Fight Like A Girl (Part One) (7 page)

“I like this one,” she said as she stepped
out in front of the mirror.

“Ew,” I said, making gagging noises. It was
the most god-awful shade of pink. “It looks like a five year old’s
princess party just threw up all over you.”

“I’m so glad I brought you,” she said with a
glare in my direction.

If the dress wasn’t Pepto-Bismal-pink, it
wouldn’t have been so bad, but the color just ruined the whole
thing. We’d been in the shop for two hours and I was sick of doing
girlie things, but I didn’t want to complain.

My phone rang and we both looked at it on the
seat next to mine. “It’s Kingston,” I told her as I spotted his
name on the caller id.

I shook my head and decided to go ahead and
answer it. “Hello?”

“Where the hell are you?” he yelled into my
ear.

I cringed. “I’m out. I thought you didn’t
want me to fight?”

“You and I both know I’m not going to be able
to keep you from fighting, Max,” he started. The way he said my
name caused goose bumps to appear on my arms. “So get your ass to
the gym.
Now
.” He hung up.

“What the hell?”

“What did he say?” Wynter asked.

I set my phone down. “He told me to get to
the gym.”

“I guess our shopping trip is over,” she
said, sounding defeated.

“Guess so.” I didn’t really want to work out,
but I definitely didn’t want to keep shopping. The gym was a better
option than the dress shop.

Twelve days passed. Twelve excruciating,
frustrating, and busy days. Aside from working out twice a day,
Kingston had me on a strict diet, plus a running regime. Exhaustion
didn’t even begin to cover the ridiculous fatigue I felt. I wanted
to sleep for days, but every morning, I was up at five to work
out.

I missed food the most. As a fighter, I was
fairly lucky; I managed to get by eating whatever I wanted without
fluctuating my weight too much, but Kingston insisted that I diet
in order to maintain a perfect weight for my weight class. He also
instituted a no alcohol policy. Almost two weeks without a beer or
a glass of wine had me in a permanent bad mood.

What impressed me was his ability to stay
away from me. Sure, we spent almost every waking moment together,
working out, eating, and him mostly telling me what to do, but he
never once made a move, and I was far too tired to even think about
jumping him. He explained that I needed to focus on the fight, not
any kind of romance or sex.

I agreed with him, to a point, but that
didn’t mean I didn’t appreciate his fine form whenever he got too
hot and took his shirt off in the gym. He was gorgeous, every
muscled inch of him. I almost had to wipe drool off my chin on more
than one occasion.

Wynter hated my new schedule, since it meant
I couldn’t do anything social with her. But I kept up with her
raging texts and shared most of them with Kingston, so he knew just
how upset she was over my sudden social withdrawal. His response
was to laugh at her antics. I didn’t blame him; Wynter was overly
dramatic.

It was my last workout before my first fight.
Nervousness settled in my bones as I warmed up. Kingston wasn’t at
the gym yet, but I was usually early, so I wasn’t surprised. Half
an hour later, I was a little concerned. I asked all the guys
around the gym if they’d seen or heard from him, but no one had. I
paced the small area in front of the punching bag, worried that
maybe whoever wanted to hurt me had taken it out on him.

I never should have let him train me.

He stumbled through the door a few minutes
later, wearing a heavy leather jacket. He passed by me and went
straight into the men’s locker room. I didn’t hesitate to follow
him.

“Where have you been?” I asked, more pissed
than worried now that he showed up.

He glared at me as he carefully took off his
jacket. His plain white tee was covered in blood.

“What the hell! Is that blood?” I asked, even
though I already knew.

Kingston lifted his shirt, gingerly pulling
the cotton material away from his wound, which looked like a gun
shot.

“What’s going on?” I demanded, catching his
gaze in the reflection of the mirror.

“Don’t worry about it,” he suggested, wincing
as the cotton pulled on his skin where the blood had already
dried.

I blinked at him. “Dammit, King! You can’t
just come in here covered in blood and not tell me what you’ve been
doing!”

He gave me a grave look. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” I scoffed. “I’ll take you
to a hospital.”

“No!” he shouted, turning to look at me. “No
one can know I was shot, Max.”

I didn’t agree, but I knew there was no way
to convince him otherwise. “What can I do?”

He looked relieved. “Go get the first aid kit
from Freddie’s office and make sure no one comes in here. I’ve got
to get this cleaned up.”

I nodded, barely able to look away from where
he was shot, just under his arm. I managed to get the first aid kit
without drawing too much attention to King and I locked the door
once I was back in the locker room.

“Got it,” I said, announcing my presence.

He looked up at me, his face nearly white.
“I’ve lost a lot of blood. The first thing we need to do is get it
cleaned up and wrapped to stop the blood.” He lifted his arm and I
took a step closer, examining his wound. “It only grazed me, so
there shouldn’t be any bullets pieces embedded in the skin, but
you’ll need to look, just to be sure.”

The idea of poking his bloody flesh wasn’t
one I relished, but I knew I had to do it if I wanted him to heal.
I took a deep breath, desperate to calm my rapidly beating heart.
He poured rubbing alcohol over a pair of tweezers and handed them
to me with a nod.

I thought I might pass out. I’d never seen so
much blood, let alone gone rummaging through torn up flesh for
metal pieces of a bullet. After ten minutes, I hadn’t found
anything.

“I think we’re good,” he muttered with a
grimace.

Thank God
. “I’m sorry,” I told
him.

“Why on earth would you be sorry?” His eyes
met mine.

“I know I hurt you.”

He smiled crookedly at me. “Yeah, but it was
better than me trying to look myself. Thank you.”

I didn’t expect or even want an apology. What
I truly wanted was an explanation. Instead of voicing my opinion,
though, I kept silent.

“Now we get to bandage it up.”

I wasn’t sure how we were going to do that,
but Kingston was self-sufficient and made a perfect sized bandage
and had me apply it to the wound. Then we wrapped his chest with an
ace bandage so it stayed. He was sore, but it looked like he had a
bruised or broken rib. It was better than explaining to everyone
that he’d been shot.

I wasn’t done with my inquisition, but he
wasn’t up for it. “You need to rest.”

“Are you going to play nurse to me?” he
asked, his eyes filled with need. After nearly two weeks of working
together and no sex, we were both a little on edge.

“Not a chance,” I replied, hoping to keep my
distance until I figured out what the hell he was into. “But I’ll
take care of you. No benefits.”

He laughed and then winced at the pain the
movement brought him. “Sounds good. Got any pain killers?”

I shook my head and then we left the locker
room. We walked all the way to my apartment before Kingston passed
out. He barely made it to the couch, and I felt like I was carrying
him the last mile.

Once he was safely on the couch, I brought
him a few ibuprofen and a glass of water. He roused just enough to
suck them down and then he was out, sleep taking over. I worried I
made a wrong decision, that I should have just taken him to the
hospital, but I didn’t get much time to think about it, as the
buzzer from downstairs went off.

“Yeah?” I answered.

“It’s Wynter. Let me up.”

Shit!
“I can’t, Wyn. I’m not feeling
great,” I lied, hoping she believed me.

No such luck. “Let me up right now, Max! I
went by the gym and they told me you and Romeo were headed to your
place.”

There was no way she would give up; I knew
her well enough to know that harsh truth. So instead of trying to
get her to go away, I buzzed her up. I sat at my small dining table
and waited impatiently for her.

She burst through the front door. “What the
hell is going on?”

I stared at her and then looked pointedly at
Kingston on my couch.

She lowered her voice when she saw him.
“What’s going on?”

I got up and went into my room, hoping we
could talk in private. I shut the door behind us. “I don’t even
know what’s happening.”

“Start at the beginning,” she suggested.

So I did. I told her everything that happened
that morning, including Kingston refusing to go to a hospital.

She sat on my bed when I finished and didn’t
speak for a full two minutes. Finally, she swallowed. “So no one at
the gym knows he was shot?”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. I was
very careful. None of the guys there really ask a lot of questions
when it comes to me, anyway.”

“Well, that’s true. So what now?”

I sat next to her on my bed. “I have no
idea.”

“You should stay away from him, Max,” she
suggested.

“Probably,” I agreed.

* * * * *

Long after Wynter went home after making me
promise to get him the hell out of my apartment, Kingston woke up.
He was groggy and it took him a minute before he realized where he
was. I brought him a glass of water.

“Thanks,” he murmured, taking a sup. “How
long was I out?”

“All day,” I answered, sitting on the coffee
table in front of him. “And now you’re going to tell me exactly
what’s going on.”

He shook his head slowly. “I can’t do that,
Max. Hell, you’re in danger just by having me here.”

My irritation turned to anger. “No. You don’t
get to say things like that and not explain yourself, Kingston!
Tell me what’s going on right now.” I wasn’t in the mood to be
jerked around.

He leaned back against the couch, staring at
me. “If I tell you, you have to promise me that you aren’t going to
freak out.”

Is he serious?
“Just tell me.”

“Promise me.”

I sighed. “Fine. I promise I won’t freak
out.”

“Good. And don’t interrupt. After you told me
about being attacked, I started looking into whether or not there
was a hit out on you.”

“Like mafia?”

“Yes, and don’t interrupt again. There
wasn’t, though, which made me wonder why the hell someone wouldn’t
want you to fight, so I dug deeper. There wasn’t any information to
be found, so I snuck into your opponent’s house. Her father is kind
of a big shot in the mixed martial arts arena, so I thought maybe
he was trying to buy his daughter’s success. Unfortunately, he
didn’t have any evidence of trying to take you out.” He paused.

“Why is that unfortunate?”

He gulped. “Because he found me snooping
through his garage and pulled a gun on me. I barely escaped, but at
least he didn’t see my face. So now he’s suspicious, which is why I
didn’t want to go to the hospital.”

“So what now?” I asked.

He blew out a breath. “I’m not sure. Since he
didn’t see me, I think we’re safe, but we need to hide my injury
from everyone. You didn’t tell anyone at the gym, right? So no one
knows what happened to me?”

“Umm, well no one at the gym knows, but
Wynter was here.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “What did you tell
her?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“Everything.”

“Dammit, Max! I told you not to tell anyone,”
he scolded me.

I stared at my hands. “I was worried about
you, and she just showed up. She’s pretty persistent when she wants
to be. I knew she wasn’t going to just go away. I did what I had to
do.”

“Well, now we need to make up a lie to tell
her,” he suggested.

I shook my head. “I won’t lie to Wyn.”

“You don’t have a choice. This is my secret,
and I don’t want everyone knowing.”

“No, it’s not just your secret. It’s mine,
too. And I trust Wynter more than I trust you,” I added before I
thought better of it.

“Are you kidding me?” He asked, his brows
drawing together. “I took a bullet for you and you don’t trust
me?”

I laughed. “You didn’t take a bullet for
me
. You took a bullet because you’re an idiot who got caught
snooping around my competition. I’m not some weak-willed woman who
needs you to save her, Kingston. I can take care of myself.”

He seemed to weigh my words for a minute
before he spoke again. “I guess you’re right. We’ll just be trainer
and fighter.”

“After my first fight, I think it’ll be a
good idea if you and I don’t work together anymore,” I told him.
I’d been thinking it since the beginning, but I didn’t understand
why my heart felt heavier as I said it.

“Right.” He shakily stood up and made his way
toward the front door. “Take care of yourself, kid.”

I didn’t hear from Kingston all the next day.
I didn’t go to the gym, though, which I figured would irritate him.
When I didn’t hear from him by ten, I called Freddie.

“Hi Freddie, it’s Max. Is Kingston in?” I
asked. I called the gym line and not Kingston’s cell. I didn’t want
him to know I was checking up on him.

“No, he’s not, but he called here not ten
minutes ago looking for you. Don’t you two have cell phones?” the
older man asked, obviously not impressed with either of us.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I’ll call him
directly,” I lied.

“Are you okay, Max? I know you’ve been going
through a lot lately, and I want you to know I’m here if you ever
need anything.”

I smiled into the phone. “Thanks, Freddie. I
appreciate that. But I’m fine, I promise. I’ll talk to you after my
fight.”