TKO (A Bad Boy MMA Romance) (16 page)

              “I need to go talk to her,” I said, starting to get up, but I felt Trina’s hand tugging me to sit back down.

              “Hang on, cowboy,” she said firmly, and I considered pulling past her, but since this was a confidante of Gemma’s, I looked back to her questioningly. “I’m going to tell you as someone close to Gemma… storming in there and trying to ‘sort this out’ your way is the worst possible thing to do right now. She’s going to need a little time, and the best thing you can do is give her that.

              I considered her words for a moment, still on the verge of ignoring them and bursting back into the room, but finally, I cursed, looking up at the ceiling.

              “Fuck, you’re right.” There was a long pause between the two of us. “Alright,” I said, breaking the silence, “alright, I’ll...let her think things through. But if Selena comes back-”

              “Let me worry about that,” Trina said with a smile, and I finally returned it.

              “Fine.” I looked towards the hallway where Gemma’s room was, but then shook my head. “Thanks, Trina. Gemma’s got a good friend in you.”

              “I know,” she said with a laugh. “Now stay dry, alright?”

              I grunted, heading towards the doors and out into the rain. On the contrary, a shower sounded like the best thing in the world at that moment.

“How do you know it’s gonna look like crap if you haven’t even tried it on?” whined Alice, all but dragging me to the back of the shop toward the dressing rooms. It was the weekend after my last physio appointment with Marc, and I’d been in a really obvious slump ever since. Behind my back, Alice had been texting back and forth with Trina about it, about how much of a deflated balloon I’d been lately. The two of them had schemed together to hold me captive for a girl’s night in the hopes of lifting my spirits and distracting me from the Marc situation.

So here I was, stuck in a shopping mall with Alice and Trina, being carted around from shop to shop as they forced me to try on cute clothes. I felt like I was in a chick flick montage or something, like Cyndi Lauper should be playing in the background of my life. It wasn’t at all like me to wallow, and I really, truly appreciated my sister and my best friend for trying to cheer me up, but I just couldn’t seem to shake off the raincloud hovering over my head.

“Everything is gonna look like crap today,” I groaned. “Because
I
look like crap today.”

“No, you just feel icky because you’re stressed out about stuff,” Alice argued, “but you look fine and this dress is super cute. Just try it on, okay? For me?”

Trina appeared around the corner carrying a stack of more clothes. I sighed. They were determined to treat me like a mannequin today, it seemed. As if a pile of cute dresses and tops would really be enough to keep Marc off my mind. I was worlds away, trapped in a never-ending labyrinth of terrible outcomes and regretful wrong turns. I couldn’t believe that I’d allowed myself to fall so far, so fast. And the fact that both my little sister and my best friend and mentor knew all about it was almost worse.

I mean, it was kind of nice to have someone to talk to about all this. But I still felt like a huge failure, like I was letting them down. I didn’t like letting people see my weak spots, and it turned out that Marc Montoya was a massive, gaping weak spot of mine.

“Fine. But you guys can’t just lie and tell me it looks good because you want me to feel better, alright? Just be honest. I may be a little depressed, but I’m not a fragile little bird or anything,” I grumbled. They both nodded enthusiastically.

“You gotta promise to give this a shot, Gemma,” Trina said, walking over to put a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. “I know you’re hurting, but try not to think about him.”

“At least for now,” Alice added.

I nodded and retreated into a dressing room to strip out of my clothes and stare blankly at my nearly-naked body in the full-length mirror. I realized then that I was wearing the same bra I wore the day Marc and I… slipped up. I gulped and tried to tear my eyes away, but I couldn’t. All I could see were the places on my body that he’d touched, the stretches of skin that he’d groped, caressed, kissed. I couldn’t stop myself from reliving it, even just for a fleeting moment.

God, what had I done?

“Hurry up in there! I wanna see the dress!” Alice exclaimed. Startled from my reverie, I quickly squeezed into the tight little white eyelet dress with a sweetheart neckline that they’d selected for me. I had to admit that it did suit me pretty well. The fresh white cotton against my pale, lightly freckled skin and rosy cheeks made me look like a windswept angel of sorts. And the neckline showed off my cleavage in a pleasant way. I was by no means overly busty, with my small frame evenly proportioned, and I normally wore clothes that reflected my athleticism rather than my sex appeal. I wanted to be lean and strong, not soft and feminine.

But this dress certainly highlighted the best of all those traits.

I stepped out of the dressing room to see Alice and Trina both gasp in delight. Trina clapped her hands and cooed, “Girl, you look fine. That dress is workin’
hard
for you.”

“It’s perfect!” Alice exclaimed, beaming.

I blushed, looking down at the billowy skirt which fell to just above my knees. It did feel pretty good to try on something that boosted my self-esteem a little bit. Especially since my encounter with Selena had really landed a massive blow to my confidence. I winced inwardly, recalling the way she belittled me, calling me low-class. I would never be able to compete with her—not in her world. I was not a flashy model with endorsement deals, and I didn’t have a team of professional stylists to dress me in the latest fashions.

But I did have two best friends who went out of their way to brighten my mood. And that, I presumed, was something that Selena probably did not have in her life. I was sure she had an entourage of some kind, but I couldn’t imagine her ever deigning to share the spotlight with anyone else, and especially not another woman.

She’d made
that
totally clear.

“Yeah, yeah, but what’s the price?” I asked, turning around and searching for the price tag hanging off the back of the dress.

“Here, let me check,” Trina said, stepping forward to scrutinize the label.

“Okay, no matter the cost, you have to buy this dress,” Alice insisted.

“Alright, remember who pays for your food and shelter,” I quipped playfully. Alice was never the type to worry much about trivial things like money or success. She just wanted to be happy. That wasn’t to say that she was frivolous, just that she was less concerned with saving for a rainy day and more into the idea of making
every
day fun and memorable.

“Well, you’re in luck, because it’s on sale!” Trina said happily.

“Yay!” Alice giggled, poking me in the ribs. “Now you have to buy it.”

“Fine, fine!” I agreed, rolling my eyes. But I couldn’t deny that I was starting to feel a little better, after all. I was stubborn and didn’t want to admit that something so silly as a pretty dress could lift my mood that much, but it certainly didn’t hurt.

After we checked out, the three of us linked arms and strolled through the mall toward the exit. “Where are you taking me now?” I asked, a little warily. The shopping was only part one of the girls’ night adventure, apparently, and I was slightly concerned as to what else my enthusiastic little cheerleaders had planned.

“Relax, we’re not taking you to a strip club or anything crazy,” Alice assured me.

I turned to her with a horrified expression. “Alice! You’re not even supposed to know places like that exist. You’re a kid.”

“Yeah,” she said sarcastically, “a kid in Las Vegas. I know what a strip club is, Gem.”

“I knew we should’ve moved into that little cabin in the middle of Montana,” I murmured, only half-joking. Sometimes I did worry that living in Vegas would be detrimental to Alice’s development as a sane, functional adult. I tried my best to keep both of us out of the neon lights and seedy underbelly of the city, but I knew it was inevitable that some of the seductive shadows would sneak through. I just hoped I could shield her against the worst of it and raise her to be strong enough to handle herself.

“If you only knew the kinds of crazy stuff I got into when I was fifteen,” Trina began, whistling one long note and shaking her head. “You would not believe it.”

“Like what?” Alice pressed, catching a whiff of a scandalous anecdote.

“Let’s just say I fell in with some sketchy characters back in the day,” Trina said cryptically. Alice leaned around me to stare at her expectantly.

“No, you can’t just leave it at that!” she protested.

They led me out of the sliding glass doors and into the parking lot toward Trina’s shiny white SUV. It was her pride and joy, a Christmas present from Dequan a couple years ago. Before acquiring it, the four of them had been squeezing into a tiny little Toyota Corolla for a long, long time. Now that the boys were growing so big, so fast, it was a godsend to have a vehicle they could all fit into comfortably.

“Where are we going?” I asked again, more pointedly this time, trying to steer the conversation away from Trina’s wild past. I knew that for a short time in her younger years she had worked as a showgirl for a couple different lineups, and that some of the headlining acts she danced for were crazy partiers. She had shared with me some crazy tales of drugs, secrets, and scandals that sounded like they came straight out of a movie. It was a side of Vegas everyone knew about, but that I had tried my very hardest to avoid—especially for Alice’s sake.

“Oh, just home. We’re going to order in from your favourite Thai place and just hang out at the house,” Trina answered me, smiling.

I instantly felt a wave of relief. Granted, I still didn’t know if we were going to my apartment or to Trina’s house out in the suburbs, but either option still sounded infinitely less stressful than a night out on the town with my little sister tagging along. I knew Trina was no fool, and she was an excellent parent, so I shouldn’t have been worried. But she also tended to think that Alice was much more mature than I did, regarding her more like a young adult than a kid. I knew that to some extent, Trina was right to treat Alice more like an equal. I definitely had a habit of still picturing my sister as a little kid—still twelve years old like she was when I first became her full-time guardian. But three intense years had passed since then, and fifteen was a huge leap from twelve.

Still, I wasn’t quite ready to let go of my sweet, innocent little Alice just yet.

As it turned out, we were heading back to Trina’s house for the night. I braced myself for the avalanche of noise and ruckus that was Trey and Jayden, but upon arriving at the house, I realized that Dequan’s truck was gone.

“Where are the boys?” I asked.

“Well, Dequan’s been wanting to take Trey and Jay over to see his parents in Reno, so when I mentioned the idea of a girls’ night this weekend, we decided it would be a good time to do it,” she explained cheerily. “The boys adore you, but I know that when you’re trying to de-stress the last thing you need is a pair of noisy little boys crawling all over you.”

“I hope they have as much fun as we’re going to have,” Alice said, determined. I wanted to laugh and hug her, she was so cute. My heart was warmed at the thought of having these two trying so hard to take care of me.

We went inside and got settled into our comfy pyjamas on the couch, Alice rifling through Netflix to find a suitable movie to watch. She settled on a silly Lifetime-esque movie with over-the-top acting. Trina ordered us a whole smorgasbord of Thai food from my favorite restaurant near this side of town, and we dug into the meal.

“So what do you think I should do?” I asked between bites of curried rice.

Alice shrugged and pointed her fork at me. “Forget about him. He’s a loser.”

“Oh honey, if only it was that simple,” Trina sighed. Turning to me, she went on. “Just remember that at least it’s over now. You won’t have to see him anymore now that your physio appointments are done. You made it through, despite everything. That’s something to be proud of, Gemma.”

“I know, but I can’t just forget about him and move on. Part of me wants to, but then again… part of me just wants to go back and try again. Start over fresh,” I explained, finally opening up for the first time.

“You know, a couple years ago when Dequan first got back from his tour in Iraq, things got kind of rough around here,” Trina began softly, her tone suddenly serious. Alice and I both set down our utensils to pay full attention to her. She didn’t talk about her problems very often, so we definitely wanted to listen up whenever she did. She continued, “He was so broken up about what he saw over there, what it did to him. Sometimes, he barely seemed like the man I fell in love with, like I was married to a stranger. But you know what? One day I broke down and told him all that I was feeling, all my insecurities and hang-ups about our relationship. We had a long, long talk about it and he finally agreed to get help. Ever since he started going to therapy, our marriage has improved exponentially. And if I had just given up then, just let him go without speaking my mind, maybe we wouldn’t be together now. And that’s a life I don’t even want to imagine anymore.”

“I’m so glad you guys worked it out. I love your family and I can’t picture it any other way,” Alice commented, reaching over to pat Trina’s hand sweetly.