by Ash, Nikki
Bentley and Kayla are planning to get married soon which means they will be moving out to get their own place, leaving me in this expensive ass three-bedroom place by myself. Bentley has told me several times I can stay and he will keep paying the rent. Rich fucker! But we both know I can’t allow him to do that.
I pull up to the gym and grab my coffee and the other coffee I picked up. I swing the door open and head straight to the office handing Liz the hot cup.
“Ooohhh! For me? You are the best!” She says taking a long sip closing her eyes and moaning dramatically. “This is so good! I needed this coffee fix.”
Liz is the office manager here at Cooper’s Fight Gym, and married to Cooper. She’s another female that I have gotten to know and adore. Those two women are definitely proof that not all women are gold digging, untrusting bitches. Once in a while I actually wonder what it would be like to meet a woman like Kayla or Liz. Then I remember my past. I can’t see myself ever trusting a woman enough to want to be intimate with her.
A while back Cooper’s dad passed away and left the gyms he owns to his son. All this took place shortly after Cooper found out he had a baby with Liz he knew nothing about. Remember the mention of our trip to Miami? Yeah, well what happened in Miami didn’t stay in Miami. Without realizing it, Liz and her best friend Kayla wound up in Las Vegas as well, Liz pregnant with their daughter Bella, and a few years later they reconnected at a UFC fight, fell back in love, got married, and recently had another baby. Their son’s name is Nathan and he is almost as cute as Faith.
After Cooper’s dad died and left him the gyms he decided to take a step back from fighting to run the gyms and focus on his wife and kids. Bentley is doing the same thing… well, not running the gyms. He has decided to be a stay-at-home-dad. Kayla is a physical therapist at the gym so Bentley is still around a lot but he is no longer fighting competitively. Yep! A lot of shit happens in seven years.
As for me, not much has changed since I moved here. I transferred to a local college and a few years ago graduated with my degree in business and finance. I haven’t heard from my dad or Gloria since I moved and I prefer to keep it that way. While I miss my dad, I know it’s for the best. I still find it hard to believe Gloria let me go so easily. For the first few years after I left, I held my breath waiting for her blackmailing to begin again, but it never did.
In the last few years I have won several fights and received a UFC contract, which I am on cloud nine about. I work at the club at night, train during the day with Kaden –who took me and our friend Alex on, after Bentley and Cooper decided to take a break—and chill with my friends. Life is actually really good.
After giving Liz her coffee I head to the locker room to change. As I am turning the corner I run straight into Hayley. My coffee slushes around inside the cup and some of it flies out of the small slit of the lid, not much but enough to stain her shirt.
“Oh shit! I’m sorry!” I say looking around for something to help her wipe up the coffee on her shirt.
She looks at me nervously biting down on her lower lip. It reminds me of her face after the first and only time we kissed, when she realized I couldn’t give her anything more. The truth is we never even should have kissed that night…
“Let’s play a game!” Hayley shouts over the music. We are at the club I work at celebrating Kayla and Bentley going out for the first time after having Faith.
“A game? What are we, five?” Kaden asks. Everybody laughs at his question but of course all their drunk asses agree to play.
“Caleb, truth or dare?” Kayla asks me. I know I have to pick dare even though I don’t want to. If I pick truth, she will ask me a question I won’t want to answer. She is always asking why I never bring females home. I can’t put myself in that position to have to lie to her.
I glare at her but go along with it. “Dare.”
Kayla looks over to her left, and following her I see her look at Hayley and then smirk. Don’t do it Kayla… but she does.
“I dare you to kiss Hayley.” Hayley glares at her clearly embarrassed.
“You don’t have to…” Hayley turns to me and says. But without letting her finish I pull her to me for a kiss. Her lips are soft and warm and she tastes like the sweet liquor concoction she has been sipping on all night. My tongue seeks entrance and soon we are full on making out in front of everyone in the middle of a nightclub. I can almost enjoy it, but then it hits me. Once again, I am kissing a woman against my own free will.
No, I am technically not being forced and I wouldn’t compare it to what Gloria did to me but we aren’t kissing out of love or even lust. I am kissing her because somebody dared me to, and just like that it’s as if I am being manipulated and used all over again. It’s like ice water being splashed on me. I end the now tainted kiss abruptly slightly pushing Hayley away from me. She gives me a confused, embarrassed look that turns sad wondering if she did something wrong…
Since then Hayley has made it clear on several occasions she likes me but I have continued to ignore all her advances. I know it’s been seven fucking years since I left Boulder and my past behind but I can’t find it in me to be with a woman of my own free will. Every time I think about it, I feel like in some way or another it’s being forced on me. I don’t know how to change the way I feel.
And let’s say I do find a woman that I choose to touch. How do I know I can trust her? How do I know she won’t want me for all the wrong reasons or that she won’t cheat on me? I think about my sister and mom and stepmom, and how I trusted each one of them in a different way and what did they do? They all lied. I think about all the women I watched cheat on their husbands. I don’t know how to truly trust a woman, and I can’t imagine being with someone without trusting her but then I think about Kayla and Liz and while neither of them are perfect I don’t believe either of them would do anything to deliberately hurt Bentley or Cooper. I trust both of those women as much as I am capable of.
And even if we get past all that trust bullshit, how do I tell her that I lost my virginity at fifteen years old to my stepmom who then blackmailed me into learning how to please a woman so she could pimp me out to cheating wives? Who the fuck wants to deal with that kind of baggage?
Attempting to shake myself out of my thoughts I see Hayley still standing there, staring at me, and fuck if she isn’t a naturally beautiful woman. I first look at her eyes because they are wide open; they are light brown and remind me of the Werther’s caramels my mom used to buy me at the store when I was younger. Then my eyes drift to the rest of her face and notice she has cute freckles lightly spattered across her nose. She doesn’t wear tons of make up like most women do in Las Vegas. She looks like she has a bit of clear lipstick on because her lips are shiny. It makes me want to taste them. Forcing myself to look away from her face I look at her hair. It’s brown with shades of lighter brown and blonde mixed in.
Her head is tilted just a little to the side and my eyes go back to her mouth. It is curved into a slight frown. Her frowning does something to me. I want to make her smile. Is it crazy that I want to kiss that frown right off her face? Why is she just standing there staring at me? Shit! Remembering I just spilled coffee on her, I grab a towel off the towel rack and go to clean her shirt. My hand hits her breast and she jumps back, her face turning red with embarrassment. What the hell am I doing?
“I am so sorry!” I say once again, this time for touching her without permission.
She lets out a soft giggle and it’s got to be the sweetest sound I have ever heard.
“It’s ok,” she says taking the towel from me. She grabs her water bottle and pours some water on the towel and proceeds to dab the wet towel onto the stain. “I just wasn’t expecting you to do that.” Her face is bright red as she looks down at the spot to avoid looking at me. She is so adorable.
When she removes the towel, the area is soaking wet and I can see right through her white button up shirt to her white lacy bra. From the cold water her nipple is po
king through, and for the first time in God knows how long, my dick is twitching of its own free will. I bring my eyes back up to her face and try to discreetly adjust myself. I am obviously not discreet enough because Hayley looks at my face, down to my hard-on, then back to her soaked shirt.
If it’s even possible her face goes redder and I can’t help but laugh at the awkwardness of this entire situation. How did I not notice how fucking adorable this chick is? She pouts at my laughter and covers her wet shirt and pointed nipples with the towel making me laugh even harder.
“Are you laughing?” Kaden comes over and pats my shoulder trying to assess the situation.
He looks back and forth between Hayley and me. “You must be hilarious because I don’t think I have ever heard Caleb laugh.”
Hayley’s eyes go wide and she mutters something along the lines of, “I need to go find a new shirt,” as she hightails it away from us with the towel still covering her chest.
“What was that about?” Kaden asks watching Hayley as she walks away.
“Nothing. I spilled my coffee on her by accident. Ready to go workout for a little bit?”
He studies me for a second. “Yeah. If you want to be ready for the fight in a few months we need to start training hardcore. You ready for that?”
“I was born ready.”
We begin warming up and a few minutes later I notice Hayley walking out of the locker room with a new shirt on. She walks over to Stephen, another fighter, and begins feeling his fingers. He must have hurt them somehow while training. I know she is the onsite doctor here at the gym so it’s her job to touch the fighters to see what’s wrong but something I have never felt before hits me as I watch her touch him; jealousy, maybe? I’m not sure. Then he says something to her causing her to break out in a full grin. Her head goes back and she laughs loudly. She might have been giggling with me but it wasn’t anywhere close to the reaction he’s getting from her. She might be adorable with her shy giggles but when she laughs… she’s downright fucking beautiful.
Kaden catches me watching her and clears his throat. When I force my eyes off her and look at him he’s got a smirk on his face looking like he’s about to comment.
I ignore him and walk to the ring ready to train. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me but I need to focus on fighting. Sure, her laughter does something strange to my insides, and damn she looks hot as hell with her body full of curves and toned legs that go on for miles in her high heels and skirts. Then on top of all that knowing she can kiss. Everything about Hayley is a complete turn on but at the end of the day she is still a woman, and like I have said before and will continue to say; women, for the most part can’t be trusted, and I doubt Hayley is an exception.
We get into the ring and get our gloves and gear on, when I hear someone call out my name. I look around and see Marco running over to me. Marco is twelve years old and part of the Youth MMA program Cooper is running for kids who want a safe place to practice and train. As often as I can, I teach the class. Cooper and Liz’s almost six-year-old daughter is part of the program as well. She swears one day she will become a UFC fighter. I don’t doubt it. That little girl is beyond determined.
Earlier this year, Marco started coming into the gym. He wanted to be a part of the class but his mom couldn’t afford it so Bentley opened up a scholarship program for kids whose parents don’t have the money to pay. It allows them to train at a discounted rate. In Marco’s case, he trains for free.
The truth is, nobody has ever seen Marco’s mom except for me. After getting excuse after excuse I followed him home one day and saw he lives in section eight housing in a shitty area. When he went to school the next day I knocked on the door and found a woman who looked like the weight of the world was on her shoulders.
She confided in me that Marco’s dad was killed in a drive-by years ago; she recently had another baby by some other guy and is between jobs. I could tell she was strung out on drugs but knew better than to bring it up. The sure-fire way to piss off a drug addict is to call them out on it. She would most likely just lie anyway. I had her sign for Marco to join the program and told her if she needs anything to let me know, not because I want to help her but because I want to make sure Marco is ok. She is another example of an untrustworthy woman, choosing drugs over her own children.
Since she signed the papers Marco has practically lived at the gym. When there aren’t classes I let him clean and sweep just like Diego did for me. It keeps him off the streets and out of trouble. Before he started coming to the gym he used to hang out down at the skate park. He enjoys skateboarding but says he loves fighting.
“What’s up?” I say fist bumping him.
“Wanna join us?” Kaden asks. The guys know all about Marco’s situation and treat him like he’s one of us.
Marco looks conflicted for a second but shakes his head no. “No, I can’t. I have stuff I have to do today but just wanted to let you know I won’t be able to make the training camp today.”
A red flag immediately goes up. Marco has never missed a class. Ever. That kid is the first one here and doesn’t leave until he has no choice. For him to miss a class, something is up.
“I’m gonna miss you in class. What’s going on that you can’t make it?” I ask nonchalantly trying to get him to open up. He reminds me a lot of myself. He keeps to himself and doesn’t speak more than necessary.
His refusal to look me in the eyes tells me whatever he is about to say will be a lie.
“I have to help take care of Chloe. I just wanted to tell you.”
Chloe is Marco’s little sister. She is only a few months old and while I know he helps watch her, I also know he has never missed a class to watch her. I let it go for now. Calling him out on this won’t help the situation.
“Ok, buddy. If anything changes come back, ok?”
“Ok,” he says with a frown marring his face. It breaks my heart what this kid goes through. Yeah, my situation was shitty as a teenager but I never had to worry about when I would eat next. I had name brand clothes, the newest cellphones, and was given a new car almost every birthday. I chose to walk away from it all, the day I left, but for Marco he doesn’t get a choice. He’s never been given a choice.
He leaves out the door and I rip my headgear and gloves off, throwing them to the side.
“Where are you going?” Kaden asks.
“I’m following him. Something is up. That kid doesn’t miss class.”
Not waiting for a response from Kaden, I run to the locker room to grab my wallet and keys, and run out the door to find out where Marco is really going.
Two
Hayley
I am running so late this morning and I hate running late. The water heater in my house broke last night so I was forced to take an ice cold shower this morning. I tried to call around to find someone to fix it but with Christmas so close these people want to charge an arm and a leg. So much for the holiday spirit! I still need to buy a couple more presents. I have no idea what to buy my sister, Hannah. She is seriously the hardest person to shop for.
On my way to the gym I received a call from Cooper letting me know one of the fighters thinks he might have sprained or possibly broken a couple of fingers and would like me to check it out before he goes to the hospital. His text throws me off and I completely forget to go through the drive thru to grab a coffee. Oh well! I will have to run back out later when I have time.
I make it to the gym in record time, run straight to the locker room to throw my purse and keys into a locker, fill up my water bottle with cold water, and head back out to find Stephen, the fighter with the possibly broken fingers. I barely make it out of the locker room when I run into a wall. Ok, not a wall, a solid man whose body feels like a wall. Warmth spreads across my chest and it’s not from the unrequited lust I feel for this man. Nope, it’s from the warm coffee that just spilled all over my blouse. Coffee, that isn’t even mine. Coffee, that I almost want to lick off my blouse in hopes I will
get even a little bit of caffeine running through my exhausted body.
I look up from the stain covering my chest and into the most beautiful blue-grey eyes of Caleb Michaels, the man who I have a huge crush on. I know what you are thinking. What woman in her thirties has a crush? Well, most women in her thirties are married with kids, so they don’t have to crush like a damn teenager. Not me, though. After spending my teenage years studying my ass off to get into a good college, I then studied my ass off to get into a good medical program. It has always been my dream to get a degree in Sports Medicine. I love sports and I love healing people so it just made sense. I did make the mistake of dating once in college. I was so busy with school the guy ended up cheating on me with my roommate. I told myself I wouldn’t date again until I could devote the right amount of time to a man.
I finally graduated and was so fortunate to get a job working at Cooper’s training facility right away. The hours are great and I am able to work with athletes every day doing what I love. I get to travel to fights and it’s seriously amazing. I couldn’t ask for a better job. The only downside is, between all my years of school and now work, I am thirty years old and still single with no kids. And if that isn’t enough, the guy I like doesn’t even know I exist. Well, I think he knows I exist but he definitely doesn’t reciprocate my feelings.
Although, there was that time at the club when he was dared to kiss me… Hol-y shit! It had to have been the most intense kiss of my life! I thought maybe he felt something as well but after the kiss was over, he walked away without looking back.
Caleb looks around for a moment and grabs a towel bringing it right to my chest. He starts dabbing my boobs with it and I am shocked he is touching me. My memory flashes back to the time we were all over Cooper and Liz’s place. The guys had stayed home to watch Bella, Liz and Cooper’s daughter, and Tristan, our friend Ashley’s son, while the women all got drunk and had a girls night at my place. Somehow we ended up back at Liz’s place, and Caleb was there, looking sexy as hell in his own brooding way, sitting on the couch watching a UFC fight, and in my intoxicated state I walked over to sit down next to him and patted his leg...