The bell rang so I moved back to my corner. Coach slammed the stool down on the canvas for me to sit, and I wasn’t sure what made me look out into the crowd.
Maybe it was a feeling. Or maybe it was fate demanding I obeyed their commands.
But my eyes zoned in on a woman sitting toward the back of the room. A woman I couldn’t fully make out but knew even from this distance I knew who it was.
“What the fuck,” I spat out. Time in the corner was limited, and I knew I should have been listening to Coach’s advice, but all I could concentrate on was her.
The bell rang again, and I stood, tearing my gaze off of her. But I wasn’t in the right headspace, not now I’d seen her in the crowd.
Jay got several good punches in, and then he was climbing me like a goddamn tree and bringing me to the ground.
He locked my arm between his legs, pulling at it just enough to get me to submit. But I never would. I’d rather that he broke it than submit. Maybe he knew that and wanted to be the first person who made me tap out.
I was in the middle of the round, being held to the ground, yet my gaze couldn’t help but veer back into the crowd.
But she wasn’t there. She wasn’t where she’d—
“Come on, Nixon!” I heard her shout, and my head snapped to the left. She’d come closer. She’d come to see me fight.
The bell rang out. Jay let go immediately, and I jumped up, practically running to my corner as Coach came into the cage.
I sat on the stool, keeping my eyes fixed on hers and crooked my fingers at her.
Her eyes widened, her body snapping upright. But she did as I silently demanded. She came closer.
“See her, Coach?”
“Now isn’t the time—"
“I don’t give a fuck,” I ground out, turning to face him. “Get her and keep her at the corner with you.”
Coach huffed out a breath. “Fine.” He knew better than to argue with me in the middle of a match. “As long as you fuckin' fight and stop playing around.”
I rolled my shoulders and stood as the bell rang out. “You got it, Coach.”
And I had got it. The sooner I got out of this ring, the sooner I could find out what the hell she was thinking coming here.
Chapter Fourteen
Kloey
The cage door slammed shut behind the man who had been talking to Nixon, and as soon as he’d jumped down the steps, he made a beeline for me.
“Nix wants you to stand with us.” He tilted his head for me to come forward.
Half of me wanted to run away, to leave and act like I hadn’t come, but I knew I couldn’t. I’d come here for a reason, even if I didn’t fully understand that reason.
So I moved toward the man who was now huddled with the other men, all watching Nixon fight in the ring.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he hit the other guy, this round was different though. More brutal, as if he wanted to get out of the cage quicker and not give his opponent the false hope of winning.
He jabbed him in the face twice, backed up a step, then did some intricate kick that ended with the heel of his foot smacking against the guy’s temple.
There was a fraction of a second where his opponent just stood there. Then his eyes rolled into the back of his head. And he went down like a ton of bricks, his body slapping against the canvas.
Cheers rang out so loud I had to cover my ears from the noise. Nixon didn’t pay attention to them as he crouched at the side of the cage and spoke to one of the men who I was standing by.
The man turned, his name, Dex, written on his T-shirt. He said something back to Nixon, his eyes on me, then moved toward me. “Come on.” He reached for my arm, but I sidestepped him. He didn’t need to touch me to get me to go somewhere.
“Go,” Nixon’s voice broke through the roars, and when I met his gaze, I knew I would do anything he said.
I waited in the small room for what felt like a lifetime. The roars of the crowd had turned into silence, the people walking up and down the hallway became fewer.
Ten minutes went by, then twenty, and as I got to the hour mark, I debated just leaving. But the hope of seeing him again and finding out what the hell was happening between us was too much, so I stayed.
I stayed until two hours had ticked by. I paced the small room which held several lockers and one bench. It was clear they’d been put here especially for the match, but no one was using them, not right now anyway.
I sat on the bench and huffed out a breath right at the same second the door swung open. I didn’t need to look up to know that it was Nixon, but I did anyway.
His stare didn’t meet mine as he stepped inside and locked the door behind him, trapping us in the small space. Not that I minded anyway.
I knew I was safe with him. I didn’t know how, but I just knew.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his tone carefully neutral.
“I…” I bit down on my bottom lip and stood, not wanting to be so much lower than him. He was already at least a foot taller than me when I was standing. “You didn’t follow me…”
My heart hammered in my chest, my fear of what he would say thrumming through me. Had he got tired of me now that he knew that I knew who he was? Was it a game he liked to play? Was it—
“I have.” His eyes met mine, a
