Free Love On The Ropes (Ringside Romance) by Pat White Page A

Jason?”
she said, searching his eyes.
    “Nothing, I’m fine.”
    “You weren’t fine a minute ago.”
Sandy grabbed his arm and pulled him to a halt. “Who the hell is sending you
out there again? You’ve got a head injury.”
    Right, a head injury that blinded
him to what was real. He hadn’t seen it coming. He really thought she cared
about him, about the rest of the guys. Man, it had been a long time since he’d
been taken in like that, twenty-some years to be exact. The day Raymond McBain
went out for doughnuts and never came back.
    “I’m fine,” he said. “Let go so I
can do my job.”
    His voice sounded strange, even to
him. He kept his focus on the doorway to the stadium.
    “Look at me,” she said.
    He couldn’t.
    “Jason? How many fingers do I have
up?”
    He put his hand around her three
fingers and lowered them. “I could use another shot of whiskey,” he said,
hoping to get a closer look inside her backpack.
    “You sure? You don’t seem right.”
    “Give me a chance, later.” He shot
her his best seductive smile. Considering his current mood, it probably looked
like an attack of gas.
    She cocked her head to one side,
studying him.
    Shields up, protective armor in
place. No one gets in .
    He’d become a master at hiding his
thoughts and feelings, yet somehow over the course of the last few hours this
spitfire-turned-suspect had seeped through the impenetrable armor.
    “You don’t look good,” she said.
    Of course not. Manipulating people
was exhausting. Plus, there was the whole stripping in public thing, physically
exposing himself, and performing in this chaos called pro wrestling.
    “What’s going on in that head of
yours?” she asked. “Or is anything happening? If you have a concussion you
shouldn’t go out there.”
    “There’s my boy!” Cosmo marched
over to him.
    It was everything Jason could do
not to punch the guy in the face for calling him my boy .
    “I’m ready,” J said.
    “He’s not,” Sandy argued.
    “What are you, my mother?”
    She took a step back as if he’d
slapped her.
    He ripped his gaze from her pained
expression and looked at Cosmo. “Let’s do it.”
    Cosmo nodded to the security guard
who escorted J to the stage curtain. Good, get him away from her and keep him
safe from those green eyes and that warm smile. Keep him from being a total sap
and falling into some fantasy world where a sweet little thing like Sandy takes
care of him, nurtures him. A world where she isn’t a dealer peddling drugs and
selling hope. That’s what it was all about, right? Drugs equaled hope? Hope for
relief from whatever pain a guy was feeling? Hope for the guys to make them
feel manly and powerful?
    False hope.
    “Two minutes,” the guard said,
peeking around the stage curtain.
    No problem. Jason had pretended to
be any number of bastards in his life, from drug dealers to strung-out buyers. He’d
pretended to be dead in order to survive an ambush in Colombia; he’d pretended
to be A-OK to make Mom happy when his heart was breaking. Hell, he’d pretended
to be tough when stepping into the role of lead male in his family after Dad
walked out.
    Yeah, he’d been pretending his whole
life, and was damn good at it. It didn’t matter if he fell apart at three in
the morning, or drank himself numb on June 12 every year. No one knew that
stuff. They only knew what he let them see. For his second performance of the
night, he’d let them see arrogance and skin. Lots of it.
     
    ***
     
    “Bad, really, really bad,” Sandy
whispered to herself as she watched the match from the stands.
    “Who are you talking to?” Floyd walked
up and put his arm around her.
    “Ick.” She plucked it off and
dropped it like it was road kill. “After you insulted me the other day you
think I’m going to let you touch me?”
    “About that…”
    “Yes, Floyd?” She waited, hands on
hips.
    “I was rude.”
    “You got that right.”
    “I’m sorry, okay? I was feeling
backed into