Page 26 of Sucker Punch Drunk Love

“Trust me Medina, sometimes, youdo!” I teased. Doing a walk back to the front desk, my refund was processed, adding in a complimentary 11 am check out time, that we wouldn’t even have the time to use because we had to be on the road again by 9. Knocking on Sierra’s room door, she took her time coming to the door, peeling back the blinds to confirm before opening the door.

See, this was what I was talking about. She was already wound down and ready for bed, so she was in those fuckin boy shorts that made me want to just grab her ass and bite it, as she crawled back into her bed, already prim for sleep. “I’ve got like six alarms that go off before five, but in the instance I don’t wake up—which I will—don’t let me oversleep past six, you got that?”

“You’re better at waking up than me.”

“Yeah, but I’m betting on your snoring keeping me up half the night, so just do that one thing for me? ¡Poorfaa?*!” I dragged out.

“Okay!” she laughed, trying to drown me out.

“Good night,” I ended for the night, heading for the bathroom. With how long it took her to get ready, we wouldn’t have time to fight for the shower in the morning, so if I opted for one now, maybe the fumes from the hot water would relax me enough to fall right asleep. I’d been lucky enough to fall victim to my exhaustion, but that deep sleep didn’t last long before I was tossing and tussling in the middle of the night.

Maybe it was anxiety that Sierra was going to punk out on me. Or it could have been the lack of comfort a twin gave when you were used to a California king. Either way, it would be a long bout of resting my eyes until my nerves let me fall back asleep, but the longer I stayed awake, something else was keeping me up.

At first, I thought it was that sound you make right before sleep caught you, as Sierra whimpers, while faint, traveled even from my side of the room. Was this chick rubbing herself off? She made little mewling sounds, trying to restrain her sounds from catching, but I knew what a woman’s moan sounded like. I just didn’t need to know howherssounded.

Mouthing “Fuck,” I tried to ignore my growing erection underneath these shitty, thin as fuck sheets. Please let this chick not savor the moment with this one, I really didn’t need to have this image of her in my head while I was six feet away from her.

She made this really high pitched shrill, before turning over, a sleepy snore taking over.Didn’t snore my ass. If I would’ve been in that bed with her, I would’vereallyput her to sleep. But this was why I didn’t want to share a room with her. How the fuck was I supposed to stay focused when now that was all I could think about?

***

I must’ve actually got sleep, because before I knew it, Sierra was shaking me—a first in any of this time I’d been training her—making sure I didn’t oversleep. “Shit, what time is it?” I sloppily reached for my phone.

“It’s like six. I know you said five, but you looked so peaceful in your sleep, I was afraid you’d be cranky,” she sat back on her side of the room, fully dressed and I assumed showered and packed.

“Yeah, well I wouldn’t have slept in had it not been all that fucking snoring keeping me up,” I lied. “You up and showered?”

“Yeah, but I called Héctor and knocked on his door, but he’s not waking up.”

“That prick probably won’t get up until 8. I thought I’d be up earlier than this, so we’ve got a quarter of the time. Give me a minute, we’ve got time for a run, just let me get dressed.” I slipped into my clothes and met Sierra sitting on the stairs.

“Come on,” a silent demand, as we joined each other in a warmup, a cooldown for me really, because when I was running, I wasn’t worried about Sierra, or her fight, or even that show I woke up to in the middle of last night. Whatever happened today, was out of my hands.

When we came back from the run, I hadn’t noticed Sierra had been studying me the entire time, especially when she asked me what was wrong. “You just…never avoid looking at me.” Had I been avoiding looking at her? She certainly thought I had been.

“That enough looking at you to last a lifetime, huh?” as I bent down, and faked a smile right in front of her face, as she pushed me away.

“You’re so stupid.”

“Yeah, well stop asking obtuse questions,” I taunted back, parting ways so I could bang on Héctor’s door and force him towake up. Lying out on the hood of my car, Sierra and Héctor walked up, as I threw my keys to Héctor and head toward the passenger seat.

“I’m playing DJ. And don’t scratch my shit.”

***

Sierra was a half hour away from showtime, and we'd gone over a few drills, but I respected that she needed a few minutes to gather herself before the match. Héctor led the way to meet someone he’d told me about, a married couple that co-owned Athena Combat & Co, a promotion company that promoted mainly female fighters.

“I'm told you're the man to meet,” I greeted, reaching in for a firm handshake at the man, named Barry Sinclair, Héctor wanted to introduce me to.

“I came to see the talent. If I like what I see, my wife's the one who makes the magic happen.”

“Oh, so I should be buyingyouthat drink?” I flirted, directing my attention to who I later learned name’s was Delilah Sinclair, at the bar. Being in the business of matchmaking was hard, but being a woman was probably harder, so I'm sure she worked her ass off to be here.

“We work with over six dozen fighters. Your girl would have to be impressive to have a sit down.”

“Oh, she'll impress you all right. But the price of the brick might go up, depending on the outcome of this fight?—”

“A risk we're willing to take. But trust us, with your history, we hope we're wrong. Take us to the cleaners if you need to.”