The Undisputed Series

by Teague, A. S.

  “Honestly, man? It didn’t even matter to me anymore if you had taken the drugs. I know the kind of man you are. I figured you had your reasons. We all have our demons.” He lifts a shoulder. “So, yeah, I sent that fucking e-mail. I sent footage of you training. Because you deserve your damn belt back, and I’ll be damned if you’re gonna go back in there and have to claw your way to the top.”

  The fury I was feeling toward Breccan dissolves, morphing into gratitude and a sense of…camaraderie?

  I stick my hand out, and he grasps it, shaking one time.

  “Ah…thanks, man,” I say simply.

  He lifts his chin and then drops my hand. “Don’t mention it.”

  We awkwardly stare at each other until Tripp asks, “So, should I call Avery back and tell him to get the fucking fight set up?”

  Pushing a hand through my hair, I tell him, “Yeah. Get that shit set up.”

  Rebecca claps her hands together again, jumping up and down. “Get back to work!” she says, slapping my ass.

  I trudge out of the office. Instead of going back to the cage, I walk into the locker room and sit on one of the benches. Dropping my head between my knees, I fight back the nausea that’s threatened to overwhelm me again.

  A moment later, the door opens and, turning my head, see Rebecca’s long legs striding toward me.

  “Ryker? You okay?” she asks, dropping down beside me. She rubs circles on my back.

  I swallow hard and then mumble, “Yeah, I’m fine. Can you just give me a minute?”

  She doesn’t stop rubbing my back, and I sigh, realizing she’s not going anywhere.

  “Talk to me,” she whispers.

  I lift my head and look over at her, seeing the concern written all over her face. Bracing my hands on the bench, I push to my feet and then shuffle toward the row of lockers. The feeling of dread that’s rooted in the pit of my belly doesn’t go away. Instead, it intensifies, and I become angry.

  Smashing the heel of my hand into one of the lockers, I bark out, “Fuck!”

  “Ryker! What the hell is going on with you?” Rebecca shouts behind me.

  I spin around to face her. “Nothing! I said I’m fine. I just need you to give me a minute!”

  She stands and takes two long strides to get right in my face. If she were anyone else, I would shove her away from me.

  “Bullshit,” she spits. “Tell me what you’re thinking!”

  “Fine! You wanna know what’s wrong with me?”

  “Yes!”

  “I’m fucking terrified!” The moment the words leave my lips, a weight lifts off my chest. “Jesus, I’ve been outta the game for so long. What if I go back in there and make a fool of myself? What if all of this hard work and money and time is a waste? Jesus, what if I embarrass Breccan and Tripp? What if I let you down?”

  Her eyes, which were blazing with anger, soften. She places her hands on either side of my face, her fingers sifting in to my hair.

  “Oh, honey,” she whispers. “You will never let me down.” She places a soft kiss on my lips. Then she pulls back and smiles. “I swear to God, Ryker. I’m so fucking proud of you. The work you’ve put in. Your passion and drive and commitment. Nothing will change that. If you win, I’ll only be prouder. But, honey, if you lose, I’ll still stand on every rooftop in Atlanta and scream that you’re my man. Because it’s not your record that I love. It’s your character.” She gently taps my chest with her finger. “It’s you.”

  Her words ease the last of the dread I was feeling.

  I decide that she’s right. How many times did I tell the kids over the summer that being a champion was about more than just a winning record? It was time I started listening to my own pep talks.

  Squaring my shoulders, I kiss her forehead and then tell her, “You’re right.”

  She steps away from me and crosses her arms. “You’re damn right. Now, get your ass back out there and finish training.”

  I give her a salute and drawl, “Yes ma’am,” before marching through the locker room doors, her giggles echoing behind me.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Rebecca

  Sitting in my chair behind my desk, I watch Ryker work on his ground game with one of the other trainers. He easily puts the guy in an armbar, causing him to tap almost instantly.

  I clap my hands and let out a, “Whoop!” Then I pop a gummy bear into my mouth. “Hey, Ryker!” I shout.

  He looks over.

  “Take your shirt off!”

  Ryker gives me the bird, and I giggle.

  “What? If I’m gonna be forced to spend yet another day watching you train, the least you could do is make it interesting for me!” I retort.

  He makes a show of pulling his sweat-drenched shirt over his head. After spinning it around on the end of his finger, he throws it in my direction, and I squeal when It lands on my desk with a soggy thump.

  “Gross!” I shout, picking it up with my thumb and my forefinger and dropping it on the ground beside me.

  He gets back into training, and I watch as his abs flex with the exertion. I’m reminiscing about the last time I watched those abs flex under my fingertips when the phone rings. Still fantasizing about Ryker’s naked body, I place the receiver to my ear.

  “Team Undisputed,” I say absentmindedly.

  “Rebecca?” a voice I don’t recognize croaks on the other end.

  “This is she,” I reply. “Can I help you?”

  “Dear, it’s Gram.”

  I instantly snap to attention. “Gram? Are you okay?” I ask, worried.

  “I’m fine, dear. Just not feeling well. I think I need to go to the doctor. Is Barney busy?” she asks, her voice cutting in and out.

  Ryker’s in the middle of an intense sparring session, so I relay the information to Gram.

  “Okay, darling. Don’t bother him. I’ll be okay.”

  There’s no way I’m going to ask Gram to wait to go to the doctor, so I tell her, “Gram, I’ll take you.”

  “No, no,” she protests. “Just have Barney pick up some Alka-Seltzer for me on the way home.”

  After I insist that she just let me take her for another minute, she finally relents and agrees to make an appointment right away.

  After disconnecting the call, I grab my purse from my desk drawer and call out to the guys. “Hey, I’ve gotta go take care of some stuff. Be back in a bit.”

  Concern blooms on Ryker’s face, and he asks, “Everything all right, doll?”

  I nod and reassure him by saying, “Yeah, everything’s fine. I’ll check in later, all right?”

  He lifts his chin, and I hustle out the door, my mind on getting to Gram as quickly as possible.

  Three hours later, I’m sitting on the couch at Ryker’s while Gram rests in her recliner, covered in two afghans.

  “Are you warm enough, Gram?” I ask.

  She smiles weakly. “Yes, dear. I’m finally warming up. It seems like once these old bones catch a chill, they have a hard time letting go of it.”

  Relieved that her teeth have finally stopped chattering, I smile. “Let me get you some more tea. You want more mint?”

  I shuffle over to her cup on the table beside her and reach for it. With a speed I don’t expect, she grasps my hand in both of hers. I squat so that I’m at eye level as she begins to talk.

  “You’ve been such a sweetheart today,” she tells me, giving my hand a light squeeze. “But I suppose I should expect nothing less from you. Thanks for seeing about me today, honey. But you don’t have to stay. I’ll be all right.”

  I give her a light kiss on her cheek and, releasing her hands, stand to grab her teacup. “I’m gonna stay till Ryker gets here, if that’s okay?”

  She gives me small nod. Then she rests her head back and closes her eyes.

  When I arrived at the tiny apartment she and Ryker share, she looked near death. With a temperature of over one hundred and three, she couldn’t stop shivering. Her lips were blue, and her eyes were glas
sy.

  There was only one other time in my life that I’d been more scared than I was as I practically carried her to my car in a rush to get her to the doctor. My fears had been validated then, and it had been the worst day of my entire life. I couldn’t bear the thought of going through something like that ever again.

  After an hour of exams, blood work, and an x-ray, the doctor announced that Gram had a serious case of pneumonia and, if she hadn’t come in when she did, she may not have survived it.

  Gram was sent home with a strong dose of antibiotics, after being given a shot at the office, a nebulizer machine to help with her breathing, and strict instructions that she is not to be left alone for the next forty-eight hours and should call should she gets any worse.

  As I make Gram’s third cup of tea since we got home, I let my mind run wild with the what-ifs of if I hadn’t listened to my gut when Gram called and said that she was fine to wait.

  I’m filling the kettle with tap water when the front door swings open. Peeking around the corner, I watch as Ryker comes into the room and then stops in his tracks when he spots Gram. He drops his gym bag and rushes to her side, panicked.

  “Gram? Gram!” he says, shaking her shoulder.

  After another moment of his attempt to rouse her, she cracks an eye open and snaps.

  “Jesus, Barnabus. You tryin’ to dislocate my shoulder?” Using her other arm, she slaps at his hand. “For God’s sake. I’d just drifted off.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning, but relief overwhelms me as she gives him shit.

  Coming around the corner, I tell Ryker, “The Tylenol’s finally kicked in, I see.”

  His head snaps up, and he springs from his crouch. “Bedroom. Now,” he orders, jabbing his finger in the direction of his room.

  I ignore Ryker and tell Gram, “Your tea’s almost ready. We’ll be right back.” Once I’m satisfied that she’s comfortable again, I walk to the bedroom.

  Ryker follows me in and closes the door behind him. “Rebecca,” he growls.

  Holding a hand up, I tell him, “Before you go all caveman on me, let me explain.”

  He leans a shoulder against the wall and crosses his arms, and I take that as my cue to start talking.

  “Gram called the gym while you were sparring. She sounded terrible, but when I told her you were in the middle of a workout, she insisted I not bother you. Ryker, she wanted you to just pick her up some antacid on the way home.”

  He shakes his head. “Gram and her damn Alka-Seltzer,” he mumbles to himself.

  “Yes!” I reply. “Anyway, I finally convinced her to let me come take her to the doctor. And thank God that I did. She’s got pneumonia. The doctor said that it was pretty bad.” I decide to leave out the part about how bad it could have been. “I stopped at the pharmacy and got all of her medicine and got her home and settled. She already seems much better than she did when I got here.”

  Relief floods his face. “When you sent me that text, it scared the shit out of me.” He’s looking down at his hands.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so vague,” I tell him.

  He looks up at me. “You should have told me as soon as she called.”

  “You were in the middle of training.”

  “Yeah, but training isn’t nearly as important as Gram,” he replies, his expression full of fear.

  My heart squeezes at the sight of my fearless fighter worried about the woman who raised him.

  Softening my voice, I agree. “No, it’s not.”

  “Maybe I’ve been putting too much into my comeback. Maybe I need to back off a little,” he says.

  “Absolutely not!” I admonish. “Gram would have your ass if she knew that you quit to take care of her! Ryker, I was sitting at my desk, filing my nails, when she called. I was happy to be able to help. I know she’s your grandmother, but, honey, I love her too. You know I’ll do anything I can for her.”

  Ryker straightens and stalks over to me. I back away from him until I’m flush with the wall. He places his hands flat against the wall, caging me in, and then leans in toward my face.

  “I fucking love you so much.” He smashes his lips against mine, his tongue pushing into my mouth.

  The kiss is raw and desperate, and I loop my arms around his waist and hold on tight. Far too soon, he pulls away. When I open my eyes, the look on his face is primal.

  “That day in the president’s office, my life unraveled. I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to put it back together. It’s always just been Gram and me. I’d convinced myself that we didn’t need anyone else. That I could take care of us both. Even after my suspension, I maintained that I had everything under control. But, deep down, in a part of me I’d locked away and refused to acknowledge existed, I was scared shitless. I was failing her, and I knew it. She knew it too, even if she’d never dare say it.”

  He pushes off the wall and turns away from me. He takes a step away and then spins back around. “And then I met you. And I knew. From the second I saw you through the glass door of the gym, I knew that you were going to be the biggest fight of my life.”

  The blood is roaring in my ears as he speaks, the words tumbling from his lips hitting me square in the chest.

  He closes the distance between us and runs his nose along the side of mine. “I just had no fucking clue that you would be the one to win the fight. Or that I would fucking love being the loser.”

  He kisses along my jaw, his stubble tickling my face. “Rebecca, I love the way you love those boys from summer camp.” He reaches around and pulls the rubber band from my hair, letting my locks tumble down. After running his fingers through my waves, he grabs a handful and anchors my head in place. “I love the way your crazy personality causes me to be spontaneous and forces me out of my comfort zone. I love you for pushing me to fight again because you saw that I wasn’t ready to give it up. Even though I didn’t even see that in myself. But none of that is why I love you most of all.”

  Using the leverage his grip on my hair affords him, he gently tips my head to the side and licks his way up my neck. “I love you more than I even thought possible because you love my gram.”

  For the first time in my life, I find myself speechless.

  Unable to form coherent thoughts, I just nod at him, my eyes filling with tears.

  There was never any doubt in my mind that he loves me.

  I knew it by the way I would catch him gazing at me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention, a small smile always on his face.

  And he showed me how much he cared about me by finding ways to give me things. Even if it meant he went without.

  Over the last few months, he continued bringing me silk flowers, one at a time, until I eventually had to buy a bigger vase to house them all. It started out as a joke, but now, I wouldn’t trade that bouquet of cheap, fake flowers for the biggest diamond in the world.

  He’s come to all of my family gatherings, laughed at all of my dad’s terrible jokes, repeatedly told my mother how beautiful he thought she was, and formed a friendship with my brother that I didn’t think could ever be broken.

  But none of those things hit me the way the words he just spoke did.

  Unable to stop them, I let the tears fall down my face. Ryker kisses each one away, not stopping until the tears do.

  “Thank you,” he whispers.

  I clear my throat. “For what?”

  “For knowing how to take care of me better than I do. For always knowing exactly what I need and not giving in when I give you a hard time. For taking care of my gram today when she needed you.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper back.

  His lips curve up before he repeats my question. “For what?”

  Leaning in, I kiss him lightly and then tell him, “For giving me what I needed. Even though I didn’t know it.”

  His eyebrows wrinkle. “What’s that?”

  I smile at him. “A purpose.”

 
; “Rebecca?” he says, his voice as serious as a heart attack.

  My stomach begins to flutter, and for a split second, I swear he’s about to drop to one knee. The butterflies of excitement turn to panic, and I rack my brain to think of what I’ll say if he does in fact pop the question.

  It’s not that I don’t imagine our future together. It’s just that I’m not sure we need to start planning it now.

  “Yes?” I squeak.

  He doesn’t drop to one knee, thankfully, but he cups my cheek with one hand and tells me, “I’d spend my very last dime, you know.”

  Confused by the riddle he’s speaking, I ask “What?”

  “If you wanted me to, I’d sleep in the rain.”

  “Ryker, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’ll give you everything I got to hold on to your love.”

  Suddenly, he starts humming a tune I recognize.

  I slap him on the arm. “Are those Michael Bolton lyrics?”

  He throws his head back and howls with laughter, clutching at his side.

  “Jesus, Ryker. How much cheesier can you get?” I giggle

  When he finally catches his breath, he says, “Let’s go check on Gram.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ryker

  My suspension is set to end in two days, and Tripp scheduled a meeting with the president of the league to discuss getting a fight booked as soon as possible.

  Rebecca and I took last week off and went to Indianapolis so I could train at one of the best boxing gyms in the country. Former world champion boxer, Slate Andrews trained me himself, and I came back the following week stronger, faster, better. I was right, Indiana was miserable in the winter, so on our down time, Rebecca and I stayed shut away in the swanky hotel suite she booked for us.

  Despite all of the hard work I’ve put in, I am nervous. Brown is the one who orchestrated my fall from grace, whether he actually did the dirty work himself or not. The meeting will be unpleasant, and it would take all of my restraint to sit quietly and let Tripp do the negotiating.