Mason_ Inked Reapers MC(1)(96)

Woah, @J_Duboix is an ANIMAL killing it again in the ring tonight!



Seriously, dude, do you ever like, sleep?



@J_Duboix must be sponsored by #duracell because he never stops!!



Kait closed the Twitter page and put down her phone. Frowning, she stood up and went to retrieve her laptop. Settling back on her sofa, she opened it up and ran another search on Jasper Duboix. This time her mind was more alert to take in all the findings.



There was a lot documented about his triumphs as a fighter. Jasper seemed to be a prolific fighter, entering both Mixed Martial Arts and Cage Fighting tournaments and almost always winning. By all accounts he was a fierce competitor with a steely determination to win. As Kait read more about Jasper, she started to discover where some of his determination might come from.



He’d grown up in the foster care system and apparently never knew his birth parents after being abandoned in a local church as a baby. Kait found only the one article about Jasper’s childhood. It was on the BBC website and had come out shortly after his triumph at the Olympics that year. He’d enjoyed a flush of celebrity yet Kait hadn’t recognized him. Then again, she was always too consumed with work to watch much television.



There were tellingly no quotes from Jasper in the article, just accounts of where he had grown up and how troubled he had once been. Apparently he was regularly in trouble with the police in his early teens, but then he found martial arts at fourteen and turned his life around.



Kait admired his grit and tenacity, but her admiration only angered her. She wanted to hate Jasper; she wanted to discover that he was a creep with a wife and a couple of kids who he publically doted on and then screwed over behind their backs. But from what she could find online, Jasper was very much single and focused solely on his fighting career.



“Dammit,” Kait sighed as she raised her mug and drained the last of her coffee. As her search had increased, she’d discovered websites listing his numerous charitable efforts over the years. He regularly helped various children’s charities through donations and also celebrity events. He climbed mountains for charity, ran marathons, and even trained some young, aspiring fighters who were within the foster care system as he once had been. Jasper Duboix seemed like a great guy. Someone who had worked hard to forge their own success despite their early knocks in life. The more Kait read about him, the more she liked him.



“Dammit,” she repeated as she picked up her phone and started looking up the directions to the venue of the fight that night, committing them to the device’s memory.



“No.” Kait suddenly threw down her phone and shook her head. What was she doing? Did she intend to just show up at the fight and try to see Jasper? She’d look like the world’s craziest stalker. But from what she’d seen online, Jasper didn’t have any family or a girlfriend to watch his back. He was pushing himself too hard with back to back fights. He needed someone who cared about him to intervene, to tell him to take better care of himself. Did Kait care that deeply about him? Did she want to be his girlfriend?



All the questions circling around made Kait’s head pound uncomfortably.



“He left!” She lamented to herself in the solitude of her apartment. “He doesn’t want to see you again! Stop being so damn needy! Get a grip!”



But as the day wore on, Kait couldn’t stop thinking about Jasper Duboix, the hardened fighter with the heart of gold. He’d so willingly come to her aide without a second thought for his own safety. He’d even been stabbed. Not once did he fret about his upcoming fights. He just gritted his teeth and helped her. He had been the perfect gentleman. And when he kissed her, Kait was certain that she’d felt something there and that it hadn’t just been one sided. When they kissed, the whole world melted away, and that was something she hadn’t experienced before.



She ran a new search for Jasper Duboix – Girlfriend. He was seemingly very much single. He was quoted in several interviews on the topic of his single status:



“Right now my focus is on my career. I don’t have time to maintain my training schedule and a relationship.”



Kait pouted as she read the quote. Was that why he’d left? Because he wouldn’t have time for her? It felt so petty, and yet Kait sort of understood. She was driven to the point of obsessed. She regularly stopped seeing guys because she simply didn’t have time for them. Or more precisely she was unwilling to make time for them, but she also didn’t really care for those guys. When they were together, her mind was still running over what she needed to do at work or her latest grocery shopping list. They lacked the ability to make time stop all together in the way Jasper did. There was something between them; Kait was certain of it.