Speechless for a moment by the sudden turn of events, Nellie stared at him as their drinks arrived. “Um, yeah, it’s okay with me,” she finally said, taking her drink from the waitress. Just then, she saw two of the band members walk in and take a seat in one of the corner sofa lounging areas. “I wasn’t planning on staying too late, but it’s not often I get to hang out in a VIP lounge like this.”

“Good,” he grinned, those blue eyes sparkling and looking very pleased. “If I’d known tonight was going to turn out this way, I would’ve gotten here earlier.” He held his glass out to her. She reached out and tapped it with hers. “To chance meetings,” he said with a smile that only accentuated the dark lashes draping over those crystal blue eyes dramatically.

“To chance meetings,” she smiled back, shaking off the sliver of guilt she began to feel again.

Coming here tonight she knew there’d be nothing romantic between her and Logan or anything that might make this feel wrong. She had no intention of tonight being more than just an innocent night out with a male friend, but the gleam in Sam’s playful eyes said he had something more in mind.

Taking a sip of her martini, thoughts of Abel bagging Rachel just this past week came to mind. She didn’t know a thing about Sam yet, but if she had to go strictly by his looks, staying out a little later than she’d originally planned didn’t sound so bad after all.

Chapter 10

The meeting with the director of PR last night went well, though Abel had hardly been able to concentrate much. He still hadn’t heard a thing about Nellie’s date, and he had no intention of asking anyone about it, not Nellie, not Noah, no one. The only thing he could hope for was that he’d worn her out enough Thursday night so that the last thing she’d be thinking about on her date was ending it literally with a bang.

He slammed the locker closed much harder than he intended, especially after he remembered Noah was still around and watching him too damn closely.

Andy leaned against the wall, reading off his iPad. “So I need to go over a few things with you. I know you don’t follow the tabloids, but I just need to keep you up on the big stuff. This way, no reporters catch you off guard.”

Abel sat back into the huge full body massage chair, clicking the remote to place it in just the perfect reclining position, and closed his eyes as the massage started. It was just one of the perks from his latest sponsor. He made a cool six figures for doing a thirty-second commercial for one of these, and they threw in a couple of these chairs for his own personal use. The other one was at his home. While the massage was supposed to be state of the art and it had all kinds of gadgets so you could hook it up to your tablet, phone, or iPod, nothing relieved his tense muscles like the one activity he wished he could do tonight.

Once again, he’d barely heard anything of what Andy was saying. His mind had wandered off to thoughts of all the things he’d done to Nellie and everything he still wanted to do.

“You need to remember that McKinley’s camp plays dirty when it comes to trash talking and trying to get in your head through the press. They’ve already started.”

Abel opened one eye. Andy had his attention but just vaguely. Abel still didn’t give a shit about the tabloid stories. He heard Hector and Gio’s voices coming toward them.

“That story about your dad and the Mexican mafia didn’t really go anywhere, but McKinley and his camp are still trying to keep it alive by commenting about it every chance they get.”

“Oh, I heard about this,” Hector said. Both he and Gio were sitting on stools between Andy and Abel. “McKinley was on Howard Stern the other morning talking about how it makes sense now that an amateur boxer and someone so young could afford to own and run a gym of this caliber.”

Admittedly that pissed Abel off. Obviously the ass**le hadn’t done his homework or he’d know how it was possible. But he refused to let this guy get to him. “I’ll deal with him in the ring,” he said, closing his eyes again.

“His brothers remind me of B-list celebrities with one sibling who has actually made it,” Gio laughed. “They ride their famous sibling’s coattails, doing reality shows and interviews all over, when no one really gives a shit about them. But man do they love trash talking.”

“This is what I’m talking about,” Andy said. “They’re known for going all out to get in their opponent’s head.” He chuckled. “I think it’s killing them that they haven’t been able to get a peep outta Aweless Ayala.”

“And they’re not going to,” Abel reminded him.

He clicked the remote and the massage chair began inclining upward. Noah walked in the room. “You guys are all coming down to my place tonight, right?” he said, taking the wrap off his hands.

“Oh, shit,” Gio stood up. “That reminds me. I’m supposed to stop and grab some stuff from the market for Bianca. She texted me earlier. She’s making chili.”

Hector stood up too. “I was gonna pick up Charlee and go grab some pizza, but she’ll probably wanna hang out at your place instead. Her friend Drew’s been out of town for weeks now, and she misses the girl talk.”

Gio laughed, grabbing his phone and wallet off the desk. “You better check your phone, dude. Bianca already mentioned Charlee bringing her chicken pasta salad.”

Hector’s jaw dropped and he hurried away. Noah smirked, turning to Abel. “You’re coming down too, right?” Abel read the apprehension in his face right away. “The featherweight championship is on HBO tonight. It’s why I decided to throw a barbeque together. Andy says they’ll be airing more of your bio before the fight. And I figured we could all take a small break from this grueling training.”