Sucker Punch (The Submission Fighter Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

treadmill suddenly and hopped off. He watched as Dean finished off a conversation with another man in a suit and then headed back to his office. Micah followed behind, sticking out his hand between himself and the door to keep Dean from unknowingly locking him out of his office. 
     
    “You have work to do.” Dean didn’t even glance up at Micah. Instead, he continued glancing through piles of piles of paperwork.
     
    “What is going on with this Dean? I told you from the get-go that I was not about this fake bullshit. These endorsement deals, these crappy drinks—I’m not here for that crap.” Micah attempted to be calm, but his voice was still agitated by the situation at hand.
     
    “Listen, Micah, I’m helping you become the professional fighter everyone talks about. This is part of the game you have to play. Take their money and do your job.” Dean’s eyes were still fixed on a paper contract sitting on his desk.
     
    “Then, I don’t want it.” Micah crossed his arms and sat down on the chair across from Dean’s desk. “Not this , anyway. Whatever the fuck this is, it’s not fighting.”
     
    Dean glanced up, studying the man before him. “You want to go back to living in a retirement home with your grandmother? You want to go back to working twelve-hour days at the yard being someone else’s bitch? Because if you do, that’s fine. Go ahead. The door is over there.”
     
    Micah considered his words. It was Dean, after all, who convinced Micah that he could make a career out of MMA fighting. And not just a career, Dean had promised him a better life for him and his grandmother. No more rundown assisted living homes, no more cutting classes to make it to work where he lied about his age for a job, no more chasing scraps of food and booze with whatever he could come up with money wise. Because of Dean, his life had changed dramatically.
     
    “What is this about, Micah?” Dean looked him up and down—as if he could tell that something was different, perhaps missing. “It’s not her, is it?”
     
    “Who?” Micah egged him on, knowing that Dean wouldn’t dare mention her name—at least not after the knockout punch he delivered the last time he brought her up.
     
    “So, it’s over? You ended it?” Dean’s gray, burly eyebrows arched suspiciously, questioning.
     
    “That’s what you told her to do, wasn’t it? That’s what you wanted me to do, as well.” Micah’s face turned to stone. He was not about to let Dean know that the relationship had continued despite his attempts to kills it.
     
    “I only ask because a reporter came to me asking about a girl he spotted you with after the match. From the description, it sounded a little too close to her for my comfort. Red hair, long legs. It seemed to fit.”
     
    Micah’s heart raced as he swallowed hard. “It was just a girl from the outside. Security let her slip by. Do you have a problem with that or should I take my vow of chastity now?”
     
    “I don’t have a problem with you hooking up with ring girls. I have a problem when your training suffers and you start losing matches. And that’s what happens when you’re with…her…”—Dean stopped himself from saying her name outright—“…when you’re with a girl that takes up your time and energy. Stick with the ones you can screw and lose.”
     
    Micah stood up, wanting no more to do with the man he once considered to be a father figure. His anger boiled and tumbled in his throat and veins. Reaching for a poster of himself at an old match, he ripped it down, crumbling it in his hands. Without turning back, he tossed it bitterly on the ground and walked out of the office without another word.
     
    He had work to do, and he wasn’t about to waste another minute listening to Dean and his opinion of how his life should be. After all, what did he know about life outside MMA? He spent his days living, working, and breathing in his cramped brick office. The only times he