Oh, god.
The thought of me ruining, not only my own career, but Remy’s as well, positively shatters me.
My stomach is so unsettled I feel like I’m going to toss out my intestines. I want Nora to be safe, but I desperately need Rem back in the hotel, where I’m sure I could try to appease him with sex. If he wants to break me into submission, then by god I’ll let the man believe anything he wants, just to get him calm and easy again. I’m not afraid of him. I won’t be. He’s still my Remy, only in a bad f**king mood.
But at five a.m. he’s still not back. I’m checking the internet like crazy and have the local news playing on TV, fearing the worst. I hear a door and raise my head, my heart pulsing in my throat when I see Riley. Instantly I jump from the couch to my feet. “Remy? Where is he? What did he do?”
Riley won’t look at my face, just walks directly into the master bedroom and searches the closet. “He’s at the ER.”
An awful tension stretches from one end of my spine to the other, and suddenly I feel whipped in the tail and charge determinedly after him. “What did he do? Let me go get my things. I need to see him.”
Riley grabs his toothbrush, his razor, and tosses everything into a small leather bag. “It’s better if you wait here. It’s just some stitches.” He then gets his boxing shoes and outfit for the match. “They’re not disqualified. Neither one of them are telling. The fight goes on tonight, or shall we say? Continues. Tonight.”
The acids in my stomach start to bubble uncomfortably. I really lack the testosterone for all this. It used to be sexy in movies when a guy fights for a girl but this is my guy, fighting because of me, and I feel about as awful as possible and more than a little desperate to go and nurture and protect him.
“What ER is he in?” Following him through the bedroom, I snatch up a pair of jeans and slide them under Remy’s black t-shirt—the one I sometimes sleep with.
Pivoting on his heel when he reaches the door, he stays me back with both hands. “Please don’t, for the love of god, show up, B. Neither Pete nor I want him to see you. Please, Brooke. Just listen to me.”
“But how is he…” I blink at him, my eyes blurring as my voice breaks. “Just tell me how he is.”
“He’s pissed off. They sedated him at the hospital. Honestly, I don’t know how we can expect him to fight tonight. But at least he’s angry.”
I scowl at the slamming door and am left staring after him. I feel angry too, but I also feel eaten inside. The urge to see him is acute, but I don’t know if I would help or hinder him, I just don’t know anything about this. Using his laptop, I Google bipolarism and come into tons of articles describing a manic episode as the person being in either an extremely happy or an extremely irritable mood; who also engages in an excess of pleasurable activities, sex, gambling, alcohol and sometimes experiences hallucinations; feeling rested after zero or no sleep, acting recklessly or violent; and such episode is often followed by a depressive episode when the person can barely get out of bed. I’m sure Remy is manic right now, and I’d already seen he was speedy all these nights of hard sex. I remember him telling me the night he told me about being bipolar how I’m going to leave if it gets steep, and I’m doubly resolved not to be a chicken shit and stick it out with him.
But I wonder how he’s coping right now, after he tussled with that damned reptile man.
God, please, please, don’t let me ruin his fight tonight.
That’s all I think of as I grab my sneakers, my knee brace, and head into the hotel gym, grab a treadmill and pound it for two hours. I focus on planning what to do when I see him. I want to say I’m sorry that I felt it necessary not to tell him about me visiting my sister, but I had to talk to her and didn’t want to worry him. I want to kiss him and forget all this ever went down, but unfortunately, the morning goes by, and I don’t see him at noon, or even at one, or at two, or at three.
I don’t see him until the fight.
And by then, I’m absolutely, positively, a mass of quaking nerves. I haven’t seen Pete in all this time either, only Coach and Riley, who both ushered me to my seat when I tried winding my way backstage to see him. “Please just let him get into the zone,” Riley says.
All I can do is nod, and I’m assaulted by a sick yearning as I take my seat and wait and wait endlessly. There’s only one fight tonight. Only Remington and Scorpion will face each other, and this one match will last for hours. It’s already felt like an eternity by the time I hear his name tear through the speakers, and my heart rises in my chest at the same time the spectators fly to their feet to cheer for him.
“And nowwww, ladies and gentlemen, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Our reigning champion, the defender, the one and only, Remington RIPTIDE Tate!”
The crowd goes wild, and I’m suddenly buoyant as my eyes see a flash of red at the beginning of the tunnel.
He comes out trotting to the ring, and the butterflies explode inside me. My eyes burn with the urge to see him up close. He hops into the ring and stretches out his arms, and Riley pulls off his red hood and sets it easily aside.
My eyes rake down his body, and a cold, hard shock holds me immobile for several long, disbelieving heartbeats. Bruises color purple all the way up his torso. There are gashes on his lips, and several stitches run across his right eyebrow.
Forcing myself to sit down, I anxiously wait for Remington’s usual turn. But he doesn’t make it. The crowd screams his name in a chant, and I notice the Underground is packed with more fans of his than Scorpion’s. But tonight Remington isn’t his cocky self, and he doesn’t turn and smile at them. He doesn’t turn and smile at me.