Her Bodyguard, Her Boyfriend

Jack.

I reflexively closed my eyes as punches rained on my face, and I tried to block them with my arms.

“Finish him! Finish him!” the crowd chanted, calling for my opponent to knock me out.

It was nothing new to me, so I did not take it personally. In the world of underground fighting, the crowd supported whoever was winning.

My opponent, a bruiser called Crush, took the crowd's advice to heart and tried to tackle me.

I deftly jumped over his legs and punched him in the chest with all my might.

Crush was more than two times my size, so I wasn't surprised when my punch had no effect on him. Crush laughed and charged me, driving his big head into my abdomen. My back hit the wire cage we were fighting in, and the crowd went wild.

Not giving me a chance to recover, Crush kicked me in the abdomen again, and I felt like throwing up. Thankfully, I never ate before a fight.

“You little rat!” Crush grunted and beat his meaty paws on his chest. “Did you really think you could defeat me?”

Okay, Crush was a talker. Another thing to dislike about him.

“You're just a little cockroach!” Crush spat as he slapped me loudly. “You'll fail here, just like you failed in MMA.”

My ears rang, not from Crush's disgraceful slaps, but from his humiliating words. They irked me to no end.

“Well, Crush. You're going down,” I told him, and I meant it. Crush was big, clumsy and untrained. Meanwhile I was slim, lithe and well-versed in more than three martial arts.

Crush laughed again, and I let him have it. I punched his big lips, splitting them.

Crush cried out and tried to punch me. I ducked and gave him a side kick to his groin.

Crush whimpered and I laughed. The good thing about underground fighting was that there were no rules; just knock outs or submissions.

Before Crush could recover, I gave him an uppercut. Crush staggered to his knees, and putting in all the strength I could in my leg, I kicked him.

My feet landed in his face, and I heard his nose break. Crush fell to the ground unconscious, blood seeping from his nose.

I spread my arms wide in victory and waited to be announced the winner, smiling at the booing crowd.

***

“Jack, what was that about?” Tom, my friend and manager asked me as he opened a bottle of beer and passed it to me. Tom was tall and skinny with curly hair that could never be tamed.

We were at a seedy bar I frequented after all my matches. The best aftercare for a fight was to drink until you forgot about the pain.

“What?” I asked, distracted by one of the women dancing on the tables. A little thing, she was slimmer than the other dancers, but she moved her body with such fervor that people couldn't help but stare.

I've never seen her before, I thought briefly. Is she new?

“Jack,” Tom snapped me out of my thoughts, “that match was fixed. You were supposed to take a few blows and then tap out. Why the hell did you knock him out?”

“He talked about my time in the MMA,” I said bitterly and took a swig of my beer.

“Oh.” Tom lost the ferocious look on his face, “Ah, the owner of the fight ring told me he didn't want to see us on his property ever again.”

“Well, he paid us, didn't he?” I asked, looking for a silver lining.

Tom snorted, “He paid us only a fifth of what we were supposed to receive. I wanted to fight him, but his goons were there.”

I grimaced. I was really hard on cash, and shouldn't have let my anger get the better of me. But all that was in the past.

“Don't worry.” I smiled at Tim, although my face hurt, “You'll find another place and I'll fight like they want me to.”

Tom made a remark about how hard it would be to find somewhere else for me to fight, but I was too occupied with the dancing girl to reply. As I focused my gaze on her, I noticed her hair was an unusual shade of red, something else that set her apart from the other dancers, who were bleach blondes. She moved like she had no worries in the world, and I longed to be like that one day. To stay without having to worry about money, work, and everything else in my life. I shook my head at the pipe dream.

Suddenly, a drunk man lumbered to the table she was dancing on, and reached out to caress her thighs.

She expertly shoved his hand away and continued to dance.

Her admirer did not appreciate being rebuffed, so he forcefully clamped his hands on her calf.

“Hey, Pretty! Why you actin' like you can't see me?” The drunk man inquired.

“Let me go,” the redhead tried to pry the man's fingers off her leg, and almost lost her balance in the process.

The man laughed and began to drag the redhead off the table to the amusement of the other patrons of the bar. Her fellow dancers stopped dancing, but nobody tried to help the redhead.

“Jack, have you been listening to what I was saying?” Tom asked, and I realized he'd been talking to me.

“No,” I answered honestly and dropped my almost empty bottle of beer. I glanced at the man who was now pulling the redhead's hair, and my fists tightened. The man was going to hurt her.

I stood from my chair.

“Where are you going?” Tom, who was oblivious to the fiasco going on, asked.

“I'll be right back,” I assured him and quickly walked over to where the drunk man was.

He'd successfully dragged the woman down from her table and was now trying to get her to kiss him.

“Eeew! Your breath stinks,” the woman exclaimed and covered her mouth with her hand.

The man growled at her words and was about to slap her, when I caught his hand.

He was so drunk that it took him a whole five seconds to realize someone was holding his hand.

He released the woman and faced me.

“What's your problem, bro?” he slurred, removing his hand from my grip.

“I'm not your bro,” I retorted. “She wasn't interested. Leave her alone.”

He didn't appreciate my advice because he lashed out and tried to punch me. I saw his fist coming, and stopped it.

“Why are you so violent?” I had received enough punches for the day, and my fists were still bruised from punching Crush. “Just leave.”

The drunk man stepped back and brought out a knife from his pocket.

“You wanna play?” He threatened, “Let's play. I'll teach you how to mind your business.”

“Woah!” I exclaimed. A knife changed everything. If I wasn't careful, he was going to stab me.

I moved out of the knife's reach. The man laughed, probably thinking I was scared, and lunged the blade forward.

The blade ripped the material of my sweatshirt. Luckily, the blade didn't cut me.

I grabbed the arm holding the knife and twisted as hard as I could. For the second time that night, I heard the satisfying crunch of bone snapping.

The drunk man shrieked and I took the knife from him. He fell to the ground in pain, and some people came to help him up.

“That was too brutal, bro,” someone said to me.

I ignored them and turned to the redhead. I was mesmerized when I finally saw her face clearly. She had eyes as green as fields, a cute little button nose, and luscious lips.

She's as beautiful as an angel, I thought sheepishly.

That was until she sneered, “Get lost! I didn't ask for your help.”

Donnie.

“Excuse me?” my uninvited savior asked, befuddled by my outburst. He was tall, lean and had a face which looked a little bruised. He had bags beneath his brown eyes, his nose had a bump which showed it had been broken before, and his lower lip was swollen, but these did not make him ugly, in fact, I thought he looked ruggedly handsome. His black hair was cropped so close to his skull.

Something about him seemed rough, unrefined and a little animalistic. It sent shivers down my spine.

“You heard me!” I internally scolded myself for getting entranced by his interesting features, “I did not ask for your help! What is your problem?”

His eyes narrowed with displeasure and his lips became a thin line. His jaw bulged and I could see he was mad, “I'm sorry, did I see wrong? From where I was, it looked like that man was forcing himself on you.”

Yes, the foolish lug had pawed me. I involuntarily shuddered as I remembered his beefy paws on my body, and how close I'd been to his face.

My savior noticed my shudder and came closer. “Is everything alright?”

He reached out to touch me and I saw his hands. They were well-muscled and his knuckles were bruised in various spots. Again, one of the marks of a professional fighter.

I shifted away from his hand, and a hurt look entered his eyes. Guilt and shame filled me, but before I could apologize, he retracted his hand and his face lost all expression.

“No, everything isn't alright, thanks to you. You should've minded your business!” I raged, remembering what his interference had cost me.

My savior huffed and shook his head, “What exactly did I cost you? The chance to be sexually assaulted?”

“If you must know, I had a bet and you made me lose.” I answered, now more genuinely annoyed at his sarcastic quip.

“What bet is this?” He cocked an eyebrow at me.

I had bet one of my friends, Lisa, that I'd be able to rack up more than a thousand bucks in tips while dancing without getting off the table for a break.

I reached for the tip plate where patrons were encouraged to drop some money for the dancers, and to my utter disappointment, I only saw a crumpled two hundred dollar bill.

I smoothened the bill as best as I could and waved it in his face, “You see? I only got a lousy two hundred dollars because you scared away my fans!”

My savior had the effrontery to roll his eyes at me. “You could always dance again.”

Like it was so easy. He didn't understand that he'd blown my chances of winning my bet with Lisa, and I wasn't about to tell him because it was none of his business, and I thought I'd sound foolish to him. Not that I cared.

“Forget it!” I shouted at him over the loud music. “I guess you feel good knocking down a drunk man. I wager it's because you find it difficult to win when you fight in a ring.”

His eyes widened with surprise and I mentally cheered myself. I'd been right on the nose with my guess about his line of profession.

“I see,” was all he said when he recovered from his shock. “I'm sorry I saved you from that man. But know this, I'll never help you again, even if you beg me to.”

I laughed maliciously. He obviously had no idea the type of men I had to protect me. If he did, he'd tuck his little fighter tail and run.

I seriously doubt that, a voice in me said. I didn't care for that voice or its words, so I ignored it.

“I'll never ask for your help because I'll never see you again,” I retorted in my haughtiest voice. “I don't think we run in the same circles.”

Unexpectedly, his lips kicked up in a half-smile and he gave me the once-over, “Says the girl who dances in a seedy bar.”

The nerve on the man! How dare he try to demean me that way? Did he think I was some ordinary woman he could talk down on? He probably had a white knight syndrome and didn't take it lightly when people did not appreciate his antics.

Before I could think of a befitting reply, his long legs took him away from me in powerful strides.

“Hey! I'm not done yet!” I yelled like a petulant child, and was about to follow him to wherever he was going, when an arm clamped around me. I wheeled around to see Lisa, my friend.

She was black, tall and slim with long braids.

“Girl,” She asked, “Where do you think you're going?”

“You didn't see what happened?” I let Lisa herd me to a table. Together, we sat.

“Nope,” Lisa shook her head, her earrings dangling. “All I can see is that you're off the table. How much did you make?”

I reluctantly brought out the two hundred dollar bill and put it on the table.

Lisa looked at the bill and burst into hearty laughter, loud enough to drown out the music.

“Damn!” When Lisa was finished, she had tears in her eyes. “That's even less than what I made.”

Lisa had made four hundred and twenty-two dollars. More than half of what I'd made. And to think I had bragged that I would top her.

Damn you, Mr Fighter! Damn you a thousand times! I thought angrily.

“So what happened?” Lisa queried.

I told her everything that happened, and when I was done, my anger had escalated to new levels.

“Aww!” Lisa exclaimed cutely, “He saved you.”

“No, he made me lose a bet!” I banged my fist on the table.

“You and your redhead anger,” Lisa laughed, “Girl, look past our silly bet. The drunk fool could have roughed you up.”

Lisa probably had a point, but I wasn't going to admit it. Instead, I changed the subject, “Lisa, where did you disappear to?”

Lisa's eyes twinkled as she regaled me of how she'd had a hot make out session in the restroom with some hot man she'd met while dancing.

“I can't believe you left me to go kiss some stranger.” I accused Lisa in a light-hearted manner.

Lisa put her hands together, “I'm sorry I did, Donnie, but if you'd seen him, you would have given me your blessings.”

“No way,” I laughed as Lisa began to describe the man she'd kissed. I was about to ask her where he was when my phone buzzed with a text message.

It was from my father. Immediately, I tuned out Lisa. My father never texted or called me. He preferred FaceTime, so he could see my expressions and know when I was lying.

I swiped my phone screen and cursed out loud when I read the message. My palms got sweaty, and I scrambled up from my chair.

“Donnie, what's up?” Lisa asked, worried.

“I gotta go.”

“Why? It's only a quarter past midnight.” Lisa informed me.

I showed her the message which read:

Hello, my dearest Donatella. I am at your place, and you don't seem to be anywhere in sight. I'm waiting for you.

“Oh shit!” Lisa exclaimed, “You're royally screwed!”