Fighting Love (Love to the Extreme) Read Free Page A

starting to pop up. Like the rib eye I bought last night.” He
    shook his head. “Why that would even cross my mind, after losing…” He inhaled deeply.
    She took one hand off the steering wheel, reached over, and squeezed his hand. “It’ll be okay.”
    He clasped it and squeezed back. “Yeah. It’s like, for a moment I forget, and nothing has
    changed. Then it hits me like a ton of bricks again. Kinda like it did after…”
    “You lost the title,” she finished gently.
    “Yeah. I guess it’s natural, right? I thought some weird-ass stuff after Mike booted me out.
    Every time I thought about heading over to the gym, I had to remind myself Mike had banned me,
    and why. I had to do that for weeks before the new routine finally took over and I stopped
    thinking about it. I can’t believe I’m having to do this all over again.”
    “Well, at least this one isn’t your fault.”
    He let out a shocked laugh and shook his head. “Ow! Damn, woman.”
    She shrugged. Though she’d hated that Tommy had been banned from the cage and even his
    training facility, this was all part of the growing up he needed to do. As he’d gotten older, instead
    of settling down like most men eventually did, Tommy had only gotten wilder.
    The man did love his women. As a consequence, he’d never had a serious relationship. In fact,
    in the twenty-three years she had known him, she couldn’t remember seeing him with the same
    woman twice. Well. She had seen him with two women at the same time, but, again, the actual
    girls never stayed the same.
    Then there was his attitude. Thankfully, that had never been directed at her. He’d always
    stayed the same with her, but everyone else—including his training posse, especially after he won
    the Middleweight championship a little over a year ago—yeah, she understood how it had been
    easy for Mike to tell him to get the hell out.
    Fighting hadn’t changed Tommy. He’d fought his way up since he was twenty. But the lifestyle
    that came with “hitting it big” had. The parties, the cockiness, the women, all of it. The man had
    become so wrapped up in everything and everyone else around him, he had completely ignored
    Julie. Hell, he hadn’t even noticed when she’d left.
    She really didn’t ever want to meet that man again.
    She just hated that his blindness had cost him the cage. And brought him to this.
    No career, no future. And now, no home.
    …
    Tommy tucked a long yellow envelope under his arm as he walked out of the post office exit.
    Julie had been awesome, as always. She’d chauffeured him around all morning, stopping to let him
    buy some necessities. Thankfully, when he ran, he always carried a debit card, his license, and
    some cash, along with his phone, in his wrist wallet. That habit had kept him from being
    completely without access to money.
    Too bad money wasn’t finding him a place to stay. A pet-friendly hotel was an option, of
    course, but he didn’t like the idea of his dog being cooped up in a hotel room for God only knew
    how long before he found a new place.
    But Julie didn’t need him underfoot, either.
    He had to see if he could make other arrangements. Unfortunately, only one other person came
    to mind, and he knew it would be a long shot. He dug out his phone, thumbed through his contact
    list, then hit the call button.
    Dante “Inferno” Jones had been a good friend of his for a couple of years now. “Hello,” Dante
    answered.
    “Hey, man. It’s Tommy.”
    “Tommy! It’s been a while. How’ve you been?”
    “All right. Keeping busy.”
    There was a moment of silence. “So what’s up?”
    Tommy rubbed the stubble on his jaw. He had never been big on asking for help. “Uh, yeah…I
    had a fire at my place. Looks like I’m going to be out somewhere to live for a bit, so I was
    wondering if I could crash over at your place.” He left out how bad the fire actually was, not
    wanting Dante to feel obligated.
    “Fuck, Tommy, I’m sorry. Of