The F King: A Bad Boy Romance(92)

Although they were all really friendly, I got along most easily with a nice girl named Emily, whose boyfriend was making his debut in the middleweight class tonight. We bounced up and down together when he won a war of attrition, and her fingernails dug into my arm almost as hard as mine dug into hers when Austin and Ernesto were staring each other down.

From the moment the first bell of the first round rang, Austin was all over Ernesto, putting the current number one contender into one precarious position after another. The more experienced fighter never seemed to be able to get his game plan started.

If I didn’t know better I would have said that, if anything, it looked like Austin was holding back. There were plenty of times where it looked like Ernesto was on the verge of tapping out, only for Austin to lose hold of the submission attempt and make his opponent struggle for a few more seconds of survival before he was trapped again.

A minute into the third round, Sanchez looked like he had nothing left in his tank. He could barely keep his arms up, let alone stage a competent counter-attack.

Ernesto dropped his guard to defend against a brutal combination that Austin was unleashing on his torso, but when he did that, Austin launched a left high kick out of nowhere that caught Ernesto flush on the side of the head. Tens of thousands of people yelled “ooooooohhhhh!” at the same time and Ernesto went face-first into the canvas.

He wasn’t able to regain his feet by the time Austin was announced as the winner by KO, though he did stagger out of the ring under his own power a few minutes after that. The way Austin told it, this meant that the NHBFC would give him a title shot next.

After the post-fight press conference, those fighters still able to stand and who were so inclined went out to celebrate. Emily and a couple of the other wives and girlfriends from our side of the ring came along, so did a couple from the other side and one of the ring girls.

Coming in with a group like that, on the arm of a guy like Austin who made the bouncers look like toothpicks held together by cheap glue, nobody asked me for ID. We filed our way through the club and took our places in two and a half booths worth of seats.

Conversation was flowing well, the fighters all analyzing every minute detail of their and each other’s fights and getting tips on the finer points of submissions from Austin. With a glass of wine in me, I was starting to feel an incredibly happy buzz and Emily was almost ready to drag me out to the dance floor.

I bet with a dress like this, I could even get Austin out there for a song or two, but first I needed the bathroom. I thought that, while I was up, I might as well get a drink for myself and my soon-to-be-heavyweight-world-champion husband to have on standby too, because dancing is thirsty work!

Austin held his glass up and eyeballed it for a second while swirling the remaining drink around the ice cubes, then asked for a whiskey and Coke. He gave me a peck on the cheek that the other wives and girlfriends thought was adorable, but seemed to make Ariana stare daggers at me for some reason.

By the time I was waiting for the bartender to get to me, I’d shrugged it off, though. Not everybody liked the idea of Austin and me together, I guessed.

The bar was long and I was near the left end of it, where it bent to meet the wall, and the bartender was looking pretty overworked. I hoped it wouldn’t take too long to get to me.

A group of three men in suits were camped there at the short end of the bar, talking amongst themselves, two of them leaning on the bar and the other standing up facing them. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it seemed like they were pretty merry.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the one who was standing pat one of his friends on the upper arm and nod in my direction, talking in a lower tone. I looked determinedly in the direction of the bartender, as if I could will him over here.

My telepathic skills were obviously lacking, as the bartender served somebody else. The man to my left straightened his jacket and I heard him say, “Watch this,” before he walked around the corner of the bar and leaned next to me.

“Hey there, gorgeous, can I buy you a drink?” he asked.

“Oh… uh… no, I’m OK, thanks.”

“You sure? I’m out celebrating tonight with a couple friends and I just thought I’d have a whole lot more to celebrate if you joined us. Maybe if you played your cards right, you could come back to my hotel room later too.”

His friends were doing their best to watch intently without looking like they were watching intently. They were failing.

I barely managed to restrain myself from rolling my eyes and tapped my wedding ring. “No. Look, I’m married.”

The man smirked as if I’d played right into his hand. “I saw that, but… uh… I don’t think you came up to the bar by my friends and me by accident. So, mission accomplished, you got my attention.”