SAVIOR: A Stepbrother Romance

by Ora Wilde

  I forgot about the double date she unilaterally set for us.

  “Well, you’ll be here for two months, you might as well learn how to have fun in this neck of the woods,” I told him.

  “Fun? Here? I don’t think that’s possible.”

  “Yes, it is! Come, I’ll set you up with someone...”

  “Uh... errrr... I don’t think that’s a good idea...”

  I sensed fear in the way he reacted, something that I haven’t seen from him before. It prodded me to press the matter even further.

  “Don’t be shy now, Mr. Big Shot MMA Fighter,” I teased him. “What’s wrong with a date?”

  “I... uhm... well... uhm... my training starts tomorrow...”

  “Well... one night won’t hurt. Just for dinner. She already knows, and she’ll be expecting you.”

  “Margaret, that’s not really a very good idea...”

  “Nonsense! Tomorrow at eight. We’ll go there together. You don’t have anything to be afraid of. The girl I’ll set you up with? She doesn’t bite.”

  I belatedly realized how inappropriate the last sentence sounded, and I almost writhed in shame.

  It was a lie, too.

  Chantelle does bite... and that’s just for foreplay...

  Chapter Fifteen

  CONNER

  “What the fuck are you doing?! Concentrate, you damn ass scrub!”

  Coach Mikey’s words never failed to motivate me. Never.

  But that morning, at the makeshift dojo his team has set up, I found his words escaping my ears before I could even process them. He was wearing a thick foamed padding around his torso. Both his hands were carrying long sticks with boxing gloves attached at the end.

  I was supposed to avoid his extended punches, find my way around the defenses set up by the simulated length of his arms, and hit him in the body as many times as I can. Johnny Jones was a tall middleweight with a really long reach. Coach Mikey wanted me to get used to the separation his lengthy arms would create.

  Well, as I’ve said, I was supposed to go around coach’s defenses and hit him. Dance like a firefly, sting like a bee, as some old fart once said.

  But I couldn’t.

  Coach kept whacking me. On the face. On my chest. Even my fucking balls weren’t spared.

  And I couldn’t hit him. The distance was too great. My punches didn’t even come near him.

  He whacked me at the top of my head just to ridicule me.

  “What’s the matter boy?” he taunted. “Thinkin’ ‘bout Johnny Jones got you strung in your skirt?”

  He knew how to push the right buttons to incite my anger. I started to punch faster, harder, mercilessly. Left jab, right hook, left upper cut, swing to my left, one-two combination followed by a one-two-three.

  Nothing.

  Nothing but thin air.

  Failing to land a blow is the fastest way to tire out a fighter. More energy is spent without impact. My body has become weary, but I didn’t notice. It was the pain that was becoming more and more unbearable. The numbing ointment on my right shoulder was beginning to wear off, and a terrible, terrible ache was claiming the area.

  He slapped me with his right glove, further enraging me, challenging me to try harder, to go stronger.

  I did.

  Despite the pain, I did.

  Despite the possibility of aggravating my secret injury, I did.

  I bowed my head and started to charge like a battering ram. His gloves touched my face, pushing me away. I charged more forcefully, throwing left and right hooks to his body in rapid succession. He just bent his waist backwards and I didn’t hit anything... again.

  “Alright, stop this bullshit, now!” he commanded.

  But I didn’t listen. I doubt if I even heard him at that point.

  I kept charging and punching, screaming like a madman, wanting to get past his defenses so that I could pound the hell out of him. He wasn’t my coach at that moment. He was Johnny Jones - the same Johnny Jones who once said that I didn’t have what it takes to be champion... the same Johnny Jones who said that his mother hits harder than me... the same Johnny Jones who has ducked me for seven months now, using a variety of reasons that made me look like a fool.

  Johnny Jones...

  That motherfucker...

  All I could think of was his ugly face and how much I wanted to bash it with my fists and my knees...

  My knees...

  I kept throwing left and right hooks. Coach was shouting at me to stop. My sparring partners entered the scene, looking for an opening so that they could pull me away. I couldn’t hear them. I couldn’t see them.

  All that was in my mind was Johnny Jones.

  My hooks kept missing, so I jumped in with my right knee extended.

  It connected.

  Straight to his gut.

  Coach flung backwards before falling on his butt a few feet away.

  Pearson and Jersey intervened, holding me back. They tried to pacify me. But Jersey, that fucking idiot, he held my hurting shoulder and I growled in pain.

  I jerked my arm away from his hold, but his grip was strong. I ended up hurting it even more, and I yowled. I clutched my shoulder, completely forgetting the injury that I had to conceal

  “Oh shit, Con... did you break your shoulder?” Jersey asked as he let go of me.

  He didn’t break my shoulder. It was already broken to begin with, and my wrist had it worse.

  “Fuck no... I just hyperextended it, you dick face,” I lied as I pushed him away with my good arm.

  Coach slowly got up from the floor, dusted off the front of his padding, then started to approach me with meticulous steps. I tried to wriggle the pain away, but I guess that motion was misconstrued as a cocky gesture. As soon as he reached me, he dropped the gloved stick he was holding and slapped my face so hard that my head tilted far to the side.

  “Boxing!” he screamed. “We were practicing boxing! Do you even understand what boxing means? Eighteen fights and you’re still fucking confused?”

  “I know what boxing means,” I said. My head was bowed. I didn’t dare look at the man who I knew I have just disappointed.

  “I’m not sure you do, you son of a bitch!” he yelled. “Does boxing involve knees? Kicks? Hair pulling, or whatever you cock kissers do?”

  “No, coach,” I answered.

  If he was someone else, I wouldn’t have backed down. Even if I was wrong, I wouldn’t have allowed him to talk to me like that.

  But he was dearer to me than anyone I have known in my life. He was the one who plucked me out of the underground scene. He was the one who believed that I could make it big in a grander stage. He was the one who honed me into the fighter that I am. Coach Mikey has always been more of a father to me than the one who knocked up my mother.

  No. I couldn’t argue with him. I couldn’t disrespect him. Not after everything he has done for me.

  “You’ve been out of it since we started,” he continued to say, his voice has calmed down. “You’re preoccupied. Why? You didn’t get front row seats for the Chippendale show?”

  Was I preoccupied?

  Perhaps I was. I wasn’t on my game that morning. My reflexes were slow. I wasn’t able to anticipate his moves. I wasn’t that quick on my feet as I usually was. And I lost my cool quicker than before.

  Maybe I was just rusty.

  Or maybe, Johnny Jones was already getting in my skin.

  But I was left wondering... why couldn’t I shake off the feeling that I had? Was it because it was something else... something that I haven’t experienced before... something that made me agitated and excited and afraid at the same time...

  But what was it?

  I couldn’t tell.

  “Hey! McXavier!” he called out, snatching me out of my musings. “I’ll ask you again, son... what the fuck is bothering you?”

  “Nothing, coach,” I succinctly answered.

  “And your arm? Is it hurt? Did you hear something pop? Something
break?”

  “No, no... it just got stretched a little, it’ll be alright.”

  He gave me a suspicious look, his eyes calculatingly darting from my face to my shoulder, to my forearm, and back.

  “You know what?” he proceeded to say. “Take the damn day off. Come back when you’re fucking ready.”

  “Coach, I am ready now!” I insisted.

  “Nope. You’re not. Go. Scram. Come back tomorrow. Next week. Next month. I don’t fucking care. If you come back the eve of the fight, that’s alright. That’ll be better than training someone whose mind isn’t here.”

  “Coach, I’m all yours. I need this. We gotta train...”

  “I said go! Clear your fucking head and come back when you’re ready to train for the biggest fight of your life!”

  I have spent eight years with Coach Mikey and I knew - oh so very well - that when he says something in that tone, he meant it and nothing would be able to change his mind.

  And so I grabbed my gym bag and left.

  As I walked through the hallway, I began to appreciate the privacy I was afforded. There were no cameras following me around. Coach Mikey has forbidden the production crew from filming our training sessions, save for a few minutes of raw footage they could use for their edits. Coach didn’t want them capturing and broadcasting - inadvertently or otherwise - the game plan we would devise for the fight.

  I could spend the whole day alone. Nothing and no one else to worry about except myself. Maybe I could rest in bed and allow this fucking shoulder to heal. Or maybe I could get a few bottles of cold beer at the local bar which I have yet to check out. Or maybe I could get laid, with some chick from this godforsaken town... the prettiest of them probably has her front teeth missing.

  I left the building and savored the fresh morning air. The breeze in Susanville was so much cleaner... purer... than Vegas’.

  Freedom.

  I was free to do anything I pleased, and that thought alone was enough to clear my head.

  Coach was right. I just needed a break. A short one would do. It didn’t matter if it was our first day of training... I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t able to unload the burdens from the fight last weekend. I should start from the ground up in my preparations for that title bout.

  Freedom.

  Oh sweet, fucking freedo...

  Oh bull fucking crap!

  The date with Margaret’s friend! I almost forgot...

  It was set for that night...

  Shit!

  Chapter Sixteen

  MEG

  “I’m allergic to lamb.”

  It was the nth complaint I’ve heard from him that evening, and it was the first since we entered Jarwin’s Kitchenette, the only Italian restaurant in Susanville. He saw the menu board by the entrance and saw that they served sheep meat. The look of disgust on his face got worse.

  “You don’t have to order lamb,” I told him, smiling. “You can have pasta. Low carbs. Perfect for your diet and training.”

  “Carbs aren’t my concern,” he callously replied. “I need meat for protein. Any meat. Except fucking mutton.”

  “Conner... what did we talk about regarding your language,” I reminded him, still with a polite grin.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he dismissed my response.

  We saw Chantelle seated on a table at the far end of the restaurant. She stood up and tried to focus her gaze on Conner. I saw her jaw literally drop when she managed to see him.

  Could I blame her?

  Wearing a black, silky dress shirt with its sleeves folded to cover a third of his arms, with his dark brown hair nicely combed and snapped back, and with his beard actually groomed to perfection, Conner’s very attractive features stood out. His eyes of ocean blue, his nose finely angled and straight, his chin seemingly sculpted from granite... he looked very, very handsome... not in the boy band-ish sort of way, but in a tough and craggy manner that this age of metrosexuals and Zac Efron has seemingly forgotten. The kind of handsomeness that was dirty, dangerous... and completely irresistible. The kind of handsomeness which screamed that he was dangerous, and if you’d play with him, you’d get burned... but despite that, you’ll end up yearning for him during the bustles of the day and the stillness of the night.

  And his body... molded by years of hard work and training... scarred by numerous fights where his life was always at risk... the rugged shape of his muscles very much evident on the tight fit of his shirt and jeans and...

  “You’re looking at me again,” he uttered as he gave me a quizzical and irritated stare.

  “What? No! I was just... trying to see if everything’s okay with you. I don’t want a speck of dust on you when we meet my best friend,” I reasoned out.

  And I was left wondering why... why was I staring at him like that? Why was I admiring him in a way that wasn’t completely... objective?

  “That’s her, I suppose?” he asked as his eyes pointed to Chantelle who was moving restlessly where she stood. The girl couldn’t even hide her excitement.

  “Yep.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Great! We’re not even there yet and her panty’s all wet already.”

  “Conner! Please... just for one night... try to watch your mouth and act civil.”

  His eyes met mine.

  “I... will try,” he said earnestly, a kind of genuineness that actually surprised me.

  “That’s good enough,” I replied, the smile was back on my face.

  As we reached Chantelle, she gleefully extended her hand to Conner and introduced herself in the most flirty way possible - by playing with the locks of her hair, swaying her hips from side to side, and licking her lips unmindful of anyone else who might notice.

  “I’m not gonna have sex with her,” Conner grumpily mumbled.

  “I beg your pardon?” Chantelle asked. She didn’t hear his tetchy whisper.

  “Nothing!” I interjected. “He just asked if he can text you...”

  “But we just met,” she replied, confused.

  “He meant after this date,” I tried to save the situation. “He wants to keep in touch with you after tonight.”

  Chantelle’s face lit up, thinking that Conner was very interested with her.

  Conner just rolled his eyes again.

  We sat down and the waiter approached us. He asked if we were ready to order. I politely told him that we were expecting one more, and that we’d be ready as soon as he would arrive. The waiter nodded and left us.

  Conner and Chantelle were sitting together on one side of the table. She tried to engage him in a variety of small talks, but he remained dismissive. He just nodded or shook his head in response to the questions she asked. Not once did he open his mouth. Silently, I laughed. Perhaps that was his way of ensuring that no cuss words would leave his mouth that night.

  There were a couple of times when he looked at me, though. His eyes - deep and always serious and beautiful - seemingly begged for my help. It was as if he was screaming inside...

  Get me out of here, Margaret!

  What have you gotten myself into?!

  Can we just go home now?

  Home...

  That word tugged at my heart for a few seconds. Indeed, he and I were sharing a home, even if it were for just two short months. We are family, after all. He’s my brother...

  Brother...

  Why does that word cause such heaviness inside me?

  “Well, hello my precious...” someone said from behind us, in a badly acted Gollum voice.

  I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. Immediately, I beamed.

  “You’re late!” I yelled playfully.

  “I know,” he replied as his hands slithered from behind my head to cover my eyes. “Guess who?”

  “Duh! I already know that it’s you!”

  “Oh... right! Sorry. Got the chronology messed up somewhere.”

  He removed his hands, and the first thing I saw was Conner with a look of disgust o
n his face. I didn’t know what he found revolting, though... how sweet me and Lucas were, or how I have suddenly become all too submissive to the man I love with all my heart.

  “Lucas, you’ve met Chantelle...” I said.