The Will(94)

That wasn’t as good of a nickname as “The Truck” but it wasn’t terrible either.

He promptly took off his robe and I saw what I saw at the gym but more of it seeing as he was only wearing boxing shoes and a pair of green satin boxing trunks with a white waistband and little white shamrocks at the outer side hems.

I saw the man who had to be Junior in the other corner wearing white trunks with a red waistband and stripes down the side.

However, he didn’t look like a Junior. He looked like a Bruiser. He was completely bald and seemed bigger and scarier than Mickey.

At once, I was alarmed.

I became more alarmed when Alyssa cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Fuck him up, baby!”

This was tremendously vulgar, though I thought it was kind of sweet when Junior turned his eyes to Alyssa, lifted a gloved hand to his heart then to his lips then punched it out at her.

“Love you, tiger!” she shrieked in reply.

I couldn’t help but grin since I felt this was all very cute.

The boxers danced around their corner talking to men outside the ring and I crossed my legs, tossed my coat in the empty seat beside me and tucked my bag in my lap.

“He’s a southpaw.” I heard Alyssa say as the man in black pants and a gray shirt—also incongruously wearing a ridiculous black bow tie—motioned the boxers to the center of the ring.

I turned to her and asked, “Pardon?”

“Mickey,” she replied. “He’s a southpaw. Left-handed. His power’s on the wrong side for Junior. My man has trained all year with left-handed sparring partners to move up in the league which means beating Mickey seein’ as Mickey’s always number two, Jake’s always number one and Junior’s smart enough to know he’s never gonna best Jake. But I’m not thinkin’ good thoughts. Mick has killed everyone all season. He’s in top-notch shape.”

“If this is the case, isn’t it difficult for you to watch your partner fighting?” I inquired, truly curious and she grinned again.

“This your first fight?” she asked.

I nodded.

“You’ll get me, honey,” she stated. “Trust me. You watch Jake out there, I swear, your panties’ll be drenched within seconds. I’ll be home bangin’ my man’s brains out by that time but if I wasn’t, on my way back to Magdalene, if I saw Jake’s truck was on the side of the road with the windows steamed up, that would not be a surprise.”

This was rather alarming (and crude) news. Therefore I couldn’t stop myself from biting my lip.

She looked at my lip and burst out laughing before she leaned in and advised, “Get ready for the ride of your life, girlfriend.”

Now, I was beginning to fret for a different reason.

Jake simply breathing I found alluring. Panties drenched for a man who didn’t find you attractive was not something I looked forward to.

Luckily, my attention was turned to the ring when I heard a very loud and excited voice come over the audio system. Through this, I found out that Mickey’s last name was Donovan (The Irishman, indeed). They didn’t waste much time after talking up the fighters and the referee having a brief word with them. They went to their corners and nearly directly back to the center of the ring where they touched gloves top to bottom and again.

Then the bell rang and it began.

The good news was, watching Mickey (who Alyssa was correct, even not knowing a thing about boxing, it was not hard to miss he was quite a bit better at it than Junior), my panties didn’t get drenched. It also wasn’t nearly as horrifying as I thought it would be.

It was actually, I found, quite interesting, in a somewhat sweaty, grunting, gruesome way.

Nevertheless, I was glad it only went three rounds and, although I quite liked Alyssa, regardless that she was very loud and seemingly bloodthirsty (not to mention foul-mouthed) as she shouted encouragement to her lover, I was happy to see Mickey’s hand lifted when the judgment came down. Though, in deference to the woman at my side, I only politely clapped when he won.

After spending some time accepting his accolades from the spectators, Mickey didn’t delay in leaving the ring and he also caught my eyes doing it, grinning and winking.

That was lovely so I smiled back.

“What gives with that?” Alyssa asked as Mickey jogged back up the aisle.

“Mickey goes to Jake’s gym,” I answered without telling her the full story but it seemed she understood me (though obviously not fully) when she lifted her chin and said, “Ah.”

She then grabbed her purse and dug out her phone, beeping buttons and saying, “I gotta dash…get my post-fight drilling from my man, so quick, give me your number. We’ll do lunch. Or drinks. Or somethin’. You can even come in and I’ll give you a freebie mani-pedi. I live in Magdalene and got a shop there.” She stopped beeping buttons, looked to me and smiled impishly. “You can tell me how much fun Jake is after a fight.”

“I, well…”

“Hurry,” she urged.

I liked her very much regardless of her loudness and crudeness. Further, I was going to be in Magdalene for some time and didn’t know anyone of my age who wasn’t the wife of the pastor of the local church. Therefore, I quickly gave her my number. I was about to go on and share that she had the wrong idea about Jake and I before she shot out of her seat and looked down at me.