Travis was lightly jumping up and down on his toes, and when Enzo tried to lunge at him and take him down, Travis easily moved out of the way, causing Enzo to fall flat on his face. Without even breaking a sweat, Travis sat casually on Enzo’s back. “I think you should tap out, brother,” Travis said with a laugh, but Enzo knew he was right. It had taken Travis less than a minute to knock Enzo on his ass, but it’d been the most exhausting minute of Enzo’s life.
Travis stood and extended his hand, helping Enzo to his feet.
“Like I said, you’re not ready,” Tony cracked.
“Tex, man, you’re a fuckin’ ninja. You’re so damn fast,” Slade exclaimed as he opened up the cage. Travis shrugged and headed out to the locker room. A moment later he came back and shoved a wrinkled piece of paper toward Enzo.
“Payback’s a bitch,” he said to Enzo with a grin. “Maybe this will teach you to be less of a cocky bastard.”
Enzo skimmed the piece of paper, then groaned. “Seriously? This is ridiculous. You’re not really going to make me do this, are you?”
Slade snatched the paper from Enzo’s hand. He, Cain, and Tony huddled together, reading it, and all three roared with laughter.
Tony pulled out his phone. “Sorry, gotta call my wife to let her know I’m going to be late for dinner.”
“You’re coming too?” Enzo whined.
“Fuck yeah! I wouldn’t miss this shit for the world.”
Slade and Cain followed suit and reached for their phones to call their girlfriends. “You’re the most uptight guy I’ve ever met. I ain’t missing this, either,” Slade said.
“Go shower,” Tony teased Enzo. “No one wants to see your naked sweaty balls.”
Enzo was fuming as he got into the shower. The happiness he’d felt earlier about finally being free of his ex-wife was gone, replaced by dread. He had gone to the best schools in Brazil and then gotten an MBA from Wharton—he didn’t do things like this! But he also never reneged on a bet. If this whole embarrassing episode had taught him one thing, it was that next time he needed to train a lot harder or shut the hell up.
Chapter 2
JL ran down the empty hallway in the Tarpon Springs Community Center, untying the green apron she’d worn while bartending at the Pier. She was supposed to have finished her shift an hour ago, but Penny, her replacement for the evening, had been late…again. Now she was late to her favorite pastime—art class. It was something virtually no one knew she did. Since most people saw her as carefree and single, they didn’t think she minded covering an extra shift or working an extra hour. Honestly, she never complained, because she really didn’t mind helping out her friends. And Penny was sort of her friend.
But she hadn’t wanted to be late today, because today the class would be sketching from a live model, and she’d been looking forward to it for weeks. Maybe if she could have afforded to go to a fancy art school this wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but an actual live model at TSCC wasn’t something that happened often.
As she came to a sudden stop in front of the room and yanked open the door, the soles of her sneakers screeched loudly against the linoleum floor, and all heads turned to her. Her face flushed with embarrassment, and she kept her eyes down as she made her way toward the sole open seat, which was on the far side of the room. Her big bag bumped everyone along the way, earning her a slew of glares from the mostly older students.
When she finally got to her seat, she let her big purse fall to the floor and dropped down into the seat, where a blank canvas was already on the easel in front of her. But as soon as her butt hit the chair JL heard someone whisper her name loudly. She looked around and was astonished to find Travis peeking out from behind a canvas in the row behind her. She furrowed her brow at her twin brother and whispered, “Why are you here?”
She was even more surprised to see Cain, Slade, and Tony peek out from behind their easels on either side of Travis. Tony pointed to the middle of the room.
Slowly she turned her head back to the front. There, in the center of the enormous room, buck-ass naked, with an apple in the palm