Dirty Brawler: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (with bonus novel!)
Read Dirty Brawler: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (with bonus novel!) Online
Authors: Teagan Kade,August Dimuro
A
Bad Boy Sports Romance
Teagan Kade
August Dimuro
* * * * *
Published by Teagan Kade
Edited by Sennah Tate
Copyright © 2016 by Teagan Kade & August Dimuro
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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DEDICATION
To Dane. Keep the hits coming, big fella.
Shaun
All I wanted was to relax. It had been a long week, and my coach, Hammer, pushed me hard. Of course, there was a reason his nickname was Hammer. He knew how to get under my skin and bully me into getting what he wanted out in the ring. He’d tell me I’d gone soft. Too much booze and not enough sleep due to my ‘extracurricular’ activities.
But seriously, what else was a pro athlete supposed to do in his down time? I sure as fuck wasn’t going to take up knitting.
Meeting up with Jake and a couple of my other buddies sounded like a fair enough compromise. Like a dutiful son, I promised Hammer I wouldn’t stay out too late. There was an upcoming fight that would likely get a lot of press, and I wanted to be in top form. It would be my first big fight since Rio, and the pressure was on.
As I entered the bar, I spotted Jake at the long bench taking up the back half of the room talking to a pretty redhead. I wasn’t interested in female company tonight, but that wouldn’t stop any number of women from trying to get my attention. I felt the stares even as I made my way over to my friend. It’s been like that ever since the Olympics. I’d gotten used to it and wasn’t surprised when I saw several cell phones turned toward me.
The stares I could handle, but the constant recording and dissemination of every other aspect of my life was something I didn’t think I would ever get used to. Or be okay with.
I knew that by the time I got to Jake my picture would be splashed across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook feeds worldwide. Nigel told me I should be happy somebody still gave a shit who I was at all. It was a classic case of ‘what have you done for me lately,’ and he never missed an opportunity to tell me my sponsors were getting restless. Almost a year since I took home the gold, and I was acutely aware my star didn’t shine quite as brightly anymore.
It was too bad all the press I seemed to get these days had nothing to do with how good I was with my hands in the ring. Not at all. The paparazzi seemed far more interested in the bar brawls and the string of hook-ups with nameless, faceless women—another reason I usually kept a low profile these days.
“Shaun!” Jake caught sight of me. He slapped me on the shoulder, but his eyes never left the redhead’s ample chest.
“See? I told you I knew him,” he told her. “Shaun Nichols. Olympic gold medalist and
my
high-school buddy. God, we used to get up to some shit when we were kids. Once I was grounded for a whole month because I took the blame for one of Shaun’s infamous pranks.”
I wanted to roll my eyes. The pranks we played were never my idea. That said, I
had
gotten in my fair share of trouble back then. My parents were delighted when I started to spend more time at the gym than running around with the boys. It was more than annoying how some of my friends like Jake used our friendship to get into women’s pants. The sad thing was, it worked.
“I’m Sheryl,” the redhead said, extending her hand to me even as she pushed her chest upward in my direction. I had zero interest in Sheryl, but I
was
a red-blooded man. She had a nice rack, but given the plunging neckline of her dress, it was a definite possibility her tits might fall out before the evening was over. No doubt Jake would be more than happy to catch them.
“Nice to meet you, Sheryl,” I said, shaking her hand and averting my eyes from her cleavage. I turned to Jake. “I called ahead and got us one of the VIP tables. The rest of the guys must be running late.”
“That’s my superstar,” Jake said, nodding his head, turning his attention back to the fire crotch. “You wanna go VIP, sweetheart?”
“Sure,” she said, a coy tone even as she took a sip off her cocktail. The way she used her tongue to play with the straw as she batted her eyelashes in my direction told me that Sheryl had already lost interest in Jake. She had a new target.
Poor fucker.
But I had no interest in Sheryl.
“Boys only, tonight,” I said to her. “Maybe next time.”
Sheryl’s cherry red lips curled in a pout, but Jake caught my warning glance and shrugged. “My mistake, baby. Boys night, sorry.”
I started to lead the way toward the other side of the bar. Before the Olympics, I was a regular and I knew the owners. When I did decide to pull my head out of the sand, I liked being in familiar places because I felt it was easier to control a situation if it went south. The normality was welcome, too. But it was Friday night. The place was packed. The push of bodies all around immediately put me on guard. I was a boxer. I didn’t like anyone being up in my personal space unless I said so.
When the first flash of light went off in front of me, I felt my stomach twist. “Fuck,” I grumbled. People weren’t even subtle anymore.
“Comes with the territory, my friend,” Jake said, slapping me on the shoulder.
I put my hand up as another flash went off. Now we were starting to attract attention. The low rumble of the crowd started to grow and my fists clenched on instinct.
It’s that boxer! What’s his name again?
Shaun! It’s Shaun Nichols!
OMG. He’s so hot. I’d totally fuck him.
The brief bits of conversation I picked up from the crowd around me made me want to turn around and run right out the fucking door. There was too much press with my name attached to it lately, and none of it was good. I had been hoping for a quiet night, just a few beers out with my boys.
“Man, it’s insane how these women will drop their panties in two seconds flat if you just say the magic word,” Jake said in a sarcastic tone at my shoulder. “They act like you’re God’s gift or something.”
“Far from it,” I replied, eager to get to the table. A petite woman in sky-high heels stepped directly into my path. I could tell by the expectant look on her face my forward trajectory was about to be interrupted.
“Mr. Nichols. Can I have your autograph?” she purred.
“Sure,” I said, even though the last thing I wanted to do was get stuck signing a bunch of autographs. But Nigel said if I wanted people to love me, I had to act “somewhat loveable some of the time.” Especially given people had been acting more afraid of me than anything else lately. You’d have thought I was Frankenstein’s fucking monster, and all because of a couple of viral news stories.
She pulled a felt tipped pen from her purse and handed it to me. Her hands were otherwise empty. I raised an eyebrow at her, and she pushed her long hair aside revealing far more of her ample cleavage than was probably appropriate. She moved in closer to me and brushed her hand across the vee at the top of her cleavage. “Right here is just fine.”
It was hard to believe, but I had been asked to sign far more intimate places. “Name?”
“Coty. C-O-T-Y,” she spelled, adding a wink I figured was meant to be sexy but really made it look like she had something caught in her eye.
I swirled a practically illegible scrawl across her breastbone, signed my signature swirl of an ‘S’ and handed the pen back to her. “Have a nice evening, Coty.”
I moved past the woman not bothering to notice if she was put out or not at my abrupt dismissal. I laughed mirthlessly at how jaded I’d become. My friends gave me endless shit about my lack of interest in the fairer sex these days, but after the incident in Tulsa, it was better to keep a safe distance. Random hook-ups were better left in the past.
As I expected, Coty’s request sparked a swarm of autograph-hungry patrons. Over the next fifteen minutes I barely made it three feet toward our reserved VIP table. Jake disappeared, and when I looked over the sea of heads surrounding me to find him, I saw he was back at the bar talking to fucking Sheryl again. She cut a look in my direction several times. All I could do was shake my head and keep signing.
“Okay, everybody, I need a drink. Maybe I’ll sign some more later,” I said, the line in front of me not about to get any shorter.
“Aw,” came a collective groan of disappointment.
“C’mon, pal, just a few more,” the guy in front of me said. “My dad thinks you’re the best boxer since Ali.”
“That’s great, but I’m pretty tired, buddy,” I said. I started to push around him, but the man placed his hand on my shoulder. Big mistake.
“Look,” he continued, “I don’t mean to be an ass, but it’s just one more. It would mean a lot to my dad.”
I felt the first twinges of anger start to rise in my chest. Everywhere I went, it was the fucking same. Just one more. Just one more. Everybody acted like they deserved a piece of me, like they thought they owned me or something just because I won a medal for the U.S. What twisted fucking logic was that?
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m here with friends, and I’m going to have a drink. Maybe later,” I said, attempting to move past him again.
The man blocked my path and gave me a small shove. “You know what? You’re an asshole, man. That’s what I’m going to tell my dad. Shaun Nichols is nothing but a fucking asshole with a big head. You should have been disqualified before that last fight. Everyone knows it.”
Now I was officially pissed off. I took a deep breath because all I wanted to do was deliver a swift sock to the guy’s rib cage and enjoy the look of pure surprise when he doubled over. My fists clenched further, and that was when I saw the pop of flash directly in front of me. My eyes focused on the face behind the camera lens. The guy gave me a goofy smile with a thumbs-up sign. He wasn’t using a phone. He had a DSLR.
Fuck.
He wasn’t some random guy at the bar. He was paparazzi.
I’d done it again. I’d let my temper get the best of me, and unless I kicked it into reverse quickly, I could just imagine the news headlines tomorrow—another supposed bar brawl they’d say
I
started. This jackass with his big mouth and cabbage patch hair simply wasn’t worth it.
“You’re a fucking loser,” the guy said. He took a step in my direction, but I pushed backward. It took everything I had to turn on my heel and march back toward the entrance of the bar. I didn’t want to let a loudmouthed prick like that get the last word in, but this wasn’t the ring. It was bar on a Friday night. I’d had more than enough experience with things escalating out of control recently.
I jostled through the crowd and heard several exclamations of displeasure, but I brushed them off with a murmured apology. I had to get out of the bar. I made it out onto the sidewalk and headed toward my apartment.
I’d walk. God only knew how bad I needed to blow off some steam. When I arrived home an hour later, all of the bottled-up emotions inside me had dwindled to nearly nothing. I patted myself on the back for being the bigger man and keeping a lid on my emotions. It was fucking close, but I’d taken the high road. Maybe I was growing up or some shit like that.
After hitting the shower, I turned on Netflix and crawled into my supersized bed—one of the first things I’d blown my cash on after the Games. It could easily hold three or more people. I’d filled it with more than one set of twins in my day. I shook my head ruefully at that memory. It wouldn’t have taken more than a drink and an invitation to get Sheryl on her back, thighs spread wide for me in bed, but that whole scene had gotten old even before Tulsa. Now that everyone wanted a piece of me, I just wanted to be left alone.
I closed my eyes and focused on remembering everything Hammer told me about the upcoming fight.
That
was the priority.
I drifted off to sleep thinking of jabs and punches and moving my feet, the ‘dance’ of the sport that consumed my life and soul.
An insistent buzz from my phone woke me up the following morning. I stretched and pulled it off my nightstand. A text from Jake. I never even bothered trying to connect with him or the rest of the crew after I left the bar. His interest had obviously been elsewhere, and I wasn’t in the mood to try to party anywhere else.
Expecting a cryptic message about how he’d gotten lucky the night before, I was surprised to see the message was nothing more than a hyperlink to a website. Just like that, a pounding began behind my eyes and I clicked the link. A browser window opened the story.
“Another Night, Another Bar Fight—Boxer Shaun Nichols On The Ropes!” the headline screamed. My mouth twisted up in a snarl as I read the short article just beneath a picture of me from the night before. I looked angry, my clenched fists up by my sides ready to brawl. From this angle, it looked like the guy I’d had a run-in with was about to get clocked. Maybe I should have rearranged his face a bit and teach him a lesson in civility.
The article had quotes from several people who had supposedly been at the bar. They all said the same thing. A guy had asked for my autograph and I had gone off on him about leaving me alone. That was right before I hit him. There was even a goddamn picture of the guy with a bandage on the side of his face.
“Give me a fucking break!” I shouted out to my empty apartment. I promised my sponsors to keep my nose clean after the recent string of salacious articles, especially after Tulsa.
Every last story was exaggerated, and they’d all appeared in the press months ago. Last night was the first time I had ventured out in weeks.
It had seemed like things finally settled down. Clearly, I miscalculated. The paparazzi must have staked out my apartment and followed me to the bar.
Fucking animals.