Fighting Wrath

by Jennifer Miller

  “Look alright?” I ask torn between being bemused and thinking she’s crazy.

  “Yeah, you know. Are they straight?”

  Reluctantly moving my eyes to her chest, I take in her very round, perky and yes, straight breasts, “They look great.” With a smile, I walk into a stall to do my business. As I paw through my bag looking for my emergency tampon for moments like this, I realize I never replaced it after using one the last time. Shyly asking the pretty girl at the mirror if she has one, she quickly passed one to me under the stall. We chatted while I washed my hands at the sink, and I was surprised when she asked to exchange numbers, and even more surprised when she invited me out the next night for drinks.

  Smiling at Rena in the mirror, I’m thankful we’ve been friends ever since. Sharing an apartment off campus made me nervous, afraid we’d get sick of each other, but we just work. She’s kind, loyal, and sassy as hell. I love her like crazy.

  “What are you smiling about?” she returns my smile questioningly.

  “Just thinking about the day we met.”

  “Best day ever,” she replies. “You’re the pea to my pod.”

  “The chocolate to my vanilla,” I respond automatically.

  “The nutella to my strawberry,” she says making me laugh by referring to her nutella addiction.

  “The Kanye to my Kanye,” we say together and giggle.

  Checking myself out in the mirror, I take in my long blonde hair that’s been flat ironed straight. My overly done makeup is perfection, and the sparkles in my hair catch the light as I move. Grabbing the lotion that gives my skin a pretty sheen, I take off the cap.

  “So, the reason I was trying to decide between the two outfits?” Rena hedges and the sound of her voice catches my attention. “Freddy has me going on after Nikki tonight.”

  “Oh, hell.” I stop rubbing the lotion on my arms and give her my full attention. Her eyes are wide with a combination of mirth and annoyance. It doesn’t matter what look she wears, she’s gorgeous, and because of that, she’s one of the most requested dancers in the club. Which Nikki hates. And I enjoy that. Immensely. “How’d that go over?”

  Rolling her eyes she lowers her voice, “About how you’d expect. When she saw the schedule she stomped out of the room, declared she was going on break to ‘cool off’ and on her way out, called me a bitch.”

  “Oh my god, she’s unbelievable. Why the hell does she think she should be the featured dancer every night? She’s not even here every night.”

  “That’s a rhetorical question right?”

  “Of course.”

  She sighs and fiddles with the laces on her corset, “Whatever. She can kiss my ass. Besides, it’s only fair we all take turns. Oh, which reminds me, Freddy’s got you featured Sunday night.”

  Sighing, I try not to be annoyed, “I’ve told him a thousand times not to put me on the schedule Sunday night because of my early class Monday.”

  “I know. I thought the same thing when I saw it. I’d switch with you if I could.”

  “I know, but you have class too. I’ll just remind him. Again. Thanks for letting me know.”

  “You know I’ve always got your back, babydoll.”

  “Thank god for that!”

  Grabbing the mascara tube, I quickly apply some to my blue eyes, making them pop, and put some nude gloss on my lips. Smacking my lips together, I stand. All I’m doing is serving drinks tonight, and giving an occasional lap dance. With my mind already thinking about the pile of homework I have waiting for me, I hope time goes by quickly.

  “Alright, I’m heading out there,” I tell Rena.

  “I’ll join you after my number.”

  “Sounds good. Shake it, babe.” I tell her, smiling through our normal send off each night we work together.

  “Shake it, love,” she laughs.

  When I walk out into the club, I head straight for the bar. Sexual remarks are thrown my way, but I ignore them all, only returning smiles to a few regulars I pass. “Hey, Russell,” I greet the bartender as I reach over the bar and grab an order pad, pen and tray.

  “Hey, Sydney. Go ahead and take section six. Lizzie is due for a break.”

  “Okay, sounds good.”

  Turning around to seek out Lizzie, I give her the sign for a break when our eyes meet. She finishes delivering the drinks on her tray, and then walks to the back. Approaching a table where a couple guys just found their seats, I greet them with a smile. “Hi, welcome to Pink Kitty, can I get you something to drink?”

  They both smile shyly at me and place their orders. Cute guys, but they rarely faze me anymore. Most of the time they end up turning into mouthy, grabby assholes once they get some alcohol into them.

  A few hours later, the place is incredibly packed, my feet are starting to ache, and it’s hard to maneuver between the tables. I’m always nervous I’m going to drop a tray full of drinks on someone when it’s like this, especially when some asshole decides to pinch my ass when I walk by. On the way back to bring some empty glasses to the bar, I stop and turn when I hear my name. “Hey Syd, how’s it going tonight?”

  “Good, Freddy, thanks.” We make small talk and I ask him about the scheduling snafu which he quickly agrees to change and apologizes for forgetting. As I turn to continue to the bar, he grabs my elbow. “After you return the glasses, please go to table ten. There’s a group of guys over there and they are paying for lap dances like crazy. They could use another girl.”

  I nod, “Okay, no problem.”

  After dropping off my tray and letting Russell know Freddy’s request, I make my way over to the table he pointed out, seeing Rena walk there as well. “Hey,” I greet, “Freddy send you over too?”

  “Yep.”

  We smile at each other and link arms. A guy with shaggy hair and dark reading glasses takes the two of us in with a grin. “Hey, are you two sisters?

  Keeping myself from rolling my eyes at his dumb ass question, Rena responds before I can say something snotty. “We’re whatever you want us to be, honey.”

  “I like you,” he grins. “Can I have a lap dance, baby?” Then he turns to me, “And can you please go take care of my friend, Tyson? He’s completely wasted, but I promise he’ll enjoy it.”

  Oh, great. If he throws up on me, I’m totally kneeing him in the balls. Walking to where he gestured I’m not sure who gets the lap dance, there’s guys everywhere. “Tyson?” I ask.

  “Right here!” A guy says to me pointing at the man next to him with a smile on his face. When I set my eyes on Tyson, my breath catches in my throat and I almost stumble over my own damn feet like an idiot. I’m not expecting him to be wearing a huge sexy smile when I look at him. His big eyes, the color of which are indecipherable, are on mine. He’s clearly not focusing on anything directly if the dazed look on his face is any indication. His dark hair is mussed, and my fingers itch to run through it. And his body, holy fuck, his body is made for women. Tattoos run down his arms giving him a bad ass sexy look. He unconsciously bites his lower lip and it’s all I can do not to moan out loud. I want to lick him, and bite him, and yeah okay, I want my body on his in a bad way. What the hell is wrong with me?

  Shaking my head trying to rid myself of the crazy reaction I’m having, I hesitantly make my way over to him trying to fake confidence I’m not feeling at the moment. “Your friend says you’d like a lap dance?”

  His lazy smile widens making my heart skip a beat, and heat lick at my skin. He nods his head with a dopey look on his face, and I bite my own lip trying hard not to return it. Considering the number of empty glasses in front of him, he’s been here for a while, and likely won’t even remember this tomorrow. Walking slowly, and what I hope is perceived as a bit sexy, toward him, I keep eye contact with him. Balancing my hands on his shoulders, I swing one leg to the side to straddle his lap. Looking down, I can’t help but notice how big his thighs, and how wide my legs are, and I find myself feeling excited at the sight. Throwing my head back, which pu
ts my tits right in his face, I begin moving my body, rocking back and forth and rubbing myself over him. A Switchfoot song comes on and I move my hands seductively over my body and rock to the beat. Bravely looking down at him, his gaze is completely focused on my chest and I confess it makes me smirk to myself. I should take off my top, most of the dances I do are topless, but for some reason the teasing is more fun. And he clearly doesn’t seem to mind.

  There’s something about dancing that ironically makes me feel invisible. Everything somehow disappears. The worry, the pain, the sorrow, the stress is gone. I lose myself to the music letting it take possession of me. My body sways to the beat and I feel… I feel beautiful, sexy, and free. And that feeling, it’s as addictive as any drug.

  When my panting becomes loud and my body tells me if I keep this up I’m going to embarrass myself in a big way, I decide to turn around. Hopefully having my back to him will help, so instead I shake my ass in his face. His hands, which at first he sat on, have traveled to my hips. Usually a guy will try to cop a feel any way he can, but not this guy. He stays respectful and I find myself liking the weight of his hands on my body. Putting my hands in the air, I sway my hips back and forth, but all I want to do is turn around and look at him again, so I do.

  His lids are half closed and he’s got a dreamy look on his face. I lean down and put my hands on his knees giving him an impressive look at my cleavage again. He just smiles and bites that full bottom lip of his again. He really needs to stop doing that. Damn.

  When his time is up, I smile and mumble thank you. He nods his head, but then it falls on his chest. I can’t help but laugh a little at how pathetic he looks, but I also feel a tad disappointed that my dance didn’t affect him the way it did me. I’m also… unsettled with the fact that I’m done touching him. As I move away, the hair on my body stands on end and it’s almost as if every molecule of me is trying to reattach itself to him.

  I’m snapped out of my thoughts when his friend gets my attention, “Sorry about that darlin’. He’s completely jacked up. Thanks though for the entertainment. For all of us.” He hands me a hundred dollar tip and I smile as I walk away.

  As the night progresses, I find my eyes returning to where Tyson sits. Feeling irritated with myself I try initially to force myself not to look, but then just give up, and give in. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the eye candy across the room. At one point, Nikki walks up to him and starts grinding her body against his and I want to walk over there and rip her off him by her hair. She’s such a hoe. Stomping off to the bathroom in irritation I splash water on my face and try to cool down my body and my mind. I take in my flushed cheeks and bright eyes not really able to comprehend why I’m feeling this way over some guy I don’t even know.

  Trying to shake it off, I leave the bathroom and my eyes immediately flash over to where Tyson’s sitting. I’m disappointed to see he and his friends are no longer there. I quickly scan the room to see if they’ve migrated to another area, but don’t find them. Looking toward the exit I hope to maybe catch them before they walk out, but they’re nowhere to be found. Sighing and suddenly more than ready for the night to end, I begin cleaning up to get ready for close.

  Finally home and in bed, I snuggle into my covers and exhale with happiness as my head sinks into my pillow. Closing my eyes, I’m not surprised to see Tyson’s face in my mind once more and I can’t help but hope he chases me into my dreams.

  “Faster feet! Move your feet!” I do my best to make my foot movements quicker, but before I get a handle on it another instruction is shouted at me, “Quick hands! Come on; stick a move! You can do better than this.”

  No, I really fucking can’t. I’m so goddamned hung over from the irresponsible, foolish night at the Pink Kitty. Every cross, hook and jab takes extraordinary effort; every command I give my body must get through a thick wall of sludge. Having consumed more drinks than one could keep track of, I remember less than half the damn night. Fucking stupid. I had to call Eli this morning, not caring how pissed he was to be woken up, to find out how the hell I even got home. I don’t remember some of the time at the club, the ride back, letting myself into my place or even getting into bed. Thank god I didn’t wake up with some nameless chick next to me.

  Suddenly, a blow I should have seen coming lands on my chin taking me by surprise and snaps the thoughts right out of my head, “Fuck!”

  “Take a break,” Jackson Stone, my trainer, owner of the gym and boyfriend to my sister, hands me a towel. He’s become a good friend over the last few months. I started training here before I went to jail and loved it. We easily became friends then, but after getting out of jail I started hanging out here more and seeing him outside of the gym because of Rowan, and our friendship has grown. In fact, I’ve developed friendships with the whole MMA team here. Many people use the gym of course, but there’s a solid group of seven of us that are on the training team and they’re all cool guys. It’s nice considering I never had time for friendships growing up as all my time and concentration was consumed with getting through each day and then getting Rowan and I the hell away from our mother.

  Wiping the sweat from my neck and face, I keep my eyes on my sparring partner, Ryder, watching as he does the same thing. I’m doing my best to avoid Jax’s staring. I know what he’s thinking. He’s wondering why the hell I’m sucking so badly today, but I’m not going to tell him. I can’t tell him. I don’t want him to know about the underground fighting. I don’t want anyone here to know.

  “Why are you fighting like such a pussy, Martin?” Ryder asks me. He’s one tough motherfucker, but the truth is, on a good day, we’re evenly matched. He fights in the heavy weight division, but is cut as shit. Some guys in that class are huge guys with no muscle definition. Not Ryder. Hell, not me either. Jax wants me to fight in the same division as Ryder, but I’m not quite there yet. I need to put on a bit more weight. Maybe that’s at least one positive thing about last night – I consumed a hell of a lot of calories in all the alcohol I drank. Fuck. Just thinking about it makes my head throb harder.

  “Yeah, Ty. Why do you look like a T-rex trying to fight with his tiny little arms?” Levi, another fighter in training contributes unhelpfully.

  “Who the fuck asked for your opinion?” I ask Levi. My tone and facial expression clearly have no effect on him; he laughs and bounces away. Grabbing my bottle of water, I guzzle down the contents turning to face Jax and Ryder knowing I can’t put it off any longer.

  “Seriously, Tyson, what’s up with you today?” Jax asks again. “Your form is there, but you’re slow. You need to move faster and be quicker with your jabs or you’re going to continue to get your ass kicked. You can’t execute a spinning back fist punch or kick to save your life. Hell, and you have absolutely no balance with your leg kicks either. Ryder is good, yeah, but so are you. I was expecting to watch you kick his ass today.”

  “Fuck you too, Jax.” Ryder says.

  “Yeah,” Zane interrupts. “We wanted to see Ryder get his ass kicked.” Before I can respond Ryder jumps down from the octagon and starts chasing Zane around the gym while Cole, Dylan and the other guys laugh and cheer him on. I can’t help but smile at them – they’re fucking children, I swear. At least they’re providing a much needed distraction from the questions.

  Or maybe not. My smile falls when I catch sight of Jax. He’s looking intently at the side of my face. When the light hits it just right, you can see a shadow of the bruising; evidence of last night’s fight. Quickly, I turn away and clear my throat and hack a bit to distract him again and add a bit of raspiness in my response. “Sorry, man. I don’t mean to waste your time. I just didn’t sleep well last night, and think maybe I’m coming down with something. That’s all. I’ll down some extra vitamin C and be better when we meet tomorrow, okay? I’m just not on my game today.”

  “Does this have anything to do with Rowan moving out? Because if so, for the love of god, you can tell me but don’t tell her, okay? All she’ll d
o is worry even more and find reasons – or not – to be over at your place constantly. It’s all I can do to keep her from going over there every hour now. She’s worried about you, man.”

  For a brief moment, I consider using that as an excuse just to cover my own ass, but instead find myself smirking at the genuinely worried look on his face. My sister’s been calling me like crazy clearly making what she thinks are creative excuses to do so. She even called to ask a stupid question she knew the answer to for one of the social media pages she’s been designing. She works for Jax doing marketing, promotion, developing and managing social media for our MMA team and the gym and she loves it. But, I have no doubt Jax is struggling to help her resist showing up at my place several times a week to check on me. She and I became a bit co-dependent over the years for sure and it’s a hard habit to break. Reaching down to grab my water bottle again so I can fill it up, I answer, “Don’t worry, it’s not that. I have my weekly date with Lily today, so I’ll be sure to talk to Rowan when I see her later.”

  He looks at me with a smile and nods, “Yeah alright, but don’t tell her I said she’s acting crazy.”

  “Deal,” I smile.

  Gesturing to my water bottle he says, “Fill it up, then let’s get back at it. Since sparring appears out for the rest of today, before we call it quits, why don’t we hit the speed bag and heavy bag for twenty minutes? Then do your circuit. Cool?”

  “Yeah man, you got it.” I fill up my water bottle, then head to the back of the gym where the bags are located making the most of my strength and endurance workout routine.

  Sweating bullets and ready for a shower, I head to the locker room where I once again encounter Levi. “What’s up mother fucker?” Levi asks me raising his voice high at the end of the question. I can’t help but laugh. Dude binge watched Californication on Netflix and now he thinks he’s David Duchovny.