Chapter 45

Cooper

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My training to hyper-focus on the task at hand, completely disregarding everything else going on around me, helps me make it through the week. When I’m in the gym, in the cage, or pounding the streets on training runs, my mind is completely turned off to anything else. It’s just me and the street, or me and the bag, or me and the weights I’m smashing.

Exhausting my body helps me fall asleep at night, but it doesn’t change the fact that every waking moment outside of training, I can’t stop thinking about her. She blew in and out of my life like an F-5 tornado, turning my life on its head and completely wrecking the no-emotions, no-attachments, no-problems system that I had going. And I had it going well, it was really working for me. I had girls to blow off steam with work, was crushing it in the gym, had more money than I needed saved away and was continuing to pull it in at rates that would have been unimaginable to the childhood trailer park kid version of me.

Sure, I didn’t spend much of it. Heck, I’m in this mess because I lived so frugally that I decided to go for a roommate in my simple apartment, just so the second bedroom wouldn’t stay empty. And sure, I didn’t get anything but a quick, cheap release from the desperate groupies who fought each other to get to be the one in my bed for the night. But I was making it to the top and I was fine with my life. I was showing them. I was showing everyone who thought I was white trash because my mom got herself knocked up before she could get her GED and never managed to make it out of Hooters-type jobs.

Now, post-Branna, I’m still killing it professionally. I lost some major sponsorships and my seed in the tournament, having to fight from the bottom up, but I’m doing well in trainings, hyper-focusing, and will be back up before Vlad has time to stop grumbling about ‘those fucking flaky girls.’

Still, I’m not content the way I was before. Getting random sex from girls I pick up at a bar doesn’t appeal to me after what I had with Branna. Emotionless, meaningless sex with yet another shallow wannabe-girlfriend who thinks she’ll win me with an inch of makeup and a perky rack.

I’m killing it on Friday, slamming into the bag like it fucked my mother, when Vlad stops me.

“Look, man,” Vlad stops, sighing and shaking his head. “I don’t know what you want me to do, but something has to be done. You’re just not right.”

“I’ve been training just fine,” I snarl, grabbing the bag from him.

“You’ve been training just fine,” he admits, stepping aside as I start swinging at the bag again. “But man, you’re not you. For a month, you were walking around like every day was some kind of gift and nothing could go wrong, but now you’re moping and sulking and it’s impossible to get you to smile or even just wipe that grimace off of your mug. Man, this isn’t like you.”

“There’s nothing for you to do,” I say, without looking at him. I just keep swinging.

“Then what can YOU do.” Vlad says it as a statement, not a question. He stops the bag and I stop swinging. I may have adrenaline flowing through my blood by the bucketful, but I’m not about to swing at the one guy who I can always depend on, the one guy who always has my back.

“Get out of here, get your mind right, and I’ll see you tomorrow.” Vlad claps me on the back and gives me an easygoing smile, but there’s worry in his eyes. He’s worried I’m going to do something stupid, I can tell.

And with the state that I’m in right now, maybe I will.

“I’ll handle it,” I say. “I’ll see you later, man.”

After a quick shower, I go to the place where I always went when I needed to reset my mind and blow off my steam. It’s been over a month since I’ve been to the bar, since I had Branna and she was all the woman I needed or could even want, so I don’t know whether my usual Friday girl will be there. But I’m not concerned, if she’s not Branna, then a girl is just a girl and it doesn’t matter which one it is. I’ve never had trouble finding a willing lay and I know I can have whoever I want in the bar.

As I walk through the door, though, I immediately see my Friday girl. She’s sitting by herself in the middle of the bar, all dolled up like usual. God, she looks as cheap as a dirty penny after Branna. Her hair is a brassy, fake blond, her makeup is caked on way too thick, and you see all that you’re getting. She’s like any other chick.

I half feel like turning around right then and just getting a pie from Bennie’s and heading home, but I need to do this. If I can just fuck a chick and get back into my schedule, maybe I’ll be that much closer to being over Branna.

“Hi,” I say, sitting down on the barstool next to her.

She looks up from her bright green cosmo and looks beyond pleased when she sees me standing there.

“Well, hello, there,” she purrs, leaning forward so that she’s pretty much spilling out of her dress. “I’ve missed you.”

Her breasts look harder than Branna’s—they aren’t as welcoming and don’t make you want to just dive into them and bury your face in their soft, supple warmth. Her smile is small and calculating, not uninhibited like Branna’s. There’s no joyful freedom there, there’s no depth and friendliness. You can almost see the wheels turning behind her hard eyes—how she’s going to land a fighter, how she’s going to have a nice easy life where her only concerns are dressing up for the tabloids. She finger-walks her hand up the inside of my thigh, but I feel nothing but disgust.

I know that objectively, she’s a babe. She has big lips, big boobs, long lashes, long legs, and a waist you can wrap your arm around. But I just don’t see it. All I see is how she fails in every way compared to Branna. She tries so hard, where Branna doesn’t seem to try at all, but all the effort isn’t enough. It can’t change the fact that Branna is a one-of-a-kind girl and Friday’s girl just is no Branna.

“Cooper? Earth to Cooper?” The chick is looking up at me expectantly from under her thickly mascaraed eyelashes.

“What?” I ask. “Oh, yeah. Listen, I gotta go. I got this.” I slide some money toward the bartender for her drink and the beer I didn’t even touch, and get up.

“Wait—you don’t want company?” The chick looks confused. “But, but...” She pushes her chest out more, like that’s going to change my mind.

“No, I gotta go.” I don’t look back as I walk out of the door and across the parking lot to my car.

I do not go backwards. I do not downgrade. When I have made it to first place, I do not settle for second in the next round. When I have had the best, anything less isn’t worth the effort. I don’t want some okay, hottie-tottie in hooker heels and hot pants.

I want Branna. I want my girl.