Undisputed (3 page)

The incessant ringing of my phone wakes me. Confused, I sit up quickly before my pounding head forces me back down. Slowly, the room comes into focus. My room.
Blink.
Maybe?
Blink.
I can’t remember where I am or how I got here.

I look around. I’m in a large room that’s minimally decorated, save for the king-sized bed I’m currently on.
Nope. Not my place.
I shift my legs only to find them pinned by three women passed out around me.
Candy? Mandy? Jane? Whatever the fuck their names are.
I remember meeting the blonde and the brunette at the start of my night, but this other chick is a total stranger to me.

I lean down to snag my pants off the floor, the pain in my head intensifies as my phone stops ringing.

“Dammit,” I curse, reaching into my pocket and pulling my phone out. I’m surprised to see that I have seventeen missed calls.

But more startling than the number of times I never heard my phone ring is the fact that it’s 3:18 in the afternoon.

“Fuck!” I shout as I scramble to locate my clothes amongst the discarded bathing suits and towels. I find my socks, which are soaking wet, but the shirt I was wearing last night is gone. “Hey…” I nudge one of the girls while searching my groggy brain for her name.
Oh, forget it.
“Blondie, do you know where the fuck my shirt is?”

She stirs briefly before turning over and beginning to softly snore.

Never one to disrespect a woman, I take a moment to admire her tits one last time. They’re fake, but that’s exactly the way I like them. The bigger, the better, in my opinion. This chick obviously agreed with me, because her tits are incredible. I’m almost sorry I won’t be seeing her again.

Her mouth on my cock is one of the few things I remember from last night, and the way she sucked it is something I won’t soon forget. Okay, maybe seeing her again wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Like the gentleman I am, I nudge her again with my foot with the intent of getting her number, but she rolls back over and continues to snore. I’ll take that as a maybe and have one of my boys track her down for me next weekend.

I glance around the room for any sign of my shirt but come up empty-handed. Tripp is probably losing his fucking shit right about now. I was supposed to be at a press conference this morning. I pinch the bridge of my nose.

Shit. Where the hell is my shirt?

“Wake up! One of you tell me where the hell the rest of my clothes are.” I’m starting to lose my temper, and just when I’m about to punch something, my phone starts to ring again. “What?” I shout gruffly into the phone and immediately regret it when I realize Mark is on the other end.

“Where. The. Fuck. Have you been, you stupid motherfucker?” he screams at me through the phone. Mark is a pretty tough guy to begin with, but he has been known to literally scare the piss out of people without so much as touching them.

“Mark, man, I know,” I tell him. “I know I fucked up. But I had no idea—”

“You know you fucked up?” he barks. “Are you shitting me right now? You were supposed to be at a post-fight interview at nine a.m. I was beginning to think that you were dead somewhere. No one could fucking find you. You actually might wish you were dead when I get through with you tonight. Get your sorry, worthless ass to the gym before I have to come find you myself.”

“I’m on my—” I start only to hear the click of the line going dead.

I walk into the gym I’ve practically lived in for the last eight years and find one very pissed-off man thrumming his fingers on the countertop. After Mark’s phone call, I gave up on finding the rest of my clothes and left in my squishy socks and my jeans. Luckily, the keys to my Rover were in my pants pocket, so I was able to haul ass and make it to the gym in less than fifteen minutes.

Mark’s gaze lands on me when I walk in. No doubt, he knows what I was up to last night by my current state of dress—or undress, as it is.

Shuffling toward, him, I keep my hands up in surrender. “Mark, man, hear me out before you start screaming again.” I struggle to come up with some sort of explanation that will appease him, but he doesn’t seem to want to hear any of it.

When I get close enough, he open-palm slaps me on the back of the head before shoving me toward the cage. “Brec, you listen to me right now. I don’t need to hear your bullshit about this morning. I know exactly why you are just now showing up. You fucking reek of alcohol and cheap perfume. I don’t want to hear any more excuses from you. These past few months, I’ve sat back and kept my mouth shut while watching you slowly self-destruct. But, after last night, I am not biting my tongue anymore.” He pauses to catch his breath, his face growing a shade of red I’ve rarely seen on him.

But it’s the look in his eyes that truly frightens me for what may be the first time in my life.

“Come on, man,” I plead.

He scoffs. “Last night’s performance was appalling. Watkins is half the fighter you are. Do you hear me?
Half
! And, last night, he nearly took your title.” Throwing his arms up, he begins pacing back and forth. “You may not need the money. You may not fight because it was always your dream. But, goddamn it, I know you, and if you had lost to that fucking weasel last night, you never would have forgiven yourself.”

There it is. The explanation for the way he’s going off on me like a I’m a child who just brought a bad grade home. He’s scared. Scared of what I would have done if I had actually lost. And he’s right. If I’d let someone as inexperienced as Watkins take the only thing that really matters in my life from me, who knows where I would have woken up this morning. If I were lucky, it would have only been the local jail.

“You’re right.” I sigh. There’s really nothing else to say.

He doesn’t want my explanation. And, frankly, after the dressing down he just gave me, I don’t have the heart to make something up anyway.

“Damn right. Now, go get changed and get your ass in that cage. It’s nearly four. You’ll be lucky to get out of here before midnight with what I have planned for you,” Mark barks at me.

I don’t even bother trying to argue the fact that I’m not supposed to train for the next two weeks. This is punishment for being me this morning. I deserve it.

And, if I’m being honest with myself, probably more.

Without another word, I trudge toward the locker room, all the while praying that someone has some aspirin.

T
oday is my birthday and I have absolutely no plans. Well, that’s not true. I have plans; they just didn’t involve celebrating the end of my twenties. It’s a Friday, which means Connor has dialysis. His treatments are three times a week to filter his blood because his kidney isn’t getting the job done.

Abby’s actually in town this week, and since she’ll be around for the next few days she’s been taking him to his appointments. While I never mind being the one to take Connor, having Abby here to share some of the burden is especially helpful to me where work is concerned.

Because I don’t have much of a life outside of work and Connor, I had plenty of leave time built up. This means that I’ve been able to take the afternoons of Connor’s treatments off with little complaint from my boss. However, there is still plenty of work to be done, so I am planning to spend my birthday working late to play catchup on all the stuff I wasn’t able to get to most days.

Staring at the spreadsheet of numbers on my computer, I think about how I have gotten to this point in my life. When I graduated at the top of my class, I just knew I was going to be the chief financial officer of a megacorporation within the next five years. I was smart, organized, and driven, and I was going to be running a company of my own in no time. And then Abby’s career took off and mine was suddenly put on the back burner.

With our parents dead from a car accident my junior year of high school and our older brother in the military, Abby had no one else to count on to help with Connor. The day Abby came to me crying and asked for help, I didn’t hesitate. I loved Connor with all of my heart and couldn’t stomach the thought of Abby hiring a stranger to care for my nephew while she was off covering stories for days at a time.

In the beginning, it was only a day here or there. But, before too long, I was spending more time at her house than my own. When she came to me gushing that she’d been assigned the biggest news story of the decade, I wasn’t surprised when she then asked me to move in permanently. The very next day, I put my amazing condo in downtown Atlanta on the market and settled into Abby’s house.

Occasionally over the years, I would find myself resenting Abby and her fantastic career, but then Connor would hug me for no reason or climb into bed with me on a school night and the resentment would instantly be replaced with contentment. How could I ever resent Abby for having given me the gift of a child’s unconditional love?

Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I refocus on my work and begin reconciling accounts. I am engrossed in figuring out why the numbers aren’t balancing when there is a knock on the wall of my cubicle.

Looking up, I am surprised to see most of the small department I work in crowded around with balloons and cake.

“Happy Birthday,” they all say in unison.

Taken aback by the gesture, I blink several times to keep the tears at bay and clear my throat. “Oh my gosh, y’all! How did you know it was my birthday?” I question genuinely.

While I really enjoy working with the four people standing in front of me, I don’t have much interaction with them outside of work and had no idea they knew it was my birthday.

Placing the cake on my desk, Mindy says, “A little birdie told us. What
are
your plans for tonight?” she asks with a grin.

“Oh, well, you’re looking at them.” I reply somewhat grimly.

Jake pushes towards me and shakes his head. “No way, Sidney! You can’t spend your thirtieth birthday at work by yourself. We’ve made reservations at the sushi place down the street. We’re taking you out for dinner and drinks. And maybe dancing afterwards,” he says while placing his hand on my shoulder and squeezing.

I try to hide my wince at his contact and casually turn away from him so that his hand is forced to fall away from my shoulder. Lately, Jake’s been a little friendlier than usual, and I’m beginning to question his intentions.