Real(10)

I think I’m not even breathing, I don’t even know if I can. He’s also listening to my song, and his eyes are so close to mine when I peer up at him, I can count each one of his spiky dark lashes. I swear his irises are bluer than the Caribbean Sea.



His lips twitch with humor, and he shakes his head with what I think is a chuckle. A chuckle I obviously can’t hear because I’m listening to the end of “Iris,” which I first heard in the movie City of Angels and which also made me cry, like, for days. A guy gives up, literally, forever to be with the girl he falls in love with, and then something tragic happens—like in a Nicolas Sparks’ movie.

When silence follows the end, I slowly take my headphones off and return his iPod. “I didn’t even know you had slow songs in there,” I murmur, fully engaged in a new conversation with my own iPod, as he returns it. His voice is low and intimate. “I have twenty thousand songs, everything is here.”



“No!” I say in automatic disbelief as I turn and verify, and it’s true. Mel thinks she’s the shit because she has ten thousand, and I’m going to have to tell her she is certainly not. And now, what I just can’t get over is that, from twenty thousand songs, he played that one to me?

“Did you like it?” His eyes pierce me, and I know he can see my blush, I can’t help that.



I nod. My iPod feels warmer than usual as I nervously start to play with it, and I refuse to think it’s from his hand. But it’s from his big, scarred, tanned, beautiful manly hand. Cheeks flaring even hotter, I try to sink into my own musical world.



Occasionally, during the flight, he passes me his headphones and iPod, and makes me listen to a song, and I look for one for him. I don’t know what’s up with me, but when he smiles at me with that lazy smile that shows both dimples, listening to all the girl power songs I hand him over, like “I Will Survive” from Gloria Gaynor, I want to melt, especially when at the same time, the devil grins in mischief and seems to decide to pick on me as he plays “Love Bites” by Def Leppard for me. I die as the powerful sound of his Dr. Dre beats spill into my ears, pushing the low, masculine vocals so deep inside my body, every sexy word seems to pulse shamelessly in my sex. The words are so raw and carnal, they make me think about him, and me, touching and kissing and loving….and I hate that for a fraction of an instant, I even believe that’s exactly what he wanted me to think.





I’m rooming with Diane in Atlanta, and I love that she keeps her toothbrush toothpaste, and all her girly necessities as neatly tucked away as I do. She’s a great roommate, sunny and positive every moment of the day, and I love that we get to talk about healthy cooking during the evenings, when we each hit our own queen-sized bed.

I’ve learned that she shops for the best local, freshest ingredients every morning, and she feeds Remington only top organic food, every single day, on schedule every three to four hours—which is why his workouts seem to be spaced in sections of either 3-2-3, or 4-4 with heavier meals in the case of the latter. The man eats for three fully grown, hungry lions. A lot of protein. A lot of vegetables. And in the half-hour window after his workouts, so many carbs that even I get carb-high just thinking about those delicious sweet potatoes and pastas he wolfs down.



She spices all his meals with natural herbs like thyme, basil, rosemary, a little dash of garlic or cayenne pepper, and some kick-ass combinations that I’ve been jotting down for when I get back home. She’s divorced at thirty-nine, and she also told me that we’re finishing the last fight in New York at the end of this tour, a city I’ve always wanted to visit. Tomorrow Remington has his first fight out of two in Atlanta, and this afternoon I find myself hanging out at the sidelines of his privately rented gym, waiting to stretch him once he’s finished. It’s our third evening here, and I’ve already realized that Remington Tate trains like a madman.

A.

Mad.

Man.

Today in particular, he seems unstoppable.



“Any reason why he’s still going strong at this hour today?” Pete asks Coach Lupe. “Hey, Tate! Stop showing off in front of Brooke!” Coach yells, and we hear a laugh from across the gym, where Remington is killing—heartlessly murdering—a speed bag.

“I can’t wear him out,” Lupe says as he turns back to us. He drags a hand down his bald head as he checks some sort of timer he has draped around his neck. His usual scowl deepens in intensity. “We’re going on nine hours today and he’s still got juice. But don’t even look at me, Pete. We both knew this was going to happen since he…”