had just finished the last set of my workout and was drinking some water, cooling off, when she tentatively came down the steps.
“You decent?” she called out.
“It’s a fucking home gym, not a bath house,” I said.
She came down the steps and crossed her arms. “I never know with you.”
“What, do you think I’m going to be down here doing squats with my cock out?”
“No,” she said, smiling.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I bet you’d love to see me all naked and lifting weights.”
“No, thanks. Can’t imagine anything worse, actually.”
“What can I do for you then?”
She leaned up against a machine as I wiped a towel across my brow. I noticed her staring at my muscles and smirked, but I decided not to say anything. Let her stare; I knew what she wanted.
“About the waitress,” she started.
“Finally ready to let me do my thing?”
“No, not at all. Not after you went crazy on that reporter.”
“Paparazzi. He was a reporter like I’m the fucking Pope.”
“Fine, whatever. I don’t want you scaring this girl off.”
“Please, princess. I don’t scare the ladies. I entice them.”
She burst out laughing, and I grinned at her, flexing.
“Super enticing,” she said, smiling and laughing along as I continued to pose.
“Come on, look at these fucking guns,” I said, playing it up.
“I’m sure she’d be all over you if only you flexed like that all the time.”
“Girl, this isn’t all I got.”
“Please, no more. You’re driving me wild,” she said sarcastically.
I laughed and cut it out, moving closer to her and leaning up against the wall. “What’s your idea then?”
“Last time we got information just by being smart and asking around. Maybe this time we try a similar approach.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
“Well, we got the girl’s name and I did a little research. Marla Stone lives near here. I already looked her up and got most of her info through Facebook and Twitter.”
“Damn Internet,” I mumbled. “People put basically fucking anything up there.”
“Good for us that they do.”
“Okay, so we know who the girl is. What now?”
“Now,” she said, taking her phone out and grinning at me, “we give her a call.”
Before I could argue, she tapped something and put the phone on speaker. I stared at her as it rang, a surprised smile playing on my lips.
Alexa had fucking balls. I didn’t know what she was up to, but I loved that she was willing to just go for it. No bullshit, no discussion. Frankly, it made my cock a little hard watching her take control.
Finally, on the third ring, a young woman answered the phone.
“Hello?”
“Marla Stone? Is this Marla Stone?” Alexa said. She’d disguised her voice slightly, speaking a bit lower, making her sound older.
“Yes, but I’m not interested.”
“Marla,” Alexa said quickly, “this is Sheila Porter from the Celeb Web Daily. Do you know our site?”
There was a pause on the other end. “No. I haven’t heard of it.”
“Well, Marla, we’ve heard of you. We’ve heard that you can get certain pictures of some famous people in the area, that you’re the girl to go to for this sort of thing.”
She was silent for a second, and I thought it was actually going to work. But after a few tense heartbeats, Marla spoke.