Tapout (The Submission Fighter Book 3) (3 page)

Her words cut through her, and the sight of the curious note-taker returning to his barstool made it all so much worse. Alice approached Pete, as he chatted jovially with Caroline’s boyfriend, Jace. She whispered that she was going to take a quick break. He looked at her concerned as she powered past him. A breeze kicked up behind her with her speed.

As she retreated to the back alleyway, she slumped up against the side of the building. Out of sight from the crowds and the passersby, she allowed herself to slowly sink down to the warm, gravel ground. Images of her beating came to her, as she ran her fingers through the tiny bits of dirt and stones.

Despite the memories taking over her mind and clouding her vision, she couldn’t help but also think of Micah and the article that she read. “Lothario?” “Ring Romeo?” This couldn’t be the image that he wanted to conjure up when he stepped into the octagon. It was certainly not a nickname that created fear or allowed him to hold on to that bad boy image he loved.

Alice’s presence was once again destroying his. Despite all that the two had fought through and survived, if Caroline was right, it was only a matter of time until he understood that.  

Chapter 3: The Interview

“This is freaking stupid, Chris,” Micah said, annoyance dripping from his lips. The schedule in his hand had laid out his day, and nowhere in it was any mention of actually working out or practicing. Instead, it was a list of names and times. Each name had number that corresponded to a resume stapled together on a clipboard in Chris’s hands.

“It’s not stupid,” Chris replied sternly. “You have to interview these guys. Each one. You cannot be coachless going into the semis. It’s just not possible.”

As one of Micah’s few friends and closest confidants, Chris had quickly become Micah’s favorite sparring coach. To Micah, it only made sense to stop pretending that he was not just going to give Chris the job to replace Dean, his former head coach and trainer. But Chris was insistent. He wanted better for Micah despite the fighter knowing that he was not leaving this gym until they had settled on a contract.

Chris led the way, as he ushered Micah into the office at the back of the gym that Dean had just moved out of. Micah could still smell the old man’s cologne and the faint smell of cigars. It was as if the ghost of his former coach still resided despite everything that had happened over the course of the last few days.

Once Dean had lost his contract with Micah, the gym had fired him almost immediately. The ownership had sided with Micah, as they realized just how much of a pain and fame hog the man had become. His penchant for letting journalists into the sanctuary of the gym had angered more than just Micah. Other fighters and athletes took note and complained frequently about the lack of privacy Dean had created by making the intimate gym a spectacle rather than an actual training zone.

Micah also quickly realized how much leverage he would have on the gym owners, as well. Losing someone as big as Micah when his career was just about to take off on a national stage would not sit well with any owner, especially when it meant their name would no longer be announced on camera and at almost every major MMA event in the immediate future.

So, it seemed that while Dean was replaceable, Micah certainly was not.

Now, Chris and the rest of the crew had lined up a group of trainers and coaches from across the state to come in and interview with Micah. Most were names that had been floating around the MMA scene for years while others were relatively new—trusted friends of a particular coach or someone whose time had passed with another fighter.

Micah took a seat in a leather armchair across from the window. Swiveling around to the desk, he looked down at his blank sheet of paper. There was only one question written down on it: “How would you make me a better fighter?” That question seemed like the only appropriate one to ask. Everything else that his crew had prepared him to ask seemed so fake, such as, “Describe a time when you worked with a difficult person.” Micah could work with anyone who was worth the time.

Chris opened the door to his office and sent in the first candidate. Burly and stout, the man was more hair than skin. He smelled of a stale locker room, and the sweat stains on his shirt were not a convincing look. Micah asked him his one question and waited as the man stumbled to give an answer. When he was done, Micah stood up and showed him the door. No other words needed to be spoken.

His friend came in soon after, not with another candidate, but with a sharp reprimand. “Micah! Come on. That was Chase Lahley! He trained Erik Donners and Kelly May. You gotta give him more time than that.”

Micah stared at Chris with a puzzled expression, not truly understanding what he meant. “More time? Aren’t I just wasting my time just sitting here not training? I don’t understand the point. I just want to hire the person I trust most and get on with it.”

“How do you know you can trust them if you don’t actually let them speak?” Chris fired back.

“I let that guy speak and all I heard was crap. I don’t need bullshit.” Micah rose to his feet and placed his hands on his shaved head, rubbing the skin back and forth. Chris waited patiently for him to calm down and sit back in his chair. When he was ready, he looked up at the young man and asked him the one thing he had wanted to since he fired Dean, “How would you make me a better fighter?”

“You know the answer,” Chris answered immediately. “We’ve talked about it a ton. To be a better fighter, you need to work on your reflexes. You’re too slow on the backswing. You put your body at risk for blow after blow by not being quick to duck. You’ve got great technique in terms of quick moves, but you just haven’t mastered the art of getting yourself out of the way.”

Micah smiled. “Yeah, and what should I do training wise?”

“Get in the goddamn ring and actually practice taking hits from people instead of spending your entire time showboating around with pretty boy tactics like takedowns. You mastered those years ago. No need to show off.”

Micah was ready to pull the trigger on the whole thing, but another question popped into his head. “Fine. I’ll give you that. But I have another question for you.” Micah looked down at the stack of papers on the desk. Buried under a messy stack was a newspaper clipping Micah had ripped out just hours ago. He pushed it towards Chris and watched as he read the article and looked at the image.

“I want to know,” Micah lowered his voice, “what you think of this.”

“What do you mean?” Chris was there in the stadium when Micah had jumped the ship and ran towards the girl in the front row. He had seen this girl before. She had been at a couple of practices, and he remembered her from a few non-tournament matches. But really, she had not registered anything to him.

“Do you know why I fired Dean? I mean, do you know and understand the real reason behind it?” Micah understood the rumors around his camp to be that Dean was mismanaging his career. It was a half-truth he had made up to get through the fight and explain away the coach’s absence to the press. “He set me up. The girl, the girl in this photo—this is Alice. When he found out about her, he convinced her to break up with me for the good of my career. I managed to win her back, and he spent weeks trying to plant other women to seduce me and to get me in trouble with the media. I need a coach that actually gives a shit about me and not about this petty crap. Alice isn’t gonna be negotiable anymore.”

Chris sheepishly spoke, “I didn’t know that was going on.” He held up his hand, flashing a gold band on his hand. “I’m married. I get it. I’d probably kill the man who tried to come in between me and Rebecca. But, I have to say man that he had a point.”

“What?” Micah was stunned to hear him change his tune in favor of Dean.

“What Dean did was insane, psychotic even. But he knew his stuff when it came to managing your image. No one wants to touch the fighter who is wrapped up in some romance. They want the bad ass guy who picks up hot chicks and can lay whomever he wants. This Romeo image isn’t what you need right now.”

“But what about what I want? Doesn’t that fucking matter anymore or am I just supposed to be an actor and not an athlete?” Micah was furious. He just wanted someone, anyone to take his side on this.

Chris took a seat across from the desk, as he set down the newspaper image on Micah’s pile. “Listen, Micah. You can be the athlete and the actor. You can be the guy with a girl to go home to. But that cannot be your image when you’re out in the press. You have to spin this.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

“You hire a pro. I know a girl, a PR genius. She can handle this stuff for you. She can make you the knight in shining armor without killing your reputation. She’s a sports agent by the name of Lucy Hamlin. She’s with Sports In Agency.” He took out his phone and scribbled a phone number from his contacts on the newspaper clipping. “A friend of mine, a boxer, worked with her. She was worth it. You should call her.” 

Micah was leery of it all, but he ripped out the number from the paper and put the piece in the pockets of his shorts. “Okay, and what about my coaching situation? You know I still need one of those.”

“I’ll do it, man. I don’t want to do it, and you better be prepared to do twelve-hour days until we leave for Chicago. I expect you at this gym from eight in the morning until eight at night. No breaks. And when you’re not here, you’re eating what I tell you to eat. You’re seeing a physical therapist. You’re swimming laps. You’re not fooling around with this other crap until you win.”

Micah outstretched his hand, grateful to finally hear his friend give in to his coaching position offer. “I’ll call up my lawyer. He’ll draft some paperwork and send it over this afternoon. In the meantime, don’t you have a team to manage or something?”

“Excuse me?” Chris feigned insult. “Don’t you have a treadmill to be burning off calories on? You were supposed to start two freaking hours ago!” He raised his voice like a drill sergeant as he stood over the wooden desk. “Get your tattooed, pansy ass out to that gym, NOW!”

Micah gave him a fake salute, stood, and leaned across to give the man one last friendly hug. He followed Chris out and shut the door behind him. His new coach’s voice still could be heard telling the men waiting for the interviews to begin that there would be no more today. Disgruntled voices rose up from the masses, but they quickly faded into the background.

Micah shuttered the blinds of the windows facing out onto the gym as he prepared to change into his workout gear. As he packed away his regular shorts into his gym bag, the slip of paper Chris gave him slipped out onto the floor. Micah studied the number and the name, unsure if an agent was really what he had needed. He knew that managing the business aspect was not for him. He couldn’t stand the press, let alone all the potential sponsors with their cheesy commercial spots and their staged photoshoots.

If he was going to hire an agent, it was going to have to be someone who respected his reluctance to sell out, but more importantly, the person was going to have to be his pit bull. She was going to need to sell the old version of him, the pre-Alice version that was in it for the money, the fame, and the sex.

Alice had given him a reason to be more than that, to feel more than that. Her stunningly perfect, untouched body and the way that she confidently glided over him each night was enough physically for him. She was this tame sexual beast whom he had so much more to explore with. Their relationship was just starting to heat up.

But outside the bedroom, she was his sole reason for survival. She was what he thought about as he ran miles upon miles on the track or the treadmill. She was the reason he took sucker punches and hits to his broken body. She was the reason he posed for the camera while shilling power drinks and athletic wear. She was the reason he was winning.

If this Lucy Hamlin was able to let him live his life with Alice as he wanted to while still molding him into the guy without two cents to give, she may be worth his time. If she wasn’t the answer to his problems, Micah needed to find a better solution to his image issues—fast. With semis coming up, he knew that eyes would not be on him and his muscles or his show in the ring. They would be square on Alice and their relationship.

Searching though the abyss of his messy gym bag, he pulled out his cell phone and began dialing the number on the paper. He was not exactly sure what he was getting into, but at this point, for Alice and the future of their relationship, it was worth the risk.