Chapter 19

Worth the Fight Academy had begun small. A place where two best friends, Jack and Slade, would come after school to train. A place where brothers were made and lifelong friendships were forged. Some fighters, like Jack and Enzo, fought for fun; for them, it was a serious hobby. Others, such as Slade and Tony, made it their careers. They lived and breathed the sport. They studied different types of mixed martial arts, perfecting them as if they were trained musicians about to perform the concert of a lifetime. Others, such as Cain, made it an escape. For them it was a place where all past guilt was suppressed through the sweat and blood of hours inside the cage. Working their bodies to the point of numbness. All feelings, except physical exhaustion and pain, forgotten.

Then there were fighters created out of necessity. And those were the true fighters. The ones who had nothing to lose, who had nothing but time and will to give to the sport. That was Travis. He hadn’t chosen the sport; the sport had chosen him. When he was hustling for food for himself and his sister at a young age, he’d sometimes had to resort to violence. When he was angry at a life that he couldn’t change, he’d used his fists to get the aggression out. Even when he was happy, the only way to get the inner turmoil out of his system was by sweating it out inside the cage. Fist to flesh or fist to bag, it made no difference, so long as the adrenaline coursed through his body.

This was the night for Worth the Fight Academy. The culmination of all the months and years of training. HBO was filming the final episode of Fight Night’s first season. Travis wasn’t a second-class fighter tonight. He was the main card of the evening. The audience wanted to see what would happen after all the training and trash talking of the last six months. Would Travis deliver, or would he fail miserably?

He could hear the noise from the main room where the cage was located. This wasn’t the small venues he was used to—or even the bigger arenas in Miami where he fought as the main card. This was Vegas. This was hundreds of thousands of dollars in production. This was celebrities and champagne. Money and fame. This was it. This was what he’d worked so hard for.

Travis paced around the room, the nausea setting in from the nerves. It wasn’t something he’d been expecting; he’d never experienced anything like that before. Something had changed, and it wasn’t just the venue.

“What’s the matter, man?” Slade asked.

“Don’t know.” He continued to pace. He jumped up and down, loosening his muscles. “Just nerves, I guess.”

All the men from the Academy, his teammates, friends, and trainers, came in to wish him luck.

“You don’t look so good,” Tony said.

“He says it’s just nerves,” Slade responded.

Cain put his hands on Travis’s shoulders and squeezed. “Look at me.” Cain had been training him for the last year with the help of Tony and Slade. “You’re ready.”

“You got this, man,” Jack added.

Enzo, his brother-in-law and best friend, came up to him next. “JL is out there rooting for you, brother. We’re so proud of you.”

“Lose or win, it doesn’t fucking matter. We wouldn’t want anyone but you to represent the Academy,” Tony said.

They all patted his shoulder and slapped his back before leaving. He was sitting alone in the room, trying to calm his mind, when there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he yelled over his shoulder.

“Had to sneak in and wish you luck.”

He turned around to see Penny walk in. He stood up and pulled her to him, and she instinctively opened her arms and wrapped him tight. It was their thing. It was love without words. It spoke of support, empathy, protection, and possession.

“Did I ever tell you I lived in the Academy? For about a year when I was about twenty. I had nothing. No money. No parents. Nothing. Francesca’s dad threw a mattress in a corner and let me live there. He even stocked up an old refrigerator every week with food.”

“No, I never knew that. That was nice of him.”

“Yeah, it was. I didn’t have anything else to do. I didn’t have any big dreams. Any big life plan. I had a gym and a mattress. So I started training all the time. At night when I couldn’t sleep because I was angry at the world, I hit the speedbags for hours. I kicked the bags when I was bored. I just trained all the time. Eventually I got good, and at some point it became my life. I trained all the fucking time. Because it’s my job. A job that I had to be the best at. Tonight I realized something had changed, though, and until you walked into the room I didn’t know what it was.”

She looked up at him, a question in her eyes.

“I trained like I had nothing to lose,” he went on. “I lived my life like I had nothing to lose. But then I met you and Belle. You two somehow clawed your way into my little inconsequential life. I don’t even think I was living before I met you. I was just existing. No real emotions; nothing. Now that you’re here…” He placed his fist over the spot on his chest where his heart beat, his eyes welling up. “My life has purpose. It has meaning, and this isn’t all there is for me. I am a fighter. I will always be a fighter. That’s my job; it’s who I am. But now I’m also a man who has love. You and my little Belle, I love you both so much. God, Penny, have I told you I loved you? Because I do. More than anything, I do. You’re my best friend, the person I want to tell that I’m fucking scared shitless right now. You’re that person to me. And I want to marry you and adopt Belle. I want to always protect her and be there for her. And I don’t want her to have one single moment of doubt in her life that she is wanted and that she is loved.”

Penny was sobbing by the time he finished. “That’s a lot of realizations to make before going out there, cowboy.”

He wiped his own eyes. “I know.”

“I love you, cowboy. You’re going to go out there and show the world what a warrior you are, and you’re going to do it for yourself because you deserve to win. You’ve put all the hours and hard work into it. And that’s just what is going to happen.”

He smiled. “I wish I was that confident.”

“I’m confident enough for the both of us.” She smiled and pressed her cheek against his chest. “And then when you finish doing that, we’ll celebrate by finding the first chapel that has an Elvis impersonator to marry us.”

He smiled and kissed her hard.

A cough interrupted them. Slade stuck his head inside. “Twenty minutes.”

“Gotcha, boss,” Travis acknowledged, his voice thick with emotion.

“And no fucking before a match!” Slade added, his voice full of amusement, as he closed the door.

“Good luck. Belle sent you this, but I’ll hold on to it.” She pulled Bubba out of her purse and showed it to him. “She says it makes you brave. Well, she said ‘no scared,’ but you get the gist.”

Travis had a lump in his throat, but he did feel brave. Hell, he felt invincible.

“You make us brave, Travis. You’re my Bubba. Go out there, and whatever happens, know that at home, where it matters, everything is finally perfect.” She kissed him softly on the lips and walked out of the locker room.

Travis walked out to the cage feeling ten feet tall. If he was asked what song he came out to, he couldn’t say. His mind was absorbed with what he was about to do. He tuned out the twelve thousand screaming fans that filled out the sold-out arena, the lights, and the cameras. Instead he focused on Tony and Slade’s words. He was faster than Lemmon, and even though he had less experience, there was no way in hell that anyone had trained harder than he had. He had been born for this fight.

Lemmon was known to be reserved and focused. He eyed Travis while the referee spoke, and then the cage was locked. Even through all the noise around the arena, the ominous click of the cage being closed was all Travis heard before he had to sidestep a jab to his face. He was on his toes, swinging left and right, avoiding hit after hit. Lemmon was bigger than he was, and his plan was to avoid being hit, tire the man out so that he could finish him off on the last round.

By the end of the first round everything was going as planned. Travis looked like he was dancing with Lemmon, quick on his toes, swinging his hips and neck, and there hadn’t been a single point of contact between Lemmon and Travis. By the third round, Lemmon was noticeably tired, and Travis had yet to throw any combos or attempt any takedowns. The crowd was on edge; some were cheering, and some were booing because they’d paid for action and wanted to see action.

Travis knew he should stick with the plan they’d devised, but Lemmon was moving slower and the crowd was cheering louder, so Travis threw a combination, landing a punch to Lemmon’s side.

The crowd roared.

Feeling more confident, he threw another combination, landing another punch. Then, because Lemmon seemed tired and slow, Travis dropped his guard in order to throw a kick, but Lemmon used the opening to throw a cross right to Travis’s face, which he felt immediately across his jaw and nose. The hit almost sent him down, but just then the bell signaled the end of the round—and it was a good thing too, because he barely made it to his corner.

The medic checked his eye, jaw, and nose. Someone in his corner pressed an enswell against his face. The cold steel instrument stung on contact as someone poured water into his mouth. He saw the blood dripping from his nose to the floor.

“You got two girls waiting on you. Don’t get fucking cocky. You hear me?” Tony had both arms on his shoulders, trying to get Travis’s unfocused eyes to focus on his. “You listening?”

Travis nodded.

“You got this! This belt’s yours. You smell the sand and ocean?” Slade yelled, reminding him of his dream to go relax on the beach. “You’re already there, man. Hear me?”

Travis nodded again as they patted petroleum jelly on his cuts and took the cotton balls out of his nose, which had stopped bleeding.

“Two more rounds, man,” Slade said. “Don’t throw a goddamn punch unless you hear me say so. You keep your guard. Tire out the sonofabitch.”

“Be that ninja we never see coming,” Tony added. “Quiet and fast. That’s you.” He squeezed Travis’s shoulder.

Travis stood and did just what Slade and Tony said. He avoided being hit. He moved out of the way, he ducked, he pivoted. He was behind Lemmon when his opponent tried to land a hit. When the five minutes were over, Travis was worn out. He opened his mouth and pushed the guard out of his mouth. One more round.

“Good!” Tony exclaimed. “Fucking fantastic.”

“That’s it, brother. We’re there. You’re at the beach. You won. Last round. You see it right, victory is yours. Focus on my voice, and when I say swing, you swing,” Slade said.

“You got this!” Tony assured him.

“We’re proud of you. Now get up and finish this shit.”

Travis got up; it felt like he had boulders holding down his legs, but he pulled the energy from deep inside. His target stood in front of him, looking as tired as he did. They both circled each other as the seconds ticked by. Lemmon measured his distance a few times but didn’t throw a punch. They were down to the final minute of the biggest fight of his life. It was being recorded both for pay per view and for Fight Night, which had already sent over the contract for another season at twice the money. He’d get paid no matter if he won or lost this fight, but winning would give him a huge bonus. He wanted Belle never to want for anything. Never would his daughter feel the need to hustle for a single thing in her life.

Lemmon threw a kick that grazed Travis’s hip, sending pain shooting down his leg. He heard Slade’s voice, from his corner: “Right hook. He’s open!”

Travis threw the punch, which landed hard against Lemmon’s ribs, causing him to crumple. Travis pressed his knee on Lemmon’s belly and landed five punches on his face before the referee jumped in between the two fighters and stopped the match as the crowd rose, cheering.

Travis won by TKO. The famous announcer who had also commented during some of the episodes of Fight Night was at the center of the ring, holding Travis’s arm up. “The new heavyweight champion…Travis ‘Texas’ Calhoun!” he announced as someone else put the gold world champion’s belt around him.

His corner rushed to his side, microphones were held up to him, and questions were thrown his way. Slade and Tony tackled him in hugs, lifting him up with the new belt around him. The new Worth the Fight Academy prize-winning fighter. All his hard work had paid off.

Before the fight, Travis had decided it was best not to let Belle watch, since she didn’t like to see Travis hurt. But he also didn’t want her too far, so JL and Enzo had agreed to watch her during the fight in one of the team’s suites in the hotel. So he was surprised when Penny and Belle came into the ring as they finished mopping up the floors around him. Ignoring whatever technical question he was being asked by the commentator, he turned and opened his arms to his girls.

“My Twavis won!” Belle yelled.

“My man is the new owner of this belt!” Penny yelled. “I’m so proud of you!”

With a belt around his waist, Penny in one arm, and Belle in the other, life was perfect. And for the first time in his life, he couldn’t wait for the future.

“I love you, momma!”

“I love you, cowboy!” she said, kissing him in front of all the damn reporters in the entire arena.