Page 86 of Under the Lies

Everything goes quiet as a girl with heels and a gold silk robe steps forward with a black cue card. A red number one is painted on it.

She walks it around the ring, her steps methodical as a few whistle or catcall toward her.

Asshats.

While the room seems to be focusing on the card girl, I look farther into the ring. Meeting the burning stare of my blue-eyed devil.

With his mouth pressed in a tense line and his eyes sharp and deadly, Noah looks every bit as frightening that he’s been rumored to be.

Back at his apartment, I realize, he was holding himself back. Controlled in all aspects including his anger.

Except for now, where the man can step aside and let the control go.

The opponents bump knuckles as a bang rings around the room.

And so round one begins.

Noah’s opponent makes the first move, fist to the face. Which Noah narrowly avoids, shifting backward before lunging forward with a punch of his own.

When Noah’s knuckles hit flesh, the crowd goes wild, screaming and jumping. Knocking their elbows and various limbs into me.

“If I leave here with bruises,” I hiss into Thea’s ear. “I’m never hanging out with you again.”

“Yeah, okay.” She laughs.

“Who’s Noah fighting?”

“I think his name is Thomas.” She shrugs beside me. “People are always volunteering to go up against him.”

People volunteer to get their face pounded?

“What is this place?” I turn back to the ring as Thomas gets up.

He staggers a step before he faces Noah, his face bloody with bruises already swelling his cheeks.

Who would volunteer to get their face beat in? Archaic simpletons. Masochists. The fragile masculine ego.

People who want to feel anything instead of always being numb.

“The Ring,” Thea answers. Both our focuses are on Thomas as he nails a jab to Noah’s side. I flinch at the sound of flesh hitting flesh, of Noah’s grunt that shouldn’t be heard over the deafening crowd but one I feel anyway.

“Noah comes here when he needs to work off aggression,” she adds, but I barely hear her. My entire focus is on what’s unfolding inside the ring.

On Noah.

He comes here when he needs to work off aggression. Me. I’m the aggression that’s thrown him in there tonight.

And he’s a force to reckon with. Moving with agile reflexes, he’s more calculated than his opponent, who’s throwing punches into the wind and hoping they hit. Noah’s are more purposeful. He knows when to advance and when to wane. While one moves like a rabbit on caffeine, the other conserves energy, building toward greater impact.

Thomas juts out a fist and hits Noah in the face.

I flinch at the sound and grow tense with Noah’s retaliation.

He fires back with enough force for Thomas’s head to snap back.

Thomas roars, not backing down. Landing two hits before Noah serves one back.

It’s vicious and bloody and dirty.

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