It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The world was full of bad shit, and life tended to screw you over at any opportunity.
I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing as I waited for the current fight to end so that I could go another round. I never did that, always signing up for one match and getting the hell out of here, but I was looking to hurt someone tonight. Or maybe I wanted to get hurt.
I didn’t know anymore.
When it was time to step back into the ring, I knew that my focus was off, but I didn’t care. My opponent for this fight was young. He almost looked like a teenager, but he was muscular. When the fight began, we started circling each other. I’d seen my opponent fight, and I knew that his style was similar to my own—keep moving. This should be interesting.
I surged forward, ready to jab him in his exposed side, but he pivoted at the last second, using my own momentum against me to kick at my leg, making contact that sent me sprawling.
It didn’t feel good to land on the concrete, but I popped right back up, turning back to face the guy. I saw red when he shot me a cocky smirk. Trying to channel that anger into the fight, I came at him again. I anticipated his defensive move this time and managed to misdirect him and swipe his legs. He landed much harder than I had, but he didn’t take even a second to recover. Instead, he threw himself into me, taking me down to the ground with a bear hug around my waist.
Suddenly the fight turned into a wrestling match, and that wasn’t my strong suit. I preferred to keep my distance as much as possible. Still, I tried my best to overpower him, ignoring the way the bare skin of my back burned from scraping against the rough concrete beneath us.
He hooked his arm around my neck, and I head-butted him to loosen his grip before I lost too much oxygen and passed out. Rolling over, I tried to pin him beneath me, but his fist collided with my jaw, and the next thing I knew, he was on top of me. I kept my arms up, trying to block my face from his blows, but he managed to get one past. I saw stars as he hit me in the side of the head, and my right temple throbbed.
Shit.I was in trouble here.
I brought my legs up, trying to knock him off of me, but it didn’t work, so I bucked like a bronco and was able to unseat him. I had a brief moment of satisfaction as I started to stand. I made it onto my hands and knees before his leg swung around, catching me in the ribs. I heard a sickening crack as pain exploded in my side. My strength left me, and I collapsed onto the floor.
It was the strangest thing, but I didn’t mind losing this fight. As my opponent stood above me, I only cared about the adrenaline rush that flooded my system, making me feel alive. That was all I wanted today, to feel something other than regret and grief.
Coming here might have been reckless, but it was worth it.
* * *
I knockedon the door of Kat’s house, telling myself that I was an idiot for coming here. I knew that she didn’t want to fuck at her place. I wasn’t clear on the reason for it, but I suspected it was just another attempt to keep me at a distance. I should probably take a hint.
Instead, I’d come here after leaving the warehouse. I’d picked myself up off the floor after my second fight, using my t-shirt to wipe the sweat and blood from my face before shrugging on my jacket over my bare torso.
The door of the house opened and revealed Kat in a thin white t-shirt with no bra underneath and a pair of skimpy shorts. Her legs were long and smooth, and I trailed my eyes all the way down to her black toenails. Her toes curled as I looked at them, making me smile. She folded her arms across her chest and leaned her shoulder against the doorframe as she looked at me through the screen door.
“You look like shit,” she said, and I grinned. I knew that I looked like a walking bruise, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I’d heal.
“And you’re such a charmer.”
“What are you doing here?”
I shrugged. I really didn’t have a good answer for that. I wasn’t here for sex. As good as it was, tonight wasn’t a good time for that. My emotions were already fucked.
“Can I come in?” I asked.
She hesitated, staring at me for a long moment. I wasn’t sure what she saw in my eyes, but it must have convinced her because she nodded and stepped back. I opened the screen door and entered the house. It looked different than the last time I was here, on the night of our first date.
“You redecorating?” I asked, looking around. I had been pretty damn distracted that night, but the following morning, I remembered thinking that the place didn’t really feel like Kat. It made sense when she told me that her mom used to live with her. There were a lot of floral patterns and old furniture. Now, there was a more modern feeling to the place. The walls were dark, but the furniture and décor were light and bright. Somehow, it screamedKat.
“Yeah. Been working on it for a couple of weeks. It was time.”
I didn’t hear the sadness in her voice that I would have expected, and I was happy for her. She was finally moving on from her mom’s death. I wish I was that strong. My life kept moving forward, but I still felt haunted by Mark after all these years. Maybe I always would.
“You want a beer?” she asked.
“If I ever say no to that question, there’s something seriously wrong.”
She gifted me with a small half-smile before going into the kitchen and grabbing two beers from the fridge. She twisted the tops off and threw them into the garbage before handing mine over.
“I was just about to go sit outside for a bit,” she said, walking toward the back door. From behind, her shorts were so short that I could see the bottoms of her ass cheeks. I took a big gulp of my cold beer, rethinking whether I was in a good headspace for sex tonight. Why did she have to be so irresistible?
Kat looked back at me over her shoulder. “You coming?”
