Ice Cold (An MMA Stepbrother Romance) (24 page)

The next few weeks went by in a blur. Kiegan’s reality TV show completely and totally took off. It was like overnight he went from being the heir to one of America’s most famous families to a celebrity in his own right. He went on Fallon, he was on The Daily Show, he was on Conan; he even appeared as a guest star in an episode of Arrow, which I was especially proud of myself for having managed to organize.

Meanwhile, my life was going better than I expected. Leanne turned out to be a lot of fun, and we quickly became friends, which was good since we had to co-ordinate with each other quite a bit. She was serious, but we were kindred spirits deep down, both loving an organized folder and preferring a trip to the aquarium rather than the pub.

I watched my bank account balance grow and grow, and every time Kiegan decided to be an asshole for no reason, or put me down in front of groups of people, I turned to my phone and opened my bank account to look at my new balance. It was all going to be worth it.

Or so I told myself. Deep down I could feel the anger growing, like a smouldering fire that hasn’t quite gone out yet, that grows a little every time a small breeze stokes it. I tried to quell the flames, but I couldn’t do it completely. I knew one day it was going to become an inferno, as much as I tried to stop it from happening.

That day came on my birthday. December 7
th
. Of course I hadn’t expected Kiegan to remember it was my birthday. I wasn’t sure if he had ever known when my birthday was. But it came, and I was no longer a teenager. I was a woman in my 20s.

I woke up in a suite in one of the ritziest hotels in Miami.
Man, I’m never going to be able to go back to that apartment,
I thought to myself as I turned off my alarm and stretched in the giant king bed.
My 20s are going to be awesome.

I got up and ordered room service, left a tip on the table, then went into the bathroom to have a shower. When I got back a streaming tray with pancakes, scrambled eggs and sourdough toast was waiting for me, along with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, and a jar of pure maple syrup.

Glancing at the clock, I knew I had a little over an hour before I had to meet Kiegan and the crew to head out to where the next episode of
Kiegan Versus the World
was being filmed. I knew this was going to be a big episode. Usually when Kiegan was filming I stayed at the hotel and organized his things, doing my job. But today, I decided I wanted to watch. This stunt sounded amazing. Kiegan and some guy who played college football were going to fly up in a helicopter over the water, with a cargo net set up under the helicopters, going from one side of the doors to the other. The goal was to cross under the helicopter via the cargo nets without falling off and falling over 100 feet into the water below.

I had to give it to Kiegan, he didn’t seem to have any fears at all. That much was true.

Taking my breakfast out onto the balcony, I soaked in the sun and the gorgeous view of the ocean. Even though it was December, it was still over sixty five degrees out, and I was definitely going to take full advantage of being warm on my birthday for once in my life.

“Happy birthday to me,” I mumbled to myself, toasting myself with my orange juice, and wondering what the year to come was going to bring. Little did I know.

* * *

Two hours later we were at the helipad. I watched as groups of people came and went in the hustle and bustle that came with filming a show. Josh was in his element, ordering people around, double checking the views from cameras, making sure that the GoPros used to film a bunch of the stunts were all in place and working. The man was a pro. Kiegan was being interviewed about the upcoming stunt, standing in front of the Bell helicopter with a grin on his face and his hands on his hips, wearing only a Miami Dolphins t-shirt and a pair of American Flag board shorts. Despite the gorgeous sunny day, floodlights and reflectors were still pointed in his direction.

The college football player, Antoine King, was about fifteen feet away, also being interviewed. I had to admit, if I were a betting person, I would probably put my money on Antoine. His dark, muscular arms had to be at least twice the size of Kiegan’s, and it wasn’t like Kiegan was small. The football player was at least 6 foot 6, and built like a tank. Surely he had the strength to get across a cargo net hanging over water. Surely. Suddenly, Josh clapped his hands and yelled out that it was time for takeoff, and if I thought things were chaotic before, it was nothing compared to now.

I tried to stand out of  everyone’s way as they began filming Antoine and Kiegan getting into their separate helicopters, the pilots coming in from the building a few feet away, the helicopters’s rotors beginning to spin, and finally the takeoff.

Two more helicopters took off behind the ones carrying Kiegan and Antoine, each filled with an extra camera crew that would be filming the whole thing.

I had expected the helicopters to just fly a few hundred feet from the docking station and do the stunt there, but they quickly flew off far away from the coastline, hundreds of feet out into the open ocean.

So that I could still see what was going on, I made my way to a cluster of computers set up on a table, which showed a live stream of all the different cameras set up to film the stunt.

The show’s host was about to start the countdown. I looked into the screen showing Kiegan’s face. He was determined, focused. So was Antoine. A second later both men were on the edge of the helicopter. I never would have guessed that I could have been that nervous about this stunt. After all, it was possible that things could go horribly wrong. I knew there were a couple of boats with scuba divers ready to go get either one of the men if they got into trouble if they fell in the water, but at the same time, it seemed so unlikely. Kiegan especially had this fire about him, he seemed invincible. Still, as I watched him begin to climb down the cargo net, making sure to get his ankles securely wrapped in the netting before moving on with his arms, my heart began to pound in my chest.

Antoine was definitely going much faster than Kiegan. When Antoine got to the bottom portion of the net, rather than put his feet in the netting he just hung from his hands and began to swing from square to square of the cargo net, like a kid effortlessly making his way across a set of handlebars.

I watched as Antoine was almost at the end, when suddenly a gust of wind from the helicopter’s rotors blew him off balance. My breath caught as I watched the incredible athlete hanging from one arm,  dangling high above the water.

Full credit to Antoine, he didn’t panic at all. He didn’t look down. Instead, he looked up at the cargo net and made a huge effort to reach up and grab it once more with his other hand, but as he missed he lost his grip with the hand still holding him to the net and began to freefall.

“Oh my God,” I whispered to myself as I watched the screen. Antoine’s huge body plunged towards the earth, his arms and legs swinging around just a tiny bit.  Just before he hit the water Antoine put his arms up into the air to avoid hurting them on his landing. The splash for such a big man hitting the water at such a high speed was surprisingly small.

While one of the boats began making its way to where Antoine went in, throwing a lifesaver out to him, I re-focused on Kiegan. He was slowly, but surely, making his way across the net, and had almost made it over to the other side. Now he was slowly turning himself around, having to make a 180 degree turn so he could go from feet first to head first to get back into the other side of the chopper.

I watched with bated breath as Kiegan seemed to take ten minutes to move those final three feet, before finally grabbing something inside the helicopter and pulling himself back inside.

One of the cameras grabbed a closeup of his face as he lay down on the floor of the helicopter, a sheen of sweat over his face, obviously completely exhausted.

Five minutes later both men were back on solid ground, Antoine brought over on the boat, Kiegan by the helicopter which he had successfully crossed, winning the stunt.

Both men embraced when they saw each other, Antoine said something to Kiegan, who patted him on the shoulder in that way men do.

When Kiegan saw me, he flashed me a grin.

“Impressed?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I guess so. I gotta say, I didn’t think you were going to win that one.”

“Neither did I, little sis, neither did I.”

I grabbed a coke from one of the coolers full of drinks and went back to the outskirts of all the happenings. It was crazy just how many people were needed to shoot one episode of a reality TV show. I found a giant box to sit on and sipped my drink while I watched the crazy happening around me.

Suddenly, I felt someone near me.

I looked over to see Antoine King holding a beer.

“Hey, mind if I join you?” he asked. I scootched over to make enough room for the monstrous man to sit down next to me.

“Not at all. You deserve that,” I told him, nodding to his beer.

“Thanks,” Antoine laughed. “I think so too. That was hands down the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“If it makes you feel any better, if it wasn’t for that gust of wind you would have romped it in. Kiegan had no chance, you were so much faster than him.”

“Yeah. Oh well, finishing is half the battle.”

“Did it hurt when you landed in the water?”

“Definitely. I’m going to be sore for a few days.”

I shook my head. “I could never do that. I mean, even if I had the physical strength to even try, I could never dare do something that could result in me falling over a hundred feet into the water.”

“It’s all about training your mind. You can’t let fear control you. Kiegan says you’re his new personal assistant.”

“Yeah. Tina.”

“Antoine. It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too. So why did you decide to go on the show?”

“I figured there’d be a good chance a bunch of pro scouts would be watching. Even if it’s just a couple, if I made a good impression for one or two of them, well that’s enough, isn’t it?”

“It’s risky though, isn’t it? I mean, you fell down, so wouldn’t that hurt your chances?”

Antoine shrugged. “Probably. But maybe not.  After all, I looked pretty damn good up until that point. A lot of pro scouts are watching my games anyway, this is just to try and get in front of a couple eyeballs that might have passed me up until now. If they see how well I was doing until I fell, maybe they’ll have a look at some of my games.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “That sounds like a good plan.”

“Hey, what do you say we get out of here and find somewhere a bit more… quiet… to continue our chat?” Antoine asked. I froze. I hadn’t worried about guys in ages, I hadn’t been on a date since God-knows-when. And while Antoine was nice, I didn’t want to go on one tonight. Even if it was my twentieth birthday.

“Sorry, you seem really nice, I’m just purposely single right now,” I told him with a small smile. I felt bad. I wasn’t used to turning guys down. I mean sure, the odd one or two would flirt with me when I worked at the grocery store back in Seattle, and I’d even had a one night stand with one of them, but I didn’t feel right about it now.

It’s not because you’re attracted to your brother. It’s not
, I repeated to myself, over and over. But I knew it was a lie. A part of me was holding out, hoping that Kiegan would notice me
that
way. Even though I knew it was impossible.  Even though I knew Victoria’s Secret models were more his type than I was.

“Oh. Ok,  sorry for the misunderstanding,” Antoine told me. “Kiegan just told me that you were super into me, and I should go and ask you out.”

The rage I’d been shoving down suddenly came bubbling over. All I could see was red as I realized that this day, on my twentieth birthday, my brother was still being a total douche.

Well guess what, asshole. I’m not a teenager anymore, and I’m not taking any more of your shit.