Last Chance To Fight

by Ava Ashley

  “I think that’s enough for today, Julie. Keep doing these exercises at home and I’ll see you next week, OK?” I said, amazed that I was even still able to use my voice, what with the nervous commotion going on in my mind and the pit of my stomach.

  Before Julie could answer, I hurried through the back door of the office and into the hallway. In a blind panic at this point, I ran into the women’s room, out of all other ideas. At least I’d be safe in there for a minute. I needed to calm myself down. I looked in the mirror.

  “You can do this. You can do this,” I said out loud to my reflection.

  But then I remembered Hunter. Hunter and what had to be his girlfriend, or, God, even his wife, for all I knew. No, no. I couldn’t do this. I would just have to go back in there and tell Kathy that I wasn’t feeling well. I had to go home. I would only miss one client. It wouldn’t be a huge deal, right?

  I swung open the bathroom door with a determined push, and almost knocked over the person standing outside.

  “Oh, excuse me,” I said.

  “No problem, Anna,” said a familiar voice, and I found myself staring into a pair of startlingly clear eyes. Eyes that I knew so well.

  “Oh God,” I whispered. “It’s you.”

  Chapter Five

  Hunter

  From the moment the receptionist told me my therapist’s name was “Anna” and she’d be with me in a moment, I thought of her. Not that I even considered my therapist would really be the Anna, because as far as I knew she was still in Australia. But even after all these years, those four little letters sent a spike straight into my heart. That’s why when I sat down and saw her across the room, at first I thought I was seeing things. For the first few years after she left, I thought I saw Anna all the time. I’d see a flash of long brown hair and my heart would start to pound, thinking she’d come back. After a while I finally gained control over myself and stopped seeing her face in every young brunette that passed me by. That is, until now.

  But this time, it was really her. As soon as she looked at me and practically ran out of the room, I knew it had to be her. The real Anna Blakesley. I had no idea what crazy act of fate it took to bring us together like this—and how long had she been back in L.A. anyway?—but I didn’t have time to think about that. If she was running away from me, I wasn’t going to let her. I got up just in time to see her rush into the bathroom. I planted myself outside the door and waited.

  When she came out, she looked pale and distraught. Her hair was pulled back into a long ponytail, and she was wearing a simple workout outfit of just a T-shirt and black pants. But to me, she looked perfect. After all this time, without even speaking a word to her, I still knew that she was the only girl for me. My immediate instinct was to comfort her, and make her feel better. So I tried to be lighthearted.

  “It’s me, all right. You may have gotten me mixed up with Vin Diesel, but that’s OK. It happens all the time.”

  Anna didn’t say anything, but just continued to stand there looking like a deer caught in the headlights. She’d make a nice deer, I thought, with her big beautiful brown eyes.

  “So, you’re a physical therapist, huh? That’s pretty cool because I could use some help with my ankle and I’d rather not have some sweaty dude touching me,” I said, nudging her a little.

  “Right, um, sorry, this is a little shocking,” she said at last. “I don’t think I can be your physical therapist, though.”

  “So you can still talk! That’s good. I was concerned for a second there,” I said, coming closer to her. I didn’t want to make her nervous, but I couldn’t help it. I was drawn to her. I always had been.

  “Hunter, what are you doing?” she asked.

  “Nothing, I don’t know. I’ve missed you, Anna. And now suddenly, here you are before my very eyes. Like it was fate or something.”

  “I don’t know, Hunter. It’s not that I don’t want to see you. It’s just that this is a new job, and I think...I don’t know, it might be too much to have you here, all the time.”

  “Oh, come on, I’ll be a good patient. I won’t be here all the time, just a few times a week. I broke my damn ankle. You should help me,” I pleaded. “I’ve got a tournament to win.”

  Anna sighed, and I could see she was about to cave. She had all these ideas about the way things were supposed to work, but it was always really easy to convince her to do what she wanted to do, deep down. I reached out and touched her arm, letting my fingers slide down her incredibly soft skin until I got to her hand and squeezed it.

  “Please?” I said.

  “Oh, all right,” she relented. “I guess we can meet today and see how it goes. Come on in.” “That’s my girl,” I said, patting her on the back.

  “Let’s try to keep this professional, shall we?” she said, trying to make her voice sound cold. “Professional? Where’s the fun in that?”

  “I think your girlfriend would probably prefer it,” she answered.

  “Girlfriend? What?” Then suddenly it dawned on me. “Oh, you mean Trina? The one who came in with me just now? No way. She’s not my girlfriend, just my manager.”

  “Your manager.”

  “Right. She manages things for me. Physical therapy appointments, press conferences, fighting gigs, hotel reservations, that sort of thing.”

  “I see,” Anna said, leading me over to an empty table. She didn’t say anything else, but I could tell from the slight relaxing of her shoulders that she was happy about the news. I took that as a good sign.

  “All right,” she said, “just hop up here and take off your shoes and socks for me please.”

  “No problem. Anything else I should take off?”

  “Very funny.”

  I did as I was told and Anna got out some lotion and set about her work.

  “It’s the left ankle, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Still having any pain?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Yeah, it does look a little swollen. Here, let’s work on that.”

  She began massaging the area around my ankle, trying to push the excess fluid back where it belonged. Oliver had done that a thousand times before and it was always pretty uncomfortable, but when Anna did it I didn’t mind so much. I just sat there and marveled that I had her hands on me once again after so long. I watched her as she sat in her chair, with my foot in her lap, her eyebrows scrunched in concentration. God, she was always so perfectly beautiful. I wanted to kiss her, right then and there, but I had to content myself with resting my foot in her lap. At least, for now.

  “So what are you doing after work?” I asked.

  “Unpacking.”

  “Unpacking? Wow. So you just got here? Like, you moved back from Australia?”

  “Yesterday afternoon, yeah.”

  “And you got right to work. So I guess you haven’t changed at all, huh?”

  “I think maybe I’ve changed a little,” she answered with a small smile, the first I’d seen on her all day. Making her smile always made me feel great. Like I could do anything.

  “Well, you’ve got to eat, don’t you? Let’s have dinner. We can catch up a little,” I said, figuring it couldn’t hurt to try.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Hunter.”

  “No? Seemed like a good idea to me. We both consume food daily to keep alive, so I thought we could do it together. But maybe another time.”

  “Maybe,” she answered, and then I saw her second tiny smile of the day, though she tried to hide it. I took that as another good sign.

  After a while our session ended, and it looked like Anna didn’t have any more patients waiting for her in the sitting area.

  “So, are you off for the day?” I asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I am,” she answered, with a hint of suspicion in her voice.

  “Do you need a ride home?”

  “No thanks, I can walk from here.”

  “Perfect, I’ll walk with you.”

  Anna
hesitated for a few seconds, then finally sighed and nodded. She grabbed her bag from the back room and soon we were on our way. As I walked next to her down the sidewalk, in her old neighborhood Santa Monica no less, I couldn’t help but feel like nothing at all had changed. I had to struggle against the urge to take her hand in mine.

  “You know, Anna, I’ve missed you like crazy all these years,” I said. After all, at this point, what did I have to lose? I thought I’d never see her again. And yet, here she was right in front of me. I was never big on wasting time.

  “I...” Anna hesitated.

  “What? What is it? Come on, what’s there to be afraid of? I know you’ve missed me too.”

  “I have missed you, Hunter. I never stopped missing you,” she said, her voice a tiny whisper.

  “That’s good,” I said, reaching for her hand.

  “This is my place,” she said, pointing to a modern brick apartment building. “I’ll see you at your next appointment, OK?”

  Before I could answer, she had turned around and was practically running up the steps to her apartment.

  “OK, Annabelle,” I said, calling her by her old nickname. “I’ll see you then.”

  I wasn’t sure why she was running away from me, but whatever it was, I knew we could handle it. Fate had brought us back together, so there was nothing that could keep us apart. Right?

  Chapter Six

  Anna

  A few days later, it was time for my next appointment with Hunter. As I got ready that morning, I suddenly wasn’t so happy that my job was in such a casual, comfortable work environment. Once again, I wished I could put something on that would knock Hunter’s socks off, but I couldn’t very well work in a strappy summer dress, could I?

  I settled on the company T-shirt and black yoga pants as usual, and tried my best to make my hair and makeup look good. I gave a final glance in the mirror, decided that had to be good enough, and walked out the door. As I turned the corner, my phone began to ring. I fished it out of my purse, expecting it to be Betsy. To my surprise, it was Nate, the guy I had been seeing before I’d left Australia.

  I was too surprised to answer. I felt terrible, but I really hadn’t thought about him at all since I’d gotten to L.A. Actually, I realized, I hadn’t even bothered to let him know that I’d landed. I felt guilty about it, because he really was a good guy. Unfortunately, now that it seemed like maybe Hunter was back in my life, I had to call the whole thing off. But I couldn’t do it right now. Your walk to work is not a great time to break up with someone. I silenced the phone and put it back in my bag. I’d just have to call him back later.

  Ever since seeing Hunter the other day, my head had been spinning. Of course, I had never stopped missing him. I thought about him all the time, and was secretly hoping we could at least see each other again. But I was unprepared for it to happen so fast, or for it to just feel so right. And I’d refused to consider that he’d still be single—that was a surprise. It was scary, how suddenly it seemed like he might be back in my life. I was afraid that something would come along and tear him away from me again. And I was also afraid that eventually he would ask why I refused to keep in touch with him when I left, and I would have to tell him everything.

  But, for now, I tried not to think about that. My day at the office sped by, as patients came and went with their different ailments, trouble spots, and treatment plans. It was a great job, I realized, if you needed constant action.

  Soon enough four-thirty rolled around, and Hunter strolled into my office once again. I tried to keep focus on my current patient, asking her to do fifteen more reps with the exercise band as Hunter looked over and caught my eye. A thrill went down my spine as he smiled his signature not-at-all-innocent grin. I was starting to rethink the whole idea of treating him as a patient. It seemed like it would be impossible to act professionally with him in the room.

  After I finished up with my last patient, I waved Hunter over to my work area and gestured for him to get on the table.

  “Should I take off my clothes?” he asked with a wink.

  “Just your shoes and socks will be fine, Romeo,” I answered.

  “That’ll do for now, I guess.”

  I tried my best to ignore him and set about my work. I got out the massage lotion and started to work on his scar tissue.

  “Any pain since I last saw you?”

  “No, not really,” he said. “Just the pain of not being with you.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “So this doesn’t hurt, then,” I said, pushing harder on the buildup of fluid. Hunter, I could tell, forced back a wince.

  “Nope, no problem at all.”

  “All right, tough guy,” I said as I continued to give him a rough massage. “Have it your way.”

  Hunter kept quiet for a few minutes, but the whole time I worked on his scars I could feel his gaze boring straight into me, all over me. I felt my pulse quicken, as his eyes almost felt like hands, touching every part of my body. I really wasn’t sure I could handle this.

  “OK, that’s enough of that. Let’s get started with your exercises,” I said, gently releasing his foot.

  “Can we do the one where you wrap your legs around me as I do push-ups?”

  “That is not a real exercise.”

  “We could try it. It might help.”

  “Hunter, really. This is my job. And you have a match coming up, don’t you?”

  “A Heavyweight Tournament Semi-Final, to be exact,” he said, smiling.

  “A semi-final, then. My point is, if you want me to be your physical therapist, then you need to treat me like your physical therapist.”

  “I’m sorry, you’re totally right. It’s just that I find it so hard to be in the same room with you and not notice how good you look,” he said, smiling softly at me.

  “Well, thank you. But you’ll just have to find a way to do that,” I answered, trying to keep my cool when every one of his words made me want to rip my clothes off and have him touch me everywhere.

  “You don’t know how hard it is,” he said again, pulling me gently toward him so that we were almost embracing, right there in the middle of my office. If it weren’t for all the people around, I surely would have pushed him back on the table and climbed on top of him. As it was, we really had to restrain ourselves. I decided to change my tactic.

  “Listen,” I said, “you need to be good and do your exercises. If you don’t, you won’t be able to win your fight or perform other physical feats you might be interested in.”

  “I’m listening,” Hunter said, leaning back and watching me with a curious grin.

  “And if you’re good, and you do your exercises, maybe you’ll get what you want,” I whispered, leaning closer.

  “Is that a promise?” he asked, his voice husky.

  “Not quite,” I answered, backing away and grabbing an exercise band. “Here, work on your inversion and eversion strength, and then we’ll see about negotiating.”

  Hunter blinked at me for a minute, and then started his ankle exercises with a grin.

  “I don’t know if that’s how you motivate all your patients, but it sure is effective.”

  “I haven’t tried it with anyone else yet. Usually they do what I say without too much of a hassle.”

  “Well, that’s their first mistake.”

  Chapter Seven

  Hunter

  I was having a hard enough time keeping my cool before Anna started in with that whole naughty schoolteacher routine. Just looking at her in those tight black pants and tight T-shirt was enough to make my blood boil. And then, when she leaned up real close to me, pointing her tits right at me and speaking in that sultry voice, it was all I could do to stop myself from picking her up and tossing her on the table. I almost didn’t care that there was a room full of people, I wanted her so badly.

  But I liked playing this game with her. And if she wanted to play games, then I was going to play them even better. I’d make her wait for it un
til she begged. And when she begged, I’d make her wait some more.

  As we finished up the therapy session, I asked Anna if I could walk her home.

  “Sure,” she said with a sweet smile.

  The weather was perfect. June in Los Angeles is pretty much as good as it gets. It’s not too hot. It’s dry. The sun is always shining. And there I was, walking through a beautiful neighborhood with the only girl I’ve ever loved. And it seemed like maybe, after all these years, she even still loved me back.

  I wasn’t sure I should, but I decided to reach over and take her hand. She didn’t let go, but smiled at me and squeezed my palm. After all that build-up in the therapy session, that was pretty much the only signal I needed. I stopped in the street and pulled her in toward me. Feeling her warm body pressed up against mine was almost indescribable. I hadn’t felt that good, that complete, in years. All it took was the feeling of her next to me. It felt so right.

  I reached up to her face, took her cheek in my hand, and looked deep into her eyes.

  “Do you feel it too?” I asked, quietly. Anna nodded.

  I leaned down to brush her lips with my own, not wanting to rush it too much. I wanted to savor every second before I got what I’d been waiting for for so long. And then, it happened. I pressed my mouth fully onto hers and tasted her sweet lips, and felt her body go slack in my arms. It felt great. Almost perfect.

  It would have been completely perfect, except for one thing nagging at me. Anna had been gone a long time, and although my feelings for her hadn’t changed even a little bit, a lot of other things had changed. After she left, I had kind of a rough period. I was heartbroken and confused, and I thought I could get her back. I even got an extra job, and worked my ass off to save up enough money to go see her in Australia. There was a lot I wanted to tell her, but I wasn’t sure how. I figured I’d start there.

  “You know,” I began, stroking her cheek and not entirely sure what to say. “When you left, it kinda messed me up.”

  I looked down at her and saw surprise, guilt, and an unspeakable sadness all pass over her face very suddenly.