Cage

by Sarah Sparrows

  I stormed from the room, fighting my tears. How stupid could I have been? For just a moment, I thought that maybe we could get along…but I was kept so tired of his bullshit. If Sawyer just gave me a few conversations where he didn’t pull his macho condescending attitude out, then maybe we could actually have a normal relationship.

  Blowing up at him might have been stupid, but I was sick feeling like I had to be on edge around him, and I was done with his crap. Sure, I had enjoyed it…when I was growing up. But it was the same stupid story as before, but now it just got to me. I’d been stupid to think myself, before we’d even come down here, that I could continue to enjoy this.

  Maybe I would have been able to handle things if I wasn’t so angry with him for abandoning us. He expected everything to go back to the way it was before, like he hadn’t betrayed my trust. I’d made every reasonable attempt to reach out to him when we were growing up, and I’d started to want to let go of it all when we were stuck together…but it was clear that he just didn’t care.

  No, I thought to myself, locking the door to my room behind me. Fuck you. I tried to push it aside and engage you in an actual relationship, and you’re just the same asshole that you always were.

  I lost myself in my book for a few hours. I’d started up on a somewhat forgettable Victorian romance fantasy. It was more escapist that I generally tended to like, but the author was an avid lover of the time period, and gave some incredible descriptions of the relevant caste system and Victorian society as a whole.

  I was reading a particularly juicy section with the servant girl lead giving the handsome young nobleman a reluctant, sexually charged bathtub scrub when there was a knock at the door.

  “Saffron? Are you in there?”

  A heavy sigh lifted from my chest.

  “What do you want?”

  “Can you come out for a moment?”

  I bitterly moved my cherished bookmark into the paperback and set it on the end table. Climbing up from the bed, I unlocked the door and stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

  “I’m reading. Can you make it quick?”

  There was something about Sawyer that immediately drew my attention. This was the first time I’d ever seen him…glum. He looked absolutely miserable, and I relished the sight of it…even if it pulled at my heartstrings a little.

  No, I had to remind myself. He did this.

  “Saffron, I know that I’ve been…difficult.”

  “Hah,” I snorted. “Difficult. That’s one word for it.”

  “You don’t understand,” he confessed, averting his gaze.”

  “What don’t I understand, Sawyer?” I demanded to know. “That you’ve treated me like a second-rate citizen since we met? That you’re an unapologetic prick? Fill me in by all means, because I think I pretty much get the gist of it.”

  “Saffron.” He said my name with some backbone this time, his eyes glaring down at me.

  “Oh, look. He’s mad now.” I was enjoying this. I had never gotten to experience him at anything less than 100% unadulterated jackass, and it was a treat to see him…wait, was he nervous?

  “I don’t expect you to get it,” he told me, clearly restraining himself from…something. What, I didn’t know. “But I want you to know that I don’t hate you. Not at all.”

  “You’ve done a pretty shit job of communicating that for the last, oh, I don’t know, ever.”

  “I know,” he continued. “But I promise I’ll be…better at it, from now on. I might have gone too far.”

  “Yeah, you think?”

  “Look…why don’t you come downstairs? We can sit down and chat for a while. I can explain some of the things that I’ve been up to, and you can tell me the same about yourself.”

  “Oh my god. Sawyer Samuels wants a heart-to-heart.”

  His expression darkened. Crap. I pushed him too far.

  “Look, we’re going to be here for awhile, I’m extending a fucking olive branch, Saffron. If you don’t want it, then don’t get pissed when–”

  “No, you’re right,” I suddenly cut him off. Something in me had changed, and I couldn’t let the opportunity get away. “That sounds nice. I’ll be right down.”

  He nodded before walking down the hallway. I could hear the stairs squeak slightly as he descended, and I turned my back to the door.

  Since when does he give a shit about me?

  Mustering up every once of patience I had, I wandered downstairs. I wasn’t willing to lose this chance, so I played along…at least, until I figured out if he was just playing the long con now. Cautiously, I sat down at the dining room table again, realizing that every trace of the spilled spaghetti had been erased. I don’t know why it surprised me – maybe I just thought he wasn’t the type to clean much up himself.

  “So, you wanted to…talk?” I asked, uncertainly.

  “Saffron, would you like to know what I’ve been doing for a living?”

  “Do I want to know?”

  “Come on,” Sawyer pleaded. He looked uncharacteristically strained, and I couldn’t tell if I should be afraid or not. “Just be straight with me.”

  “Alright. Tell me.”

  He took a deep breath, forcing the first genuine smile I’ve seen him give me. “I’m an underground cage fighter.”

  “You’re a what?”

  “A cage fighter.”

  So THAT’s why he was at that place last night.

  “…Well, that explains the incredible body…”

  I immediately realized that my face was beginning to redden, and I turned away from his bare musculature. Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Yeah, I’ve had to put myself through the ringer to get into this shape.”

  “How did you start?”

  “I got into it not long after I left. It was an opportunity that sort of came out of nowhere…and I just ran with it.”

  “So, when you say underground…”

  “Unsanctioned. I’m not a UFC fighter or anything, and a lot of the places that I’ve fought have been in improvised cages…gyms, bars, that sort of thing. But there’s a surprising amount of interest for off-the-records cage fighting.”

  I nodded, listening to him speak. He was coming out of his shell, and I’d never been able to just have a normal conversation with him. It was somehow uplifting.

  “ It can be nastier…a lot more brutal,” he continued. “I’ve moved around from time to time with it. But I have a small following. The fans love it when I fight. Usually, it’s a small tournament or something, but after I’ve developed a local pack of loyal fans, they’ll come out to see me fight someone one-on-one.”

  “How many guys have you fought?”

  “I’ve lost count. A lot.”

  “How many times have you lost?”

  “Very, very rarely.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I just get in the zone,” he answered, looking me straight in the eyes. “It’s the same thing as riding my motorcycle and hitting the roads. It’s like I stop thinking…I just start to react. It’s instinctive. I might see my opponent’s moves right before they make them. I can assess them quickly enough, figure out weak points and just go for it. It helps that I have a high pain tolerance.”

  “From all those fights you used to get into when we were teenagers?” I asked, almost coyly.

  “Yes…something like that.” He seemed shy now. “I used to like to push my limits. Figure out what I can really do. This was pretty much that, turned up to 11.”

  “So, are you fighting again?”

  “Well, I’m semi-retired… but I just committed to a fight in a couple of weeks. Should keep me busy since things seem pretty calm here. You know, training and everything.”

  “Yeah, about that…” I almost didn’t dare to ask. “Why have you been avoiding me? And why the hell did you get sent down here in the first place? If you’re really supposed to be my bodyguard you’re doing a shitty job of it!”

 
; “I’m not…I’m not avoiding you,” he lied. “It’s just that…”

  Sawyer paused, staring into space. For a moment, it seemed like he was fighting with something inside – some deep, internal storm – and I felt suddenly compelled to just walk over to him and kiss him.

  Wait, what?

  “I can’t explain it right now,” he told me, cutting off my thought process. He harbored a pained expression as he spoke. “I’m going to have to just ask that you trust me. Whatever you do, I don’t want you to think that I hate you – far from it. I’m just…there’s a complication in my life. It makes me…difficult to be around, I guess. I’m still here for you. I won’t let anything happen.”

  Shoving down the previous thought process, I could only nod meekly.

  “You don’t…look, I’m going to try to be easier on you,” he told me. “You’ll have to bear with me, I know that I can be rough on you…but hate you? Never.”

  I stood up, moving over to him. As if my body was moving independently of me, I placed my hand on his shoulder. He looked up at me, but there wasn’t confusion in his eyes…only…understanding?

  Sawyer rose beside me, so that we were almost chest-to-chest. My hand fell to the side as he pulled himself onto his feet, and now he seemed to tower above me. His pronounced muscles were the closest they’d ever been – I barely lifted my fingers, itching to run the tips along his washboard abs. Unconsciously, I bit my lip, gazing from his pectorals up, into his eyes.

  He was looking at me with a look I’d never seen before.

  It was almost adoration.

  “Sawyer,” I murmured his name. I had intended to say something else, some sort of continuation of the thought, but the rest of the sentence just didn’t happen.

  He lifted his thumb to the tip of my chin, his finger beneath.

  “Saffron…I just…”

  At that moment, the doorbell rang. My eyes caught the nearby clock.

  Close to 2PM. Who the hell would be knocking now?

  We broke apart immediately, and he immediately stalked toward the door, looking incredibly tense.

  “Who is it?” He asked, standing by my side.

  “The cleaners,” I answered.

  “Ah.” He sounded irritated. “I guess I should have just left the spaghetti, then.”

  I chuckled nervously, opening the door. “Yeah, guess so…”

  “Hello!” One of the cleaners chimed up, indicating a nearby car with a maid logo on it, Sutterville Home Solutions. “Hope we weren’t interrupting anything!”

  I caught myself before giving Sawyer a look.

  Had they?

  And why was I so disappointed?

  (Return to Table of Contents)

  Chapter 14 – Sawyer

  Pensacola, Present Day

  The cleaners overstayed their welcome by a short while. It seemed like they particularly enjoyed being in this house. I could only imagine that they thought this was one of the nicest houses on their schedule.

  Of course, they had completely destroyed the mood by the time they left. Maybe that was for the best. I had never gotten that close to losing my restraint around her; her very scent intoxicated me as she stood at my side, and I could feel the last restraints breaking free.

  Yes, I told myself. That was for the best.

  My eyes were opened when she snapped. For the first time, I had her side of things to consider…and while I should have been pleased, actually confronting that information shook me to my very core. I’d wanted her at arm’s length, but what it…what if I was wrong?

  While the cleaners did their thing, Saffron curled up with a book in the small, downstairs study. She seemed far more relaxed now; sneaking a glance from around the doorway, I noticed that she looked much happier. Have I pushed her too hard? I thought to myself.

  She had changed into a long shirt and shorts, although the way that she was draped over the reading chair hid them beneath the shirt. I couldn’t help but picture her in just the loose-fitting shirt and a pair of panties, and I found myself getting hard just at the very thought of it. My eyes wandered, scoping her body while she was preoccupied.

  Saffron turned and coughed.

  I immediately disappeared from the area.

  But this unspoken physical appreciation didn’t appear to be one-sided, as much as I was afraid of admitting it. I canceled my intentions to do most of my training at Luke’s gym; for all the equipment he offered, a simple punching bag was not one of them. Instead, I ordered one and had it delivered and set up at home. There wasn’t room in the home gym, so I had it mounted outside, underneath an overhang to shade me from most of the heat. Although I was already fine with the heat, a large fan helped keep my stamina up in the Pensacola summer.

  Saffron came and watched sometimes. She pulled over a poolside lounging chair and sunbathed, although I thought I caught her checking out my body a couple of times. Occasionally, she would bring a book with her, although it seemed that her page reading speed dramatically dropped when I was working out.

  Sometimes, she took ran a few laps in the pool instead. This, conversely, interfered somewhat with my workout, although I certainly wasn’t complaining.

  I loved to see the water dripping from her awesome, bare body in that tight bikini she liked to wear. I made sure that I was punching the bag, doing crunches, or in the middle of pushups when she surfaced from the water. Out of the corner of my eye, she seemed to glance over my way every time that she pulled up from the water to rest, or when she climbed out of the pool at the end.

  We continued this unspoken dance for the duration of my training. If one of us was going outside, the other found a reason to wait a short while and then follow. It meant that I didn’t spend a lot of time in the gym proper, but I kept myself at the peak of physical condition before this little trip, and I needed to ensure that my fists were up to the challenge anyway. If anything, I was simply given an excuse to specialize.

  It appeared that my fans had responded well to the Twitter reveal of my upcoming match. I only logged into the thing a couple of times, offering some small anecdote or insight into my training, but there was a lot of activity buzzing around about the fight.

  Or, I think it was a lot.

  I don’t really pay much attention to these things.

  Luke called me in the middle of a punching bag session to tell me that the tickets had already sold out.

  “This thing’s gonna be a hit, man!” He excitedly burst down the phone. I’d put him on speaker so that I could continue to assault the bag.

  Saffron was in the pool at the time, although she seemed to take an interest. A small burst of pride infiltrated my core as she became aware that I was talking to someone about the upcoming fight, and she paused to rest…although I called it eavesdropping.

  “Well, that’s great,” I muttered, my fists striking the bag in a volley.

  “What? I can’t hear you!”

  “I SAID, ‘WELL, THAT’S GREAT!’”

  “Awesome, dude! It’s funny, we actually had to reopen tickets twice just because the turnout is gonna be so good. You sure you don’t want any of this pot, man? It’s gonna be hot!”

  “I don’t – care – about the – money!” I groaned, launching fists between bursts of thought. I stopped, wiping myself off with a rag quickly. “Look, I said it’s all yours. Just pay the consolation fee out to my contender, then pocket the rest and keep the place running.”

  “If you say so, man!”

  “Speaking of, Luke, the match is Saturday night…who the fuck am I fighting?”

  “Got a guy called Jabberjaw lined up for you! Or some shit, I forget exactly…think that’s it.”

  “Jabberjaw?” I laughed at the ridiculousness of the name. “You’re going to have me knock the lights out a guy called Jabberjaw? I mean, what’s he gonna do? Talk me to death?”

  “Heheh, something like that, man!” Luke laughed. “He’s a pretty tough dude, man! You’d better train hard!”

&n
bsp; “I’ll be fine,” I reminded him. “But when do I get to meet the guy?”

  “The night of the fight!”

  “That’s not usually how these things go, Luke,” I admonished him, giving a few fresh punches to the hanging bag. “Kinda violates the sanctity of the thing, right? I mean, I’ve never heard of this guy before!”