Protect & Serve(123)

When he collapsed on the bed next to me I’d never felt more in tune with someone else.

“Whoa,” he whispered to no one in particular.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to stifle another girlish giggle.





13





Luke





It had been nearly a week since Bria came to the house. She shook up my world. For the longest time, all I’d thought about was fighting. But now… I was starting to wonder what kind of life I could lead on the other side of the cage.

And then she was taken away from me…

Bria’s firm had sent her out of state for a pre-arranged meeting a few days ago. Something about a class-action case her boss was working on. We had spent the better part of two full evenings talking on the phone while I should have been sparring. I learned more about her than I ever thought I would. She was planning on getting her license to practice law. She wanted to start her own thing doing defense work… Defending the kind of clients who had nowhere else to turn.

The helpless.

I admired her heart and her selflessness. It was so different than the life I’d chosen for myself… And maybe it was a bit too different. She deserved someone who could nurture the good inside her.

The problem was timing. No matter how much I wanted to be that man for Bria, I had a fight to win. Simmons wasn’t going to step into that ring and go easy on me. He didn’t get to the top taking half measures. I was just about to kick my training camp for the Simmons fight into high gear and I didn’t want anybody fucking it up.

Bria doesn’t seem like the type to get in the way, but if I was going to survive this fight, I couldn’t take any chances…

Could I?





14





Bria





Kaitlyn was going to kill me if I held out any longer on her. She had been asking me every day since I last saw her if I went to see Luke, and I’d been keeping her at bay with vague answers. The thing is, I still wasn’t quite sure where I stood with him. We had a great time at his place, but talking to him on the phone felt a little forced. We had good conversations and I got to know him a little better but he seemed standoffish.

Maybe he was feeling the pressure from the fight he has coming up. He didn’t seem like the type to let that stuff bother him but I don’t know him all that well yet.

Either way, it was a bad time to be sent to Ohio. I finally meet a guy who I can’t get off my mind and I get sent a thousand miles away to handle my boss’s meeting.

Now that I’m on my way home, and stuck on a layover in Chicago of all places, I should probably give her a call.

I listened as Kaitlyn’s service played one of those shitty ring back tones. I tried to tell her that everybody else stopped using those things around 2010, but she loved it. As the song played on, I had a guilty hope that it would go to voicemail.

“Hey!” she answered, excitedly. “How are things in Omaha?”

“Ohio,” I corrected. “And I’m not there anymore. I’m stuck in Chicago waiting for my next flight because my cheap ass boss wouldn’t spring for a direct.”

“Oh, do you want me to pick you up at the airport?”

“No, that’s okay, I’m not getting in until late so I’ll just grab a taxi.”

“Okay,” she said. “So… is there anything else you want to talk to me about?”

“Fine, I give up,” I said. “I went to see him.”

“I knew you would! So give me the details.”

“Well, first of all that gym is crazy. It’s huge and the guys there are all in shape and making money. I felt like I got punched in the face with all the testosterone in the air. You would love it.”

“It sounds like my kind of place,” she said. “Then what happened.”

“…”

“Bria, what happened?”

“He took me out to this nice restaurant downtown. The drinks were really good. We should go there when I get back.”

“What!” she exclaimed. “You went on a date with Luke Greer?”

I couldn’t help but smile at her shrieking.

“You went on a date with Luke Greer and you try to gloss over it by telling me about some stupid fucking restaurant you went to?!”

“Calm down, it started out as a way to thank him for saving me from that creep…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she interrupted. “Started out? As in, you started out at the restaurant and then you let him fuck you in his car?”

“No,” I hesitated. “We made it back to his house first.”

I thought she was going to completely lose her mind.

“What?! Okay, wait, tell me… No way! I can’t believe…”