The chapter opens with Brooke describing the private jet that’s going to be taking them around on their tour.  Yes, you read that right.  Private jet.   Owned by a guy that performs – possibly illegally – in front of crowds that are only 300-500 strong.

(Note: I am aware that I massively fucked up the math. Oops. $7500 a night with the rest of the numbers is close to $900,000/year. He’s doing fine. Still fights too much tho.)

She said earlier that tickets run between $50 and $500.  Assuming that most tickets are of the cheaper variety, I’m guessing they take in about $75,000 in a sold out show.  Now, Remy isn’t the only person getting paid, you’ve got the other ten guys he’s fighting, the announcers, the people who own and maintain the building, PR people, security, and that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head.  He’d be lucky to get 1% of that take, but let’s be nice and say he gets 10%.  $750 a night. 

The UFC’s heavyweight champion is Cain Velasquez.  He’s fought in 14 official matches in his 7 year long career.  So the fact that Remy’s been in two fights so far in this book is already unfathomable, but let’s assume that pattern continues.  Two in a week.  (He should be dead doing that, but this is a terrible book.)  Let’s say 39 weeks a year, to allow for an off season.  $1500/week makes $58,500/year.

The cost of a private jet starts at $4 million. 

And that doesn’t even account for the two coaches, on personal assistant, and Brooke that he’s hired, nor does it account for the fees associated with private jet travel, fuel and maintenance costs, and hiring pilots (who do not come cheap).

An endorsement deal might offset that difference, but why would any company want (or spend millions of dollars on) endorsement from someone who doesn’t even fight in a televised league?

Truly, what would make me enormously happy and satisfied as a professional is that from now on, when Remington Tate fights in a ring, he will flow like a ribbon with the strength of a dozen oxen

…

She meets the rest of the team (Lupe, coach; Diana, cook/nutritionalist) and then heads back to bask in the glow of over-description that is Remington Tate.

I guess you just can’t hide something as blatantly sexual as him.

You know what? He hasn’t actually done anything sexual yet.  Just because Brooke creams her shorts every time she glances at the guy doesn’t mean he’s done anything.  Thus far he’s been creepy and obsessed and incapable of carrying on a complete sentence, but he hasn’t made sexual advances on her.  He’s just…existed, while looking good.

And just like well-endowed women are not automatically promiscuous just because other people enjoy looking, a beefy-muscled guy isn’t either.

Kind of an empty complaint.  This book, being what it is, will have him start acting sexual in short order, BUT STILL.

He’s the strongest man I’ve ever seen, in my entire life, and I’m familiar enough with the subject to know that wired into my genes and DNA is a natural desire for healthy offspring, and with it comes a desperate urge to just full out mate with whoever I deem is the prime male of my species.

Your continued attempt to justify stuff with genes and evolution are just sad, book.

In between her noticing that he’s in the general vicinity and her actually walking through the plane to get to him, there’s three fucking pages of mental flailing.  It makes it read like she’s just sort of standing there and mindlessly drooling at him for a few minutes before moving. 

Bigger than life, like seeing a movie star in person, his charisma is staggering.

He’s literally done nothing in this chapter so far besides sit in a chair.

You can’t be charismatic without DOING STUFF.

I feel even younger than I am as I sit next to him, like I’ve just become a teenager again.

Oh.  This again.

They spend a few pages talking about sports injuries.  Well, they spend a few paragraphs doing that, but Brooke’s constant updates on his appearance drag it out into a few pages.  I guess she’s worried we might forget that he’s hot.  She practically combusts when he touches her knee, and that’s good for another two pages of blathering. 

He leans in and whispers, “Look at me.”

I open my eyes to see his eyes are sparkling, and he looks perfectly amused. I think he knows I’m getting a little worked up. I want to drop his arm and squirm, but I don’t want it to be too obvious, so I lower it carefully and smile back. “What?”

“Nothing,” he replies, revealing his dimples.

This just…isn’t going anywhere.  Nothing can even last to the next paragraph before getting dismissed again. 

She sits around poking his muscles.  I shit you not.  God, I am so bored.

I’m undone. Completely undone. Every sexual organ in me is awake and aching.

How many of those do you have?

The whole scene is just them poking each other’s muscles and giggling about it.  My god, are they tweens or something?

Then he plays Iris by Goo Goo Dolls for her. 

This is not helping the image of them as preteens who just discovered that sex is a thing and are stumbling through “this whole flirting thing.”

(also, HeadTrip is awesome)

“Iris,” which I first heard in the movie City of Angels and which also made me cry, like, for days. A guy gives up, literally, forever to be with the girl he falls in love with, and then something tragic happens—like in a Nicolas Sparks’ movie.

I used to write like this.

I was in high school, though.

I got better.  And I didn’t ask people to spend money on my Gundam Wing AU fanfiction which was just self-inserts of me and all my friends as pilots as we/our characters threw inside jokes and pop culture references around.  >.>

Brooke spends far too long flailing over Iris and repeating the lines for us.

Finally we get done with that blast from the awkward past plane ride and land in Atlanta.  Then we get a rundown of his entire training routine and diet, because, ya know, that’s fascinating and all.

his privately rented gym

…I don’t know, maybe he was independently wealthy before he decided to start fighting.

Apparently he likes to train for 8 to 9 hours a day.

Five seconds on google and I found an MMA forum with several actual fighters saying that the average is 3-5 hours, and you should have several-hour-long breaks in the midst of that.  More than that will hurt you.

Brooke flails around in her brain again, going on and on about his utter sexiness for the millionth time and I’m just like fuck it by this point I want them to just get it over with.

The scene where she helps him stretch after his workout is full of so many clenching sex muscles that I just can’t even.

his deltoids, the roundest, squarest part of the shoulder

Most of us learn our shapes in toddlerhood, but you seemed to have missed out on that, so here, I got you this.

Coach whistles. “All right, hit the showers. See you at six a.m. tomorrow and ready to fight.

YOU DID A NINE HOUR WORKOUT THE NIGHT BEFORE A FIGHT ARE YOU HIGH WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU PEOPLE THAT IS THE ABSOLUTE SHITTIEST IDEA YOU’VE HAD YET AND THAT’S SAYING SOMETHING CONSIDERING THIS BOOK JUST OMG HOW WHY WHY WOULD ANYONE THINK THIS IS A GOOD IDEA JUST I CAN’T I CAN’T YOU ARE SO FUCKING WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING, BOOK.

There’s more blathering but it’s just more of the same from Brooke and I don’t even care anymore I’m out I need to go buy more booze, later cakes.