I snorted.
“Not at all. I had one boyfriend all the way through high school. I thought we would end up getting married and having babies and all of that… but it wasn’t meant to be.”
“The guy must have been a fool,” he breathed into my ear.
My heart was thumping against my chest. Warmness spread inside each time he said things like that. But sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my head, instead of just saying “Thanks.”
“He was a player, like you.”
I could feel his muscles stiffen underneath me.
“I don’t think of myself as a player. Players make promises they don’t intend to keep in order to get girls in bed with them. I never do that.”
“Never?” I said.
“Well, I don’t promise anything like a ring or a relationship. I might say I’m going to call and then I don’t… But everyone does that.”
“So when you have sex with a girl, you tell her straight up that it’s just going to be sex and nothing more?”
“Pretty much. I always make sure they know I’m not looking for a relationship. If they choose to sleep with me anyway then it’s not really me playing with their emotions, right? I never tell them things I don’t mean about how I feel.”
“Have you ever been in a real relationship?” I asked him.
“No,” he confessed. Then he looked at me funny and said, “I never even thought about being in one before….”
Maybe I imagined the dot dot dot. Maybe he just meant it to say before and nothing else. I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it.
“Emmi,” he breathed longingly.
I looked up at him and his mouth was literally right there, warm breaths slipping through his sealed lips.
“Yeah?” I asked, my heart now tearing through anything trying to stop the heavy thumping.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked.
I nervously laughed; he was asking permission like I told him to. I really couldn’t say no to that, I didn’t want to. My heart was beating so fast I could feel it pounding against the inside of my chest like it was trying to escape. I nodded slowly and he took his hand and put it on the side of my face. That soft touch alone was enough to send sparks shooting down my spine. Then he leaned in closer and slightly brushed his lips against mine, tentatively, like he was just taking a taste. He hadn’t really pulled back though- his lips were still hovering there just millimeters away. It was sexy and I leaned in to close the microscopic space between us. I was glad I did as I felt the thrill of his soft full lips cover mine and then his tongue sliding gently between my parted lips. It stayed there dancing softly with mine for several seconds and the moment was so intense that at first I didn’t even feel his hand sliding down from my face to my shoulder. He brushed my neck with his fingers and the fire in my belly ignited. I knew I needed to stop him, but I wasn’t ready yet, I didn’t want the kiss to end. My muddled brain gave his hand about two seconds when it made it to my breast before it snapped back to reality. I pulled back, out of breath and with my heart still hammering out of control. He was too close for me to slow things down. I was fighting the urge to put my lips back on his while he stared intently at me with his sexy green eyes. I sat up to stop myself from kissing him again. I wasn’t ready to give in yet.
“Did I do something wrong?” he said, propping his head up on his elbow.
I was trying not to look at him, still not trusting myself. I stared across the open field at the fragrant wildflowers that were growing everywhere.
“I can’t just be another notch for you, Braxton. I don’t do the one night stand thing. If you’re telling me that you don’t want a relationship, then I have to walk away from this,” I explained, still sheltering my eyes from his gaze.
“It doesn’t have to be just one night,” he said.
My eyes darted over at him, meeting his gaze. How could such a smart guy be so dense? He really had no clue.
“Braxton, I mean that I don’t view sex as a sport. I won’t sleep with you unless you’re committed to me. Sex isn’t casual for me, Brax. It comes with a whole lot of emotions. I have feelings for you, but I’m not willing to date a guy who is still sleeping with other girls, a lot of other girls. I’d rather not have you at all than have to share you and know that everyone knows I’m sharing you. Imagine how uncomfortable that would be with our living arrangements. I could never do that,” I choked, a knot forming in my throat.
CHAPTER FOUR
BRAXTON
I knew I should say something. She was looking at me, and it had been quiet for way too long. I thought I heard a squirrel climbing up the tree behind us. I just didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think that I could commit. I was starting to like Emmi a lot. She seemed different from all of the other girls I had been with, but I wasn’t looking for a full time girlfriend. Plus, I would never want to hurt her. Damn it, I needed to say something.
“What is your problem with commitment exactly?” she questioned while the wheels in my head were turning.
I thought about that for a minute, silence again. I knew the answer, but I had never really said it out loud to anyone before so I wasn’t sure how to verbalize it. Finally, I took a deep breath and said it out loud.
“I didn’t have a single date in high school. I didn’t go to the Winter Formal or the Prom. I didn’t go to any school dances. I was tall, skinny, and smart. To the girls that translated to “nerdy.” They treated me like shit, and if I did work up the nerve to ask one out after days or weeks of agonizing over it, they would shoot me down and make me feel like a fool for just asking. They thought they were too good for me, too pretty to be seen with the nerd who hung out with the other smart kids.” Emmi was looking at me strangely, like she didn’t believe me. “There was this girl in my biology class my junior year. She was one of the pretty girls, the ones who looked at me like I was a huge zit walking around in pants. The teacher pretty much forced her to be my lab partner. I think he thought she could learn something from me. Instead, she flirted with me and messed with my head until I actually believed I had a chance with this girl. I let her cheat off of all my papers, and she got an “A” in the class. It was probably the first “A” she had ever gotten. Stupid me decided to ask her to Junior Prom. When I did, she looked at me like I had lost my mind, and then she laughed. She told me she was going with a guy named Conner Banks. He was a wrestler and a football star that was a senior, and already being looked at by the pros. This girl used me for most of the semester but I was such a cum-filled adolescent that I hadn’t realized it until that very moment. I promised myself I’d never let that happen again. It was a horrifying experience. I decided that I was going to be the one who did the using.”
“Wow,” she said. “That sucks, Brax. But, you have to know that all girls aren’t the same, right? How does using innocent girls make what they did to you any better? I’m not like that, I don’t use people, and I didn’t in school either.”
I didn’t believe her. She’s gorgeous and I would bet that she had shot down hundreds of guys at least in high school. I’d even bet that the “player,” that one guy she said she dated was a jock. My thoughts must have shown on my face because she answered my question without even having to ask.
“Zoe was my only real friend in high school. The other girls thought I was “weird” because I liked to do plays and sing in the chorus. I was the nerd who wore the camera around her neck and belonged to the photography club. My boyfriend and I met in chorus. He did the plays and things with me until our senior year. He was a dork, like me. But the summer before senior year he decided to bulk up and he was working out with this group of really popular guys and he started putting on muscle. He stopped doing plays and chorus and started going to parties. That was when he started cheating, I guess. Suddenly the pretty, popular girls wanted him and I wasn’t good enough anymore.”
It sounded strange even to myself, but I wanted to go find that guy and kick his ass for doing that to her. She d
eserved better and that was the prime reason for me to not date her. If I strayed, and I probably would, then it would hurt her too much. I didn’t want to talk about this anymore.
Trying to change the subject I said, “I have another fight this weekend. This one is hopefully going to get me into the round of sixteen.”
“Oh.” she said, simply.
“Will you come and cheer me on?” I asked her.
It made me think about kissing her again. Damn I wanted to kiss her again.
“Fighting is really not my thing,” she said.
“You came to my other one,” I told her, hoping she wasn’t not going because of the kiss, either one of them.
She looked at me like she was trying to figure out what to say.
“I only went because I wanted to see you. It wasn’t about the fight,” she finally spit out.
I don’t know if she was trying to stick needles through my chest and into my heart, but that’s what it felt like.
“Okay then,” I said, trying to sound cool and sure of myself. “You should come to this one. I’ll be the main attraction.”
I think she may have smirked.
“You probably shouldn’t flatter yourself too much if you see me there. They’ve already told me at the paper that they’ll probably be sending me to take pictures.”
That time it wasn’t a needle or two, it was a stake.
**********
EMMI
I took the pictures I had taken on the trail to Sarah the next day after taking the ones of Braxton off and downloading them on my own computer. I didn’t know if anything would ever come of us as a couple, but he was undeniably nice to look at.
Braxton was already gone when I’d gotten up that morning. He told me the day before that he was going to be working out hard the rest of the week to get ready for his fight over the weekend so I wasn’t surprised. When we’d gotten home after our day out on the trail he went off and did his own thing. Maybe he was angry that I stopped him when we were kissing. I had never had to work so hard to keep myself from doing anything before. I wanted to kiss him again. I could imagine the way he tasted…. But I was serious when I told him that it couldn’t go any further unless he could commit. It would be dangerous to get heated up in the apartment with even kisses, so close to our beds… I just said good-night and went to bed.
When I showed Sarah the pictures I’d taken, she was stoked. She said they were better than she had imagined they would be.
“There’s a lot of good material up there,” I told her. “It’s like out of the pages of a travel magazine.”
“I know. That’s why I wanted to get it in this week’s paper. I want people to have time to enjoy it before the weather gets bad. Can you do the underground fights for me this weekend?” she asked. “I hear it’s hard to get in, but I have a guy working on getting a couple of passes.”
“My roommate is one of the fighters. I can get in.”
That made her more excited than the trail pictures I had taken. I was thrilled about it too. I wanted to go watch Braxton, but I would have felt stupid after everything that’s gone on between us if I had just shown up. I already told him I was taking them for the paper anyway. I just didn’t want to give him the idea that I’d change my mind and sleep with him, because I wouldn’t… Not unless he decided he wants to be in a relationship. I didn’t enjoy watching someone beating on him, but there was something that elicited a raw sense of animal lust in me when I saw him in his knee length spandex with his hands wrapped and his mouth guard in place.
“Make sure to get lots of pictures of the fighters, and if you can maybe an exclusive of the most popular winner afterwards,” she told me. “If that’s not too much to ask.”
She grinned while her eyes flickered in the light.
I smiled at her and said, “I’ll do my best.”
“From what I’ve seen already, I’m sure you will,” she complimented, making me feel good.
************
The next day was Friday, the day before the match. I still hadn’t run into Braxton since walking on the trail together. I wasn’t even hiding out this time; we were both just genuinely busy that week. I had to leave early that morning to take photos of a protest on campus over banned books. Then I had to go to class myself, and now that I was out, I was meeting Zoe. We were treating ourselves to a mani/pedi. It was Zoe’s idea, but a little relaxation sounded good to me so I had agreed.
We met at a salon downtown and as we sat in the vibrating recliners while our feet were being soaked in warm paraffin oil Zoe started jabbering.
“What’s new with you and Braxton?”
I hadn’t told her about the trail and the kiss yet. I had wanted to hold onto it and savor it for a few days before I shared it with anyone else.
“We hung out when I shot the trail photos the other day,” I explained. Then I casually added, “He kissed me.”
Zoe grinned. “Like the one at the fights?” she asked.
“No,” I said, thoughtfully. “This one was different. He asked first, plus it was sweet and tender…”
“Oh my God,” Zoe shrieked. “You’re falling for this guy.”
“I am not,” I denied.
“Yes you are. You are so totally hot for him. Did you have sex?”
“Zoe! No, it was a kiss. Just one kiss and it’s not going to happen again.”
“Why not? Wasn’t it good?”
I smiled, and then as I thought about it I shuddered a little.
“It was good. It was great as a matter of fact...”
“Then what’s the problem?”
We had to stop for a minute and pick out a color for our toes. I picked a light pink and Zoe went with neon orange.
“I don’t want to just be another one of his harem,” I told her. “If I’m going to be with him, it’s going to only be me.”
“Emmi, listen to me,” Zoe said. “I’m not being mean. You know I love you. I don’t want to see you fool yourself into thinking that he’ll change for you. He’s a playboy, Emmi, he’s not going to commit.”
“I know that. I told him the kiss couldn’t happen again and the sex would never happen, unless he decided that he did want to be in a relationship.”
“How did you get from talking about kissing to sex? And what did he say?” she asked.
“Well… The kissing started to head in that direction but when I told him it wasn’t going to happen unless he committed to me he changed the subject,” I stated.
I didn’t tell her what he told me about high school. That just seemed too private.
“Jerk,” she uttered.
I didn’t say anything. Instead I followed Braxton’s lead and changed the subject.
CHAPTER FIVE
BRAXTON
This was it, my last training day before the fight tomorrow night. I promised myself on the way to the gym that I wasn’t going to think about Emmi at all. I wasn’t going to remember how good it felt to lay there in the grass with my arm underneath her, how soft her lips felt, or the tiny little brush of the side of her breast against my arm as she leaned into the kiss. I wasn’t going to think about any of it. That twitching in my pants every time I did just got in the way and today was all about staying in the zone and getting to the round of sixteen. I’d have plenty of time to think about her later. Since it seemed like that was all I had been doing lately, I was sure I could pick up right where I left off.
As usual, Sam was already there and waiting for me.
“You a hundred percent with me today kid?” was the first question he asked.
He’s kind of like an old woman sometimes, always on my back.
“Yeah, I’m all yours Sam. Get me pumped up so I can kick some ass tomorrow.”
“It’s not about kicking ass, Braxton. Remember what I told you. It’s about getting into your opponents head. Let him know as soon as you strut out to that octagon that you got this. You do not have a single other thing on your mind but winning. Make sure he
sees that. No glancing around at the panties and the titties thrown in your direction. For that matter, forget you’re a man. Walk out there like a machine with only one thing on your mind, and it ain’t pussy. You got that?”
I had already pulled off my shirt and was wrapping my hands while he dispensed his lecture.
“I got it,” I asserted.
It had been a full ten minutes since I thought about Emmi.
“We’re gonna work on foot work today kid. I want you movin’ so smooth out there that you look like a God damn ballerina, got that?”
I wished he didn’t have to say “got that?” after everything he said. It was really annoying.
“Yeah, I got it,” I stressed so he didn’t say it again.
We stepped into the ring and when Sam pulled his shirt off all I could think was thank you Jesus there’s a weight class. If I had to fight this big son of a bitch for real… Let’s just say that the confident machine I wouldn’t be.
Sam started throwing jabs at me and he hollered, “Dance!” It reminded me of one of those old westerns where they shoot at the guy’s feet. So anyway, I danced, I dodged, and I rocked my body back and forth. For fifteen full minutes I avoided his gargantuan fist slamming into the side of my head, and now it had been a full twenty five minutes since I had thought about Emmi. Saying her name in my head doesn’t count as a thought. I’m a machine! Machines don’t think, they fight, or in this case they avoid getting their pretty head knocked off.
We took a break after that and I slammed down a Gatorade and energy drink as Sam turned the tunes up loud. He was old school so there was 80’s rock blaring out of the system. It was way better than the likes of Katy Perry. He wanted me thinking like Sylvester Stallone.
“Again!” he shouted when he got his breathing back under control. I didn’t want to tell him, but if he went down just one weight class his lungs would probably thank him. “This time throw some punches,” he continued sternly.
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