My boxing Angel

Chapter 7

~Jasmine~

After my encounter in the kitchen with Vincenzo, I locked myself in my room and slept the rest of the night like a baby.

I woke up when my alarm sounded, I stretched on my bed and then got up. Rubbing my eyes, I make my way to the bathroom that is attached to my room. I take a soothing shower and dress in a black sports bra and leggings.

Walking out of my room and into the living room, I hear complete silence. I call out the name of each brother, but none of them answered me.

“I guess they aren’t here” I mumble to myself and start stretching my legs for my run.

The sun is shining, but it doesn’t make me feel hot and uncomfortable. I settle for a jogging pace, as I’m trying to appreciate the environment. It’s around 10:00 a.m. which means that there aren’t that many cars on the road. The buildings that I pass are tall and very modern, and the people are extremely nice.

After running for an hour, I decided to get back to the house. I start to make my way up the stairs of the porch when I hear the clatter of pots from inside the house. Entering the house, I see Vincenzo with his arms crossed glaring at Joaquin. Rafael is in the kitchen trying to balance pots and pans but failing miserably, and Elias is watching something in the living room.

“Everything okay in here?” I question, taking out one of my earphones to hear them more clearly. Vincenzo’s angry glare snaps my way and I flinch away from his stare.

“And finally, my PR decided to grace us with her presence,” Vincenzo says with an eyebrow raised and sarcasm dripping for every word, I gulp at his expression.

“I was out for a run?” I tell him, but it sounded more like a question, his angry stare is making me feel uncomfortable. “Did you need me for something?” I ask him, but he only glares at me.

“We just didn’t see you here when we came back from the gym,” Joaquin tells me with a shrug. “Enzo was just worried,” he says nonchalantly, but his brother didn’t miss his words, he wasted no time in narrowing his eyes to his brother. He… he was worried about me? Joaquin’s words caught me off guard because the only thing that Vincenzo does around me is glare and mumble. But the fact that he was worried about me… made me feel some kind of way.

“Oh, sorry for not saying anything to you guys,” I tell them, scratching the back of my neck. “I didn’t think it would matter, sorry”

“Well now that you are here, everyone listen up” Joaquin enters his manager persona and starts giving us a list of everything we need to do. “Be sure to be ready at 7, the match starts at 9” he says, and I nod my head at every word. They all leave the kitchen, except Vincenzo who is pouting like a big baby.

Was it wrong of me not to tell either of the brothers where I was going? I mean they did the same thing…

My train of thought leaves my mind when I hear a buzzing. I swat my hand around at the sound of buzzing near my ear again. God, I hate flies. I hiss out when something stings me in my hand. I look down at my hand and a bee had just stung me. Vincenzo notices my discomfort and furrows his eyebrows at me in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” he asks from his chair.

“I got stung by a bee,” I tell him with a frown, and Vincenzo hurries towards me and takes hold of my hand, examining it.

“Can you breathe?” He questions in a breath, and I look confused when he lifts his gaze and I’m met up with his light green eyes filled with worry.

“What?” I ask him confused by his question, as I try to pull away my hand from his grip.

“Can you breathe? Do you feel itchy anywhere?” He takes out the sting and I hiss a little at the sudden action and I glare at Vincenzo. I notice how tense he is, and I place my free hand on his arm.

“I’m okay,” I tell him with a smile. “Not allergic to bees” I inform him, and he seems to finally breathe at my words.

“Sorry,” he tells me with a cough and let’s go of my hand. “Um… Rafael is allergic to bees… and-” he cuts himself off and scratches the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at me. “We didn’t know about his allergy—he would have died if I didn’t react in time” Vincenzo finishes, and I feel my eyes fall. Maybe he isn’t just a jerk.

Maybe he has just been judged unfairly… something that I did.

Shit.

-

This place is packed, and it’s amazing. I can feel their energy from inside the locker room. I open the door just a little bit and stick my head out, seeing the lights moving around, hearing the roar of the crowd, and watching everyone scurrying away trying to find their seat. I take a photo on my phone and send it to my brother. I smile as my brother replies almost instantly.

“Got a secret boyfriend?” Rafael asks as he tries to spy on my phone. I duck my phone away from him and narrow my eyes.

“You think a man can get a smile on my face with just a text?” I challenge with a brow raised and Rafale laughs at my comment and raises his hands in surrender.

After that, I sat down in one of the far chairs, tweaking away with my camera. Vincenzo was settled on the massage bed with his headphones on, and his brothers all kept their distance until a worker informed us that Vincenzo had to get out in 5 minutes. They all started to talk and hype Vincenzo up for the match.

When it was time to start the match, the announcer of the night made a big show of making each fighter their own epic entrance. Vincenzo made his way to the ring and Elias opened the rope for him to get inside. Joaquin stood behind one of the poles with Elias and Rafael, Joaquin had his phone out probably making sure everything was all right, Rafael had a towel draped around his neck and Elias had a bucket of water at his feet. The brothers were prepared for everything and anything that Vincenzo might need during the fight.

As the fight started to come to an end, I managed to make my way through the paparazzi and stand the closest to the ring, which gave me a huge advantage to get a lot of good photos of Vincenzo. The fight went well, and I did manage to get a few perfect photos of Vincenzo, which I’m sure he is going to love.

The match ended in the eighth round, and everyone started to holler at their fighter. The paparazzi became ruthless when the referee stood in the middle of the ring and held both fighters by their wrists. They start to push and claw their way, trying to get to the front.

A hand wraps around my elbow and holds onto me tightly, then the person pulls me back roughly. “Whoa hey, be careful!” I hiss out and rub the arm the paparazzi just so aggressively grabbed.

“Hey!” a voice growled out and everyone’s attention snapped to the boxing ring. A furious-looking Vincenzo is looking intensely our way. He hasn’t moved to the side of the ring because the referee is holding tightly to his wrist. “Apologize to her” Vincenzo points a finger at the guy who yanked me backward. The guy looks confused and a bit uncomfortable but doesn’t apologize. Vincenzo crosses his arms and narrows his eyes at the guy, waiting for that apology. “We won’t know who won the match until this reporter apologizes to her” he announces, and everyone starts to boo the reporter.

The guy looks like a deer caught in headlights, he quickly turns around and mumbles a quick apology to me. I slowly nod my head at his words, and he moves away and lets me walk to the front, where I was originally standing. Once I was standing where I was, I look at the ring and see Vincenzo walking over to me. He squats down so that we could be a little on eye level.

“Did he apologize?” he asks, but he isn’t looking at me, he is looking over me, at the reporter.

“More or less,” I tell him with a shrug, and he gives me a tight nod.

“Are you okay though?” he questions, and this time he looks deep into my eyes, and I swear I could see worry swirling in his eyes. I give him a reassuring smile and he takes that as a sign that I’m okay.

He gets up and makes his way to the referee, and lets the ceremony continue. I feel my cheeks burn when I feel almost everyone staring at me, I awkwardly laugh and level my camera to my face, to hide from the prying eyes.

The referee holds up Vincenzo’s wrist and all the attention drifts to him, and I couldn’t be more grateful.