My boxing Angel

Chapter 16

~Vincenzo~

I can’t believe I’m doing this right now.

My match in Florida got canceled because the other fighter got sick, which means that my brothers are going crazy with the three days they got of real vacation. As if two nights full of fun in Las Vegas wasn’t enough.

So now I’m stuck in Disney World, with four little kids.

I should buy those leashes for kids because I swear, they disperse faster than ants.

I guess the only bright side about any of this is the smile on each of their faces, they haven’t been this happy since I signed my contract and won my first boxing match. But their smile is not the one I’m staring at.

No… I have eyes only for my angel.

She is wearing a cute floral pink dress; white Converse, and her platinum blonde hair is in two braids.

“Jasmine, look at this!” Elias calls out for her from inside one of the stores. I trail behind her as they look around the store. When my brothers and Jasmine found Elias, they started talking and I zoned them out, scrolling through my phone.

“Champ?” I hear her delicate voice and I lift my gaze from my phone and into her light brown eyes. I raise an eyebrow in question, and she pulls out from behind her back some Mickey Mouse ears.

“No. No way. That is the ugliest s**t I have ever seen in my entire life, and I am not putting it on my head” I scrunch my nose in disgust, looking between her and the ears. She must be crazy if she thinks that I’m to walk around an amusement park wearing that.

“Come on! We will all look super cute” she tells me with a sulk, and I feel my breath hitch at her expression. I move my gaze from her to my brothers and they are already wearing those stupid ears. This cannot be happening right now.

“Fine,” I say in a breath and Jasmine lounges at me, wrapping her arms around my neck, I snake my arm around her waist to secure her. She pulls away and we are just a few inches away, she looks at me from under her lashes, and I can feel her heart beating erotically.

“Um… thank you,” she tells me with a shy smile and wiggles her way out of my grip.

After buying those ears, which cost me my two lungs, and left arm, Jasmine is the first one to speak. “Okay, let’s get a picture!” she calls out and we all pile together, trying to get in the frame. Jasmine sticks out her arm, but she is too short, she is unintentionally cutting me off the photo. I grab hold of her phone and get ready for the photo, now we are all in the frame. I look at the screen, and I can see Jasmine staring at me in awe as if I was something out of this world. I smile down at her, and she looks away with a blush on her face.

I snap the picture and hand back Jasmine her phone, she looks up at me and places a hand over her eyes, shading them from the sun.

“Thank you champ,” she says, and I roll my eyes; couldn’t she at least leave the house prepared for the weather of Florida? I take off my sunglasses and I see her eyebrows knit together in confusion when she notices me leaning in. I gently place my sunglasses on her eyes and grab a strand of her loose hair and place it behind her ear.

“You need to start leaving the house with sunglasses,” I tell her with a smirk. “I don’t have any more to give you,” I whisper into her ear, and I can see a darker shade on her cheeks.

“But I like yours better” she tells me with a sweet smile and I laugh at her cute innocent face.

-

We spent the rest of the day getting on rides, stuffing our faces with food, and buying expensive s**t we are probably never going to use ever again. Including the stupid ears, I have on right now.

It’s around 8:50 p.m. and I’m sitting with a very excited Jasmine on a bench. The fireworks show is supposed to start at 9 p.m. so we are waiting for that before leaving for the house. I relax onto the bench and let my head slump to the back, I close my eyes, but open them when I feel someone staring. I look to my left, and I catch Jasmine looking at me intensely.

“Can I ask you something?” she questions shifting her eyes from me to look down at her dress and playing with the hem of it.

“Sure” I tell her, and I sit up straight, so she can look at me when we are talking.

“Back in Las Vegas, you told me something.”

“If it was something stupid or asshole-like, I am extremely sorry.” I tell her and run a hand over my face, remembering when I snapped at her a few weeks ago, and all the times I have glared at her for no good reason.

“No, it’s not that,” she says with a giggle, and I can see her eyes shine. “You have been behaving” she smiles at me, and that makes me happy. Knowing that she might think of me as more than just an angry asshole.

“You told me…” she starts to fidget again with her dress, I place a hand on hers and she snaps her attention towards me, I give her a reassuring smile and that seemed to calm her down. “You told me: If only you could remember me” I feel like my breath is knocked out of me. She wasn’t meant to hear that, hell no one was meant to hear that. Our encounter was the only secret I have kept to myself.

She deserved to fall in love with whomever she wanted; I didn’t want her to feel obligated to feel something toward me because we shared a spark all those years ago.

I feel Jasmine put a hand on my thigh and I jump away from her touch as if it burned me. I walk away from the bench, and I try to make my way through the crowd, trying to lose her.

I’m confident, but when it comes to her… I’m just a ball of nerves. I hold so dearly to that moment in the fast food, that the thought of her rejecting me is just too much for me to bear.

A hand clings to my elbow and when I look back, it’s Jasmine. She is looking at me with a frown and looking all too confused. I hated that, I wanted to see her smile, but she rarely does that when she is around me.

Could it be possible that I bring out the worst in her?