Fighting For My Love

Chapter 3

After spending the weekend at Hunter's house with him and Louis the three of us head to school Monday morning. The whole weekend I was getting shit from Hunter about the whole Liam thing and with all of his badgering, Louis finally caught on to what was going on. So, guess who jumped on the 'Jiam' ship and harrassed me the whole weekend as well about manning up and at least talking to Liam and see if we can become friends and perhaps before the end of the school year we can become a couple. Ugh. I love my best friends, I do, seriously I do but I know Liam and I won't be dating since Liam is straight but I'll try to become his friend.

So once we're in our first class that Liam is in with us Louis and Hunter are trying to get me to go over and talk to him but I'm scared. Scared that he'll hate me, scared that he's homophobic, scared that my crush for him squashed.

"I'll talk to him at lunch not in a class, hopefully less embarressing that way, I hope," I whisper to them in our first class when they continue to pester me about going and talking to him. Thank my lucky stars above they agree and drop it for now and I know that if I don't talk to him at lunch, they'll hound me until I do.

Way to quick for my likiing lunch time arrives. Grabbing my food I make my way our table and as I sit I notice Louis and Hunter's stares. Sighing I sit my tray down as I stand back up to make my way over to where Liam and Mark were standing talking to another guy in our grade, not sure who he is though. Clearing my throat loud enough for the three of them to notice me and all three turn their eyes to me. Nothing like making a guy suddenly nervous.

"Hey, Julian, right?" Mark asks and I nod. "Sick fight Friday night. Never knew you were such a beast in the ring," Mark continues. I didn't realize that he was at the fight with Liam. Wow, I guess I do have eye only for Liam.

"Thanks, man, I was surprised to see you guys there Friday night. I didn't realize anyone from school other than my friends, my little brother and his friends came."

Liam and Mark grin at each other and their other friend gives them a confused look. "What fight Friday night?"

The three of us turn our attention to him as Liam finally says something and answers his friend. "Julian here is an MMA fighter and I have to say he's awesome at what he does." Heat rises up my body and rushes across my cheeks.

"Explains your cuts and bruises. If you have only a few marks on your face I'm going to assume the other dude looks like shit?" I nod in agreement but don't say anything to that subject.

"Um, I was wondering, if um, you guys would like to join us at our table?" I finally mumble out quickly. Liam's eyes widen and he looks happy but I know I had to imagine that, there's no way he would be happy at sitting with me so it must be at sitting with all of us. The three of them quickly agree and follow me over to the table where I left my friends and by the time we arrive my brother and his friends have arrived. I'm met with happy smirks from my two besties and a confused look on my little brother's face. Sitting down in between Louis and Hunter, I introduce everyone I know at the table to Liam, Mark and thier friend, who introduced himself to find out his name is Paul and he's in our grade only because he flunked last year.

The rest of the lunch period went surprisingly well. Liam, Mark and Paul agreed that they'll be eating with us from now on becuase they enjoy the bantering between myself and my besties and my proticivness of my little brother when an older boy had come over to the table and tried to start shit with him.

Finally Friday afternoon has rolled around and surprisingly dad is home from work when Hunter, Louis, Layland and myself walked into the house from school. Dad already has dinner going for us and come to find out he's coming with us to the fight tonight.

I hate to admit this but I'm scared shitless to fight tonight since I know my dad is actually going to be there watching. After changing into my white Jaco shorts, cup and gloves I hit the weight room with dad and Hunter to warm up for about an hour before we head back out to the main area to watch a few of the matches.

Now the time for mine has arrived for my five rounds five minutes each. My opponet I've fought against before, he's good really good. Shit. Okay. I've got this. Before I'm called in Hunter pulls me to the side to give me a little pep talk like normal. I love my best friend, he knows how to calm my ass down before fights.

"Dude, you've got this. You know you do, you always come out with minimal to know marks on you. Tonight is no different. Go out there and do your thing and kick some ass and have a fun." I gave him a quick bro hug in thanks before breaking apart when I was introduced.

Three and a half minutes into the second round I landed a solid kick in the side of my opponets head I won the match with a TKO. My opponet was good though, he landed solid punches and kicks during the first round and for some of this round. I think my opponet broke my nose but I won't know until I'm out of the ring. Once the fight was called and I have officaly won, I was lead out to the lockers so dad and Hunter could check out my nose.

Sitting on the bench in front of my locker dad has Hunter tip my head back before dad wipes my face off and examines my nose. "Well, son, your nose is definitly is broken." He looks me in the eyes and I know what he's going to do. Since he's a cop, dad has had and still does take CPR and 1st Aid and he's going to set my nose back into place before tapeing it back in place for me. "On the count of three okay?" he asks placing a hand on the backside of my head and three fingers on my nose. I nod slightly taking deep breaths in and out prepairing myself.

"Good, on the count of three. Hunter hold him, okay?" Hunter nods as he grabs ahold of me. "One, two," was all his counted before he set my nose back into place.

"Fuck!" I holler out as he does this. Dad just chuckles as Hunter lets go of me grabbing the medical tape and ripping off strips for my dad to use on my nose.

Done with this dad cleans my face off the rest of the way and applies ointment to my face where there's a few small cuts before giving me a small smile. I can see the pride in his eyes as he helps me stand and we head back out to the area where the octogone is and sitting with everyone. I sit next to Hunter and Layland placing my head on Hunter's shoulder since my whole head feels like it's one big pulse.

Dad comes over to sit down on the other side of Layland eyeing up everyone that's there that he doesn't know before handing me some Advil and a water bottle. I gladly take them from him, lifting my head slightly so I can take them and not choke.

Glancing back at I dad I introduce him to Liam, Mark and Paul informing dad that they attend school with Louis, Hunter and myself and are in our grade. Dad nods and introduces himself to them and they're surprised that he's a cop who didn't know I was fighting until last week and still allows me to fight. Dad laughs and tells them that as my punishment for lying to him I have to donate half my winnings this week and next weeks winning to the police charity plus the cut I give my brother still which I would anyway.

Once all the matches were done and the winnings were divided out, I hand over half of my winnings to dad for this weeks charity payment with a smile. I think from now on I'll be donating a percentage of my winnings weekly. Dad notices my smile asking, "What's the smile for?"

"After next week I'm going to start donating a percentage of my winnings to a police charity weekly along with Layland's percentage and what I'm putting away for the future." Dad nods in understanding and tells me that he likes my idea. Hunter and Louise decide to stay the weekend at my house with dad's permission of course since technically I'm still grounded. Layland's friends are coming over tomorrow sometime for the rest of the weekend.

Before we leave the parking lot, I ask Hunter and Louis if they minded if I invited Liam, Mark and Paul to spend from Saturday until Sunday or Monday morning hanging out with us, too. They quickly agreed it's nice that they're willing to hang out with those three and make new friends. I think in all realitiy they're doing this for me since they know I'm crushing on Liam.