Page 60 of Forgotten Comeback (Parisi Family #5)
Chapter
Fifty-Nine
Gavin
A few weeks later…
“Need my good luck kiss.” I tap my lips.
“We’ve got time.” Taylor falls to her knees in my dressing room, looking up at me. “Let me kiss that favorite body part of yours.” Her sultry voice burns through my ears and goes straight to my poor dick.
“That favorite body part of yours, and nice try.” I pull her up by her shoulders, planting a quick kiss on her pouty lips.
Despite Taylor’s work in therapy, she’s still not ready to hear that I love her.
So until I can tell her, I’m not going to fuck her.
Thought it would be an incentive to get my girl comfortable with hearing it; all it’s done is give me the world’s worst case of blue balls.
Tonight is my do-or-die bout; I win, I make it to the championship. The good news is I’ve got so much pent-up sexual frustration, it’s about to be expended on my opponent’s face.
“Why are you punishing me?” Taylor demands.
“Punishing you?” I laugh at the absurdity, giving her ass a swat before I saunter out.
Taylor
“Told you last week, this getup is covering too much skin.” Steve eyes my long-sleeved bikini top. My wound still looks pretty gnarly, and I don’t want to field questions/hear shit from the peanut gallery.
“Don’t start with me, Steve,” I warn him.
“You’ve been an even bigger pain in the ass than usual.” He eyes me curiously. “What’s your problem?”
My problem? Let’s see, I got shot, and then my boyfriend decided to go celibate. Gavin thinks he’s clever, but I know what he’s doing. “Do you believe in curses?” I ask Steve.
“Yes.” He waves his fingers in a spooky motion, making an Oooh sound. “Because I have the curse of the ring girl who, instead of doing what she’s told—”
“Thinks for herself?” I gasp. “The horror.”
He tries to hide it, but I catch that smile.
“I’m serious,” I tell him. “Do you?”
Steve considers for real. “No.”
“Why?” I wonder.
He lifts a shoulder. “Some people are born with shittier circumstances than others, but if you’re blaming it on a curse, then you’re giving away your power.
Difference between a loser’s and a winner’s mentality.
A loser always has an excuse. A winner doesn’t need an excuse, because they’re willing to put in the work to rise above the bullshit. ”
Never one to sugarcoat, his blunt words settle into my psyche. “That might be the most profound thing I’ve ever heard.”
Steve harrumphs. “Ripped it in a fortune cookie. Let’s go,” he says, and I grab my signs and follow him down the hallway, where two burly men are waiting for us.
“This is your new security team. They will accompany you to and from the ropes, and be stationed around your seat so spectators can’t interact with you during action. ”
“By spectators interacting with me, you mean Mike shoving his tongue down my throat? He should be banned from the arena when he isn’t on the fight card,” I argue.
“Look, I don’t make the rules—”
“You’re the fight promoter; we both know you do,” I call him on his bullshit.
“Taylor, we have one fight left in the season, and then the championship. Can we please hold it together?”
“The next tongue that gets shoved in my mouth uninvited will be bit off and spit in the ring,” I promise him. Would’ve bitten Mike’s off, but I was so shocked by him kissing me, and then by Gavin’s knockout, that I missed the opportunity.
“Ring girl! Take off your shirt,” a spectator calls from the second row.
“Take off yours,” I counter. “You want to compare cup size?”
“Cunt!” the man hurls at me.
“You’re supposed to play the role of fantasy girl,” Steve chastises.
I shrug. “Not my fault that man’s fantasy is humiliation.”
The evening proceeds with the usual barrage of insults and/or pickup lines. “Hey, ring girl, what that tongue do?”
“Verbally lash you; spit on you. That sort of thing.” I smile and wave.
Gavin wins his bout in the second round by KO, and that cements it. My man has a winner’s mentality, and it’s time I do too.