The Hard To Love series

by T A. McKay

  My attention is pulled back to my opponent when he walks up in front of me with a cocky look on his face. Little does he know that he is about to get his ass kicked. The skills that Bryce taught me have been invaluable. He knows how to fight and showed me it all. I clear my mind, knowing that if I spend too long thinking about Bryce it will affect my concentration and that’s the last thing I need right now. I fist bump with my opponent before backing up into my corner to wait for the bell. I start to bounce again, the energy inside me starting to build so much that I can’t keep it inside. I just want to get this fight over with so I can concentrate on training for the final. My only goal is to get there and kill Dwayne. Okay, not actually kill him but hurt him… a lot.

  The bell goes and I instantly go into attack mode. Coach told me I had to make this fight last, to let the guy get a few hits in before I floored him but I'm not planning on that happening. I have watched DVDs of this guy’s fights, and to say that he’s here by pure luck alone is no exaggeration. He couldn’t fight himself out of a paper bag, and I'm pretty sure some other contenders had been paid to throw fights against him. If I let him connect a punch with my skin then people think I'm not as good as I am, and if I pretend that he's winning at any point I may as well just go home. Even now, he’s bouncing about like he's fucking Tigger and I'm not sure what to do with him. He doesn’t stay still long enough for me to hit. Out of nowhere his fist flies and hits me across the cheek. The fucker just managed to punch me and I'm not happy about it. Another fist strikes across my jaw and I feel my lip burst under the pressure. This guy is really annoying me now. He’s moving so much that I can’t plan my attack, so I decide to just let him wear himself out, there’s no way he can keep this up for too long.

  Movement catches my eye and I look away from the bouncing idiot in front of me. I don’t know what makes me look; there are so many people in the place that movement in an aisle shouldn’t distract me but there is something that pulls me. Walking up the aisle is a guy in jeans and a shirt, his hair cut close at the back. My heart starts beating faster in my chest as I watch him walk away from me. I recognize the way his body moves and I have to stop myself from running to him. I don’t know if he can feel my stare on his skin or if he just happened to look back, but he turns and my breath is stolen when our eyes meet for the first time in weeks. The world around me fades away as I stand and look at the man I didn’t think I would ever see again. I didn’t think it was possible but he looks even sexier now than I remember with his hair styled and his body bigger.

  A sudden punch to the ribs brings my attention back to what I'm meant to be doing. I turn my head as I hear coach shouting at me to get my head out of my ass but all I can think about is Bryce. I need to finish this now so I can go after him. I need to talk to him and ask him why he left. Thankfully my opponent has stopped jumping like an irritating frog and I throw a perfectly practiced punch. I smile as it connects under his chin and I watch his head as it’s thrown backwards and his eyes roll back into his head. I see him start to fall towards the ground and I know there will be no more fighting for this guy tonight. He is out like a light so I’ve won the fight. I wait for a moment to hear the referees call it and as soon as I hear my name being announced as the winner I jump from the cage. I barely take time to land properly before I take off up the aisle towards where I last saw Bryce.

  I push through the doors, shouting his name even before I enter the hall on the other side. I look around, panic starting to rise in me when I can’t see him. I run blindly, my only thought is to find him. I want to know why he's here and where he's been. I want to tell him that I can’t stop thinking about him and my heart is breaking into smaller pieces the longer I'm without him. I don’t think I’ll be able to tell him any of this but just to see him close up, to make sure he's okay will be enough. I'm worried about him, the last time I went by his apartment it was empty. I don’t know when he moved out or where he’s gone, and that has me worrying. I know that he moved here not long before he started working for me, so now he’s jobless and living fuck knows where. I heard rumors about him working for Dwayne but I know he wouldn’t do that, or at least I hope he wouldn’t. He knows what I went through at his hands, and he's also the reason I acted like a fucking fool, so I'm sure that Bryce wouldn’t want anything to do with him. I need to make sure though and this might be my only chance.

  After searching for far too long I realize he's gone. He must have left while I was still fighting. I hear Coach shouting down the corridor to me, telling me to get my ass into the changing room. I barrel into the room, slamming the door into the wall behind it. All heads turn towards me and I don’t know what they see in my face but they all step back, putting a lot of space between them and me. I'm glad they do because the way I'm feeling just now, if someone said one wrong thing there’s a chance that I will put my fist through their face. I unwrap my hands, throwing my bandages across the room. I can’t believe that I finally had him in my sights and I let him get away. I don’t know when I’ll ever see him again and I missed my one fucking chance. Damn it!

  I lean over slightly with my hands on my knees, concentrating on taking deep breaths. I realize that since I met Bryce I’ve spent more time controlling my emotions than at any other time. Everything was simple before him. I spent my days training and my nights fucking. Any nameless woman would do since there was no attachment or emotions, but then Bryce ruined it all. He made me feel, he made me want something I’d never had or needed before and now I want more. But when faced with telling the world who I really was I got scared and went back into the little box I’d tried to fit so neatly into. No wonder Bryce wanted nothing to do with me. I couldn’t even admit who I was, so what chance did I have being the man that Bryce deserved.

  When I stand up I realize that the room has emptied and I'm alone with Coach. He's sitting on the massage table watching me very closely, a look of worry on his face. “Do I need to worry about you? Are you going to do something stupid to ruin your chance at the final?” His questions are simple ones, ones I should be able to answer in a heartbeat but I can’t.

  I stand and look at him, thinking how to answer him. I know that when it comes to my fight with Dwayne there’re no problems. I could win that fucker in my sleep, but I don’t think that’s what he's asking. Then it suddenly hits me and even though I shouldn’t be surprised, I am. I didn’t think anyone had noticed what was happening between Bryce and me.

  “How did you find out?” I try not to confirm anything until I find out how much he knows. I hope he’d support me no matter what I did with my personal life. He's known me longer than anyone, but there’s still the fact that the MMA world is not ready for a gay fighter.

  “Was it meant to be a secret? If it was you really need to work on that.”

  I can physically feel the color drain from my face and sweat starts to bead over my forehead. Did everyone in the gym know? Had they known there was something between us?

  “Shit, I'm kidding. You look like you’re gonna have a heart attack. I came back one night after the place had been closed up and saw you both in the shower. And let me tell you, that shit I won’t ever unsee.”

  The color that drained a moment ago is back, making my cheeks burn. “Shit Coach, I'm sorry.”

  He waves his hand, dismissing my apology. I walk over and collapse onto the bench, lowering my head until my chin is resting on my chest. I can’t believe that he actually caught us doing… whatever it was. I have no plans to ask him what we were doing, but all of my memories of the shower room tell me that it wasn’t anything that he should have seen.

  “Like it’s the first time I've seen you fucking someone in the shower. Though I have to say, I was surprised when I saw it was a guy. Actually, I was more shocked that it was your coach.”

  I don’t even know what to say to him. No one is more shocked than me that I've fallen for a man. My life was all about pussy; the more I got the better. Now even Asha can’t seem to get me hard.
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br />   “But you know what surprised me more? The fact that you put a ring on Asha’s finger. I didn’t see that one coming at all.”

  I rub my hands over my face, bracing myself to tell Coach everything. I haven’t had anyone to confide in about all this, and maybe if I tell him how I'm feeling I’ll be able to work out what to do.

  “Yeah, that kinda shocked me too. What I had with Bryce was… complicated. There was just something about him that I couldn’t resist, not that I tried very hard. I didn’t know what was going to happen between us and there’s no way I could have gone public about it. Then someone saw us. We weren’t doing anything, just talking, but I panicked and ran to Asha. I thought that if I settled down with her I would stop feeling anything for Bryce.”

  Coach nods his head as I talk, listening closely to what I'm saying. He doesn’t interrupt and when I'm finished he doesn’t seem put out by my confession. “So, how’s that working out for you?”

  I laugh at his question, my head falling back as I let my laughter flow through my body. It’s been a long time since I found something funny and it takes a few minutes to compose myself.

  “It’s not. I have a fiancée that I don’t love and who hasn’t spoken to me in weeks, and a coach that’s left his job and home to escape me. So life pretty much fucking sucks just now.”

  Coach gets up from the table and grabs his bag as he walks towards the door to leave. He turns around when his hand touches the handle. “Well I suggest you get a shower because you stink.”

  I smile as I stand, grabbing my towel and heading for the shower. Just as I'm about to walk into the cubicle, Coach shouts my name. I turn and look at him over my shoulder. “He might have left where he lived, but I'm pretty sure his number is still the same.” He says nothing else as he leaves the room.

  I walk under the spray of hot water and think about what just happened. Coach has known all along about my relationship with Bryce and never said anything, never judged me. Instead he’s pretty much told me to call him. I wonder if it really would be that easy and whether he would answer my call this time.

  I'm lying in my bed wearing nothing by my boxer shorts, surrounded by darkness. I've been here since I got home from my fight. I had wondered if Asha would hang around and wait for me but I couldn’t find her after my shower. I seem to have spent the whole day losing people. When I got to my car, I picked up my cell ready to call to see where she was, but I couldn’t press the call button. I didn’t really want to talk to her and I knew if I did then I would have to spend the night with her, which isn’t something I wanted. I would feel guilty about this if I wasn’t planning on ending it tomorrow, this has gone on long enough and I need to let her go. I can’t risk dragging her down with me so I need to do one good thing in my life.

  I've spent the last few weeks trying to forget everything by focusing on my training, but I don’t think I went an hour without thinking about Bryce. It didn’t seem to matter how hard I trained or how much I pushed myself, the emptiness I felt never left. I didn’t think it would hurt this much, but it feels like my heart is ripping apart every day. Seeing Bryce tonight just brought everything crashing down on me all at once. I try to convince myself that I don’t want him, I don’t need him, I don’t love him. Except I know I do. It took me a while to realize it but I know I love him. He was why I got up in the morning, the main reason I smiled. But I don’t know if I will ever be able to admit my feelings to anyone. The thought of going public scares me, and I would never keep him as my dirty secret, not that he would let me do that anyway.

  I think back to our time together, the times that I made love to him and when we just … were. I’ve never felt so accepted by anyone before. He was with me for who I was, not for what my name could give him. He spent time getting to know the real me and I shared with him things that I wouldn’t have shared with anyone else. I told him about my past with my dad, about how he had reacted when I tried to come out and received no judgment. I haven’t told anyone about that before, not even Coach, so when I heard the words coming out my mouth I was in shock. That’s what it was like with Bryce though, easy, comfortable, everything I’ve ever wanted.

  I pick up my cell for probably the tenth time and unlock the screen. I look at Bryce’s contact details, my finger hovering over the call button. I’ve wanted to call him since I collapsed on my bed, but I haven’t built up the courage to go through with it yet. I don’t know if I'm more worried about him potentially ignoring my call or him actually answering and me needing to be man enough to talk to him. I lower the phone to my naked chest, and it must brush over the button because I quickly hear ringing over the line. I panic and press the end call button. Shit! It’s going to show as a missed call on his cell, fuck. My heart races in my chest as I try to work out what to do. I’m concentrating so much on what to do, that when my cell rings it flies out of my hand and I let out a very unmanly scream. I rub my hand over the mattress until it comes into contact with my cell. I take a deep breath, trying to calm my heart rate, when I see Bryce’s number flash on the screen. I press the connect button and put the phone to my ear. There’s a few minutes silence between us and I wonder if I should say something, anything to get us talking, but before I do I hear the voice that’s haunted my dreams.

  “Why did you call, Zeke?”

  I close my eyes and listen as he says my name and it’s like that single word heals a little part of my heart. “You came to my fight, but you left. Why?” There’s more silence between us and I try to imagine what he's doing.

  “It was too hard to stay. I thought I could watch you fight but I couldn’t.” I don’t know if he means the memories of Austin that still haunts him or if being around me is too much for him.

  “I'm sorry, Bryce.”

  He lets out a very audible sigh and I feel this conversation is about to go off the rails. “I wish you were, Zeke. Is that all you called for?”

  I panic, suddenly needing to keep him on the call for as long as I can. Hearing his voice makes me feel the most at ease I've felt in a long time. “I am sorry. I'm sorry for everything, for running, for ignoring you. I'm sorry I can’t be the man you need, and I'm sorry that I need to live a lie to do the thing that I've been dreaming of since I was a teenager. I miss you like fuck and I don’t know what to do. I don’t have anyone to talk to and I'm driving myself insane. I don’t want you to hate me, but I know you do and I don’t blame you.” The words tumble out without control but I need him to hear them so he can understand.

  “I don’t hate you. I just couldn’t be around you anymore. I couldn’t watch you with her, Zeke. It was breaking my heart every god damn day.” He gives me hope as he speaks. Hope for what exactly, I'm not sure, but at least he's talking to me. He hasn’t shut me out like I expected.

  “I'm so fucking sorry. I miss you so much.” My voice is quiet and I'm not sure if he can actually hear me over the line, but when I hear his answer I know he has.

  “I miss you too, more than you’ll ever know.” The silence between us is deafening and I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to tell him what he means to me and that I love him. I want to say the words but I know it’s unfair to him to tell him when I can’t be with him.

  Before I have a chance to say anything I hear him over the line, asking a question that I never thought I would hear. “Can I come over? I need to see you.”

  I answer without hesitation I, barely letting him finish talking. “Yes.”

  I hear the phone disconnect as my heart starts galloping in my chest again. I don’t know what’s going to happen when he arrives or what he wants to see me for, but the thought of being so close to him again has my dick hardening in my underwear. I need to get my body under control before he arrives.

  Chapter 18

  I know this is a mistake, nothing good can come from seeing Zeke again, but I couldn’t stop myself. When I heard his voice on the phone my heart felt like it might explode in my chest and the feeling of being complete again was
overwhelming. I hadn’t planned to call him back but when I saw his name on my mobile, I couldn’t stop my finger from pressing the call button. I wasn’t surprised that he called. I’d been expecting it when he saw me at the fight today.

  That’s another thing I hadn’t expected to do. I haven’t been in an arena watching a fight since the day I lost Austin, and I always said you would never find me in another one. There are too many painful memories that I had planned to stay away from and I would have, if I hadn’t had a very interesting call from Asha. When the unknown number appeared on my screen I almost didn’t answer it but the worrier in me accepted the call. I’m the type of person who always thinks that something bad has happened, that someone I know has had an accident and if I don’t answer I won’t be able to get to them in time. I know people think I'm a little insane, but it’s just the way I am. So I answered the call and was completely shocked to hear Asha on the other end. She’d asked me what was happening between Zeke and me because she was worried about him.

  She told me she had never seen him hurting so much and she didn’t know what to do. She knew that anything she did wouldn’t be what he needed, but she had a suspicion that I might be able to help him. I’d sat and listened to her, shocked that my leaving had made any impact on Zeke’s life. He seemed to leave so easily when Dwayne caught us, even going as far as getting engaged to a woman to hide his secret. She told me about his upcoming fight and that I should go and watch him, but I explained that I couldn’t. I had even moved house, despite not being able to afford it, just so I wouldn’t run into him. I don’t think I would be able to handle seeing him with her, watching them be the happy couple when I know all his secrets. I wonder if he told her everything that he had confessed to me, about his past and his desires. I'm pretty sure he hasn’t since she’s still planning on marrying him, unless it’s for the money, but she doesn’t seem like that type of person. If she were only after his fame she wouldn’t have called me, in an attempt to make Zeke happier.