Three days left. Just three days until the fight.
I’m eating brown rice, broccoli and chicken breasts, followed by an electrolyte and mineral cocktail I made up myself.
The worst thing that can happen to a fighter in the cage is to get a cramp. You’ve got to prepare your body for many days before the fight. You’ve got to get everything just perfect. Hydration is key, and good food is, too.
You’d never guess it, because, fuck, calories are calories, right? But there’s a world of difference in the way you feel consuming one-thousand calories of junk versus one-thousand calories of good food. I eat four one-thousand calorie meals per day. It’s actually really hard work.
When I was younger, I paid diet no mind. Now, with the big three-zero coming up faster than I’d like, I live by it.
There’s a knock on the door. I haven’t showered yet – I stink of sweat from working out – but it’s probably just one of Fallon’s goons come around the house again, maybe to give me the details for the fight location.
After I specifically told them not to. My blood boils. I walk angrily to the door, fling it open, ready to grab Baldilocks or whoever the fuck by the collar, hoist him up against the wall, and pummel him.
But it’s not him. It’s Penelope.
“Pen,” I say, unclenching my fist. Her eyes roam up and down my body. I’m wearing nothing but compression shorts. When I notice her eyes linger on the bulge in my crotch, I smirk at her. “I knew you’d be back.”
“Oh Christ,” she says, turning around.
“Wait, wait,” I tell her. I take her hand, turn her back toward me. “I’m sorry. It’s… I don’t know.”
“Just the way you are?”
“A lifetime of bad habits,” I concede. “Come in.”
I guide her into my apartment, roll a weighted medicine ball out of her way. “Anything to drink?”
“You got something alcoholic?” she asks. I peer at her, and she shrugs. “Hey, I didn’t want to come here.”
“Anything in mind?”
“Vodka orange?”
“Sure. I won’t be joining you. I can’t drink at the moment.”
“It’s fine,” she says, flopping into my sofa. I watch her while I make her drink. She looks stressed out. She also looks sexy as fuck. She’s just dressed casually, black jeans, flats, and a white blouse, and she looks fucking fantastic in it.
She fiddles with her hair, coils a lock around a finger. I hand her the drink.
“Pierce,” she says. “I talked with my dad this morning.”
“Oh?”
“He says that your mother and him are really serious about having the wedding down here.”
I nod. “Is that right?”
“He says it’s because both of us have no extended family to speak of. So you and I are their only family, and they want to get married with family.”
“Cool,” I say. “When?”
“It’s not cool.”
I sit down, and resume eating my dinner. “Just say what you want to say.”
She looks frustrated, fiddles with the edge of her blouse. “We need to decide what to… do.”
“About what?”
“About what happened between us.”
“You mean since we fucked?”
Penny lets out a long, drawn-out sigh. “Yes.”
I get up from the sofa I’m on, and walk toward the one she’s on. I wrap her up. She resists at first, but then quits.
“Pen, how about we just tell each other what we want, okay?”
“Okay. You go first.”
“I want you. I want to be with you, I want to fuck you, I want to smell you. I want to see you smile. What do you want?”
She hesitates. “I don’t know what I want.”
“Way to play fair, Pen.”
“It’s not as simple as all that.”
“Then let me ask you something? Have you stopped thinking about me ever since you stopped talking to me?”
She doesn’t reply, but she knows that her silence is an admission.
“And you think that our parents getting married means we can’t be together?”
“Of course that’s what it means.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s wrong.”
“How?”
“It’s just weird, okay.”
“So you have a hang-up.”
“I do.”
“Sounds like it’s your problem to get over, then.”
“Oh, fuck you, Pierce.”
“What?” I say. “I know what I want. You know what you want. I’m going to take what I want.”
“Not without my consent, you won’t.”
“Then you’re not taking what you want.”
“You know what else I want?” she asks, getting heated. “I want you to not do this fight for the mob.”
I lick my lips. “Well, now that is not that simple.”
“Why? Why can’t you just say no? Is it the money?”
“No, it’s not the money. They… didn’t give me a choice.”
“How?”
“They just didn’t.”
“Did they threaten you?”
I think about telling her the truth, that they threatened her. Her family, too… my family, too. But I don’t want to scare her. I know that it’s selfish, I know I’m only appeasing my own guilt, but I can’t help it.
“Yes.”
“See!” she belts out, slapping my arm. “I fucking told you not to get mixed up with them.”
“It was already too late when they rang my doorbell.”
“So you have to fight?”
“Yes.”
“Because two mob bosses have their favorite pit bulls and want to see who wins?”
“It’s a dick-measuring contest, yes.”
“And you’re going to do it.”
I nod. “Yes.”
“What happens after?”
“Well, I’ve made my terms clear to them,” I say. “Only this one time. After that, I might just retire.”
“From fighting?”
“Yes.”
“Really?” she asks accusingly. “I don’t believe you.”
“Don’t believe me, then.”
There’s a slight pause, and then, to my surprise, she asks me, “Can you remember your first fight?”
I laugh. “Oh yeah, perfectly like it was yesterday.”
“Tell me about it.”
I shrug, hold Penny a little tighter against me. I can smell the vodka orange on her breath, and all it makes me want to do is lean in and kiss her. She holds her lips apart just slightly, and I can see the tops of her teeth.
“Jesus Christ, pen, you’re turning me on.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“I can’t explain it.”
“Don’t dodge my question,” she says. “Tell me about your first fight.”
“Why?”
“It’s important to me.”
“I don’t see how.”
“Pierce, if I can’t understand you, then I can’t be with you. Would you just tell me?”
I sigh. “Fine. But I wasn’t as good as I am now.”
Penny laughs. “I really don’t care.”