Fighter (A Liam Payne Fanfiction)

Chapter Four - Snap Out Of It

What's been happening in your world?

What have you been up to?

I heard that you fell in love,

Or near enough.

I gotta tell you the truth.

- "Snap Out Of It", Arctic Monkeys

....

The irritating sounds of whirring police sirens jolted me awake, my eyes flying open. Groaning, I sat up, rubbing my face slowly, trying to settle into the sudden reality of being awake. Fucking Christ.

I picked up my phone, only seeing one blinking text from Sam: Daisy needed me to watch Elizabeth for the morning, she had to go to a teachers' meeting. Practice will be at 3:30 pm today. No snacks. No dessert. Stretch plenty.

I sighed, thanking my lucky stars that I didn't have to deal with Sam screaming at me at the ass crack of dawn. I felt even shitter than I did yesterday.

To clear my head, I put on my training gloves and walked over to the hanging punching bag in the corner. Sam or not, I just needed to get a few alone punches in.

Blaring A$AP Rocky in my headphones, I began throwing hit after hit, pretending that the punching bag were my problems, materialized in front of me. And right now, the problem bag had the date with Bella written all over it.

Well, not exactly the whole date, just the...end of it.

Punch.

Nice guys like you aren't ready for girls like me.

What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Women were so confusing. One minute they wanted me to practically boss them around and treat them like fuck toys, and the next minute they wanted me to be Casanova and hold radios that were playing cheesy love songs over my head while waiting outside their window.

Punch, cross, jab.

You know what they say, dogs are a good judge of character.

Vince was just being a little shit. It doesn't matter what he thinks, he's my dog. Dogs grow to love everyone, eventually. And if Vince could love my idiot of a cousin, he could love her too. She just has to spend time with him.

Punch, kick.

You're clearly the most attractive guy in the joint, but I'm the one who gets to call you mine.

That means she must like me, right? She practically bit that waiter's head off when he was flirting with me. So, clearly she cares about me somewhat. Is she just one of those girls who doesn't kiss on the first date, but she feeds people on the first date?

Fuck. Just the thought of her slipping those chopsticks between my lips made my cock twitch uncomfortably in my basketball shorts.

Kick, kick, cross, punch.

What was she trying to do? Why was she practically holding out bait, reeling me in, reeling me in so fucking close, then tossing me back into the ocean without so much as an explanation?

Shocking me, three knocks sounded from the door, making Vince immediately start barking from the living room. I took a quick swig from the warm bottle of water on my computer desk, dabbed at the sweat on my forehead with my muscle shirt. After calming down Vince a little, I jogged to the door and pulled it open.

"Anna!" I was extremely grateful to see her. I leaned in, holding my arms out for a hug, but she stopped me.

"I don't think so," she giggled, holding out her hands to block me. "You are too sweaty to be hugging me like that. Leave it to you to be boxing training at nine in the morning. It's the thought that counts, though."