"Wow!" Anna knocked back the remainder of her drink. "That's like something out of a movie, Kait. That guy was like your knight in shining armour."
Kait lowered her gaze to the table. She had thought Jasper was her knight in shining armour too, but now she didn't know what he was.
"Another round?" Anna eyed their now empty glasses.
"Sure, I'll get it." Kait slid out from their booth, eager to move away from any further questions about Jasper.
She weaved through the crowded venue and approached the bar, squeezing herself between two burly men. As she waited to order more drinks, she noticed that the crowd consisted mainly of muscular men. All of them were craning their thick necks up towards the huge flat screen television positioned behind the bar. They clutched their drinks and jeered at the screen. Kait lifted her gaze casually, expecting to see the bright green backdrop of a football field and tiny men sprinting madly around it. Instead she saw the foreboding setting of a giant cage, a blue mat at its base. Two men in head guards with their knuckles wrapped in protective layers of bandages hopped around each other, occasionally taking a brutal kick at the other's chest. Each time a kick landed successfully, the gathered crowd in the bar whooped in appreciation.
One man wore blue, the other red. The man in red was pale with arms laced with fierce some tattoos. He was taking quite a beating from the man in blue whose back was currently to the camera as he delivered several more critical kicks. The crowd in the bar were getting whipped into a frenzy.
For some reason, Kait couldn't take her eyes off the screen. Normally she'd have no interest in such a brutal sport, but something was holding her attention, compelling her to watch. The round concluded, and as the men retreated to their respective corners of the cage, the camera panned and showed the face of the man in blue.
Kait froze.
He was covered in sweat and blood, breathing hard as he sat down on a small stool and was handed a bottle of water from someone just beyond the cage. He drank from it hungrily as text appeared on the screen stating his name and current stats for the fight. The stats meant nothing to Kait, but the name certainly did.
Jasper Duboix.
She'd known it was him just from looking at it, but the name confirmed what she was feeling. Jasper was on the television, currently partaking in a live cage fight. It explained his impressive physique and ability to take out the men who had attacked her. Kait blinked repeatedly at Jasper's image. Though his face was bloodied, he was still impossibly handsome. His dark eyes were locked on the mat of the cage as he contemplated the next round.
"What can I get you?" A barman called out for Kait's attention, pulling her gaze away from the television.
"Oh, um," she suddenly struggled to remember why she was even standing there. All she wanted to do was keep watching the fight, to keep watching Jasper.
"Two cosmopolitans," she found her voice and remembered her order. The barman nodded and briefly disappeared.
Kait looked back up at the screen as the next round was about to commence. Jasper was standing up now, bouncing on the spot, his eyes narrowed like a predator.
Chapter 6
"You took your sweet time," Anna exclaimed as Kait returned brandishing fresh drinks. "Did you get chatting to some hot guy at the bar?" she asked with a cheeky grin.
"No," Kait placed the drinks down and slid back inside the booth. "It is crazy packed down there though. Lots of muscly men watching some cage fight on television."
"Ooh, cage fighting." Anna's eyes widened in appreciation.
"You know much about it?" Kait tried to remain casual about the topic.
"A bit," Anna shrugged. "I dated a guy in college who was in to it. It's a proper brutal sport, definitely separates the men from the boys. Hence why the guy I was seeing couldn't hack it."
"What makes it so brutal?" Kait thought of the blood she'd seen on Jasper's face. He'd taken a beating, but he was apparently ahead in the fight, getting more crucial kicks in. If he was in a bad way, how did the other guy look?
"It's sort of like a more feral form of boxing," Anna explained as she took a delicate sip of her drink. "You can kick and throw more aggressive punches. Guys can seriously injure themselves cage fighting; it really isn't for the faint hearted."
Kait tightly clutched the stem of her glass. Jasper was already wounded thanks to her. He had a deep cut across his chest, and now he risked someone kicking him and making it worse. Why would he put himself through that? Why would he even attack those guys in the parking lot when he knew he had a fight coming up? A fight that must be pretty important if it was being televised.
"You okay?" Anna asked with concern. "Oh no, did seeing the guys fighting on the television bring back memories of what happened in the parking lot?"
Kait shook her head. It had stirred up memories of that night, but not what happened in the parking lot; it was what had come after.
"Stick to your cricketers," Anna smiled at her friend. "Guys who play cricket are a far safer choice than any cage fighters."
Kait grimaced at the fact that her past three boyfriends had all played cricket and had all enjoyed a private education. They were the sort of men her mother would have considered perfect husband material. And they were. They were courteous, polite with decent, stable jobs. But they didn't make Kait's heart race or her blood boil. With them, everything was plain sailing, and that was great, but it was also so unbearably dull.
"Why did you and the cage fighter break up in college?" Kait asked.
"Don't you remember?" Anna arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow at her friend. Kait looked blankly at her. Her friend had dated so many guys over the years that it was hard to recall them all.
"It was Ashton, remember him? Scrawny with too much hair."
"Oh yes!" A memory of Ashton flickered in Kait's mind. She remembered that Anna had once been crazy about him.
"Like he was ever strong enough for cage fighting," Anna declared with a sour look.
"So why did you guys break up?"
Anna's look darkened. "He got Cindy Rogers pregnant at that party at Dennis' house, remember?"
Kait did remember, all too well. Anna had been utterly devastated by the news. Ashton had opted to do the honourable thing and was standing by Cindy, but that left Anna standing alone. She'd skipped college for an entire week, unable to face anyone. She needn't had worried about seeing Ashton though. He dropped out that same week, forced to take a job on his father's farm in order to make some money for his imminent arrival.
"God, I remember," Kait declared softly.
Anna blinked rapidly, her blue eyes now sparkling.
"His kid would be ten now. Can you believe it?"
"No," Kait answered honestly. "That's crazy."
"Isn't it?" Anna fiercely pushed a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "Ashton was all over cage fighting. He even knew where all the top guys went to train, and he'd go and linger around there as if some of their ability might rub off on him. To think I used to be so hung up on that guy!"
"He knew where they trained?" Kait wondered if the gym where they trained in town would be the same one used ten years ago. Probably not, but it was still worth a shot.
"Yeah, over at that exclusive place in the centre of town with the posh name no one could pronounce. I think it relocated over to near where your offices are."
Well that would make sense. Jasper had mentioned that he was on his way back from the gym.
"I could use another drink," Anna declared as she stood up, even though their glasses were still relatively full.
Chapter 7
Fuelled by the cocktails in her system, when Kait got back to her apartment, she opened up her laptop and sat cross legged on her bed and began conducting a frantic search.
All she had to type in to the search engine was Jasper Duboix – Fighter, and suddenly she was presented with a wealth of results. The text blurred together in her drunken vision, but she managed to read enough details to begin to piece together a picture of who Jasper Duboix truly was.
He wasn't a cage fighter as she had presumed. He was actually a mixed martial arts fighter and a champion in his field. He had represented Great Britain at international events numerous times and had won various accolades. Kait's eyes widened as she became increasingly impressed by his achievements. In his field, Jasper was a superstar.