Free The Fighter (The High Rise, Book 1) by Harper Bentley Page A

sober,
there’s no way I would’ve tolerated wanting you to kiss me.
Besides, you’re so not my type.” She looks me up and down
cavalierly. “Have a great day,” she says sarcastically,
shooting me a fuck you smile before going inside and closing
the door.
    This makes me
chuckle. She’s such a liar and she knows it. I walk back to my
apartment with a grin because I know when a woman wants me and
Laney Kyle wants me.
    It’ll be an
asshole move on my part, but I can’t help thinking how fun it’ll be
to prove it to her.

    Tonight I’m in
the basement of the apartment building where a couple badass
motherfuckers are in the ring getting after it. I’ve been informed
there are no weight classes and looking around the room, I see
every size of man you can imagine getting warmed up for their
fights. I can easily pick out most of the “loanees” who are the
more out-of-shape men, only here trying to reduce their loans, and
I see several of them looking around nervously hoping they don’t
get paired up with any of the bigger guys who I’ve figured have
been hired by Kyle to make things more interesting for those who’ve
made wagers. He’s probably even instructed a few to throw their
fights so he can make more off unsuspecting bettors.
    In spite of
all the bullshit I’m not intimidated. I might not be formally
trained in this shit anymore but I know I can put the hurt on
someone and that’s the plan.
    I’m also
somewhat impressed at how efficiently everything is being run.
There’s a ref who seems to know what he’s doing and things appear
to be running smoothly.
    There are
maybe a hundred, hundred-fifty, bettors standing around the ring
watching the current fight. I check out a group of ten who make
their way in the back door stopping at a desk to talk to an older
man I’ve seen around the gym picking up towels. He hands them a
sheet which I assume is tonight’s lineup then the group passes the
paper around before wallets come out and money is relinquished to
the old guy who writes out tickets.
    I start
loosening up, rolling my shoulders then going into arm circles. I
go through a full dynamic warmup to prepare my body for what’s to
come. Sparring with Matt yesterday helped, and Crowley’s sparred
with me a few times over the past week and a half since it’d been
five years since I fought in college which helped too. Sadly, I
found I was in pretty rough shape. Although it was like riding a
bike and everything came back to me the minute I stepped into the
ring, and even though I’ve worked out five days a week since, this
fighting shit is a totally different animal. I’d forgotten how much
aerobic endurance it takes to go three rounds. After my first
sparring bout with Crowley, I was huffing and puffing like
crazy.
    But I’ve
improved and tonight’s the night to find out whether I’m ready or
not.
    All I know is
I’d better be fucking ready.

    Well, I wasn’t
as ready as I wanted to be, but I still won.
    I fought one
of Kyle’s biggest, most experienced fighters, and while his
technique might’ve been better, my strength and acumen were what
got me the victory. And, fuck, it felt good. The only thing that
would’ve made it better is if Laney had been here watching.
    Well, shit.
Did I just think that? Huh.
    Anyway, I
didn’t walk away unscathed, though. In the first round I failed to
protect myself and got an elbow to my lip which busted it wide
open. There’s actually an experienced cutman here who applied a
coagulant to stop the bleeding and then I was good to go. I’ve also
got some swelling under my left eye where the guy landed a lucky
late jab and I know I’ll have a shiner in the morning if I don’t
already.
    But when
people say, “You should see the other guy,” well, you should
definitely see the other guy. I think I broke his nose and he has two black eyes he’ll have to deal with. I ended it when he
went in for a side kick but missed then made the mistake of turning
his back to