I SPENT THE REST OF THE NIGHT wrapped around O’Connell. When I’d climbed back into bed after visiting the bathroom, he’d hauled me against him like he’d missed my warmth. By the time the sun rose and it was time to leave for class, I was dragging my heels.
“I don’t want to go,” I admitted.
“I don’t want to let you leave, brainiac. But I won’t let boxing fuck up what you’re doing at school. Besides, with you next to me, I feel soft and lazy and loving. I need to get my head in the game, and that isn’t a side of me that you need to see first-hand.”
“I will see you before the fight, though?”
He nodded his head and smiled.
“Kieran will pick you up at seven, all right?”
“What do I wear?” I ask nervously.
“Wear whatever you want.” He chuckled. “I’m always imagining you naked anyway.”
And there was the cocky arrogant bastard that I knew and loved. I raised my eyebrows in mock horror then blew him a kiss and grabbed my bag as I walked through the door. I’d left him my spare set of keys to lock up behind him, which was another huge step for me. O’Connell knew how much of a big deal it was though. He wouldn’t abuse the privilege.
MY DAY WENT BY MERCIFULLY quickly, and O’Connell was right to send me to school. I’d have driven him nuts at home. It took me over an hour to choose what to wear. In the end, I settled for my best pair of dark jeans, a tank top, and a pretty off-the-shoulder sweater. I didn’t know how smart I’d have to be or how warm it would be there, so I figured this would do. Kieran called for me exactly when he said he would, and my excitement at seeing O’Connell had long since faded under my worry for him.
“You okay?” Kieran asked me, as I was locking up my door.
“Uh, huh,” I mumbled, not looking him in the eyes.
“Em. What’s going on?” he questioned in a serious tone that was totally at odds with his usual jovial self.
“I’m worried about O’Connell getting hurt,” I blurted out.
Kieran grinned big. “Em, he’s got this in the bag, lovely. I don’t know what you did to him last night, but today, he’s electric.”
He winked at me knowingly, and I was outraged.
“I didn’t do anything to him,” I squeaked, and he laughed out loud.
“Whatever you say,” he said. As I put on the helmet that he’d given me and climbed on the back of his bike, I breathed a little bit easier. If Kieran was confident that everything would be fine then I would trust that he had good reason for his easy faith.
We arrived at the exhibition centre later than I thought, and I was glad that Kier had a bike because we never would have been able to park a car. The place was packed.
“Come on,” Kier encouraged, taking my helmet off me. We wove our way around the maze of cars and bypassed the queue at the main entrance to go around the back. Kieran banged on a door hard, and a few seconds later, flashed two passes at the enormous guy in a black security t-shirt, and we were in. Somehow, I thought that the only people back here would be the fighters and their coaches, but I was wrong. People filled the hallways chatting, drinking, and walking around on their mobile phones. Whatever I expected, it wasn’t this. I was lost in the sea of red doorways when Kier walked into one, dragging me with him. Shutting it behind him, I could see Danny kneeling down and wrapping O’Connell’s hands.
“Hey, sunshine.” O’Connell grinned, and his face lit up.
“Hi, O’Connell.” Tommy, Mac, and a few of the other guys all filled the room, but no one else looked as nervous as I felt. Not knowing what to do with myself, I sat down on the bench next to him. He clenched and unclenched his fists when Danny finished wrapping them. Jumping up and down like his feet were on springs, he bounced around to warm up and started shadow boxing in the corner. Danny brought out pads, and they practiced a few combinations between them. With every hit, my anxiety got worse. Pretty soon those wouldn’t be pads, but another trained fighter whose only mission was to take down and hurt the man that I cared for. I understood why Kieran thought O’Connell had this in the bag. Any sign of last night’s nerves were gone. He exuded confidence, and it convinced the guys around him that he was infallible. I couldn’t share their euphoria. O’Connell was huge, but so was the guy he was fighting. His sculpted physique was rock hard, but it was still skin and muscle, and the pain when they ripped and bruised over and over would take its toll. Every time I imagined how the fight would go, I remembered every punch, slap, and kick I’d ever taken. I imagined Frank beating me, and the snap of bones that would take months to heal. Then, I imagined O’Connell in my place, and I couldn’t take it anymore. As inconspicuously as I could, I made my way to the bathroom adjoining the changing room, knelt down over the toilet, and vomited. As soon as I could get myself together, I wiped my mouth and cleaned up as best I could. My flushed red face was a giveaway, and I was a stone’s throw away from vomiting again when there was a gentle knock at the door.
“Come in,” I croaked quietly, trying not to lose it.
“Hello, sunshine.” To my surprise, it wasn’t any of the guys, but Danny, who walked in and shut the door gently. He opened his arms for a hug, and I threw mine around him with a sob.
“I don’t think I can watch this, Danny. I can’t just sit there and watch someone hit him over and over again for twelve rounds.”
He rubbed my back like you would do to comfort a child, and when I was a little calmer, he pulled me back and held my shoulders firmly.
“Sunshine, do you trust me?” I nodded my head and sniffed in case I hadn’t seemed juvenile enough. He closed the toilet seat and sat me down on it as he crossed his arms and leant against the sink. I was about to get ‘the talk’, and our location couldn’t have been any less glamorous.
“I’ve been a boxer my entire life, and that boy of ours has something that you don’t see very often in a fighter. You get your brawlers, who will improve their technique over time, and you get the technical boxers who can rack up the points for a win, but O’Connell has something that you can only call magic. When that boy steps between those ropes, its pure joy. It’s like he sees what the other fighter is going to do before they know it themselves. He ain’t a technical fighter, he’s the wildcard. It doesn’t matter how much punishment he needs to take, he’ll take it. He reads them like a book, waits for his opening, and then that’s it. It’s over. Everything bad that’s ever happened to him, everything he can’t control, stays out of that ring because in it, he is master of his fate. For an old fecker like me, that kind of magic in a fighter is the most beautiful feckin' thing I’ve ever seen. Now, you need to stop getting yourself all worked up. I ain’t worried about that great big eejit, I’m worried about you. You need to trust that I love that boy like my own son, and if I thought he couldn’t handle it, then I wouldn’t let him in there. But if you don’t calm down and watch the fight with a clear head, then you’re going to miss the magic. You won’t be sat there for twelve rounds ‘cause this thing ain’t going to last half that. So, do you trust me to get our boy through this?”
He spoke to me calmly, but sharply, and it worked. I was so focused on listening to Danny that I’d stopped flustering and panicking, and I’d started to just breathe.
“Wouldn’t it just be better for me to wait here for him?” I asked.
“Nope,” he replied. “When one goes into the ring, we all go. He needs to know that you’re with him on this, that you have his back like he’s got yours. If he’s worried that you’ll see him differently after he fights then that will mess with his head. He knows that he has this in the bag, and you need to believe it, too. We’re all in this together, no matter what.”
“All for one and one for all?” I asked, with a crooked grin.
“We ain’t feckin’ musketeers, sunshine!” he barked, as though completely offended, and I couldn’t help but laugh. It was at that point that O’Connell and Kieran walked in.
“Is this a private party or can anyone come in?” O’Connell asked, but I could hear the edge of worry in his voice.
“Jesus!” Danny exclaimed. “Can’t you boys give me five minutes of peace, even in the feckin’ loo? What’s wrong with knocking? For all you know, Em could have been helping me with my colostomy bag.”
“Ohh,” and, “Gross,” Kier and O’Connell replied together, with a wince.
Danny winked at me then pushed Kieran out the door moaning, “go on, you fat article, get out of the way,” as he closed it behind him.
“You okay, baby?” O’Connell asked worriedly.
“I’m okay,” I assured him. “I was worrying about you a little bit, but Danny’s given me the pep talk so I’m fine.”
“Yep, he’s pretty good at those. I had mine when he was doing my wraps.” He paused as he looked at me. “I’ve got this, you know, love.”
“I know,” I told him. “Just try not to get too battered. I’d hate to have to put some guy on his skinny arse in the car park later because you let him knock you around.”
“Skinny arse? He’s six-foot-three and two hundred twenty-nine pounds,” O’Connell reminded me.
“In my head he’s five-foot-eight and one hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet. That’s how I know you’re not getting hurt.”
He smiled at my freaky imagination then pulled me up toward him.
“Come and give your man a good luck kiss.”
“Friends don’t kiss each other good luck,” I teased. He smiled, opened the door with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around my waist, and shouted through it.
“Kier, do friends kiss each other good luck?”
“Hell, yes,” he replied in mock seriousness. “I gave Con a good bit of lip loving this afternoon to cheer him on.”
Tommy, who was sat next to Kieran, looked at him like he was a sandwich short of a picnic. Without flinching, Kier put his left hand on Tommy’s jean clad thigh. “Don’t be jealous, Tom, my feelings for you are still the same. Not even someone as damn sexy as Con can come between us.”
“FUCK. OFF!” Tommy replied then smacked Kieran a few seconds later when he still hadn’t moved his hand. We were both laughing as O’Connell closed the door, and with a smile still on both of our faces, he kissed me long and hard. The wraps on his hands felt coarse against my skin, as he reached under my sweater and tank top to run his thumb across my ribs. He didn’t touch my breast but brushed so achingly close to it that I arched my back, pressing closer against him and willing him to go further. Three bangs on the door were enough for me to know that Danny was calling time. O’Connell rested his forehead against mine.
“So, does that promise from last night still stand? Do I get my reward tonight if I win?”
“Winning is its own reward,” I replied, Zen-like, and he groaned.
“If you still have any energy left then yes, I will make good on my offer last night, but I’ve never done it before so you need to show me what to do.”
“Ah, baby,” O’Connell groaned, “how I am supposed to fight now I’m hard?”
“Just imagine what Danny will do to you if you go out there to face him like that.”
“All right,” O’Connell muttered, “that did it,” and with one more quick kiss, we walked out of the door. Danny laced up O’Connell’s gloves, and he shadow boxed a little longer with Danny talking in his ear the whole time. Any trace of my O’Connell was hidden behind the terrifyingly intense gaze of the predator that he’d become. Music that I’d never heard before pounded through the walls as Danny slipped O’Connell’s green silk robe over his shoulders. Banging his gloves together, he turned toward me and bent his head. Grasping his meaning, I unclasped the cross and fastened it around my own neck.
“Keep that safe for me, sunshine. I’ll need it as soon as the fight’s over.”
I nodded in agreement. As the door of the changing room opened, the noise was unbelievable. Apparently, they cranked up the volume when the guys were making their way toward the ring. It seems like it cranked up the crowd, as well. Stomping feet pounded along to O’Connell’s anthem, and I followed slowly behind his entourage. Tommy directed me toward our seats while Danny and O’Connell climbed into the ring, and Kieran remained in their corner.
“What’s up?” said a voice from behind me, and to my surprise, the gang was there.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” I asked Nikki.
“Albie sorted it out with Mac,” she replied. “We didn’t want to miss seeing your man do his thing, and we didn’t know we had tickets until yesterday,” she told me.
“He’s not my man.” I sighed, ignoring the number of things that we’d done in the last twenty-four hours to the contrary. “We’re just friends.”
“And I’m Sugar Ray Leonard,” she retorted with a snort.
“Ladies and gentleman,” the booming voice resounded from the middle of the ring, drawing our attention to the front.
“I’d like to introduce you to the main event of the evening. In the blue corner, weighing in at two hundred and twenty-nine pounds, from Calabria, Italy, Robert ‘the Hammer’ Carmello. In the red corner, from Killarney, Ireland, weighing in at two hundred and twenty pounds, your very own local boy, Cormac ‘the Hurricane’ O’Connell.”
He had barely finished before the crowd erupted. O’Connell might have been born in Ireland, but he lived here now, and that made him their local boy. I turned to Tommy, who was whooping and hollering with the best of them.
“Hurricane?” I asked, and he grinned in reply.
“It’s because of the amount of fucking devastation he leaves behind when he’s done fighting. He destroys everything in front of him.”
Of course, that was his name. I felt like I’d been in the path of a hurricane from the day I met him. Only this one wasn’t tearing me apart. He was making me whole again. I watched him bounce up and down and rotate his shoulders to stay warm and ready. Women all over the arena were screaming, “We love you, Hurricane,” and other stuff a little more obscene, but they were more than outnumbered in here by the men. Beer was flowing readily, albeit in cheap plastic cups and I could see why Danny had wanted to keep me away from all of this. Right then I looked toward O’Connell, who was scanning the crowd for me. When his eyes finally met mine, his face broke into one of the cockiest grins that I’d ever seen, and he winked at me, blowing me a kiss from his boxing glove. He was telling me not to worry, that he had this, and for the first time, I really believed that he did. The bell rang and the crowd roared. The Hammer was slightly shorter than O’Connell but solidly built. I knew from the boys’ gossip that his trademark left hook was like a hammer, giving him five knockouts in his last seven fights. For the first two rounds, it seemed like both men were sparring more than fighting. Tommy said that they were sizing each other up. By round three, just when my nerves were settling themselves down, the Hammer tired of playing cat and mouse. That was when the magic that Danny had been talking about happened. The Hammer went in with a combination that ended with his killer left hook, but it never connected. O’Connell was moving around on that canvas like he was on fire. Every punch that didn’t connect wore on his opponent. By round five, the Hammer looked tired and worried, and O’Connell looked ready to close this down. His predatory gaze was frightening, and when he stopped dancing, he didn’t stop punching. Left, right, left. Hook, hook, uppercut. With every combination, O’Connell punished. Frank didn’t have a fifth of the power that O’Connell had, so I had no idea how the Hammer was still standing. Seconds from the final bell, O’Connell threw a lethal combination, and it was all over. Serving the Hammer with his own signature punch, O’Connell gave him a final left hook that knocked him out cold. The Hammer, arms flaccid at his sides, fell like a tree in the forest, hitting the canvas with an audible smack. O’Connell went to his corner and waited as the referee called the fight then the corner men swarmed the ring. Tommy was with them, but I was rooted to my seat, straining to see a glimpse of O’Connell over the crowd. When the Hammer finally regained consciousness, the look of relief on O’Connell’s face was palpable. That was pretty much when the whole arena exploded. The Hammer was undefeated and in line for a title fight later on in the year. I didn’t know what that meant for O’Connell, but I knew it was big. Waves of people pushed down the aisles as O’Connell’s music boomed through the speakers and still I sat. Not knowing what to do next. After a few minutes, both fighters made their way to the centre of the ring and tapped gloves as the announcer’s voice boomed through the arena.
“Ladies and gentlemen. May I introduce your winner by knockout in the fifth round, Cormac ‘the Hurricane’ O’Connell.”
The seat next to me depressed as Danny sat down and tapped the hand resting on my knee.
“That boy is enough to take years off me,” he moaned.
“I thought you said he had this in the bag,” I squeaked.
“He did,” chuckled Danny, “but watching your kid fight would tie anyone in knots.”
I didn’t think he realised that he’d referred to O’Connell as one of his own kids, but it didn’t matter, that was what they were.
“Well, darlin’, speaking of painful experiences, you’d better brace yourself,” he told me then disappeared as O’Connell walked toward me. Behind him stood a tired-looking, stern-faced woman.
“Hey, baby, did you see it?” O’Connell grinned then pressed his sweaty lips to mine in a quick kiss.
“I saw it all.” I smiled.
Throwing his arm across my shoulders and pulling me into his side, he introduced me.
“Sunshine, this is me ma, Silvia. Ma, this is my girl, Em.”
“Oh shit,” was my first thought. “It’s the mother.”