by Unknown
"Felt like coming in. I wanted some relaxation."
Mr. Michaels was nearly twice his age and just as sharp, so of course he saw through Emory's excuses. Suddenly Emory was a teenager again, skipping school to hang out at the gym when Mr. Michaels asked him, "No work today?"
Shaking his head, Emory said, "Took the day off. Needed the break."
Mr. Michaels gave him an assessing once over but seemed to lose interest as he looked away a moment later. "Go a round in the ring with me."
Emory couldn't hide his surprise. "With you? You're old and—"
The glare Mr. Michaels gave him instantly had Emory shutting his mouth. "Afraid I'll beat you?" he asked him.
Emory smirked and shook his head as he moved past Mr. Michaels to get in the old ring. He hadn't been in it in a long time and returning felt weird, but only for a moment. He didn't have longer to think about it than that because Mr. Michaels was throwing punches in his direction, and Emory was struggling to keep up with a much older opponent. He ducked and swayed, his body remembering the motions even if his mind hadn't quite caught up to what was going on. Mr. Michaels was far faster than he remembered and was able to get one really solid punch in his ribs that left Emory gasping and clutching at the ropes. The first round ended with him realizing just how out of shape he actually was. Emory struggled to catch his breath and drank some water.
"Your form stayed intact, at least," Mr. Michaels said as he left the ring.
Emory watched him go. "Yeah. It's been a while for me."
Mr. Michaels started upstairs with his well-worn backpack dangling from his left hand. "Obviously. Maybe it's a good thing you turned down the fight. Would hate for you to embarrass yourself and your dad by falling flat on your face before anyone had even hit you."
Emory's mouth dropped open, and he was about to argue when Mr. Michaels went into his office and closed the door behind him, effectively cutting off anything Emory might have said. "What the hell?" Emory mumbled to himself as he turned back to the empty ring and rested against the ropes at his back.
He wasn't that bad, was he? Emory pulled out his phone and texted Mac, sending out a need for help. Mac didn't live far and would have been in the gym within a few hours anyway; Emory didn't feel too bad when Mac walked into the gym half an hour later, shucked off his coat, and gave him a dark look.
"You woke me up, Emory," Mac called to him as he wrapped his hands in tape.
Emory rolled his eyes. "Did not. You think I've lost it in here?" He gestured to the ring with a loose wave of his hand.
Mac appeared surprised but only shrugged as he finished up and came into the ring. "Why? Someone make fun of you?"
Emory made a face, but Mac's assumption wasn't too far off. "I find that I'm out of shape. And I want to get back to training."
"Why?" Mac was quick to ask.
Well, he didn't really know. Not officially, anyway. It was more than his pride being bruised by an old man who had been faster than Emory had given him credit for. "Boxing never really goes away," he said after a long moment.
"No, it doesn't. Strange being back in the ring?"
"Yeah, actually. It is." He'd worked out beside it for years, of course, so it wasn't like he hadn't known it was there. But being in the ring was a lot different than just being beside it. "It reminds me of the times my dad would be in here with me. I can almost hear him, you know? Like he's right here next to me telling me that you've got a bad knee so be sure not to kick you there."
Mac chuckled. "Sure it wasn't the other way? Kick him in the knee, bring him down fast, then finish him?"
Emory shook his head as he sighed. "For some guys, sure. Anything for an advantage. But my dad didn't play dirty. You either won fair or you lost. That was it. Winning by cheating was crap. I never tried it, but the one time he saw another guy do it, he was so upset. The ref didn't do anything about it, even when my dad pointed it out, so he went up to the guy and chewed him out after the match. I've never seen a guy that big reduced to a cowering mess so quickly."
Mac smiled, looking as if he had his own memories of Emory's dad. "Yeah. Your dad was pretty great. So did you want something, or did we just come here to rehash old memories?"
Emory grinned. "Help me get back into fighting shape."
"Going to fight?"
He wasn't sure. Not yet, at least. But the idea that he'd lost the one thing his dad had insisted he learn was just too much for him. "Just help me. For starters. I don't know from there."
His smile wide, Mac walked into the center of the ring, and Emory got ready to accept the ass-kicking he was sure was going to come.
Four hours later, he was exhausted, starving, and bruised. He wasn't sure how he was going to explain the latter to Jonah, but he'd come up with something. Maybe the truth. After all, Jonah didn't mind him sparring, though they'd never really talked about it.
And Emory had decided something too. He was going to take Mr. Michaels up on his offer, which was another thing he had to figure out a way to tell Jonah about.
Once he was back at the apartment, he showered, eager to be in clean clothes that didn't reek of sweat. Jonah was still asleep and, upon seeing that, Emory realized he'd misjudged his timing on coming home. He couldn't exactly change that now, though, and so he came up with a plausible excuse for coming home early and for having the bruises. He figured he'd tell Jonah that Mac had challenged him to a fight and kicked his ass. It was plausible since Mac had a competitive streak and it was a lot better than his original plan of saying someone had hit him with their car on the way home.
Though, to be honest, that might have hurt less. And at the same time, he needed to figure out how to tell Jonah that he'd entered into the match. He laid his head on the tile wall of the shower and sighed as the hot water came down over him. He wasn't going to lie to Jonah. Of that he was sure. He just had to figure out a way to tell him that didn't end in Jonah being upset with him.
The bathroom door opened, and he blinked through the spray to see Jonah coming in. He yawned, and Emory pulled the frosted sliding glass door aside so that Jonah could see him. "You're home early," Jonah said, going to the sink and brushing his teeth as he made a face. He hated morning breath, always had as long as Emory had known him, and took care of it before anything else got done in his routine.
Emory bit his bottom lip and ducked his chin, wondering what he was going to say. "Yeah ... I—"
"Was going to tell me that you'd been fired?" Jonah asked, turning toward him with his bright green toothbrush hanging out of his mouth.
Emory's brows shot up. "How'd you ... but when ...?"
Jonah turned to spit and clean up his mouth. "Your boss called the home line. You forgot a few personal items at the office. I told him he could mail them. So, where'd you go today, and what's with the bruises?" He crossed his arms over his chest and gave Emory a look that told him in no uncertain terms that he was in deep trouble.
"Uh. Well, I went to the gym." That sounded horrible, and Emory saw the hurt look on Jonah's face before he had a chance to cover it up.
"Hanging out at the gym was better than spending the day with me?" Jonah asked him.
Emory sighed and turned off the water. "You were asleep."
"I would have woken up. With our schedules being so different, I don't get a lot of time with you. I would have liked it." Jonah said this calmly and with only sadness in his voice before he turned and walked out of the bathroom.
Emory knew he had a point, of course he did, and he followed him out of the bathroom to tell him that. But in the bedroom, Jonah was waiting for him with a bottle of lube in one hand and a wicked smile firmly seated on his face. "Did I miss something?" Emory asked, totally thrown by Jonah's sudden change in demeanor. Angry to sad wasn't unusual for Jonah. Suddenly lacking clothing in the middle of being upset at him was.
"We'll talk about you getting fired later. First, though, I figured out how you could make today up to me." Jonah reached for him, and Emory pulled
him tightly against his chest. Jonah was right; their schedules rarely met up, and that meant that sex was sporadic. Emory took his mouth fiercely in a demanding kiss as his hands reached down to cup Jonah's round ass. Jonah pulled away before Emory was done squeezing him, but when he got on his knees in front of him, Emory couldn't complain too much.
"Shit, you're amazing," Emory ground out as Jonah quickly took him between his lips.
Jonah gave him a wink, and Emory smiled down at him, knowing he was lucky to have Jonah in his life. Emory had never once questioned that. Jonah slid his sure mouth over the head of Emory's cock, his tongue finding all the most sensitive places of his crown before moving down to his shaft. Like every time before, Jonah's soft moans melded with Emory's until their sounds of pleasure became a chorus. He helped Jonah to his feet before Jonah could finish him off and laid him down on the bed.
His mouth on Jonah's again, getting him ready was an easy task when Jonah's body was nearly as familiar as his own. A lot of lube and some stretching, and soon Emory was in. Jonah was groaning against his mouth as his fingers came up to run over Emory's shoulders. His nails dug in, leaving faint red trails over Emory's back. He didn't mind. In fact, he loved the heat that was left in the wake of the scratches.
He rocked against Jonah's body, loving each sigh and soft moan as he moved a hand between their bodies and took over Jonah's pleasure as well as his own. After the first stroke of his hand over Jonah's cock, it didn't take either of them long to finish. Minutes later, they were lying together on the bed, their limbs a haphazard mess where they sprawled over each other as they laughed.
Emory held him close and kissed his temple. "I have something else to tell you, and I'm not sure how you'll react, but I hope you don't get mad."
Jonah rolled his eyes. "You're not really instilling confidence here, love."
"Fair enough. So, I promised Mr. Michaels that I'd be in a fight. Nothing too major, and it's next week."
Jonah didn't look happy. "So. You're going to be fighting again." He rolled away and sat up, giving Emory his back. His shoulders rounded as Emory sat up as well and laid a hand against his bare skin. Jonah looked back at him, and Emory saw the familiar look of worry in his gaze.
"It won't be bad," Emory promised him.
Jonah turned way. "Right. Not bad is relative. You won't get a broken arm this time, or you won't get stitches in your temple?"
"I—"
Jonah got up and shook his head as he turned to face Emory. "No. Don't answer that. Because you can't. You don't know who you'll be fighting. You haven't even been in a ring in years, and now you're going to be fighting again?" With a loud sigh, he turned and started pulling clothes out of the dresser against the wall.
"What are you doing?" Emory asked him from his place on the bed.
"Getting dressed," Jonah snapped.
Right. Emory could see that. Jonah was pissed off though and they never let arguments linger between them. "I know. But where are you going?" He couldn't remember another time when Jonah had just wanted to leave.
"Work." Jonah pulled on his hoodie and ran a hand through his hair as he looked into the mirror. It was so short that it really didn't matter what he did to it, but Emory figured maybe the action was so habitual that it was hard to stop it.
Emory glanced at the clock and frowned at the time. "You don't have to be there for another three hours."
Shrugging, Jonah pulled on his shoes and grabbed his wallet and keys. "Yep."
Emory got up from the bed, quickly blocking Jonah's way out of the bedroom. "C'mon, babe, stay with me. Let's talk about this."
Jonah put his hands on his hips and shook his head. "If I stay will you not fight?"
"I liked being in the ring today with Mac. It felt good. Right. I'd like to do this one fight just this one time," Emory said slowly, putting his hands on Jonah's stiff shoulders.
Jonah scowled. "Then I'd like to go to work. Now."
Frowning deeply, Emory moved out of the way and let him leave, even though he knew he shouldn't have. "I want to talk still though. I'll tell you everything," he told Jonah before he could get to the front door. He heard Jonah's footsteps slow behind him, but then the lock was turned, the door was opened, and Jonah was gone as the door slammed behind him.
*~*~*
Jonah was still fuming when he walked into work. It was a bad headspace to be in, but he couldn't quite shake it as he stomped around in the back room, clearly annoying the women who were there. Only two guys worked during the day, but they weren't in yet, and so Jonah found an empty spot on a well-worn chair and sat. He was getting ready to spend the next few hours sulking and being mad at Emory for being selfish enough to think that going back into the ring would be a good idea on any level.
"What's wrong with you?" one of the women asked him when she came off the stage.
He gave her a look, definitely not interested in talking about it. She rolled her eyes before saying, "Whatever. Bitch."
Jonah wanted to smack her, and if he weren't afraid that she'd kick his ass, he probably would have too. As it was, he just glared at her, feeling pissed off and miserable in the same moment. Jonah checked the time on his phone. He still had another two hours before work. What the hell; he'd go get this taken care of.
He put his hood up and walked back out of the club, intent on not letting this thing with Emory settle so painfully before he had to go to work. His job was all about happiness, and, yeah, a big part of it was turning people on, but he chose to focus on how he made the women giggle or the men blush. He'd never allowed himself to be upset at work because he knew how awful that would make his job. No one wanted to come see some crazy, pissed off stripper.
Emory wasn't at their apartment, but Jonah was pretty sure he knew where he would go. They didn't have all that many hangouts. The streets were fairly familiar; after all, the gym was on the way to the bigger grocery store they sometimes went to because it had the best prices on the organic and hard-to-find vegetables that Jonah loved. But locating the exact street was still a bit tough, especially when he wasn't focused on much aside from being mad at Emory and also himself.
He stepped into the gym, a place he wasn't all that familiar with, and fought back a wave of apprehension. Emory had tried to get him to work out with him at first. But lifting weights and grunting wasn't really Jonah's thing, though he'd come a few times just to watch Emory work out—until it had seemed a little creepy to be the only one in a gym full of sweaty men not working out. They had their different places, and that had always been fine for him. Emory belonged in the gym, and Jonah loved being on stage. That kind of arrangement worked for them.
When he didn't see Emory at first, he went up to the first guy, someone he didn't recognize, and hoped they knew where he could find Emory. "Hey. I'm looking for Emory," Jonah said, pulling his hood back so that he didn't look so weird in a big room full of mostly half-naked men.
The guy gave him an assessing once-over, nothing that Jonah wasn't already familiar with from his nights on stage, but it still felt a bit strange to be checked out in Emory's hangout. As if not everyone there knew he was with Emory. It was weird to be known as something other than Emory's boyfriend. Maybe he really had stayed away from the gym too long. "How come?" the guy asked him after another long moment.
Jonah lifted a brow and put his hand on a cocked hip. "Because I want to see him?" Sure, he probably shouldn't have snapped, but who was this guy? Emory's bodyguard or something?
"Hey, Jonah," someone said from behind him. A hand landed firmly on his shoulder, and Jonah reacted quickly with the very little he actually knew about self-defense. It wasn't much, but Emory had insisted on it when Jonah had taken his job at the club. Emory had said the streets could be dangerous for strippers regardless of their gender, and so Jonah had listened. He spun, grabbed the man's wrist, and used his own weight to put him on the ground in a motion Jonah's muscles remembered even though he couldn't have said specifically what he'd done.
Jonah was actually feeling pretty proud of himself until he recognized the man on the ground in front of him once he looked down at him and a crowd of guys, each twice his size, started crowding around him. "Mac!" he gasped, kneeling next to Emory's best friend. "You okay? Your knee? Did I hurt you?" He felt awful and knew Emory would be even madder after he found out what Jonah had done.
But Mac only laughed as he got to his feet with Jonah's assistance. "No. I'm good. So, you're looking for Emory?"
The first guy stepped up, crowding for attention even as the rest of the men continued to look on. "He wouldn't say why."
Jonah rolled his eyes and started to say something, but Mac beat him to it. "He's Emory's boyfriend. He doesn't have to say. No one asks your wife why she's here to see you when you forget your phone or whatever other crap you can't live without." Jonah smirked as the guy looked at him completely differently, as if maybe he shouldn't have been checking him out, before his expression turned sour at being scolded. Whatever, Jonah didn't have time for this guy, not when he wanted to find Emory. Mac's hand returned to his shoulder, a solid pressure on his narrow bones. "C'mon, people, make a path. Nothing more to see here."
Mac pushed him forward through the slowly dispersing crowd, and Jonah smiled at him over his shoulder. "Thanks for that. And, really, I'm sorry for doing the twisty thing to you."
Mac's deep laughter filled the small hallway he moved Jonah into. "That's what you're calling it?"
Jonah guessed that it was. "Emory had a name for it, but I can't even remember it. I don't know all that much self-defense—maybe three moves all together—but that's one of them."
"Ever had to use it?"
"No. Thankfully," Jonah replied as Mac stopped him in front of a closed door where a brass plaque proclaimed it to be the office.
"He's in here," Mac said, releasing his shoulder.
Jonah looked back at him as an indecisive ball began growing in the pit of his stomach. "Was he upset when he came in here?"
"Yeah. I guess so. We don't exactly talk all that much about stuff." Mac shrugged and looked back toward the open area of the gym where someone was waving to him.
