Sick Heart: A Dark MMA Fighter Romance

Maart laughs and looks to me. “Did you know this?”

“She told me last month.”

Maart considers this for a moment, his eyes narrowing down into slits, but he’s not looking at me when this happens. Or Anya. So he’s thinking about something other than us. But that expression disappears when he sits down next to her, reaches over her—letting his bare arm brush against her bare leg—and picks up a piece of dried guava. “Sit down, Cort. Stop overthinking shit.”

I draw in a deep breath and hold it for a second. He’s definitely up to something. Because it’s not me overthinking anything right now. It’s him.

Maart’s dark brown eyes pierce mine, dragging this moment out for so long it becomes intimate. “Come on,” he finally says, his voice soft now. And this breaks the awkwardness. “What are you waiting for, Cort? We got shit to celebrate.” He holds up the bright blue bottle of Lectra. “Let’s get fucked up.”

I hate this. I love this. I hate this. I love this.

These two things cannot be reconciled. Ever. And tonight just proves it.

Because Maart isn’t just any man. He is my best friend. Sometimes, he’s more than that. He is my secret weapon and my greatest weakness.

And Anya isn’t just a girl. She is a pretty girl. She is our girl. But she is more than just a pretty girl who is ours. She is a reward.

For a job well done. For a fight hard fought. And, whether I really want to admit this or not, she is my prize for walking away. For bowing to Udulf. For accepting his reality as mine. For giving in.

And that, I realize, is not how I want to win.

That is not the way of the warrior.

But it’s far too late to do anything about it now.

So I take that bottle from Maart.

And I get fucked up.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - ANYA

I know Maart fairly well now. We’ve spent the last month training together, one on one, every single night. He’s had his hands all over my body while we grappled on the mat. And even though his touch never felt intimate or made my stomach queasy, now, when he brushes his arm across my leg to grab a piece of dried fruit, it is intimate and my stomach does something weird.

I don’t remember much about the first night we were all together. I just know it felt good. And I was very drunk. It wasn’t anything I relived in my head. I didn’t play it all back, going from moment to moment.

Some of that is because I wouldn’t be able to track those moments. I think I skipped most of them while it was happening.

But right now, time is not skipping. Time is long, and slow, and… I don’t know. Maart’s attention is somehow different. And I haven’t even taken a sip of Lectra yet.

“Here,” Maart says, putting the bottle of Lectra in my lap. “Ladies first. Drink up.”

If I want to curtail what’s about to happen, now would be the time to put a stop to it.

But I don’t. So I drink. I take a long sip and Cort laughs, pulling the bottle away from my lips before I’m even done. “Slow down, killer.” I love his laugh. He’s been stressed this entire time. From the moment we got here he’s been caught in some web of worry. But now he’s different. He’s calm and happy.

So even though I know that tomorrow is my last day with this man, I don’t let that worry touch me. I don’t let reality chase away our one night of dreams.

He drinks too, then wipes the sticky blue liquid from his lips and passes the bottle to Maart. They catch each other’s gaze for a moment. Hold it.

And I want to know all the silent words passing between them in this moment.

Is it I love you? Probably. But it’s also Thank you. And We did it. And, when both of them suddenly look at me, it’s She’s pretty.

I blush.

“Stop reading minds”—Maart laughs—“and drink.”

I do. I drink. We all drink. We nibble on the sugared-up dried fruit, and then, suddenly, Cort is feeding me chocolate and I’m sucking on his fingers as I stare into those steel-gray eyes of his. Get lost in them. I know this is the drink catching up with me, but I don’t care.

Maart is laughing, telling some story about their childhood. Some memory of a long time ago when it was just the two of them against the world and a girl called Anya maybe didn’t even exist yet.

We lie back on the blanket—me in the middle, them on either side—and look up at the deep dark above our heads and marvel at the vast emptiness dotted with pin-pricks of light.

Our hands are wandering. Not doing anything sexual, not really. We’re just touching each other the way you are compelled to do when you’re on the Lectra. A fingertip across my upper thigh. A thumb caressing lazy circles on my cheek. My hand on Cort’s scratchy face as he hovers over me. Kisses me.