Among the Echoes by Aly Martinez

  Slate slings his head to face me, and Leo gives me the most ridiculous look possible before snapping, "Are you still drunk?"

  "No. But I’m not going to freak out over a picture of Slate’s hands and a woman with dark hair."

  "You can see enough," he responds, but it’s Slate’s reaction that really catches me off guard.

  "He’s right. You need to go."

  "What?" Leo and I both question at the exact same time.

  "We’re so close to this being done. We can’t afford something like this now. You need to go. I’ll give you some money to set you two up for a while and continue with security, but you can’t stay here with me."

  "Stop," I squeak out as his rejection causes my heart to physically hurt. I know he’s being rational, but what happened to the man who swore he would never leave me? The one who said he would fight until the ends of the earth for me? "What are you saying?"

  "I love you. This is only temporary, beautiful. So get that hurt off your face. I’m sorry, but he’s right. Wilkes would have absolutely zero issues finding me. There’s an end in sight and I’m not going to fuck it up by being selfish enough to put you in danger."

  "Bullshit! That’s exactly what you did when we left the program. That’s exactly what we both did. We chose to stay together and not let this mess dictate our relationship. I’m not leaving."

  "Then I will," he says sadly. "You’re right. That picture isn’t too bad, and I don’t think anyone could recognize you, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Now the paparazzi are going to be on me twenty-four-seven. I’ve never had a public relationship before, and with the news of my retirement, people are dying to find a reason to explain why I suddenly called it quits. They aren’t going to let up until they know absolutely everything about you. Wilkes may as well have just hired a hundred new men to track you. I’m sorry, but Leo’s right. You have to go."

  "Oh, so it’s temporary, huh? What happens if Wilkes gets arrested before Rodriguez kills him? Or if it takes years before he can track him down? What then? Are you just going to stay away from me for years?"

  "No. This will all die down eventually. People will forget about me as time passes."

  "Oh my God. You can’t be that stupid," I smart off, letting my true bitchiness fly.

  In reality, I’m just pissed and terrified that, if he leaves now, he won’t come back. I’m secure in my relationship with Slate. I believe that he loves me, but what if we separate and he realizes how easy his life could be with another woman. Someone who isn’t broken, damaged, or ruined. Someone who wouldn’t possibly get him killed.

  "Excuse me?" he responds with almost as much attitude as I threw at him.

  "They aren’t going to forget you any more than they have Tyson, Foreman, or Ali."

  "While I love your bitchy little compliment, I am hardly Ali."

  "No, you’re worse. You’re mysterious and gorgeous, and you decided to walk away while you were at your absolute peak. Your fans aren’t going to just forget about you any more than I could. But apparently I’m the only one who feels that way in this relationship."

  "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He raises his voice, but Leo jumps in the middle, ironically becoming the rational one of the group.

  "All right, everyone. Just calm down. We can figure this out. You two stop bickering. No one is forgetting anyone. I may have overreacted. Let’s just take a breath and talk this out. Erica’s right. You can’t see her face. I’m going to call in a buddy and see if he can flash a badge and see where they got that picture and, most importantly, if more exist. They may not be willing to tell me, but it can’t hurt to ask. Now you two cuddle, fuck, make love, or whatever the hell you guys do in there. But just make up. Let me look into a couple of options and then we can figure it out—without name calling or being a bitch." He lifts a brow at me, but I only roll my eyes.

  He walks out, leaving me with a very pissed-off version of my usually laid-back man.

  "I need to go," he says flatly as I flop facedown on the bed.

  "You’re not going," I tell the bed.

  "Stop being stubborn. You know this is the right thing to do this time."

  "I don’t give a shit if it’s the rightest thing to ever exist. You’re not going."

  "Rightest thing to ever exist?" he says with a sigh while crawling up the bed to lie facedown next to me.

  "There’s a reason I didn’t major in English."

  He laughs and throws an arm over my back. "If anything ever happened to you, I…" He pauses before rolling me onto my side to face him. "I just need you safe somewhere. Do you think I can buy one of those underground bunkers from the 1970’s?" I laugh and throw a leg over his hips. "I’m serious, Erica. I can’t be the reason Wilkes finds you. Before, when we first left, all I could think about was spending time with you. But now that there’s the possibility of an out, all I can think about is spending a lifetime with you. It’s damn near crippling to think about losing that." He drops his head to my chest and sighs.

  My heart squeezes as my attitude melts away. I scratch his back as we both lie in silence. My mind is racing, and if I know Slate at all, his is also.

  "No one knows that picture is me, Slate. You know I am the first person to freak out if anything is even remotely threatening. But I’m more scared of losing you than I am anything else."

  "You’re not going to lose me. Just let me head back to LA for a little while and draw the attention away from you. We can put a cap on it if you want. How about three months? If Wilkes is still breathing in three months, we can rethink things. I’ll come back or maybe we can head somewhere totally different. But we have to be smart about this. It’s so fucking close to being over."

  "I don’t want to go three months," I pout. "What if you find another girlfriend in three months? She would probably be prettier than I am and love to be fawned all over by the paparazzi," I say teasingly, but the proverbial light bulb of genius goes off above my head. "Oh my God. Slate, you need to get a girlfriend," I squeal then fly up off the bed and dash out of the room. "Leo!" I shout, running down the hall.

  "In here, babe," he calls from the security room.

  Frozen on the screen is the video from yesterday that clearly shows a man taking a picture with a cell phone of Slate kissing me. He’s standing just outside the door, but I don’t remember seeing him at all.

  "I’m pretty sure it was a fan. Watch." He presses play.

  The man walks past, but as soon as the glass door opens, it catches his attention and he backs up with a broad smile. He instantly digs through his pocket for his phone and snaps a picture. But as I walk away, he never tears his eyes from Slate.

  "Slate needs a girlfriend," I say as he rewinds the video, zooming in on the fan’s face.

  "Threesome? That’s hot, babe. But I’m not sure Andrews could handle two of you." He turns to face me with a questioning look.

  "No. Seriously. If he started publicly dating a short woman with brown hair, no one would question it. He was exposed by that picture, so let’s out him completely."

  "Have you lost your fucking mind?" Slate appears behind me, dressed in a pair of sweats riding low on his hips.

  "Think about it," I plead, looking between the two men. "You could go to LA for a week, not three months, go out on a couple of very public dates, get your picture taken, and then come back home to me. No one has to leave and the paparazzi would stop trying to figure out who you are dating."

  "That’s probably the most ridiculous plan I have ever heard in my life," Slate replies, but my eyes never leave Leo, who is surprisingly silent.

  "Tell him it would work," I beg.

  "It would probably work." He shrugs. "And if it didn’t, it couldn’t hurt anything," he answers, turning his attention to Slate.

  "No fucking way! Who exactly do you propose I date for a week?"

  "I don’t know. I’m sure we can find someone who would want to be seen with you." I smile, but he doesn’t look even remotely
entertained.

  "I’m not doing it," he bites out while turning to walk away.

  "It would buy us some time!" Leo shouts behind him, but Slate doesn’t respond. He turns his attention back to me. "He’s right you know—it’s a ridiculous idea."

  "But it will work."

  "Maybe." He shrugs again. "Now, you just have to talk your boyfriend into cheating on you."

  "It’s not cheating," I say dismissively.

  "It will be for him."

  I wave him off and head back down the hall after Slate. When I walk back into our room, he’s pacing around.

  "Hey," I say as I shut the door behind me.

  "I have spent my entire career avoiding the celebrity life."

  "I know." I walk forward, wrapping my arms around his waist.

  "I love you. I really do. But I’m not sure I can do this. I don’t think just being seen with a woman on my arm will do it, beautiful."

  "I know," I lie, suddenly realizing I didn’t think this plan out very well. Managing my jealousy, while pushing him off on another woman, is not going to be easy.

  He lets out a resigned breath. "The fight for my vacant title is next week. They would go nuts if I showed up with a woman," he says absently. It’s as if he is forming the plan in his head even though he has absolutely zero intentions of following through with it. "I’m not sure I can do a week, but I can probably do a night."

  I swallow around the lump in my throat and look up into his eyes. "Really?"

  "One night, but if your harebrained plan doesn’t work, we move on to mine. Deal?"

  I smile in agreement but suddenly get very nervous. "What if she’s amazing and you fall in love with her and never want to come back to me?" I try to lighten the mood, but it’s a very real worry for me.

  He laughs and pushes me back toward the bed. "Erica, I’m trying to figure out how to keep myself from cringing when she touches me and you are worrying that I’ll fall in love with her?"

  I fall against the bed, and he quickly covers me, sealing a kiss over my mouth while reaching toward the nightstand. He snatches his phone and dials while supporting himself on his elbows above me. I nibble on his neck as he begins talking.

  "Mitch, it’s Andrews. I need a date for the fight. Five four, brunette, dark eyes." He pauses to glance down at me, shaking his head. I can hear the man loudly chattering on the other end of the line, but Slate quickly cuts him off. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just make it happen." He hangs up and tosses it up the bed.

  "Thank you," I whisper.

  "Get naked. You can thank me that way." He smiles, pushing open my bathrobe with one hand.

  One week later…

  "So, are you gay?" Bella asks as we sit in the VIP room, waiting for the fight to begin.

  "No," I respond shortly while staring straight ahead at the TV showing the pre-fight interviews.

  "Then why do you need a fake girlfriend?" She slides across the leather couch until she’s sitting practically in my lap. Her perfume is suffocating, and it’s all I can do not to openly gag.

  I stand up and head to the bar positioned in the corner of the room. I’ve never been a big drinker, and I usually stick to beer when I do. However, tonight, I’m in serious need of something stronger. Hell, I’d drink rubbing alcohol at this point, but only after I poured it over my body to disinfect all the places she has touched me tonight.

  I have no idea what the hell Mitch told her about this little setup, but she definitely got the wrong idea. I picked her up about three hours ago, and in that time, she has dragged her boobs across my arms no fewer that seventeen times. And that isn’t even the half of it. I decided to be a gentleman and at least take her to dinner. I am, after all, using her to keep dangerous criminals away from my girlfriend. Dinner seemed like the least I could do. I also figured it couldn’t hurt to get to know her a little better in case questions arose.

  I’m a quiet guy, but I don’t care how big of an introvert you are. You shouldn’t be able to sit through a ninety-minute dinner and only utter six words. The first five being "So tell me about yourself?" The sixth was "Whoa" when she ran her foot under the ankle of my jeans and up my leg. I don’t know when it became socially acceptable to rub your naked foot against someone’s bare leg after knowing him for less than twenty minutes, but I’ve never been so glad to be off the dating scene in my life.

  I might be overreacting just a bit. Bella isn’t all terrible, but she has one major flaw that I can’t get past—she just isn’t Erica.

  I pull out my phone and shoot her a text. I miss her. When Erica and I are together, she comes alive, but she isn’t the only one. I had my own walls built up, but one glance at those blue eyes sent them all crumbling to the ground.

  Me: I love you.

  Erica: I love you too. How’s it going?

  Me: Vision Quest

  Erica: Are you finally coming around to my way of thinking or are you having that much fun? I know you love that movie.

  Me: I’m not weird like you. I watch GOOD movies to cheer myself up. So no, Vision Quest still rocks, but tonight is absolutely horrible.

  Erica: Yeah. It’s a Vision Quest night for me.

  Me: I’m rethinking that three months thing. I hate being away from you.

  Erica: Good. I hate it too.

  "Hey, handsome," Bella says as she slides up behind me and—what do you know—rakes her boobs across my back.

  "Hey." I pick up the shot I ordered and toss it back.

  "I think they are ready for us." She rubs a hand up my chest. I quickly grab her wrist and gently peel it away.

  "Save it for the cameras." I try to keep the annoyance out of my voice but fail.

  "Just so you know, we need to make this believable. So if you wanted more than just that one kiss we discussed, I’d be okay with that. My agent’s phone has been blowing up since we became an item." She dabs her lipstick.

  "I’m glad this is working out for you. But one kiss, that is all. I swear, if you try for more, we will have a very public and embarrassing breakup when I walk out. I’m not trying to be a dick, because I really appreciate what you are doing here. But don’t get any ideas of going off script, okay?"

  "God, you are cranky."

  "I can live with that." I move towards the door, but just before I tuck my phone into my pocket, I send out one last text.

  Me: Heading inside to my seat. I love you. Don’t forget that.

  Erica: I love you too. Don’t forget that.

  "Hurry up, Erica! It’s going to start soon!" Leo yells from the rec room.

  The fight is about to start, and Slate just texted me that he was about to be seated—with his date. His agent Mitch found an up-and-coming actress to be Slate’s girlfriend for the evening. Her name is Bella Sloan. She is gorgeous, and I hate her. She has really gotten into the role of being Slate’s leading lady. She even spoke out earlier this week to a tabloid, telling them that she and Slate had been secretly dating for months.

  I really fucking hate her.

  For the last two hours, they have been doing snippets on Slate and his career. I watched them all at first, but then it just made me more anxious. So I went and hid in my bedroom for a while. I needed a few moments to remind myself that he is doing this for me—for us.

  I curl up on the giant leather couch next to Leo. Grabbing a throw pillow, I nervously toy with one of the loose strings until I hear the announcer start talking about Slate. My eyes burn into the screen as the camera flashes to him sitting ringside, talking and laughing with his arm thrown around the back of the beautiful brunette’s chair.

  Leo must sense my anxiety because he reaches over, patting my leg. "What time is he getting home tonight?"

  "Late," I answer quietly.

  "You want to go out and grab some food when this is over?"

  I turn and look at Leo, who never suggests we go anywhere in public.

  "It’s probably your last chance for a while. You’re not going to be able to go anywhere when he gets
back."

  "I know."

  "So? Chicago pizza and a beer?" he asks again, trying to keep my attention away from Slate on the screen. For that alone, I love him.

  "Okay." I shrug and turn back to the TV.

  For thirty minutes, we watch a fight, but I’m constantly staring into the background, hoping to catch a tiny glimpse of Slate and Bella. Finally, the camera finds them between rounds, and even though we discussed this moment in great detail, it still hits me hard. He casually kisses her. It’s not one of the deep, passionate kisses I know Slate is capable of. It’s brief but he sold it by pulling away and smiling down at her, allowing the moment to linger for a few seconds longer. I immediately turn my head and cover my eyes, physically unable to watch. The announcers and crowd go wild from watching Slate do something so public, but it kills me. Even though I was the one who asked him to do it in the first place.

  "It’s done," Leo says, flipping off the TV, not even bothering with the rest of the fight. "Let’s go eat."

  I may have tears in my eyes, but there is also a tinge of relief hidden in there somewhere. If only I could focus on that.

  I sit on the couch and stare holes in the door. My leg shakes anxiously as I wait for him to return. The last time I heard from him was just over an hour ago, letting me know that his flight had landed. It’s four a.m., but I haven’t been able to sleep without him—or probably more accurately, because of him.

  Finally, he slings the door open, saying goodnight to the guard who followed him up and locking his eyes on mine. He’s still wearing the same jeans and button-down he had on at the fight, and if possible, I hate that Bella chick even more. He’s gorgeous and she got to enjoy it.

  "Hey," I say with an unconvincing smile as my manners supersede my discomfort.

  "Why are you still awake?" he asks, standing his ground—never moving forward even an inch.

  I shrug, knotting my hands as I step toward him. "I missed you?"