“Looks like you’re gonna be up late then,” I murmur absently, fishing my phone out of my pocket to check my messages.
“No, tell him I’m not doing it.”
I sigh as I thumb through my texts. “No can do, doll.”
“Fine, then I’ll tell him myself,” Ava huffs out, knocking her shoulder into mine as she moves past me to ascend the stairs to the fifth floor.
Before she can even reach the first step, I grab her by the elbow, yanking her back harshly. “You don’t want to do that, Ava baby,” I drawl. “Raf’s not to be disturbed before his big night.”
She scrunches up her nose in confusion. “What?”
I heave another sigh, closing out of my messaging app and pulling up the video on my phone that I’ve watchedwaytoo many times at this point. “You’re not gonna make me hit send on this, are you?” I ask, turning the screen toward her and waving it in front of her face tauntingly.
She pales, snapping her mouth closed.
My lips spread into a lazy grin. “Glad we understand one another.”
I see a full range of emotions play out on her face– shame, offense, anger, and resignation.
“Ugh, whatever!” she finally groans, pushing past me to enter the hall for the fourth floor.
I grab her elbow again to stop her, tugging her in close and lowering my face until it’s right in front of hers. “Just write the paper, Ava. You don’t want to know what’ll happen if you piss off Raf.”
She hits me with a death glare as she wrestles her arm free of my grip, then stomps away down the hall toward her dorm room.
I watch after her for a moment, amused by the little tantrum she’s throwing, then turn to climb the final flight of stairs up to the apartment I share with my friends.
“Bout time,” Raf growls as soon as I walk through the door. He’s hovering in the entranceway like he’s been waiting for me, posture rigid and muscles coiled tightly.
Wes pops up behind him, looking to me pleadingly. “Are you ready to go?”
The poor guy looks like he’s been through the ringer. I can’t imagine Raf has been fun to be around for the last hour– I mean, he’s always an irritable bastard, but he’s ten times worse right before a fight.
“Yeah, yeah, just gimme a few minutes to change,” I mutter, carding my fingers through my hair as I move past them to head to my room.
They each mumble a few choice expletives as I start down the hall, taking my sweet ass time just to fuck with them a little. I push open the door to my room, kicking some laundry out of the way to clear a path to my desk and tossing my backpack down. Then I head over to my dresser, picking through the laundry basket sitting on top for something to wear.
I find a black t-shirt and jeans, giving each the sniff test before changing into them. I honestly can’t remember if the clothes in this basket are clean or not, but I guess it doesn’t matter much considering where we’re headed. The warehouse in Dyersville that hosts the underground bare-knuckle boxing matches is a shithole– the kind of place where you feel like you need a shower the moment you step inside.
I grab a couple stacks of cash out of my dresser and my leather jacket off my desk chair, slinging it over my shoulder as I exit my room and call down the hall to the guys. “Alright, you assholes finally ready to roll or what?”
Raf and Wes point twin glares in my direction as I approach them.
“What?” I ask, feigning innocence as I slide my gaze between my friends.
“Let’s go,” Raf snaps, shifting his gym bag higher up on his shoulder and yanking the door open, sending it careening into the wall with a loud bang.
I step up beside Wes, nodding toward Raf’s retreating form. “It’s a good thing we booked this for him, the man obviously needs to blow off some steam.”
“The whole Ava thing is really fucking with his head,” Wes replies with a wince. “I don’t think he’s having nearly as much fun with it as we are.”
I clap a hand down on his shoulder. “Guess we’ll have to change that then, huh?”
“Come on!” Raf roars, the low timbre of his voice echoing up the stairwell.
I bark a laugh, leaving Wes behind to lock up as I bound down the stairs to catch up to the snarling asshole.
The three of us exit Sutton Hall and head to the student parking lot, piling in Raf’s black-on-black Cadillac Escalade. Wes takes the drivers’ seat, as usual, while Raf claims shotgunand I sprawl across the back, pulling out a bottle of whiskey from my stash under the seat. I always like to have a solid buzz going before we roll into one of these things. It makes me more tolerant of the riffraff that turns up to spectate. I like to fight, too, but I’ve been grounded from the ring since I put a guy in a coma a few months back.
