21
WHEN Kage and I pulled up in a cab just after noon, there were so many cars outside my family’s house it looked like Thanksgiving. My mother’s and father’s matching white sedans were inside the garage with the door open, my sister’s Mustang sat in the driveway beside what I assumed was her fiancé Chase’s pickup truck. There were two strange SUV’s parked along the road in front of the house.
The most interesting car of the bunch, however, was a little silver VW Cabriolet with a pair of miniature pink pom-poms hanging from the mirror. I had seen that car more times than I could count. It belonged to Layla.
What the hell was my ex-girlfriend doing at my mother’s house?
I didn’t get a chance to warn Kage, who had jumped out of the car and gone around to the trunk to get our luggage, because my parents rushed right out to greet us.
Mom looked good. I supposed I had expected the cancer to have altered her appearance, but she looked just the same as the last time I’d seen her. Maybe even better. Her copper hair glistened in the afternoon sunlight, and her freckles were dark enough that I knew she’d still been outside doing her spring and summer gardening.
“I see you’ve still been working in the yard,” I said, trying to keep my eyes from misting at the sight of her. “I forget how much I missed seeing that. Our yard at college barely has grass, and at our place in Vegas, it’s all concrete and glass.”
“Well, we do have the Grotto,” Kage pointed out.
“That’s true. You know, it sort of reminds me of the gazebo in our backyard.” I looked at Mom and Dad. “You guys are still decorating the gazebo, right?”
“Of course,” Mom said. “Come look. It’s even nicer this year.”
The four of us walked around the house to the backyard, admiring my mom’s flower beds on the way. I could tell already she had been hard at work.
“This is beautiful, Mrs. Atwood,” Kage said when we came around the corner and passed through the wrought iron archway we’d gotten when I was in high school.
“Thank you,” she said, beaming with pride as we admired her handiwork.
White Christmas lights were strung all along the gazebo, and the gardens were fuller and more beautiful than I ever remembered seeing them. Flowers surrounded the gazebo and ran along both sides of the walkway. Small beds jutted out from the foundation of the house. They had added a little wrought iron bench, and a stone fountain with a cherub spitting a stream of water into a round basin.
“It looks gorgeous out here, Mom.” I wrapped my arms around her from behind and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “And you’re still as short as ever.”
She laughed and slapped me on the arm. “I guess I’ve tried to concentrate more on the yard this year. Everything has a tendency to get to me, and it helps to have that outlet.”
My father chuckled beside us. “You have no idea how much money we’ve spent on it this year. But I think it’s paid off. And what else would we do with the money now that you kids are pretty much out of the house?”
“Um… Buy me a new car,” I teased.
“I can get you a car,” Kage said, and my parents and I all whipped our heads around so hard I’m surprised we didn’t get whiplash. My parents were shocked, but I was mortified. In my mind, what Kage had just said is, “I’m fucking your son.”
My mom actually giggled like a little girl. “Wow, Jamie must be doing a great job.”
Kage didn’t even blink. “He is, Mrs. Atwood. You should be very proud. The stipend we pay him isn’t nearly what he’s worth. I guarantee you when he graduates from college, he’ll be pulling down high six figures easily.”
“Really?” My dad said, seemingly more impressed with me than he’d ever been.
“Yes, sir,” Kage said. “Especially with my reference. I haven’t told Jamie this yet, but I got some really good news this morning. Thanks in part to his efforts, I just got picked up for a fight in the UFC. It’s my shot at a contract. So if Jamie needs a car, I’ll get him a car.” He winked at me. “Think of it as a bonus.”
I couldn’t believe it. I opened my mouth and just started yelling. “Oh my God! Kage, that is so fucking awesome!”
My mom gasped at my language, and my father scowled, but I was so stoked I didn’t care. I threw my arms around Kage’s neck and gave him the hardest hug I could. He squeezed me back and laughed. I’d never seen him quite so happy. I think in that moment every bit of the darkness was gone from his eyes, and all I saw there was sheer joy.
I backed away from him, and my mind started whirling with thoughts.
“When do you fight? Oh my gosh, can I be in your corner? Can I walk out behind you when you do your entrance? Crap. We have to come up with a walk out song for you. Something to do with fighting, or winning, or hardcore. Yeah, something really hard. Are we gonna wear hoodies when we walk out? I always thought that looked cool. We at least need matching t-shirts. They can say, The Machine. Or just KAGE. Or Welcome to the Machine.”
He smiled and looked at me in that special way of his that made my knees weak. “You’re babbling again.”
“Am I?” All I knew is that I was grinning from ear to ear, and I’d never been so excited in my whole damn life. I wanted to hug him again. Hell, I wanted to kiss him, but for obvious reasons that was impossible.
My parents were just staring at us with bewildered expressions on their faces.
“That’s great news, boys,” my mom said. “Just great. This is what you’ve been shooting for, right?”
“Yes,” we both said in unison.
“Well, congratulations,” Dad said. “We’ll have to celebrate with a shot of the hard stuff after dinner.”
That made me feel good. It meant my dad thought of me as a man now. I had officially grown up in his eyes.
“That’ll be nice,” Kage said. “There is one more thing, though. Because of this fight, I have to leave in the morning. I was supposed to leave for camp today, but I didn’t want to miss bringing Jamie down here. This is way more important.”
“Well, that’s awfully sweet of you, Kage,” my mom said. She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Thank you. That means a lot.”
“Why do you have to leave so soon?” I asked.
“That fight they got me is short notice, because somebody got injured at the last minute. Starting tomorrow, I’ve got eleven days to lose thirty-five pounds.”
“Jesus. Thirty-five?” I asked. “Why so much?”
“I should be fighting Welterweight, but the guy who pulled out is a Lightweight. Gotta take what I can get. Marco’s got me signed up for an intensive training camp.”
“And that means you have to lose weight?” my mother asked, obviously confused.
“Yes, ma’am,” Kage said. “I walk around every day at one-ninety. The weight limit in Welterweight, the class I want to be in, is one-seventy. So I’d have to lose twenty pounds before the fight. That’s something fighters do all the time. Most of that is water weight. They sweat it out in a sauna before the weigh-in, then rehydrate over the next twenty-four hours before the fight.”
“Why on earth do they do that?” Mom asked.
Kage chuckled. “A long time ago, somebody decided it was a clever way to trick the system. To dehydrate themselves down much lighter for the weigh-in, then use electrolyte drinks and IV fluids to come into the ring the next day far heavier than their opponent. That kind of weight can be an advantage in a fight.”
“That sounds terrible,” Mom said. “It can’t be healthy, can it?”
Kage shook his head. “Not really. But the problem is that everybody started doing it, and now if you don’t, you risk being the small guy in the fight. It’s a vicious cycle.”
“And you have to leave tomorrow morning?” I was still hung up on that.
“Don’t worry. You stay here and look after your mom, then I’ll send for you before the weigh-in. I promise you won’t miss anything.”
His smile and his words made me feel a lot better. But eleven days? That was a long damn time. I’d gotten used to being with him. Every time he’d disappeared for a couple of days in Vegas, I got agitated. Now we were going to be apart for eleven whole days? I wanted to be there for Mom, but I already knew I was going to lose my mind.
I couldn’t say it, though. Not with my parents listening.
THE euphoria of Kage’s backyard announcement was short lived for me. In all of the excitement about the fight, and the dread of being without him for so long, I had forgotten about the surprise guest waiting for me in the house. When the four of us entered the back door, we came face to face with Layla and my sister, who were sitting on bar stools in the kitchen.
My laughter died in my throat.
“Jamie,” she said, striking a demure pose with her hands on her knee. “It’s so great to see you. You look… different.”
“If one more person says I look different, I’m going to lose my mind.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it, papi. Only that you looked like you’ve really been working out a lot. Your body—” She blushed. “Vegas has been treating you right, huh?”
“I guess. What are you doing here?”
I could see the disappointment on her face at my reaction to her presence, but dammit, I’d broken up with her. Then confirmed it on the phone. So how had she ended up in my parents’ kitchen?
“That’s no way to speak to someone, Jamie,” my mother scolded. “Did you leave your manners in Las Vegas? Layla called to see how I was doing, and I invited her to come and spend the weekend with us while you were in town.”
“Oh.” That’s absolutely all I could manage. I didn’t want to be rude or hurt her feelings, but the situation was forty kinds of fucked up.
Kage was standing beside me, but he wasn’t looking at me, and he wasn’t smiling. He was putting a hole through Layla with his eyes.
My parents were glaring at me, and Layla looked devastated, but my sister Jennifer was twirling a finger in her long auburn hair and smirking evilly at me. She cut her eyes over at Kage and then at me, and that’s when I knew. My sister was onto us.
And Jennifer had a big mouth. So there was no telling who else knew.
I shrank about two feet and skulked away into the living room, where Chase the douchebag fiancé was watching TV with my little brother, Paul. Chase was antisocial, always sitting in front of the television at family events instead of spending time with people, so I didn’t bother speaking to him.
“Paul, you’re not even gonna get up to say hi to your big brother?” I asked, ruffling his red hair.
He jumped up and squealed, throwing his arms around my shoulders. “I didn’t know you were here. Where’s the wrestler? I want to meet the wrestler.”
Paul was only ten years old— the product of a lot of wine and a forgotten contraceptive eleven years after my parents had decided that two kids was plenty. But some accidents are happy accidents, and Paul was definitely a happy one. He had a sunny disposition and a love for all things outdoors, and he was the light in my mother’s eye. Her little garden helper she called him, among other things.
“He’s a UFC fighter,” I told Paul, then turned to find Kage.
He was still seething in the kitchen, listening to my mother explain how her surgery was scheduled for eight on Monday morning, but she had to check in at the ungodly hour of five.
“I mean, what starts at five in the morning?” she was saying.
“Kage,” I called. “Could you come over here? There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Kage dragged himself away from plotting on my ex-girlfriend and came into the living room. “This must be Paul,” he said, turning off his anger long enough to be civil to my brother.
“You’ve heard of me?” Paul asked, and I couldn’t help laughing.
“Of course,” Kage said. “Your brother told me about you. He said you were a wrestling fan.”
Paul nodded emphatically.
“Well, I can show you a few moves if you want. Things to use on bullies if you happen to meet up with any of those.”
“We’ve got a couple at school,” Paul said. “They don’t pick on me, but one of them is mean to my friend.”
“Well, I’ll tell you something I had to learn the hard way. It’s never good to start a fight, and you should always try to walk away if someone starts one with you. But… if someone does try to pick a fight with you, and you try your best to walk away but they won’t stop, it’s good to know some self-defense moves. Just so you don’t get hurt.”
Kage walked Paul over to the large open area at the other side of the living room, and started coaching him. Paul was so thrilled his face was glowing.
I had to admit, I was proud of Kage. Not only was he taking time to dote on my little brother, but he was discouraging fighting except as a means of self-defense. It seemed he did something to surprise me every day.
Most of the time, the surprises were good.