by Jessica Ashe
It made up for some of my losses last night to Alison.
“I’m doing alright,” I replied, as I pulled out a seat for Percy, and passed him a handful of chips.
“I should go check in,” he objected, but sat down anyway, and immediately threw a few chips in. Percy always had enjoyed a flutter. “You ready for the fight?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Is Alison around?” Percy asked.
“No, she’s off doing doctor things with doctor people.”
“Good. Listen, did she ever tell you why she quit the hospital?”
“No,” I replied. “She mentioned disagreeing with some of the board members. I didn’t ask.”
“You probably should have done.”
“Why?”
“Because she didn’t quit. Well, she technically did, but if she hadn’t then she would have been fired.”
I frowned, as I tapped the table for another card. I regretted it even before I saw the card turn over.
“Have you been spying on her, Percy?”
“No, nothing so draconian. I had to fill out some forms to submit to the UFC. They required references. I got a good one easily enough, but I also received an email from Doctor Oxford who told me that she’d been the subject of two misconduct charges.”
“Two?” I asked incredulously. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve met her. Do you really think she’s capable of misconduct?”
“She seems like a nice girl, but that doesn’t make her a great doctor.”
“Look, doctors make mistakes all the time. They’re stressed and under a lot of pressure. If you rule out all doctors who’ve made a mistake, you’ll end up getting operated on by med students.”
“This isn’t just a case of a bad diagnosis,” Percy explained. “The email I received mentioned dereliction of duty in one case, and unprofessional conduct towards a patient in another. She has a bad attitude.”
The dealer dealt us both a new hand of cards, but I lowered my bet. Ever since Percy showed up, my luck had gone drastically downhill.
“I like her attitude,” I replied. “She’s… feisty.”
And probably kinky as hell, if I ever convince her to loosen up a bit.
“Alison is also a little young to be doing this. And she has no practical experience with athletes.”
“I don’t care. She knows how to look after me, and that’s all that matters.”
“You don’t mean that you and her are… you know…?”
“No, we’re not,” I replied.
Not yet.
“She still lied to you,” Percy pointed out. “That’s cause for concern at least.”
“Alison didn’t lie. You admitted yourself that she quit. Look, if you’re really worried, I’ll talk to her about it.”
“Good. I want your mind focused on the fight, not worrying about whether your body is in safe hands.”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you told me this little story in the first place.”
“Oh, yeah,” Percy said slowly.
“Now go check in. You’re bad luck.”
Percy wandered off to the reception desk, while I proceeded to lose another hand.
Despite what I’d said, I couldn’t imagine Alison ever doing anything wrong. She was the type of person to cross every t and dot every i, before going back and double checking her workings just in case.
Abandoning a patient and dereliction of duty both sounded even more farfetched. More likely, she’d just had an argument with someone important, and he or she had made her life difficult.
Alison was stubborn. So stubborn that she’d insisted on leaving my room last night, even though she’d clearly wanted to stay. She’d also be stubborn enough to argue with people above her and not give in.
I had complete trust in Alison. Besides, I didn’t need her to perform brain surgery. Hopefully not, anyway. She just needed to keep me in good shape, and stitch up cuts so that I could make it to the end of a fight.
With any luck, I could convince her to help me out after the fight as well. After all, what was the point of winning, if I couldn’t release the stress afterwards?
Chapter Sixteen
Alison
I could count on one hand the number of male doctors I considered friends.
I’d had lots of male friends at med school, but it seemed that once guys became doctors they saw me as either someone to look down on, or someone to hit on. Occasionally both.
Bret had been friendly enough at first. He’d offered to give me a tour of the arena, and explain what I might need to do during a fight. I already knew most of that from the introduction yesterday, but Bret was not much older than me, and it was refreshing to see another young face.
I should have known better. Bret had taken a job with a fighter immediately after qualifying as a doctor, and he did nothing but show off the entire time he talked to me. Apparently, the fact that the fighter he worked for was one of the best in the business should make Bret irresistible by association.
I put up with him for an hour, but the second he put his hand on my back in that “innocent, but suggestive” way men did, I made an excuse and left.
Elliot was playing blackjack by himself, looking strangely unhappy. I considered walking past him, but he looked up and smiled at me. I headed over as he picked up his chips and left the table.
“Nervous?” I asked.
“About what?”
“The fight, of course.”
“I don’t get nervous about fights. The only thing I worry about is doing too much damage to my opponent.”
Something was bothering him. The words were as brash and confident as they always were, but they felt forced and unnatural this time.
Should I tell him now? I didn’t want to distract him for the fight, but there were plenty of fighters in the MGM this weekend and he could get a recommendation for a new doctor while he was here.
“Can we talk?” Elliot and I both said simultaneously, before laughing awkwardly.
“My room?” Elliot asked.
“Better make it the bar,” I replied. This wasn’t a conversation that could end with me peeling off his clothes—as much as I might want to.
The MGM had almost as many bars as it did blackjack tables, but we finally found a quiet one where we could sit and talk in peace, while jazz music drowned out our conversation to anyone who might be tempted to eavesdrop.
We ordered a fruit juice each, since Elliot couldn’t drink the day before a fight.
“What did you want to talk about?” Elliot asked.
“You go first,” I replied.
“Percy arrived an hour ago. He said he had to get references from your previous employer to submit to the UFC.”
“Oh.”
Oh shit.
“I just wanted to give you a head’s up that he knows about the issues you had before you quit.”
“I can explain about—”
“And,” Elliot continued. “I wanted to tell you that I don’t care.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“You should,” I replied. “I’m your doctor. Don’t you want to know if I made a mistake?”
“I don’t know all the details—and I don’t need to know—but it doesn’t sound like you messed up. I’m guessing there was a clash of personalities. That about right?”
I nodded. I should just leave it at that. Let him think it was a case of office politics. But I owed him the truth.
“There was an issue with a patient,” I explained. “I had to leave the hospital one day, and he missed an important injection. He’s fine, but it’s the sort of mistake that could have proven costly. I did arrange for cover, but that doctor failed to do his job.”
“It doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong at all to me.”
“He was my patient, and my responsibility. I shouldn’t have left the hospital, but….”
I trailed off, but Elliot kept looking at me expectantly.<
br />
“I really don’t need an explanation,” Elliot said. “Does it affect your ability to do your job for me?” I shook my head. “Then I don’t need to hear it.”
“You should know that I would never leave a patient unless it was really important, and I assure you I really needed to get out of the hospital that day. There was another patient who…” I trailed off again, but this time I was determined to continue. “Let’s just say I had a particularly difficult appointment and I needed to go home.”
“Okay, now I do want to know more,” Elliot asked, his voice contained traces of anger and concern. “Percy mentioned there was an issue with a second patient. What happened?”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” I said. “I didn’t do anything professionally negligent. I just wanted you to know that the circumstances around me leaving were extreme, and they won’t happen again.”
Elliot nodded reluctantly. He didn’t want to drop it; he was like a dog who’d picked up a scent and wanted to follow the trail through to the end. I wouldn’t let him.
“What did you want to speak about?” Elliot asked.
Crap. I really should have gone first. I couldn’t quit now. Not after Elliot had clearly demonstrated how much faith he had in me.
We’d only known each other a week, and he already trusted me more than any of my other bosses.
“I just wanted to offer you a chance to win your money back,” I lied. “My beginner’s luck will probably even out over time.”
“Oh yeah, I’d been meaning to talk to you about your ‘beginner’s luck.’ After you left last night, I couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the cards had small folds in the corners.”
I smiled awkwardly. “Must have been the people in the penthouse before you.”
“It was a fresh deck.”
“Oh, well, uh… I kept dropping the cards, so I guess they could have got bent up a bit.”
“You hustled me,” Elliot said, as a massive grin spread across his face. He hadn’t been sure at first, but now he knew.
“You shouldn’t have assumed I knew nothing about poker,” I replied. “You also have an obvious tell—your eyes dilate when you have a good hand.”
“I didn’t get many good hands to begin with.”
“I gave you the odd one just to stop you being suspicious.”
“Damn, I’m bloody impressed,” Elliot admitted. “I guess I should be mad, but I’m choosing to look on the positive side.”
“And what’s that?”
“You went to a hell of a lot of effort to get my shirt off last night.”
“That’s not what—”
“If you wanted to see me naked, you only had to ask. Anyway, I’m up for a rematch, but this time I’ll be dealing, and it’s strip poker from the start. If that ‘beginner’s luck’ holds out, you might get to see a lot more than just my chest.”
“Here’s hoping,” I replied dryly.
“Or perhaps I’ll start winning, and you’ll have to strip.”
“You’re assuming I’m stupid enough to bet my clothes in the first place.”
“I’m assuming that you actually want to get naked in front of me, and are just looking for a good excuse.”
He was wrong about that. The prospect of getting naked in front of him terrified me. His body barely had any fat on it, and the women who threw themselves at him were no different.
I was far from fat, but there were definitely soft bits that I spent far too long punishing myself for when I looked in the mirror. With clothes, that could all be nicely covered up, tucked in, or otherwise hidden from view. There was a reason I usually had sex with the lights off.
“I wish I were a psychiatrist sometimes,” I said. “Because I’d love to know what’s going on inside that head of yours.”
I wanted to know what was going on inside my head as well, because my feelings for Elliot didn’t make any sense.
Only an hour ago, a cocky, arrogant guy had been hitting on me, and I’d been repulsed. As I should be. I hated that behavior. However, when Elliot did the same thing it drove me insane in a different way.
I pressed my thighs together, as if squeezing my legs shut would quench the desire between them. This must be why people had one night stands? Some men were just impossible to resist.
Elliot set off a chemical reaction inside me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I just had to stay strong. If I could fight it off until the end of this trip, then I should be safe.
Safe from the horrors of a mind-blowing orgasm.
Letting myself go for one night of sex would be hard enough, but the true challenge would be pretending it had never happened the next day. I’d be another notch on Elliot’s bedpost, and he would be done with me.
“Fancy getting dinner tonight?” Elliot asked. “Not a date, of course. I just need to stock up on protein, and I’d rather not eat alone.”
No, I absolutely, one hundred percent, cannot have dinner with you, I thought.
“Sure.” The enthusiasm in my reply was obvious, and surprisingly genuine. “I should keep an eye on your diet,” I added quickly.
Elliot laughed. “If you say so.”
It’s definitely not a date. We’re here on work, so it’s a business meeting.
Not a date.
That reminds me, I need to shave my legs.
Chapter Seventeen
Elliot
Fight time.
Here we go again.
I’d done this before. I’d even fought in this exact same cage before. That didn’t make it any easier.
When I was a kid, I’d always wondered how footballers had the nerve to take penalty kicks in big games. Just a single kick of the ball could determine whether your country would win the World Cup, or if your team would clinch the Champions League. As a Norwich fan, it more likely meant avoiding relegation, but the principal was the same.
I could remember watching England get knocked out on penalties to Germany in the European Championships in 1996. My dad went absolutely ballistic and screamed at the players for not have a spine.
I disagreed then, and I disagreed now.
Professional sports took a lot of balls. Big heavy ones. The only difference between the confident athletes and the ones with drooped shoulders was that the confident athletes were better actors.
If you didn’t feel nervous before stepping into a cage with a guy who wanted to kick the shit out of you, then you weren’t human. The television coverage was the least of my concerns, although it did add tension to proceedings. When you knew your every move would get analyzed in front of thousands, you took extra care not to look stupid.
As per usual, I was the underdog. I’d been pushed up the ladder so quickly that people underestimated me. No matter how many fights I won, punters always assumed that the next opponent would be the one to stop me in my tracks.
Even when I’d been fighting underground, the majority of the punter’s money went on my opponent. Riker had been a clear favorite to win our fight, but I’d come through that one. So had he—barely.
My winning run had to end some day—apparently—but it wouldn’t be today.
UFC had grown in popularity over the years, but it had some way to go before it drew the same crowd as a big boxing match. There were plenty of empty seats in the arena, but there were easily five or six thousand people in attendance.
Not that it made much difference.
During a fight, I had to block out every person but one. I’d never found it all that difficult—until now.
“Good luck,” Alison yelled over the crowd, as I walked past her into the cage.
“Thanks. My thighs could use a rub-down before the fight though.”
“I’d love to,” she replied, “but we don’t have time. Tell you what, if you win, I’ll give you a sponge bath afterwards.”
I almost fell over in shock. “You will?”
“Sure. It’s all part of the package.”
Well now I really wa
nted to win.
Once in the cage, I did my best to psyche up the crowd, but most of them booed and supported the local home grown talent. Americans were used to seeing Brits as bad guys, so I played up that role instead.
No wonder the UFC wanted me to get a fight against Tyler Young. It would be huge. I’d probably even get some traveling support for that one. You didn’t need to give Brits much of an excuse to travel to Vegas and get pissed.
Jerome Milner and I stood opposite each other in the center and touched gloves, before walking back to our respective ends. I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw Milner’s doctor. He must have been at least seventy; the prospect of a sponge bath from him would be more terrifying than any fight.
Milner came at me the second the bell rang. You had to do that when you were fighting on home court. I took full advantage. He wanted to land the first blow, so I let him. I rolled with the punch and quickly got round behind him before kicking the back of his knees. He nearly went down, but instead he just staggered forward.
That was all the opening I needed. I pushed him against the cage, spinning him around in the process, and slammed my fist into the side of his face.
The crowd roared with displeasure as the cage rattled with the force of my punches. I didn’t keep the upper hand for long. Milner threw a knee up into my stomach, and then kicked me in the kidneys twice in quick succession as I tried to stand up.
Milner had one hell of a kick on him. He could go up on one leg and swing with much more balance than I ever could. That meant he would rely on his kicks and I could use that knowledge to my advantage.
We both backed off to take a moment to breath and suss the other out. Milner bounced from foot to foot and I could tell he was desperate to swing a kick. I decided to let him.
Big mistake.
I moved within range of Milner, expecting him to swing a kick into my ribs. He did swing a kick, but it didn’t hit my ribs. His foot went up high and crashed against the side of my face.
That hurt more than a punch.
I was used to punches. I knew how to roll with them. Kicks to the face on the other hand, were not a part of my routine. None of my previous opponents had been able to kick me in the face without exposing themselves to a counter. Milner could swing a kick like most people swung a punch.