Rafe

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You’re the past. And yet I’m standing here thinking about her. Why did she have to come around again? What could she want from me? She deserted me, after all, so why come back now unless she has some agenda?

I rub the bridge of my nose and forehead, remembering how Lily used to do that when we were teenagers. I haven’t thought about that in a long time. There’re so many things I blocked out that are rushing back. I don’t want them back.

I don’t want to remember the way she used to smile at me. Or come running when she needed someone. Needed me. Because if I remember all that, I’ll remember how she dropped me like burning shit and turned her back on me.

Why?

That’s all I want to know.

But now, after all this time, maybe not. Maybe it doesn’t matter. I told her off. Told her I wouldn’t talk to her. That should be the end of it. Yeah, after that confrontation, she just might leave on her own accord.

My ribs are throbbing from being up and around on my feet so much. It’s just pain though. I’m used to pain. I use it to distract myself from the burning anger that’s making it hard to think. I can’t believe I thought this would be easy. Of course there’s a catch. I’m mad at myself for not looking closer and expecting something like this, but Liam deceived me too.

“Rafe?” Quentin joins me in the shadows by the food table in the back of the studio. I noticed the women haven’t come near it. The staff put out quite a spread of snacks and drinks, with promises of lunch after we finish the next part.

“It took a long time in prison to learn how to bury all that.”

“About that girl?” he asks. He knows parts of the story. He might not know just how deep it goes though.

“I had to forget about her. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Play the game. That’s all you have to do. No pressure, okay?”

Just play the game with Lily here? That’s unlikely. She threw a giant wrench into this whole fucking thing. 

“Easy for you to say,” I mumble, which is not something I do often. I say what I need to say. But this time, I don’t need Quentin to hear my doubts. He grabs some peanuts and grunts that he’s heading outside to smoke. I turn and go back to watching the women on stage. There’s rock music playing softly while two guys with cameras slink through the women as they talk. Another one is pulling them aside to get a little clip of their reactions to the introductions. Liam had explained they’d need to shoot something like ten hours of film for an hour of usable stuff, after all the editing and slicing. So they’re getting as much raw material as possible.

The blonde, Mel, has several women flocking around her. There seem to be three who follow her around. Lily sits with the tall one who didn’t say much, just shook my hand. That was a different approach. Kinda sexy.

Of course, Lily said even less. I’m not sure what she could have said. But, hell, what were we going to say to each other after all this time? And after what she did? I didn’t expect all of this to get so complicated. It’s a fucking reality show. A dating show, for fuck’s sake. It should be fun. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell myself.

I still can’t believe Liam slipped Lily in here without telling me. The douchebag knew I’d never go for it. He knew I would have walked away if I caught any hint that my old girlfriend would be here. How the hell did he even find out about her anyway? New anger simmers as I realize he must have really dug into my life.

I’m getting so frustrated I want to skip out on this for the rest of the day. What would they do? Nothing. They need me. At the thought, I break into a laugh. It’d be pretty freaking funny if they went to shoot the next part and I was gone. That’d show Liam a thing or two about lying to me.

I actually turn and look at the door, but when I glance back, I see all the women up front. They can’t see me with the bright lights on them...so I find myself watching them interact. Mel flips her hair a lot and takes control in the conversation. A few of them aren’t mingling as much, either because they’re shy or they’re trying to keep their distance. It must feel weird. Lily and Kara—I remember her name now—are talking and it seems like their conversation is more real than the others. They’re both leaning close to talk and flicking glances at the other women once in a while. That Kara is intriguing...and it’s interesting that she’s hanging around with Lily. I might keep my distance from her just for that fact.

I don’t want to be in this room with Lily. I thought I’d put this anger away a long time ago. Now it’s heating up, rising up my chest like lava. She could have explained what happened. She could have given me that much. Or she could have been there for me, the way I was there for her for so long.

“Guess once the money ran out, she took off,” I say to myself, laughing bitterly.

Then Lily looks out toward the studio, right at me. There’s no way she can see me, but I step back anyway. I don’t want her to know I’m watching her. Or thinking about her. Or ready to talk to her.

Why the hell is she here? I don’t want her here. It’s too messy and complicated and just fucked up.

“Rafe, this is great!” Liam slaps me on the shoulder, and pain shoots down my side. “It’s going awesome. Just awesome. We are hitting it out of the park with this show.”

“Fuck you.” I swivel and walk away, intercepting Quentin as he comes back in. “I’m outta here.”

“Now hold on, hold on.” He stands in my way.

“Quentin, you know better than to do that.”

“This is important. We signed a contract. Our word needs to mean something to make it in this business. And frankly, we need to get your name out there for people to take you seriously. You’re in the big leagues now.”

I growl and run my hands through my hair, pulling on it for a second. I actually need more pain to clear my head.

Mike Ruddy claps again and I realize the camera crew has finished their part. Liam joins him up front and motions for me to come up. “Come on, Rafe. You know this will be good.”

He looks worried, and I take some joy in that.

“Just a show. We can get through this.” Quentin lightly slaps my back as I start off, not too hard with my injuries still healing. It’s comical how he’s been going easy on me.

They have the ladies sit on the couches again and the camera starts shooting. For this segment, they said I’m going to talk about my life. I join Liam, standing to the side so the cameras can film us with the ladies to our right.

“All right, ladies, before Rafe says anything more, we want to share some exciting news...”

Now what? I decide I might let myself hit this guy despite his size.

“Rafe, this is something you’ve been dying to hear... The bout is still on!”

The ladies cheer and clap.

My body actually jerks in response. How the fuck did Liam know about that and not Quentin? I glance past the cameras for my manager. He’s standing back, his mouth open and his hat in his hand, with his other hand feeling his pocket, probably for his phone.

I want to shoot questions at Liam—are you sure? How do you know?—but I don’t want to let on in front of everyone that I didn’t know about it. I decide to keep my cool instead.

“Rafe, my man, what do you think? That’s gotta be huge news, right?”

“That’s awesome. And yes, I’ve been waiting to hear. That’s just awesome.”

“Isn’t it?”

I’ll have to put aside my doubts until I can talk it over with Quentin.

“Okay, great. So I’ll turn things over to Rafe for a while... Then we’ll break for lunch.”

Fuck. I need to think this through, not talk. It’s a huge relief to know the fight is on, but now this show just went from a way to kill time to a major distraction from training.

For right now, I have to focus on the show. I’m supposed to share my story. The couches are arranged in a half circle with an empty love seat for me at the end. That way the crew can shoot me and the ladies while I talk. Melinda manages to get the seat right next to me. I’m surprised by my reaction—I’m actually glad she’s there because I won’t have to look right at her unless I crane my neck. I turn that over in my mind as I sit. Maybe I just don’t want to deal with her drama, but at the same time, she might be the most like me out of all the women here.

Lily is about two thirds of the way to the other end. I scan the line again, something Liam and Mike told me to do often, but make sure to skip over her. 

God, there’s so much shit to consider here. I lean down to rest my elbows on my knees, like I’m sitting around a campfire with them, and ease in with the easy stuff.

“So I’m Rafe Maddox. I’m twenty-four years old. I’m waiting to fight Jesus Mariaso for the light heavyweight MMA title, and I’m going to win. But how I got to where I am today is a long story. I’m going to share some of it with you. I had it pretty good as a little kid, living on this little farm, but what I didn’t know at the time was my dad was a compulsive gambler and a con artist. We lived pretty well until he gambled everything away. He conned and swindled people. After a bad night, he literally bet the farm and more on a hand. The funny part? That hand was mathematically near impossible to lose. But he did. That was his luck. He lost. Then we moved into a trailer park when I was eight.”

And I met Lily. I peek at her now because I know it’s all running through her head too. But that’s our story. I might not talk to her again, but I’m not dragging all of that out for everyone else to know.

“So you can imagine I didn’t want anything to do with my dad. I took up wrestling in school, to keep out of trouble. I wanted to go to college on a wrestling scholarship. I won some state championships, then the national high school wrestler of the year award. I even hoped to compete in the Olympics.”

I don’t mean to, but I look down the line of women and happen to see Lily as something like fear and regret crosses her face. Guilt. It’s guilt. I still know her expressions and her eyes, and she feels guilty about something. But what? Is it over sneaking on the show or something more? I notice other people looking at me and then turning to see Lily. I shake myself out of it. I’ll have to consider whatever demons she’s fighting later. I have to stay on task.

“So... So, yeah, I didn’t want anything to do with my dad. I planned to split when I was eighteen. I got a job my junior year in high school and started saving. I moved out my senior year, and I was making it on my own.” I’ve been thinking about what I would share, and I’ve gotten stuck here every time. I glance around. The women are all watching me. Behind the lights, Liam and the entire crew are waiting.

The thing I won’t tell any of them is that Lily and I finally put our friendship on the line at seventeen years old and crossed that line into intimacy. We were each other’s light in the darkness back then, and we were scared to lose that, but we couldn’t keep our hands off each other any longer.

Shit. I cannot go there. I shut those images down fast.

Liam steps out so I can see him. I don’t want or need his help. I shake my head at him.

“I’d broken free of my dad’s lifestyle and the crime culture in the neighborhood, but... A friend of mine had a mom who got really sick. She was in trouble and really needed money to pay her mother’s medical bills. I couldn’t let her do what she was planning.”

I just couldn’t let Lily strip. Not as long as I was breathing. There was no way I wanted her in that world. She tried other jobs first, of course, but that didn’t make a dent in the problem. Those fucking strip clubs had been after her to work there even before she was legally old enough.

I pause to glance down the line of women. I don’t linger on Lily, but I can clearly see her face has lost all color.

“I came up with another way. I thought one big job would make enough money to cover the bills. But it went bad. I paid the price for it. I paid way more than I ever thought I would. I lost my dream of wrestling in the Olympics. I spent three years in jail.”

And I lost Lily.

I never did figure out what went wrong with the job. And I never found out why Lily split. It was like I did that job for her, but she couldn’t handle dating a criminal. Maybe it’d been that simple for her.

I hear a noise and realize Melinda is cooing at me, even reaching over like she wants to take my hand. I act like I don’t notice. I’m not into that kind of stuff, especially in front of other people.

When I glance up, I meet Kara’s dark eyes. She’s intense, maybe like me in that way. I stare too long and lose my train of thought again. The camera is probably zooming in on me. Damn it. I can focus better than this.

“I ended up in prison. That was rock bottom for me, always watching my back, getting into fights over gang issues I didn’t even want to be involved in. I have some scars that always remind me of my time there.” I have to stop there for a minute. It stretches out too long and I accidentally look over at the cameras, a no-no according to Liam. They can edit later. I’m not too worried. The other women are all watching me, some leaning forward, all hanging on my every word.

“But prison is where I discovered MMA fighting. We were watching TV and it came on. I had been dreaming about the Olympics, but that’s every four years. There’s real money in MMA. It gave me a goal. And I worked my ass off.”

I can’t help grinning. This is the part of the story I like, the part I can talk about all day long. Several women flash smiles back at me. I have to give it to Liam, he found a group of gorgeous women for this show.

“So I got to know some other fighters and started training. I was already a high-level wrestler, and I had the athletic ability and stone-cold competitive spirit to become an elite-level fighter. It was like fate. It was something actually working out for me for the first time in my life, and now I’ve made a name for myself in MMA fighting.”

I pause, knowing I’m supposed to tie it back to the show and talk about looking for my soul mate. But fuck Liam. He brought Lily on this show. I’m not playing his game anymore. There’s a long moment of silence until Mike calls out, “Cut!”

I sit up, feeling startled like I’ve been deep in thought.

Liam bounces up on the staging area. “Perfect! Great! All right, we’re breaking for lunch. Girls, make sure to eat. We have a long day ahead of us still. We’ll come back and do some one on one takes.”

Mike claps like he’s releasing a sports team.

I overhear Liam tell a few of the women to stop by to hug me. Mel jumps on that and turns to me, throwing her arms around my neck.

“That was incredible. You worked so hard to get here.” She smiles up at me and I smile back, warming to her. Two other ladies are right behind her, so we can’t linger. I hug seven or eight of them, all with the cameras rolling. The attention is flattering, of course, but this whole thing still feels fake to me. Lily doesn’t come over. I accidentally meet her eyes, though. She’s different now too. But I turn away.

Finally, I get away from the lights and women to find Quentin in a quiet corner.

“What do you know about the bout?” I ask him. “Is Liam right or is he blowing smoke for the cameras? He better not fuck with me like that. Did you find anything out?”

“Yeah, I’ve been busy on the phone. I told those fuckers off for talking to the show here before me.”

“Tell me about it. But what’d you find out?”

“So the fight promotion team flew in with their legal team and reviewed the case. Mariaso and his people took care of this quick. The final decision is if Mariaso can clear up all his legal issues in four months’ time, the bout will remain scheduled.”

I reflect on that for a second, and the tight feeling returns. “And it’s off if he doesn’t?”

“No. Gets better. In case it takes longer than four months, they’ll strip him of the belt. Then you’ll fight another opponent for the vacant light-heavyweight title.”

I want to take the title from Mariaso, but either way, I still have my shot. That’s all that matters. I blow out my breath and close my eyes.

***

Quentin pulls me away to eat some lunch and we find a small room to hide in. Liam, of course, tries to get me to eat around the women so he can get more filming in. But, fuck, this morning has been draining. It isn’t like physical training, but emotionally draining. I need out for a few minutes.

“So how much more do I have to do today?” I speak around the food in my mouth and continue to shovel it in. Just like during training, I’ve worked up an appetite.

“Just the one on ones.”

“So what the hell do I talk about?”

Quentin shrugs. “They’re women, aren’t they? Let them do the talking. You already talked all morning.”

I bob my head, grabbing my second sandwich and tearing into it.

“Oh, and they’re supposed to tell you their perfect date. I forgot that. So, don’t worry. You really don’t need to say much.”

“Ready?” It’s one of the stage hands—Ricky, if I remember right—leaning in the doorway to the room.

“Shit, already?” I stuff my mouth and down a Rockstar before rising. On our way back, I tell Quentin, “You might have to bring in food for me if I’m going to be here a lot. I can’t eat junk while I’m training.”

“I’ll talk to Liam. Or whoever handles that. I’ll take care of it, okay?”

Quentin’s more than my manager. He’s been my trainer all along too. He’s pulled in other people, but he’s always been my main guy. I trust him with everything.

We head back to the grand room to be redirected out to the pool area. Outside, there’re a few shaded tables and twinkle lights to set the mood, even though it’s around two. A bar is open with drinks, and Taylor Swift plays just loud enough to give it a party feel, but not so loud that they can’t film. It’s that song “Wildest Dreams,” which seems fitting for today. As I listen, I realize the song is about a woman asking the guy to remember her. I inwardly groan at the irony.

The ladies notice me and start coming my way, waving and smiling. I make a big entrance, hands out like I’m welcoming them all to my party. It’s cheesy as hell, but makes for good TV. Just play the game, like Quentin said.

Mel edges her way around the other women, looking hot in her red dress and styled blonde hair. 

“Mel, how did I know you’d be first?” I use a playful tone and smile. She reaches for my hands and stands there smiling up at me.

“Because I wanted to talk to you the most,” she drawls, “and tell you about my idea of our perfect date.” Suddenly, she leans up on her toes and whispers, “I’d want to go to your fight with Mariaso and cheer for you ringside. And afterward...we could go celebrate your victory any way you wanted.”

I lean back and give her an impressed wink. I’m not really. How is that original? She’s just trying to appeal to my ego.

Behind her, the cameraman waves for my attention. They didn’t get that. I realize she didn’t want it all on tape.

“Can you tell me that again?” I nod toward the camera.

“I want to go to your title fight and cheer for you ringside.”

“Me too!” It’s the short redhead, right next to us. She has a drink in her hand, and I wonder if it’s her second or third. Everyone’s drinking and talking, and the cameras are rolling. The ladies are doing a good job of looking like they’re having fun.

And a few women later, I discover that several of them thought of the fight idea for a perfect date.

At a touch on my arm, I turn around.

“Kara,” I greet her, glad I’m remembering some names. You’d think the studio would have given me cheat sheets ahead of time with photos and information so I wouldn’t sound like such an ass. But then I would have known about Lily. Smart little bastards, weren’t they?

“Hi, Rafe. Is this what you expected?” She gestures around.

“Wow, I’m not sure. It’s different for sure.” I pause and smile. “So, tell me about your perfect date.” Mike wants me to direct the conversation and keep it focused so they can shoot and get done by five.

“Hmm, I’d like to skydive with you. Then jet off for a romantic dinner on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Maybe the restaurant is at our hotel so we could go relax in a hot tub and spend the evening together.”

“Now we’re talking.” 

She gives a sexy shrug and saunters off.

A few of the dates sound nice, and one included a full body massage. But man, these women are all focused on what I’d want for a perfect date. The show probably told them to think that way.

I realize I’ve talked to everyone but Lily, who is standing back, sipping a gin and tonic, and watching all of this. I stare at her—and not an inviting stare. The camera crews move around and motion for others to clear a path. Now we’re facing each other, twenty feet of air between us. She starts my way, encouraged I’m sure by Liam or Mike. She’s braver than I expect and walks all the way up to me.

“I’m so sorry, Rafe. I didn’t mean to ever hurt you.”

That’s not what I expected. I just continue to stare at her, feeling that crease form between my brows. It hits me that she got on this show to apologize to me. After she rejected me before, I didn’t return any messages I’ve gotten from her since I got out of jail. I didn’t leave her any other way of reaching me. Maybe she felt she had to do this to talk to me.

I don’t have an answer for her, so I don’t say anything.

“My perfect date with you would be going to the fair and riding the Ferris wheel together.” She throws the last of her drink back and walks off.

What the hell?

Lily’s afraid of heights, so the Ferris wheel doesn’t make sense at first. Then I remember... We used to dream about doing that together, but I still have never ridden on one. We’d lie out under the stars and pretend we were up at the top of the ride. I always had to reassure her and say I’d hold her hand if we ever went on one, so she wouldn’t be afraid. That’s what we were doing the first time I kissed her. She might be trying to bring that memory up for me.

Damn it, she’s going to mess the show up.