Oliver had one overarching weakness: his ego. I didn’t like to exploit things like that unless I needed to, but I was getting tired and I wanted to take Oliver down. Mission accomplished. I used my teeth to peel off the velcro of my right glove and then reached out a hand and pulled Oliver to his feet. We each pulled off our gloves and then climbed out of the ring.
“Fair match,” Oliver said with a smile, holding out his fist for a bump, “but you won’t get me like that next time.”
I met his fist bump with my own. “Sorry. I had to pee.”
Oliver rolled his eyes and then we made our way over to our bags. I pulled out my phone and saw that I had a couple of missed calls from Cade. I looked over at Oliver and saw that he had his head cocked to the side in confusion as well.
“Hey,” I called over. “Missed calls from Cade?”
“Yeah,” Oliver replied. “That’s weird. He never calls.”
Cade was a religious texter. He did so much talking all day, every day at his job, so when he was off the clock, he preferred to save his voice and text.
“Get dressed and we’ll call him from the car,” Oliver said.
I changed out of my workout clothes, and met Oliver at his pristine, silver Lexus in front of our gym. I climbed into the passenger’s side of his car, and then Oliver got in and started his car.
He pressed the phone button and his car blinged to life. “Call Cade,” Oliver told it, and a second later Cade answered.
“Where the hell have you been?” Cade barked.
“Whoa,” Oliver replied. “Hey, Cade, it’s me and Lowe. We were at the gym, boxing. I kicked his ass, obviously.”
“If by ‘kicked his ass,’ you mean fell flat on yours, then I would say that’s an accurate depiction of what happened today,” I cut in.
“You cheated,” Oliver spat back.
I gasped. “What? No, I–”
“Hey guys, fun fact, I don’t give a shit who won your little means nothing boxing match. I had my fingers up Jordan’s pussy last night,” Cade said.
It looked like Oliver’s eyes were going to come flying off of his face. “What?!”
Cade laughed. “Don’t be mad that you weren’t first.”
I wasn’t as energetic as Oliver, but I was angry inside too. We all agreed that Ethan would explain things to Jordan first and then we would come in after that. How the fuck did Cade end up hooking up with her.
“You fucked her?” I asked.
“No, no,” Cade said. “I didn’t break the rules all the way, but she climbed onto my lap and was basically begging for it. I couldn’t say no.”
“Yeah you could have, it sounds like this ‘No,’” Oliver said.
I looked at Oliver. “So if Jordan climbed up in your lap and begged you to fuck her, you would have told her no?”
Oliver stared at me and I stared back at him and we just sat in silence for a while.
“Exactly,” Cade sliced the silence finally.
“Do Ethan and Harrison know?” I asked.
“What about Rogan?” Oliver asked. “I bet he’s pissed. He wanted to destroy her when she went to his office to get her paperwork processed.”
“I’ve told everyone a little bit of it, but because it seems like Jordan is going to be willing to sign on to the other half of our arrangement sooner than we were thinking, we have to have a meeting and discuss exactly what we’re going to do. Are you two done working out? Can you come to Ethan’s?” Cade asked.
“Yeah. Let us go home and change, and we’ll be over,” Oliver said.
“Okay. Don’t take too long,” Cade said. “Bye.”
“Bye,” Oliver and I both resounded and then the line went dead.
I started to climb out of Oliver’s car, but he grabbed his arm and stopped me. I looked over my shoulder and his face was stone serious. “What?” I asked.
“I just think, before we do this, I want you to know…” Oliver began and I’d never seen him look so serious before. “That last shot you got off.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“It only brought you up to 8, I still won with 10 points,” Oliver said, then he flashed a dumb smile.
I flipped him off, climbed out of the car, and slammed the door. Moron. I actually thought he had something serious to say. I probably should have known better. I made my way to my own car and expeditiously returned to my home. I took a quick shower, dressed myself in something comfortable, and then made my way over to Ethan’s house. Everyone had already gathered, and once drinks were poured, and everyone was comfortable in the den, Ethan checked his watch.
“Alright, we don’t have much time. Jordan is picking the kids up from school and bringing them here, so we gotta talk and talk fast,” he said.