by Aubrey Cara
“Do you know why your mother and I named you Julep?” my father had asked me when I was old enough to understand.
“No, why?”
“We named you after a favorite drink of mine. The Mint Julep. Sweet but can really pack a punch. That’s you, Julep. That is the woman you will grow up to be.”
Yes, that was me. Sweet Julep but don’t fuck with her or she’ll punch you out. I guess it wasn’t the worst reputation to have.
Did my life in the gym take sacrifice? Of course. There were a few things missing… mostly love. Puppy love, insta love, or even the beginnings of love was something that I had never experienced before. It just didn’t ever seem to happen for me. You would think that living in a man’s world, it would be easy. Hot bodies around me day and night, all at the peak of fitness, I truly lived in a girl’s fantasy environment. One would think I had plenty of men to choose from, but it didn’t really work like that for me.
My first issue was professionalism. I couldn’t dip the pen in company ink, so to speak. My second issue was my brother – with him around, everyone did their best to avoid me. It was safer for them, and if they valued their place in the gym, every man knew not to fuck with Danny’s sister. Before Danny, there was my father. No one dared even steal a glance my way. My third issue was being friend-zoned. The men who I had liked ended up treating me as just another one of the guys or even as a kid sister. Good ol’ Julep. Sweet, innocent Julep. And once I learned how to box just as good as most of them, I became bad ass, don’t mess with Julep or she’ll beat your ass. The few men I did date had to be outside the boxing scene, and that never really lasted long. It was hard to blend the worlds, and one thing I had learned fast, was that boxing was a beast only a few truly understood.
My lack of a love life didn’t matter too much, and I really didn’t have the time to invest in a relationship anyway. It wasn’t exactly essential to me, but it would have been nice here or there. I saw my best friend Lola, who was a sports journalist, also in a man’s world, get asked out all the time. She wasn’t hooking up night and day, but she had had a few sexy as hell men – enough to make me jealous at any rate.
“Where have you been?” Danny asked as soon as I walked into the gym’s office. His tone of voice instantly told me he was upset and frustrated, which put me on edge right away. Whenever anything happened around the gym that wasn’t up to my brother’s standards, Danny would raise holy hell, causing everyone to walk on egg shells around the guy.
“What’s going on?” I asked, completely ignoring his question. I hated the way he kept tabs on me, but also had accepted it was just the way he was. Much like my overprotective father had been, so why fight tradition?
“Bobby’s Gym.” He sighed deeply, his head falling into his hands. “They’ve finally gotten to Marcus.”
Oh shit. My heart sunk as I slid into the nearest chair. That was really bad news. Marcus and Danny had been butting heads for a while now, and that had clearly been jumped on by the other gym. They’d been trying to sweep Marcus away from us for ages now, and he’d been swaying though trying to keep it hidden from us. Deep down, I knew that this was going to eventually happen, but I really didn’t want to have to face it.
The real problem we had was that Marcus might have been a douchebag, but he was a fucking good fighter. The only boxer we had a real shot at getting a belt with. What the hell were we going to do without him? Of course, I couldn’t direct all my concerns to Danny. Not if I wanted him to keep his cool. I needed to be the calm and collected one. It was the role I played. Danny was the fire, and I was the extinguisher.
“Okay, so the deal is done?” I needed as much information as I could get before I snapped into action. If I could solve this problem before it got too huge, then there wouldn’t be any need for panic. “It’s all gone through?”
“Pretty much,” he said with clenched jaw and darkened eyes. Danny knew we were just as fucked as I did.
“Okay, so there’s no more damage control. There’s no point in trying to keep him now. If Marcus’ mind is made up, even if he doesn’t go now, he won’t fight his best for us, and it will just be a matter of time until he leaves anyway. So fuck it. Fuck him. What we need is someone new.”
“Vegas is coming soon, and we don’t have anyone good enough to put in the ring. The promoters are going to be pissed. There’s a lot of goddamn money in that venue. Money Shamrocks needs bad if we want to keep the lights on.” Danny groaned, the pressure already getting to him. But I no longer could pay any attention to his worries. My mind was already in salvation mode, trying to figure out who might be ready for a move.
As the morning went on, I could hear Danny in the gym, going on and on, barking orders at the men training, yelling randomly for no apparent reason, until eventually I snapped.
“Danny, will you stop it!” I shouted, standing up from my seat at the desk and charging out of the office. “God, what the fuck are you doing?” I hated it when he got this way. It pissed me off, and it dragged everyone else down. When the gym was in a general bad mood, training levels and energy were low. His temper tantrums were getting old. He managed by fear; I managed by using my damn brain. “What is the point in acting this way?” I hissed as I pulled him by the arm closer to me so others wouldn’t hear a brother and sister squabble—though all were used to it by now.
“If everyone could just up their game, then maybe we’d have a chance to win a damn match,” he boomed, clearly not caring who heard his rampage.
“You have no one else to blame for Marcus leaving. It’s because of you. He didn’t get along with you. And this isn’t the first time this has happened! You can’t be a trainer who is constantly pissing people off. Pops didn’t train like that, and that was why he was the best.”
I didn’t mean to sound as harsh as I did, but it was out there. Sometimes Danny’s training style was over the top, and it bordered on aggressive and just plain dickish. We’d lost other good fighters who had blamed leaving on him, yet he still refused to change the way he acted in the gym. He really needed to start seeing that he wasn’t fucking perfect, and since everyone else wanted to pussyfoot around him, I guess it was left to me to set things straight.
“You don’t know what you are talking about.” He sneered at me, moving to turn away. “Don’t start talking about things you don’t understand. Go back in the office, pay some bills with money we don’t have, and stay in your lane and the hell out of mine.”
I didn’t know where the sudden sexist attitude had come from. It had never been there when we were younger, growing up in our father’s gym, and going to fights together. But ever since he and I had inherited Shamrocks, it snuck up every now and again. I got the impression he resented me being around, but I didn’t give a shit about that. Shamrocks was mine just as much his. I was here. I deserved to be here, and his attitude wasn’t going to change that.
“I’m going out to clear my head.” I suddenly decided, grabbing all of my belongings in the process. I couldn’t sit around listening to this. Not without saying something more I’d really regret. I needed to get out and get some fresh air before I went insane.
Danny didn’t say anything more. He simply smirked at me as if he expected me to back down from the fight, causing my blood to race through my body even hotter. I could feel all eyes were on us, and the last thing I wanted was our own match to erupt outside of the ring. I squinted my eyes, gritting my teeth together, before spinning on my heels and getting the hell out of there.
“Lola?” I said into my phone the second she answered as I stormed out the door. “Will you meet me for lunch? My brother is being a total ass, and I need to get the fuck away from him.”
“Of course.” The moment her calm, soothing voice came through my phone, I felt my anger start to subside. Lola was the most levelheaded person on the planet, and was exactly what I needed right now – someone with an outsider’s perspective. “I’m just heading back from an interview, so I can meet you at the sand
wich shop if you want?”
“I’ll see you soon.”
As I stalked toward our meeting place, I tried to forget about Danny and refocus my mind on the problem at hand instead. I really needed to concentrate on getting a replacement fighter as quickly as possible for the hole that Marcus left. That was where I really needed to be spending my energy. Shamrocks needed a winner. We needed to show we were still a gym that could deliver a champion. Our door remaining open was dependent on it. Nobody wanted to train in a gym that only had losers.
Maybe Lola would have some ideas. She met a lot of people along her way, and with her insider, journalistic information, she might know something I didn’t.
“Wow,” Lola muttered in disgust, as soon as I finished telling her about Danny’s outburst and also about chasing off another good fighter. She’d never particularly been impressed by my brother’s behavior at the best of times, so this really seemed to add to her dislike. “He can be such a dick sometimes.”
“Tell me about it,” I replied, rolling my eyes. Getting it off my chest had helped me to feel a little better. I didn’t think my brother meant to be harmful with his words. I think he just couldn’t hack the pressure sometimes, and there definitely had been a lot of it as of late. But it still didn’t excuse it. Then again, we were all used to it now, so it was unlikely he’d ever change. I just hoped it didn’t cost us any more fighters… and Shamrocks. “So do you have any ideas?”
“Hmmm… what about Raul Perez from Leroy’s? I heard he’s upset and looking. He’s second in line and tired of not being the focus.”
I knew where she was going with this. He was a decent fighter, but he hadn’t been with that gym long. He was just as green as many of the fighters I already had at Shamrocks.
“Theo from Leroy’s too. Or Jack Levine from Bobby’s. Steal from them as payback.”
None of those fighters seemed right. I just couldn’t see them as champion material, and I definitely couldn’t see them getting along with my stubborn ass brother.
“Ooh, I know!” Lola’s eyes suddenly went wide with excitement. “Well, I don’t know for sure. I think he’s a good idea, but there’s a definite risk with him.”
At this point, I was willing to take on a risk to get the right man for the gym. “Go on, I’m listening.”
She pulled out her phone and clicked on a picture to show me. “Mateo Vega.”
“Who?” I asked, snatching the phone from her. Whoever the hell she was talking about was officially the sexiest man I’d ever laid my eyes upon. He had dark hair, deep brown eyes, and a sexy small scar running down his left cheek. There was something about his smile that had my heart beating just a little bit faster. He was obviously strong and muscular – which was to be expected because most guys I worked around were – but there was something protective about his look too. Tattoos nearly covered every inch of his rich, dark skin which made him appear dangerous and mysterious as well. “Who’s this?”
“He used to fight for Bobby, and he was incredible, like an unbelievable boxer. A Cuban nicknamed The Matador and everyone loved him. But… there were some issues. Just as he was about to explode in his career, there was some scandal, and everything seemed to fall apart.”
“What issues? I don’t recall a scandal.” Something about the story felt familiar to me. It was as if I could remember it, or I had heard it somewhere, but the details were fuzzy to me. It was definitely before I took over Shamrocks four years ago. I’d been fully up to date on the boxing scene since then. Not to mention this must have all been going on when my father had died, so I wasn’t exactly in a place to keep up with all the drama when my life was one big drama by itself.
“Because he was such a good boxer, it appeared he threw his last match. No one could ever work out the exact truth, lots of rumors, but it seemed to destroy his career from there. Bobby kicked him out of the gym, and he pretty much got blackballed from any trainers and even promoters. I actually did an interview with him a short while back, and I know for a fact that he wants to get back into the ring, but no one will give him a chance. But he was damn good. Heavyweight champion material for sure.”
Warning bells were going off.
Warning bells I should have stopped and listened to.
But at the same time, my gut sensed more.
Heavyweight champion material for sure.
If no one else would give him a chance, that made him perfect for us. But there was that risk. How pissed off would Danny be if I took it? Then again, he hadn’t actually left me with much choice when he chased off our last hopeful.
“Do you have his address?” I asked, deciding to at least give it a shot. “I might go over to talk to him in person. See if I can find out more.” I didn’t see any point in making any judgments or decisions just yet when I didn’t know the full story. And I was a big believer in staring someone straight in the eye to read their character. “If he’s such a good boxer like you say, then maybe he’s exactly what we need. Risk or not.”
“Yeah, I’m sure I can find it for you,” she said with a smile. “But don’t blame me if this blows up in your face.” She paused and then laughed. “But you can give me all the credit if it lands you a champion.”
As I thought about going to see this Mateo Vega, I couldn’t help but notice the way that my heart literally skipped a beat. I took a couple of deep breaths, trying to keep my mind on what was important. Trying to keep my focus only on the fight. The fight to save Shamrocks.
