Fighting Fate (Fighting #7)(81)

I groan, but comply and set down my beer. I scoop the woman up and into a cradle hold. Her arms wrap around my neck, and she presses her lips to my cheek. Shocked by her show of affection, I laugh, and Caleb snaps the photo.

“Thank you! My friends are gonna freak when they see I partied with you!”

“No problem.”

Another girl, I presume the one who’s been on my right all night, pulls out her phone. “Can I get one?”

Then another standing off to the side yells, “Me too!”

I look at Caleb as he laughs and holds out his hand to take the next phone. “Step right up, ladies. One at a time, and please respect the guy and keep your hands to yourself.” He’s cracking up laughing as each girl hands over her phone and shows off how she’s ignoring his warning.

Photos are taken with hands up my shirt, on my ass, and a couple of girls pulled my shirt up and had Caleb take a shot of them licking my abdomen. Thank goodness I’m drunk, or I’d probably get hard from all the groping. It’s not my fault. I don’t even want any of these women. It’s scientific—stimulus, response.

“My turn.” A curvy woman steps up to me with a sultry sway to her hips, her body talking dirty as she sidles up to me.

Caleb holds up her phone. “Say cheese!”

I grin, and just as the flash pops, her hand cups my dick. “Cheese!”

“Whoa!” I jump back, laughing, not because it’s funny as much as uncomfortable. “That’s enough photos for me.”

Fleur pushes through the crowd, shaking her head and grinning. “Women are worse than blokes!” Her eyes fix on Little Miss Grabby Hands. “Go on now. The poor guy needs a break.”

She winks at me then grabs her phone from a purple-faced Caleb, who’s laughing so hard no sound comes out.

“Nice to see you’re getting a kick out of my misery.” I shove him back, and if there weren’t a wall of people behind him, he would’ve fallen to his ass.

“Dude…” He sucks in a breath and wipes his eyes. “This is every man’s dream. You can’t tell me that having the entire female population worship you isn’t awesome.”

A slow smile pulls at my lips. He’s right, but it’s not the women; it’s everything. It’s the other fighters who look at me the way I look at my UFL idols, it’s the kids that stand dazed when I walk by, and it’s the way heads turn when I enter a room.

I’ve never been that guy.

I spent twenty-one years of my life a loner. Went through four years of high school never really being seen by anyone. Popularity was never a goal of mine because it seemed too far from my reach, too impossible to ever attain.

And here I am, the most popular guy around, and I wish I didn’t like it. I wish my intellectual side would shun fame and expose it for the shallow hero-worship that it is.

But nope.

If I can’t have the life I dreamed with the girl I love, this ain’t a bad second.

*





Axelle





Staring out the window of my classroom with the warm sun on my face, I wait for the fifty-minute class to end.

The weather is warming up, and as much as I’d love to go find a nice spot in the grass to study, I can’t. Mindy is in class for another hour, and Ryder’s class isn’t out for another forty-five minutes, which means I’d be alone.

Being alone in the quad is like putting a big fat target on my head.

So I have two options: go to the library or go home.

Neither is an outdoor option.

“Hey…” A voice whispers next to me.

I turn to the kid that sits at my left, Brandon or Brendan. I can’t remember.

He holds his phone up, and a photo of Killian holding his shirt up with two women crouched down licking him is plastered on his screen. “You know this guy, right?”

I move my eyes from his phone to his face. “Yes, I used to.” Although the man I knew wouldn’t be caught dead in that kind of position with two women.

“I’ve been following him on social media; the guy is a playa’,” the kid whispers.

Yeah, well, he didn’t used to be.

“Did you see his fight the other night?”

I turn back to him and huff out an annoyed breath, hoping he gets the hint. “I did.” I’d never miss one of his fights. I learned my lesson though, and as soon as it’s over, I avert my eyes until the interview. He did the same thing he did last time, crossing his heart, and all the pain of losing him came rushing back.

Luckily, this time I was at my mom’s, watching Jack, and was able to cry and feel sorry for myself with the only audience being my three-year-old brother.

“He’s unstoppable.” Brandon, or whatever, leans back in his chair and continues to scroll through photos, getting the attention of the guys around him. I catch their whispered words, like, “Damn, she’s hot,” and “Lucky guy probably got triple-teamed,” but it wasn’t until the “She’s sucking his…” that I finally had enough.

I shove my binder in my backpack and throw it over my shoulder as I step down the lecture hall steps and to the door.

That’s the great thing about college. You can just get up and leave without excuse, without having to explain that your ex-best friend has turned into a womanizing prick. I try to close the door quietly behind me to keep from disrupting the class any more than I have, which takes some effort since my muscles are tense with frustration. It isn’t until I’m out in the fresh air that I take a calming breath then stop dead in my tracks.