by JD Hawkins
It’s his smile that makes me lose it, the casual ease with which he opens his palms, as if I’m nothing to fear, nothing to regard. I smack the mic away and stand up, but before I can take a second step three guys wrap their arms around mine and hold me back. Gregg laughs and I shake one of the guys off but several more move between us.
“Whoa! Calm down, dude, easy!” I hear, through a cloud of red-hot anger and the cacophonous crowd. “Don’t lose it, man!”
I recognize it as Matt, and let him turn me away. I stalk and swagger on my end of the stage as if engulfed in flames, muscles aching to move, adrenaline making my heart beat like a tidal disaster.
“I guess we’re done here,” Danny says, coming over to us. “We just wanna get the poster—you square up to each other for a pic—”
“I know how it fucking works,” I say through gritted teeth, anger so overwhelming I can only express myself through it.
“Can you do it?” Danny says, the implication being that I’m too pissed.
I turn back and see Gregg there, already in position at the center front of the stage, watching me with that big shit-eating grin still on his face.
I move toward him, only a couple of feet away, the bouncers all primed around us to jump in. Gregg goes into a stance, a pose for the picture, his fist in my face, but I don’t do the same, I just glare at him. The crowd roars with the tension, I hear someone call my name, and Gregg’s smile widens a little.
I don’t care if this is just a conference, I don’t care if I’m standing in front of a crowd, I don’t care that this is just a press photo—I’m a fucking king, and here is somebody in front of me questioning that.
I flip. Swing an arm and bat his fist out of the way, but before I can swing the other, the one I really want to connect, I’m swallowed by the bouncers, by Matt’s imploring voice, by Butch’s angry insults, but most of all, by my own animal nature.
The room erupts into chaos as the bouncers drag me away.
Matt talks to me all the way back from the press conference to the dressing room, but I barely hear a word. I don’t swagger anymore, I prowl, primed for action, already hunting. Electric shocks of energy running through my body.
We reach the dressing room and Butch closes the door behind us, shutting out the camera crew. I let out a shout and throw my fist at the wall, leaving a black hole in it, and a bloody pain on my knuckles.
“Connor!” Butch shouts, as if I’m far away. I pace the room like marking territory, a trapped lion. “Connor!” he shouts again.
“I will fucking break that guy so bad he’ll never fight again,” I mutter to myself with the sincerity and solemnity of a holy oath. “I’m gonna break a bone for every fucking word he said out there.”
Butch calls out my name again and Matt decides to take the initiative, stepping in front of me and putting his hands on my shoulders to gently stop me pacing.
“Dude! Calm down a little, ok? Here,” he says, handing me a bottle of water. I resist my arm’s urge to throw it against the wall and take a long gulp.
“I’ve known that asshole since we were fifteen!” I say. “I used to kick his ass all over the gym then, and I sure as shit can do the same to him now!”
“Yeah, Connor,” Matt says, in the tone of someone talking me off a ledge.
“Six years? Shit. Six years and he’s done fucking nothing with it! Vultured a couple of belts and thinks he can talk shit to me?”
“Connor,” Butch says, and I glance at him for a second before continuing to pace a bit.
“Aw shit. Don’t you give me a fucking lecture now.”
“You might be the daftest cunt I ever trained with,” Butch says.
“I’m telling you, Butch. Don’t give me this shit right now.”
Butch goes on, “Don’t you see what he’s trying to do? He’s trying to get into your head!”
“Well it fucking worked!” I shout.
“I can see it fucking worked!” Butch shouts back. “Because you fell for it, you stupid idiot!”
“The only idiot here is Gregg—for just signing his own death warrant. Before, I was going into the fight to win—now I’m going to fucking humiliate him.”
“Listen to me,” Butch says, gripping my arm tightly to stop me pacing, “you won’t be winning anything if you start thinking like that again. If you start letting your arrogance, and your ego, and all your damned ‘alpha male’ bullshit lead you. You’ll be back at square one if that happens.”
“He’s right, Connor,” Matt says, putting a hand on my other shoulder. “Your head’s been in a good place these past few weeks—don’t lose it now, dude.”
“Yeah,” I say calmly, nodding at both of them. I know they’re right. I smile at them as if I got the message, that I understand completely, that everything’s fine. But I know instantly that something’s shifted, that some inner demon has got his claws in me again.
And there’s only one person who can fix it.
12
Frankie
I tell myself that I’m driving to Connor’s apartment because we need to talk. I tell myself that it’s because if I said no, it would only make him want to see me even more. I tell myself that it’s because even though the man at the press conference seemed exactly like the crazy, uncontrollable egomaniac that Tara described, Connor at least deserves a chance. I tell myself these things so repeatedly they become a mantra, a song. Though it never quite drowns out the idea that I’m seeing Connor because of the way he made me feel at the desert spring—and because I want to feel that away again.
No, I tell myself. This is just to talk.
I’m not sure I believe myself.
I park the car and make my way up to his apartment feeling like little red riding hood—only in this version, the wolf doesn’t worry about wearing a disguise. After a couple of deep breaths I push the buzzer.
Connor comes to the door wearing nothing but sweatpants and a smile.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” Connor growls, immediately grabbing my waist and pulling me in for a kiss. I’m hesitant, hands against his bare chest, trying to play it off as surprise, but Connor’s so hungry for me that he doesn’t seem to notice, and the feeling of his hard pecs makes it difficult to pretend I’m not into it.
He gazes at me as he pulls away, focused intent and tempered lust in his eyes. I don’t get butterflies in my stomach so much as a swarm of angry bees, and I’m grateful for the relief when he turns around to lead me into his apartment. His muscled back only a little less pounce-inducing than his front.
“Sorry I couldn’t cook for you,” he says, entering the sparse living room, “I’m on the final cutting phase now. It’s been nothing but plain grilled chicken and steamed broccoli.”
“That’s cool,” I say, scanning the black leather couch and the low, glass coffee table that make up the bulk of his furniture.
“I’m not drinking either,” he says, reaching over to a bottle of champagne on a stand, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t.”
“It’s ok, I—”
Connor hands me a full glass and I take it under his watchful eye. I consider sipping in the hope it might settle the bolts of electricity I’m getting every time I look at him, then decide better and lean over to put it on the coffee table.
“I’m not really in the mood to drink.”
“Whatever you want,” Connor says, making it sound like he’s not just talking about the drink. He gestures to the couch and I drop my backpack to sit on it, right against the armrest. Connor drops his large body in the middle, arms stretching over the back, smile directed at me like a spotlight.
“Did you see the press conference today?” he asks.
“Yeah…” I reply, slowly. “It was…intense.”
Connor snorts a laugh, and I see a little of the anger and aggression in his clenched jaw and narrowed eyes before he looks at me again and relaxes into his grin.
“Turns out people don’t like knowing they’re gonna
lose,” he says, chuckling a little.
“You seemed genuinely angry.”
Connor snorts and laughs at the ceiling. “Angry? Why would I get angry at some punk who’s the same size he was when we were fifteen? Whoever told him he could beat me deserves an Oscar. I’m gonna humiliate him so bad the only thing that’ll save him is that nobody will recognize his face when I’m done—” Connor stops when he realizes he’s worked himself up so much he’s spitting as he shouts. “Anyway,” he says, switching back to his smile, “let’s change the subject.”
“You missed your yoga lesson,” I say, softening it from an accusation to an observation.
“Come on!” Connor says like I just asked him something obvious. “I’m five days before a fight. I’m not gonna try and touch my toes with the other chumps.”
I scowl at him, face so hard he can probably see the reflection of his disparaging smile.
“Ok, I’m sorry,” he says after a second. “That was a bit harsh. Maybe you’re right, maybe I’m a little pent-up.”
I take a deep breath and smile gently, nodding at him.
“I think we should try some meditation. It could really help you get some focus so close to the fight, and I think you’re ready for it.”
Connor leans over and puts a hand on my knee, slowly moving it up my thigh.
“You serious?” he says in a low rumble. “You want me to close my eyes when you’re looking as good as you are?”
“Connor…” I say, though I can barely move from the magnetism of his touch.
“I only want to focus on your lips around my cock,” he says, voice low and powerful like thunder in the distance, his strong jaw and dark brows filling my view, close enough that I can see the control he uses to form hypnotic words on sculpted lips, “focus on getting so deep inside of you that you’ll lose yourself, forget who you are and become a part of me. I want to make you feel every inch of joy your perfect body could possibly feel, all at once, and I want to focus it all right here,” he says, and at the last word his lips meet mine, his hand pushing against my yoga pants to squeeze my pussy.
For a split second I ache with yearning, with the impossible need to let Connor take me right here on the couch. To close my eyes and be swept away by the immense power of his gigantic body, pounding into me until I scream his name. But only for a split second—
“No,” I say, shoving him away with every ounce of willpower I can muster. I move to the center of the room, the coffee table between us. “I’m not in the mood right now.”
“What?” Connor says, brow so furrowed you could write the words ‘confusion’ and ‘surprise’ in the lines.
“I really think you should try meditation right now,” I say, with the care of a doctor giving advice to a terminal patient.
Connor looks around him frantically, as if there might be an answer to whatever’s confusing him written on one of his walls.
“What is this?” he says, turning back to me. “What happened to the girl who jumped naked into the water? Where’s the girl who grabbed my cock during a one-on-one session?”
I laugh despairingly, with disbelief at the way Connor says those words, Tara’s bitter warning echoing in the back of my mind.
“She’s right here, Connor. And she’s a little bit offended to hear that that’s all you seem to have gotten out of your relationship with her.”
Connor rubs his face, exasperation in his movements. “Jesus Christ, Frankie! You’re acting like we’re married! I thought this was cool, that we were two fucking adults who were enjoying each other!”
I fold my arms and glare at him, my voice turning to ice. “And I thought a very big part of that enjoyment was me helping you, which I’m trying to do right now, and which you seem to be completely forgetting about.”
“Helping me?” Connor says, standing up and leaning forward so much I see the veins in his neck. “This is so fucking far from helping me right now it’s gonna need a visa! I’m five days from a fight and you’re here pushing my buttons like you want me to lose!”
I take a deep breath, and pull an imaginary cord before speaking steady and calm.
“You’re stressed, Connor, I get it. That’s why I think it would be a good idea for me to introduce you to meditation and allow you to—”
“Fuck meditation!” Connor says, jumping up and pacing to the other side of the room. “Fuck the breathing, fuck the yoga, fuck it all! I’m a fighter, Frankie! Gregg Hendrix is going to step into a ring with me and try to kill me. He’s been training for six months, studying my weaknesses, practicing how to evade me, to pound me into oblivion. You think that shit is going to help me when I’m in a choke hold with a two-hundred pound grudge on my back?”
I shake my head and lean back, raising my chin toward his face. I am livid.
“‘That shit’? Huh? ‘That shit’ is my life, Connor. I’ve been studying ‘that shit’ for ten years.”
“Look—”
“What the hell were you coming to my classes for,” I interrupt, “if that’s what you thought of it?”
Connor stares at me.
“For you!”
I laugh darkly, laugh out of deep, sudden sadness.
“Is that supposed to make me proud? Am I supposed to feel my heart go a-flutter and start crying tears of joy that you only pretended to appreciate my lessons, when really you just wanted to fuck me all along?”
Connor rubs his hair like he wants to pull his scalp off, spinning to the wall and then glancing back at me with all the conflicting emotions of a man at his limit.
“You know, Frankie,” he says, voice manic and snarling now, “I thought you were different. I actually thought you were an exception. You really had me fooled. I just don’t get what it is with you women…why you make something so good, so easy, and can’t just enjoy it. You have to fuck it up, have to turn everything into a giant, dramatic, unnecessary, over-fucking-analyzed mess.”
I watch Connor for a whole ten seconds with jaw clenched tight, his eyes wild, his shoulders rising and falling with the panting anger of his body.
“Wow. Fucking wow, Connor,” I say, shaking my head one last time. I grab my backpack and pull it over my shoulder. “There’s a thin line between alpha male and asshole—and you just crossed it.”
“What’s that line, Frankie?” Connor calls out as I march out of the living room and down the hall, “how much of your shit we’re willing to put up with? How fucking honest we are with you?”
I yank open his front door and turn back as he storms out of the living room to follow me. He stops short when he sees me looking back, muscles pumped, arms tensed, face stern.
“I wish I could help you, Connor. You really need it.”
“I’m an alpha male. I don’t need anyone’s help.”
I offer a small smile, but there’s no humor in it.
“You’re not an alpha male. You just believed your own hype,” I say before walking away. It takes everything in me not to turn around and see if he’s watching me go, not to run back and try to fix this. But as full of regret as I am, I know I’m doing the right thing. Aren’t I?
As I drive home, I can’t help thinking that maybe the whole thing between me and Connor was a mistake. Maybe breaking this relationship off before it even starts is the best thing for both of us. Maybe Tara was right.
13
Connor
It’s been four days since Frankie stormed out of my apartment. I’ve been cutting weight since then, eating less and less and drinking less and less water. Wrapping up in thick clothes and doing light exercises to sweat it out.
After the second day, pride isn’t enough to keep me going, and I call her. Frankie’s pride holds out longer though, and she doesn’t answer. On the third day I send multiple texts, call multiple times, each message an admission that I fucked up, but Frankie only responds by sending a message telling me to focus on the fight instead.
By the fourth day—the day of the weigh-in—I wake up not carin
g; it already feels too late. I get dressed and go to the gym feeling like I’m moving through dark clouds, my body both sluggish with the fatigue of cutting, and edgy with the pangs of hunger and thirst.
I greet the guys and go to the locker room to stack my stuff. When I’m done and swing the locker shut, I see Tara behind it, leaning against the doorway with a wry smile, like she’s about to promise me a good time for a great price.
“I heard your girlfriend left you,” she says, seeming to make the words resonate in the air like puffs of smoke.
“Wasn’t it me who dumped you?” I say, wrapping my hands.
Tara laughs and pushes herself off the wall, relishing the walk toward me with slow steps.
“Not me. Your perky little yoga bitch. The one with the studio across town.”
I glance at her quickly and give the smallest of shrugs—the smallest of fucks.
“Are you ok, baby?” she says, stroking my shoulder.
I toss her hand off with a flinch and glare at her.
“You want something?” I ask, putting a little muscle in my voice to break her game.
“When are you gonna get it, Connor? I’m the only woman who’s gonna understand you. You’ll never work with one of those uptight girls. It’s not your style.”
I finish my taping and turn to face her.
“I’ll go through a hundred uptight girls before I even consider you as an option again,” I say with a scowl, moving past her toward the exit.
“In that case,” she calls smugly behind me, “I’ll be waiting.”
When I get out on the main gym floor I sidle up to Matt, who’s in between reps on the weights. He notices me and nods.
“Hey,” I say, keeping my eyes on the sparring bout in the ring.
“Hey dude, feeling good?”
“Sure. Let me ask you something.”
Matt nods. “Go ahead.”
“Did you tell Tara anything about me and Frankie?” I ask, leaning in to avoid anyone hearing.
