Joe

I opened my eyes, a groan escaping my still sore and tired body. I was not recovering from these fights the way I once did. My body was either getting sick of it or I was just getting on in years. I laughed at the thought of twenty-five years old being considered over the hill. But in the game of kickboxing if you weren’t a pro by now making a lot of money only fighting a few times a year, then the likelihood of you ever hitting the big time was practically nil.

But I wasn’t giving up yet. I’ve always been stubborn and hardheaded.

The guy I fought last night found that out the hard way. After catching me with some surprising combinations of his hardest punches and kicks which landed pretty cleanly, he was literally shocked that I shrugged them off and closed in on him. The look in his beady eyes was classic.

Of course, I was feeling the after effects of it now.

I shut off the alarm on my phone which had started beeping literally a minute after I’d opened my eyes. My body was pretty attuned to my schedule through years of training and dedication.

It was time to roll.

The morning sun was just starting to eclipse the mountains in the distance, shining an orange hue over the landscape of the beautiful Arizona desert, which I loved. I’d grown up back east in Pennsylvania. By the time I was eight my family had grown quite tired of the cold and decided to make our way out west when my dad got a new job. It wasn’t long after this that I started training in martial arts. Being the new kid I was getting bullied and ganged up on. I was never one to run or back down from a fight, but being outnumbered was becoming an issue. So I started karate and things had snowballed from there.

“I’ll get that brass ring one day,” I said grabbing my container of whey protein and my blender. I plopped them both on the counter. “Or I’ll die trying.”

I laughed to myself as I began preparing my morning protein shake. Most people loved coffee to start their day, but I preferred to get a kick start of protein with a little bit of fruit mixed in, topped off by some almond milk.

Standing in my kitchen drinking my large protein shake, I thought about the day ahead of me. It was a great way to begin things, to focus on what I had to achieve and what my priorities were that morning.

Sipping my shake I noticed that I had a few voicemails on my phone. I hadn’t really checked my phone for anything since maybe yesterday afternoon. I was too busy on other things, getting prepared for the fight. The victory still felt good. It was surprising I’d slept at all after such a buzz.

“Hey, Joe…” the sweet voice came on my phone speaker filling my empty kitchen with a bit of warmth.

I was not sure who it was right away.

“It’s Lisa,” the voice said. “I had a lot of fun last week and I was hoping we could get together again. Oh, and good luck on your fight!”

The message ended.

“Thanks, Lisa,” I said with a smile.

Lisa was a girl I’d gone home with from Slapshots bar, one of my favorite hangouts. It usually had great live music and excellent drink prices.

I remembered Lisa very well. She was beautiful, but had a cute and innocent thing about her that was so hot. Of course I found out later in bed that innocent was the very last term to describe her. She rocked my world to say the least, and I believe I returned the favor.

Twice.

She was fun and sweet, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to get together again. Not because I love to have some more erotic adventures with this amazing sex kitten, but because I was tired of the game. I was tired of meeting and sleeping with beautiful women whom I didn’t have any real connection with.

It was laughable to think that I’d reached that point in my life, but at twenty-five with the unlikelihood of reaching fame and fortune as a pro fighter I was getting realistic about my situation.  I was going to keep reaching for my dreams, but I was allowing room for other dreams to creep in as well.

Like owning my own gym, which I had accomplished. And like meeting a fantastic woman that I could grow with and develop something real. There was something very lonely about meaningless sex with no emotional connection behind it. After it was over, what did you really have left with the other person? Small talk, maybe? A few laughs if you were lucky, but really you mainly only had sex.

I really wanted something more.

I finished my protein shake and realized the time. Running into my bedroom I grabbed my clothes from the closet, a form fitting T-shirt, and a pair of athletic shorts, and then I headed out the door.

The warm sun on my face was already heating the Phoenix air to over ninety degrees and it was barely six in the morning. A lot of people complained constantly about the heat, but I loved it. I always had.

Breaking into a jog, I headed towards my gym, which was called “Joe's”. Clever, right?

I always enjoyed my morning jogs. It was the perfect cardio and it saved gas and wear on my SUV. Plus by the time I got to the gym I was warmed up to start doing some lifting.

I rarely spoke to anybody while I was in jog mode, happy to just phase out the noise of the city and enter my own zone. It had been that way since I was fifteen and had taken up martial arts. I excelled at it right away and I knew that first day it was my passion, my calling, and I was determined to make it my life.

Which in a roundabout way it still was. Even if I never hit the big time, I had a fantastic gym which was doing great business. I loved teaching classes and training other fighters, showing them all I’d learned throughout my experiences inside the ring, and I still fought every two to three months.

Added to this my YouTube channel that was growing steadily. I was actually starting to make some decent ad revenue from it.

So, all in all I was pretty happy.

I arrived every morning to the gym about two hours before I officially opened for business. This gave me time to finish my own workout and to shower up and to deal with some of the clerical parts of my business before I started my first class at eight.

It was a routine that had worked wonders for me the past few years and I was very rigid in sticking to it.

That’s the way it had to be. But I’d made a decision to allow some room in my life for some romance.

I just knew that whoever I ended up meeting would have to understand that I was still a very driven guy.

It might be hard to deal with, but there was no other way about it.

“Hey, great fight Joey Boy!”

My head darted to the left at the boisterous voice shouting towards me. I think I knew who it was just by the sound of this standard greeting, but somehow it still shocked me every day.

“Ronnie,” I said. “How’s it going, today?”

“Oh, I could complain but I don’t want to bring other people down with my problems,” Ronnie replied with a laugh.

Ronnie Breyer was my best friend. We’d grown up together since becoming fast friends on the first day of third grade. And we were both amateur fighters shooting for the brass ring. Ronnie was good, some might say as good as me. But after sparring with each other for years we’d both come to the conclusion that if we ever had a real fight it would most likely end in a simultaneous knockout with no winner.

It was a friend thing.

“Just finishing up the last class of the morning,” I said. “Are you ready?”

“Sure, I just hope we can get some more enthusiasm out of these kids today. I know it’s summer and most of these kids would rather be elsewhere, but this is supposed to be kind of fun.”

“Maybe it’s only fun for us,” I joked.

I’d hired Ronnie to teach a few afternoon classes, mostly because I didn’t want to teach the younger kids. I have nothing against kids and definitely see myself having kids of my own one day, but a lot of these kids had no interest in martial arts and were only there because their parents either wanted to live vicariously through them or just wanted to get rid of them for an hour a day. Either way, it was annoying to deal with. Plus teaching six classes a day was just too heavy a load for me when I had to run the actual business.

So Ronnie was more than happy to do it and get the extra cash.

“Hey, what are you doing tonight for dinner?” Ronnie asked.

“Um, I don’t know. Probably nothing, why?”

“Well, you should come over to my place tonight. I’ll make my special enchiladas you love to rave about,” Ronnie said with a flash in his eyes.

“You mean the ones that are more hot sauce than enchilada?” I asked.

“Those are the ones!”

“Ok, I’ll bring some beer,” I said.

“Kicking the diet to the curb already?”

“Hey, I fought last night. I’m not in training anytime soon, so I’ll live a little right now.” The diets I often had to undergo to meet weight for the fights could sometimes be brutal.

“Sweet,” Ronnie said. “Oh, did I tell you that my sister, Gina is back in town?”

“Really? No, you didn’t tell me,” I said.

Gina. Wow, I hadn’t thought about her or seen her in almost five years. She’d been just fifteen then. I laughed to myself thinking about it. She was a skinny little girl with braces, acne, and thick glasses. But she was always a sweetheart.

I hoped she’d outgrown the major crush she used to have on me.

“Yeah, she decided to move back here for a bit and transferred to school here.”

“Things weren’t working out in Indianapolis?” I asked.

Gina had moved with their mother back east when Ronnie and Gina’s parents divorced. Ronnie flew out there to see her sometimes, but she decided to distance herself from their father for a while. He’d cheated on their mother, Alice. Gina had never forgiven him. I couldn’t blame her.

“I guess not,” Ronnie said. “I mean she was doing well in school and she enjoyed it, but apparently there was some loser guy she was dating for a while who had become a total nutcase and she just wanted to get as far away from him as possible.”

“Wait, what do you mean a nutcase? Was he abusive?” I asked growing concerned.

“She swears no,” Ronnie said. “Man, I tell you if I ever find out differently I’ll put that guy’s head through a plate glass window.”

Ronnie would, too. He had a bit of a bad temper and he was super protective of his little sister.

“I’d like to see that,” I joked.

Ronnie smiled. “Man, I tell you that you probably won’t even recognize Gina.”

“Really? Why?”

“Oh, she has grown up. She is not the skinny, awkward little kid she used to be. It’s kind of weird being around her because I constantly notice every single guy everywhere just checking her out and I have to fight the impulse to bash their brains in.”

I was now intrigued. Someone could grow up a lot in five years.

“I’d pay to see that,” I said with a chuckle.  “And I’m definitely excited about dinner tonight, now.”

I immediately regretted adding the last thing, because I knew that Ronnie would take it wrong.

A flash of anger lit up in Ronnie’s eyes.

“Hey,” he said. “That goes for you, too. I don’t want any of Player Joe to put designs on my sister. She’s been through enough and she doesn’t need another guy breaking her heart.”

“What the hell would make you think that? You are assuming way too much here. You got to give me a little credit. Besides I was only joking.”

Ronnie nodded.

“I hope so, for your sake,” he warned. “I’m serious. Gina is a sweet, sensitive girl and she doesn’t need another player in her life.”

“I’m not a player,” I said.

“Since when? An hour ago?” Ronnie asked.

“It’s funny you should mention it, because I was just thinking this morning to myself that I’m really tired of the sleeping around thing.”

“What? You are tired of sleeping with hot women constantly? You have a gift where hot women constantly want you and you are tired of it?” Ronnie asked.

I rolled my eyes. I know that I’ve always been attractive. I am six foot two, with dark hair, intense eyes, cut features, and since I’m so active and spend such a large amount of time in the gym I happen to have an impressive physique. And I’ve got the tough fighter image going on.

But I still get embarrassed when people tell me I’m good looking. I don’t know why.

“It does get tiring,” I said. “Well, for some of us…”

Ronnie laughed. “Hey, I have nothing on you. I do pretty well, but I’m nowhere in Joe Simpson league. I got a bit to climb on that totem pole.”

“Whatever,” I said. “So, what time is dinner?”

“You can come when you want but we are thinking about six, if that is cool.”

“Hey, I’m always hungry, so anytime is cool.”

He slapped me a high five and jogged into the other room to prepare for his first class.

I stayed to finish up some more of the budget work and then went home for the day to work on my YouTube channel and manage some of the social media pages I operated. If time permitted before going to Ronnie’s I would make a quick vlog for the YouTube channel and I might even get a bit of editing done on it.

I arrived home about two o’clock, threw together a quick salad, and then sat down in my home office to work.

But in the back of my mind as I updated my social media and interacted with followers, was Gina. I meant it when I told Ronnie how intrigued I was now, even if I had played it off as a half joke. It was hilarious the way he freaked out, but also a bit weird because I was sure he was serious.

I wondered exactly how much she had grown up.

And now I was hoping she did still have that crush on me.