Trust Me(14)

“Ticket sales,” I responded with a shrug. “Simple math. Matty is the hometown favorite. We’re going to sell more seats than you. If you don’t believe me, do an exit poll.”

He frowned and thumbed through some of his notes but didn’t respond.

“Don’t let all this hard work go to waste,” I said, leaning in to rest my elbows on the table between us. “We’ve gotten it all worked out down to the announcer. Let’s make a deal, Carmine.” I held out my hand and offered him an encouraging nod. “What do you say?”





My head was still spinning twenty minutes later when Matty and I stepped out into the early May sunshine.

“We did it,” I whispered, irrationally worried that someone might be following us and hear my almost childlike glee. “We frigging did it!”

Matty chuckled, and didn’t bother to use his inside voice as we crossed the parking lot toward my car. "I'm not going to lie, it never even crossed my mind that you'd be good at this part of it too."

I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear and tried not to let the pride in his tone go to my head, even if it did lift my spirits.

"Thanks heaps. You're a real charmer."

Part of me was still in knots about the way we’d left things that night when we’d nearly had sex. It had been a long stretch of rocky road since the second we met and it seemed like that could easily have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, but we’d muddled through. Now, aside from the tension that seemed ever-present and my own personal and humiliatingly graphic daydreams, he was becoming a part of my day that I really looked forward to. Which scared the shit out of me.

“I try. But for real, you handled the shit out of him back there. He didn't know whether he was coming or going. We definitely got the better end of things but Willie still seemed happy enough, and Carmine left the table smiling.”

This time, I couldn't stop the grin from spreading over my face as we climbed into the car.

Matty thought I did a good job. Something he already admitted he'd never given me a chance in hell of doing.

"Now that this is solid, we've got to get you ready. Is Felix available to start training seriously? The sooner the better. We’ve only got three months.”

He leaned forward and flipped on the radio, selecting a rock station before he answered. "Yeah, about that."

I could already tell I wasn't going to like whatever he was about to say.

“Felix had some family issues and had to go to Guatemala for a month. He'll be home in a few weeks now, but until then, I'm on my own. Don’t sweat it though, I’ll be fine."

I thought back to his weekly wing-fest at 1984 and shook my head. "No you won't."

"I can start prepping without a trainer, Kayla. I did it my whole life, until two years ago. There was no money for trainers, but guess what? I still won fights."

"You won't be one hundred percent."

"I can take Willie at seventy five percent. You're not going to get me to agree to let yet another stranger into my boxing family out of the blue. I'm putting my foot down here and now."

"What if I do it?" The words were out before I thought them through, but I couldn’t very well take them back, even if being with Matty more often was a heartbreak waiting to happen.

"What if you do what?"

I had to put the job first here. Surely, I could manage to keep it professional for a few piddling weeks. "What if I pull double duty? Things will be quiet on the management end aside from some calls and just me vetting other fighters for after the Martin fight. The rest of the time, we can spend in the gym. Three weeks, just getting you conditioned and making sure you're accountable. I'm not saying I can take Felix's place. I'm just saying I know enough to help get you ready for when he comes back so you're not behind the curve. What do you think?"

At least I wasn't a stranger.

He threw his head back and seemed to be muttering at the ceiling when I risked a glance in his direction.

"Don't be stubborn and short-sighted, Matty. You have me here, I'm willing to help, so you might as well use me."





Matty



It was that exact thought that had me in knots. She made a lot of sense, and I was already getting comfortable around her. Not in the groin region, that was still decidedly uncomfortable in her presence, but as far as feeling like she was invested in my success and had the knowhow to try to find me some decent match-ups, things were progressing better than I ever hoped.

This would seriously test my ability to be around her long-term without trying to jump her bones again. Like some twisted form of exposure therapy.

I was getting by all right for the last week or so when she’d stopped off at the gym to run over some things with me, but to her credit, she’d always come mid-day when there were at least a few guys there jumping rope or knocking the heavy bag around, and she’d only stayed an hour or so. This would be a lot more than that.