AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And we couldn’t have that, could we?
I put space between us as he closed in on me. Unlike a lot of guys I fought, he didn’t rush. Didn’t surge forward or try to press a false advantage. No, he was careful. I recognized the pattern of blows he put out not as threatening, but research. He was trying to learn me, how I reacted, how I chose to counter him. Smart boy.
Then, all of a sudden, he started pressing me, cutting in close in a way I hadn’t expected. I countered automatically, my body slipping into much practiced routines. But even as I laid my move down, he seemed to counter them effortlessly. Like he could read me like a book. I guessed I was much too used to male opponents underestimating me, assuming I would be terrible. Mickey was doing no such thing, and it was ruining most of my advantages.
I let out a snarl of frustration as Mickey caught my next punch and tried to manipulate my arm into a lock. I broke free, of course, but that didn’t stop my irritation from doubling over.
But why was I really so upset? Was it really just because I wasn’t used to a challenge? Or was there something else going on in the background. Maybe I was just mad at myself? For not being able to instantly beat him? That certainly wasn’t a practical expectation. He was a professional fighter for goodness sake! Or maybe it was just Mickey’s unsurprising amount of skill?
But what I did know was the whole wedding thing had thrown such a stupid wrench into something that might have been nice. Maybe we could be friends with benefits. Or who knew, maybe even date casually. But like anchors around our necks, our drunken antics were weighing us down with all this responsibility and seriousness that neither of us wanted.
Or… at least I thought he didn’t want it. Sometimes it was hard to tell. Like when I brought up the annulment, he had had this look on his face like a kicked puppy. But how could he want to marry me? We hadn’t talked in about three years before the wedding and hadn’t really hung out since I graduated. We were almost strangers. Strangers with a history that was so, so long ago.
Then, suddenly, I was on the ground, Mickey trying to get me into a mount. That wouldn’t do at all!
I bucked up, getting my knees under his chest and launching him away from me while grabbing his arms and using that as a pivot. Finally, I managed to get him into the start of an arm-lock, but he yanked right out of my grip.
Geez, it was just as difficult to get a handle on him as it was the stupid situation between us. A situation that was entirely of our own making.
Ugh. It was all a mess. A messy mess that majorly stressed me out. I was always so good about putting my success at the forefront of my mind, of everything that I did. I guessed I really was just angry at myself for being so irresponsible.
So, I resolved to burn it all off on the mat. If he wanted to spar me, then I was going to throw down. I didn’t care if he was a professional fighter with a weight class on me. If I could just concentrate long enough, I was sure that I could pull something from my bag of tricks that would allow me to beat an opponent twice my size, but every time I thought I had something, Mickey would move a certain way, or press himself against a new area of my body and my thoughts would go fluttering off again.
I’d never had such a difficult time reigning in my thoughts before and focusing on purely the fight. In fact, that had always been one of my skills: being able to shut out the rest of the world until only me and my opponent remained.
But I had no such luck with Mickey. My head was rushing, my heart was pounding, and tension was coiling in my middle, desperately begging for some kind of release.
Why was I fighting it, anyways? I worked so hard and fought so long to get a leg up in Hollywood, to get the ball rolling and I finally had done just that. Why was I forcing myself to trudge through it, head down as I doggedly kept fighting for more, more, more instead of sitting back and letting myself reap the benefits of my hard work?
I didn’t know, and I didn’t exactly have an answer, so with one last rush of energy, I lifted my head and gave in.
I could feel Mickey’s ragged breathing stop, and it took me a second for my mind to catch up with my actions. With a spark of elation, I realized I was kissing Mickey.
