by A. S. Teague
The longer I stand there, the louder the roar becomes.
“KO! KO! KO!” The crowd goes absolutely bonkers.
Hopping down from my perch, I notice another smokin’-hot brunette staring at me. I run a hand through my short, blond hair and raise my chin at her.
Her gaze travels up my six-foot-five frame, pausing at my groin before she seductively licks her lips. I wink at her, and her lips turn up in a wicked smile.
Yeah, I’ll be seein’ her later.
The room is still chanting my name, so I allow myself another minute to take it all in. This is why I do this. These chants and cheers from complete strangers worshipping me are what fuel me go to the gym every morning at five and stay until well past nightfall.
Plastering on the biggest shit-eating grin I can muster with a black eye and busted lip, I again turn a full 360 degrees so my fans can get an eyeful of all that is me. It’s the least I can do.
When the cheers finally quiet and the blaring music is all but turned off, I shout, “What a fucking fight, am I right?”
They start raising hell all over again.
Satisfied with the response, I tell them, “Now, I came here tonight to have a good time. Who’s ready to party their fucking ass off?”
As the crowd cheers for me one final time, I throw my arm around a buddy’s shoulder and head toward the back deck. People pat my back and offer congratulatory shouts and praise as I pass by, and the self-doubt I experienced when I walked in vanishes. I remind myself that I’m the best there is in this sport and shove the nagging feeling of inadequacy to the back of my mind.
The music begins to blast again, and people go back to dancing and laughing. Women lounge around a giant infinity pool in what can barely be classified as bikinis. Several guys milling around the poolside bar see me coming and start calling my name.
It absolutely never gets old. I actually thought at one time that I would get sick of this, but I don’t. And, deep down, I know I never will. I spent a lot of my life trying to conform to who my family wanted me to be, but the truth is I’m just an arrogant, cocky son of a bitch who likes the attention. No, I love it. I crave it. I mean, what is there not to like about the notoriety and the special treatment that I get whenever I go just about anywhere.
More than that, what I love the most are the women. They practically throw themselves at me all the time, and I am all too happy to catch—at least for a night.
A very chesty, scantily dressed blonde and her equally busty brunette friend meander up and begin spewing bullshit at me. “KO! We have been waiting all night for you to get here.” Blah. Blah. Blah. “You were amazing tonight.” Blah. Blah. Blah. “I never doubted for a second that you were gonna beat that guy.”
I swear to God it’s like they share a script. I can almost guarantee they didn’t even watch the fight. And, if they did, they were probably lost the entire time.
As the blonde runs a perfectly manicured nail across my broad chest and down my rock-hard abs, I realize I don’t care. The only thing that matters right now is where I’m going to end the night. And, if I have any luck left on my side, then it’s going to be in a bed, between the thighs of one, but more than likely both, of these women.
The incessant ringing of my phone wakes me. Confused, I sit up quickly before my pounding head forces me back down. Slowly, the room comes into focus. My room. Blink. Maybe? Blink. I can’t remember where I am or how I got here.
I look around. I’m in a large room that’s minimally decorated, save for the king-sized bed I’m currently on. Nope. Not my place. I shift my legs only to find them pinned by three women passed out around me. Candy? Mandy? Jane? Whatever the fuck their names are. I remember meeting the blonde and the brunette at the start of my night, but this other chick is a total stranger to me.
I lean down to snag my pants off the floor, the pain in my head intensifies as my phone stops ringing.
“Dammit,” I curse, reaching into my pocket and pulling my phone out. I’m surprised to see that I have seventeen missed calls.
But more startling than the number of times I never heard my phone ring is the fact that it’s 3:18 in the afternoon.
“Fuck!” I shout as I scramble to locate my clothes amongst the discarded bathing suits and towels. I find my socks, which are soaking wet, but the shirt I was wearing last night is gone. “Hey…” I nudge one of the girls while searching my groggy brain for her name. Oh, forget it. “Blondie, do you know where the fuck my shirt is?”
She stirs briefly before turning over and beginning to softly snore.
Never one to disrespect a woman, I take a moment to admire her tits one last time. They’re fake, but that’s exactly the way I like them. The bigger, the better, in my opinion. This chick obviously agreed with me, because her tits are incredible. I’m almost sorry I won’t be seeing her again.
Her mouth on my cock is one of the few things I remember from last night, and the way she sucked it is something I won’t soon forget. Okay, maybe seeing her again wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
Like the gentleman I am, I nudge her again with my foot with the intent of getting her number, but she rolls back over and continues to snore. I’ll take that as a maybe and have one of my boys track her down for me next weekend.
I glance around the room for any sign of my shirt but come up empty-handed. Tripp is probably losing his fucking shit right about now. I was supposed to be at a press conference this morning. I pinch the bridge of my nose.
Shit. Where the hell is my shirt?
“Wake up! One of you tell me where the hell the rest of my clothes are.” I’m starting to lose my temper, and just when I’m about to punch something, my phone starts to ring again. “What?” I shout gruffly into the phone and immediately regret it when I realize Mark is on the other end.
“Where. The. Fuck. Have you been, you stupid motherfucker?” he screams at me through the phone. Mark is a pretty tough guy to begin with, but he has been known to literally scare the piss out of people without so much as touching them.
“Mark, man, I know,” I tell him. “I know I fucked up. But I had no idea—”
“You know you fucked up?” he barks. “Are you shitting me right now? You were supposed to be at a post-fight interview at nine a.m. I was beginning to think that you were dead somewhere. No one could fucking find you. You actually might wish you were dead when I get through with you tonight. Get your sorry, worthless ass to the gym before I have to come find you myself.”
“I’m on my—” I start only to hear the click of the line going dead.
I walk into the gym I’ve practically lived in for the last eight years and find one very pissed-off man thrumming his fingers on the countertop. After Mark’s phone call, I gave up on finding the rest of my clothes and left in my squishy socks and my jeans. Luckily, the keys to my Rover were in my pants pocket, so I was able to haul ass and make it to the gym in less than fifteen minutes.
Mark’s gaze lands on me when I walk in. No doubt, he knows what I was up to last night by my current state of dress—or undress, as it is.
Shuffling toward, him, I keep my hands up in surrender. “Mark, man, hear me out before you start screaming again.” I struggle to come up with some sort of explanation that will appease him, but he doesn’t seem to want to hear any of it.
When I get close enough, he open-palm slaps me on the back of the head before shoving me toward the cage. “Brec, you listen to me right now. I don’t need to hear your bullshit about this morning. I know exactly why you are just now showing up. You fucking reek of alcohol and cheap perfume. I don’t want to hear any more excuses from you. These past few months, I’ve sat back and kept my mouth shut while watching you slowly self-destruct. But, after last night, I am not biting my tongue anymore.” He pauses to catch his breath, his face growing a shade of red I’ve rarely seen on him.
But it’s the look in his eyes that truly frightens me for what may be the first time in my life.
“Come on,
man,” I plead.
He scoffs. “Last night’s performance was appalling. Watkins is half the fighter you are. Do you hear me? Half! And, last night, he nearly took your title.” Throwing his arms up, he begins pacing back and forth. “You may not need the money. You may not fight because it was always your dream. But, goddamn it, I know you, and if you had lost to that fucking weasel last night, you never would have forgiven yourself.”
There it is. The explanation for the way he’s going off on me like a I’m a child who just brought a bad grade home. He’s scared. Scared of what I would have done if I had actually lost. And he’s right. If I’d let someone as inexperienced as Watkins take the only thing that really matters in my life from me, who knows where I would have woken up this morning. If I were lucky, it would have only been the local jail.
“You’re right.” I sigh. There’s really nothing else to say.
He doesn’t want my explanation. And, frankly, after the dressing down he just gave me, I don’t have the heart to make something up anyway.
“Damn right. Now, go get changed and get your ass in that cage. It’s nearly four. You’ll be lucky to get out of here before midnight with what I have planned for you,” Mark barks at me.
I don’t even bother trying to argue the fact that I’m not supposed to train for the next two weeks. This is punishment for being me this morning. I deserve it.
And, if I’m being honest with myself, probably more.
Without another word, I trudge toward the locker room, all the while praying that someone has some aspirin.
Today is my birthday and I have absolutely no plans. Well, that’s not true. I have plans; they just didn’t involve celebrating the end of my twenties. It’s a Friday, which means Connor has dialysis. His treatments are three times a week to filter his blood because his kidney isn’t getting the job done.
Abby’s actually in town this week, and since she’ll be around for the next few days she’s been taking him to his appointments. While I never mind being the one to take Connor, having Abby here to share some of the burden is especially helpful to me where work is concerned.
Because I don’t have much of a life outside of work and Connor, I had plenty of leave time built up. This means that I’ve been able to take the afternoons of Connor’s treatments off with little complaint from my boss. However, there is still plenty of work to be done, so I am planning to spend my birthday working late to play catchup on all the stuff I wasn’t able to get to most days.
Staring at the spreadsheet of numbers on my computer, I think about how I have gotten to this point in my life. When I graduated at the top of my class, I just knew I was going to be the chief financial officer of a megacorporation within the next five years. I was smart, organized, and driven, and I was going to be running a company of my own in no time. And then Abby’s career took off and mine was suddenly put on the back burner.
With our parents dead from a car accident my junior year of high school and our older brother in the military, Abby had no one else to count on to help with Connor. The day Abby came to me crying and asked for help, I didn’t hesitate. I loved Connor with all of my heart and couldn’t stomach the thought of Abby hiring a stranger to care for my nephew while she was off covering stories for days at a time.
In the beginning, it was only a day here or there. But, before too long, I was spending more time at her house than my own. When she came to me gushing that she’d been assigned the biggest news story of the decade, I wasn’t surprised when she then asked me to move in permanently. The very next day, I put my amazing condo in downtown Atlanta on the market and settled into Abby’s house.
Occasionally over the years, I would find myself resenting Abby and her fantastic career, but then Connor would hug me for no reason or climb into bed with me on a school night and the resentment would instantly be replaced with contentment. How could I ever resent Abby for having given me the gift of a child’s unconditional love?
Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I refocus on my work and begin reconciling accounts. I am engrossed in figuring out why the numbers aren’t balancing when there is a knock on the wall of my cubicle.
Looking up, I am surprised to see most of the small department I work in crowded around with balloons and cake.
“Happy Birthday,” they all say in unison.
Taken aback by the gesture, I blink several times to keep the tears at bay and clear my throat. “Oh my gosh, y’all! How did you know it was my birthday?” I question genuinely.
While I really enjoy working with the four people standing in front of me, I don’t have much interaction with them outside of work and had no idea they knew it was my birthday.
Placing the cake on my desk, Mindy says, “A little birdie told us. What are your plans for tonight?” she asks with a grin.
“Oh, well, you’re looking at them.” I reply somewhat grimly.
Jake pushes towards me and shakes his head. “No way, Sidney! You can’t spend your thirtieth birthday at work by yourself. We’ve made reservations at the sushi place down the street. We’re taking you out for dinner and drinks. And maybe dancing afterwards,” he says while placing his hand on my shoulder and squeezing.
I try to hide my wince at his contact and casually turn away from him so that his hand is forced to fall away from my shoulder. Lately, Jake’s been a little friendlier than usual, and I’m beginning to question his intentions.
Sushi does sound amazing though, I reason. And I haven’t gone out in ages. But I have so much I need to do. I glance down at the to-do list I make each day. There are more things left undone than checked off.
“Oh, no! Don’t even try to think of a way to get out of it,” Mindy counters when she sees me eyeing the list.
With a mock sigh of frustration, I relent, “If y’all insist. I am not going to turn down sushi and drinks. What time’s dinner?”
With an exaggerated squeal and a clap of her hands, Mindy replies, “Six fifteen. We’re going to have such a good time, Sid. Now, cut the cake. I’ve been dying for a piece all morning.”
I look around at the smiling faces of the people I work with, and for once, I’m excited about the night to come.
At exactly six p.m. on the dot, I push away from my computer and roll my stiff shoulders. With the promise of a night just for me, I flew through my work, getting everything on my list done in record time. I look down at it one more time before grabbing my phone and pulling up Abby’s contact info. The phone rings for what seems like an eternity before she finally picks up.
“Hey, Ab, it’s me. I was just calling to make sure you really don’t mind me going out with friends from work tonight. If you need me to come home and help out with Connor instead, just let me know,” I tell her.
After I’d agreed to go out, I sent Abby a text to let her know my plans and make sure she would be okay without me for the night. She responded enthusiastically, encouraging me to have a good time.
Sighing on the other end of the line, Abby chides, “Sid, I can take care of my own son. It’s your birthday, for goodness’ sakes. Go. Have a good time. Meet a guy. Have random birthday sex or something.” She laughs at my groan.
“Random birthday sex?” I ask incredulously. It’s as if she doesn’t even know me. “I haven’t ever had random sex. I’m not starting now. Seriously though, do you have Connor’s list of meds? It’s on the fridge. Make sure you check each one off as you give them to him. Otherwise, they might get duplicated.”
“Oh my God, Sidney. Yes, I have the list. Yes, I’ll check them all off. You and your damn lists,” she mutters under her breath, but loudly enough for me to hear her.
“I’m just making sure, Abby!” I tell her.
“I’m hanging up now. I love you. Connor says he loves you too and to go out and have a good time.”
Horrified, I ask, “Did he hear you tell me to have random birthday sex?” I groan once more when her laughter comes across the line.
“No, I don’t think
so. He has his headphones on. Besides, even if he did, he would probably agree with me. You need to let off some steam. I know I do—”
“Okay. Now, I’m hanging up. Love you, Ab. Give Connor a kiss for me.” I pull the phone away from my ear and end the call.
My phone only has twenty percent battery, so I make a mental note to charge it in the car. I don’t want to have a dead phone in case there’s an emergency at home.
Grabbing my purse, I head for the bathroom to freshen my lipstick and mascara, the only two pieces of makeup I have with me, and say a silent thank-you that our company embraces casual Fridays. Otherwise, I would be out dancing in business attire, and that just isn’t cute.
I get to the restaurant at the agreed-upon time and find everyone waiting for me in a private room. There’s an empty seat next to Jake, and when he sees me walk in, he stands up and motions for me to come sit next to him. I stifle a groan. Several packages are wrapped sitting in the center of the table, and as soon as I’m seated, Mindy begins handing them to me.
One by one, I tear into them, surprised to see that my coworkers seem to know me better than I gave them credit for. Mindy got me a day planner. There’s a gift card to the local coffee house and a bottle of my favorite wine.
Conversation flows freely for the next couple of hours while we gorge ourselves on raw fish, and I find myself having a good time. I’m surprised by this revelation, and for a brief moment, guilt overwhelms me.
Why do I deserve to have a good time while Connor’s at home, feeling ill from the treatment he had today?
I shake those feelings aside though and remind myself that I only turn thirty this one time. Besides, Connor wants me to have a fun tonight. And, deep down, I know I deserve it. I’ve got to stop letting guilt overwhelm me.
I’m reaching for my wine glass when I feel a hand on my thigh. Snapping my head to my left, I see Jake gazing at me.
“Uhhh,” I sputter, unable to form words.