DIRTY READS

by Scott Hildreth

  I’d been out of the sport so long, I didn’t even know who the champion was. I raised my gloves as if I were ready to box. “So, what did you think?”

  “About you?”

  I nodded.

  “I ain’t tryin’ to inflate your ego, but you got skills.”

  “Mad skills?”

  He looked at me like I had three eyes. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “Am I a bad ass?” I asked jokingly.

  “You’re pretty close,” he said.

  I swelled with pride.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “What do you want out of this?”

  I didn’t have to think long to give my response. “On the sign outside, it says ‘we train champions’. That’s what I want. I want to be the champion.”

  “Never made it myself. So you’re my only fuckin’ hope at a title.” He swung his glove against my shoulder, knocking me off balance with the punch.

  I regained my footing and grinned. “I’ll try not to let you down.”

  “Let me down?” He shook his head. “You’re too fuckin’ good, Jaz.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Know so.”

  It had been almost ten years since I stepped foot in a ring, and equally as long since I’d fought anyone. At that moment, however, I felt like I could have defeated anyone, regardless of their size, ability, experience, or training.

  And only time would tell if I was right or wrong.

  THREE

  Jaz

  Day nine.

  While working out on the heavy bag, I noticed him come through the door. He looked no differently than he did the day we met.

  Like a disciplined athlete.

  He walked right past me. Either he didn’t notice me or he didn’t care. Whichever it was, I wasn’t willing to accept it.

  I turned toward him and admired his cute ass for a few strides before I spoke. “Are you always such a dick?” I asked as he walked past.

  He continued to walk away without so much as acknowledging what I had said.

  “Ethan,” I shouted.

  He paused and glanced over his shoulder. “Yes?”

  “Are you always such a dick?”

  “No,” he responded.

  And he walked away.

  What the fuck?

  I had been training for a week, and hadn’t seen Ethan once. After learning he worked out in the late afternoons, I decided to extend my schedule in hope of seeing him. As I watched him begin to jump rope, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was just an asshole.

  A really hot asshole.

  As much as I wanted to get to know him, I wasn’t about to let his attitude have an effect on my training. I pounded two and three-punch combinations into the bag, glancing toward him every chance I got. The thirty-minute workout was over before I knew it. He didn’t look in my direction once. I didn’t want to be disappointed that he paid no attention to me, but I was.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if he was in a relationship, gay, or just not interested. I hoped he wasn’t interested, because it was something I felt I could at least attempt to resolve. If he was gay or in a relationship, I realized I’d simply have to accept him as being off-limits.

  I finished my workout and put up my gloves. No matter how desperately I wanted to get to know Ethan, I wasn’t about to make him feel like I was chasing him. Encouraging him, however, was a different story. I pulled my sleeveless tee off and stuffed it in the bag. Now dressed in nothing but shorts and a sports bra, I shouldered my bag and walked toward the locker room.

  I’d never been a pretentious or conceited woman, but I was well aware that I was attractive. I was in great physical shape, my ass was cute, and my tits were fantastic. I wouldn’t argue that my hair needed to be cut, but pulled into a ponytail, it looked as good as anyone else’s.

  And I had it in a ponytail.

  I strutted past Ethan and toward the far end of the gym, doing my best to look irresistible. Fighting the urge not to turn around, I walked into the locker room, looked in the mirror, and exhaled. I looked great. How could he not see it? I got undressed and took a shower, wondering the entire time if he’d noticed me, and if he did, what he was thinking.

  Being fascinated by someone and having them show no interest in return isn’t an easy thing for a woman to accept, and I wasn’t much different than anyone else in that respect. Wondering what it was about me that he didn’t like, I got dressed and left the locker room.

  I walked past him again, poking my earbuds in my ears as I passed by. When I was almost to the door, I could see his reflection in the glass.

  “I wasn’t trying to be an asshole,” he said.

  I didn’t even have my iPod turned on and had heard him just fine, but I didn’t want him to know it. I pulled my right earbud out, turned around, and shot him a false look of surprise. “Did you say something?”

  He was so attractive it made me nervous to stand there looking at him. Turning away wasn’t really an option, though.

  “I said I wasn’t trying to be an asshole.”

  I draped the earbud over my shoulder. “Just comes natural for you?”

  His eyes fell to the floor for a few seconds. After a light sigh, he looked up. “You’re intimidating.”

  What? Me?

  I was shocked. And this time it wasn’t a show. “Me? How would I be intimidating to you?”

  “Don’t act like you don’t know you’re gorgeous,” he said. “And. Well. After seeing what you did to that guy at Starbucks, it’s pretty obvious you’re a much better fighter than I’ll ever be.”

  I stood and gawked at him, partially because he was so fucking handsome, and in part because of the compliments he had just given me. I was flattered. “I don’t know about all that, but thank you” I said. “And don’t worry, I won’t bite. I mean, not unless you want me to.”

  He looked embarrassed. As always, I came off a little too strong. It was one of my strengths – or weaknesses – depending on how one looked at it. He grinned nonetheless. “So, Ripp said he’s going to train you.”

  “Yeah. Looks that way. Does he train you?”

  He shook his head. “No. One of the other guys here does.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  I wondered where Ripp ranked in comparison to the other trainers, and hoped I made the right choice regarding having him train me. “So, how does Ripp compare to the other guys as far as training goes?”

  He widened his eyes and chuckled. “As far as the other guys go, there’s no comparison. Kelsey’s first and Ripp’s second. But Kelsey doesn’t train anyone but Dekk.”

  “Who’s Dekk?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.” I shrugged. “I don’t know anyone yet.”

  He waved his arms toward the open facility. “Dekk. He owns the place. He’s the Heavyweight Champion of the World. Shane Dekkar’s his real name. Kelsey trains him. He’s best friends with Ripp.”

  “Ripp said he was friends with the owner. I guess that explains it.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t know who he was.”

  “I haven’t followed the sport since I was sixteen,” I said, feeling slightly foolish for not knowing. “I know now, though.”

  He grinned and nodded. “I’ll point him out when he comes in.”

  At that moment, I really didn’t care who the champion was, who owned the gym, or how well-connected Ripp was with him. I wanted to get to know Ethan. “So, are you done for the night?”

  I doubted he was, because he hadn’t done much in the thirty minutes since he’d arrived – at least not as far as I was concerned. Prepared for him to explain how he needed to spend another hour and a half at the gym, and for him to give a lengthy excuse on why he couldn’t take time to see me more, I waited for his response.

  “Yeah,” he said, looking toward the station where he’d been working out “I think I’m done.”

  So, you wanna fuck?

  I fought the urge to be myself and stu
ck with something a little less invasive to his seemingly shy personality. “So, you want to go get a coffee or something?”

  “Sure.”

  Wow. That was easy.

  “You need to shower?”

  He looked like he considered it for a nanosecond, then shook his head. “Didn’t really sweat.”

  “Grab your stuff. We can go talk or whatever.”

  I was hoping for some whatever, but was prepared to settle for getting to know him a little better. In a moment he returned with his bag and we walked to the parking lot together.

  “You want to ride with me?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  He opened the passenger door to a truck that was parked right beside the door. I had been on several dates, and I couldn’t recall anyone ever opening the door for me, regardless of who they were. As I hoisted myself into the truck, I couldn’t help but feel like we were going out for the evening.

  He carefully closed the door and then climbed in the other side.

  “So, where are you from?” I asked.

  “Born and raised in Texas. Grew up in Lubbock.”

  Most born and raised southern boys were extremely polite. My belief that he was shy and reserved was probably nothing but him being mannerly.

  “You don’t sound like you’re from here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t have the southern accent thing going on.”

  “My parents were originally from Chicago. They didn’t speak with an accent, and they thought if we did it would make us sound uneducated. We had to take speech classes when we were kids so we didn’t sound like idiots.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Dead serious.” He chuckled. “My father’s a hard ass.”

  I knew all there was to know about having a father who was difficult but wasn’t prepared to discuss it. At least not yet.

  “What about you?” he asked.

  “Omaha, Nebraska. I was on my way to the beach and ended up here. Been here ever since.”

  He steered the truck into the other lane, and then looked at me. One of his eyebrows raised slightly. Not much, but just enough to express his interest. “You were on your way to the beach?”

  It still thrilled me to think that one day I would see it. Feel the wet sand between my toes. Feel the waves against my skin. “Yeah. I’ve never been. So, after high school I headed that direction. But, I only got this far.”

  “The bad thing about seeing the ocean is that it’s hard to leave,” he said, his voice trailing off as if his mind was searching for fading memories. “There’s something about it…”

  My eyes went wide. “You’ve been?”

  He nodded. “When I was a kid. And then on spring break. It’s…it’s awesome.”

  “I’m going,” I said. “As soon as I can afford it.”

  I felt more comfortable with him now that we were just talking like two old friends. He was still extremely good-looking – and intimidatingly so – but his demeanor made me feel like he had no idea how handsome he really was. As he pulled into the parking lot of the coffee shop, my curiosity got the best of me.

  “So, are you single?”

  He parked the truck and then his eyes searched my face. After a moment, he seemed to find whatever he was searching for. “Yeah.”

  His hesitation made me feel like he was either lying or hiding something. I pressed a little further. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. It’s just…”

  “Just what?”

  “My last relationship ended kind of...I don’t know…it just. It was kind of,” he stammered. “I wasn’t ready for it to, and it just ended.”

  He couldn’t say something like that and not expect me to pry a little further. So, pry I did. “What happened? I mean, if I can ask. I had a pretty bad one too, and believe me, that fucker just ended. From great to gone in one day. It sucks, but life just kind of sucks sometimes.”

  “I don’t think life sucks. I think things happen. Things that are out of our control.”

  Now he had my complete interest. “So are you going to tell me what happened?”

  He gripped the steering wheel and stared straight ahead, out into the street. I waited for him to drop the bomb, expecting something totally insane. Expecting a story of how he caught his girlfriend with one of his friends, or that she gave him some weird STD, I sat quietly and waited. While I formulated my response in advance for whatever it was he was going to tell me, he closed his eyes and let out a sigh.

  He opened his eyes but didn’t look at me. “She uhhm. She was getting gas. And some guy came out of the gas station and just started shooting. He’d robbed the place. They said the bullet ricocheted off the pavement. It. It uhhm. It hit…”

  He tapped his temple with the tip of his finger.

  Openmouthed and speechless, I sat and stared. My stomach turned. I felt sick, and I wished I hadn’t pried. I wondered if she was paralyzed or had died, but there was no way I could ask, even if I felt I wanted to.

  “We’d uhhm. I used to smoke, and she hated it. We’d been in a fight about it. She told me to quit, or else.” He coughed out a dry laugh that quickly got emotional. “I uhhm. I never cared much for someone giving me an ultimatum, so I told her I’d quit when I was ready. She left, and it was the last time I saw her alive.”

  I stared down at my bag, not really knowing what to say. I tried to swallow, but my dry mouth prevented it. A long silence followed. It wasn’t a tremendous amount of time, but it was enough that I grew uncomfortable and filled with guilt.

  “You know,” he said. “I wonder about things. Like if I would have agreed to quit, she never would have got mad and left. If that would have happened, she’d be alive, you know.”

  His thoughts must have weighed heavily on him, because he paused for what seemed like an eternity before he continued. “If I wouldn’t have been so stubborn, I wonder if things might have been different. Eventually, I always seem to remember what the pastor said in church when I was a kid about this world being God’s world, and not ours. And then I think that for whatever reason, God decided it was just her time.”

  He looked right at me. “Either way, it sucks.”

  Sometimes I wished I could just haul off and kick life right in the balls. He was right, it sucked. I was glad he told me the story, but felt terrible for all but forcing him to do so.

  “You’re right,” I managed to say. “It does suck. And, I’m sorry.”

  Saying I was sorry seemed shallow and simple, but I didn’t know what else to say. I wanted to console him, but knew there was really nothing I could do or say to provide him with any degree of comfort beyond what he already felt.

  I decided to try anyway. His eyes seemed distant and sad, which didn’t surprise me at all.

  “You quit smoking, right?”

  He held my gaze. “Yeah.”

  “I bet wherever she is, she’s proud of you.”

  It wasn’t much, but it was all I could come up with.

  His eyes narrowed. He appeared to be considering what I said. After a moment he shifted his focus to the street. Then, he chuckled. It seemed strange to hear him laugh, but I accepted it as being better than a lot of things he could have done.

  “I never looked at it that way,” he said. “I like that. Thank you.”

  I decided at least for the time being that silence ruled, so I simply smiled and chose not to speak.

  He smiled in return.

  On that night, his laughter and his smile satisfied me so deeply that I believed moving to Austin was for that reason and that reason alone.

  FOUR

  Jaz

  Day fourteen.

  My mind drifted to thoughts of many things the instant I saw Ethan – all of which included his cock. I had an unmistakable sexual attraction to him, and his lack of expressed interest in me only seemed to make matters worse.

  Backing down in the ring – or in life – wasn’t an option. I had always fought for wha
t I believed in, and I believed we needed to be fucking.

  It wasn’t any one characteristic that attracted me to him, it was everything. Each individual thing about him made him attractive, but everything combined made me long for him sexually. I didn’t want him to fuck me to simply satisfy a sexual void, it was more of a desire to have him claim me.

  So I could claim him in return.

  He ran his fingers through his perfectly fucked up hair. It was going in every available direction, like it always did. It was brown, short, and permanently uncombed, but undeniably sexy. Bedroom hair. He had bedroom hair. I tried not to stare and made a point to make sure my mouth wasn’t hanging open.

  He leaned into the back of the booth and pushed his uneaten food to the side. I glanced at his plate. Half of his hamburger stared back at me, taunting me to eat it.

  I eyed the burger. Pieces of bacon jutted out from between the bun and the thick patty of meat. “You’re not going to finish it?”

  “I’m full,” he said, his tone of voice expressing his lack of interest in finishing the meal. “Do you want it?”

  He must have seen the hunger in my eyes.

  “I don’t want it,” I lied. “But I’d hate to see it go to waste.”

  He pushed the plate toward me. “Here.”

  “You sure you don’t want it?”

  “I’m not that hungry.”

  I shrugged as if it was no big deal, and that I was simply making my contribution to minimize the food waste that hindered the city’s sanitary engineering department. A few seconds later, and the burger was gone.

  He grinned and nodded his head in my direction. “You eat a lot.”

  I didn’t live on a limited budget. With my shitty waitress job, I would describe it as more of an ongoing economic strain. I couldn’t buy gas for my car, pay my rent, and eat, so I often had to decide if driving or eating was more important. I typically chose to shoulder my backpack and walk, which made me even hungrier.

  More often than not I felt like I was losing the battle, and lately it seemed to be much worse. Although I had always exercised, the addition of my boxing training to my typical daily routine had me needing to consume far more calories than what I was used to. My income, however, prevented me from the luxury of doing so. I needed to win the lottery, but spending the money on a ticket wasn’t necessarily in my budget.