Chapter Two
Anna
It was Saturday night, and instead of spending it alone watching Netflix, I was sitting in a noisy arena. It was my first time at a fight. My client, Justin, had invited me to watch his him. I could have said no, but I had to admit I was pretty curious to see what went on at these things.
I had made sure to get close to the cage, but not close enough that sweat and blood could get on me. I thought I’d save those seats for the hardcore fans. I didn’t like fighting. And watching Justin fight was intense. I was nervous during every second. I didn’t know how badly he could get hurt. Or even how badly he could hurt the other guy. I didn’t understand why people wanted to do this as a career or why they got off on it. I always thought it was a male thing, but then I found out females did it, too.
I didn’t want to go alone, so I had my sister, Ally, come with me. But once the fight started, I was beginning to question why I had even invited her. She didn’t hold back on her opinions. Ever.
I cheered for Justin and watched as he got into the cage. He was scanning the crowd as he put in his mouth guard. When he spotted me, he smiled around his mouth piece. It looked odd, but my stomach fluttered. He was genuinely happy to see me there. I smiled back, and Ally leaned into me.
“I can see why you wanted to come. He is fucking hot,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. Her comments didn’t get much better from there.
The fight began, and I dug my nails into my palms. I never imagined I would be so nervous, but as I watched Justin and his opponent dance around each other, my stomach was in knots. The first time Justin was hit, I cringed.
“Quit being such a baby,” Ally said.
“I’m not. I just don’t like fights,” I said, defensively.
“Why did you come then?” Ally asked.
I didn’t know how to answer that. I wasn’t really sure myself. So, I shrugged and said, “For fun?” I said it as a question, which was dumb because I knew Ally would sniff something out. She was good at that, and it drove me nuts.
“You have a crush on him,” Ally said as we watched Justin hit his opponent. I cringed for the other guy. It looked like it hurt.
“No, I don’t,” I said. I wanted to avoid this conversation with her. Justin was one of my clients, after all. It would have been completely inappropriate for me to have feelings for him.
“Then why are we here?” she asked, her arms folded across her chest.
“Justin invited me. Don’t make me regret extending the invitation,” I said with a half laugh. It was partially true. She was starting to get on my nerves. I just wanted to enjoy my night and not have to think about anything complicated… Like the fact that one of my clients was insanely hot and every time I massaged him, I got turned on.
“Don’t you remember that one guy? Flynn, I think his name was. He was like in his sixties and bald. He invited you to the ballet. How come you didn’t go to that one?”
Now I was really beginning to regret inviting her. “That’s different. I hate the ballet,” I said, trying to make it seem like it had nothing to do with the fact that he was an ugly, creepy old man. I was glad he never came back after I declined his invitation.
“You hate fights,” Ally said, repeating my words back to me.
Damn her for making me realize things that I really did not want to think about. I already knew I was attracted to Justin. He was hot. And his blue eyes were killer. His muscles left me drooling after every session. But that didn’t really mean anything. It was just physical. Purely based on a hormonal attraction. I was sure half the women in the audience that night were attracted to him too.
We stopped talking as we watched Justin hit his opponent in the chin and then in the cheek. The guy fell over and hit the mat with a loud thud. The ref ran over to him and counted to three. The guy didn’t get up, and I was wondering if that meant Justin won when the referee yelled: “KO’d!”
Then, the crowd went absolutely nuts. I had not been expecting people to freak out as much as they were, but it was obvious from their reactions that Justin had won. I stood up and screamed for him. I wasn’t sure what came over me. Maybe it was the energy from everyone around me or peer pressure to do the same as everyone else. I figured it was a mix of the two. And maybe partially because I found him attractive.
“So, do you want to stick around?” Ally yelled in my ear, but I could barely hear her over the shouting crowd.
Instead of trying to yell back, I nodded my head and mouthed, “Probably.” I didn’t see a point in trying to yell over the thousands of screaming fans. Ally would never hear me anyway.
The noise started to die down as people began to leave. I sat back down in my seat. I figured it would probably be easier for him to find me if I stayed here. I hoped he wouldn’t mind.
“Are you going to tell him?” Ally asked.
I looked at her, “Tell him what? How annoying my sister is?”
“Ha. Ha. You know what I mean. That you have a thing for him,” she said.
I elbowed her. “Stop. Please.” I would have hated for him to hear her say that. I’d probably have to close my practice and leave town out of embarrassment.
Fifteen minutes later, almost everyone was gone. The arena was close to empty when I heard someone whistle and yell, “There he is! Justin, the man!”
I looked over to where he had disappeared after the fight and watched as he walked out of the hallway. I noticed he changed out of the shorts he had been wearing and into a t-shirt and jeans. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. He looked so good. I preferred him with his shirt off, but I didn’t mind this either.
He paused to talk to the guy who whistled at him, and he signed the guy's ticket stub. He already had quite the fan base, and it was really cool to see. I liked that he stopped to acknowledge his fans, but I noticed my heart started to beat faster as he made his way through the rest of the people and over to me.
“Hey, I was hoping you would stick around,” he said with a smile.
My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. It was pounding so hard. I quickly realized I had been staring. I cleared my throat and stood up.
“I figured it would be rude if I just left without at least saying congratulations. So, congratulations!” I said. I hated how nervous I sounded. My voice was shaking, and I hoped he didn’t notice.
“Thanks. Did you have fun?” he asked.
I crinkled my nose. “To be honest, I was a little scared the whole time.” I felt silly for admitting this. Especially after the way Ally teased me for it.
Justin laughed, and I felt a little better. “Oh really? Why’s that?” There was a playfulness in his voice. I thought he might be flirting, but I didn’t want to read too much into it.
I shrugged and said, “I didn’t know how it was going to turn out.”
I turned to Ally, who was patiently waiting for me to introduce her and felt a little rude for not doing it sooner.
“Oh! Justin, this is my sister, Ally,” I said, pointing to her. “Ally, this is Justin.”
“Nice fight. Congrats on your win,” Ally said as she held her hand out to him. I kept my fingers crossed that she wasn’t going to say anything to him about her suspicions.
Justin shook her hand and said, “Thanks. Nice to meet you, Ally.”
“You too,” she said. “Sorry about my sister’s nerves. She was sheltered as a child.”
I elbowed Ally in the ribs. I didn’t know why she felt compelled to embarrass me every chance she got. That should have been my job since I was her older sister.
Justin winked at me, and I had to fight the urge to bite my lip. It was hot. A wink, a wink was hot. It was weird that I thought that, but it was true. Almost anything Justin did was hot to me. I wished I could control my libido around him.
“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” he said.
“It was fun,” I said, trying my best to be somewhat normal. “I hope I can come to another one some time.”
“That would be great,” he said, pausing like he was about to say something he might regret. When he spoke again, though, all he said was, “I’m sorry I can’t stay and chat longer, but I have to head home.”
“That’s okay. We need to get home too. Have a good night,” I said.
“You too,” he said. For a moment, I thought he might hug me. Then, he turned his attention to Ally. “It was nice to meet you.”
“You too,” she said. I was relieved when she didn’t add anything else.
“Drive safe,” I said as he started to walk away.
“You too. I’ll see you Monday at my appointment?”
I smiled. “Do you need to change it to tomorrow?” I wondered if he was going to need it, since I was sure he would be sore tomorrow.
“I like to spend Sundays with my daughter. Thank you though.” He smiled, and I had to hold back the question ready to escape my lips.
After he left, Ally elbowed me in the side. “You have it bad. You know that?”
“Let’s go. Traffic is going to be awful,” I said, ignoring her comment completely.
I made my way through the building and out to the parking lot with Ally in tow. She was ogling all the fighters who were making their way toward their cars. I just wanted to get out of there. It was getting late, and I was the one who had to drive. When we finally made it to the car and got inside, I looked at Ally and rolled my eyes.
“What?” she asked innocently.
“You’ve got some drool on your chin,” I teased.
She laughed, and we drove to my house. She was going to stay the night with me so I wouldn’t have to drive her all the way home, thank goodness. She lived on the other side of town, and it would have been a bigger pain in the ass to try to fight my way to her house and then back to mine.
“Thanks for taking me with you, sis. I think we had some quality sister bonding time,” she said as I pulled into my driveway thirty minutes later. The car ride had been mostly just listening to music and her talking about how hot all the fighters were.
“You’re welcome, even though you were a pain in my ass. I really thought you were going to say something to him.” I put the car in park and turned the ignition off.
“What would I tell him?” she asked, pretending like she had no idea what I was referring to you.
“You really are a pain in my ass, you know that?” I got out of the car, and she followed me.
“Yeah. But you love me.”
“Only because I have to.”
I got her set up in the spare bedroom and turned in for the night. I just wanted to go lay in bed and not have to deal with her asking me questions about how I felt about Justin. She was a good person and had been there for me through a lot of bullshit, but she was also really good at pushing my buttons.
We looked similar, but we were total opposites. She was confident and loud and knew what she wanted from life. She was a free spirit. I tried to be like her so many times before, but it was hard. Even though I was confident most of the time and I mostly knew what I wanted out of life (especially career wise), I didn’t know how to be free-spirited. I didn’t know how to just let go and shout my feelings out for the whole world to hear. Maybe that just came with the territory of being a business owner.
I fell asleep that night thinking about Justin’s fight. I thought about the way his chest looked with sweat glistening on his skin. I remembered the way he smiled at me when he first walked into the cage. My stomach fluttered just like it did at the arena. As I fell asleep, my thoughts drifted into dreams.