5 Rounds: Chapter 2

I wake up to the delicious smell of eggs and bacon wafting through my apartment. I groan happily, thinking for the millionth time how grateful I am that my sister is a brilliant chef.

Sure enough, when I shuffle into the kitchen with bedhead and a sleepy smile, I see Hailey at the stove with a skillet in her hand and a dish towel thrown over her shoulder. She flips the omelet as I plop down on the bar stool behind the island.

‘I don’t know how you do it,’ I mumble. ‘It’s 7am and you’re already dressed for work looking perfect, making a breakfast that would’ve taken me an hour to figure out.’

‘That’s because your cooking skills are so bad that you have to pore over every line of a recipe and then look up what ‘mincing’ means,’ she laughs. I glare at the back of her head—even though she’s spot on. I actually burned water once.

‘Not the point,’ I grumble. ‘I think the joke about you being dropped off by the stork might have some truth to it, since no one else in the family is even close to being an early bird. I don’t know where you got it from.’

She shrugs as she slides the omelet onto the plate in front of me. My mouth immediately starts watering. ‘I have a lot to do today,’ she reasons. ‘I’d rather get to the café early and get everything done so I have time to make Steve dinner before he gets home.’

I pause my chewing as I consider my next question. I’ve sensed something is off about my sister’s relationship recently, but she hasn’t seemed eager to talk about it, so I haven’t pushed. But my sister spidey senses are starting to go from tingling to fire alarms and I feel like I need to start pushing a little bit.

‘You can always sleep here if you don’t want to go home,’ I tell her softly. ‘I know you guys have been a little off lately. Maybe you need some space. Like more than a night.’

Her shoulders drop and I can practically feel the sadness in her stance. ‘No, it’s okay. I want to see him tonight. He already texted me this morning that he misses me and can’t wait to see me. I’m just going to head home after work.’ She looks up at me with a fake smile plastered on her face. ‘All good. What’s your day look like?’

Her deflection isn’t fooling anyone but I decide to drop the subject anyway. I dig back into my omelet.

‘I have back-to-back meetings with some of the Subject Matter Expert engineers today,’ I say around a mouthful of egg. ‘I read over what they wrote and now I have to sit down with them and basically translate their techy speak into normal person speak. It’s great. I get to be looked at like I’m an idiot all day long. I’m living the dream.’

Hailey shoots me a pitying glance. I don’t even have it in me to jokingly wave it off.

‘Thanks for the omelet,’ I say with a mouth full of bacon. ‘This is one of your best.’

‘Bacon crispy enough for you? I practically turned it into charcoal.’

I glare at her smug face, both of us remembering the time she burned my bacon to charcoal so she could prove to me that there was such a thing as ‘too burnt.’

‘Yes, it’s perfectly crispy,’ I snap as I shove another piece of bacon in my mouth.

She laughs as she dumps her dishes in the sink and finishes the rest of her coffee. Slipping on her pea coat, she grabs her tote bag off the island. ‘Okay, well, I’m out. Thanks for letting me stay over. I’ll call you tomorrow to figure out the plan with Jax for the fights this weekend. Which I’m actually looking forward to, by the way. I can’t remember the last time the three of us hung out with just us.’

I smile when I realize she’s right. Once Jax and I went off to college, it was rare that the three of us managed to get our schedules to match. This Saturday will be the first time in a while that we’ll all be together.

‘Okay, have fun at work,’ I tell her as I happily crunch through the last piece of bacon. ‘And let me know if Steve acts up. I’ve been itching to introduce him to Bennie.’

She lets out a loud laugh. ‘Let’s not bring Bennie the Bat into this just yet.”

I grin triumphantly at the fact that I made my sister laugh. ‘You just tell me when you’re ready for him. Bennie hasn’t seen any action since your high school boys.’

‘Nuh uh, you said you brought him out when that guy in your hall thought he could follow you into your dorm room.’

‘Oh yeah, I forgot about that guy.’ I frown. ‘Guys are fucking morons.’

She laughs again and I swear it’s the happiest sound in the whole world.

I turn back to my plate with a sigh, a small frown crossing my face. I love my sister more than anything and it kills me when she’s not happy. From the age of fourteen she’s been a supremely independent person, doing what she needs to do to be successful and creating her own happiness—she’s never been reliant on another person for either of those things. Jax and I have known her current boyfriend wasn’t going to be the one, for the sole reason that he doesn’t drive her to be better and doesn’t particularly add anything to her life. But we never thought he could actually drag her down. We just always assumed Hailey would cut any guy the second he started giving her more bad times than happy ones.

Right now, it definitely seems like he’s making her more unhappy than happy. And I can’t for the life of me figure out why Hailey would keep him around if that’s the case.

I huff in frustration and finish the last few bites of my omelet. I can’t help my sister until she wants to be helped so in the meantime, I’ve got my own problems to deal with.

I think about the meetings I have scheduled today while I get dressed. As much as I would love to be the kind of writer that works from home wearing leggings and the messiest of messy buns, somewhere along my career I’ve become the kind of writer that exists in Corporate America. I open my closet, looking through my clothes for something that says, ‘professional and beautiful but not looking for attention or like I’m trying to sleep my way to the top.’

I never thought there would be such a fine line.

In the end I settle on a black pencil skirt that reaches my knees and a dusty pink patterned blouse that I tuck into the skirt. I twirl my hair into a low bun at the nape of my neck, laughing to myself when I think about how Jax calls it my ‘bitch bun.’ I briefly debate pulling on heels, but when I remember that my first meeting is with Paul ‘the Ass Man,’ I grab my flats instead.

I complete the look with mascara and a swipe of lip gloss and then I’m grabbing the tote bag with my laptop and walking out the door.

Two hours later and with my second cup of coffee, I’m thanking all the deities in the world for my sensible shoe choice.

For one, Paul only paid attention to half of our meeting, spending the other half acting like I didn’t see his constant glances at my legs. If I had worn heels, it’s likely the whole meeting would’ve been a waste instead of just half of it. Even still, I’ll be working late tonight trying to write the datasheet that Paul should’ve drafted before our meeting. But for another, sore feet are the last thing I need on this already-shit-at-10am workday.

I wince as I rub my temples. I have four more Subject Matter Expert engineers to meet with today and it’s rare that these particular meetings are ever enjoyable. Where my job is to simplify and clearly market our company’s software, the engineers that I meet with can’t understand how anyone could possibly not understand what they’re talking about. They’re so wrapped up in their world that they’re subconsciously assuming everyone has their engineer brain and can comprehend the level at which they’re speaking. And in my effort to simplify their content and put it into layman’s terms for a datasheet that will be used for marketing, they always end up looking at me like I’m an idiot.

I growl into my coffee, remembering Paul’s shocked, ‘what do you mean you want me to say it another way? I just explained it very clearly, I can’t possibly simplify it any more.’ Knowing he’s the easiest of the engineers I’m meeting with today does nothing for my shit mood.

With impeccable timing, Cassandra appears next to my cubicle. I can tell without her even saying a word that she’s in a hurry and wants to get this over with as quickly as possible. I groan inwardly, knowing that will make this even worse.

‘Hey, Remy, want to grab a conference room? I have a hard stop at 11:00 so we might need to speed this up a little.’

Consciously ordering my brain not to roll my eyes, I nod stiffly. ‘I booked Montgomery for us. Let’s meet in there.’ Without a word, she spins and walks toward the conference room.

I gulp down the last few swallows of coffee, hoping some extra caffeine will save me from the disaster I’m about to experience.

‘I have a thousand important things to do today so let’s get this over with,’ she starts without hesitation. ‘I wrote up the datasheet for you. It should be in your inbox.’

As I open her document on my laptop, I yet again marvel at the ridiculous expectation that 22-year-old Remy started this job with: the assumption that in Corporate America, everyone is a professional, responsible adult that can be pleasant while also having their shit together in order to get their work done.

Apparently, Cassandra didn’t get the pleasant memo.

And looking down at her ‘document’—which can barely be classified as a rough outline—I realize she didn’t receive the ‘get your shit done’ memo either.

‘Okay, this is a great start,’ I fumble awkwardly, trying to keep a cordial tone.

. ‘I do have a few questions, though.’

‘About what?’ she practically sneers. ‘It’s all right there. What else could you possibly need? Just use your pretty words and make it sound marketable. Isn’t that your job?’

I swallow roughly as I try to remind myself that responding in the same snappy tone will only make this situation worse. ‘It is, but I need a little more information than what you have here. This probably seems clear for an engineer, but I’m not a technical person so—’

‘You don’t need to be technical to understand what I wrote,’ she snaps, cutting me off. ‘It should be perfectly clear what the new software does. Anyone with half a brain could figure it out and write a few measly sentences about it.’

I stare at her in disbelief, not knowing which of her sentences to argue with first: the fact that what little she wrote is clear, that a six-page requirement is hardly ‘a few measly sentences,’ or that she just flat out insulted my intelligence.

Deciding to ignore the blow to my intellect, I try one last, self-deprecating tactic, in the hopes that I can appeal to her pity. ‘I’m sure this seems simple to you, and I apologize for making you feel like I’m wasting your time, but if we could just spend a little bit of time reviewing the technical points, I’d feel more comfortable writing the document. I’d rather have you go into too much detail than not enough and risk me writing something incorrect—’

‘That’s your problem, not mine,’ she interrupts again. ‘I don’t have time to train you on the technology. You should have knowledge about the company’s software, otherwise how else could you write this stuff?’

‘Technically, I’m not supposed to be writing anything,’ I finally snap. ‘My title says I should be proofreading your work, not writing it. You can call this a document all you want but you and I both know this is barely a bullet point list of fractured phrases.’

Her eyes widen in shock. I don’t even care that I’ve just shot myself in the foot in the hopes of Cassandra ever being helpful again. I refuse to sit here and be shit on just because some alpha bitch wants to take out all the sexism she’s dealt with on another woman.

‘I think we’re done here,’ she hisses, standing up. Without another word, she tucks her laptop against her inappropriately exposed cleavage and angrily strides out of the conference room.

I walk back to my desk—stopping to grab a third cup of coffee—and begrudgingly settle into my research on the product Cassandra was supposed to write about. Instead of an hour edit of what was supposed to be a finished document, this has now become a four-hour job of research, writing, and then proofreading.

I wince, rubbing my temples again. Today just got a whole lot longer.

A few hours later, after one meeting with an actually nice—but idiotic—engineer, followed by yet another pervy one, I’m engrossed in more product research when my stomach rumbles loud enough to startle my coworker in the cubicle next to me.

‘Whoa, hungry much?’ he laughs. ‘Is that an ‘I forgot to eat lunch’ rumble or a ‘lunch wasn’t enough and now I need a snack’ rumble?’

I smile sheepishly. ‘Forgot to eat. I lost track of time and didn’t realize it was almost 3:00. Guess I better go heat up my lunch, so my obnoxious stomach doesn’t continue to distract you.’

‘I appreciate that,’ he chuckles as he turns back to his screen. He’s a nice man, very quiet and always focused on his work. I’m lucky if I get more than a brief conversation out of him every few days.

I sigh and lock my computer screen before heading toward the kitchen. As always, I have some form of healthy, prepped food ready to be heated up. Once I started training, I realized how much better both my mind and body feel when the majority of my meals are meat and vegetables. Lunch especially turned out to be an important meal, since it would either fuel me to finish work and an evening workout, or make me feel sluggish and cause me to crash on my couch as soon as my workday was over. I prefer feeling energetic.

As I warm up my chicken and broccoli dish, I think about the work I’ve done today and what I still have left to do. I groan when I realize my fruitless meetings have ensured a late night. Before I realize it, my brain starts going down a rabbit hole of unhelpful—but very accurate—anti-work thoughts.

I’m not happy. I don’t like my job here. In fact, most days I hate it. I hate the people I have to work with, I hate that I’m doing things that I wasn’t hired to do, and I hate that I’m in a position where I have to do the work anyway. All of those things make me a very unhappy employee.

But mostly, I hate the fact that I somehow ended up so far away from what I actually want to be doing.

When I became an English major in college, I was enthralled with every single one of my classes. I loved reading every form of literature. I loved my creative writing classes. I even loved writing fifteen page research papers analyzing a single theme in a book. I loved everything about my studies.

I never admitted it to myself in college, but I picked my major because I wanted to one day become an author myself. I wanted to write something that would change people’s lives.

The only problem was that dream fell very flat the summer after I graduated.

I dabbled in writing my whole life, but I had never seriously sat down to actually finish something that wasn’t a required college essay. Somehow, I never realized how difficult the process actually is. Nothing that ended up on paper ever sounded as profound as it did in my head, and I could never bring myself to actually write an entire book. Somehow, in all my years of reading and writing, I never realized how hard writing actually is.

It took me a single anxious and depressed summer of half-assed and incomplete writing to come to the conclusion that I needed to wake up and find a real job. Being a writer was not something I was ready to do.

So, I found a job that was technically in my field that paid a decent amount of money. Actually, it paid more than a decent amount of money. Corporate America pays very well. Which only made me feel guiltier about my choice, because I knew the money would be very hard to walk away from. It only took me a few months to realize that money is a very big reason that people stay in this world, even if it means wallowing in depression until retirement.

Three years later, I’m still sitting in the job that was only meant to be a temporary stream of income until I wrote something. Three years later, I still haven’t written anything of substance.

Suddenly, I feel like wallowing in the same sadness I used to mock other cubicle employees for sitting in. I pick at the chicken on my plate with a frown. Despite the healthy meal in front of me, I find myself wanting to go home and crash on my couch.

That thought is enough to shake me out of my depressed stupor. I’ve noticed in the past that the times when I least want to get a workout in are the most important times to get one in anyway. I scarf down the rest of my meal and decide to fly through the rest of my work as quickly as possible. It’s still going to be a long day in the office but if I can be done by 6:30, I can still make it to the gym for class at 7:00. God knows a date with a heavy bag sounds way better than my original plan of running a few miles in an empty office gym.

The rest of the workday seems to both drag and fly. It flies because it’s 6:30 before I know it, but I also had so much technical research and writing to get through that at the same time it feels like I’ve been sitting at my desk for thirty-six hours. I grimace when I finally straighten to stretch my back.

‘You’re still here, Remy? I thought I was the only workaholic in this office.’

I smile tightly at my boss, Brian. I’m often the last one to leave the office and I can confirm that he is very rarely still here at 5:00.

I don’t think you can call yourself a workaholic if you leave before your paycheck says you can leave.

‘I’m heading out, too,’ I respond politely. I quickly shut down my laptop and stuff it into my tote bag. ‘Have a good night. Don’t stay too late.’ He grins at me, seemingly satisfied that I bought into the ruse of his ‘late night’ at the office.

Thankfully, the gym is only a fifteen-minute walk from my office. I got really lucky that the two places I frequent in my life are so close to each other, and I try to take advantage of that fact as often as possible. I try to make it into the MMA gym three or four times a week, using the remaining days to rest or just run and stretch. Typically, I wouldn’t be heading to the gym tonight, but I can feel that my brain is in desperate need of it tonight.

I see Jax as soon as I walk in. He’s leaning on the front desk, casually talking to a woman about signing up. I know without a shadow of a doubt that he’ll have her sold on a membership before she leaves here today.

A small frown appears on his face when he sees me. He knows I don’t usually come in on Thursdays. I smile and wave him off, conveying without words that I’m fine and that he should continue his sales pitch. The frown doesn’t leave his face, but he turns his attention back to the woman in front of him.

‘Hey, Remy!’ my friend Lucy calls from across the gym. I turn to where she’s already stretching on the mats. ‘What’re you doing here?’

I shrug as I drop my bag on the side of the mats. ‘Just wanted to get an extra session in. Had some time tonight.’

‘Oh. Cool. Let’s pair up, then.’

I nod. ‘I just need to change out of this ungodly outfit, I’ll be right back.’ Grabbing my workout clothes from my bag, I start walking toward the changing rooms at the end of the hall. I’m almost to the women’s room when the door to the men’s room opens and Tristan steps into my path.

I grunt as I run into a solid wall of muscle. I stumble back—yet again priding myself on not wearing heels today—and feel myself steadied by two strong hands as Tristan grips my waist.

My eyes widen as I look up at him. He’s looking at me with his usual gaze of stoicism, and I realize suddenly that at some point I had braced my hands on his chest. I pull away as if electrocuted. He holds onto me for a second longer, then lets go and allows me to take a step back.

‘You should probably watch where you’re going,’ he says dryly, expression unchanging.

I snap back to reality and aim a glare at him. ‘Hey, stepped in front of . It wasn’t my fault.’

He only raises an eyebrow in response.

I huff and roll my eyes. ‘Whatever, I don’t have time for this.’ I turn to lean down and pick up my clothes that dropped out of my hands during the collision. When I straighten back up, I catch Tristan’s gaze quickly snapping back to my face.

My eyes narrow suspiciously. ‘Are you kidding me?! What is wrong with people today? It’s just a goddamn skirt. You’d think I was walking around in lingerie or something.’

Tristan’s eyebrow quirks again, but he still doesn’t say anything. At my insistent glaring he finally shrugs, not at all looking embarrassed by the fact that he just got caught staring at my ass. ‘An ass is an ass. Even yours.’ A smirk lifts one corner of his lips. ‘You should be thankful for the occasional attention. God knows you don’t get it when you’re not dressed like that.’

My glare intensifies. ‘That’s not even a little bit true,’ I huff, planting my hands on my hips. ‘I get plenty of male attention. And even if I didn’t, I’m not going to sit here and be ‘thankful’ that some guy is staring at my ass, or that his body is naturally reacting to my body being good breeding stock. Get your caveman head out of your ass.’

By now his smirk has grown into a wide grin. I haven’t even heard what he’s thinking yet, but I can already tell it’s going to be condescending. ‘I don’t think I would classify you as good breeding stock, though I’m interested to hear that’s how think of women. Wouldn’t you need to have big tits and the ability to cook to be valuable to the classic male?’

I ignore the dig—I can’t do anything about my cooking but I’m damn happy with my perky B cups.

‘And tell me, what exactly makes you think you’re the ideal male?’ I ask instead.

‘Classic male,’ he corrects. ‘But good to know you think I’m the ideal.’ He cuts off my squeak of protest by continuing, ‘For one, I’m skilled at combat and could easily protect a partner. I can also hunt for food. But mainly I happen to be exceptionally talented at procreating.’

I stare, unblinking, at the grinning man in front of me. Finally, I shake my head and pinch the bridge of my nose. ‘I’ve definitely had too much of the male population today,’ I murmur. ‘I think I need to go punch things now.’ I push past Tristan, making sure not to touch him again.

‘Try not to think of me when you do it,’ he calls after me.

‘Not a single ounce of me can make that promise,’ I respond without turning back.

The hour-long Muay Thai class is exactly what I need. I’m so focused on learning the striking combinations that I forget all about my shitty day and the shitty men and women that filled it. Plus, as a bonus, it’s an exhausting workout—by the time I’m done, I know I’m going to pass out the second I get home. I pack up quickly after the class is over, wanting to give my body what it’s screaming for.

‘Remy, are you going to the fights on Saturday?’ Lucy asks me as I pull my sweatshirt on.

I nod. ‘Yeah. Hailey will be there, too.’

Lucy perks up at that news and nods her approval. I once again think about how grateful I am that my friends love my sister enough to be happy when I bring her along.

‘Nice. Let me know if you guys want to pregame before you head over. I’m probably going to have people at my house early and then we’ll walk to the arena together so text me if you want to come.’

‘Will do,’ I respond as I swing my bag over my shoulder. I’m officially itching to be home in my own bed, so I wave at Lucy and start walking toward the exit.

‘Have a good night, Remy,’ Tristan drawls from behind the front desk. ‘I would tell you not to tempt any other men on your way home, but I think that outfit is doing a decent job of that on its own.’

I scowl, looking down at my raggedy college sweats. ‘Like you don’t have old ass Temple University gear still in your closet,’ I snap.

He grins. ‘I don’t, actually. Because I’m an adult now who actually cares how I look in public. You should try it sometime.’

I hear Lucy snicker behind me. Throwing a glare in her direction, I turn my back on the exhausting, meaningless interaction that is every conversation with Tristan and continue towards the exit. In the process I make eye contact with Jax walking out of the heavy bag room on the far side of the gym.

‘Remy, you heading out?’ he calls to me. ‘I can give you a ride, I’m leaving now, too.’

I nod gratefully. Jax grabs my bag and throws his arm around my shoulders as we walk through the front door. ‘Let’s get out of here. Also, why are you wearing your Temple sweats? That set should’ve been burned a long time ago.’

Tristan’s raucous laughter follows us long after the door slams closed behind us.