Hold Her Close

“Ben?” I call, sticking my head out of the door.

“Yeah,” he says and comes around the corner.

He’s my assistant, and it still feels weird to say that. Never in my life did I think that I would be the kind of person to have an assistant. But it isn’t just him. Now it feels like I have a small army at my disposal to do whatever I need them to do.

It’s handy and frees up a lot more of my time for training. But it is still weird and I’m getting used to it.

I’ve only fought in a few official MMA fights, but things are blowing up in a way that no one had really anticipated. I am undefeated, and even though I hate interviews, my agent Jeremy is trying to get me to do more public stuff to help with my profile. When you have this kind of momentum, he tells me, you ride the wave and don’t fight against it.

It just so happens that riding the wave right now could bring me closer to a beautiful brunette that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind.

“All those interview requests,” I say. “Did we get one from WNSV?”

“The news station?” He looks surprised, but starts to flip through his phone. “Yeah, we did. Why, what’s up?”

“I’ll do that one.”

He stares at me before laughing. “You’re volunteering to do an interview? Are you sick?”

“Very funny. I have my reasons.”

“And those are?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Private.”

He shrugs. “I’ll make the call.”

Ben is great, and I knew him before he became my assistant, so the transition hasn’t been that difficult. But still, it feels weird having him do things for me. I need to get over that. It is going to happen more and more as my career progresses. I don’t have a huge ego, so it’s easy for me to think of all these people as part of my team. I may be the talent, but without them making things easier for me and organizing the opportunities, I wouldn’t be half as successful.

“Oh, and I told Frank that you were beating the hell out the bag and he cancelled your workout,” Ben says, phone already to his ear. “He said you can take it easy for a couple days after the win but to make sure that you do cardio in return for his generosity.”

I chuckle. “Noted.”

Ducking back into the gym, I grab my towel and water bottle. The home gym is one of my favorite parts of my new place. The prize money from the fights that I’ve won were enough to really change my lifestyle. I bought a house on the outskirts of Nashville near one of the rivers on a big piece of property. The sponsorships those wins landed me were even more lucrative.

But in the end, that didn’t matter to me. Now that I have the house, I am happy. I always wanted a place that was just mine. And I have it now. All the rest of what I live for is in between the ropes. And at the foot of my bed.

Walking into my living room, I let out a whistle and smile as the pounding sound of feet comes from every direction. Seven dogs of various shapes and sizes emerge from every corner of the house, swarming around my feet.

“Time for cardio.”

They are all jumping and barking and panting; excited by the idea that we are going outside. They missed me while I was away. I clip a leash to each of their collars in turn and grab the device that I had to order from a place that specializes in products for dog walkers.

The group in front of me is definitely a bunch of misfits, but I love them. There are a handful of missing ears and a couple of missing eyes, some with less visible injuries, too. All of them are rescues from a dog fighting ring that was exposed a few years ago, and when I saw all of them, I couldn’t imagine leaving a single one behind. So they all came home with me.

I know what it is like to be abandoned. What it is like for other people to use you as a punching bag and not care about you for anything other than what you might be worth to them. These dogs have gotten me through some tough times, and in return I spoil them.

Closing the door behind us, I start to run at an easy pace down my long driveway toward the road. The dogs are used to this. They keep perfect pace and space between each other. It’s almost like they’re psychically connected to each other, the way they can anticipate how each other will move. I never expected when I adopted them that they’d be such a tight knit family.