He doesn't.

Melissa watched as the typing icon come up on the screen of her phone. It showed Vinny typing out a message to her and then it went blank. The asshole had left her on read.

Vinny was just in the final stages of the sound and production rehearsal for the fight night tomorrow when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. The gym Vinny had used to train at when he was competing, and now was a trainer himself at, was putting on its first fight card. The entire floor of the boxing gym had been cleaned out with only the ring with a fresh canvas showing of the sponsor’s logos remaining. Where there had been punching bags and fitness equipment there was now tables and chairs and row upon row of fold-out seats. It looked a treat. It should with the amount of work that had gone into it.

Rather than renting out a hall, Vinny had argued for the fight night to be staged at his own gym and the saving put back into production values. From his own career, Vinny knew that the best fights in the world weren’t going to be of any good if the audience who had paid good money to be there could hear or see what was going on properly.

Vinny smiled when he saw the message. “What are you doing?”. It was an unknown number but the area code was New York. The only person he’d given his number to from there lately was Melissa. She’d finally cracked and message him. It had only taken her five days. Alexa’s honeymoon was due to last another two weeks and Vinny found himself excited by the idea of seeing the attractive Asian lawyer again while his regular plaything Alexa was overseas.

He started to type out a message saying it was good to hear from her at last when he heard a woman screaming coming from the boxing ring. Locking the phone and dropping it back in his pocket, Vinny ran to the ring and the noise to see Carly, the ring girl for tomorrow night who had been practising her role as part of the rehearsal, lying on the floor by the stairs leading into the ring. She was crying holding her ankle in her high stripper-style heel that was bent at an unnatural angle. Vinny quickly surmised that Carly had come through the ropes onto the stairs after walking around the ring holding up a round card and then lost her footing on the stairs and fallen, almost certainly breaking her angle. She needed medical attention and fast.

“Oh my God! My foot! Is it broken?” Carly cried out in panic and pain.

There was a group of people already around her, none of whom wanted to give her the bad news.

“Carly. Look at me,” Vinny told her trying to get her attention on him and not her foot. “You’re going to be alright. We’re going to have to take you to hospital and have you checked out.”

“It’s bad isn’t it,” the young girl asked. Carly was an attractive petite blonde but with big natural breasts. It was why she had been so perfect as a ring girl. She’d been self-conscious about her height and having all the men looking at her tomorrow that she had insisted on wearing those ridiculous shoes.

“I’m no doctor,” Vinny began bunching up his shoulders in a shrug.

“I’m not an idiot Vinny!” Carly snapped back at him. She’d started to go pale. Paler even than her normal very light complexion.

“Yeah, but you’re a natural blonde, so who knows?” Vinny shot back her.

“Asshole!” Carly swore but she was laughing which was the main thing.

After taking off the grossly unsafe pair of shoes, Carly was able to get up onto her one good foot with the aid of a pair of bystanders. The oversized pair of heels she had thrown under the canvas wrapped around the base of the boxing ring. The owner of the gym tried to start leading Carly to where they had a car waiting for her to be taken to Accident and Emergency.

“Take it nice and easy and we’ll run you down to the emergency department,” he told her in a soothing voice.

“But I want Vinny to take me,” Carly cried out at the thought of being rushed off to hospital with a bunch of strangers. Vinny had been the only one to show her any sort of concern and had tried making her feel better.