18
MEGAN CLOSED HER eyes and breathed through the pinch of pain radiating outward from her core. She’d had this type of biopsy done before, and she’d known what to expect. Typically, if a doctor said there might be some mild discomfort, that meant it was going to hurt like hell. But she’d withstood worse, and knew the test would be over soon.
The doctor gently touched Megan’s knee. “All done. You’ve already had your colposcopy, so you can go ahead and get dressed. We’ll call you in a couple of days with the results, but I really don’t think you have anything to worry about,” she said. “It’s just a precaution, given your history.”
Megan smiled and nodded, and then the doctor left the room. For a few moments, she lay on the table, her legs still in the stirrups. Completely unbidden, hot, stinging tears flooded her eyes and started leaking down over her cheeks. The last time she’d been told she likely didn’t have anything to worry about, she’d found out that she had stage-two cervical cancer and her entire life—both present and future—had been turned upside down. She’d had to put her career on hold while undergoing the surgery and chemoradiation. She’d put her love life on hold, and while she’d recovered, her love life hadn’t.
Before starting the treatment, she’d had to undergo a round of hormone injections that had made her feel as though she was losing her mind so that she could have surgery to retrieve and then freeze her eggs, preserving the hope of someday having a baby. Although it had been deeply unpleasant, she was glad she’d done it, because the tests she’d had following her treatment had confirmed that the chemoradiation had irreparably damaged her ovaries.
But at least she was alive. A silver lining, if there ever was one.
She sucked down a deep breath and blew it out slowly, trying to calm herself. She’d been pretending that she wasn’t worried or scared, but of course she was. What if the cancer was back? What if it was harder to beat this time?
God, more than anything she wanted to call Gabe and have him comfort her. His calm intensity had always made it seem as though everything would be okay. That if he was in control, she was safe. But calling him for support wasn’t an option, because he’d made it clear that he couldn’t give her what she wanted, and now, she finally understood why. He’d been through a tragedy that had left his heart completely empty, and he had nothing to give. Somehow, thinking of his pain made her less aware of hers, and after she’d wiped her eyes, she rose from the table and left the doctor’s office.
She couldn’t stop thinking about what Gabe had told her about the tremendous, life-altering loss he’d endured. A wife. A son. Here one minute, and then gone the next, ripped from his life and forcing him into a nightmare. Everything made so much more sense now. The scars. The matching angel wing tattoos he didn’t want to talk about. The lone child’s cup stashed in the back of his cabinet. The way he conducted his sex life, trying to avoid connection of any kind and running scared at the first sign of one. His entire world had been destroyed and he’d somehow had to find a way to keep on living. She couldn’t even imagine the pain he carried around with him.
The night he’d told her, she’d lain in her bed, and she’d sobbed for every lost thing. His family. His happiness. And them—her and Gabe—and the future they’d never have.
The anguish, the grief, and the sadness over everything swirled together as she drove home, leaving her feeling drained and heavy-hearted. She wished desperately that there were something she could do to help him, but she understood that there wasn’t.
She stepped into the silence of her apartment, tossing her keys on the little table by the door. Neat and tidy. Empty and quiet. A sense of loneliness so strong that it almost stole her breath washed over her. Loneliness and yearning for the man she loved, who refused to love her back.
She popped her Magic Bag heating pad in the microwave and swallowed a couple of Advil, knowing she was in for an afternoon filled with residual cramps from the biopsy. As she waited for the bag to heat, she opened a cabinet and pulled out the gold foil–wrapped dark chocolate she kept there. She broke off a few squares, and then took them and the Magic Bag into her bedroom and climbed under the covers.
With the bag over her abdomen and a chocolate square melting on her tongue, she opened her laptop and searched for the items she’d put off looking up. It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought she’d be able to find them. It was that she wasn’t sure if she could handle seeing them. But she needed to.
It took her less than sixty seconds of Googling to find both Mason and Natalie’s obituaries, as well as news articles documenting the crash. With trembling fingers, she clicked on Mason’s obituary and started to read. Her eyes stung and blurred almost immediately.
Mason Maddox, age three, died in a tragic accident on August 15, 2012. Mason was born on January 17, 2009, to Gabriel and Natalie Maddox. Mason was known to his family to be sweet, shy, and full of energy. He adored airplanes, puzzles, Dr. Seuss, snuggling with his mommy, and wrestling with his daddy. He wanted to be a firefighter or a superhero when he grew up. Mason’s mother, Natalie, was also lost in the accident, and the family takes some comfort knowing that they are together in Heaven. He is survived by his father, Gabriel, his paternal grandmother, Laura Maddox, and his maternal grandparents, Kimberly and Dennis Walters, as well as his aunt Lindsay.
Megan wiped at her eyes as she stared at the picture of the boy with blond curls and blue eyes who looked so much like Gabe. She rubbed her chest, aching for him. Trying and failing to comprehend the depth of his loss and his pain.
Although she didn’t want to, she clicked over to Natalie’s obituary and was greeted with the smiling face of a beautiful woman. Bright green eyes, dark blond hair, a dimple in her right cheek. So vibrant and alive. She’d only been twenty-five years old.
For a long time, Megan stared at their pictures, wishing for Gabe’s sake that they were still here. As much as she felt her own pain over losing him and over what she’d been through, she knew it was nothing compared to this. The magnitude of it was immeasurable. She had no idea how she’d handle that kind of loss, and she was in no place to judge his coping mechanisms. Fighting and pushing his body to exhaustion, struggling for control and purpose. Swiping at the demons, and keeping them sated with cathartic violence. Unemotional sexual entanglements. Pleasure without connection because his battered heart simply couldn’t take any more.
Understanding all of this, she knew she’d been right to let him go. It wasn’t fair for her to want more than he could give, and she couldn’t put her heart through the wringer, waiting for him to work through his pain. Hoping that maybe she’d be enough. That wasn’t what either of them needed.
She spent the rest of the afternoon in bed, crying and napping, letting herself feel the hollow loss of the man she’d fallen in love with.
She woke up a couple of hours later, her apartment nearly dark in the falling dusk. She pushed up out of bed, surprised to find that she felt a little bit better after the catharsis of a good cry and a little sleep. Her heart still ached, her limbs still felt heavy, and her face was numb, but she no longer felt as though she were on the verge of tears.
She took a long, hot shower, and then brought her laptop into the living room. She thought about calling Jules, but she still felt a bit raw. Tomorrow, she’d be in a better frame of mind to talk about everything. So instead, she opened a bottle of wine and started working on her next article, hoping she could purge some of her pain by putting fingers to keyboard, while protecting what Gabe had told her.
For some, fighting is simple. It’s raw and primal, and feeds into an age-old struggle for survival. For some, there is no backstory, no secret. But for others, there’s a hidden wound pushing them into the octagon. During my time following the fighters of the WFC, I’ve learned that there are two distinct groups: those who live to fight, and those who fight to live.
Gabe sat at the end of the long table in the conference room at WFC headquarters. Darcy, Jules, and Nick sat on one side. Ito sat on the other with the two fighters he and Gabe had talked into coming to the meeting. They’d just finished sharing how the Mereo deal had negatively affected their earnings. To his credit, Darcy had heard them out and hadn’t scoffed at their experiences. Jules kept looking over at her dad and Gabe got the feeling that she’d talked to him about it all, probably more than once.
“Thanks for sharing your stories, guys,” Darcy said, leaning forward and lacing his fingers together on the table in front of him. “I didn’t realize how adversely the deal was affecting you.”
Gabe managed to hold his tongue at that. The truth was that Darcy was too stubborn to listen until he was hit over the head with the evidence. “I made some calls,” Gabe said. “Turns out around seventy-five percent of the fighters on the current roster feel the deal is unfair and has netted them significantly less income than last year.”
“Define significant,” Darcy deadpanned, giving Gabe a steely look. Darcy might be starting to reluctantly accept that he’d have to deal with the fighters’ complaints, but he wasn’t happy about it.
“A range of twenty to fifty percent for most of them,” Gabe answered. Holding up a folder, he added, “I have the numbers right here if you want to take a look.” He’d spent the past week preparing for this by meeting with every fighter who was local, and calling the ones who weren’t to compile the data. It had given him something to do besides think about Megan when he finished his training every day.
Darcy sighed and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it messy on one side. He looked back to Ito and the two fighters. “Thanks for coming in. I’m gonna talk to Gabe and Jules alone.”
The guys mumbled their appreciation for the meeting and left. Nick was slower to get up, leaning forward and placing a kiss on Jules’ head as he got to his feet. He gave Gabe a triumphant smirk over the top of Darcy’s head as he left. Gabe nodded. Darcy hadn’t said it yet, but Gabe thought they’d done a good job presenting their case. He had to realize that it was time to rethink the deal.
When the door closed behind them, Jules moved into action. She opened the folder in front of her—it was identical to Gabe’s—and pulled out the stapled sheets of paper on top. “Gabe was kind enough to let me see his data earlier. This is a list of the fighters and their earnings. The first column is last year, and the second is what they’re on track to earn this year.” The fighters’ names weren’t listed. They’d each been assigned a number to keep their information confidential.
“And this is everyone?” Darcy asked.
“A few didn’t want to get involved. There’s enough there for a majority, though,” Gabe said.
Darcy scanned the sheet and flipped to the next page. “Yeah, okay.” He pushed the paper away and leaned back in his chair. “Looks like the numbers are legit. I’d have to double-check what sponsors are paying now to know for sure.”
Gabe shrugged. “I can call up every sponsor and ask them, but that information is confidential. I think we have to go by what’s being reported to us by the fighters. I don’t think there’d be so much grumbling if they were happy with the payout. We’ve lost three fighters to Imperial over the past two weeks. Are you willing to lose any more?”
Darcy scowled. “So what’s the solution?”
Gabe opened his folder and shuffled through the papers until he pulled out the payout schedule he and Jules had come up with. He’d run it by Ito and a few of the others. “This lays out base pay and a percentage of earnings from each fight. It’s all based on years of experience as a professional MMA fighter.”
Darcy’s brows drew together as he studied it. “Who worked this out for you?”
“I did,” Gabe said. When Darcy looked surprised, Gabe smiled. “I was a business major.”
Jules leaned forward. “If you’re interested, I can email you the spreadsheet and you can input different values to play with the formula. This one is based on the last fight night and the approximate earnings brought in from that.”
For the next several minutes, Darcy asked questions about a couple of points in the document and Gabe and Jules answered him. Finally, Darcy sat back, shaking his head. “I don’t have a choice in this, do I?”
“I think we all want to do what’s fair, Dad.”
“The next step would be to bring in a union. We can negotiate terms, but I think it’s fair to say that the system isn’t working as it is now,” Gabe added.
Darcy sighed, ruffling his hair again when he ran a hand through it. “No, it’s not. The payout structure is skewed so guys like you make a lot, and the guys at the bottom make just enough to keep them hanging on until something better comes along. The last thing I want is for Imperial or—God forbid—some other start-up to come in and take my fighters.”
Jules smiled and patted her dad’s arm. “You wanted to turn this into the premier fight league. You work this out and I think you’re there. We have the best sponsors and the most fans. We have cable sports networks and pay-per-view. Imperial can’t match that. If you can come up with a deal that satisfies the fighters, then you’ll have their loyalty.”
Darcy nodded and they spent the rest of the meeting coming up with a timeline. Gabe was just under two weeks away from his championship defense, so he couldn’t put any more energy into negotiations now. They decided that Darcy would meet with WFC attorneys and come up with a proposal to run by the fighters the week after the fight. When they were finished, Jules smiled and gave her dad a hug.
“I’m proud of you, Dad,” she said as she left to go back to work.
Darcy grumbled, but a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Gabe started to get up, but Darcy stopped him. “Could you give me a minute, Maddox? I have something I want to run by you.”
“Sure, boss.” Gabe lowered himself back into his chair.
“I know that this hasn’t been easy for you.” Darcy gestured to the folder sitting in front of Gabe. “Being in the middle of all this shit. I want you to know that I appreciate what you’ve done. You’re trying to find the best solution in this whole mess, and I can respect that.”
Gabe nodded, a lightness coming over him for the first time since his last night with Megan. As soon as he thought of her he pushed her away. It was too hard. It hurt too damn much. “Thanks. I hope you know that the WFC means a lot to me. I only want to help us do good things.”
Darcy smiled. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. The attorneys have asked me to think about starting a foundation. We’ve had a run of bad media lately, what with the Mereo story and Oliveira’s fucking sex tape.” He rolled his eyes.
“Ah, yeah, I’d heard about that.”
“Combine that with the bad reputation we had a couple of years ago, and the two guys we cut for doping, we’re on the verge of a PR nightmare. We need good press, and a foundation could help with that.”
“What do you mean by a foundation?” Gabe asked.
“We teach MMA to underprivileged kids. I figure we start here in Vegas and eventually expand to Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico. We’ll cover the Southwest and, if it goes well, expand into other major cities. But right now we just need to focus on getting our base set up here. What do you think?”
Gabe nodded. “It sounds great. I don’t know where I’d be right now if my mom hadn’t gotten me started in karate. Kids need sports, especially kids in difficult situations.”
“Great. That’s why I put your name in the ring for a leadership position. I like the way you handled yourself here, and I know your background. I figure if anyone can get us off on the right foot, it’s you.”
“Me?” Gabe was stunned. “What sort of leadership position?”
Darcy shrugged. “To be honest, we haven’t figured out the details yet. You’d be the spokesman. You’d also help design programming, and I’m sure we’d need you to help with fund-raising. Show up to events, shake hands, and talk up the work we do. You’d be talking from experience, and I think that matters.”
It sounded like a big commitment. Gabe wasn’t sure he was up for it on top of training. Correctly reading the weariness in Gabe’s expression, Darcy added, “Look, I know it’s asking a lot. We’d work in some sort of compensation for you, and I’d make sure it wouldn’t interfere with your training.”
“Wow, that’s a lot to think about.” Gabe was wary of the potential time commitment, but he liked the idea of giving back to the community that had given him so much.
“I know it’s sudden, but we have to move fast before we’re hit with another fucking scandal.” Darcy looked at his watch and stood. “I’m late for a phone call. Think it over. I don’t want you losing focus with your training. Oliveira needs his ass handed to him. But I’ll need to know soon after your fight.”
When he left, Gabe sat there reeling from the offer. He hadn’t taught karate in a long time, and he was surprised to realize that he missed it as he was hit with a wave of nostalgia. Thinking about it gave him a feeling similar to coming home again, or finding something that he’d thought he’d lost forever. A tiny piece of his former self coming back to him.
It wasn’t nearly enough to get Megan back. He sucked in a breath and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. Damn. It might never be enough to get her back. He’d hurt her too badly. After the way she’d left, she probably never wanted to see him again. Could he even get himself together enough to try to get her back? He didn’t know. He’d been asking himself that question nonstop since she’d walked out on him. Every day without her seemed worse than the one before.
Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he scrolled to the picture he’d taken of Megan that night in the hotel room. The one where she was smiling, totally spent from an orgasm. He’d been too stupid to realize it then, but the expression on her face was full of love. Somehow she’d found something in him worth loving. He wanted to be that man for her. He didn’t know if it was possible, but, after living in survival mode all this time, it was a start.