Alpha Fighter (3 page)

"When is the move-in date?" she asks.

"It's free immediately," I answer.

"And the lease term?" she asks.

"Month to month," I answer.

"I'll take it," she says, still not breaking eye contact. She's the most cocksure chick I've ever met, at least at that moment.

"I'll let you know who I decide on," I say.

Savannah raises an eyebrow in response and turns her head to give Peter, who's neurotically playing with the window lock and checking the mosquito netting, a long, slow look. Then she looks back at me and nods at the pothead, now on his back on the bed, playing with his fingers.

"Again, I'll take it." She crosses her arms over her chest. I like the balls on this girl. I also like the breasts on this girl, which are only better-presented when her arms crossed over her chest press them up towards the neck of her t-shirt to make space.

"Alright. Out!" I say, straight at Peter.

"B-b-b-but—" he says, eyes flicking back and forth from me to Savannah at a crazy speed.

"The room's no longer available," I say, "You, too." I give the pothead a little help, taking his wrist and hauling him off the bed. I smooth it over with a hand, not doing much to counter the wrinkled sheets, and give it a solid thump.

"All yours, babe. Get that deposit to me by tonight."

"My name is Savannah," she says, coolly. "Here is the rent now."

She hands me a wad of cash, clipped together with a pastel pink, swirl-shaped paperclip, and slides her backpack off of her shoulders and onto the bed.

What am I getting myself into?

I show the two losers out and have to admit that I'm happier to be living with her, even though I'm going to need to up my training intensity and take a lot of cold showers, than I would be living with either of them.

I come back in and pour myself a glass of water. On second thought, I pour her one, too.

I rap on the half-shut door to her bedroom with my knuckles.

"Come in!" she calls. I push the door open with my shoulder.

"Water?" I ask, holding out one of the glasses.

"Thanks," she says. She takes a small sip and lets out a little sigh. "It's hot out."

"Yeah, this summer's been brutal. For all the wind we get in Chicago all of the rest of the year, you would think we could manage at least a little breeze when it’s ninety-plus degrees out" I say. "Need any help with moving in your stuff?"

"No, I'm all set," she says.

I look around, in case I'm missing something. But no, the only new additions to the room are one hot girl and one backpack. One hot girl, who seemed to immediately regret telling me her real first name, has less stuff than I've seen other girls take to the gym, and is coming from something so bad that living in a dump with a man who's a complete stranger is appealing.

I wouldn't even have had to have any of my Navy SEAL training or military instinct to know that getting involved with this mysterious girl is asking for trouble.

Cooper

I
'm slamming into the bag harder than usual, each punch trying to push the girl out of my mind. But every time, just like the bag, she comes swinging right back in. Still, it feels good to pound away at something and get some of that energy out. It feels good to exhaust my muscles, though that takes a solid amount of work considering that I am at pretty much peak fitness. There's something calming about the slow exhaustion spreading through my body as I dart around the bag, pummeling it from all angles.

My shirt is completely drenched in sweat by the time Vlad grabs the bag and pulls it to the side.

"Is there something I need to know about?" Vlad asks, in his usual calm manner. Vlad isn't one for big displays of emotion. He has an almost completely inexpressive face ninety-nine percent of the time and you can barely notice the difference in his mood from when a fighter loses a match or when one wins one. He is the physical embodiment of the discipline over emotion principle of Mixed Martial Arts fighting. It is no wonder that he is known as one of the best fighters in the MMA. There is power in his stillness, and though there aren't many guys that I would confide in, or trust, Vlad is up there.

"No," I say, pulling my elbows in and turning away from him. I take a few sideways jabs at the air, bouncing on the balls of my feet.

"I will repeat myself," says Vlad, slowly and calmly, "Is there something I need to know about."

This time, it is not even a question. Vlad has been training me since I came back from my last Navy SEAL mission, the one that ended everything, and he brought me to fighting. He taught me the sport and probably saved my life. Hell, I was all kinds of messed up when I came back from my last tour.

Just thinking about it brings back the memories. I'd been a tough kid, growing up in a tough world with poor chances of ever breaking out of my small, unpromising existence. I was the son of a teen mom with the dad long out of the picture before I was born—hell, probably before she even started showing. I grew up living in a trailer, hearing my own mom's moans when she brought back strange men with potbellies and cigarette breath in the middle of the night. I grew tall on Spam sandwiches with white bread, because wheat bread and meat that didn't come out of a can weren't part of the food stamp program. Instead of being on a fancy soccer team with cleats and pristine white uniforms, I kicked around empty beer cans outside, bare-footed, with my friends. By the time I was in high school, I wasn't too interested in books or learning or anything but girls and fighting. I took bets on myself in fights in order to earn a quick buck, so I could take out more girls.

But I lived in a pretty small town and word got around fast. By the time I was sixteen, no one in their right mind, even the stoners, would bet against me in a fight. I never lost, even then. I needed something else, because I damn well knew that I liked girls and I knew that the prettier the girl, the more likely that she'd at least expect dinner. Don't get me wrong. I never had a problem getting girls to want me through looks and charm alone, but I didn't want to commit to one girl for a regular bang. I'd rather spend the money than spend the time, or waste the opportunity to get with other chicks. So I knew I needed a job.

I started working mowing lawns for rich people the summer before junior year of high school. One of those yards that I mowed belonged to a top officer in the marines. The same top officer who, when I was twelve, was at a career fair that the government put on in our neighborhood—if you can call the sad collection of trailer homes that. I stopped by partly out of precocious curiosity and more out of a hope for free food, around lunchtime. His wife and daughter came to bring him lunch. His wife was a manicured wife, one of those perfect status symbols with the head-to-toe designer mom-wear and little quilted, paisley handbag. The daughter was the single most beautiful person I had ever seen in my life. I forgot all about my pursuit of a free lunch and focused, instead, on getting closer to my new crush. Just as I was heading over to introduce myself to her, her mother said, "Sarah, let's go." And just like that, they disappeared out of my life in a cloud of dust stirred up the wheels of their shiny, blue car.

Until one especially hot day that summer when, after finishing mowing the backyard of that ritzy ranch house, Sarah came out of the house with a glass of ice cold lemonade.

"I thought you might be thirsty," she said, handing me the glass with a smile. She had grown up well. She was just the right kind of petite with just the right amount of curve, not one of those twigs with hipbones you hurt yourself on and thighs that don't beg to be grabbed. She was sexy, but also so beautiful that you almost didn't want to fuck her. You just wanted to hold her, instead, and then make slow love to her.

By the end of the summer, we were pretty hot and heavy. Every other thought I had was about Sarah. I started checking books out of the public library, a place I'd never stepped foot in before, in academic subjects. I wanted to better myself for her, so that I could offer her the kind of future that she deserved. There was no doubt in my mind that this was the girl I was going to marry.

But her dad didn't agree. To him, I was just a piece of white trash from a trailer home, good enough to recruit to the lowest ranks of his battery but not good enough for his daughter by a long shot. Getting good grades and jumping to the front of my classes didn't impress him. Learning strategic thinking and college-level mathematics wasn't enough, either.

I knew what I had to do and I did it.

Once I’d joined the military, I worked my way up through the ranks really quickly. I excelled at hand-to-hand combat and my physical skills paired with my ability to predict my opponent's every move made me unmatchable. I made it to Navy SEAL in the shortest time on record, since before I was even born. The day I became a SEAL, I proposed to Sarah. She said yes. It was the happiest moment in my life.

Then I went on tour. We wrote all the time, with her sending me emails three or four times a day, just to tell me how much she loved me and how much she couldn't wait to marry me. I came home for a week-and-a-half, during which we made all the wedding arrangements and I paid the deposits on the location—a nice venue, with catering and everything else that she wanted. It was more money than I'd ever spent on anything, but my salary as a SEAL was high and my girl would get everything and anything that she wanted. My next tour was just a quick one, nothing too crazy compared to what I had handled before, and we were going to get married as soon as I got back.

I was out in an armed vehicle with my best bud, John, on a reconnaissance mission. It wasn't anything exciting, but I was happy to be there. John was like a brother to me. We were smiling, talking about John's new baby girl waiting for him at home with his wife, but still focused on keeping an eye out. We knew what we were doing.

I was the one driving. The roadside bomb took out the whole left half of the vehicle. When I woke up in the base hospital days later, they told me that John had died immediately in the explosion. When I became a SEAL, I swore an oath to protect my men. I was driving the vehicle when John died, and I felt like I single-handedly killed my brother. I felt like the scum of the earth that I survived and John died. I didn't know what I would say to his wife. To his daughter, when she was old enough to understand. I didn't deserve to live on.

I developed mild PTSD, but I had always been a fighter and I would bounce back. The psychologist on base said the prognosis was much better than expected and physically, I'd heal, too. It would just take some time.

Then another guy in my team brought me my computer. I checked my email, knowing Sarah must be worried sick about me. I wanted to write her a reassuring email. But then I saw an email already in my inbox from her. Just a single email, even though I hadn't checked it for days and I knew she must have gotten some sort of notification from the Navy when I was brought back to the hospital in critical condition.

But she was my Sarah. Maybe they had told her not to send any more emails, since I wouldn't be able to communicate, and maybe they thought a flood of emails would stress me out further. I opened the email.

She was leaving me.

In the email, she sent me her 'condolences for my loss,' wished me a 'speedy and full recovery,' and explained that she was not 'up to the task' of dealing with someone with PTSD. She 'hoped there would be no hard feelings,' but she didn't want to see me, ever again.

Just like that. In a fucking email.

I was in physical rehabilitation programs for a while, then I applied to go on tour again. My application was rejected. I had to choose a new career path in the military. Something with a desk job, not in the field. Since I'd had PTSD, even though it was just a mild form, I was too much of a liability for them to send me out on a mission as a SEAL again. They explained that this could actually mean a payday step-up. With my experience, any branch would be happy to have me and there were many lucrative positions available for someone like me. Hearing that made me feel like a complete dirt-bag. I’d taken an oath to protect my comrades and I couldn't do it. Now they wanted me to sit in an office and make a lot of money while other people risked their lives and I just sat there typing away on a keyboard in my A/C with my swivel chair.

I couldn't do it. 

Vlad, a former mentor when I’d first joined the SEALs, kept me from letting my failure to save John lead to my own self-destruction. He kept me out of the bars, off of the streets, and in the gym for those first dark months and I've been grateful to him ever since. He took a broken soldier and helped me recover myself and create the Cooper “Veni Vidi Vici” Quin that I am proud to be today. He's also the most solid friend a man could ask for.

What was I thinking, that I could play it off cool in front of Vlad?

"There's this chick," I say.

"A girl?" Vlad raises an eyebrow as I stop jabbing at the air and turn back to face him. "Since when do you get bothered by a girl?"

"I'm not bothered by her," I say maybe a little too hasty to fight off the accusation. "She's my new roommate."

This makes Vlad's usually expressionless face take on almost a look of mild surprise. "You're roommates with a girl you're sleeping with?"

"I'm not sleeping with her." Vlad stares me down for a minute, but I don't budge. I'm telling the truth.

"You're this wound up about a girl you're not even sleeping with?" Vlad asks.

"I don't know, man." I run a hand through my hair in frustration. "I don't know what it is about this girl. She's an eleven out of ten, no question, but there's something else about her that just makes it hard to look away."

Vlad laughs and claps me on the shoulder. "Bad move, Cooper. She's your roommate. She's off limits now. "

"I just said she's nice to look at. I'm not interested." I shrug him off and stomp off to the locker rooms. I'm not feeling much interest when I think about picking up Wednesday at the bar for our usual fuck, though she's wild in bed and always bare like a porn star, but I'm going to. I need to get this out somehow.