Luke wrapped his arm around me again and escorted us through security, who upon recognizing him, didn’t bother checking us or making us go through the metal detector.
“Do you always get this type of preferential treatment?”
He nodded. “When I bother to show up to an actual fight. I haven’t been to an NFA fight in which I wasn’t one of the headliners in years.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “You want popcorn or anything?” I shook my head. “Let’s find our seats. We’re in the front row.”
“Best tickets in the house. Nice.” I rubbed my hands together, feeling excited to get to see an actual fight up close. It’d been months since I was only a spectator. The last couple of NFA fights I’d been to were either to meet with NFA execs or as a hired contractor on behalf of ParaSquad to help ensure the safety of the fighters and the audience. I was looking forward to being able to sit and watch the fight, as well as the company I was with.
“You sure you don’t want anything?” Luke asked again once we reached our seats.
“You’re starting to act like a real date or something.”
“This is the real thing, babe.” That word again. I wonder if he recognized he was using it so much.
Not long after we settled, the lights lowered, informing us the fight was about to start. When the spotlight hit the center of the cage, the audience around us erupted into cheers and applause. They were ready to get this thing started.
“Does this get you excited? Make you wish you were in the cage yourself?” I asked, feeling the excitement from the crowd around us.
Luke shook his head. “Used to. Now, I drown it all out. They’re background noise, I can turn up or turn down depending on my mood.”
Pausing, I took a look at his profile as he stared ahead at the cage. His face was set, determined, and while I couldn’t see his eyes directly, I could feel the tension that came off of his body, as if he was imagining himself stepping inside the cage. It was as if there was a change taking hold inside of him, even without his permission.
Luke was innately a fighter. Not one simply due to his years of training and the bouts he’d won, but a fighter, born and bred. Through and through.
“Are you watching me or the fight?” he asked before slowly turning to me.
I was struck speechless for a few breaths at the intensity in his eyes. Slowly, however, my lips parted and I retorted, “I can do both.”
He dropped his eyes to my lips, biting his own lower one. He moved his hand, the one that’d been resting against the back of my chair, to my shoulder, massaging it with his fingers.
“Be careful, Syd.”
Damn.
Every thought in my brain scrambled and I couldn’t discern a wish from a plea, from a request. Luke’s eyes slowly rose to meet mine again.
“Watch the fight. What comes later will come.”
I swallowed and my stomach muscles tensed with fear. Just that quickly, I remember what I had to tell him later that night. I nodded and turned back to the cage where the two fighters were circling one another. I still felt heated from the inside out. As if someone had flicked the switch to my internal thermostat, turning it all the way up. Luke’s hand never moved from my body, his fingers continued brushing up and down my arm throughout the entirety of the fight.
I loved the sport of mixed martial arts. Loved watching athletes at the top of their game go at it and fight for dominance, but that night I couldn’t give a shit about who was inside that cage. All I could focus on was how things between us would change.
By the time the fight ended, I sighed in relief, needing to get out of the arena.
“My place or yours?” He asked, staring at me with a gleam in his eye.
“Yours.”
***
Luke’s place was closer to the arena than mine. That was the main reason I said his. The way my skin burned with the need to be touched, I didn’t know how long I could wait.
“I say something funny?” He asked, glancing over at me from the driver’s seat.
“You’re driving fast as hell.”
