Page 41 of Botched

And I loved every minute of it. I loved the sounds of him begging. I loved how his tongue felt, how his cock felt.

Dark brown eyes are locked on me, that shield up between the two of us. Every wall that I feel like I knocked down has been perfectly reconstructed. I’m on one side, Theo’s on the other.

I swallow. “What I mean is…we work together. We can’t get all twisted up in...” Pausing, I gesture vaguely around her. “…Whatever this is.”

This time, he turns his back to me. “Right. Whatever this is,” Theo mutters. He drags his fingers back through his dark hair, not a hint of emotion on his face right now. “Did you happen to check the schedule for tonight? Do we have anything going on?”

To be honest, I completely forgot that we were at work. I definitely didn’t check when I walked in this afternoon. I went straight to the locker room with my now forgotten cupcake, fully planned to apologize to Theo for what happened and…what? Where did I expect things to go from there?

Maybe I planned this the entire time.

“I didn’t.”

“Make yourself useful, baby doll. Go check for me.”

My teeth sink into my bottom lip, biting back all of the venom I want to spew at him for that comment. This is just how he usually treats women, isn’t it? He uses them, then he pushes them away. Treats them like absolute fucking garbage. This is why I should’ve kept him at arm’s length.

Proud of myself for choosing not to lash out at him, I leave the locker room with still wobbly legs and the feeling of slickness between my thighs. A reminder of what I just gave in to.

I keep my head down to avoid anyone seeing the shame in my eyes and the flush in my cheeks. I head over to check the run down for the night. As I’m scanning over it, looking for my or Theo’s name, someone is standing a little too close to me.

When I turn and see Austin, I plaster a smile on my face and try to take a subtle enough sidestep away from him. “Hey.”

“Hey, Rory.” He smiles, his teeth blindingly white against his orange tan. He smells like a high school locker room, the overdone aerosol cologne that teenage boys bathe in. It burns my nostrils and I try to take another subtle step away from him. “I’ve actually been looking for you or Theo.”

I hope he doesn’t see how hard I swallow. If he was looking for us, maybe he checked the one place that he knew Theo would be. Maybe he… No, I’m not going down that trail of thought. No one knows what happened in that locker room between the two of us.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” He points to his name on the rundown. “I talked to Nathan earlier. He’s giving me a shot to work a program with Theo.” There’s pride on his face, in his voice.

Everyone knows there’s no way in hell that Austin’s going to get the title. He’s nowhere near ready, probably will never be. He’s a good hand, someone who can lose very convincingly.

I don’t say any of that. That would be a Theo or Jules comment. I keep my bitchiness to myself. “That’s great,” I respond, trying to signal that I’m done with the conversation as I go back to looking for what we’re doing tonight.

But Austin doesn’t seem to get the hint. “Yeah. So, anyway, are you doing anything tonight? After the show? We’re in NOLA and there’s plenty of bars and stuff. We could hit one up and—”

“I’m good,” I cut him off right there, keeping a polite smile on my face.

I don’t have a type, not that I know of. There’s never been one specific kind of guy that I could comfortably say did it for me. However, I have no interest in Austin. He’s very…frat boy. Also, the cologne mixed with the awful fake tan do not help in the least.

His face falls. Blue eyes look a shade darker for a moment before he shakes it off and smiles. “Maybe next time then.”

“Yeah, maybe next time.”

That shuts the conversation down, which I’m incredibly grateful for. I turn my full attention to the run down, find that Theo and I have a promo segment to set up Austin’s match next week and immediately head back toward the locker room.

Not that I want to face Theo, but I don’t really have any other option. This is still my job.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

AURORA

Rise

Episode 575

New Orleans, Louisiana

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