All In

by JD Hawkins

  Even though I keep my distance from him, worried he’ll wear the shirt that clings to his pecs, or get that look on his face that makes me want to sit on it, I think about him pretty much all the time. It isn’t hard, since everywhere I look people are talking about the fight, and since Connor decided to showboat at the press conference, I’m sharing my anxious tension with about a million worldwide fans.

  All of which is why I’m here now, standing outside Connor’s apartment, ringing his bell on the day of the fight. Pete Foreman might be tough, but spending time away from your boyfriend when he’s got the body of a fighter and the face of a model might actually kill you.

  “Should I even be here?” I say, as soon as Connor opens his apartment door. “The fight’s in, like, twelve hours.”

  He laughs and stands aside for me to enter.

  “Right. Twelve whole hours.”

  I move inside his living room, biting my nails for the first time since my driving test.

  “Shouldn’t you be…I don’t know…preparing now? Pacing up and down in a room somewhere while Butch quotes Churchill and Matt slaps your shoulders?”

  I look up and see him move close, biceps rippling as he wraps them around my waist, hard stubble around a soft smile. I start to speak but his lips catch mine before the words can leave my mouth, and the rock-like hardness of his embrace makes my chakras swell. I melt a little against him, the way his tongue moves inside my lips, making my body come alive. Alive and sensitive to the powerful hands he slips down the back of my yoga pants, searching the curves of my ass.

  “Connor,” I moan softly, once I find the mental strength to pull away slightly, “that’s a bad idea right now.”

  He chuckles lightly, in a way that sounds more like a predator’s growl.

  “Right. Best to save my energy.”

  “Right,” I reply. “For the fight.”

  “For the celebration.”

  I can think of a million things to say right now, but none of them seem right. I want to tell Connor what Tara told me, what I promised not to tell him. I want to tell him about my own worries waiting for Jaime to make a decision that could make or break my business. I want to tell him that I’m shit-scared he’ll lose this fight; scared that he’ll be broken even worse than last time if he does lose; scared that it’ll somehow be my fault.

  I want to tell him to do his best to win this, ‘cause if he doesn’t, I’ll forever feel like I’m holding him back from his dreams, without trying to, and that the only way I can help him is by leaving him. I want to tell him that I know it might be selfish—or even stupid—of me, but I need him to win this to prove I’m as good for him as he wants me to be.

  “Connor,” I finally say, though his eyes haven’t left mine. And then the words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them: “I think I love you.” I freeze, but it’s too late to take it back.

  His reaction is quick, though for me it feels like decades.

  “I know I love you, Frankie.”

  Sometimes you tell the truth just because there isn’t any other option.

  He pulls me tight against him, and for a blissful moment I let go, let myself just breathe, let myself believe that nothing can go wrong, that everything is going to be okay.

  * * *

  The thing about running a yoga business that’s so close to failure is that you can’t make excuses. Not even ‘my sort-of boyfriend is the main event in a career-defining pay-per-view fight millions of people will be watching’ level excuses. That’s why I’m here, finishing up the most anxious, aggressive yoga class I’ve ever given, only two hours before he enters the ring.

  I put on my best ‘dinner party hostess’ impression as I try to get my students out of the studio as quickly as possible, and then rush to the office to throw on a hoodie and pack my things.

  “You ready?” Jim asks, peeking in the doorway.

  “Um…no,” I reply, stuffing my backpack. “Can you get them to delay the fight by about…I dunno…three months?”

  Jim shakes his head good naturedly. “Come on, Frankie. You know nervousness is not a good look for a yoga instructor.”

  I whip my bag onto my shoulder and step past him as he follows me to the door.

  “I probably won’t be one for very much longer anyway.”

  “Don’t say that.” Jim skips through the door behind me. “You heard back from Jaime?”

  “No.”

  Jim shrugs as we near my car.

  “Maybe she’s taking her time deciding. Your sister doesn’t seem like the type to make a decision without thinking it over.”

  “Well she’s about to ‘think’ up all the time we have left. Anyway,” I say, unlocking the car, “one massive, life-crushing crisis at a time, please.”

  We get into my car and I rev the engine.

  “You’re not going to drive like a lunatic, are you?” Jim asks, his face wincing a little as he waits for a response.

  “How much time til it starts?”

  “An hour?”

  Jim doesn’t hear my answer over the sound of the car’s wheels screeching on the parking lot blacktop. I’m not going to miss another one of Connor’s fights, not for the world, and especially not one that’s this important. If I have to, I’ll even get out of my car and jog the last few miles to the arena.

  I spend the next forty minutes doing my best impression of a stunt car driver straight out of the Fast and Furious franchise, which makes Jim clench the dashboard of my Toyota so hard it’ll probably leave handprints.

  We can hear the low rumble of the arena when we’re still a block away, the night air pierced by the sounds of thousands of people shouting in unison with each ebb and flow of the fight.

  “It’s started!” Jim shouts from the passenger side.

  “Those are just prelim bouts, Connor’s on at nine.”

  He exhales in relief. “We’ve still got twenty minutes then.”

  “Yeah. And it’ll probably take us thirty just to find parking.”

  It takes us twenty two, and as soon as I’m done I run like the cops are after me to the giant entrance, shoving and pushing through crowds to get to the Will Call counter at the ticket booth. Jim keeps up, apologizing to the strangers behind me as he follows in my wake.

  I reach the glass so fast I have to slam two palms against it to stop myself, jerking the wiry-looking teenage attendant to attention.

  Speaking as calmly as someone with a gun to their head, jabbing my finger down at his desk as if I know where the tickets are, I say, “Frankie Jones. There are two tickets in my name.”

  The teenager looks at me with a slight sense of confusion, his bottom lip dropping like I’m speaking a foreign language.

  “Um…‘Frances’ Jones?”

  “Yes, yes. That’s my name.”

  “Um…”

  He looks to the side, where another, larger, older attendant notices and steps beside him.

  “Says she’s Frances Jones,” the wiry kid says, nodding at me.

  “Huh.” The bigger guy frowns and says, “Can I see some I.D. please?”

  I look at Jim, who shrugs, and try not to sound too much like a prima donna as I sigh and get my license out to slide over to them.

  “I really need to be quick, I’m already late, and—”

  “Shit,” the big guy says, biting his lip as he looks at my I.D.

  “What?”

  They both look at each other, mentally exchanging blows as they decide who’s gonna tell me the bad news.

  “We gave them to the wrong girl,” the big guy says.

  Now it’s my mouth’s turn to drop open.

  “Some girl with a bunch of tattoos and short black hair came by about ten minutes ago and took them,” the teenager says meekly. “She said she was Frankie. I’m really sorry”

  Tara. I don’t even need to think about it to know it was her. I feel a surge of violence rise within me, before a couple of breaths put it down again.

  “Can’t y
ou just give us some other tickets?” Jim says reasonably. “I mean, it’s your mistake.”

  The big guy shrugs a ‘not my problem’ shrug and I know it’s a dead end.

  “Can’t, buddy. My boss finds out and he can take it out of my pay. Those are cage side tickets. Thousand bucks each. I’m not even getting that tonight.”

  “So give us some cheap seats,” I plead.

  “The nosebleed seats are all gone, ma’am.”

  Jim takes my shoulders and pulls me away, stunned and dumbfounded. He stops to face me. I try to control my breathing.

  “Ok, Frankie, don’t fret. We’ll figure something out, alright? The fight hasn’t even started yet.”

  Before I can say anything, the sound of Connor’s music blares out, followed by the sound of fifteen thousand fight fans roaring as hard as they can.

  “This can’t be happening,” I groan, starting to breathe heavily. “I feel this in my gut—I need to be there. What am I gonna do?”

  23

  Connor

  This is it. I close my eyes, the first chords of my entrance song inducing me to go deep inside of myself. I’m ready to fight, ready to win, ready to take this fucker down. It’s an instinctual response—so it’s a good thing they don’t play that song in the bars I go to anymore.

  Butch is saying something about sweat and blood but it’s like he’s speaking a foreign language and I’m down a well. I can barely hear him over the singing of my body, the thumping of blood in my veins, the high-pitched hum from tightening muscles and wire-taut focus.

  I shake my limbs, throw a few punches, skip on my feet a little until the aggression surges through me and the urge to destroy, to defeat, to dominate is the only one I feel. That’s when I take a long, deep breath and tell myself to relax. Right now what I need is focus.

  The door to the dressing room opens but the only thing that comes inside is the sound of a wild crowd screaming like the loudest one’s gonna win something. Feet stamping so hard you can feel the walls shake, the announcer on the mic riling them up like they’re about to go to war. Last time I heard a sound that loud they were chanting my name, but not now. I’m not Connor to them anymore, I’m just fresh meat for the other guy to pound. Or at least that’s what they’ll think until I show them otherwise.

  I move through the door, Butch and Matt still talking, but every sense I have is zeroed-in on that cage. A small guy checks my gloves and gives the ok, and then I pound fist into palm and start walking.

  I swagger out into the sea of noise, up toward the ring, but it’s different this time. Not like the last time. No peacock bullshit, no self-important regard. Not the swagger of a man who thinks only about pussy and fighting anymore, but the swagger of a man who knows what he is, what he wants, and that he’s already got it.

  I climb into the ring, cameras already set up, but I don’t give them anything. No roguish laugh, no ‘best angle’ smile for the ladies. I don’t give a fuck about cameras now, I’m a man on a mission—to go home with Frankie, and to win this fight along the way.

  I look over at the seats, at the two meant for her and Jim, and that’s when I see: they’re empty.

  Just like last time, when I fucked it all up. When I took her for granted and paid the price. And now…now she’s gonna feel the blame if I lose…if I lose… Shit, Connor. Get out of your head.

  My opponent’s music starts and the crowd finds a dozen more decibels. It’s an angry thrash song as ugly as Pete’s face. He runs out of the corridor, his eyes on me the whole time, fixed in place. Face like a bag of potatoes, his scarred, muscled body like a Halloween costume. One thing’s for sure, he’s not going down easy tonight.

  Shit, Frankie. Where are you?

  I don’t look again. I can’t. I start thinking up reasons for her being late. Last time it was business, maybe this time too. I think about the route she has to take here, how the traffic would be. Parking. The crowd outside.

  Then, before I know it, the ref’s calling us over to start. He asks us to touch gloves, and I find out Pete’s idea of touching gloves is to hammer a fist against mine like he’s trying to break a nut. Then the ref leaves, and it’s just me and Pete—he’s the only thing standing between me and a happily ever after.

  He hops around the ring lightly, circling me. Not showboating, just trying to psyche me out. Pete would fight like this if we were in an alleyway.

  It works. Not because I get shaken by him, but because he spins around to the seats Frankie should be in. Seats that are now occupied by Tara and her coat. She’s got that smile on her face—the one I could never figure out, that meant she either wanted to fuck me or wanted to fuck with me. Seeing her there jolts me, sending my mind racing a million miles an hour, though still not quick enough to read Pete’s punch. He catches me straight on the jaw, and I fall back on my ass like a silent movie actor.

  The crowd ‘oohs’ and moves in the opposite direction, leaping to their feet as Pete comes close, trying to get on me, a guaranteed win in less than twenty seconds—but the part of my body that isn’t being controlled by my scrambled thoughts instinctively reacts. I swing a leg to back him off and roll to my feet. Between his fists I see a busted smile; not as pretty as Tara’s but just as dangerous.

  It’s a different man that gets up off the mat.

  My dad always used to tell me the first punch ‘knocks some sense into you,’ and maybe Pete’s punch did just that. Maybe it’s seeing Pete and Tara right there, in front of me, representing everything I never want to become, everything that ever stood in my way. Maybe I’m just about smart enough not to make the same mistake twice.

  I launch into a leg combo Butch told me to reserve for the third round, ending with a downward punch to Pete’s head. It catches, not enough, but it’ll wind Pete up. I follow through, smashing Pete into the cage as he clenches against me, my punches into his side a waste of energy, but making the point.

  We break apart from the stalemate and circle each other a while, both of us a notch more focused, both of us a level tighter. This isn’t going to be a thirty-second match, no first-round spectacular, show-boating knock-out. We’ve made our introductions, and it’s clear we’re both in this for the long haul, a marathon instead of a sprint. The crowd feels it too, their consistent energy turning a little tense. Euphoria turning to attentiveness.

  Pete throws a combination and I dance out of its way, thinking about countering but holding back when I see how quickly he recovers. He might be a little less confident, but he’s still got bags of energy, enough not to open up any cracks yet. He comes close and I throw a few jabs to stand my ground, not let him back me up, and fake a right. He doesn’t flinch, but he doesn’t come any closer.

  We both pace a little more, throw a few more punches, neither of us connecting, until there’s ten seconds left in the first round, and we attack at the same time, punches flying like a barroom brawl. We both land a couple, but he lands one on my jaw—it doesn’t hurt, I moved with it, but it probably looked better than it was. If this does go to the wire, and down to points, that’ll count against me.

  The bell rings and we retreat to hectic corners where bellowing coaches and cutmen get to work on our bruises and our egos. I steal a glance at the seats—Tara’s still there.

  “You lost that round, Connor, no doubt about it,” Butch says, pulling my attention. “But you’re in the best position you can be in. Pete’s starting to think, starting to get cautious. You won’t get by him easily, but you’ll have the time and space to start controlling this. Get out there and start attacking! Don’t give him time to think, start dictating the tempo, ok?”

  I nod as the cutman sprays water at me, and the crowd noise goes up again at the announcement of the second round.

  I get up and move toward Pete, repeating Butch’s advice in my head like a mantra. When I get in close enough, I slam my left fist against his guard, then bring my right around to his body. It only half-connects, but it’s enough to create a moment of instabili
ty. I follow up with another left against his ducked head, then another thundering uppercut to get beneath his block. It connects with his face and I feel the hardness of his nose against my knuckles.

  The crowd reacts quicker than Foreman does, escalating the cheer and electrifying the atmosphere. Pete tries to move in close, too close for me to continue, but I read it and step back, leaving nothing but openings across his body, so many that I can pick my spot and really wind back my right before bringing it crashing against his head like I’m slinging a bag of potatoes at him.

  Pete falls back like he’s trying to sit on a chair that isn’t there. No doubt who’s winning this round. The crowd gasping now, more surprised than excited. I move in to pin him down but he puts up his feet and I remember Butch’s advice about watching his ground defense. Pete’s strongest on the ground, and I don’t want to give him any chance to come back, however slim it might be.

  I make as if looking for a chance to pin, keeping him alert, but I don’t do anything when he kicks out and spins himself to his feet. There’s no danger of Pete ‘thinking too much’ now. He knows I’m up on points after that, and starts attacking with nothing but anger and revenge fueling him. I block and duck, throwing punches now only to keep distance, only as a form of defense. Pete continues until the bell goes, ending the round strong, but still not strong enough to take it.

  I move back to the corner, looking once again at the seats.

  “Matt! Matt!” I call through the cage. He leans forward. I nod toward the seats, where Tara’s still staring at me like a cat playing with its prey. He looks where I indicated and rolls his eyes so I know he got the message.

  “Connor!” Butch screams, as the cutman pulls my head back to clean up a cut on my eyebrow. “Stay focused! That was good. But Pete’s angry now. You’ve got to conserve your energy now, pick your moments. Let Pete get sloppy—which he will.”

  I nod again, repeating the words to myself as the bell rings just like last time.