Page 154 of Gym Bros
“Oh!” Rachel says. “I’ll take one.”
Her heels click on the floor as she heads for the kitchen. Priya drapes her arm over my shoulders. “We want to go to the fights,” she tells me.
The words feel like a kick to the balls. “What?” I choke out.
Rachel speaks up. “I think it could be fun.”
“Fun?” I’m too stunned to form sentences.
“I totally respect your decision not to go,” Rachel says. “We both do, so don’t get us wrong. But we just think it’d be nice for Sam to have some friends there cheering for him.”
I’m gaping. Still speechless until, “You weremyfriends first,” I blurt out.
Priya says, “This is us being your friends. We’ll be thereforyou.”
“You just wanna go pick up men. You’ll probably be too busy flirting to even see when he’s fighting.”
“We can hold the flirting until after he wins. It was a long night,” Rachel says.
“So why are you even here?” I ask. “He’s fighting in like two hours.”
Rachel sips her Bellini while she levels a look at me. “There’s still time for you to change your mind.”
“I—” Stepping away from Priya, I glare at them both. It was really hard for me to decide what I needed to do today, and I’m still not convinced I’m doing the right thing, but I’ve come to terms with it. This feels like the dirtiest of dirty tricks.
Pri takes over. “Look—I know you don’t want to watch the fight. I totally get that. But it’s only gonna be like twenty minutes long start to finishifthat. He really wants you there.”
“How do you even know that?”
“He told me when we were dancing at the party.”
“He just came out and said oh, gee, it’d be so nice if Calyx would come to my fight?”
“Well, technically, I brought it up, but he did say he’d be a little bummed if you didn’t want to come. But that he understood,” she tags on at the last possible second.
“Hedoesunderstand,” I assure her, the same way he’d reassured me.
“They’ve got places where they warm up and get ready. You could see him there and be there when he’s done. He’d probably be really happy to see you.”
My mind feels like it’s being repeatedly bitch-slapped. “So I can what? Just show up there and be like—hey—that hot MMA guy—he’s myboyfriend, can I wait here? I’m not sure you two are aware of the culture, but I don’t think that would go over well.”
“He didn’t tell you to stay away or something did he?”
“Who,Samuel? Look, I love him, but he’s kind of oblivious to the fact that I’m not trophy wife material.”
“I mean,” Priya says. “Youarea model.”
“He’s not out,” I argue.
Rachel frowns. “He looked pretty out a couple weeks ago.”
“Those weremyfriends though. Not his trainers. Not his teammatesorhis opponents.”
“You know what else he told me while we were dancing?”
I turn to Priya with my arms crossed protectively over my chest. “What?”
“That he’s used to being underestimated. He likes it.”
