Tied - Part One by Ellen Callahan Read Free Book Online

caught when I spotted Lockett approaching. His good luck girls flounced behind him, following and jockeying for position, but he wasn’t looking at them. His eyes were locked on me.
     
    “Hey.” A towel hung over his neck but otherwise he was still bare-chested. He had pulled on sweatpants over those tiny shorts, thank god. Even the strongest woman in the world couldn’t have kept her eyes aimed properly upward if he stood before her in those tight things.
     
    “Hey,” I said back, my throat suddenly dry.
     
    “Enjoy the fight?”
     
    “I, uh, I’m glad you won.”
     
    The girls behind him tittered. One reached out and stroked his arm. He ignored them. “I generally do.”
     
    “Oh, my God,” I laughed, hiding my smile behind my hand. “Are you always so…”
     
    “Arrogant? Megalomaniacal? Full of myself?”
     
    “Aww,” one of the girls cut in, “You aren’t arrogant.”
     
    He ignored her and waited for me to respond. “I wasn’t going to say any of those,” I said. “Confident? Maybe?”
     
    “That’s probably the most polite word.” He leaned in close. He was sweaty and he radiated heat but I didn’t mind one bit. I wouldn’t have minded if he’d wanted to get even closer. “What do you say we ditch my fan club and go get a drink?”
     
    “I don’t drink,” I said, eyes darting around at the girls behind him. They would drink with him for sure. Hell, they’d do anything he wanted, judging by the way they looked at him.
     
    But he’s not talking to them. He’s talking to me .
     
    “Uh, I’m pretty sure you drink coffee, lady. Soda. Fruit punch. Hot chocolate.”
     
    I smiled. “It’s the right season for hot chocolate.”
     
    “Deal.”
     
    He was gone as quickly as he’d appeared. Every one of those girls gave me a dirty look before turning and chasing him down, but I wasn’t worried about them. Not anymore. Not after the way he’d acted - a little rude toward them, maybe, but they were all competing for his attention anyway. If he didn’t give it to them, well, that was just a part of the game.
     
    I exchanged a look with Alexa. She gave me a weak, worried grin. “I know,” I mouthed, rolling my eyes.
     
    Mallet, on the other hand, winked and gave me a thumbs up. I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about the fact that he was rooting for this. But I trusted his opinion - he knew his friend better than Alexa did, and if he wasn’t going to try to scare me off, then maybe I wasn’t making such a bad move after all.
     
    ○●○●○●○●○
     
    My hopes were very quickly dashed when we went to a bar first as a group - Lockett, some of the other fighters, some girls… it was a lot of people and they were all quite loud. I hovered around the outskirts, speaking to Mal and Alexa when they drifted my way but otherwise feeling pretty alone.
     
    God help me, am I actually homesick?
     
    His girls were there. The floated effortlessly around him, touching him, flirting with him. I watched out of the corner of my eyes with a growing jealousy - a little of it for his attention, but also a little for how casually seductive they were. No amount of makeup or slinky outfits in the world would turn me into a sexy sort of woman. Not like them.
     
    I was lost in those thoughts when two of them approached me - one girl with raven black hair and dazzling green eyes, the other blond and busty with full red lips. “This is Cara, and I’m Whitney.”
     
    “I’m Katherine,” I said, looking between the two of them.
     
    “How do you know Lockett?”
     
    Oh, boy. They’re just jumping right into it. “I’m his new roommate,” I said. “I mean, my sister is one of his roommates, I just moved in with them.”
     
    “How nice,” Cara said, flipping her hair, “So you’re new to the city.”
     
    “I am,” I said, twisting my hands behind me. “Have you guys been here long?”
     
    “Oh, we grew up here,” Cara said.
     
    “So we know everybody in this