Unleashed: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance Part 7

"It worked because Mickey didn't antic.i.p.ate it."

"Exactly."

"Can't play the same trick twice."

"I only need to beat each opponent once."

"Again!" he cries, spraying spittle into my face before leaving the cage.

I walk to the center of the octagon, and extend a hand to Mickey to help him up. He slaps it away, and I grin at him.

"Sore loser?"

"Use your right," he tells me. "And I'll beat you with my right."

I shrug. Mickey's not half as ambidextrous as he thinks he is. "Your funeral."

We tap fists, and I settle into an orthodox stance, leading with my left, waiting with my right. Mickey is doing the same, but I can tell he's not comfortable. He doesn't have the coordination, the agility with his weak hand, and it shows.

I consider it for a moment. Maybe ambidexterity is my genetic boon.

He lunges clumsily, off-balance. I kick away his leading foot, and he's not used to having his left as a pivot. He spins, nearly trips over, and with his back toward me I grab hold of his head, weave him down onto the mat, and get him into a Pace choke.

His neck is in the nook of my knee, and I've got his arm pinned, and his hips stapled to the mat. He's got no leverage, can't spin, move, twist out of it.

Like I said, it's all about the angles. It's all about leverage. It's physics, when you get down to it.

People say fighting is an art, and I agree. There are different styles, different flows. Fighters have personalities to their technique.

But fighting is also a science.

More than that, it's a marriage between the beautiful artistry of antic.i.p.ation, improvisation, and the cold, unfeeling technicalities of physics and positioning.

Like the perfect play in a basketball or football game, when you meld the two successfully, you create a winning formula, a moment of magic that gives you gooseb.u.mps, that makes the hairs on the back of your arms stand up.

My art is my ability to antic.i.p.ate a move; my science is understanding how to counter it, and lock my opponent down in a submission hold before they know what hit them.

Mickey, unable to breathe, taps, so I let him go.

Sweat pours from his body, and as we both get up I see a blaze of anger in his eyes.

"Alright," Coach says. He gets into the cage, grips onto Mickey's shoulder. "You're done for today. I know that look in your eyes, and it's only going to make you lose."

"Good fight," I say, extending my fist, but Mickey ignores it, leaves the cage.

"What now, Coach?"

The burly man descends upon me. He's taller than me, wider than me, thicker than me. He doesn't have a body like I do, but when he was my age, I have little doubt he would have had the perfect fighting body. Long reach, wide shoulders, a low center.

"You're one arrogant son of a b.i.t.c.h, do you know that?" he snarls at me, words ejecting from his mouth rapid-fire. He's got a hint of a southern drawl, a faded accent.

I blink. "Anything to win, Coach."

"Take off your helmet. Now, G.o.d d.a.m.n it!"

I unfasten it, hold it by my side. Coach is still in my face, but his proximity won't jar me. I know he's harder on me than any of his other students.

It's because I'm the best.

"You think you can switch southpaw in the pros?"

"Plenty do. Jones Jr, Hagler."

"You've got a long way to go to get your name in with them, boy! Come on, show me what you got with your left, then."

Coach backs up, pulls a mouth guard from his s.h.i.+rt pocket and chews on it.

His s.h.i.+rt pocket. The guy is wearing slacks, for f.u.c.k's sake!

He kicks off his leather shoes, peels off his socks. He's got gross old-man toenails.

He drops into an orthodox stance.

Now my heart is racing. I've beaten Coach before, but he is one tricky fighter, and he's got a ton of power, that special kind of old-man muscle.

I set my stance, leading with my right, waiting with my left. I don't put my padded helmet back on. Coach is in here without taped wrists and in f.u.c.king slacks and a dress s.h.i.+rt... he doesn't usually fight.

It would be unfair of me to wear the helmet.

Coach hops toward me, a little dance, swaying left, right. He stutters with his feet, deceptively light for somebody his weight, but I see the feint before he throws it, and know where the follow-up is coming.

I counter, hit him in his arm, grab hold onto it and spin around him until I'm on his back.

But Coach spins with me, and now he's on my back. With his hands around my face, I worm out of his hold, throw a left cross. He dodges, and swivels a kick at me.

d.a.m.n it, the kick is a feint! I don't notice it until too late. My arms are stretched downward, blocking his low leg, and I see his right fist hurtling straight toward my jaw.

He cracks me, and I stumble backward, head spinning, the taste of metal in my mouth.

It was a good f.u.c.king hit, that tricky motherf.u.c.ker.

"Come on, boy," he taunts me. "You think you're ambidextrous? You think you got what it takes?"

I feel the heat inside me, the compet.i.tive fire, ignite. I don't get angry a I never get angry in the cage. Get angry, and you lose discipline. Get angry, and you're done for.

But you still got to have fire, compet.i.tiveness. It's not about wanting to win. It's about wanting not to lose.

I test a jab, he slaps it away, and so I keep testing it, testing it, watching the way he moves.

He puts too much weight on his back leg. It's because he's got a gut, he's compensating. I jab quickly at his face, boxer-style, but deliberately hit wide. I know he's going to counter with his right, but I duck it, grab onto his thigh, and tip him backward.

He goes down hard onto his back, and for a split second I'm paralyzed. He's my coach, the closest thing I have to a father, and I just knocked the wind out of him.

In the second I hesitate, he whirls a leg at me, kicks out my feet. I crash down hard onto him, and then we're grappling on the ground.

I can smell his sweat, hear his labored breathing, but his strength is just astonis.h.i.+ng.

I've got to stick to using my left as my dominant hand. After all, that was the test.

And so I weave around him, pin him where I can, get his body into position so that I'm on his back and he has no leverage.

To someone watching, we must look like two human-sized beetles tussling on the pavement.

I sit him up, get my left arm beneath one of his armpits, and then pull it up to his neck. I kick his outside thigh with my heel, right where his lateral cutaneous nerve will be, and numb his leg.

No more leverage. It's physics, it's biology, it's science.

I then pin his other arm with my foot against his body. He tries to squeeze it out so I twist him, so that his shoulder is against the mat, so that his own body weight stops him from moving it.

Leverage, or lack of it.

And I pull. I pull hard, choke the motherf.u.c.king s.h.i.+t out of Coach. His face is going red, and the veins on his temples are bulging. The guy's pus.h.i.+ng sixty, but I won't loosen this grip.

If he wants to risk a coronary, a stroke, then that's on him.

But I'm not f.u.c.king throwing the fight.

"Coach!" I growl into his ear. "Tap out you f.u.c.k!"

I don't want to hurt him, but I want to lose even less.

I hear him roar beneath me, something primal and ferocious, and with astounding strength he rolls me, gets on my back, and holds me in a leg lock.

He's got my leg clamped across his torso, one arm around the top of my calf, the other holding onto my ankle, twisting.

The strain in my knee is almost immediately overwhelming. I try to roll, throw a kick at him, but I can't get leverage.

Coach spits out his mouth guard onto me, followed by a trail of sticky saliva.

"Your left stance lost you positioning in the hold," he tells me, his voice even hoa.r.s.er now. I think I bruised his vocal chords. "That's why I could roll you. You understand?"

I try to throw a punch at Coach, but he turns me, makes me miss.

"You understand?" he barks. "You may be ambidextrous, but you lose strength when you reverse stances. You will never be as dominant with your left. It's genetics. It's just the way we are."

I just grunt. I haven't given up yet. I go right to the end.

I try to turn, find purchase, so I can throw a heel into his jaw, but he twists my knee even more, and I groan, and slam my open palm against the mat.

Coach lets go of me, and I sit up and examine my knee. It's already starting to swell, but nothing popped, nothing tore.

"I wouldn't have hurt you," Coach says, grabbing my arm and hoisting me up to my feet. "Listen, Chance-"

He pauses, huffing. I get him a squeeze-bottle of water, watch as he gulps it down. I take out my mouth guard, stick it down my compression shorts.

"Slower, Coach. Breathe slower."

"Don't tell me how to f.u.c.king breathe, boy."

I grin at him. "You got me good."

"d.a.m.n right I did. Chance, you're talented, but you're c.o.c.ky. On top of that, you're too technical."

"Too technical?"

"Yes. Listen, you got the body, you got the quicks, but you're not improvising enough. When you're in the cage, it is about fluidity and adaptation. It's about improvisation a lot of the time. You're so caught up in how to hold, what to hold, and your hits are routine. Jab-jab-hook."

"I got you on the mat," I say at him. I don't hide the compet.i.tive bitterness in my voice.

"You did, and that was your only good move." He grips my shoulder, slaps my face hard so that I look at him. My sweat makes the slap sticky.

"Chance, I'm teaching you. You got a good left, there's no denying it. Sometimes, it might even become useful. But never think because you can switch you can dominate. You'll throw a guy off maybe for a ten second stretch, but that's it."

"Yes, Coach."

"And loosen up! For f.u.c.k's sake, you're wrestling champ."

"Wrestling is technical."

"It's also fluid. Think outside the box. It's cliche, I know, but if you fight by the book you will get beaten by somebody who isn't constrained by those limitations."

"I got it, Coach."

"I'm going to send you some video tonight, some fighters who could ad-lib with the best of them. Study their counters, the way they switch pivots, the way they use their bodies. Think Ali. Remember how he moved? That softness? He was like f.u.c.king water, Chance! How can you hit water?"

"Yeah."

"Try to understand the thought process. You've got excellent reflexes, some of the best coordination I've ever seen, and you're always thinking five steps ahead, and that is great." He thumps my chest hard. "You'll need that. Expand those possibilities, that horizon, and you'll have a counter for nearly everybody you fight."

"Alright, Coach," I say, nodding.

"By the way, the school is kicking us out."

I bunch my brow, and eye Coach. "What do you mean?"

"The parents have been complaining, say that outside of wrestling a because it's a national pastime a the school shouldn't allow any other forms of fighting lessons. They say it endorses violence."

"What's the difference?"