Page 79 of Punchline
“Carson would love that.”
“I know,” I said guiltily. “But look at page four.”
Ethan glanced at it, then frowned. “Ah, yeah. That’s bullshit.”
“It is.”
“But… this would be a really big deal for you,” he continued after a moment. When he glanced up at me, he looked conflicted. “I don’t want to be the reason you don’t get called up, Jake.”
“I don’t want to be told I have to hide the man I love just so I can punch people in the face,” I replied. The inkling I’d had in my gut was coalescing into a certainty. “I won’t. I’m not going to sign this. I don’t care how much money is on the line.”
He relaxed a little. “Okay. Then why… ”
“I was hoping you know somebody who could help me use this as leverage with one of the other fight organizations. One where I could be out and fight for them at the same time.” Not the Russian one, that was for sure, but there were other options.
“I could ask one of our lawyers to take a look, sure. But… ”
I found the will to grin. “Why would another org bother?”
“Well, it sounds rude when you say it like that,” he muttered, but he was smiling too.
“Check your phone.”
Ethan brightened. “I can look at the videos?”
“And social media.” I sat back and waited for him to look me up.
“Holy shit.” Ethan flipped from video to video, then started to laugh. “You’re trending! Holy shit, my badass boyfriend is trending, this is awesome!”
“And it’s why someone else might be interested in signing me right now.”
“For sure. But, oh my God.” He put a hand over his face. “I look like I’m swooning in this video, goddammit. No wonder Kells called me ‘princess’ when he saw me. Why can’t I be badass too?”
I reached for him, and he came over to me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. “You are a badass,” I told him.
“Sure,” he agreed. “Just not as much as you.” He leaned in and kissed me, slow and sweet, as if to tell me there were no hard feelings. “Let’s get you a meeting with legal,” he said when we parted. “Then you can tell Dimon to shove his offer up his ass.”
“Sounds perfect.”
CHAPTER 25
ETHAN
Jake’s plan to sniff around for a better contract worked out better than either of us anticipated. By the time he’d reached the end of the forty-eight-hour window Dimon had left him to consider his offer, Jake had three other organizations trying to outbid each other.
“I really want to make that call right now,” he said as he wrote out a text to his agent, who was apparently Carson’s old agent anddelightedto help give Dimon the middle finger. “I want to tell Dimon to shove every last page of that contract up his ass.” He sent the text, then turned his phone over on his knee and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “But I should probably wait until I’ve actuallysignedone.”
“Good call.” I rested my uninjured hand on his leg. “Maybe have him shove a page up his Lambo’s tailpipe too.”
Jake laughed, and damn, it was good to see him so relaxed and chill now. He was still wound up about the whole thing, and he still didn’t quite know what his future was going to look like, but he was calmer than I’d seen him in a long time. As if he were settling into the idea that all thepotential roads laid out in front of him were good, and they weren’t going to get yanked out from under him.
Still, it was good to keep his cards close until all the dotted lines had been duly signed.
He started to say something, but his phone pinged, and he checked the screen. There was a wall of text from his agent, and the furrows in his brow deepened as he scrolled through it. I chewed my lip, wanting to ask what he was saying but holding back because I didn’t want to distract him and make him miss an important detail.
When he reached the end, he scrolled back to the beginning and started again. Curiosity was killing me, but I quite literally bit my tongue to stay quiet.
After his third time through the text, Jake exhaled and sagged back against the couch, looking dazed.
