by Alice Ward
We got out, and I went to open the rear passenger door to grab my bag, but before I could, Caleb had already taken it out and slung the strap over his shoulder.
“You just worry about the fight,” he said matter-of-factly before striding past me.
Once more, I found myself nearly jogging in order to keep up with him, but I didn’t mind. It would make easing into my warm-up that much more seamless and took my mind off the nerves that wanted to rise to the surface and choke me.
We reached a security checkpoint, and a strapping man with a clipboard stepped forward. “Name?”
“Cherry Bomb,” I answered, holding out the blue card I’d been given at the sign-up.
Caleb shifted, as if hearing my fighter name out loud was uncomfortable to him.
“Cherry Bomb?” The man took my card, looking impressed and a little doubtful as he compared it to whatever was on his clipboard. “Huh, what do you know. You’re third tonight. Seven p.m. estimate. You’ll be greeted by an attendant inside.” He stepped out of the way and gave a head tilt. “Best of luck.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking the card back and striding past him.
“Be safe,” he said with a worried look.
“I’ll try my best.” When he was out of earshot, I turned to Caleb. “Problem?”
“No, you were quite professional there.” Caleb scanned the area and headed for the room with my name written on a piece of paper taped on the door.
“Thanks.” I scanned his face, trying to read him. “What else?” I felt like there was something behind the comment. Caleb never said anything just to say it. That was part of what I found so damn attractive about him.
“It’s just that Cherry Bomb sounds a bit too sexual.”
I stopped and took in his frown, laughing. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Caleb was exhibiting jealousy or possessiveness. “Sexual? As in, pop the cherry?”
He rolled his eyes and pressed his lips together. Then he met my eyes and the electricity between us zapped me in the forehead. “Or blast through that cherry. Or suck on a cherry.”
I took a shaky breath, and my eyes scanned his face to see if he was joking, and I saw there was indeed a devilish smile there. Huh, he was messing with me. How very much unlike him.
I decided to gloss over that topic and started toward the room. I needed to focus on the fight, not on the explosive desire I felt every time Caleb was in the same building. “I’m only professional when I need to be, and I don’t have to be with you.”
“So, you’re saying I see the real side of you?”
“I guess so.”
His smirk only grew broader. “Good to know.”
I opened my mouth to ask what he meant by that, but an attendant rushed up to us and whisked me into the dressing room.
“I’m Kasey, and I’ll be here to help you until your fight is over and you go home. And what a treat you are. You’re the only woman who auditioned and got past the requirements.”
I tried to smile a greeting. “Really. That surprises me.” I hoped it was just because there wasn’t a woman who wanted to challenge, and not that Roberto’s team had refused women who couldn’t give him a ten-grand bribe. If I did well enough in this, it would hopefully be a step toward women fighters getting the respect they deserved.
I reminded myself not to get ahead of things. I had to actually do well in the fight before I could pave the way for my fellow ladies in gloves, and my boxing still wasn’t really where it should be. Why couldn’t an MMA fighter have pulled this kind of stunt?
The next thing I knew, the attendant was gone, and Caleb came in. It was almost time for me to warm up. The dressing room had a clean, plush mat on the floor as well as a water stand, and a sports drink setup. Feeling more self-conscious than usual, I sat down on the mat and started stretches, trying not to glance at Caleb while I did so.
But I could feel his eyes on me. They were always on me, or at least it seemed like it. The sensation just made me want to impress him.
“You can do this.”
I looked up, surprised at his words of encouragement. Ever since our roll in the ring, he’d kept pretty mum, with most of our interactions professional, minus the time we ran into each other while I was wearing nothing but a sheet.
“I know,” I answered, giving him a sure smile. “But thank you for the positive reinforcement.”
He scoffed lightly. “Remember… confidence, not cockiness.”
“I find the difference between those is underestimating how much your opponent can hurt you.” I bent into my stretch. “Trust me, I know how much this guy can hurt me. The thing is, he doesn’t know just how much I can hurt him back.”
Caleb seemed to like that because a full grin broke out on his face. “It will be fun to see him find out.”
“Yeah, it will.”
He nodded, his expression satisfied. “I’m going to scope out the ring and the coaches’ area. Naturally, I’ll be at the side of the ring, but I probably won’t be right by the ropes. Backers don’t particularly need to be caught on camera right in the action. Andre should be here any minute.”
“Sounds good. I’ll see you when the fight is over?” A tiny bit of hope lifted out at the end of my sentence. I needed to stop that.
“I certainly hope so.” A frown wrinkled his forehead. “Otherwise, we have drastically miscalculated the situation here.”
He was right. There was always the possibility that I would be knocked out cold and carried out of the ring. I wouldn’t allow that to happen. After he left, I ramped up my warm-up ritual to Andre status. Once I didn’t have Caleb’s banter to distract me, my heart rate spiked, and I started to sweat. This was happening. This was really happening.
After years of fighting in busted up parking garages or abandoned warehouses, I was fighting a professional in a legal fight that was going to be on television. If Dad was alive, I knew he would be proud. I just wished he was around to see me make a name for myself. Me a professional fighter while Sage was a future college graduate? He would have been tickled absolutely pink.
Then again, if Dad was alive, who knew if I would have found this path. It was hard to say, considering the twists and turns that life liked to wind itself in. And I was wasting far too much mental energy on “what ifs,” when I needed to focus on what was now.
And what was now, was the fight.
When I surfaced from warming up, the murmur of hundreds of voices talking idly filtered in. Flicking on the TV in the room, I saw that they had a live feed to the string of fights beginning in the arena. It must’ve been some sort of simulcast so fighters or executives could stay on top of things without having to go ringside. Continuing with my warm-up, I watched intently as the stadium geared up for Roberto’s first fight of the night.
I had watched plenty of videos of the man’s fights during my two-week surge, but it was an entirely different thing to see it live. There was an electricity in the air, a sort of breathless excitement that happened any time there was a large crowd that was enthusiastic about a live event. My adrenaline surged, and my heart began pumping like I was running a marathon.
Andre came in as the first bell was ringing and planted himself in a chair. Once the fight started, Coach immediately pointed out different move sets and strategies of Roberto’s while I jumped rope. I tried to absorb as much as I could, but most of it was just rehashing what he had already drilled into my head during our prep.
I could feel time rushing forward, and it seemed like just a handful of minutes later that both of the fights and the intermissions between them were over.
It was my turn.
My already free-flowing adrenaline went ape shit wild. A mixture of laughter and cheering, my name being called, was already coming from the audience. Had some of my fans from the underground heard I was fighting here and shown up? I could only hope so. I was about to make them either very proud or wish that they had never heard of Cherry Bomb.
I could hear the video C
aleb’d had made for the charity of my choice. I’d chosen to highlight his efforts with Good Samaritan and the kind of people they helped, and what they needed to expand. He’d helped me so much, bolstered my family and my mama with his sponsorship that there had really been no choice. I knew he believed his sister was out there, hurting, and I couldn’t not help any way I could.
Then the announcer belted out my name with all the pomp and circumstance that you might expect. My intro music started, Coach slapped me on the back, and I made my legs move.
Jogging down the hall through the flashing of cameras, the noise was what hit me first, so many voices — cheering, jeering — the music loud enough to burst eardrums. But then, the ring came into view, and nothing else mattered.
This was it. Do or die time.
And I certainly had no plans to die tonight.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Caleb
This is it.
All of her training, all of the money I poured into her prep were about to come to a head.
Standing just a few feet away from the ring next to Hunter, I was close enough to see individual beads of sweat on both of the fighter’s faces. We hadn’t bet on this one, because we knew she couldn’t win and neither of us could bear betting against her.
Roberto, to his credit, didn’t look like he was taking Cherry lightly. I guessed that after being a professional for so long, he knew anyone could hurt him if he didn’t take them seriously.
His first two fights had been a cakewalk, and the crowd was clearly restless. This was a prime opportunity for Cherry to knock it out of the park. All she had to do was dig deep and last five rounds, one more than Roberto’s previous two opponents.
The bell rang, making my breath catch in my chest, and they were dancing toward each other. She looked beautiful, like some kind of Wonder Woman slash warrior fairy princess with her almost steampunk outfit that was a tight-fitting tank and mock miniskirt.
I sucked in a sharp breath, surprised to find that instead of excited, I was being dunked in an overwhelming pool of dread. Watching Roberto advance on Cherry made me want to duck into the ring and protect her, even if that negated the entire reason she was here. When he threw the first punch, my stomach practically dropped out of my body.
She dodged, and the blow went wide, and my stomach was still clenched. When Hunter hooted beside me, I wondered what the hell was wrong with me.
Cherry was a fighter. Her job was beating the living daylights out of people, which included getting her own ass kicked every now and then. Her body was both her tool and her product, and if she was successful, her whole young life would involve her being in physical danger from others.
But even though I knew all that logically, my emotions were all over the place. This wasn’t like me. I wiped sweat from my forehead. Not at all. How was a single woman, one I had supreme confidence in in the ring, throwing me so out of whack? Had I gone soft?
I didn’t have an answer for that, and I couldn’t dedicate the extra brain power to figuring it out right now. Roberto was chasing Cherry around the ring, and she was doing an insane job of dodging every blow.
As if she wasn’t at enough of a disadvantage, this fight was a boxing match instead of an MMA battle so she couldn’t rely on her impressive list of trick holds and escapes. No, it was all about power and speed, and while Cherry had plenty of both, Roberto had more.
He cornered her, and my heart squeezed so painfully that the sweat on my forehead dripped down my temple. If he managed to get her in a place where she couldn’t escape, she would be done for.
Roberto tensed, his tell just before he flew into one of his infamous combos, but before a single punch could fly, Cherry grabbed one of the ropes for leverage and vaulted to the left of Roberto, landing out of reach.
My frayed nerve endings jangled, and I stood there, shocked, as the crowd went absolutely wild. Cherry used the surprise to retreat to the middle of the ring, and I was grateful that she remembered she couldn’t punch her opponent’s back or deliver any sort of blows while using the ropes as leverage. Andre really had taught her well.
Roberto rounded on her, respect evident across his features. He took a single step forward, but then the bell rang. The first round was over.
I heaved a sigh of relief that ran through my entire body, barely resisting the urge to go over to her corner and make sure she drank enough and was otherwise level-headed. I took deep breaths as I watched Andre coach her. But the respite was short-lived. Too soon, she was marching back toward the center as round two was starting.
Just like her first fight, Cherry never wavered, never seemed unsure or doubtful. But unlike her first fight, she wasn’t dominating. In fact, in the first round she hadn’t thrown a single blow, and as the second round ticked on, it was turning out to be much the same.
I could feel the crowd getting restless, and I began to pace in the aisle between the spectators. I had too much energy trapped within me, the stress of it building to a suffocating frenzy. I wanted to punch something, run a mile. Anything to get the storm brewing inside of me out so I could concentrate.
The round ended without either of them landing a single hit, and there were no cheers when the bell rang.
How fickle the love of a crowd.
But Cherry was already a third of the way to her goal. Didn’t these people realize how amazing that was? If they didn’t, I prayed they would soon. I wanted each and every one of them to know the fierce warrior that she was.
The third round bell rang, and Cherry rushed out to the middle of the ring to meet Roberto. Then the moment I had been dreading happened.
Roberto lashed out with a vicious jab, and Cherry couldn’t move in time. She blocked, but the sheer power of the blow turned her sideways, allowing him a clear cross right to her ribs. Thud.
The crowd went utterly silent.
Stunned, I involuntarily took a step forward before catching myself.
Cherry stumbled backward, while Roberto quickly advanced.
My stomach churned, and I wanted to close my eyes, not watch what was probably going to be the end of the fight.
Roberto sent out another unbelievably fast punch, but Cherry stepped into it while turning to the side. Somehow, that was just enough for his blow to miss.
While his arm was extended, she delivered four rapid punches to the top of his ribs, just under his armpit.
The crowd went mad, hooting and screaming as Roberto danced away to the ropes. His face hardened, and his muscles tensed, the set of his brow growing much more serious. It was like someone punched me in the gut when I realized that he had probably been taking it easy because he’d underestimated Cherry.
That clearly wasn’t going to happen anymore.
He advanced on her like a bolt of lightning, punches flying.
Cherry did a great job of dodging and blocking, but she was hard pressed to dodge all of them, and I could see the red marks that would develop into welts and bruises on her arms as he pummeled her.
The audience was absolutely living for it, but I felt sick. How was I going to survive her actually making it to the professionals when I got so messed up about a relatively tame fight? Whatever was wrong with me, I needed to get over it.
The round ended and another began, with Cherry mostly dodging blows. But every once in a while, she landed a flurry of punches that left the man reeling for a second or more. Cherry may not have had the same power as him, but she was relentless, whittling him down bit by bit.
And then, the round ended, and we were coming up on round five. She had done it!
Both of them were breathing hard as they went to their corners, and my own breath rushed out of me in a whoosh. I’d never seen a professional go so long without a bloody face, but the crowd still seemed plenty entertained, which was the whole point here.
But Cherry was tiring. When round five began, I could see the way her guard was lowering second by second. She was moving with much less speed.
Ro
berto swung.
Landed a punch square to her solar plexus.
She fell backward, nearly in slow motion, and landed in a sitting position.
This time, I did start forward but forced my feet to stop moving before I made it ringside.
According to regulations, Cherry had ten seconds to get up unaided. If she was smart, she would take a few seconds of rest, then slowly rise, allowing her body the most time possible to recover from the blow she’d just taken.
Ten.
She flinched at the start of the count. Hunter’s hand came down on my arm and clenched, holding me there.
Nine.
She blinked, the dazed look leaving her eyes.
Eight.
Clenched her fists.
Seven.
Took a deep breath.
Six.
Made eye contact with me. Fuck, she was beautiful. My cock jumped as it recalled the last time I’d seen her on a mat.
Five.
One side of her lip quirked up as I willed her every ounce of strength in my body.
Four.
She rose, slowly, each muscle stretching out into a long, fine, lean, and ready fighter’s body.
The fight resumed, Hunter and I shouting as Cherry managed to land the first face blow of the match, a solid punch right to the side of Roberto’s jaw.
The crowd was absolutely beside themselves now. Cherry had won them over, exactly as she had hoped to. Without a doubt, the fighting forums would be abuzz tomorrow with the woman who took on Roberto De La Matta and not only survived five, going on six rounds but thrived.
But then she made a fatal mistake. I saw it a split second before the blow landed, and if she did by then, it was too late.
Roberto landed a crushing blow square to her face, and once more she was tumbling backward.
She somehow stayed on her feet, blood pouring from her nose, dripping over her full lips and spattering her top. She swayed for a moment but managed to recover.
I could tell she was struggling to stay on her feet. My insides clenched to know she had to be in pain. I knew from experience that the blood was no doubt distracting, making her reactions slower and her dodges less effective. Every passing second put me on edge.