Bad Boy's Honor: An MMA Bad Boy Romance (6 page)

Maybe I should have invited her to come work out.
Hey, so, I was thinking… you look like you need to work out more. Want to join me at the gym?
What woman would take offense at that?

Duke wanted more customers, and he wanted more upmarket customers. I knew just the trick. I turned back to face Duke and Gayle.

“I could teach classes,” I offered.

“What?” Duke asked, looking confused.

“You said I’m a big name. Slap my face on a few posters and advertise training sessions. Beginner level stuff to attract office workers who want a bit of added spice in their lives.”

“That won’t bring in anywhere near as much as a fight,” Gayle replied.

“Yes it will,” I insisted. “We’re talking about people with tons of disposable income. You can charge them upfront, and I bet a few will become members as well.”

“This gym isn’t exactly cut out for office types,” Duke said. He did at least sound like he was considering it.

“That’s part of the attraction. This is a rough gym, with a real fighter teaching the classes. Advertise them as authentic self-defense. None of that choreographed disarming nonsense that looks more like a dance than a fight.”

“You don’t have the patience to teach people,” Gayle said. “You’ll quit the first time you get a client who isn’t in perfect shape.”

She had a point. I’d never been a patient student, and I couldn’t see me being much better as a teacher. But this time I had an incentive. Anything to get out of all those fights.    

“Keep some of the fights in the calendar,” I said. “If the training doesn’t work out then I’ll compete in those fights, but I guarantee you’ll make more money from me training people here. You’ll want to cancel those fights yourself. It’s a no-brainer.”

It
was
a no-brainer. In fact, it seemed so obvious, that I was surprised Gayle and Duke hadn’t thought of it themselves.    

Shit.

An uncomfortable feeling spread from the pit of my stomach. That feeling you get when you’ve just slapped down a load of cash in poker, and seen a smile spread across the face of your opponent. I’d been played.

“I suppose we could try it out,” Gayle said slowly, weighing the words on her tongue. “What do you think?”

“Cancel the next few fights,” Duke agreed. “And start advertising. I’m willing to give this a shot.”

I took a closer look at the names on the calendar below the big X marks. I had never heard of most of these people. And how did the fights get organized so quickly anyway?

Yep, they’d played me. This was what they’d wanted all along. Duke knew that if he mentioned me training people I would refuse to do it, so he had me come up with the suggestion all by myself. On second thought, it had probably been Gayle’s idea. She was the brains of the outfit.

I could have probably called them out on it, but Duke had a point. I did need to earn my keep here, and teaching a few classes was better than fighting once a week. At least this way I could stay in shape and avoid injuries.

I’d never find another gym willing to give me so much flexibility. I owed Duke. He got paid off my success, but that hadn’t repaid the faith he’d placed in me five years ago.    

I left Duke’s office, and stared at the window where Nora had been a few minutes ago. Empty. I’d make sure Duke placed a few large posters right where she had been standing. If she walked by again, I wanted her to know she could get one-on-one time with me whenever she wanted.    

In reality, I was more likely to get a load of middle-aged men working out a mid-life crisis than a woman like her, but a guy could always dream.

Perhaps it was for the best if she stayed away. I didn’t need the distractions. I had two months to prepare for the biggest fight of my life. I couldn’t let a nice piece of ass get in the way of that.    

Opportunities like this didn’t come around too often, and I was determined to make the most of it.

I walked home quickly, practically running to keep warm. When I’d left this morning for the gym it had been warm enough to walk out in a t-shirt, but I’d left late and the cold night air of winter was now punishing this morning’s stupid clothing choice. A gang of kids were huddled at the bottom of the steps to my apartment building, but they soon parted as I approached. 

Those brats had kept me awake last night, but I didn’t have the energy to deal with them now. They were just kids. I’d been like them once, not all that long ago. I’d done much worse than just hang around on street corners.

I stepped inside the building expecting to feel the rush of warm air on my skin, but the heating was broken again and the place was almost as cold as outside. These days, it was more surprising if the heating actually worked. 

I ran up the stairs up to the eighth floor to keep warm, and switched on the space heater as soon as I stepped into my apartment. It wouldn’t do a lot of good, but it was better than nothing. They didn’t have heaters in prison, so I appreciated any small luxuries.

In many ways, my life hadn’t changed a lot since prison. You couldn’t put a price on freedom, but I still lived in a small cold space, and I spent my free time working on making my body as strong as possible.

Just like in prison, I still had my mind set on beating Tyler Young. That creep had insisted on a fist fight as a bit of late night entertainment, but then stabbed me in the side with a pair of rusty scissors. The wound hadn’t been serious, and I hadn’t caught anything from the blade, but I’d been determined to get revenge on that cheating scum ever since. 

He’d left prison before I could catch up to him, and somehow he’d landed a spot in the UFC. If I could get spotted by the organization, I might just get my rematch. Until then, I just had to hope.

One difference from back in prison was that I now had complete control over my physique. If I worked out and ate well, my body got bigger, leaner, and stronger, without fail. It was a stark contrast to other areas of my life where I felt completely powerless. 

Duke and Gayle organized my life for me. Even my idea today hadn’t really been my own. They told me where to be and when. What choice did I have? I was grateful for the work. Many of my friends from prison hadn’t been so fortunate.

I’d stayed late at the gym to help Duke sort out the equipment for the first combat class I was teaching tomorrow, so it was already past nine in the evening. 

My brain suggested that it might be a good idea to relax tonight, and just chill out in front of the television. I dropped to the floor and started doing push ups, before my body started to think that sounded like a wonderful idea.

Yes, it was late, but if you took one night off then before you knew it you were taking two nights off and then three. It was a slippery slope. I didn’t get this physique by sitting in front of the television.

I didn’t count the push ups. I never did. If you counted them then you knew how many you could do, and it was too easy to get into the habit of doing the same number every night. I tried to tune out and listen to my body. 

My arms and upper back would tell me when I had to stop. They would shake a bit at first, but I could always push through that for a few more. Only when I was physically incapable of raising my body one more time would I call it quits. Even then, I tended to feel guilty, always questioning myself and wondering whether I could have done more.

Once done with the push ups, I rolled over onto my back and lifted my legs into the air, bringing my chest up to meet my knees for some ab work. There weren’t many ab exercises that challenged me anymore, but eventually my stomach did tire, and I collapsed back down onto my back. 

I dreaded the last exercise of the night. Not because it was particularly challenging, but because this was when my mind always decided to punish me. 

I rested on my elbows and went up into a plank position. As before, I zoned out and didn’t think about how long I could hold the pose. Instead, I thought about everything I’d done wrong in my life. All the people I’d harmed, and the ones I couldn’t protect from harm. It was a long list. 

Punishing myself now wouldn’t bring back the loved ones I’d lost, but once a night I did exactly that anyway. It was a small price to pay. 

At some point, the shaking in my arms became too much, and I fell down face first onto the cheap carpet. If I did get signed up by the UFC, the first thing I’d do is get the hell out of this dive. 

Dinner would have to consist of a vegetable smoothie with protein powder mixed in. My body always felt cheated if I didn’t have chicken or fish, and I’d go to bed feeling empty, but there wasn’t time to cook. 

The protein powder gave my muscles most of what they needed, but it couldn’t replace the taste of succulent chicken or fresh fish. Not many people would think it to look at me, but I was actually a half-decent cook. You had to be to maintain a decent body. 

I lived on a diet of white meat and vegetables, and rarely ate junk food. People threw around phrases like “your body is a temple,” but in my case that was pretty accurate. Plenty of women made the pilgrimage to worship there, and they often yelled out to their god when down on their hands and knees.

After an unsatisfying liquid dinner, I did attempt to relax in front of the television, but I quickly grew tired and decided to get an early night. The next few months were going to be intense. In addition to training every day, I now had to teach combat classes twice a day. Duke was making me earn my keep now, and it wouldn’t leave me with a lot of free time.

Despite the cold, I climbed into bed naked. My body refused to sleep with any item of clothing on my body. The thin windows didn’t do much to keep out the noise from outside. The kids had already moved on, but there was still a constant stream of cars, and the general noise you got from a busy neighborhood. 

It didn’t bother me that much. If you can sleep in prison, you can sleep anywhere. Most nights in prison had one prisoner or another shouting and screaming until he got the attention he so desperately craved, usually followed by some time in solitary where he could yell and scream all he wanted.

Even prison had an been improvement on the conditions I’d grown up in. A drunk for a father, a drug-addicted brother, and one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the entire country, didn’t make for many quiet nights. 

Believe it or not, my current place was a big improvement.

Or perhaps not.

The sound of a gunshot split the air, followed closely after by the noise of about a hundred birds all taking flight at once. Two more gunshots rang out and then silence. 

There was no panic. People in neighborhoods like this didn’t panic at the sound of gunshots. The police would be along in a minute, sirens blaring, so I set my alarm for six AM and tried to drift off to sleep before that happened. 

Before sleeping, I spent more time punishing myself for past mistakes. Who needed prison when your own mind could punish you much more effectively. 

The gunshots were a stark reminder of those I’d lost to violence. My brother. My friends. I couldn’t bring anyone back, but that never stopped me feeling guilty for being alive. 

Guilt. The emotion that drove everything I did in life. Guilt for being alive. Guilt for making it out of the downtrodden neighborhood I grew up in and into a slightly less downtrodden neighborhood.

Not even the good deed I’d done for Nick could make me feel better. I’d made a sacrifice for him, but what good had it done? 

I forced my brain on to more positive topics. Like Nora. My heart rate sped up immediately. No, on second thought, thinking of her would not help me sleep. 

Eventually, my mind let me drift off to sleep. Tomorrow held promise. I wouldn’t admit it to Duke, but a part of me was excited by the thought of teaching people how to defend themselves. Maybe I could actually do some good. 

Maybe that would help me sleep better at night.

Maybe…