Bootycall 2 Page 10

  “If it means keeping you around, then no.”

  She blushes, and I brush her hair over her ear for her this time.

  “You might be the best thing that ever happened to me, Gemma. I don’t want to lose this. I don’t want to be without you.”

  She laughs softly, her eyes shimmering in the dying rays of the sunset.

  “Well, you don’t really have a choice. There’s still a month left of filming. And we’re behind schedule now.”

  “Oh yeah. That.”

  “Yeah. That,” she says, teasingly. “I’m supposed to be by your side at all times anyway. It’s in my contract, remember?”

  “Yeah,” I smile. “I’m gonna see what I can do about getting that contract extended.”

  We laugh and turn away from the sun, now in the final stage of its sinking trajectory, showing only its very top, in misted, fuzzy red waves that run along the horizon. It’s usually my favorite part, the few minutes just before the very end, but this time I’ve got something else to look at, something that I have a feeling won’t end at all.

  Epilogue

  Dylan

  8 Months Later

  Flashing lights, a sea of people screaming uncontrollably at the sight of me, swirls of glamorous colors and sparkles, a wall of psychedelic, overwhelming sight and sound. It used to make me feel ten feet tall, like I was more than a man – an icon and a giant.

  Not anymore. Only Gemma makes me feel like that now.

  I straighten my clothes, checking once again for any scuffs or wrinkles caused by the fact that we haven’t been able to take our hands off each other for the whole limo ride, and offer her my hand to help her exit the car. When she steps out, wearing her knee-length silk dress – the one that made me fall in love with her all over again, and is now making the crowd do the same – the flashing lights go into overdrive, flickering and blinding us until we feel like we’re living frame-by-frame in the unreality of the scene.

  Despite the noise, the lights, and the hectic surroundings, we look at each other, losing all sense of time and place, the connection of our souls steadying us against the nerve-wracking and chaotic backdrop of the red carpet on the premiere of our movie – and I always call it ‘our’ movie now. They might put my name first on the credits, but behind Dylan Marlowe is a very strong, very beautiful, and very capable woman now.

  “You ok?” I say, as we turn to the cameras and pose for pictures.

  “Sure. Just take your hand off my ass. This is the last situation I want to get horny in.”

  I laugh and smile at the cameras. She leans in for a second, still showing her pearly-white teeth and those gorgeous lips.

  “Plenty of time for that later,” she whispers huskily.

  I stick my hand in my pocket and readjust my pants – I’ve always liked doing it in places I shouldn’t.

  We move toward the crowd, microphones emerging from it like a tentacled monster. I see a familiar a face, a sassy glamour critic who has a dirty mouth and a dirtier sense of humor, and move toward her.

  “How are you?” I say, giving her the full Hollywood smile and pretend-casual tone.

  “Dylan Marlowe! I would ask what you’re wearing, but frankly you could be wearing a Speedo right now and I wouldn’t notice. This woman next to you is gorgeous!”

  “This is Gemma, my partner.”

  “You two look fabulous together! How does it feel to be back on the red carpet? For a minute, we thought you were gonna slip off the radar there – I’ll be honest!”

  She says this last bit with her head facing the camera behind her.

  “I still might!” I smile.

  “Do we get to see you with your shirt off in the movie?”

  “Would you still watch it if I said no?”

  “Probably not, I’ll be honest!”

  “Tell you what. You watch it, and I’ll give you a private show after. How about that?”

  She turns and screams at the camera, and we move on.

  “Wow. Are they always like that?” Gemma leans in and mutters to me as I go down the line, sign a few autographs, and pretend not to hear any more questions.

  “Pretty much. To the media I’m just another piece of meat to be eaten alive,” I sigh melodramatically. Gemma giggles. “But you get used to it, and you just shrug it off.”

  I look at her again, her blue eyes holding me and pulling me into some wonderful place, away from all the madness, where it’s just me and her.

  “Come on,” I say, taking her hand and leading her up the steps of the theater.

  We wave to the crowd and walk through the doors, making small talk with all the familiar faces in new suits and dresses, as we find our seats at the front and settle in.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask her, as we gaze at each other in the dimness of the theatre.

  “I’m fine,” Gemma nods, smiling. “Why do you keep asking?”

  I lean in closer to her. “Last time we went to a movie – that Lars Von Trier one – you seemed pretty put off by the whole ‘A-list’ scene.”

  She grimaces. “Was it that obvious?”

  “Kinda. To me, anyway. I just want to be sure you’re alright with all this…craziness.”

  I take her hand and hold it tight. “Like it or not, this fame shit is probably not gonna go away anytime soon. And I know this isn’t your world but I want you to feel okay while you’re in it, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen. Because you belong here, with me. I don’t want to do it without you.”

  Gemma pauses, considering. “It wasn’t just the scene,” she says, “I was…you were…” She bites her lip.

  “Oh, I see,” I say, breaking out into a grin. “You were already getting sweet on me, weren’t you? Made you a bit nervous, did it?”

  “It’s so crazy,” she laughs. “If you’d have told me back then that we’d end up together, end up happy, end up with things going so damned well, I’d have thought you were crazy.”

  “Don’t tell me you believe in happy endings, now? You, Miss Pragmatic?”

  “No,” she says, her smile mischievous and genuine, “I don’t believe in happy endings. But I believe in happy lives.”

  I lose myself for a few moments once again in how amazing she is. How perfect she is. How lucky I was just to meet her, and how proud I am to call her mine. It’s a thought I think every time I look at her, and it makes me want to be better. It makes me want to do everything I can to make her happy.

  We lean toward each other and kiss slowly, the lights in the theater going completely black just as our lips meet. I’d have said it was a coincidence not long ago, but now I believe in things like fate, in things happening for a reason. Now my reason is Gemma.

  I sneak glances throughout the movie at her, preferring to watch how beautiful her face is lit up by the giant screen, rather than seeing myself acting. I stroke her hand tenderly, softly, the fact that we’re in public – and not in the back row – driving me crazy.

  Once the movie’s done I leave her for a while to sit on a Q & A panel with Christopher and some of the other actors. There’s a good vibe amongst the reporters and writers who gather in front of us. The questions come thick and fast – and mostly for me.

  “Hey Dylan, Tom Baser – LA Times. The movie was great – really great job. I think it’s fair to say your career was stagnating before this picture, and I really just wanted to ask what made you want to do a movie like this again.”

  “Two things,” I say, leaning into the mic. “One was Christopher, who came to me with the script, showing a lot of faith in me, and realizing what I had to give. And the other was Gemma, my girlfriend, who believed in me, put up with a lot of shit, picked me up when I was down, kicked me up the arse when my head was in the clouds, and really dragged me through this production by being the most amazing person on the planet.”

  There are murmurs throughout the room as the reporters take notes, and I can tell they’re thrown and maybe even a little impressed by my heart
felt answer, by the new leaf I’ve turned. A year ago I’d have told them all to fuck off, or shown up to a panel like this drunk out of my mind. I’ve come a long way, and I’m proud to be here.

  “Hey, Sarah James, USA Today. I have a question for Dylan – hi. The movie’s fantastic, and there’s a huge amount of buzz that’s saying you’re a runaway favorite to win another Oscar for it. How important to you is it to get that kind of recognition?”

  “Absolutely fucking irrelevant,” I say with a smile that makes everyone laugh. “I won an Oscar before – and you saw how that turned out!” Another laugh. “I guess, if I win an Oscar for this movie though, it’ll mean something different. It won’t be about me, it’ll be a testament to the people around me, and the wonderful way they supported me.”

  I see Gemma in the crowd, standing toward the back of the room, behind the cameras, the boom mics, and the crowd of faces. She winks, and I chuckle a little.

  “Sam Gallagher, Wall Street Journal. Dylan, now that you’ve essentially made a ‘comeback’ – and a pretty big one at that – what’s next? What kind of movies are you going to make in the future, what’s next for Dylan Marlowe the actor and the man?”

  I laugh a little as he finishes the question.

  “Dylan Marlowe the actor – has already found a very promising script written by a talented young woman that he’d like to work with. As for Dylan Marlowe the man,” I say, looking again at Gemma tucked into the corner of the room, “he’s taking it one day at a time. Tomorrow, he’ll be going to a Caribbean island for a much-needed vacation with the woman he loves. After that…” I see Gemma radiate a smile in my direction, a smile I want to see every day for the rest of my life. “Who knows?”

  The End

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  HARD

  RYDER

  CH. 1

  There are two smells in the world I love more than any others: a woman right before sex and this warehouse right before a fight. They’re different, of course. There’s nothing like a naked, wet, waiting woman, the scent of her skin salty with sweat but sweet at the same time, like swimming through an ocean of roses. The warehouse’s odor is far less pleasurable, phantoms of last round’s knocked-out teeth, bruised faces, and aching bones making the air heavy, grimy, stifling, like the smell of fresh dirt. But both are thrilling and unpredictable and make me want to explode.

  Even when it was me in the ring a few years ago, my ribs about to get punched, my knuckles about to crash into someone’s cheekbone, the smell of this place would intoxicate me. Facing off with a guy whose sole intention for the next several minutes is to pummel you into submission is as terrifying as it sounds. And as exhilarating. The policy of bare-knuckles brawls is no shirt, no shoes, big problem standing right across from you. But all I had to do to calm myself was take a big inhale of this warehouse air, let the molecules seep into my lungs, into my bloodstream, and I won every match.

  I always win.

  So tonight, after Crutcher beats Miller in an upset, a big win for me for sure, when Tyler tells me that some kid is in for $10,000 and has disappeared, I tell him he’s got to have it wrong. “I would never have let Jamie McEntire run up that kind of tab,” I say. “I’ve seen him around. I wouldn’t give him ten dollars, let alone ten thousand.” When I took over running fight night two years ago, I did a little cleanup from the mess my predecessor left. No five- or six- figure debts to people we don’t know, no credit to anyone who’s welched more than once. We may be an underground operation, but there are standards. There’s also a dress code: women in heels, men in collared shirts, and our crowd is the type who likes to drop a lot of money on both. We have security guards. The bartender will call you a cab if you get too drunk. I run a tight ship. Even the police think so. That’s why they don’t hassle me. Sometimes they even take a try in the ring.

  Tyler shrugs. “It’s been gradual. Losses on a couple fights, loans to cover him,” he says. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But I double checked the ledger, and it adds up.”

  “Fuck me,” I say, and a blond woman in high heels and a dress so tight she must not have exhaled all night turns toward us. She raises an eyebrow at me, smiles like she might take me up on the offer.

  And with the way she wraps her mouth around the neck of that beer bottle, keeping her eyes locked on mine as she takes a drink, I might just let her.

  Tyler’s voice yanks me back to the problem at hand. “So what do you want to do?” he says. “He’s offered his house as collateral.”

  I shake my head. “This isn’t a swap meet.” Sometimes people think that just because I run an illegal fighting circuit and betting ring, I must be dishonest or inattentive to keeping the books, or maybe just dumb. So they try to take advantage of me occasionally. They think I won’t notice or care if they siphon a little cash or don’t pay in full or don’t pay at all, that I’m just a guy who made his money beating the shit out of strangers while debutantes and their dates made their bets. All brawn and no brains. But they’re wrong.

  In the ring, I didn’t mind being underestimated. It helped me win. Some spectators think when you look like me, tall, muscular, broad-shouldered, you won’t be agile enough to dodge a right hook. So they bet against you. They don’t realize those muscles aren’t just for showing off to the female members of the crowd—not that I minded when they noticed. Those hard biceps mean you’re strong, and those washboard abs make you quick, and it all adds up to making my bank account big.

  But as the boss outside the ring, I can’t have people not take me seriously. The Armani suits I wear on fight nights look damn good on me but they don’t come cheap, so when I loan money I expect to get it back when the handshake said I would. It’s only fair. I’ve got a reputation to protect, not to mention a legitimate business career to support, owning two of Atlanta’s most popular nightclubs, a cocktail lounge, and Altitude, a bar some buddies and I run together. I got to the top flying like a butterfly in the ring, but I stay there because I sting like a bee outside it.

  And Jamie McEntire’s about to feel what I mean.

  “You know where this kid’s house is?” I say, clapping Tyler on the shoulder. He nods. “Good,” I say. “You’re driving then. Grab Valero and let him know that as soon as this crowd clears, we’re making a visit.”

  Tyler leaves, and the woman in the tight dress with the lucky beer bottle approaches. The dip of her neckline is as low as her skirt is short. “Someone should wash your mouth out,” she says.

  “Sorry if I offended your delicate sensibilities,” I say, smiling. We’re at an underground bare-knuckles fight. Fuck is hardly the most offensive thing she’s been exposed to tonight.

  “Not at all,” she says. “I like a man who talks dirty.” She takes a sip from the bottle, tipping it toward me. “Want some?”

  I don’t think she just means the beer.

  Over her shoulder, behind her in the crowd, I see a guy in a decent-looking grey suit. He’s standing with a few other people but his attention is clearly fixed on her, watching. I tilt the bottle back toward her with my index finger. “Who are you here with?”

  “No one special,” she says, taking a step toward me. “Unless you want some company.”

  Women. They smell good, they look good, they taste good, but they can be so bad for you.

  I’ve been Grey Suit back there. Even in the shadows of the warehouse I can read the look on his face, the narrowed eyes, slightly turned down mouth. He’s a guy who knows that just because he’s the one who’s taking this girl out tonight it doesn’t mean he’s going home with her. Back when I was fighting, my girlfriend at t
he time used the hours I was knocking guys’ blocks off to get her rocks off. She even slept with some of my opponents, who I beat anyway, but still—I don’t know if she was just bored or mean, didn’t love me or herself or both, but when we broke up two years ago, I swore off relationships. My motto is get in and get out, in all ways possible.

  So Tight Dress standing in front of me, just the right size to straddle my lap in the front seat of my Audi, would usually be the perfect ending to a night.

  But I can’t abide dishonesty, not even from a one-night stand. Like I said: there are standards.

  “Your date’s not doing it for you?” I say, nodding at Grey Suit who’s now standing by the door where people are starting to exit. It must be after two a.m. by now and a weeknight, which means most of these people are six hours away from clocking in at the office tomorrow. Thrill seekers by night, executive decision makers by day, that’s a lot of our audience, and even though I’ve never been able to tolerate living that kind of rigid, conventional lifestyle for myself, their money’s just as good as anyone else’s. They may even have a greater appreciation for the brawls, since bare-knuckles fighting is a far cry from whatever uptight Fortune 500 company or corporate law firm they work at.

  She glances at Grey Suit, then turns back to me. “He’s okay,” she says. That pretty mouth of hers widens. Despite the darkness of the warehouse, her teeth gleam like white stones. “But you’re Ryder Cole.” She runs her hand lightly over my arm. “And I’m willing.”

  My bicep belies my intention to be behave, contracting instinctively as her fingers linger on my suit sleeve. “To do what?”

  “Anything you want.”

  I lean close to her. “I want you to go home with the guy that brought you and fuck his brains out like a good girl,” I say. “But you can think about me while you’re doing it.”