Swink (Landry Family 5)

“Well, he told me that too. Apparently I should remember it more often.”

She giggles again and I want to puke.

My stomach sinks that she knows this part of him, that he’s impressed by her knowledge of whatever it is they’re talking about. Fighting. Punching. Things that are foreign and beyond me.

Then she giggles a third time and I realize I may have more of a fighter in me than I expect. I want to place a punch right in the middle of her face. My hands clenched at my sides, my nails pressing into my palms, I step farther in the room so I can see them.

She’s sitting in the middle of the ring next to him. A bandage is wrapped around his chest, and by the way it’s fastened, I can tell he didn’t put it on. Someone else did. She did.

I take a deep breath and know I’m probably not going to handle this with a smile.

“Hey, Dom,” I say as sweetly as I can manage.

I’ve never seen someone’s head whip around so quickly. His eyes are wide as he struggles to his feet, grimacing in pain. I don’t look at Red, but she’s looking at me. Her smirk smacks the side of my face, her taunt, also inaudible, is there. I feel it.

“What are you doing here?” Dom asks, babying his side.

“I left the event early. Maybe, again, I should’ve called.”

My teeth grind against each other, my hands trembling at the fury of imagining her hands on my man.

“You know what? I’m sorry,” I say, “I did call. That’s how I knew you were here. You didn’t answer.”

“He was training,” Red interjects, looking at me like I’m an annoyance.

“You—” I start, but Dom cuts me off.

“Hannah, thanks for your help tonight.”

“Anything for you.” Her eyes are on mine as she places her hand on his shoulder and lets it fall down his arm. “Need anything else, Dom?”

“You have about three seconds to get away from him,” I seethe.

“And what are you going to do about it?”

“She’s not going to do anything about it. Just go, Hannah. Okay?”

She stands in front of him, her hands on her hips. “I still have this cream . . .”

“I swear to God . . .” My body quakes as I look at Dominic.

“You,” she says as she climbs out the ring a safe distance away from me, “need to leave him alone. He’s injured and has a fight in a couple of days. Don’t be fucking his head all up.”

“Hannah, enough,” Dom orders, his voice gravelly.

“You need to leave him alone,” I glare.

“Why? Because you’re his little goody-two-shoe girlfriend and you said so? Let me give you a little piece of advice. If you gave a fuck, you’d have been here timing his rounds and wrapping his hands and not off posing for pictures like the mindless idiot you are.”

“Excuse me?” I start around the ring but am stopped when Dom’s voice booms through the room.

“Hannah. Enough,” he growls. “You wanna play a little game, that’s fine. Cam is smart enough to see it for what it is. But if you’re going to tread into disrespecting her, calling her names, that’s a level you don’t want to get to. Trust me.”

She rolls her eyes. “Put a show on now for the girlfriend. Fine. See you later.”

I stand on one side of the ropes, Dom on the other, while Hannah whistles and rummages around up front taking her sweet time. A couple of long minutes later, the door slams. And we’re alone.

Just having her gone dissolves some of the fire, but in its place, is a singe of hurt.