Page 28

Charlie

“Holy shit,” Bailey pants, her hair stuck to her damp face.

An hour after we climbed out of the shower, Bailey and I collapse back into the pillows on my bed and suck in shallow breaths. Me from eating her for the past hour. Her from coming as many times as I could make her.

“Is this what boxing does for you?” she asks, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “The stamina of a machine gun.”

I chuckle, rolling onto my side and facing her. “Can’t keep up, princess?”

She rolls her eyes and I swear I want to fuck that attitude right back out of her. “I think I keep up well.”

Too well, sometimes, I think. I keep waiting for her to tire of me, but each time I fuck her until I think she can’t possibly come again, she surprises me.

Bailey rolls onto her side, tucking her hands under her cheek and staring at me with those big, innocent eyes .

“Tell me about your mother.”

Agitation grows in my chest. The last thing I wanted to do right now was open up to Bailey about my mother. Sensing the irritation blooming in me, Bailey raises to her elbow, her hand on my chest a bitter reminder I’m playing with something I can’t have.

“I’m sorry. You don’t have to talk about it,” she says softly.

“The whole point to enemies with benefits is that you leave when we’re done,” I mutter harshly. “This isn’t a slumber party.”

Bailey’s face goes pale in the light and guilt stabs me in the gut. Self-loathing seems to be my new favorite pastime when it comes to her.

Bailey doesn’t say anything as she slides from the bed and hunts for her clothes. She doesn’t have to. This whole deal is centered on the fact that we don’t like each other, but we both want to fuck each other. Not sit around and talk about our feelings. Not worry about each other’s past. A part of me knows I’m being unfair, forcing her to tell me about her life in California while I’m unrelenting in telling her about my own tumultuous past, but I usually shut that part up with whiskey.

The bed’s cold as soon as she leaves it and regret boils low in my blood. I can’t look at her as she slips on her clothes from last night, leaving my shirt discarded where it fell. Something about that pisses me off more than my own stubbornness. I stare at the ceiling as she makes her way to the door, stopping to turn back to me hesitantly.

“I hope, one day, you’ll forgive yourself for what happened, Charlie,” she says, her voice so soft and gentle I want to reach for her. “No one blames you but you.”

When I look up, she’s gone.

“Jesus, there’s a lot of people out there,” Jason says, peeking through a crack in the door to the cage. I can hear people cheering as two guys I don’t know fight. “You sure you’re up for this?”

Fuck no. I can’t get my head in the game. I’ve been up since Bailey left yesterday, drinking, pissed off at everyone. I’m pissed at Bailey for prying — caring. I’m pissed at Mom for dying. Dad for being able to carry on like she didn’t exist.

“I’m fine,” I murmur, slipping on my gloves. Rodriguez and I are up next. I saw him get here. He’s taller than my 6’2, but I’m more built. It could be a fair fight if I wasn’t so fucking hung over.

“Charlie’s got this,” Sam says, stalking into the room with a towel and a bottle of water. He stops, slapping me on the back. “Right, bud?”

“Yeah, and what about the last guy that went up against Rodriguez?” Jason asks, his face marred with worry. Jason is Sam’s right-hand man and fellow owner of the gym. He’s a good man, but he’s tough. If he’s worried, I should be too.

“Martinez was a pussy and way too fucking small to be fighting him,” Sam says, sitting down on the locker room bench beside me. The fight is being held at an old school in Holy Cross. Not the best part of town, but a lot of the proceeds go to helping the kids in town get a better education by buying them books. So, if I get my ass kicked, maybe it will at least mean something.

Jason and Sam dissolve into a conversation about the fight that just ended while they clean the cage. Don’t want to be slipping on the sweat and blood of another man.

I go to the bathroom, needing to get away from their noise. What happened to the switch in me that allowed me to turn off my emotions? Where the fuck did that go because it’s the only thing that’s going to get me through this fight.

I grip the edge of the sink, staring at the bags under my eyes in the fluorescents. I keep thinking about the night Mom died. How frail she was when the funeral home came and took her away. She only weighed close to a hundred pounds by the end.

Brain cancer’s a fucking bitch.

I knew the moment I got home and stepped into the silence that she was gone. It was all I could do to go back to her room in that old house on Dumaine Street and find her asleep in her bed, the phone she’d used to call me while I was at the party on her chest.

The oxygen machine blew a breaker and cut the power to her room. It was like walking into a tomb, seeing her lifeless body in the dim cast of the moon.

I don’t remember anything else until the funeral.

So, when Bailey asked me to tell her about my mother, I panicked because the only thing I could see was my mom, lying in her bed and gasping for her last couple breaths because her piece of shit son wanted to go out and have some fun.

Maybe if I wouldn’t have gone out, Mom would still be alive. Maybe if Mom hadn’t died, I wouldn’t be here, right now, about to fight this match .

Maybe I wouldn’t be afraid to get close to someone.

Fucking pathetic.

“Hey!” Sam’s voice cuts through my thoughts and he bangs on the door loud enough to wake the dead. I grit my teeth and take one last look in the mirror before I open the door on his next blow. “You ready?” he asks, surprised when I open the door.

No.

“Let’s go.”

People in the crowd cheer for Rodriguez when I emerge from the locker room. Everyone fucking loves this guy because of the damage he’s done to other people — weaker people.

The guys in my group cheer, though not nearly as loud. I’m too new in a lot of these people’s eyes. A sacrificial lamb. Rodriguez has been doing this for five years: I just started a year and a half ago.

Rodriguez holds up his arms, a cocky grin on his face while they cheer. He loves this shit, loves that people know him as the guy that puts people in a coma, breaks their bones, and then sleeps with their women after he’s done. At least, that’s what he did to the last guy.

I step into the ring as the announcer calls our names and asks us to step to the center.

“Bump gloves, gentleman,” the ref says. I hold my fist out, but Rodriguez steps up to me, putting his smug face in mine. So, I let my hand drop.

“Tell me what your bitch’s name is so I know who I’m fucking tonight after I beat your ass.”

He says it so low no one else but me hears him.

At the same moment, my eyes catch on a streak of blonde hair, soft blue eyes and a look of worry on a face I never expected to see here.

Fucking hell. Bailey’s here? Beside her sits Jake and even more surprising, Andi and my dad.

Just what I fucking need. To croak in front of everyone I care about at the hands of Rodriguez.

But what he said to me lights a spark in me, quickly spreading to a blazing inferno throughout my body.

I chuckle and he narrows his eyes at me.

“You’re going to regret that.”

“Gentlemen, corners.” I bump into him when I go take my place, nodding to my family as they cheer me on. I lock eyes with Bailey for a second, but I quickly look away. I can’t focus when she’s around.

I take a deep breath; the bell dings and it starts. Everything slows down when Rodriguez comes at me. He punches, missing me by an inch when I dodge him. He snarls around his mouth guard, lunging at me again.

He keeps coming for me until I’m back against the ropes and ducking out of his way. He manages a punch to my ribs, bringing the searing pain that drew me into this sport. It reminds me I’m alive, keeps me going.

I punch him, landing an uppercut on his jaw and causing him to step back. He hits me again, knocking my teeth guard into my gums and drawing blood.

The bell dings again and just like that, the first round is over. Three minutes goes quick when you’re in the ring.

We reset; I suck some water down and spit the blood out of my mouth into a bucket Sam holds out for me .

“You’re doing good. Watch his feet. He always steps with the right foot before he strikes.”

I nod. I already knew that, but I appreciate his insight. It’s different when you’re not in the ring. Everything is easy to see because it’s on display. In the ring, there’s only one thought: beat the other guy.

“Round two,” Jason says, slapping my back, while Sam wipes sweat off my brow. I can hear Andi when she cheers for me, but I don’t register it. I can’t.

Round two starts the same as round one, only Rodriguez goes hard, punching me in the jaw and bruising my cheek bone. I strike back, busting his lip and knocking him down. He gets back up, though, hits me in the ribs and then tries to pin me against the ropes again, but the round ends.

Fuck, Charlie, get it together.

I’m hot, sweaty, and I’m beat the fuck up.

“Come on Charlie,” Sam says, hunkering down to wipe the blood from my mouth. “You’ve lasted longer than most with him. He’s weak, just as beat up as you are. Finish it, so we can go home.”

I nod, though I’m not confident.

“That your girl back there?” Jason says, lowering his voice. He nods to my family behind us. I meet Bailey’s eyes over his shoulder and she’s watching me, a look of fierce determination in her eyes.

“Yeah, it is.”

“Good. Make her proud.”

At the start of round three, I do two things differently. First, I get a second wind and punch Rodriguez so hard he falls back. Second, I block him when he takes a step with his right foot, moving with a right hook.

I hit him over and over. Right hook, left hook, uppercut. He breaks, wearing down as I deliver blow after blow. I register the crowd cheering; I know Sam and Jason are yelling at me to finish this. I use the fuel of Mom’s death, my anger at myself, the shit with Drew yesterday morning — I channel all of it into my last strike, landing a jab so hard, Rodriguez falls back on his ass, completely passed out.

It takes me a second to understand what just happened. First, the room erupts in cheers. Second, the ref is declaring me the winner and third, I’m surrounded by Jason, Sam, and all the other guys from our gym.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Sam exclaims, holding my arm up. “You did it, you crazy fucking bastard.”

Rodriguez’s men practically drag him out of the ring once he wakes up. I should feel good, but all I feel is exhaustion. I hold a cool rag to my cheek, wincing at the dull throb in my cheek.

“Here you go,” Sam says, handing me an envelope with my winnings. “Five grand.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want it.”

He stares at me like I’ve lost my fucking mind.

“I don’t need it. I did this for me.”

“Jesus,” he sighs, sitting down on the bench beside me. “You know, something told me if I egged you on about your girl, you’d win.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Sam just snickers. “You know, Jason said she was too hot for you.”

I side eye him and he holds his hands up. “Just saying.” He stands and starts toward the locker room door. “Be ready in twenty. Your dad offered for all of us to come back and get something to eat to celebrate.”

Sam stalks out and I raise the rag back to my cheek. I close my eyes, wincing from the dull throb of my cheekbone. The door opens again, but instead of Sam, this time, it’s Bailey. Her face is completely unreadable, but it still hits me harder than Rodriguez ever did.

She doesn’t say anything and neither do I. My throat feels like it’s closing, making it impossible for me to even form a sentence. I should be celebrating with the guys for defeating the biggest MMA name in our town. Instead, all I can think about are the hours that have passed since yesterday afternoon.

Bailey steps up in front of me, taking the rag from my hand and pouring some alcohol on it. Her scent makes my mouth water and my hands itch to reach for her, but I force myself to sit still as she raises the rag to my face.

The first touch of the alcohol stings like fucking hell and it takes all my willpower not to jump from the pain. Bailey’s mouth sets in a frown, her brows furrowing as she concentrates.

I should apologize, right? I shouldn’t have been so harsh with her.

I open my mouth to speak, but before I can say anything, she cuts me off. “I’m proud of you. ”

Fuck me.

It’s impossible to think straight when she’s touching me, even if she’s just cleaning my wounds.

She lays the rag down and gathers a bandage, covering the cut on my cheek gently.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur and the words don’t taste like acid in my mouth like I thought they might. Bailey looks down, a sad, soft smile on her lips.

“I’m not mad.”

She lifts her hand, tentatively cupping my cheek, like I might bite her. With a deep breath, I lean forward, resting my forehead against her stomach and wrapping my arms around her waist, relaxing into her touch when she runs her fingers over the nape of my neck.

I want to kiss her, but I know we agreed not to. I’ve never been needy, even as a kid. I prefer my alone time because I don’t get much of it on a day-to-day basis, unless I’m at home in the dead of night. But, now, I’ve found a vice and I need it more and more with each passing day.

The only problem is, one day, that vice is going to leave and then what the fuck am I supposed to do?