Conner

 

“Damn, man. We’re only going to be gone for three days,” Steele chuckled, putting our bags in his Jeep.

“Shut the fuck up,” I mumbled from around Willow’s lips. She’d driven up to the gym just to say goodbye.

“No need to fight, boys.” Willow pulled away from me and winked. “Call me when you get a chance.”

“Will do.” I swatted her ass one last time, and jumped in the passenger side, ready to roll.

Steele managed the side streets with ease and didn’t speak up until we hit the freeway. “So, you and Willow. . . .”

“You knew about it already.”

“Well, yeah, I mean I knew you guys were dating, but I didn’t realize it was serious.”

“It’s serious.” We’d never talked relationships before, and I didn’t feel the need to start, but for some reason, I didn’t need to keep my feelings for her a secret either.

He chuckled and shook his head. I wasn’t sure what he found so funny about it, and I didn’t care enough to ask. I closed my eyes and thought about the perfect woman I’d just left in the parking lot. I never imagined I could experience the kind of happiness Willow gave me—not after the accident. I’d only been concerned about making it day to day. The future had never occurred to me. It was not something tangible.

But now…even though I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, I just knew I wanted her there. Hence, my reminiscing about not wanting to leave her behind on my way to Las Vegas with Steele. I would have gone, regardless, to support my buddy in his fight, but I had a second agenda in mind.

Meeting Richard Fuller, the CEO of the AFL was an opportunity Steele wasn’t going to let me pass up. He’d been talking me up for the last couple of months, trying to get Richard to come to one of my fights. He’d even sent him a couple of fight tapes. Steele said he was interested, but was firm in the fact that I needed more experience. I didn’t disagree, so I decided to take the chance and do the face to face.

Other than getting situated in our hotel rooms, Steele and I hadn’t done too much. Since it was his fight night, I left everything up to him, and only piped up when he spoke to me. I knew how I liked to be by myself before going into the cage, and I was willing to give him the same courtesy. Not to mention, the fight was a live pay-per-view event, which meant money was being made per minute. There was more pressure involved.

I could tell he was antsy. He’d only ever fought Mackle once before, but that was two years ago. I hadn’t watched the tape until recently. Mackle was a squirrely little shit, but in the fighting profession, those were the ones you had to watch out for.

The tenth time Steele walked out onto the balcony, I decided to speak up. “You all right?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure about that?”

He took a sip of his water. “I haven’t said anything because I’m not sure yet, but I’m considering retirement.”

“Why?” He hadn’t said so much as a word to me about quitting.

“Dude, my knees hurt. My back is fucked up. My neck aches more often than not. I’m thirty-five. I’m not as young as I used to be, you know?”

I nodded, understanding what he was saying, but still shocked. “I get it. Just don’t think about that shit today. Not on a fight night. Get this win, then we’ll start planning your funeral. Okay, old man?”

“Funeral? You’re a real prick.” He grinned, but I could tell he wasn’t done thinking about it. He threw his backpack over his shoulder and started for the door.

Walking into the arena was surreal. I’d never been to a fight so anticipated before. The crowds were already forming outside. I got a small glimpse of what it would be like if I were to go pro, and instead of being excited, I second-guessed the whole process. It was almost as if seeing behind the scenes for the first time shocked my system. It terrified me more than anything, and I didn’t like the uncertainty of it all. Not to mention, there were cameras in his face every time he turned around, and a constant stream of people wanting autographs. It was too busy for me.

Steele introduced me to a gaggle of people—from the guys who set up the cage, to the PR people for the league. I even met a few professional fighters who were there for support, but my mind kept reverting to my insecurities. The more I thought about them, the more I just wanted to get on a plane and fly back home.

“Hey, man. Good to meet you.” Jesse Jamison shook my hand.

He was the best fighter who’d ever been in the league. He had more wins under his belt than anyone. He was also undefeated, which was an accomplishment in and of itself. He was the fastest, the fiercest, the most incredible ground fighter there was. Not much impressed me, but he sure as hell did.

“Same.” I nodded as I glanced from him to Steele. I had a feeling he was still preoccupied from our earlier conversation. He was more quiet than normal.

“You ready to kick a little ass, Steele?” Jamison smiled, showing us his gold tooth. “Mackle told Hinder he’d have you tapping in three rounds.”

“Three? I plan on shutting this down in two.” Steele slammed his locker, placing a roll of tape on the table.

“We’ll see, my man.” He turned his attention to me, while Steele continued to prep. “Steele tells me you’re a hell of a fighter.”

“I do okay.”

He chuckled, and so did the rest of the guys. I wasn’t aware that I’d said anything funny. “Are you interested in fighting at this level?” he asked.

“Not sure,” I said, my head leaned all the way back to inspect the huge ceiling.

“He is. He just doesn’t know it yet,” Steele replied.

“Cool.” Jesse’s voice had a hint of sarcasm to it, but I ignored it.

Just a couple of minutes before, he’d seemed like a decent dude, but because I wasn’t gung-ho over being a part of their club, he was quickly becoming an asshole.

“Victory party at Glow. My treat.” Jesse bumped knuckles with Steele and left us alone, taking his entourage with him.

“He’s cool. Just likes to show off sometimes,” Steele said, taking in my reaction to his friend.

“I bet,” I said dryly. My favorite.

He shook his head, as the trainer walked in to wrap his hands. I sat quietly, allowing Steele to gather his thoughts, and worked through whatever nerves he’d been feeling prior. He hadn’t exactly been nervous, but he wasn’t his hunky-dory self either. He’d never shown any signs of weakness during our sparring sessions, and I’d never so much as seen him take an ice bath due to soreness. Hell, at his gym, he always seemed perfectly in control of every situation. I wondered if he’d prepared mentally, like he always told me to do.

I wanted to mention it to him, but figured saying something would let him know I noticed something was off, which had the potential of making matters worse. So, I kept my mouth shut. He was the professional. I knew he’d pull through.

I left just before it was time for him to enter the cage. I walked the long tunnel alone, taking in my surroundings as I tried to clear my mind of everything not involving his fight. Entering the arena, I took my place just to the right of the cage and his corner. As the lights dimmed, and Steele entered, the crowd lurched to their feet, cheering over the music blaring through the speakers. His coach, who’d been with him from the beginning, talked him up, giving him direction just before Mackle entered. I watched intently, hoping like hell he’d been able to get his mind straight.

Once the signal had been given by the referee, Mackle went at Steele full-force, throwing three punches in the first two minutes that should have knocked him out. Steele stumbled after the last one, but luckily, it was time to meet at the corners.

“He’s fast. He’s handing out strikes like it’s Halloween candy,” his trainer said as he wiped Steele’s face.

“I got it. It took me a minute to decipher his technique.”

“Then stop taking them, dumbass. Cover yourself. You’re going to get knocked out before you even get a chance to take him to the ground.”

I hadn’t ever been so worked up over a fight. Not even one of my own. Watching my buddy struggle didn’t sit well with me. I wanted to go fight for him. He was sluggish, and his feet were heavy. Mackle was quick, and he was striking twice as much as Steele. Granted, he could have tired out faster, but taking punches, one right after the other, would affect anyone—Steele was no exception.

There were times where I thought Steele was going to lose, and I wasn’t the only person. The tension in his corner was so thick, you could have cut it with a knife. Add in the crowd, and it was almost too much to bear. Every punch he took, every kick of Mackle’s that made contact, pissed me off.

Finally, in round three, Steele swept Mackle’s legs out from under him in a takedown. Relief rushed through my body, knowing that he had him. Mackle’s eyes bulged out, his face blood-red, as Steele squeezed tighter. Just before Mackle lost consciousness, he tapped.

Afterward, it had taken Steele a full thirty minutes to sign autographs at the back door, before we were finally on our way to the victory party Jamison was throwing. Honestly, I wasn’t quite up for the party scene, but after the effort my best friend had just put down, we had to celebrate somehow. Not to mention, the pay day he’d received. I would have felt like a complete jackass not acknowledging his win.

“Welcome! Welcome, boys. Make yourselves comfortable. The ladies will be here in a moment.” A middle-aged, balding man in a black suit led us to our table.

“Ladies?” I asked. I wasn’t a pussy by any means, but pissing my girlfriend off over a couple of cage bunnies wasn’t something I was trying to do.

“I got us some strippers!” Jamison put his fist in the air.

“Damn.” I grimaced, knowing ahead of time it wasn’t a good idea.

“I don’t give a fuck who shows up,” Steele said. “I’m getting drunk. I’m getting laid. And I don’t want to remember either of those things when I wake up tomorrow.”

I couldn’t be the downer of the group, so I let it ride. I’d just keep to myself, like I usually did, and all would be well…

“Payne!”

Fuck. I would’ve recognized that voice anywhere. Simone. And from the looks of it, she was already lit. The straps on her dress were falling down her arms, and her hair was a stringy mess. The last thing I wanted to deal with was an intoxicated Simone. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of her showing up. She was a cage bunny; a popular one at that. Of course she’d show for a live event, so she could party afterward.

I looked up, just as she planted her ass on my lap. Getting ready to push her off, somebody bumped into me from the side, and almost knocked two dancers to the floor. Flashes from the side caught my attention. I hated cellphones. I hated social media. And I didn’t care for paparazzi either. Not that I’d considered it much before tonight…

Las Vegas was different than home. I guess I hadn’t expected the crowd to be so large.

Steele was chill about it though. He’d been in the game for over ten years. He knew the ins and outs, and could separate the real from the bullshit. He was level-headed and outgoing, and had a head for the public part of the business. To top it all off, he didn’t have to run from a past he was ashamed of.

Once I found my footing, I jumped up. All I could think about was which photos would end up where. It had only been a matter of seconds, but I was smart enough to know a picture spoke a thousand words.

“What’s your problem, Con?” Simone slurred.

“Don’t call me that.” Hearing that nickname grossed me out.

“Oh, I see. You got in the journalist’s pants and now you’re too good for me?” She was smiling, knowing she had my attention at the mention of Willow.

“What do you know about the journalist?”

We had an audience. The music was drowning out most of our conversation, but anyone standing near us could hear. In the VIP section, that still left a lot of ears, given it was such a small area.

“Enough.” Her perfectly manicured brow rose as she tried to bait me.

I cocked my head to the side. She was lying. She didn’t know Willow.

I’d told Willow about her one night, when we’d talked about our exes. I admitted that she was the closest thing I had to an ex, at least in the last ten years. I explained who she was, and what she did for a living. Willow knew what cage bunnies were because she’d seen them before. Luckily, her path hadn’t crossed with Simone’s yet.

Simone knew how to get under my skin, and she knew exactly which buttons to push to get a reaction out of me.

“You’re a fucking liar,” I spat.

“What am I lying about? I said I knew enough about her.” She took two gulps of whatever she had in her glass.

I glanced to either side of me, wanting to get the confrontation over with. But not before I found out what her angle was. “What do you want, Simone? I’m not in the mood for this shit.”

She was manipulative enough for me to recognize I had something to fear. Our fallout hadn’t been pretty, and she was petty. She’d try and pay me back. Normally, I wouldn’t have even entertained her drunk ass, but her bringing Willow into the mix, changed things.

Before she could answer, I felt my phone vibrate in my jeans. Something inside my gut told me it was Willow. I wanted to answer, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to hear her in the club. Plus, I wasn’t done with Simone yet. I wanted to know what her end game was.

“You. I want you,” she said. Her crooked smile was creepy.

“Not going to happen. In this lifetime, or the next.”

       Staring at her now, all disheveled and wasted, only made me hate myself for going there in the first place. You get what you pay for, and a cage bunny was worth pennies compared to what I had at home.

“Someone was asking about you earlier.” She glanced down to the main floor and grinned.

Taking her lead, I looked down, and there in a crowd of hundreds, stood Mikey Godwin. My eyes widened, seeing him for the first time in over two years. Shocked, my feet were moving before I even had time to think about what I was going to do.

Anger seeped out of my pores like beads of sweat. I huffed twice, trying to stabilize my breathing. It didn’t help.

Having Mikey Godwin show up was not good. He’d been a fellow inmate in the state penitentiary, who’d once picked a fight with me behind bars. I’d kicked his ass the old school way, without a weapon, even though he’d been able to smuggle a pair of brass knuckles inside, hoping to use them on me. I didn’t give him the chance. I’d had to watch my back every day after that. But I never knew what his problem was with me, and honestly, I hadn’t cared.

I took the stairs two at a time, until I reached the club floor, quickly rounding the corner I’d seen him pass by as he walked away. Black eyes peered out from behind the pillar; a sinister smile followed close behind. His teeth were yellow. Well, at least the ones that weren’t capped with gold were.

“What do you want?” I asked.

He was alone, from what I could see. I glanced behind me once more just to be sure.

“Payne, old buddy. How are ya?” His hand reached up to touch my shoulder, but I dodged it. My instincts were working double time. I knew his reason for being at the club had nothing to do with seeing how I was doing.

“What the fuck do you want?” I asked through clenched teeth.

He grinned. “We’ve got some shit to settle.”

“No, we don’t.” Heat pulsed through my body. My fingers tingled, itching to hit him. To make him disappear.

“We’ll see about that.”

I stepped up to him, pushing my forehead into his, applying just enough pressure for him to get my point. “Leave me the fuck alone. Don’t come near me again.”

“Damn, boy.” He chuckled. “You’re tense. Guess all that time you spent behind bars made you all paranoid and shit.”

“I’m not fucking with you. Our last tussle will seem like a middle school fight if I ever see you around again,” I threatened.

I turned to leave, and he pushed me in the back. It was barely a nudge, but I felt it. I faced him, ready to stomp a mudhole in his ass, when Steele stepped in between us. He placed his palm on my chest. His eyes widened just a hair, and I knew he could feel my heart racing. My breaths were short and shallow. At best, fear was clouding my judgement where Mikey was concerned. Not fear of him, but fear that my past had finally caught up with me. Obviously, he wasn’t going to leave me alone. His nudge told me that much.

Steele stepped up to Mikey. “Dude, what’s your problem?”

Mikey shrugged, like he had no idea what Steele was talking about. “Don’t got one,” he said, and stepped back, raising both hands in the air.

Steele looked back at me. I closed my eyes, knowing I had everything to lose. I stepped back too. “A simple misunderstanding. We’re good.”

Steele wasn’t buying it. “Man—”

“I’m good. I swear. Just tired. I’ll meet you back at the hotel.”

Steele squinted in question, but he relented. “All right. Holler at me if you need me.”

“Seriously,” I was already walking backward, “go celebrate.”

I had planned on hailing a cab, but didn’t see one as I exited the club, so I started walking. I needed to burn some energy off anyway. Crazy amounts of energy buzzed through my body. My mind was altered to the point I couldn’t make sense of anything. After a few blocks, I remembered that Willow had called. I needed to hear her voice.

“Where are you?” she questioned without greeting me. She sounded pissed.

“I’m walking down the strip,” I answered honestly.

“Who are you with?”

“I’m by myself, why?”

“Really? Because I just saw pictures online where you were in a dark club with that skank, Simone, on your lap.”

My stomach sank. It hadn’t even been thirty minutes, and already the pictures had gone viral. This was everything I feared would happen if I went pro. “That’s not what it looked like,” I started to explain.

“Are you drunk?” she asked. “You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?”

I hadn’t even realized I’d stopped walking. I just stood there, on the side of the street, surrounded by bright lights and a million people I didn’t know, feeling completely alone. I swallowed my denial, unable to speak. Out of all the things we’d confided in each other, all the messed-up shit I had told her about my life, and she didn’t think I could manage one weekend in Las Vegas without throwing in the towel?

My eyes focused on the homeless man to my right. He had no shoes on, only socks. His jacket had four holes in it, and the toboggan he wore was bright green. If I hadn’t seen him move, I would have thought he was dead. To the right of his thigh were two bottles of whiskey. Dark gold, and unopened.

The sounds of the night flooded my brain, and in that split second, I couldn’t hear Willow doubt me anymore. It occurred to me that being accused of being weak only made me want to prove her right.

I hung up, not even answering her, and made my way to the corner. I pulled two twenties out of my wallet and placed them in the homeless man’s lap. He didn’t respond, and by the time he reacted to the money, I’d already bent forward and picked up the bottles, not even bothering to ask him if I could buy them from him. He didn’t decline. I wouldn’t have cared if he did. My mind was made up.

The rush I got while walking away from the vagrant should have worried me, but it didn’t, because I knew all too well that once the adrenaline wore off, I’d crash like I always had. But for some reason, it wasn’t something I focused on. It was probably because it wasn’t the high I was chasing this time. It was the emptiness. I wanted to get so lost, that even I couldn’t find my way out.

My past had caught up to me, and it only made me want to disappear even more. All I’d needed was the one person I’d put my everything into to doubt me, and the night went from bad to worse. It seemed like it had only taken thirty minutes for the past decade to crash down on me. Once I learned that Willow didn’t have any faith in me, it wasn’t as hard as I’d hoped to let go. It should have been, but it wasn’t.

I held the bottles close to my chest, like they were going to grow legs and try to escape. I walked with purpose, until I saw the bright lights of our hotel lit up perfectly in the night sky. It may as well have been a red arrow saying, This Way.

I kept to myself, not making eye contact with the people who walked past me. Head down, I took the elevator all the way up to my room, still reeling from my conversation with Willow. As much as I didn’t want to think about it, her words overtook every thought I had. She had disappointed me. She’d let me down. I thought our relationship was solid. I hadn’t realized she thought she was the only one strong enough to hold it up. It was as if she’d slapped me across the face.

Crossing the threshold of my hotel room made me feel like I vanished into another world. I turned and bolted the door shut. Not that I thought I’d be hearing from Steele, but better safe than sorry. I took a seat in the chair sitting next to the window. I peeked out the partially closed curtains, not taking anything in at first.

As much as I knew I was making a mistake, all I could focus on was giving Willow what she wanted. What she expected. Going back home and groveling, basically working my ass off to prove my innocence wasn’t what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to ever do that again. It seemed that had been my entire life up until this point. Trying to prove myself, prove to my mom that I wasn’t just a fuck-up who did everything I could to hurt her. Or proving to Steele, and anybody in a suit, that I had what it took in the cage to make a career in a profession I hadn’t trained my whole life for.

Turning to the only comfort I was willing to seek for the night, I opened the first bottle and took a swig. Fighting back tears, I continued drinking until I forgot about it all.