Unbroken by Sienna Valentine Page B

reached up and she touched the metal disc that hung around her belly, running her fingers around its edge. 
     
    Joel shrugged and reached up to wipe away the tears from her face.  "Can't be a nurse without a stethoscope, right?  Think of this as just the first step toward your dreams."
     
    Amber leapt forward, tackling her boyfriend onto the bed behind him and kissing him, running her fingers through his blond hair, pulling his face close to hers and biting on his full lips.  "You're amazing," she whispered.
     
    ***
     
    Joel was almost late for his training session that morning after Amber had insisted on demonstrating her appreciation, over and over.  He almost had to fight her off trying to get her to let him get ready to go. 
     
    He sped through his training, his mind on other things.  As usual, he spent most of his time studying technique and working on his stamina, foregoing weights and strength training.  He was more of a technical fighter and figured he would have time to build up more power behind his punches later.  For now, he decided it was more important to be able to last long enough to go for the submissions he had been perfecting.  In the past, many of his wins came from those submissions and he wanted to concentrate on his strengths.  Chris argued that he needed to be more well rounded, as there were times where your opponent forced a boxing match no matter how much you wanted to wrestle.  Joel could see the value in that, but he would have time to focus on that later.
     
    He was fighting tonight, and it was a big one.  His opponent was from out of state, but rumored to be unbeaten.  He was on vacation and looking for some action while away from home.  Randy had told Joel it would be a big payday because there were a lot of people that had heard about this guy and wanted to see him fight.  He figured winning this one fight alone would probably net Joel over a grand.  Maybe a lot more.
     
    When he finished at Rock House at around six, he went through his normal routine.  He headed to the shelter nearest to the fight for a nap, and then woke up in time to walk to the venue.  This time it was inside of an abandoned factory.  When he got there, the parking lot was full and he could hear the noise from the crowd even before he opened the front door.
     
    Inside waiting for him was the biggest crowd he'd seen at one of these.  Easily a couple hundred people, and he could see that Randy was already walking around with his assistants, taking bets.  When he noticed Joel, he waved him over and they stepped away to talk privately.
     
    "You ready for this one, kid?"
     
    "Of course," Joel said.
     
    "This guy is big," Randy said, motioning with his head. 
     
    Joel looked over to where he had indicated.  Standing by the wall of the factory was a huge monster of a man.  His arms were thick and corded with muscle, and his long legs reminded Joel of tree trunks.  He had tattoo sleeves running up both arms and seemed to have virtually no neck that Joel could see.  He went from broad muscular shoulders directly to a head that was topped with a closely cropped haircut that looked like it had been done at a military barber.  Joel tried not to look disturbed by the size of the man and just nodded.
     
    Randy laughed nervously.  "Well, the bigger they are the harder they fall, right?  That's what they say."  He clapped Joel on the shoulder.  "Good luck, kid.  We start in five."  Randy returned to the crowd to continue collecting bets.
     
    He's big, but can he fight?   Joel knew from experience that size didn't really mean anything if there wasn't enough technique to back it up. This guy was unbeaten, but who knows what the competition was like where he came from.  Joel had been training with actual professionals.  He'd been working a lot on his stamina and technique lately.  Surely he had the advantage.  As big as this guy was, he'd have to lug all of that weight around.  Probably