And Brooke?

Panic seizes me. I try to talk and something is stuck in my throat, so I groan.

Riley’s head shoots up from where he sits in the chair. “You’re up, thank god!” He comes to me. “Holy god, Remington, I’m fucking glad you made it so I can kill you myself. You had us all—”

I grab his arm and squeeze so tight, he halts, and a noise emerges from my throat, through the stupid breathing tube I’ve got jammed in there.

“You want to know where Brooke is?” Riley asks when he looks into my eyes.

I nod and groan again. The panic claws through me. She saw the debacle in the ring, and I need to see that she’s all right.

When Riley goes to get her, I count the seconds with my heartbeat.

She comes in and stops when we see each other. I’ve never before felt what I feel now. Every cell in my body leaps, but at the same time I’m immobilized in this bed, trembling with the sight of her. She’s there, looking at me, in clothes that are wrinkled and her hair a mess, her face pale, and she has never looked so good to me. My body tenses with the urges burning through me. I want to tell her, I love you, Little Firecracker. I fucking love you so bad. . . .

I want her to bring me my iPod so I can play a song to her. “I Love You” again. Or another one. Shit, nothing can capture the feeling of loving her.

She starts trembling on her feet, and my eyes start burning when I hear the sobs that start wracking her. They tear from somewhere so deep, her voice sounds completely unfamiliar, and it makes me hurt in places I didn’t even know I had.

“How d-dare you make m-me watch t-that . . . how could you stand there and make me watch h-him destroy you! Your bones! Your face! Y-you . . . were . . . mine! Mine . . . to . . . to . . . hold. . . . How d-dare you break you! How dare you break me!”

My eyes are on fucking fire and I can’t fucking move, all I can do is lie here as her pain and mine tear through me.

“A-all I wanted was to help my sister and not g-g-get you in trouble. I also wanted to protect you, to take care of you, to be with you. I wanted to ss-stay with you until you were sick of me and didn’t need me. I wanted you to love me because I . . . I . . . Oh, god, but you . . . I . . . can’t. I can’t anymore. It’s hard to watch you fight, but to watch you murder yourself is . . . I won’t do it, Remington!”

I make noise and try to move even when an arm is in a cast, hating how heavy my body feels. My fast, trained body fails me, and it is as broken as I suddenly feel.

Tears trickle down her cheeks, and suddenly she comes to me and she touches my free hand and bends to my chest as she kisses my knuckles, her tears falling on my scars.

I want to touch her so bad I force my cast to move so I can place my hand on the back of her head, stroking her hair.

She wipes her cheeks and looks through tear-filled eyes at me, and I silently will her to understand that I can take this, that I can take a beating.

But suddenly she stands to go.

I grab her hand and clutch it as tight as I can without breaking her little bones. She pulls it free and grabs my face and sets a kiss on my forehead. I feel all her pain explode inside me, and she’s fucking killing me. A sound tears from my throat as I grab the tube and try pulling it out, and the machine goes crazy and so does Brooke.

“Remy, don’t, don’t!” she pleads, but I won’t fucking have it, I need to take this fucking shit off. I’ve never been a man of words, but I won’t have shit in my throat when I have something to say to her, but Brooke panics and yells for a nurse. “Nurse! Please!”

A nurse rushes into the room, and something shoots through the IV to my veins, and I am instantly as heavy as a bull and my head is closing in on me. Brooke looks at me with a face I will never forget. I think I broke her. She’s strong, she’s my mate, and she is naturally strong enough to take me—no.

Nobody can take me.

I see the look in her eyes, the same look I imagine everyone gets when they realize I’m hopeless. I’m a fucking mess. But then she smiles at me, and it’s a smile that brands itself in my head. I cling to it as I start sinking, trying to think of what song I will play her when I wake. . . .

* * *

Dear Remington,

The very first moment I laid eyes on you, I think you had me. And I think you knew. How could you possibly not know? That the floor was shaking under my feet. It was. You made it move. You colored my life again. And when you came after me and kissed me, I just knew somewhere deep inside me, my life would forever be touched and changed by you. It has been. I have had the most amazing, incredible, beautiful moments of my life with you. You and your team became my new family, and never for one second did I really plan to leave. Not them, but most of all, not you. Every day I spent with you only makes me crave more of you. All I wanted for days was to be closer. It hurts to be close and not to touch you, and I wanted to spend every waking moment with you and every sleeping moment in your arms. So many times now, I wanted to tell you all the ways you make me feel, but I wanted to hear you say it first. My pride is gone now. I have no room for it, and I don’t want to regret not telling you: I love you, Remy. With all my heart. You are the most beautifully complicated, gentle fighter I’ve ever known. You have made me deliriously happy. You challenge and delight me and make me feel like a kid inside, with all the amazing things to look forward to, just because I was looking at the future and thinking of sharing it all with you. I’ve never felt so safe as when I am with you, and I want you to know I am completely in love with every part of you, even the one that just broke my heart.

But I can’t stay anymore, Remy. I can’t watch you hurt yourself, because when you do, you’re hurting me in ways I never thought anybody ever could, and I’m afraid of breaking and never being right again. Please never, ever, let anyone hurt you like this. You are the fighter everyone wants to be, and this is why everyone in the world loves you. Even when you screw up, you get back up fighting again. Thank you, Remy, for opening your world to me. For sharing yourself with me. For my job. And for every time you smiled at me. I want to tell you to get well soon, but I know that you will. I know you will be blue-eyed and cocky and fighting again, and I’ll be in your past, like all the things you’ve overcome before me. Just please know that I will never hear “Iris” again without thinking of you.

Yours always,

Brooke

I’ve read this letter over and over today. I’ve read it in disbelief, in anger, in self-loathing, in loneliness, in desperation, but never in detachment. And now, I read it another time, and it’s finally sinking in that she—my girl—has left me. My body implodes and I groan and drop my head with the sort of intense pain they don’t make painkillers for. My eyes blurring, I scrape my thumbs over the I love you, Remy over and over while I hear Pete out in the living room, talking as if it’s a normal day.

Another fucking day of the life of Riptide.

Before he ever met . . . her.

“Fifteen hundred shares of that one. Sell. . . . Yes.” There’s a silence that makes me figure out he hung up, and I watch the doorknob turn as he peers into the bedroom. The curtains are open, and he starts when he sees me. “Your eyes are blue.”

I rub my face and try to piece the past weeks together in my head, but all I can think of is bits of this letter. I love you, Remy. . . . You have made me deliriously happy. . . .

Pete steps into the room and strides over. “You’ve been out for almost three weeks. Do you remember?”

Silent, I just look at him, holding the letter in my hand.

“Remington, do you realize what you did? You lost the fucking championship. You threw. The fight! You gave up everything you’ve worked for. Every last penny of your liquid cash is gone. Years of endorsements and work. The championship . . . gone.” His voice breaks, and he looks at me. “Do you remember that?”

“I know what I did, Pete. Nothing I gave up is something I can’t get back.”

“You, you moron. You could have fucking died! Remington, who fucking does that? You willingly let him beat you unconscious.”

Twisting around, I sit on the side of the bed and rub my neck with one hand as I stare down at the letter and impulsively smell it. Fuck, it smells like her. Even the sight of her handwriting gets me.

Riley comes in.

“He’s blue,” Pete instantly informs him.

“Hell, that’s fucking great! Hey, Rem.”

I look at them, and they’re my brothers. My brothers I care about. “You’re disappointed,” I tell them.

“We’re not disappointed, dude, we worry about you. No woman is worth that,” Pete says.

“She is.” But I’m so fucking pissed at her for leaving me, I crumple the letter in my fist and stand. “I’m sorry about the fight. I’ll make it up to the team.”

“We’re not sorry for us,” Pete repeats.

I stretch one biceps, then the other, testing my body while I ask, “Scorpion?”

“Somewhere in the Bahamas or some shit. Having fun spending your money,” Pete says, still sounding glum.

“Put the Austin home up for sale,” I mumble. “That should get us through this season.”

He nods. “We’ve also got some endorsement interest. You’ve been doing great—”

“What about her? Is she all right?”

They blink.

“Brooke.”

“Dude, why are you asking?” Pete looks at me in alarm, then at Riley, then at me. “You’re getting over her, Rem. You’ve had like dozens of ladies over! They’re wild for some Riptide, just like old times!”

“Yeah, Rem, the kinds of ass you get,” Riley says. “Jesus!”

An image flashes in my head of gold eyes, brimming with tears, in a hospital room. I stare down at the letter and uncrumple it from my fist, aware of Pete and Riley watching me, and then watching each other.

“Dude, hand that over, I can put that away from you.” Pete comes over for the letter.

I instantly fist my hand around it. “You touch it, you die.”

He drops his arm and sighs, and I look at both of them. “Where’s her sister?”

“Not out of rehab yet. Another week.”

I keep testing my body. Coach must be using the TENS machine on me to maintain muscle mass. I fold my muscles, they’re hard as ever. All electronically manipulated to make them believe I trained—when I did not.

“Coach has been shocking every inch,” Riley says, confirming my thoughts. “You’re filled up with glutamine and all kinds of supplements.”

I drop to the floor and do a push-up. Nice. It flows. My back isn’t fucked from lying in bed. I jump up and twist my neck, then I open my suitcase and spot my boxing robe. And I know, with every inch of me, if I grab it, it’s going to smell like her. In that moment the urge to expend all my rapidly building energy becomes acute. “Call Coach, let’s hit it hard.”

“You’re seriously going to train? You’ve been in the hospital for over two weeks and getting shocks in the head! That’s the only way we could pull you out of your depression.”

“But I’m good now.” I take her letter and my training gear into the bathroom, then I open the letter and read it again: I love you, Remy.

I close my eyes and throw it away.

Then I go get it, read it, and trace her letters. Damn you, Brooke. You should’ve told me to stay away. That you hated me. That you can’t live with someone like me. Instead you tell me my team is your family. That you’re happy. That you think about me when you hear my songs. You tell me that you fucking love me. Now, Brooke, I’m coming after you.

* * *

EVERYONE, EXCEPT DIANE, rides in the Escalade. We’re only blocks away from the building and there’s a war zone in my chest. I drum my fingers on my thighs while the knot in my gut tightens as we get nearer. Brooke needs to be set fucking straight, and I’m sure when she sees the little package we’ve brought, there won’t be much explaining to do.

I rub the back of my neck and then ram my hand into my jeans and grab the letter. The letter burns me. I’ve read it until my eyes cross and they burn from my rage. She held me like I was golden. She said she’d never leave and every inch of me believed her. I want to know what I said. I want to know what I fucking did. I want to know if she meant what she said in her fucking letter or if it’s all a load of fucking bullshit.