Undefeated - A New Adult Romance Novel (3 page)

As I admired the stranger, I was speechless. I shrugged
my shoulders.

“Fuckin’ asshole. I shoulda punched his ass,” Josh snarled as he began to back the truck out of the parking spot.

As he put the truck in gear and started pulling forward, I looked out the window at the stranger and silently mouthed the words…

Help me.

SHANE.
Two weeks. That’s all it took. Two fucking weeks.

Come on, shut your mouth. Don’t go there. Please, mister, don’t do it.

I pressed the hoodie to the sides of my face.

Just shut your mouth dude.

“If you don’t learn how to act, I’ll teach you. You ain’t gonna like it, though,” he took another drink of his beer.

I sliced my chicken and took another bite. Chicken and turkey seemed to keep me in good health, and I made it a point to find the best places to eat each. In t
he two weeks that I’d been in Austin, this restaurant had proven to have some of the best grilled chicken I had ever eaten. I had a sinking feeling, however, that I wouldn’t be allowed to return after tonight.

“I try and act the best I can. You’re never satisfied,” she responded from the other side of the table.

“Never satisfied? You dumb cunt. Never satisfied? I’m gonna slap some sense into you when we get home,” he said as he pushed his plate to the center of the table.

Well, that could be a figure of speech. Not one that I like. But this isn’t my business.

“Paul. Please. I’m sorry, don’t hit me again,” she whispered.

Well, fuck. It just became
my business.

I stood up, popped my neck,
and pulled out my wallet. I removed a fifty dollar bill and placed it on the table. It was the least I could do for the ten dollar piece of chicken. This could get ugly quick. I didn’t want to take advantage of the waitress.

Forgive me Lord for what I am about to do.

I walked across the floor to the table where the couple was sitting. I wiped my hands on my jeans and cracked my knuckles.

“Paul, I
really need to talk to you,” I said softly.

“How the fuck you know my name?” he asked as he looked up from his beer.

“You don’t remember me?” I asked.

He squinted his eyes and shook his head, “Nope.”

“Well, we need to talk,” I said quietly, “Let’s take a quick walk, this shouldn’t take long.”

“Paul, what’s this about,” she asked.

“Shut up, bitch. I have no idea who this weirdo is,” he responded as he looked across the table at her.

I really hoped this could have gone easier. Maybe I should have left a hundred bucks. Oh well.

I reached for his shoulder. As soon as my hand touched him, he came up with the beer bottle in his right hand. Cupped in his hand, he swung the bottle toward my face as he stood.

I blocked his swing with my left arm, and immediately
punched him lightly with a right jab twice. As he stumbled, I hit him once in the stomach with a light left hook. As he began to cough and sputter, I took the beer bottle from his hand and set it on the table.

Coughing and trying to catch his breath, he placed his hands on his knees.

“He may or may not be back in a minute,” I said as I grabbed the man by his hair.

“
Don’t ever let this man beat you again, ma’am,” I said to the woman as I began to pull him by his shirt and hair toward the door.

I figured I had ten minutes before the cops would show up. For me to make my point should take three.

As I drug him toward the door, he began to kick his feet and scream.

“Who the fuck do you think you are? You miserable son-of-a-bitch. Let me go,” he growled as I drug him beside the entrance.

Quickly, I reached for his back pocket, pulled out his wallet, and removed his driver’s license. I held it in front of his face and shoved his wallet in his shirt pocket.

“What the…”
he started to speak.

“Shut up,” I said.

I stuck his driver’s license in my front pocket.

“I’m on a time crunch so I’ll make this quick. I overheard you telling your girl you were going to slap her when you got home. You’re not going to slap her again, ever. I have your driver’s license, so I know who you are, and where you live. I’m going to come check on her, and if I find out you’ve touched her, I’m going to beat you worse than the beating you get tonight,” I explained as I unzipped my hoodie.

As I pulled my hoodie over my shoulders, he took a swing.

As I leaned back, his punch went by my face. I dropped my hoodie to the side and grabbed his hair on each side of his head. Immediately and with tremendous force, I thrust the top of my head into his nose. I felt his nose crush under the force.

As I released his hair from my grasp, I swung a fairly strong uppercut toward his chin. The punch impacted his jaw, knocked his teeth together, and lifted him from his feet. Immediately, he fell into a pile on the sidewalk, unconscious.

You should hold your jaw tighter than that. Boxing 101.

I looked down at his lifeless body and shook my head. I reached down and got my hoodie from the sidewalk, and zipped it up. I stood over him as people watched and waited for him to become conscious.

As soon as he began to moan, I walked to my bike and fired it up.

Well, Paul, see you in a few weeks.

SHANE.
If it is worth doing, it is worth doing right. Be the best you can be at whatever it is you choose to do. Sweeping the floor or washing the car. Nothing should ever be done half assed. I strive to be the best at anything I ever decide to conquer.

Ever.

If I am attempting it, and I do not succeed, you can believe that I gave it my best effort, regardless of the outcome.

I choose to do very little, and be
exceptional at what it is I decide to do. I would much rather be perceived as being great at a few things than be a failure at many. I have always been honest with myself and conscious of
who
I am, but that doesn’t always help me understand
why
I am the way I am.

On the outside, I am always kind, polite, and considerate of others. On the inside, demons reside. I don’t know why or what fuels the demons inside of me, but I am
very aware of their existence. My consciousness of their need, necessity, and deep desire to be fed is what has caused me to choose boxing as my main outlet.

I keep the demons fed, and they allow me to live an otherwise peaceful life. Fulfilling their hunger allows my
desire to live a tranquil life to be met. As long as I continue to fight, they’re fed. When they are fed, I am allowed.

Allowed to
live.

I have been training in one way, shape, or form since I was eleven.
From what my trainers have always told me, I have tremendous stamina. I can train, fight, or work out for hours on end without becoming exhausted. For this I am grateful.

I have never been in a fight that I didn’t feel was necessary. In the ring, people agree to fight me, knowing
of my ability and my undefeated record. Boxing is a sport, and nothing more than a contest between two men – a contest of strength, stamina, willingness, and raw talent.

I have been in more street fights than I can count. Each time, I gave my opponent the ability to walk away. If they chose not to, I did what I had to do. In the ring or out, I have always stood the victor. The majority of my street fights were a result of me attempting to stand up for what I believed to be
morally
right.

I have never been
afraid to stand up for someone that can’t stand up on their own, and there’s not a shortage of people that act in a manner contrary to what I believe to be moral. Line every one of them up – every one of them that abuses a woman, child, or the elderly, and I’ll beat them senseless one person at a time.

“So, what did you decide? Did you buy them?” Mike asked.

“No. I’m going to wait until the price goes down to something more affordable,” I answered as I set my sandwich back onto the plate.

I wiped the mayonnaise from my mouth with my napkin and looked down at my boots.

“Dude, those fuckers are raggedy. Shit, I can see your socks through the bottom of the sole,” he laughed.

“Yeah, but a hundred thirty bucks is a hundred thirty bucks,” I shrugged my shoulders as I picked the sandwich up.

“You’re one weird motherfucker, Dekkar. One weird motherfucker,” he shook his head and laughed.

Mike was my first fight when I arrived in Austin t
wo years ago. Even though I knocked him out for the first time in his career, we had become the best of friends, and never discussed that particular fight with others. I had no desire to be disrespectful to him or to his talent as a boxer.

Any man, on any given day, can be beat
en by any other man. When the time comes, I will be beaten. Until then, I will remain grateful for my successes.

“Why you
go and say that, Ripp?” I mumbled, my mouth half full of sandwich.

“Well there are maybe
a handful of people here that
know
you, because you’re a fucking hermit. But I do, remember? Your father, no disrespect, died in Afghanistan. Your grandfather died two years ago – right before you came here. You inherited everything from
both
of them. I don’t have any idea how much it was, but your father was a year from retirement. Your grandfather
was
retired. I’m just going to guess you have a hundred and thirty bucks for a new pair of boots,” he said over the top of his beer bottle as he drank what was left in the bottom.

“Well, but I hate to pay a hundred thirty if they’re gonna go on sale for a hundred - or maybe ninety. Shit, that’d buy me a lot of turkey sandwiches,” I responded, smiling.

“I’ll have one more Ultra,” Mike said to the waitress as he held his index finger in the air.

“You need anything, Dekkar?” he asked, tilting his head back slightly.

“Water, please. Thank you, ma’am,” I responded.

From the perspective of an outsider, Mike looked rather intimidating. He was a little taller than six feet, and weighed two hundred ten pounds.
His head was shaved and he had tattoos on his upper arms, back and chest. His body was constructed entirely of muscle. Maintaining a perfect body and having an actual life outside of training is almost impossible. Some fighters have flab or fat on certain places. Mike wasn’t one of those fighters. He trained and he trained hard. It was one reason we had become such close friends. He had my level of desire to maintain a healthy body and mind.

“Water
, please.
Thank you, ma’am
,” Mike joked as the waitress walked away.

“You’re so fucking proper and polite to women - a
nd men - as long as they’re
old
men. But you clench your jaw and look like a mean prick to everyone else. You crack me up, dude,” he shook his head.

“Well, you look like a mean prick
all the time
,” I smiled as I picked up the pickle from my plate.

Mike smiled an exaggerated smile, exposing his single gold tooth.

“That tooth is ridiculous. I’ll never understand that,” I said as I slid my plate to the side of the table.

“I told you already,” he responded, still smiling.

“Yeah, I know. But it’s horrid. Who wants to draw attention to the fact that they lost a tooth?” I pulled my hood over my head.

“Well, I have a gold tooth, and you wear a fucking black hoodie everywhere you go. And in Austin, Texas of all places. So, tell me more about this girl,” he said as he picked at his teeth with a toothpick.

“There’s nothing more to tell. I think she was a receptionist. I saw her sitting at a desk when I went to pay my insurance on the bike. It was the second time. I know I saw her two years ago at a drug store. This time, she didn’t see me - I just noticed her as I walked past. I just got a bad feeling that day in the parking lot of the drug store. I remember that,” I pulled my hood tight around my head and peered through the hole.

“You know you do that, right?” he said, pointing at my head.

“What?” I asked.

“You hide in your hood. When there’s something you don’t like talking about or doing,” he answered.

I pulled the hood off of my head and ran my fingers through my hair as he started to speak again.

“
Well, you quit talking when the waitress brought our food. What didn’t you like? No, remind me what bothered you about the first time you met her? You started talkin’ and stopped, sorry,” he said as he leaned onto the table.

Short of my grandfather, Mike was the best friend that I have ever had. He truly cared about me as a person, and wasn’t afraid to admit it. Since my first week here we had become extremely close and almost inseparable.

“She was sitting at a desk. Up the hallway at the building my insurance company is in. It might have been a law office, hell I don’t know,” I responded as I pulled my hood onto my head again.

“Okay. And the first time?” he asked, leaning onto his forearms.

“Here you go. Will there be anything else?” the waitress asked as she set the glass of water and the bottle of beer onto the table.

Mike looked up and shook his head, “Thanks.”

He turned back toward me and waited.

“It was right when I got to town. And, well, the guy she was with -
I’m guessing her boyfriend, he was a douchebag. More like a
dirt
bag,” I paused as I grabbed the glass of water and looked up at the cables that suspended the lights from the ceiling.

“I was on the bike,” I chuckled and
shook my head as I remembered the evening.

“I was sitting on the bike looking at the soles of my boots. I heard him scream the word
slut
. I looked up and he tossed something on the ground. It was an iPad. He screamed at her a few more times as I was walking over to his truck. Then he stomped the iPad and held it in his hand as he talked to her.”

“Surprised you didn’t whip his ass,” Mike said as he leaned back into his chair.

“Well, you know I struggle with that. If he had been violent toward her or threatening her with harm I would have. They were just arguing. But when they left, she looked at me through the window. And her lips moved,” I looked back up at the ceiling structure.

“Her
lips
moved?” he turned his palms up and looked at me surprised.

“Well, she either said
help me
or
hurt me
or something. I couldn’t tell,” I shook my head as I pressed my hood tight to my head with the palms of my hands.

“I kind of forgot about it until I went into the insurance company. Now I can’t stop thinking of her. You believe there’s a plan for all of us? You know, everything happens for a reason?” I asked.

“Yeah. I do. Kinda weird about that, but yeah,” he said as he nodded his head slowly.

“I think things happen for a reason. I really do,” I said as I recalled seeing her sitting at the desk.

“What’s she look like?” he asked.

I thought of the day at the drug store parking lot. She looked beautiful, but she was scared. I didn’t like thinking about that. I
recalled the image of her talking on the phone as she sat at the desk, her blonde hair curly and clean. She looked magnificent.

“Perfect,” I responded
, still looking up at the lights.

“Oh, I see.
Perfect
. If she robs a bank, we could give that description to the cops, Dekkar. Did you see who robbed the bank? Yes, officer, I got a good look at her. Great. Can you describe her to the sketch artist? Yes, I sure can.
She looked perfect, officer
,” he laughed as he tipped his beer bottle to his lips.

“
Ripp, you’re a prick. She’s probably five foot
something
. She was in the truck, but looked short. Maybe a hundred pounds. Thin, but looks athletic. She’s blonde, and gorgeous,” I looked back down and focused on Mike’s face as I finished speaking.

“What about
him
?”

“He was maybe six foot or so. Two twenty. Out of shape, but a big fucker,” I rubbed my hood with my hands.

“Shitty brown hair, curly,” I paused and thought for a second, “Shitty beard. Shitty attitude.”

“Well, next time you go pay your insurance, if she’s in there, talk to her. Ask her about the day at the drug store. Give her a chance to say if she’s even still with that guy,” he responded as he raised his beer and tipped the mouth of the bottle my direction.

“You about ready to get out of here?” he asked as he set the empty bottle down on the table.

I shrugged my shoulders and pushed my hands into the pockets of my hoodie.

“To where?” I asked.

“To the mall, Dekkar. I’m gonna
help buy my buddy some boots,” he said as he stood up and looked at the bill.

I pulled my hand from my pocket and reached for my wallet.

“I got this,” he said as he waved his hands over the receipt the waitress had placed on the table.

“Times are tough and you need to save up for some boots,” he laughed as he set the empty
beer bottle down on the money and the receipt.

“Well, at least I don’t ride in
those
,” I said as I pointed to his shorts and Chuck’s.

“Hell Shane, ask the waitress. Shit, ask anyone at the mall or on the way. Ask somebody at a fucking stoplight. Which one of us looks out of place? The one in the shorts and Chuck’s or the guy wearing a fucking black hoodie when it’s ninety degrees outside?” he laughed as he stuck his signature toothpick in his mouth.

I shook my head and walked toward the door.

“I know, they’re your security blankets. Your hoodie and those damned dog tags. Hell, Dekk. If it works, it works,” he said as he slapped my shoulder.