Page 156 of Gym Bros
“I feel like we could do better,” Priya says, examining the other seats when we file into an empty row a safe distance from the cage.
“This is fine,” I tell her. I don’t need to hear flesh splitting open. There’s not a fight happening at the moment, but there is very loud rock music playing and three people cleaning the floor of the octagon.
“Beer?” Rachel asks. “I feel like it’s mandatory.”
I shake my head, eyes scanning the crowd.
“You want me to try and figure out where he is?” Priya asks, her phone already out.
“No,” I say. “I don’t want him to know I’m here.”
“That’s stupid. We’re sending a selfie.”
“I don’t want to distract him,” I argue.
“If a supportive selfie distracts him enough to undo months of training, then I hate to tell you, he’s got bigger problems. Now here.”
She holds out her phone. Rachel, from my other side, forces me into a squish between them, and while they both smile, I pose, givingeyes.
We examine the result. Priya doesn’t like the way her chin looks, but I look phenomenal, so I refuse to sit for another.
A moment after she hits send, my phone buzzes in my hand.
Samuel
Where are you?
Me
Guess
Samuel
If you liked what I did to you last night, you are in no way prepared for what I have planned for you later.
Rachel snorts. “What happened last night?”
I turn my phone over on my leg. “Do you mind?”
A fight between two women is announced shortly. One is tall and wiry, the other is shorter and muscular. Both are white with their hair styled in cornrow braids. They’re wearing gloves, sports bra tops, and long athletic shorts. Their feet are bare.
If I had to bet on this fight based on physical appearances, I’d put my money on the shorter one. However, as it gets underway, my assumptions quickly take a backseat to the vicious aggression coming from the wiry one.
We’re nowhere close to the octagon, and over the crowd noise, I can’t hear any of the body contact, but I can certainly see the blood. By the end of the first five minute round, they’re both still standing, and their faces are covered in red.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
“I think that tall one is on Samuel’s team,” Rachel says.
“How do you know?”
“I googled around a little this morning while Pri was taking her sweet time getting ready.
“She’s brutal,” I note, regarding the fighter.
“Yeah.”
So brutal, that the second round lasts less than a minute, ending with the shorter woman slumped in a corner, passed out.
