Uncaged Love (7 page)

“Paycheck time.” Buster waves an envelope at me.

I act nonchalant, but I’m dying. I ran out of peanut butter two days ago, and my hours haven’t made it easy to find Zero at work. I’ve been rationing my Ramen noodles.

I fold the envelope and stick it into my hoodie pocket. I can already see the groceries I’ll buy. And the necklace! I can go retrieve my grandmother’s frog pendant.

Buster hasn’t given me any assignments, and it doesn’t take me long to straighten the weights. I lower a speed bag, but the rhythmic punches don’t help. I want to hit something hard.

I turn to one of the big bags. I punch it and instantly feel the pain in my knuckles. But it’s a good pain, so I hit it again.

“Hey, hey, protect those hands.” Lani hurries up to me. “You can’t just go at this stuff bare fisted.” She holds out her Everlast mitts. “I promise it’s a lot more fun.”

“You’re dedicated to be here today.”

She shrugs. “Nothing else to do.” She takes my arm and slips a glove on my right hand. “I’m just going to lift a while anyway.” She reaches for my other arm and straps on the glove. “You’ve got the rage for this, that’s for sure.”

I punch at the bag again. It’s a completely different experience with the glove on. I can hit hard, real hard.

“Good,” Lani says. “Just turn to the side a little so you can get in a power hit.” She shows me the stance. “Come across your front as you hit and you can really make that bag move.”

I do what she says. The extra force is phenomenal. I feel the jolt from the connection with the bag all the way up into my neck.

“Have at it,” she says and pats my back. “Don’t let the bimbo get you down.”

I whip around. How can she possibly know?

She heads toward the weights. I keep punching, imagining Brittany’s face on the bag. I hit it long past the point that it burns, then hurts, then pain radiates through my arms and back. I finally hug the bag, feeling on the point of collapse. It’s so stupid. Colt can’t help that I have this foolish crush. And that he has this girlfriend who is hot and famous and a fighter like him.

I hate this. Hate it. I want it gone. I should look for another job. Get away from the whole thing.

I feel hands on my shoulders. I’m about to go full rage when I realize it’s Lani.

“Hey. I get it.” She walks me over to a bench. “Heck, I think half my best training came due to upset.” She tugs at the gloves. “Let’s get these off.”

I tear at the Velcro with the mitt. I have no idea why she’s being so nice to me. I haven’t had a true girlfriend since about seventh grade. I don’t know how to act.

“They’re a little sweaty,” I say as I hand the gloves back.

She laughs. “I’d expect that.”

I want to ask her about the bimbo comment, but I don’t. I’m broiling in my hoodie. It’s just us, so I go ahead and pull it off to reveal the barbell shirt. Lani’s still wearing a lot less than me.

Lani stares up at the cage. “I saw the pictures of Brittany the Bombshell.” She huffs out a little laugh. “She came here to work out. The press follows her everywhere.”

I just sit there. My hands are red and mottled from punching.

“Colt is something, isn’t he?” Lani says. “Anyone would fall under THAT spell.”

I pick at my sweatpants. I wonder if everyone knows everything. Probably half the members here have figured out that the gym rat has a thing for the star fighter.

But I remember what I felt that morning. That determination. My whole life I’ve had these sudden bouts of rage. But waking up, I knew for the first time I could do something with it. It’s what Colt saw that day. He’s made me see it too.

“Do you fight?” I ask Lani.

She smiles. “Not really. I mean, I’ve trained. But it takes a special something to actually get in the ring.”

“Colt, when he is in there,” I point at the cage, “he does more than hit. He kicks. And sometimes they wrestle.”

“Mixed martial arts is exactly like it sounds. Mixed.” Lani stands up. “There’s the boxing.” She throws punches at the air. “And the kickboxing.” Her leg comes up in a clean straight line.

“Then there’s Brazilian jujitsu and Muay Thai too.” Lani moves into unfamiliar positions, her hands like arrows, one knee rising.

“I don’t know what any of that is.”

She sits by me again. “There’s a lot of styles. If you have a good trainer, he will identify your strengths and come up with a fighting method that works.” She cocks her head at me. “Are you going to fight?”

I shake my head. “Oh, no. I’m just trying to figure all this out.” I pop up off the bench and head to the weights, even though I know there is nothing to do back there.

“Hey!” she calls out.

I turn back around.

She’s opened the door to the cage. “Since you’re dressed for it, come on up here. I can show you a few starter things.”

I glance back at the door to the main weight room. Still no sound from there. The place is empty. I should check with Buster, see if there is something I should do. But instead I move toward the stairs. I’ve never been in the ring.

The gym looks different from inside. The mesh breaks everything up. I flash for a moment to a crowd outside it, yelling and cheering. Cameras pop, the light diffused by the pattern of the cage walls. I can see myself here. It feels right.

Lani faces me, hands near her jaw. “So always practice with your hands in a defensive position, like this.” She waits for me to copy her stance.

“Good.” She steps up and changes the height of my hands. “There.”

“The first pattern to get you strength is this.” She kicks a leg forward, brings it down, pivots to the side, and kicks again sideways.

I try to copy her, but my feet get all tangled. I can’t remember which one to step where.

Lani laughs. “It takes practice.” She stands beside me so I don’t have to mirror her. “Kick, foot down, step back, cross BOOM.” She lands a side kick. “Just one side for now.”

We do the pattern several times.

“You got it. Now with the left.”

I can’t seem to do it backwards. She moves in front of me. “Same pattern, keep going.”

I try again. Kick, down, back, cross BOOM.

A bolt of lightning lights up the high windows, and we both jump. Lani laughs so hard that she collapses to her knees on the floor of the ring. “Now that’s a kick!”

I want to smile, to find an easy camaraderie with her. But it’s all so new. The weight of her expectations for me is heavy, like Colt when he tried to get me to do the speed bag. I can’t push down my fear of failing. I can’t laugh.

I do the only thing I can think of, the pattern. Lani remains seated, watching, tossing out suggestions or adjustments or encouragement. I’m feeling it now, like the rhythm of the bag. My muscles start to burn, but after two weeks of this I know how good it is. You have to break them down to build them up.

Lani goes quiet. I keep the kicks going a bit longer, but the hairs on my arm prickle. Someone else is in the room.

I whirl around. Colt is standing by the door. The look on his face is something I wish I could frame. He’s amazed by me. I can see it. He’s proud. And pleased. No one’s looked at me like that for so many years. I want to weep. I miss my father something fierce. But here’s this man. And he makes me feel the same.

Then my heart turns over, and I realize how different this is. I want everything. I want him to come into the ring. I want him close, pulling me in. I can barely swallow.

Lani squeezes past me to exit the cage. “I’m going to slip out now,” she whispers, but I don’t even look.

Colt doesn’t glance at her either. His eyes are on me.

I don’t know what to do, so I hold on to the mesh with both hands, watching him. He’s not wearing a shirt again, just the blue shorts. When Lani is gone, he comes forward.

I think he’s going to say something and break this intensity. But he doesn’t. His bare feet are silent on the floor, like a cat. He’s coming into the cage.

My back falls into the mesh as I turn to face him. Suddenly I’m afraid. I want him to do something. But then I don’t. He can probably see everything I’m feeling. I’m so inexperienced. I’ve never kissed a boy I’ve wanted to kiss. I’ve never been touched, only groped. Nothing about two people connecting has ever been good for me.

But I have protected myself, never let the worst happen. As Colt steps into the ring and closes the cage door, I realize something. I have always been a fighter.

But right now I have no idea how to fight what I’m feeling.

Chapter 11

“You looked great,” Colt finally says. “Who was that teaching you?”

“Lani,” I manage to get out. “Just a member here.”

“She’s got some experience.” He walks the perimeter of the cage, pushing on the poles, like he’s testing it. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was nervous.

He’s getting closer.

I realize I’m holding my breath. He looks down at my shoes. “You should take those off. We fight barefoot in MMA.”

I swallow hard and nod. But slipping off the shoes feels like the beginning of getting undressed. I realize I’m in the tight shirt, no hoodie. My heart is pounding in all sorts of crazy places. I pile the shoes and socks against the base of the cage wall.

“Let me see you kick again.”

My legs are warm from the work, so the kicks fly easy. He holds up a hand. “Kick my palm.”

I hesitate, so he says, “I want you to practice aim.”

My brain isn’t sure how to calculate a location for my foot. I sense that I’m going to go wild. But I kick anyway.

I miss him by a mile and stumble backwards to avoid falling.

He smiled. “You were preparing for an impact. That’s a good instinct. Try it again.”

I go back into the basic stance and kick. This time I graze his wrist.

“See, you’re getting it. Again.”

I figure that by the third kick, I better hit it square. I reach for concentration and focus. His hand becomes finely detailed, sharp. I kick my leg harder than any of the other times, hoping to smack him clean away.

And miss entirely and land on my back.

He kneels beside me. “That was great.”

My chest is wheezing. I’ve knocked my breath right out. I’m too embarrassed to move.

“No time to wait on recovery,” Colt says. He grasps my hand and jerks me to standing. “I would have sunk you just now in a match.” He holds his hand up. “Again.”

The off-balance sexiness has totally gone. It’s about the kick, the aim, the hit. Instead of trying so hard to focus, I clear my mind. My brain surely has figured it out by now. How high to go, where to connect. I just have to let it work without me controlling it.

I breathe in and kick.

My foot slaps against his palm. With my mind clear, the pattern I’ve been doing for the last hour is entrenched. It’s so automatic that when my foot returns to the ground, I step back, turn, and land a hard side kick directly to his gut.

He bends over, shocked, his face contorted.

I race over. “Sorry! So sorry! It just happened.”

He laughs, straightening with a painful expression. “You got me off guard. Brilliant.” He exhales a second and looks up at me in a flirty surprised way that makes me go light-headed.

He shakes his head, and then he does the craziest thing. His hands encircle my waist, and he lifts me up. “That was fantastic!”

We whirl in a circle. His exuberance wraps me in a cocoon.

“You are everything I thought you would be,” he says.

The buzz in my body is so loud I can’t hear. Colt lets me down slowly, and I slide along his chest. My shirt slides up a few inches, and a bit of my belly connects with his skin. I’m shocked by it, flaring into a need so intense, I don’t think I can stand it.

My feet make it to the ground. Colt towers over me, chin down. He’s bending toward me. This is it, I think. He’s going to kiss me. It’s going to happen. My heart hammers in my throat.

Then the cage door slams open. Brittany is on the stairs, her face red with fury. “What the hell, Colt? Time to start screwing another little gym rat already? You should pace yourself.”

Her words sink in as I scramble away from Colt.

He’s done it before?

I’m so stupid! This is probably his schtick. Find some vulnerable nitwit and make her think she can fight.

I snatch up my shoes and socks and race down the stairs. My hoodie is on the way out, so I grab it. I don’t sign out, don’t make an excuse. I run for the front door, out into the rain, barefoot, racing, miserable.

Status Jo.

Chapter 12

The rain stops by that evening. I still don’t go shopping. Don’t even go rescue the necklace. After leaving without a word in the middle of my shift, I’ve probably lost my job and will have to scrape by anyway.

Zero knocks at my apartment door. I know it’s him by the pattern. He knows I don’t open the door for anybody, ever. So he made up a little secret knock.

I don’t want to get it. We weren’t supposed to see each other tonight. He has a show.

“Jo Jo, I know you’re in there,” he says.

When I open the door, I have to take two steps back. Zero—or I should say, Zerobia—is decked. Smoky black gown. Sleek platinum-blonde wig. Fake eyelashes as big as spiders. Everything sparkles. His lips, his eyes, his dress. Even his shoulders have a glittery sheen.

“Zero?”

He steps inside, extending a ticket. “You’re coming with me tonight.” He glances down at my muddy sweats and frowns. “Once we clean you up.”

I shake my head. “No way. Today was bad. So bad.”

He breezes by me and drops a duffel bag on the floor. “I saw you blazing down the street like a bat out of hell.” He turns around with a runway pivot. “I knew that Golden Boy done did you in.”

I sink onto a chair. “I’m just stupid.”

“Golden boys are the thing to be stupid for.” He perches on the arm of the sofa. “Tell Miss Zerobia everything.”

One thing about Zero, when he puts on the dress, he becomes the woman. Everything about him changes. His voice. His walk. It’s how I was so convinced when we first met. He wasn’t like this, in show form. Just doing a girlie walkabout, as he calls them.