by Riley Ashby
“Well?”
I walked a little closer so that Alonso didn’t have to hear us talking. “I have four weeks to get good enough to beat a ranked fighter on national TV.”
She jumped into my arms from sitting, actually squealing with excitement. “I can’t believe it!” Squeezing my neck one final time, she pulled back to look me in the eyes. “I already went to your apartment and tossed out the beer and the cheese. No more temptations for you. Are you lifting again right now? I brought you some protein.” She squirmed until I dropped her legs and she ran to her bag, returning with a protein shake. “Get that down and let’s go.”
“Hey, who’s the trainer here?” Coach’s voice was stern but good-natured as he joined us, the sound of Alonso’s crutches filling the room as he shuffled over to join us.
“He’s too skinny. Look at him!” Tori gestured at me as if my 31-inch waist was something to be ashamed of. “Drink.”
With an approving nod from Coach, I downed the shake in a few gulps and tossed the tumbler back to Tori.
“All right, then. Let’s get started.”
I was acting like a complete fangirl, jumping all over Jamie and screaming the moment he told me the news. He was going to be fighting on live television! Paid television! In Las Vegas! It was too much for me to even try to contain when we were finally alone.
“This is the greatest thing to happen this week!” I declared as I jumped up onto the bed and hopped up and down. He watched me from the ground where I’d tackled him a moment before, lips twisted in a half smile. He was worn out from a last-minute additional workout, the start of a last-ditch attempt to shed his fat while leaving him all muscle for the fight.
“Alonso can’t walk, Tori.”
“Tough shit. People get injured. It’s the nature of the sport. But you!” I jumped off the bed and fell next to him. “This is your shot! Should I sing some Hamilton to you?”
He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me down next to him, resting his head on my boobs. “You’re acting like a completely different person. The Tori I know would not be jumping up and down on a bed for any reason at all.”
“Yes, but I also showed a complete lack of empathy for a fellow human’s suffering, so there’s that.”
He pecked a kiss on my jawline. “You’re empathetic to a fault. Most people just can’t see through your tough exterior. I know you feel bad for him, you just feel better for me.”
I wiggled out of his hold and pushed myself up to lean over him. “Speaking of feeling good, are you one of those ‘no sex before a fight’ guys?”
“Not strictly, but honestly, I’m fucking wiped. Coach wants me drilling extra hard and cutting my calories to the minimum. Every spare ounce of energy is going to be spent in the gym.” Despite this, he ran his hands up my arms slowly.
“Are they rubbing you out good?”
He smirked and squeezed my shoulders. “You’re asking me if Alonso is giving me hand jobs after training?”
I rolled my eyes and shoved him off me as he laughed. “Get on the bed on your stomach.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
His arms shook a little as he pushed himself up, then crawled onto the bed with the minimum amount of effort. I sat across his back, digging my thumbs into the space between his shoulder blades and his spine. His torso melted underneath me.
“Fuck, that feels good.”
“I’m sure it does. You’ve got a ton of knots back here. You’ve got to take better care of yourself. I’m coming over every day to work you over. You need to be limber.” I bent at the waist to switch from my thumb to my elbow. He yelped a little as I landed on a sore spot.
“How do you know massage too? Between the yoga, and the chakra bullshit—”
“It’s not bullshit!”
“Were you a mystic in a former life?”
I didn’t laugh, feeling the joy drain from me at the memories. This was why I didn’t get close to anyone. But he turned his head slightly, waiting for a response. “I was a yoga instructor back home. And I was in school to become a massage therapist as well. My ex made me quit. According to him, I was already working too hard and didn’t need the extra stress. He was just worried that if I made enough money, I would walk out on him.”
He was quiet for a long time as I moved across his back and down his legs. He didn’t speak again until I began pushing against his arches, kneading with knuckles and then stretching the fascia against my palm.
“You certainly have a lot of undiscovered talents, my dear.”
I grunted. “Don’t call me dear.” I didn’t know if he heard me, I said it so quietly. The truth was, I liked it. “Turn over. Let me do your chest.”
He reached up to kiss my lips as I crawled toward his head. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”
I didn’t say anything to that and hoped he didn’t notice the blush crawling up my neck. My hands played against his pectorals and shoulders, and every time I chanced a glance at him, he was staring right back at me with a strange expression on his face. I huffed and sat back.
“What is it now?”
He sat up enough to grab me and pull me down to the mattress with him. My body resisted at first, suspicious of his motivations, but I reminded myself what I was looking for. A normal relationship with someone who respected me. Equal exchange with a partner. I let myself go boneless, folding against him as he threw one leg over my hip to hold me in place.
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”
My face grew hot. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.” He planted a quick, chaste kiss on my lips. “I’ve never met anyone more selfless than you. I’m honored that you’ve let me get close enough to see it.”
I buried my head against his chest. What could a girl say to that?
His hand snaked around my back, down the back of my leggings to cup my ass.
“I thought you had to rest,” I said, forcing a laugh, but he was entirely serious as he tilted my head up and kissed me again with no trace of innocence.
“Let me care for you for a few minutes.”
He guided me to my back and slid down my legs, taking my clothes with him, then surging forward once more to kiss me where it mattered most. His tongue lapped slowly, coaxing me into a strange dual state of relaxation and eager yearning. Hands traveled my body, his and my own, unable to stay still when he didn’t have any hair for me to grab. His tongue was replaced with his finger as I crested the mountaintop, helping me ride out the climax so he could slide inside me when it was strongest. His body smothered mine, but instead of trapped, I felt wrapped up and protected, allowed to find sanctuary even though I hadn’t been looking for any. We rocked together slowly, then faster, until we were trembling within and around each other while the entire world opened up underneath me.
Tori hadn’t been staying the night as often as she tried to work on figuring out who would be taking her place as the family’s personal security. It would be a good transition for her. We’d gone to look at a few apartments that Ellery was going to let her live in rent-free until she got established in a new job … whatever that would be. She had been sending in applications to yoga studios, but if there’s one thing LA has an overabundance of, it’s pseudo-mystics with yoga teacher training. Asking her to move in with me was always on the tip of my tongue, but I bit it back each time. That would have sent her running.
She slept over the night I found out I was going to be fighting in Vegas. After she massaged every muscle in my body, and I took care of her, she still insisted on getting up to bring me protein and water before curling up against me in bed. This was what made it hard to keep from asking her to move in. It was too nice to have her next to me like this with her warm body against mine and her face unguarded as she flew through dreams she couldn’t control. I stayed awake as long as I could to watch her, but I was more tired than ever.
As the week progressed, she was at my apartment every morning, forcing me to stretch
and work on strengthening my root chakra.
“So this should also help my dick, right? Are you sure you’re just not doing this for better sex?”
She barely protested as I pushed her out of her posture and pulled down her shorts. But the moment we were recovered, she put me right back to work.
“Warrior one,” she insisted, smiling out of one corner of her mouth.
Tori had been doing things for other people for a long time. Going above and beyond for the people around her, from tracking down a woman who wasn’t her charge to helping Vail recover from her months of assault, and now spending every evening with me. Working out the kinks and sore muscles from my training. Rubbing salves on my bruises, she promised they would help me heal and get back to training faster. Weighing out precise grams of protein, carbohydrates, and fats to keep me on track with the diet my nutritionist set out for me. I lost weight. My muscles became more prominent.
She deserved something in return.
It took a few hours to work myself up to search for her brother. I assumed they had the same last name, but I couldn’t be sure. I also knew that once I did what I was planning to do, it would only be a matter of time before she found out. I could only hope that the results of my little investigation would be such that she would be too overjoyed to be mad at me.
Aaron Ryder. There it was, the first result.
The news article was nearly ten years old. She was just a kid when it happened. When an asshole named Jason Allen took what was right about her and twisted it for his own use. How long had she spent under his thumb before she was able to extricate herself? How many times had he abused her trust and vulnerability before someone was finally around to see the abuse? I made a mental note to put some money in Aaron’s commissary for taking the asshole out.
Worse than how long she had spent being abused by this asshole was how long afterward she hadn’t been able to let herself connect with anyone new.
I was able to dig up a few photos on less reputable news sites of the damage that Aaron had done to the guy. Several bones in his face had been broken when Aaron slammed him against the concrete sidewalk. He’d needed skin grafts on his arms because so much of his flesh had been torn away that it couldn’t grow back on its own. And Tori was right—according to an article done on him after Aaron’s sentencing, he was unable to walk without assistance due to the damage done to his knees, and still had to undergo several more surgeries on his mouth and face before he would be able to eat solid food again. At the time he communicated with a computer. But that was almost seven years ago. No telling what medical science had been able to achieve for him since then.
I called Ellery. He answered on the first ring, and I heard the tail end of his excuse to Sophie as he walked away from her. He probably thought I was calling about her father. “What’s wrong?”
“I want to know where I can find Jason Allen.”
I could hear him purse his lips. “Does Tori know you’re doing this?”
“She wouldn’t even tell me his name.”
He sighed; I heard the sound of a door closing in the background. “Think through what you’re asking me. If she finds out you so much as know his name, she’ll lose her shit. If you do what I think you want to do …”
“I just want to talk to him.”
I could tell he didn’t believe me. If anyone from Sophie’s past had treated her like this, talking wouldn’t be an option. They would be in the ground before they knew what hit them. But I didn’t need him to believe me. I just wanted him to give me the information I needed.
“If I give this to you,” he said, and I knew I had won, “she never knows it came from me. You found it some other way, hired a private investigator or something.”
“I swear. It’s our secret.”
He gave a deep sigh and rattled off an address and phone number without pausing. Numbers and a street name he knew by heart because I’m sure he’d been tempted to go out there himself more than once.
“By the way, Jamie, congratulations on the fight. We’ll all be coming out to watch you.”
“I appreciate that.”
“After this, you’ll be getting more sponsorship opportunities. You should look into getting an agent. I’ll shoot your name over to a few guys I trust and have them call you. Talk to me before you sign with anyone.”
“Thanks, man. I appreciate it. All of it.”
I stared at his address. He was in California, several hours away. Probably Tori’s hometown. I could get up there if I needed to. But I thought a phone call would suffice. Glancing at the clock, I saw it was definitely still early enough for me to call. Tori had headed back home for the evening, and I was alone.
It had to be tonight.
I dialed before I could think.
“Hello?” A feminine voice answered; definitely not the man I was looking for.
“Is Jason available?”
A pause. “I can get him. Who may I say is calling?”
I wondered who was answering the phone for him. His mother? A nurse? “A friend of Tori’s.”
There as silence on the other end of the phone for a long time. I checked to make sure we hadn’t been disconnected. There was some shifting, and then the voice spoke again. “One moment.”
Voices argued in the background, muffled by someone’s hand over the receiver. But eventually, a raspy voice came on the line.
“Who is this?”
My fist clenched unconsciously. This was him. The man who’d tried to ruin my woman’s life. “My name is Jamie. I’m a friend of Tori’s.”
“What the fuck do you want?” The resentment was evident in his voice.
I took a deep breath. “I want to know what it would take for you to call the prison and advocate for her brother’s early release.”
The voice laughed. “That man nearly put me in the ground.”
“And you’re an abusive piece of shit who deserved every blow.”
He didn’t speak for a while. The only sound from his end of the line was his wheezing breath. What was his life like now? Could he be walking again, or was he still confined to a wheelchair? Did he need assistance breathing? How many of his teeth had been removed and replaced with prosthetics?
I should have thought through this more. How did I want to approach this? Was it possible he regretted his actions, or did he still see himself has a victim? “You have a chance to do something right, here. Undo some of the bad.”
“I don’t owe them anything.”
“Not even her?”
The quiet again. How long would I sit in silence waiting for a response from these people? I thought about how many years it would take to come out of this denial, to fix the righteous indignation he must feel at having been so incapacitated.
“Is she happy now?”
I bit my lip before responding. What did he want to hear? “Most of the time.”
He grunted. Was some part of him glad that she had moved on, or was he resentful that she had found happiness in someone outside of him?
“Don’t call here again.”
The line went dead.
I stared at my phone for several minutes, shadows lengthening across the floor as the sun sank lower outside my window. What did that mean? It wasn’t a no. But it was far from an answer, too. I could go out there, try to talk some sense into him. It was unlikely he would be receptive to physical threats—I’d probably land myself in jail. And I wasn’t interested in bargaining with him. He owed her his help; I wasn’t going to give him anything.
My phone buzzed back to life with a text from Tori, letting me know she was on her way up. There was no point in thinking about this now. Either he would deliver, or he wouldn’t. If it was the latter, I would focus on that after the fight.
I accessed my call log and deleted the call to Ellery as well as to Jason, then cleared my search history a moment before she opened the door. She was all smiles as she came to me, the picture of radiance no one else ever saw, a sunbeam that
had been occluded for too long. The Tori I held in my arms was a stranger to most people who thought they knew her. As I kissed her hello, again and again despite her halfhearted struggles against me, it dawned on me that I never wanted anyone else ever again.
We boarded a plane three days before the event, but there was no partying in Vegas for me. Slot machines beckoned, and drinks were pushed at me left and right, but my only focus could be the fight. I rose every morning with the sun to sweat in the sauna, then work on form and last-minute adjustments with Coach. I ate little. I drank even less.
Tori booked her own room, and she stayed in it each night. There was no chance of sex anyway; it was important that I rested as much as possible. I would have enjoyed her company, the presence of her warm body in the bed next to me at night and as I rose, but she was determined not to be a distraction. She walked me to my own room each night to ensure I got ready for bed but left me with nothing more than a kiss. Then she was at my door the next morning to wake me and start it all over again.
When weigh-in day finally arrived, I couldn’t have been more relieved. I stepped on stage in front of thousands of people who had paid hundreds of dollars for a chance to glimpse fighters much more accomplished and well-known than me, but they cheered when I stripped to my boxers and weighed in under my goal weight—159 pounds. I was pure muscle, hard steel. When I posed with Jimenez for the photo op, I allowed myself to think I saw some doubt in his eye. He didn’t know my name. He had no reason to fear me. But he should.
That night, I ate like a king. Baked potatoes loaded with steak, washed down with more water than I knew I could consume in one day. Tori pushed more fruit on me, talking about antioxidants and simple sugars. I bit an apple to make her happy and then devoured a bowl of pasta with meat sauce.
“Stay with me tonight,” I said as she tried to leave my room. “I want you next to me. I always feel better when we wake up together.”
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “No getting off tonight. You need to stay focused.”
