Page 11 of Undefeated

“I’ll have one more Ultra,” Mike said to the waitress as he held his index finger in the air.

“You need anything, Dekkar?” he asked, tilting his head back slightly.

“Water, please. Thank you, ma’am,” I responded.

From the perspective of an outsider, Mike looked rather intimidating. He was a little taller than six feet, and weighed two hundred ten pounds. His head was shaved and he had tattoos on his upper arms, back and chest. His body was constructed entirely of muscle. Maintaining a perfect body and having an actual life outside of training is almost impossible. Some fighters have flab or fat on certain places. Mike wasn’t one of those fighters. He trained and he trained hard. It was one reason we had become such close friends. He had my level of desire to maintain a healthy body and mind.

“Water, please. Thank you, ma’am,” Mike joked as the waitress walked away.

“You’re so fucking proper and polite to women - and men - as long as they’re old men. But you clench your jaw and look like a mean prick to everyone else. You crack me up, dude,” he shook his head.

“Well, you look like a mean prick all the time,” I smiled as I picked up the pickle from my plate.

Mike smiled an exaggerated smile, exposing his single gold tooth.

“That tooth is ridiculous. I’ll never understand that,” I said as I slid my plate to the side of the table.

“I told you already,” he responded, still smiling.

“Yeah, I know. But it’s horrid. Who wants to draw attention to the fact that they lost a tooth?” I pulled my hood over my head.

“Well, I have a gold tooth, and you wear a fucking black hoodie everywhere you go. And in Austin, Texas of all places. So, tell me more about this girl,” he said as he picked at his teeth with a toothpick.

“There’s nothing more to tell. I think she was a receptionist. I saw her sitting at a desk when I went to pay my insurance on the bike. It was the second time. I know I saw her two years ago at a drug store. This time, she didn’t see me - I just noticed her as I walked past. I just got a bad feeling that day in the parking lot of the drug store. I remember that,” I pulled my hood tight around my head and peered through the hole.

“You know you do that, right?” he said, pointing at my head.

“What?” I asked.

“You hide in your hood. When there’s something you don’t like talking about or doing,” he answered.

I pulled the hood off of my head and ran my fingers through my hair as he started to speak again.

“Well, you quit talking when the waitress brought our food. What didn’t you like? No, remind me what bothered you about the first time you met her? You started talkin’ and stopped, sorry,” he said as he leaned onto the table.

Short of my grandfather, Mike was the best friend that I have ever had. He truly cared about me as a person, and wasn’t afraid to admit it. Since my first week here we had become extremely close and almost inseparable.

“She was sitting at a desk. Up the hallway at the building my insurance company is in. It might have been a law office, hell I don’t know,” I responded as I pulled my hood onto my head again.

“Okay. And the first time?” he asked, leaning onto his forearms.

“Here you go. Will there be anything else?” the waitress asked as she set the glass of water and the bottle of beer onto the table.

Mike looked up and shook his head, “Thanks.”

He turned back toward me and waited.

“It was right when I got to town. And, well, the guy she was with - I’m guessing her boyfriend, he was a douchebag. More like a dirt bag,” I paused as I grabbed the glass of water and looked up at the cables that suspended the lights from the ceiling.

“I was on the bike,” I chuckled and shook my head as I remembered the evening.

“I was sitting on the bike looking at the soles of my boots. I heard him scream the word slut. I looked up and he tossed something on the ground. It was an iPad. He screamed at her a few more times as I was walking over to his truck. Then he stomped the iPad and held it in his hand as he talked to her.”

“Surprised you didn’t whip his ass,” Mike said as he leaned back into his chair.

“Well, you know I struggle with that. If he had been violent toward her or threatening her with harm I would have. They were just arguing. But when they left, she looked at me through the window. And her lips moved,” I looked back up at the ceiling structure.

“Her lips moved?” he turned his palms up and looked at me surprised.