Fighting for Love (Second Chances #4)(45)

“I really like it,” I told her. “I need to get one made so I can wear it to his fights.”

Her eyes lit up and she fumbled with the zipper on her bag. “I have an extra one in my bag. Do you want to wear it tonight? It’ll go good on top of the blue tank you’re wearing.”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

She scoffed and started searching through her bag. “Please, I have a gazillion of them and all in different colors.” When she found what she was looking for, she grabbed it and threw it my way. “This one has blue letters on it instead of red like mine.”

“Great, thank you,” I murmured. Slipping it on over my blue tank top, I smoothed it down. “How does it look?”

“I think it looks hot,” Matt said from across the room. “Are we ready to go?”

Gabriella got to her feet and put her bag over her shoulders. “I’m ready, but I’m following you guys so that afterwards I can just drive home from there. If I don’t get the chance to see you before you fight, you better kick ass out there, okay?”

She hugged him hard and kissed him on the cheek before waving at me and walking out the front door. It was time to go.

“Are Carter and Garrett going to meet you there?” I asked.

Grabbing his bag, he followed me out the door and locked it. “Yeah, that’s what they usually do for the local fights. If we have to travel somewhere then we’re always together.”

I never realized until that moment there would come a time when he’d have to travel to different states for his fights, and he’d constantly be gone. What would happen to us? Would he want me to go with him?

Matt opened the door to his garage and walked over to a brand new, blue Ford Raptor and put his bag in the back seat before coming around to my side and opening the door for me. He used to do the same thing when we were teenagers.

“Thank you,” I said, climbing inside. “Not that many men open the car doors anymore. I’m surprised you still do it.” I paused, narrowing my eyes teasingly. “Or are you just doing it to lure me back in.”

With a sexy smirk on his face, he leaned against the door. “Angel, I don’t have to lure you back in because you’re already mine. Also, you’re the only girl I’ve ever done this for. I never cared enough with others to even bother.”

He shut the door and went around to his side to get in. Once he started the truck and we got on the road, I decided to ask, “So what exactly are we going to do when you start travelling next season? Have you thought about that?”

Since he was driving he couldn’t exactly look at me, but I could tell he didn’t have an answer by the way his brows furrowed and he bit his lip. It was something we needed to talk about if we were going to continue seeing each other.

Matt peered over at me and smiled. “You could always come with me, couldn’t you? I know you probably couldn’t go with me to all of them because of your job, but I’d like for you to.”

“Really?” I remarked skeptically. “You would actually want me tagging along? Your groupies might get a little jealous if they keep seeing the same woman around you.”

“And that’s a bad thing? I thought you would want them all to know I’m taken.”

“Oh, I do,” I said, “but the question is … do you want them to know that you’re taken?” I countered.

Reaching over, Matt grabbed my hand off my lap and brought it to his lips. Softly, he murmured, “I wouldn’t have asked you to travel with me if I didn’t want that, angel … except, you got it all wrong. I want you with me so that everyone will know that you’re taken, that you belong to me.”

“Always,” I whispered quietly.

Intertwining his fingers with mine, he kissed my hand and then let them rest in my lap. I leaned my head against the seat and kept my gaze on him the whole hour it took to drive to Oakland. Each day I spent with him I grew more and more in love with him. I just hope I don’t screw it up.




THE PARKING LOT WAS ALREADY packed when we got to the Oracle Arena, but Matt still had a while before his fight would take place. He pulled his truck into the lot where the fighters and their staff could park and shut off the engine.

“Do you have to have pictures taken like last time?” I asked.

We got out of the truck and he put his arm around my waist as we started for the back entrance to the arena. “No, they don’t need any tonight. I think they’re going to use the same ones they took last time.”

I gasped. “You mean the ones with me?”

Chuckling, he squeezed my ass and palmed it with his hand. “Yes, the ones with you. You were so damn sexy in them, too.”

Thank goodness there weren’t any with Kyle.

It made me wonder why Kyle didn’t show up in the first place. I bet he knew I’d be there that day with Matt and deliberately didn’t show up because it would ruin his cover. Sneaky bastard.

When we got inside, he led us to a back hallway where the guard let us pass. “How does it feel to know that so many people recognize your face?” I asked. “Was it not weird when you’d be out in public somewhere and someone would come up to you wanting your autograph?”

“Oh yeah, it was insane,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “My whole life I was a nobody, but when people started noticing me it was surreal. What’s really f*cked up is when I see people we went to high school with, you know, those who never paid me any attention, and they come up to me like we used to be best friends.”