Fighting Hearts
Page 24
“I was scared. And hurt the night of the party.” I admit, turning away from him. “All I could think about was getting away. Away from the hurt of not being loved. And the fear that if I stayed things wouldn’t end well for me.”
“It sucks feeling pressured, doesn’t it?” He wraps his arms around my waist from behind me and whispers into my ear. “You know you have to do something, but you have no fucking clue what the right thing to do is, and you’re worried anything you try will blow up in your face.”
“It does suck.” I stroke the powerful forearm gently folded around my abdomen. “The last thing I ever wanted was for you to feel pressured into doing something you didn’t want. I’m sorry, Usalv.”
“I’m sorry too, Louise. For ever giving you a reason to doubt me.” There’s a long pause and I feel one of his hands leave my waist to dig inside his pocket. His chest heaves against my back before he holds his breath. The sound of a spring-loaded snap brings my gaze down to a velvet red jewelry box cradled in his large hand.
“Oh my God,” I spin around to face him. “Oh my God.” My chest tightens with shock, excitement and…hope. “What is this?”
“It’s an engagement ring,” he explains in his calm, matter-of-fact way. “I’d hoped to propose in a different setting, but since your stuff is out on the curb, I needed to change things up a bit.” Usalv swallows hard. “I hope you like it.”
“It’s beautiful.” I feel along the edges of tiny stones surrounding a larger oval diamond. It’s unique and attractive without being too ornate. “It’s perfect. Something I’d have picked out for myself. God, you really know me, don’t you?”
“Don’t leave, Louise. Please.” Usalv pries the ring out of the box. “I don’t want to be with anyone else. Or live without you. We can get married tomorrow or thirty years from now. Whatever you want. I…just need for my feelings to be clear, and if this doesn’t do it then I’m all out of ideas.”
“Oh, this does it.” My voice cracks and tears well up in my eyes. I watch as he slides the ring onto the third finger of my left hand.
“It’s a little big,” he tells me, twisting it around my finger.
“It’s fine,” I smile. “I’m used to that.”
“Then say yes, Louise.”
“Yes.”
Epilogue
Two years later…
“You got this, Louise?” Charlie looks at Usalv’s bleeding nose as he shoves him onto a ringside stool.
I gently probe Usalv’s face to check for a break. Fortunately, he doesn’t have one. “I got this. Thanks.” The MMA cutman nods but sticks close and watches me.
“Hon, is the room spinning?” I ask him.
“Yeah. But it’s slowing down now,” Usalv replies.
I don’t like the sound of that. “Okay. We’ll check on that in a few minutes.”
Usalv took a hard knee shot to his nose when he went for the takedown. Thankfully, he saw it coming and protected his face. But now it’s bleeding profusely and I’ve got another four and half minutes to get him ready for the next round.
“Does it hurt, hon?” I ask.
“Um…yeah,” Usalv answers stoically. Even with all the crowd noise, the pain in his voice comes through clearly.
“Well, get in a happy place, because treating it isn’t going to be a day at the spa, either.”
“I could use a day at the spa,” Usalv tells me.
“Couldn’t we all? Hold still.” I apply a cotton swab soaked in adrenaline hydrochloride to the cut, then press his nostril firmly against it.
“Oh fuck.” Usalv makes a hissing sound as he draws in air between clenched teeth.
I’m an apprentice cutman, who gets cut a lot of slack. Cutmen treat fighters’ wounds during fights, and my background as a trauma nurse comes in handy.
It was several months after the attack when I went back to work, but only part-time. Part-time wasn’t enough, but full-time was still too much and that’s when the idea of being a cutman came to us. From the start, my apprenticeship under Charlie seemed more like a partnership because we’ve learned so much from each other.
School took even longer. For some reason, I couldn’t listen to a lecture and write notes at the same time. A cognitive impairment that eventually faded after about a year. Strangely enough it cleared up about a week after we got married. Usalv joked that if I hadn’t been so particular about the wedding details, I’d have been cured much sooner.
“What’s the damage, Lou?” Rodgers barks at me.
“It’s not broken. He’ll be ready to go in a few minutes.”
“Good.” Rodgers leans over the other side of Usalv and barks strategy and pointers at as I work.
Usalv and Rodgers patched things up right after he proposed to me. In its own way, their professional relationship is a lot like a marriage. Rodgers has put in as much time and effort on Usalv’s career as Usalv himself. Of course, Usalv’s image and reputation is now synonymous with the DeadFall MMA brand. Hell, they even have their own merchandise now.
“Terence, I need to finish up.”
“Sure, Louise.” Coach Rodgers steps away, and assesses the opponent and his corner.
“What’s your name?” I ask Usalv.
“Oh shit. Really?” He rolls his eyes at me. “Usalv Markovski.”
“What’s your wife’s name?” I continue undaunted.
“Louise Becker-Markovski,” he replies.
“How many kids do you have?”
“One on the way.”
“Where are you?”
“In Las Vegas.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Getting grief from my bossy cutman.”
“Hon, trust me. Concussions are not fun. Don’t be a pain in the ass.”
“I’m at the World Championships, defending my title,” he answers in as sober voice.
“Good job. Hang in there, love.” I smile. “He got lucky with this pop to the nose.”
It’s round three of the title match, and Usalv is defending his belt for what we’ve privately decided is the final time. During our perfect honeymoon on the Turks and Caicos Islands, we fleshed out a plan for our lives together. If I were ever physically capable, I wanted to finish my anesthetist training. But regardless, I wanted to be pregnant by thirty.
Usalv had ideas of his own. Being a fighter had provided him an early escape from a life he didn’t want or choose for himself. Now that he’d escaped, he felt like being a pro fighter had served its purpose. There were other opportunities he wanted to pursue while he was still young.
“Two minutes,” Charlie whispers to me.
“He’ll be ready,” I reply.
Usalv is now heavily invested in his uncle’s property business, and things are going well. His uncle is ready to check out, and when Usalv retires from fighting, he’ll take over.
Usalv’s personal real estate investments have turned out well, too. In fact, we’ve rented the other large unit in the Brownstone to Macy and Paul. We love our new neighbors, who we see every day when we’re home.
We’re pregnant. Three and half months along, and we’re both overjoyed. It’s a boy. We’ve even picked out a name. Patrick Usalv Markovski. For my Dad. And for my son’s dad.
No one knows yet. If Usalv retains his title, we’ll announce it at the victory celebration. If he loses then, we’ll start telling our family and friends.
“Sweet Lou, are you done yet?” Usalv asks.
“Just about.” I pull the enswell off and dab the wound with some petroleum jelly mixed with adrenaline hydrochloride. “There you go.”
Usalv sits up, using his final seconds to stare with determined focus into the octagon. He glances quickly over at his twenty-five-year-old opponent, who’s already standing.
“Is the room still spinning?” I ask.
“No.” He sits silently, assessing his opponent.
“Win or lose, we still have it all,” I remind him.
“Damn right. As long as we
get to go home together, that’s all that matters.”
“Go out there and kick that kid’s ass. You got this, right?”
“Yeah, I got this.” He flashes me a killer smile.
“I love you, Usalv.”
“I love you, too, Louise.”
The bell rings, and he’s off like a shot. My warrior husband with the heart of gold.
About the Author
Annabeth started her career in health and human services during college, where she encountered people from all walks of life. She later worked in the fields of medical research and human centered design.
Annabeth is passionate about people and seeing new places. Her work and education have taken her all over the United States, where she’s lived in four states in four different regions of the country.
She’s traveled to many countries in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, with plans to see Australia in the next two years. Her favorite trip was a culinary tour of Sicily, which included cooking classes that she took with her mother. They knew it would be their final adventure together, which made it both memorable and bittersweet.
These days, Annabeth calls creative friendly Austin, Texas home. She lives there with her family and their menagerie of pets, who keep her company when she’s at the keyboard.
Find Annabeth at her website and follow her on Facebook.
Also by Annabeth Saryu
Hearts So Fine Series
Fighting Hearts
Coming Soon:
Crazy Hearts
Coming August 2018