Ari
Iloved the way sweat looked on a body.
The way it glistened on lean flesh and toned muscles. Sweat represented hard work, dedication, drive, and power. Sweat on an athlete's body accentuated every inner quality the person possessed—the very best qualities.
I had grown up around sweat. I saw what it took to earn every drop. I'd spent all my time as a child in my father's gym—Smiley's. I'd watched fighters train, fight, struggle, and claw their way to the top all while my father pushed them harder. Smiley's was the best gym around, and my father had been the most highly coveted trainer. He was the famous Smiley Dexter. Oftentimes, his name was more respected than the boxer he was training.
But since my father's passing, the gym was now in my and Frankie's hands. It was now our job to make the bodies sweat. It was our job to maintain the legacy that once was, even if it meant morphing it to change with the times.
Yes, Frankie had a point. My father would have resisted underground cage fighting, but he wouldn't have wanted the business to slip through our fingers either.
My father had given his life to the sport of fighting, and now it was our turn to do the same. Smiley's, and the fighters working for a shot at someday becoming a champion had become my everything.
I refused to fail. I refused to see my father's dream fade to nothing. I'd do whatever needed to be done.
Did my life in the gym require sacrifice? Of course. There were a few things missing… normalcy. Dating, future husband, kids, and a picket fence were not in my future. I'd ruled that out of my tarot cards a long time ago.
You would think that living in a man's world, it would be easy. Hot bodies around me day and night, all at their peak fitness, I truly lived in a girl's fantasy environment. One would think I had plenty of men to choose from, but it didn't really work like that for me.
My first issue was professionalism. I couldn't dip the pen in company ink, so to speak. My second issue was Frankie—with him around, everyone did their best to avoid me. Everyone knew Frankie and I weren't a traditional couple. We were far from exclusive, and we were not boyfriend and girlfriend sending each other love notes. But it was safer for them, and if they valued their place in the gym, every man knew not to fuck with Frankie's possession. Overprotective, borderline-obsessed, and just an outright asshole, I quickly became off limits.
Before Frankie, no one had dared even steal a glance my way because of my father. He'd trusted few, and his constant scowl had kept people away. Frankie was the only one, other than me, who'd held a place in my father's heart.
My third issue was being friend zoned. The men I had liked ended up treating me as just another one of the guys or even as a kid sister. Good ol' Ari. Sweet, innocent Ari. And once I'd learned how to fight just as well as most of them, I'd became bad ass, don't mess with Ari or she'll beat your ass.
The few men I did date had to be outside the fighting scene, and that never really lasted long. It was hard to blend the worlds, and one thing I had learned fast, was that fighting a man for money was a beast only a few truly understood.
My lack of a love life didn't matter too much to me, and I really didn't have the time to invest in a relationship anyway. It wasn't exactly essential to me since I did have Frankie. Whatever Frankie and I were, the sex was always epic.
"Where have you been?" Frankie asked as soon as I entered the gym. His tone instantly told me he was upset and frustrated, which put me on edge right away.
Whenever anything happened around the gym that wasn't up to his ridiculously high standards, Frankie would raise holy hell, causing everyone to walk on egg shells around the guy. He hadn't earned the name Freakshow in the cage; he was a goddamn mad man on most days. He wasn't exactly a people person. I could usually talk him away from the edge, but it took a hell of a lot of effort.
"What's going on?" I asked.
I sometimes resented the way he kept tabs on me, but also had accepted it was simply the way he was. Much like my overprotective father had been, so why push back against their tradition? It could be worse. Frankie could decide to lock me up in a tower like Rapunzel, and as much as I'd enjoy the whips and chains of the tower's dungeon, I definitely wouldn't care for the restrictions and lack of freedom.
"Bobby's Gym." He sighed deeply and dropped his head into his hands. "They've finally gotten to Marcus."
Oh shit.
My heart sank as I slid into the nearest chair. The news was like a punch to the gut. Marcus and Frankie had been butting heads for a while now, and the other gym had evidently pounced on it. They'd been trying to sweep Marcus away from us for ages now, and he'd been wavering though trying to keep it from us. Deep down, I had known this was eventually going to happen, but I really didn't want to have to face it.
The real problem we had was that Marcus might have been a douchebag, but he was a fucking good fighter—the only fighter with whom we had a shot at earning real, life-changing money.
What the hell were we going to do without him? Of course, I couldn't direct all my concerns to Frankie. Not if I wanted him to keep his cool. I needed to be the calm and collected one. It was the role I played.
Frankie was the fire, and I was the extinguisher.
"Okay, so the deal is done?" I needed as much information as I could get before I snapped into action. If I could solve this problem before it got too huge, then there wouldn't be any need for panic. "It's all gone through?"
"Pretty much," he said with clenched jaw and darkened eyes. Frankie obviously knew we were just as fucked as I did.
"Okay, so there's no more damage control. There's no point in trying to keep him now. If Marcus' mind is made up, even if he doesn't go now, he won't fight his best for us, and it will just be a matter of time until he leaves anyway. So fuck it. Fuck him. What we need is someone new."
"Heathens Hollow is coming soon, and we don't have anyone good enough to put in the cage. Not if we want them walking out in one piece. The promoters are going to be pissed. There's a lot of goddamn money in that venue. Money Smiley's needs bad if we want to keep the lights on." Frankie groaned, the pressure already getting to him. "I need to get back in the cage."
"No," I snapped. "We agreed after your last fight that you'd stop and focus on running Smiley's with me. We agreed."
"Well, we need fighters that can actually hold their own, Ari. So unless you have a better idea."
"You aren't fighting. That isn't an option." I crossed my arms and turned my back to him. It was my silent cue to him that this conversation was over.
The doctor had warned us that he was one more blow to the head away from brain damage. Real damage. We had too many scares, and after the last one… He knew this. I didn't need to point it out to him again.
"If everyone could just up their game, then maybe we'd have a chance to win a damn match," he boomed, clearly not caring who heard his rampage.
"You have no one else to blame for Marcus leaving. It's because of you. He didn't get along with you. And this isn't the first time this has happened! You can't be a trainer who is constantly pissing people off. My dad didn't train like that, and that was why he was the best."
I didn't mean to sound as harsh as I did, but it was out there. Sometimes, Frankie's training style was over the top, and it bordered on aggressive and just plain dickish. He managed by fear; I managed by using my damn brain. We'd lost other good fighters who had blamed leaving on him, yet he still refused to change the way he behaved in the gym. He really needed to start seeing that he wasn't fucking perfect, and since everyone else wanted to pussyfoot around him, I guess it was left to me to set things straight.
"You don't know what you're talking about," he sneered as he moved to turn away. "Don't start talking about things you don't understand. Go back in the office, pay some bills with money we don't have, and stay in your lane and the hell out of mine."
I had no idea where this sudden sexist attitude had come from. It had never been there when we were younger, growing up here, and attending fights together. But ever since I had inherited Smiley's, it snuck up every now and again. I gained the impression he resented me being around, but I didn't give a shit about that. Smiley's was mine. I was here. I deserved to be here, and his attitude wasn't going to change that.
"I'm going out to clear my head," I suddenly decided, grabbing all of my belongings in the process.
I couldn't sit around listening to this. Not without saying something more I'd truly regret. I needed to get some fresh air before I went insane.
Frankie simply smirked at me as if he'd expected me to back down from the fight, which caused my blood to race through my body even hotter. I could feel all eyes were on us, and the last thing I wanted was our own match to erupt outside of the cage.
Lovers' quarrels did not make good business.
I squinted, gritting my teeth, then got the hell out of there.