And yet I still looked him up. My stomach churned every time I saw tabloid-esque pictures with him and a beautiful woman on his arm. The rational part of my brain recognized most of the women as his friends or family, and I knew that he always offered his arm to someone when they walked together, but it still brought back that hissing feeling every time. Even when I told myself I was being ridiculous. Even when I reminded myself that was just the kinda guy he was.
At least his facebook status was single and I brushed aside the bead of relief that struck my heart. Although he could just be in the early stages of something, at least there was no evidence there yet. Not that it mattered. He could do whatever he wanted, of course. It didn’t matter to me.
At all.
Ugh. For some reason that felt like denial, so I just pushed the thoughts away and checked other things. He seemed to be doing well for himself. He’d been out and about more, hanging out with different friends, who -as the days passed by- I began to recognize less and less. And by that, I meant it was always new women that I didn’t know. They weren’t from our hometown, weren’t from what I knew of MMA. Just strangers that I had no right to be curious about.
And yet I was.
As I scrolled through the pictures of him with beautiful women who looked very nice on his arm, I unconsciously clenched my jaw. My teeth clenched and I left as if there was something messing around in my stomach. I almost felt sick.
Actually, I was jealous. That’s what the hissing feeling was. Maybe with a bit of possessiveness attached.
Gross.
I don’t know why I was jealous. And I couldn’t wrap my head around why I even cared.
I shouldn’t. Not at all. He was just an old, childhood friend. Someone who should have been safely tucked into the past where he wouldn’t bother me.
Except he wasn’t in the past at all. He was right in my present, or at least that was where I wanted him. I missed his touch, his laugh, the way he made me feel.
…that probably wasn’t good.
It was during my stalking of his social media that I found his next fight date.
“It wouldn’t hurt to watch,” I muttered under my breath. I brushed my hair out of my face and checked what channel the fight would air on. I had access to that through our company account. Cool. I programmed it into my phone and resolved to watch it when it was on in a few days.
To support him, like he had supported me.
It was only fair. There was no other reason.
No other reason at all.
* * *
The alarm on my clock went off, signaling that the fight would start soon. I had made sure to clear my schedule enough to make sure that I would be able to work from home while it was on. It’d certainly took a bit of juggling, but my partners seemed happy to give me the tiniest of reprieves. I was just beginning to regret the massive undertaking I had managed to pile onto myself, but that could wait for another day.
I scurried over to my tv and turned it on. Flipping over to the channel, I sat down to watch, getting comfy with a simple throw blanket and a glass of wine. While watching two men pummel the shit out of each other for real wasn’t usually one of my go-tos for winding down, I found myself excited to see Mickey again, as silly as that was.
I suffered through the commercials, which went way past ridiculous in both length and message. I swore I never heard the phrase ‘man-up’ so many times by so many companies right after each other. But eventually the torment ended, and I watched the opening with bated breath. There really was quite a crowd there. It reminded me of the arenas we used to watch on TV for wrestling back when we were kids. Except this was very much real.
That thought made me shiver, and the anticipation only rose, and the announcer introduced the fighters.
The promos they had for the two of them were ridiculously over the top, all masculine and brawny and full of aggression. While the opponent was loud mouthed and spitting threats every other second in his little video, Mickey’s was something else entirely.
He was like stone, impenetrable and unmovable. His face was pulled into an icy glower that was so different from how I knew he actually was that I couldn’t help but whistle in appreciation. He really was quite the actor, and nobody had any idea.
It felt a bit like a secret just between the two of us -despite the fact that everyone who had worked with us on the commercial also knew- and I let that feeling warm my stomach.