Long Shot: An MMA Stepbrother Romance (9 page)

“None of them compare to you, Nat,” I say. The words come out before I realize what I’m saying. My eyes meet hers, and her mouth opens for a moment. She holds her cup close, and the steam rises in front of her. Taking a sip of my coffee, I avert my eyes. I can still feel her stare, her “medical state of shock,” if that’s what she wants to call it. For a minute or so, she just stands there.
 

“I’ll get you some Motrin, Josh. Then I’ll drive you back to your apartment. Don’t worry, I’ll give you plenty of clean bandages and a scrip for painkillers. You need to use them at night—and only at night. Not when you’ve been drinking. And for God’s sake, you better not take one before a fight. It’ll be tempting, since you’d be able to take more without falling down. But doing any kind of intense physical activity with an opiate in your system can lead to serious injury.” She puts her coffee down and fishes through her purse, then pulls out a container full of fucking giant horse pills. I smile and look at her face, reading her serious expression.
 

“What are you smiling about? I’m kicking you out so that you don’t get drunk and have your girlfriends showing up in my bed, like that time I came home from college—”

“I just like it when you turn into a medicine geek,” I say.
 

She rolls her eyes hard, but I can see the corner of her lip turn up into a small smile. “Catch,” she says and throws the pills at me. Reaching out my right hand, I snatch the bottle from the air.
 

“Shame,” she says. “I was hoping it would hit you in the head.”
 

Grinning, I turn the bottle over in my hands. “I can catch, but I’ll need some help getting this shit open.”

“God, you even need me to open your damn Motrin.” She comes and sits down next to me, her body warm and close. She smells like something tropical and fruity, and I realize she must have showered before I woke up. The light scent of her hair makes me think of her in the shower again, naked, soaped up. My dick, which had settled down before, responds to the thought with an insistent pulse. I try to think of something else, anything else, as she takes the bottle from my hand and opens it for me. She pours out one of the giant pills in my hand. I think of pulling her close with my good arm, putting my hand to the back of her neck and kissing her until she can’t say anything else with that smart mouth of hers. But I don’t. The way I am right now, even with what I’m planning, I’m still a fucking anchor for a woman like this.
 

Would I have come if I’d had another choice?
It occurs to me that I had plenty of other choices—my trainer, maybe Summer, one of the guys at the gym. But Nat was the only one who would give me stitches without batting an eye, who’d take me in no matter what even if she shouldn’t.
 

“Take it,” she says. The consonants are sharp and crisp in her mouth, and I can feel her breath against my cheek. “And let’s go.” She brushes her long blond hair behind her ear. I take the pill dry and then force down a big gulp of coffee. Since I quit drinking, I need my coffee in the morning, and I’ll be damned if I try to tell her what I intend to without
something
in my system.
 

“Nat, we can’t go. I have to stay here, at least for a little while.”
 

“What the hell do you mean you have to stay here?”

I grin, but the words come out with an edge of sharpness. “You said two days back at the clinic, Natty.” Her eyes are dark, stormy in response.
 

“I’ve changed my mind, Josh. You can’t even offer an apology for... for anything. For walking out on me, for disappearing, for pushing your way into my house and making me risk my job for you.”

“I didn’t
make
you do anything. You insisted on taking me to the clinic—”

“Because
you
couldn’t go to the hospital, because of
your
precious, idiot job. It’s not even real MMA fighting. The one thing you’ve ever done, and you haven’t even tried to go pro. You could, you know.”
 

“Yes, Nat, I could.” The frustration rises in my voice. “And I might.” This gets her attention, and she looks at me, her eyes focused, questioning. “It’s not just that I’m injured, right now. I am. I can’t hardly move my damn arm, Natalie. I
need
your help, and no, I don’t have some other girl who’s able to do it. None of those skanks give a damn about me. Not that you do either, but at least you know me some.” She smiles at this. Maybe it’s just instinct, and I bet she has no idea what the hell she’s doing, but she puts her hand on my arm and rests it there for a moment. Just that gesture sends warmth through me, steels me up for what I’m about to say.
 

“I guess I do know you some,” she says. I close my eyes for a second and expect her to take her hand away, but she doesn’t.
 

“Frank’s a slave driver, Nat. He’d have me training on this shoulder, maybe even today. And I’m betting he’s
pissed
at me too. The kid I was fighting last night let it slide that he’s seen me fight in other arenas, and Frank caught wind of it, so—”

“You’re fighting at another gym?”

“Dammit, let me finish. Yes, I’m fighting at other gyms, plural. My coach—Ash—he’s been getting me gigs other places, and Frank is goddamn pissed. I think Ash will still be able to get me the big fight—”

“What big fight?” She grips my arm slightly and then pulls her hand away like she’s touched something hot.
 

“There’s a big fight coming up—in October. Frank’s going to be fucking pissed. The purse is $50,000. It’s enough money to take care of my entire debt to Frank, and I’ll be visible to some big recruiters there.” Her face is blank, and I’m betting I know what she’s thinking.
 

“You’ve fucked things up like this before,” she says. Almost imperceptibly, she moves away from me on the couch. “For every ‘big fight’ I came to, I saw you hungover or high—and even when you won, none of these ‘big recruiters’ ever came through for your unreliable ass—”

“Nat, stop. Yes, I know. I’m a shithead piece of island trash. But I have a gesture of good faith, one good thing I’ve done in three years. It might make you feel different. Only don’t pour me a glass of scotch to celebrate.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”
 

“Go in my pocket. My left pocket.”
 

Natalie purses her lips and raises an eyebrow.
 

“Not that, Nat. God, get your mind out of the gutter.” For the first time that morning, she cracks a smile. But she still looks incredulous, and I don’t fucking blame her. “Seriously, go in my pocket. I’d get it, but I can’t turn my body like that right now.”

“Fine. What the hell are you on about this time?” She reaches across my body, the soft skin of her arm brushing against my abdomen. When she slips her hand in my pocket, I close my eyes and try to think of anything else but her hand brushing against my leg.
Keep cool, man. Keep cool.
I open my eyes after she fishes it out and watch as she turns the small bronze coin over in her hand.

“What the hell is this?” Looking at her, I can see the hint of recognition in her face, but I know that it’s not registering in her brain. Why would it? I’m the perennial fuck-up. I couldn’t accomplish something like this. I still don’t even believe it myself.
 

“Three years this month, Nat. Not counting the morphine. And I ain’t counting it, since it wasn’t me that shot it up. Opiates ain’t my thing, anyway.”
 

“This is an AA chip? Three years? Are you fucking with me?”
 

“No, I’m not fucking with you. You can ask Ash. He’s my sponsor.”
 

“You started going three or four months after I last saw you?”

“That’s about right. Three months of hard drinking. You’re the last person I have to make amends to, but this ain’t really how I want to do it—”

“Fine,” she says. “You can stay. But I’m not really ready for amends. Maybe tomorrow.” My pulse rises as she looks me in the eyes. Her lips are full, pink, and it looks like she’s been biting them a little. For a moment, I think she might lean in and kiss me, but instead, she puts the chip back in my hand and closes my fingers around it. “Good job, though,” she adds.

I’m about to lean in, take her in my good arm, kiss that worried bottom lip—but she gets up and marches back to her bedroom, shutting the door between us.
 

For the next six days, I get myself off thinking about her sweet curves, the fullness of her lips around my cock. And by the time the weekend rolls around again, I’m certain of what I’m going to do.

Natalie is the plan. And it occurs to my sorry ass that she’s what drew me here—and I’ll be damned if I don’t get her after I’ve struggled so hard for so long.

Every morning, I try to wake up and get out of dodge while Josh is sleeping or taking a shower. I’ve been leaving notes for him with detailed exercises and reps that he needs to be doing.
 

Am I encouraging him to go back into fighting hell with that asshole Frank? Or is he doing something better—something real?
 

I haven’t been able to figure it out. Maybe I should stay around more, ask him about it, accept his “amends” or whatever. But my body is a betraying bitch, and it wants him too much for me to hold a serious conversation. When I’m around him, I end up fidgeting with my hair, my clothes, everything—and he can read me like a book. That’s why I haven’t been around.

This morning though, I’m giving it a try since he claims he needs my help to regain his balance. I watch him as he centers himself over the masking tape line I have in the hallway. He leans slightly toward the left, even standing still, like the sling is pulling him down.

“It’s been a week, Nat. Can I take it out of the sling?” Josh raises one foot off the floor and places it against his ankle. I know he’ll be training for the big fight soon, whether I like it or not. Regaining his balance will help him—he’s right. He stumbles, but I don’t reach out to catch him, partly because he needs to do the exercise himself, and partly because touching his body might kick mine back into high gear.

“Only to take a shower, Josh. You’re cutting it close with that fight of yours. Your arm should be in a sling for at least two weeks. The shoulder was entirely dislocated.” Josh looks at me like I have a horn growing out of my forehead. “We’ll work on some extension and flexion, but we can’t do too much else.”

“How am I going to fight in five weeks? I need to train.” He tries the yoga tree pose again, but this time he holds his foot steady.
 

“You should have thought of that before you went and got your shoulder pulled out of socket,
bro.
”
 

“It’s not like I can predict how every fight goes, Natty.”

“All right, hold your palms together, now, and raise your foot to the side of your calf.” Josh does as I say, swaying slightly, but still standing steady. “Hold for ten seconds.” I watch his face for signs of annoyance, but he’s holding the pose, showing only concentration. I keep wondering when I’m going to see him falter, when he’s going to give up on the idea of winning a real fight. Each day, I come home from the hospital and expect to see him gone, but instead he’s here, watching TV or sleeping, and all his daily exercises are crossed off his list. I know he’s got to be itching to go. There hasn’t been a time he wasn’t itching to get lost, sober or not.
 

He might be able to pull it off.
I push the thought out of my mind—I’ve bet on Josh before, and it hasn’t exactly worked out.

“Good?” He looks at me, palms still together, right foot raised and perched perfectly on his calf.

“Yes. Better than expected, especially since you’ve been doing so much lying around.” He smiles, genuinely pleased. I smile back for a second and then grimace. I shouldn’t be letting him stay here, let alone helping him do physical therapy. “Okay, outta tree pose. You have to do that one at least three times a day—twice on the right and four to five times on the left. Balance is how you might win this thing, Josh. Now we gotta get you to walk down this line without falling.” I point to the line of masking tape that runs the length of the hallway. “I’ll walk you through it first.”

I take Josh by the arm and guide him down the line of tape I’ve put in the hallway. Despite the exercises, his balance is completely off. With the bruised ribs and the shoulder like it is, I’m not terribly fucking surprised.
 

“Thank you, Nat. I know this is a big ask. There ain’t no way I’d be ready to train in the gym.”

“Speaking of which, where does Frank
think
you are?”
 

“He knows I’m recovering. Maybe he thinks I’m staying with Ash. He’d already be working me if I were around, probably shoot me up with HGH, maybe get me lined up to throw a fight in the next week or so.”

“I still don’t know how you got fucked up so bad,” I say. The heat radiates from his body, and he grips my arm hard as he stumbles. As per usual, he’s prancing around my fucking house completely shirtless. As his fingers tighten around my forearm, warmth runs through me, almost like a current of electricity. I glance up at him as we walk down the line in the hallway. He gives me that grin—the one lights a fire in the pit of my stomach every time I see it. I step away from him, and he lets go of my arm. Immediately, he leans against the wall.