Authors: Astrid Lee Donovan
Cassie squealed beside her; Marla quickly saw why. Two men walked out of the changing room; one was John, wearing what she could only imagine was his game face. And not much else, to be frank. A pair of knee-length shorts, plenty flowy but rather thin. His chest was bare and glistening. His opponent, a bald-headed man who looked as serious as John did, was clad in much the same get-up. Both men looked like they were cut from marble.
As they took opposite sides of the ring, Marla leaned in to Cassie’s ear.
“Where are their gloves?” she asked. The two men wore what looked like thin, fingerless gloves; not at all the boxing gear she’d been expecting.
“This is MMA, they don’t use gloves. It’s hardcore, girl,” Cassie said with a knowing grin.
The two men met in the center of the ring and the crowd hushed. Marla squinted to see better, but found her eyes drifting elsewhere, even as the fight began, both men slowly pacing in a circle. Across the room, amidst the sea of faces, two in particular seemed to call Marla’s attention - possibly because, while all other eyes were turned to the fight, theirs were fixed on her.
They were both tall, and impossibly sculpted, muscles as toned and sculpted as statues, wearing similar shorts as the fighters in the ring. But while one was fair-haired with chocolatey brown eyes, the other was dark-haired with piercing blue eyes. Marla forced herself to look away, though the tiny thrill at the bottom of her stomach lingered, even as her eyes moved back to John and his opponent.
She hadn’t missed much, as it happened. Now, the two men were locked in some sort of headlock, where both seemed equally vulnerable. To Marla’s unknowing eyes, it was almost like watching two high school boys fight: muscles straining, but no real damage being done.
And then John slammed a fist into his opponent’s sternum, and breaking from the headlock jumped to the side to avoid a high kick. Cassie hooted, though the crowd was largely impassive as they watched. Still, Marla had to admit to being caught up in the action: John grabbed the other man in two arms, almost hugging him, and walked him backwards into the ropes, while the opponent rained blows on each side of John’s head.
A knee to the ribcage.
A blur of muscles and skin as the two men took to the ground, John on top.
They broke apart and resumed the slow ballet, pacing in circles around each other. And then the whole thing started up again.
To Marla, it was confusing, but somehow thrilling to watch. So much of the fight, it seemed, really took place standing still. When the fight was over, she had no idea
how
John had been declared the winner, but he was. He stood, panting and sweating, blood trickling down from a cut on his forehead, with one hand in the air, to the applause of the crowd – and the shrieking approval of Cassie, who immediately launched herself at him when he finally left the ring.
“Babe, you were
so
good!” Cassie yelled, and though John was clearly winded, he laughed and supported her weight. “Are you hurting a lot? Can I take care of you?”
“What did you have in mind?” John said with a smirk as he set Cassie back on her feet, and she swatted him playfully. Marla walked over to congratulate him, turning her back to the ring, where a few guys were disinfecting the mat in preparation for the next round.
“That was…something else,” Marla said, and John shrugged.
“It’s what we do,” he said. “I mean, it’s just a hobby for me. Some of these guys have designs on the big time.”
An image flashed in Marla’s head of the two men she’d observed who’d seemed to be observing her, too. That same thrill ignited in her stomach again, and though it disturbed her a bit, she passed it off as a side effect of the vodka she’d been sipping. But
they
had certainly looked serious…though whether it was about her, or the fight, she couldn’t say.
“Let me look at this,” Cassie said, rising up on her tiptoes to examine the cut on John’s head. The men around them were passing by, slapping John on the back and offering their own congratulations, which he took with a humble smile and thanks.
“It’s not so bad,” he said. “I can tell, it’s pretty shallow.”
“True, but,” Cassie said, reaching past John’s sweaty figure to grab at Marla’s bag. Marla relinquished her grip and let Cassie rifle through it before pulling out the flask. “I think some alcohol would help, all the same.”
John laughed and took a sip, passing the flask back to Cassie, who also sipped before handing it to Marla, who shrugged and indulged in another gulp of her own. She was starting to feel quite pleasantly warm and buzzed.
As John shuffled off to the showers to nurse his cut and wash off the sweat, the two girls turned their attention back to the ring. Marla released an audible gasp: the two men from across the ring were in the center, squaring off the same way John had at the beginning of
his
fight. Only, for whatever reason, Marla saw a lot more in
their
actions than she had in John’s.
The fair-haired one seemed to move like some sort of wild cat from an exotic jungle, muscles rippling like butter as he slammed himself into his dark-haired opponent, his legs forcing them into the ropes as fists pummeled his lean, cut torso.
The dark-haired man, on the other hand, was like a bear, a beast of pure power and wrath, his mouth even opening in a silent roar as he toppled the blonde to the ground; but he wasn’t on top for long. The blonde man swung his legs around the opponent, and in a display of sheer strength, flipped him onto his back, his fists ravaging his sides.
Marla was absolutely awe-struck. It was more like a choreographed dance than John’s had been. Something told her that these two men
really
knew what they were doing, pursued it with all their hearts, not just as a hobby. Too soon, it was over, the dark-haired man being declared the winner while the blonde spat on the ground and stormed out. Marla turned to Cassie; to her surprise, her friend was busy texting someone, and probably hadn’t caught even a minute of the match.
“Didn’t you see that?” Marla blurted out before realizing that Cassie was just there for John – why should she care about any of the other fighters? As though confirming this, Cassie looked up from her phone confusedly, scanning the room for something out-of-the-ordinary enough to pay attention to.
“See what?” Cassie asked.
“Nothing,” Marla mumbled, wondering why she herself, who really couldn’t give a rat’s ass about fighting, had been so amazed.
“Okay,” Cass said. “Weirdo. Where’s that drink?”
An hour later, half the gym had poured into the bar. They were surprisingly well-mannered, or at least quiet, for a gym full of pumped-up dudes. John, Cassie, and Marla had taken a table in the middle of the bar. Marla had noticed the two men who’d fought the second round were also in attendance, standing at the bar.
Marla couldn’t keep her eyes away from the two men, and it was clearly starting to show.
“Someone sees something she liiiiikes,” Cassie sang into her ear. Marla blushed and turned her attention back to the group. John was studying her with a concerned look.
“Hey, just to let you know…I mean, do whatever you want, you know, have fun, but…” he let his sentence trail off as though he wasn’t sure how to finish it.
“But?” Cassie prompted, nudging him slightly.
“I’ve just heard those guys are…intense. Kinda…out there. Or, I don’t know; they kind of stick to themselves, and they don’t really…get along with all the guys here,” he said, shaking his head slightly while taking a sip of his beer.
“How do you mean?” Marla asked, brow furrowing now.
Of course, I’d pick the two guys in this whole crowd that I actually
shouldn’t
be interested in,
she thought, frustrated.
“Just, they’re the type to pick fights in the parking lot. And they go through women like underwear. I mean, there’s nothing
bad
about them, I guess. They just have a lot of attitude. Kind of full of themselves, you know?”
“I just don’t really get why they’re being all chummy now after beating the shit out of each other,” Cassie noted. John shrugged.
“They’re best friends. Been that way since middle school, from what they say. Everyone at the gym fights each other. Honestly, they’re probably the only ones
willing
to go into the ring with each other. They’re pretty cutthroat. Might go pro, from what I understand,” John said, turning his attention back to Marla.
“If you’re looking for a one-night thing, I mean, go for it. Whichever one you like, whatever. But if he starts getting rough…well, I’d just have my guard up. They wouldn’t hurt you, I don’t think, but judging from Todd, your tastes don’t really run towards the…uh…more aggressive type.”
“Well, Todd was a royal fuckass, so I think Marla should try the
opposite
of him on for size. And – shit – we saw those bodies. They’d certainly drive Todd into the ground,” Cassie said. Marla sighed, getting distracted by hearing her ex-lover’s name brought up so many times in a row. It made her feel anything
but
confident and willing to experiment with a new type of guy.
“Can we stop using the ‘T’ word?” she asked, taking a big sip of her beer in order to regain some of those good feelings she’d been having moments ago.
“Oh, shit yeah we can,” Cassie said, draping an arm around Marla. “Someone’s getting laid tonight, someone’s getting laid toniiiiiight.”
Marla could only grin and shake her friend. Cassie’s penchant for singing went into overdrive whenever she drank.
“But not if you don’t talk to them first,” Cassie said, leaning in to whisper into Marla’s ear once more. She turned back to the table. “I nominate Marla to buy the next round, and, in doing so, to get as close to those hunks as she possible can.”
As though to say that this next round should happen
now,
Cassie slugged the rest of her mixed drink and patted the bottom of Marla’s glass. With an affectionate eye roll, Marla glugged the last of her beer.
“You too?” she asked John, who was only halfway through his beer.
“Gotta take it slow. I’m driving you two drunks home, remember?”
“Gotcha,” Marla said, rising and swaying through the dotted crowd to the bar. There was a spot right next to the two men she’d been entranced with, and as though her presence was a magnet for their attention, they both turned to her. Her heart quickened a pace. She wasn’t even sure which one she liked more - the dark, blue-eyed one or the blonde, brown-eyed one.
You don’t even know their names,
she reminded herself, answering their interested gaze with a smile. She happened to be standing closer to the black-haired man, and he stuck his hand out.
“I saw you at the fight. You seemed pretty entranced. I’m Tanner,” he said. Marla blushed, not really having expected him to be so upfront. But she took his hand, and as soon as she did she kind of regretted it. An electric shock ran up her spine. He smelled like baby powder and man, even overpowering the stale beer smell of the bar.
“Marla,” she said. “You fought good.”
Two pairs of eyebrows raised, two smiles broadened slightly. Marla blushed harder.
“I mean, I don’t really…I don’t really know anything about fighting, I just kind of assumed…it was good…I mean, I wouldn’t have survived being in that ring, haha,” she said, feeling dumber by the word. The two men exchanged a strange look before the blonde moved closer, extending his hand as well.
“Cage,” he said.
“Huh?” Marla said, taking his hand but not understanding. “Oh, I thought it was a ring, but I guess cage makes sense, too…”
“No,” he said with a chuckle. “Cage is my name.”
“Oh! Ah, I see…oh, cool, well nice to meet you,” Marla said, thankful that the bartender had just noticed her and was waiting for her to place her order.
“Uh, cranberry vodka and a Shipyard,” she said, sliding a ten dollar bill across the bar.
“Double fisting tonight?” Tanner asked with a friendlier smile than he’d had previously.
“Oh, uh, no, one is for my friend, Cass, she’s dating John?”
“Oh, sure,” Cage said. “John’s good.”
“Yeah, I mean, I guess, he won and all so…”
A moment passed in silence, and Marla’s brain skipped like a record, looking for something to add to the conversation. Her heart rate was still well above normal, and that beer couldn’t come fast enough. She wanted to retreat to the safety of Cassie and John, and admire these two spectacular specimens from afar, as she had been.
“Listen,” Tanner said. “You’ve been looking at us all night.”
Marla blushed harder than she thought was humanly possible. If she’d been drinking something, she would have choked on it.
“Uh…I…uh…”
“It’s cool, you look…cool,” Cage added.
“Why don’t you give your friend her drink, and then come sit with us?” Tanner said.
Marla almost wanted to scream. This seemed so…unnatural. All her relationships, be they one-night stands or three-year affairs, had started with the same getting-to-know-you, will-you-or-won’t-you, interested-or-not song and dance. The upfront way in which Cage and Tanner invited her interest as a given, and acceptable to them, was…well, it seemed almost
inhuman
.
“Uh,” Marla said, seeing the bartender return, relief a physical experience to her knotted stomach. “I…I don’t know. I’ll…I’ll see!”
She grabbed the drinks and ran off, nearly hopping back to Cass and John’s table.
“Oh my God,” she said, breathless. “They just like…they just totally like…said they saw me looking and…and totally asked me to sit with them! Just like, out of nowhere! Like, not even awkward about it!”
Her usually impeccable English skills were failing her. She felt like she sounded like a crazed hormonal teenager whose crush just asked her to the dance.
“Uh, so why are you back here?” Cassie prompted. “Go on and get you some, girl!”
“But you don’t think that’s weird?” Marla argued, mind still reeling. “Not at all strange?”
“Um, no. It’s confident. Confidence: something you lack in spades, Marla,” Cassie said, turning on her lawyer voice. John glared at Cassie, his look not lost on Marla. But Cassie would have none of it.
“I swear, Marla, if you don’t at least
flirt
with one of them, you’re doing yourself a hell of a disservice. It’s not like they asked you to go back to their sex dungeon. They asked you to sit and talk with them. Probably because you’re
hot.
And they’re hoping you’ll be interested enough in one of them to go home with them. I can’t tell you what to do, but you’re never going to get over…him…if you don’t realize that you’re a catch, and that he was an asshole for not seeing that,” Cassie said, sitting back in her chair like she’d just presented an open-and-shut case in a courtroom. Marla’s eyes flitted to John.
“What do you think?” she asked. He shrugged.
“Like I said, just, you know, be on your guard. But you probably
could
use a little confidence boost, so maybe doing something outside of your comfort zone would be good for you,” he said.
Marla bit her lip and looked back. Cage and Tanner were looking at her, aloof but interested. Her stomach flipped. Heart raced. She remembered that strange reaction she’d had to shaking Cage’s hand. She looked back at her friends. Closed her eyes. Took a deep breath.
“Okay,” she said. “Wish me luck?”
“You don’t need it, you hot-ass bitch,” Cassie said flippantly. But then she looked up at Marla with a smile that said:
you can do it, just have fun.
Marla took a mental snapshot of that smile and logged it away, just in case she needed it.
With another huge gulp of her beer, she breathed deeply and turned towards the two men. As soon as they saw her walking back, they stood up. When she was a few steps away, they began to walk to one of the less-crowded tables in the back of the bar.
As soon as she slid in across from them, she knew she’d made the right decision.