"Persuade her," Damien scoffed.
"And she would probably tell you to fuck off." Mike couldn't even bring himself to inform them that Rowan had all but forced Savannah to watch the fight again. The mere thought made his hands twitch. There were breakables around, and he might start breaking them. Some angel of mercy set the beer Damien had demanded in front of him, and he took a long drink.
"I'm gonna do it," Zane said, slapping the table.
Mike almost choked as he swallowed. "Don't," he warned, wiping his mouth.
"What do you have to lose? Nothing. Hell, I'll fly to New Orleans and give her a night out on the town she's never imagined-as friends," he added quickly when he noticed Mike's deepening glower. "She can't say no to that."
"It's shady."
Zane shrugged. "It's not like it's a pity date; I liked her. Nothing shady about that."
"It's shady because you have an ulterior motive and she's vulnerable to you."
"There are worse motives to have, and I told you: I'll be on my best behavior. She needs cheering, so I'll cheer her."
"You might as well let him do it," Damien said. "If she's still grieving that much, she'll be impervious to whatever charms he thinks he has, anyway."
"No."
"Not as if you can stop me," Zane pointed out gleefully. "And don't even try to threaten to kick my ass, because I know you, and you won't."
"Don't be too sure of that," Mike grumbled, and downed his beer.
Chapter Seventeen
Savannah was glad she'd had the foresight to take off the day after returning from Houston, but she wished she'd taken off the entire week.
Work droned by, day after day. The only highlights were having a few laughs with Tasha and the rest of her coworkers, and with the clients she considered friends. And of course, eagerly checking her cell phone at the end of every massage session to see if Mike had texted. Usually, he had. They spoke every night, sometimes for hours.
Things weren't as great with Rowan. When Savannah broke down and texted her sister-in-law in the middle of the week, asking if she was okay, Rowan's terse "no" told her all she needed to know.
They had argued pettily in the past, making up as quickly as they had come to words. But never, ever anything like this, and Savannah cried herself to sleep more than once over it.
Was she being completely selfish? It didn't feel that way. It felt like she'd discovered something precious, something that brought her sheer, unmitigated joy in the middle of a very dark time, and everyone was trying to take it away from her.
"I don't know what to do," she confided to Tasha, after the entire sorry story had poured out of her during one of their breaks the following week. They'd both stopped for an afternoon caffeine fix in the on-site café and sat at a little table removed from most of the other patrons.
"I'll try to give you advice once I get over the fact that you've been keeping this from me all this time." Tasha stirred her coffee, set her spoon aside, and glowered comically at her.
"I'm sorry. It isn't something you run around telling everyone. I only wonder if Rowan has told my parents yet. I haven't heard a word from them. It's radio silence."
"You have to find out, hon. You have to face them eventually. Have it out."
"They've always been able to back me down, you know? For most of my life. Tommy was better at going after what he wanted despite them. And this time . . . I can't let them do it."
"Well, good for you. Only you know what this guy makes you feel, but if it's strong enough to do what you're doing . . . I think it's worth fighting for. Don't you?"
"So far it is."
"So do it. You want to be with a fighter, you gotta learn how to fight."
Savannah snickered. "I can, you know. When I have to."
"You gotta learn to love it, girl. Speaking of, how is that going to work? Are you going to be ringside for all of his fights? Are you prepared for whatever the press is going to throw at you? You have to admit, they're going to eat it up."
"Oh, I won't be ringside for anything. He said he might retire."
Tasha lifted a perfectly penciled eyebrow. "You believe he will? And could you hang with him if he didn't? You didn't like watching Tommy's fights even before disaster struck."
"I know." A miserable weight descended on her at the mere thought. "Honestly, I don't know if he's retiring or not. He doesn't seem to know if he's retiring or not."
Now both eyebrows raised. "Um, I think you'd better get that straight before you go alienating your entire family over him, Sav. I mean, come on. If you have a phobia about the guy's occupation it probably isn't going to sit well with him. He'll want you there, you know."
"It scares me," she admitted. God, that was understatement. It fucking terrified her. She tried to imagine her life, sitting at home or wherever, knowing he was in the cage and one wrong move might spell his doom. Maybe she was being overly dramatic. But when you'd seen it once already . . .
Later that night, wearing her pajamas and drinking her chamomile tea, she found herself in front of YouTube again. Instead of watching the fight that had sealed all their fates, though, she pulled up some of Mike's older ones. The short brawl a couple of years ago where he knocked out Caruthers in forty-two seconds. The one his fan had brought up in the elevator-making Santoya tap out with an arm bar in the third round. A loss to Frank Meyers three years ago that went the distance, decided by split decision.
Oh, God, the look on Mike's face when that announcement was made. Subtle to the outsider, perhaps, but she saw the devastation bite deep as his head dropped and wanted to reach through the screen and grab him. But then his team descended on him and she couldn't see anything except Meyers gloating for the crowd and the camera. What an asshole. From what she'd seen, Mike was always gracious after his victories, hugging it out with his opponents. And Meyers was the heavyweight champion now, last she heard.
Her phone blaring to life next to her laptop made her jump, but the name on the display made her smile. "Hey you," she said warmly, closing out her web browser and shutting the computer down.
"Hey, beautiful. Have a good day?" His voice made her feel like she'd just taken a shot of whiskey-flushed and weak and a little floaty.
"Pretty good. How about you?"
"Grueling. Jon was riding my ass hard today."
She bit her tongue on the naughty comment that wanted to tumble from her lips. At least get the chitchat out of the way first, horndog. It was all his fault, though; he'd made her this way.
"Do you pretty much spend all day at the gym? Like that's your day at the office?"
He chuckled. "Yeah. That's my office."
"What did you do today?"
"Grappling, mostly. He's on my ass about my eating. I've been bad."
"Oh? I can't imagine," she teased, thinking about their feast at Spindletop-something that was never far from her mind, actually. "Am I a bad influence?"
"On the contrary. I've been better this past week than I have in two months."
"And that's because of me?"
"You're putting me back together, babe."
That was wonderful, and that made her happy-but why was it when he was getting put back together, she only felt like she was falling apart? And if he was getting his focus back . . . it was only a matter of time before he wanted to get back in the cage.
"Training was hard for a while," he went on, "and it still is, but I'm dealing with it better. I would reach for my drive before and it just wasn't there. I would see your brother standing in front of me. I would see all the other times I failed or fucked up."
Savannah bit her lip, her fingers squeezing the phone until they ached. "I was watching some of your past fights earlier," she confessed, without really knowing why.
"Really? How come?"
"Well, to see you, for one thing." Yeah, that was part of it. Mike clinching his opponent in all his shredded glory was a sight to behold, muscles straining, mouth guard bared as he gritted his teeth . . . and even while he was on his feet, the predatory grace with which he moved was something she'd never seen in all the matches she'd watched her brother compete in. He reminded her of a sleek, stalking jungle cat, icy blue eyes calculating, assessing, seeking his opportunity to strike and taking it with devastating precision. When he did . . .
She'd seen firsthand how disastrous that could be.