Faking It(38)

When he said it like that, it made sense. But he hadn’t grown up knowing what it felt like to have a screen that you carried everywhere, to the point where it was almost like another limb, shrieking for your attention.

“I’ll check it later,” I said, even though it was burning a hole in my pocket. Such was the modern age. Our conversation meandered everywhere and nowhere.

Dad was a good listener. He told me once that one of the best decisions he had ever made was not to interrupt people. In my case, being an admitted chatterbox, this meant that he rarely had to say much at all, which is how I think he liked it. We talked about some strategies for increasing the audience of the podcast, and more potential guests. He had a vision of a day when the podcast completely sustained me, when the traffic came no matter what I did.

“I want you to have enough so that you can only do the work you want,” he said. “Lots of people punching clocks out there just because. I don’t care if you wind up working ninety hour weeks, as long as you love those ninety hours and you know where you’re head.”

When we finally said goodnight, I cleaned the table and put our dishes in the washer while dad went into his study to read. He was always in the middle of some military history book with a thousand pages, a zillion footnotes, and tiny font.

My phone buzzed again. I sneaked a peek at it before I went upstairs. I saw Braden’s name and immediately put it back in my pocket. I already knew everything I needed to about that swaggering oaf, thank you very much. It was probably going to be something like an emoji of lips. Or maybe a showerhead with steam coming off of it.

Mmm. That had been a really good shower.

In fact, maybe I wouldn’t look at it until tomorrow. That would teach him a lesson about expectations. That would show him that Alyssa Edwards was not, and never would be, at his beck and call.

The best-laid plans and all that…I’d been in my room for less than one second before I had the phone out, ready to tell him off and rebut whatever cocky, drunken message he had sent to me.

I am so sorry, read the text. That wasn’t me and I really apologize. I’ll do anything to make it up to you, just let me know.

No emojis, either. The apology sounded sincere. Or, I guess, as sincere as anything can sound in a brief text, completely removed from context, and in the total absence of nuance.

Well then...well, well, well.

I had a hard time falling asleep that night, but I was determined not to text him back. My determination died quickly and I replied. When I did sleep, my dreams were incredible, haunted by a rather striking man in wrist wraps who was begging to serve me in all sorts of wicked ways.



Chapter 4



Oh my God, was there anything more predictable than a woman? If anyone had treated me the way I dismissed her in that locker room I would have slapped their head off. That would have just been getting started. The last thing I would have been doing two hours was responding to an apologetic text from someone who had wronged me. I couldn’t say that I’d ever felt like much of an adult, but one of the ways I could tell I was getting older was that there didn’t seem to be as many surprises left.

No self-respect. I’ve always believed that people get themselves into the lives they think they deserve. They create their own disasters and then, when they’re unhappy, they can let themselves off the hook and say, “I’m not the kind of person who deserves to be happy?” Voila! Every dumb mistake is now distanced from them, it’s just fate.

But that’s how women were. The harder you pushed them aside, the more they wanted you. It was one of the things he liked about fighting: for all the innumerable variables, there was a simplicity to it that the rest of life didn’t have. The referee announced me and the opponent, the door closed, and both of us knew the score. One winner, one loser…simple.

This thing with Alyssa was predictable, yes, but still—it didn’t feel quite as simple as some of the other women I had known. Or maybe it was simple but not simplistic.

I was playing with fire and I knew it. But hot is fun. Mason’s girl was off limits...for someone with limits. My dear old coach was going to fuss his old head off, but I would also be able to remind him, ever so sweetly, that he was the one who suggested I settle down with a nice girl.

If it’s not obvious, I don’t like to be told what to do or not to do. The kind of person who thinks they can tell me what to do is the kind of person you would find shouting at an incoming tidal wave, then being confused later when they were washing seaweed out of their hair.

A nice girl. Please. Something else that didn’t interest me much. It’s not like I hadn’t tried. All through high school, before I learned how to fight, to cow other men into submission, the nice girls ignored me. Sorry, nope. Then I turned myself into a machine and the girls became women, and those women flocked to me. No, I had been done with nice for some time. Nice was for betas, and non-fighters, and guys who thought that complimenting a woman’s profile picture on social media was the way into her pants. White knights and little lords who made great friends to talk to when you needed to confide in someone about a real man you wanted.

Women wanted a savage.

Which is why this savage got such a kick out of taking out my phone and texting her the mournful message I had been composing in my head.

“Really really sorry, again. Let’s get together and do a real interview so you can finish your assignment.” I pushed send and started counting in my head. It only took five seconds before the little gray bubble indicating that she was texting me back appeared under my message. “Sure! And you totally don’t need to apologize anymore, I know what it’s like to be in a mood!” We set up a time and date and I was feeling pretty damned pleased with myself.