Bad Dad

by Sloane Howell

  “Go in there and take a nap with your family. At least lay down with them. Hug them tight.”

  I glared. “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I have to focus. There’s no room for error.” I stood up. “Everyone else can have feelings right now. Even Joe. I can’t afford to.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Landon Lane

  I GLANCED AROUND THE ROOM. Joe still hadn’t returned. Shit.

  Everyone else woke up from their naps. I needed to go down and weigh in for the fight. They were taking Sid and me in separately. I tried to make sense of it, but it was unheard of. Usually, they wanted both fighters there face-to-face to build up the tension.

  The only thing that I could figure was that they wanted to keep the mystery alive for the fight. Everything about the whole thing was unconventional and that’s one of the reasons the whole world was still talking about it.

  The clock on the microwave in the suite kitchen read a quarter after five. I needed to be down there in fifteen minutes.

  Janet, Cora, and Logan made their way out into the living room. Janet nodded to me as if to say it’s time.

  “You guys ready?”

  I didn’t have time to focus on Joe. In four hours I’d be in the ring with my childhood nightmare. The guy who’d caved my head in and put me in the infirmary for months, at eight years old.

  Logan walked over, and I scooped him up. He had on a Landon Lane shirt. I didn’t even know they made those. Hopefully, some of the money from that shirt was making its way back into the trust I had set up for him.

  “You’re gonna win, Dad.”

  I squeezed him tighter and smiled. “How do you know?”

  “I had a dream. You won and we all went back to Montana. And I had a little brother.”

  I glanced at Cora. She looked like she might cry. I couldn’t tell if it was fear or happiness riddling her. Probably a combination.

  “We’ll see about making that dream come true.” I mussed his hair. “Let’s go.”

  We walked down to the arena. The weigh-in was in a smaller banquet-type hall. There were cameras and people shouting everywhere. It looked like a press conference with a set of scales on top of the stage. The weight was flashed onto a huge LED screen above. It was a spectacle. All for show. Heavyweight fight. The weight didn’t matter. It gave the announcers something to talk about.

  I made my way up to the stage and stripped down to my shorts. Flashes went off everywhere. Blinding light.

  I glanced down to the president of WMMA standing at the front of the crowd. He gave me a look with a quirked eyebrow, like give us something, man.

  I flexed a bicep like I’d seen all the guys do on TV before. The place went wild and the guy next to me doing the weighing hollered, “Two forty-six!”

  The giant LED screen read 246.0 on it. Like I’d said, all for show. I might as well have been an actor in a theater.

  I just wanted to get to work. Get the shit over with. Waiting was harder than fighting.

  I pulled my shirt back on and walked off the stage, back behind where nobody could get to us. That’s where Cora, Logan, and Janet waited.

  “I need to go to the locker room.”

  “Can I see it?” Logan’s eyes lit up. There was no way I could say no.

  Janet and Logan walked with me.

  “I’m going to go ahead and walk back to the room.” Cora fidgeted with her fingers.

  I kissed her forehead. “Okay. You know the way through the back?”

  She nodded and turned.

  I grabbed her by the forearm. “Hey.”

  She turned around. “Hey.”

  Her eyes sparkled. I couldn’t tell if it was because they were so beautiful or if it was from the bright lights or if it was because she was on the verge of breaking down into tears. We all knew what was coming soon.

  “Love you always.”

  She smiled, and her body relaxed. She took in a deep breath. “Always.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Cora Chapman

  I KNEW MY STRENGTHS AND weaknesses. I needed a quick break from the fighting stuff. The anxiety of it all was making me nauseous. Something about being in the building with that Edmon guy, it turned my stomach the wrong way.

  I traced our exact steps we’d taken to get there. Landon knew the layout pretty well from the previous fights, I’d guessed.

  I needed some time alone upstairs in the room, maybe just a thirty-minute break and I’d be good. One fear lingered in the back of my mind as I made my way to the elevators. That I’d run into Edmon. I didn’t see him anywhere, though. I walked farther down the hall and finally came to the elevators. My shoulders relaxed as I waited for the doors to open, and my stomach felt at ease, like I wouldn’t hurl all over the floor.

  As I watched the numbers count down on a screen above, the wall shook suddenly. The lights flickered with the thunderous boom that accompanied the vibrations. It sounded like the hotel was doing some kind of remodeling or tearing down a wall. It was like a sledgehammer on concrete.

  It came again. And then again.

  I tapped my foot and waited for the elevator. My heart thumped harder, right along with the cacophonous sound.

  Another boom. In a slow, perfect rhythm, over and over. Must be some kind of machine.

  Tiny flecks of drywall crumbled down from the ceiling and it was like the whole building rocked on its foundation. What if there was a problem or pipes were bursting? Someone needed to know about it.

  The sounds echoed all the way down the corridor.

  I walked down the hallway in the direction the sound was coming from. It got louder and louder, until I could feel each explosion in my feet. By the time I came to the room the sound was so intense I don’t think I could’ve heard myself try to talk. I leaned around the door like I was sneaking up on someone in a game of hide-n-seek. I told myself it was just construction. Had to be a sledgehammer. They were definitely remodeling, in the middle of a sold-out fight, because that would obviously be the best time to demolish part of the building.

  I peered through the doorway and my hand shot over my mouth. It was so much worse than I thought.

  He appeared gigantic on TV, but in person—he was a thousand times more menacing. His thighs were like ceramic tree trunks, with thick muscle on top of muscle, and a huge tattoo of a barcode spanned horizontally across his back. The lights threw his shadow across the floor and it moved in time with him.

  He didn’t see me. Didn’t hear me. I should’ve turned and ran. Fled. Sprinted. Blood hammered in my ears and my breath hitched. All of the air sucked out of my lungs.

  I couldn’t turn away though. My body was stiff and frozen. My legs weighed a million pounds each and were chained to the floor.

  It was Sid in the room by himself.

  I watched as he turned his torso in a slow, methodical motion and then exploded with his fist into a concrete pillar in the middle of the room. My chest nearly imploded on contact, just from the sheer energy—like bass thumping your ribs at a concert. The concrete spider-webbed around his fist and cracks snaked up the structure like lightning bolts. He didn’t even look like he was trying to hit it hard and I thought he might bring the whole building down.

  Over and over. One punch after another.

  I gasped into my palm and he stopped, mid-rotation.

  His head whipped around.

  He stared hard, right at me. I swore his eyes were a fiery red ring around pale irises. They raked up and down my body.

  My veins frosted over from head to toe. It was worse than a thunderstorm. Worse than lightning. He whirled in a fury and pounded the wall again to the same rhythm, like I didn’t exist anymore.

  I turned and ran. Ran so fast my pulse pounded in my ears and my feet hammered on the floor.

  My pointer finger was like a jackhammer on the up arrow on the elevator. It didn’t stop pressing until the doors slid open. I leaped inside, gasping for breath.

  When they sh
ut I thought the whole elevator might collapse. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. My back hit the wall and I slid down until I was on the floor. The whole world crashed down on me and I had the fiercest panic attack of my life.

  CHAPTER 39

  Landon Lane

  JOE WALKED INTO THE LOCKER room as we were leaving. I had everything set up and ready to go.

  I glared at him. “Some manager.”

  He looked behind me at the equipment laid out on a table in neat rows. “Good job, asshole.”

  Where the hell had he been? Didn’t matter. I didn’t have time to worry about him. I had to push all the bullshit away and focus on the fight. I needed everyone else to go off and do their thing. Meditation and focus. That was the key. If anyone knew that best, it was Joe.

  “I’m going to walk these guys up to the room. Then we need to get busy.”

  He nodded.

  “We’ll talk about earlier after I win.”

  Joe didn’t speak.

  The four of us took off up the elevators.

  “What’s that sound?” Logan looked up at me.

  Joe stared at me. We knew what it was.

  I dropped a palm down on Logan’s shoulder. “Probably some construction in the hotel.”

  The elevator shook with each blast. I tried not to envision whatever Sid was hammering away at as my face. It was an intimidation tactic. I was sure Edmon put him up to it.

  It worked though. I hadn’t been in his presence in a long time. I felt it in my bones. They kept him on a different part of the island after he’d broken me. We didn’t even know what they used him for. Didn’t care. On the island you did your job and didn’t ask questions.

  My stomach tightened a little when the elevator blasted upwards. I didn’t know if it was from the acceleration or Sid taking apart the building with his fist.

  I hadn’t been crazy about Cora going up to the room, but I’d weighed the options in my head. She didn’t look too hot and definitely needed the air. They wouldn’t make a spectacle before the fight. They were confident I’d die in a few hours. We had a deal with Edmon. Not to mention, he knew I could still blow their whole operation. I could embarrass him if I needed to.

  There was no way I’d win the fight in his mind. Impossible. The place was crawling with press and fans too. They’d all seen Cora on the news and in the papers.

  Still, something twisted me up about it, about her leaving my side—even though my brain went through a full cost-benefit analysis and determined it was a non-risk. The analysis didn’t factor in emotions. Emotions didn’t exist in the world of Edmon and Joe and Sid. Only numbers and probabilities.

  That’s the bitch about statistics, though. They make you feel good about decisions until it’s one-in-a-million and you’re the one.

  Suddenly, we couldn’t get back to the room fast enough.

  WE WALKED THROUGH THE DOOR and Cora wasn’t in there. Shit.

  I checked all four rooms and the bathrooms. Nothing.

  Was it Edmon? Did Cora run? She had a habit of running when things got tough. What did she see? Sid?

  She would’ve walked over near the room he was in. It wasn’t too far from the elevators. She would’ve heard the sound, for sure. Had he spooked her? Was she already hailing down a cab to the airport?

  Joe clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Not now.”

  It was like he read my mind.

  “Where’s Ms. Chapman?” Logan asked.

  I kneeled to eye level in front of Logan. “She had to—”

  “I’m right here.”

  We all whipped our heads to the doorway. Cora stood there holding a bucket of ice.

  I jumped up and ran over to her. She couldn’t get a word out because my mouth had slammed into hers. My words were a murmur against her lips. “I thought you’d gone.”

  When I pulled back, she wobbled on her feet for a moment. Her eyelashes fluttered, and she gazed up at me. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” I took the bucket of ice from her and carried it off toward the counter. “Where’d you go?”

  She stared at me like she was still in another world, and then snapped out of her daze. “To get some ice.” She paused, and a frown spread across her face. “I didn’t want to pay fifteen bucks for a bottle of water and we have cups in there.”

  “Nice.” Joe gave her a nod of approval.

  I stared, my brain still convinced she’d ran. Hated myself for thinking it. I shook my head.

  She cupped her hands around my face and stared into my eyes. “I’m not going anywhere, babe.”

  I pressed my lips against hers again. “I know.”

  “Don’t worry about me. You need to stay focused. I’m here. I always will be.”

  “Yeah, asshole. She’s right.”

  “Okay.”

  Before Cora could process that Joe had just given her a compliment, he was standing next to us.

  “Are we all good on the plans? We all know what we’re doing?” I turned to Janet. “Any word from Gus?”

  She shook her head, slowly.

  “Don’t worry about Gus,” said Joe. “Everything else in order?”

  I nodded.

  He stared down his nose at me. “Say what you need to say. Then we need to go. You’re distracted.”

  I flashed him an agreeable stare. “Okay.”

  I walked over and gave Janet a light kiss on her forehead. “Thank you for everything. I can never repay you.”

  “This feels like goodbye.” She glared. She was a hard woman. Had been through a lot in all her years.

  I shrugged. What else could I do? “It is what it is.”

  “Not, it’s not. Your future is in your hands.” A tear threatened in the corner of her eye and she blinked it away.

  I turned to Logan. “Come here, buddy.”

  Joe sighed.

  I bowed up nose-to-nose with him. “Not now. You can wait.”

  He looked away at the wall. Logan eased his way over, and Joe turned back. He looked down at Logan and then back up at me. “I’ll be out in the hall.”

  Logan and I walked into one of the bedrooms and I closed the door. The feelings and emotions were nothing like what I’d expected. How do you walk into a room and talk to your son for what could be the last time? Eight years ago, I wouldn’t have even been able to process something like that in my mind. Miranda, Janet, Logan, Cora—they’d turned me into a human being. I still wasn’t sure how it’d happened, but I knew I could never repay them for something like that. The debt I owed them was mountainous. I would spend a hundred lifetimes fighting to clear it.

  Logan and I sat down on the bed.

  His face was steady as a rock, like he’d rehearsed it. I couldn’t find an ounce of fear in his eyes. He was being strong. Staying tough for me. I felt both alive and dead at the same time. His innocence was gone, and yet it was still my little boy sitting there in front of me. There’s no prouder moment for a father, than when your son shows more strength and resolve than you. That moment when you know you’re sending a lion out into the wild jungle that is life.

  “You never got all the answers you wanted.”

  He looked up at me and shook his head. “It’s okay. You need to focus on the fight. Uncle Joe said so. Don’t worry about me. I’m strong.”

  “I know you are. Look at you.” I nudged his cheek with a light, playful punch, and exhaled a huge breath. “Look, big man. I, umm, I’m so proud of you. You’re a better man, a stronger man than I am already. You have no idea how happy that makes me. There’s so much I want to tell you in so little time. But listen to me when I say this, if you ever remember one thing I’ve told you—it’s okay to worry about yourself too. It’s our job to protect, but sometimes you have to take care of you. Otherwise, there’s no way you can protect everyone else.”

  Logan stared at me like he always did. He took in every word and logged it into the hard drive that was his brain.

  My throat went scratchy and raw, and my voice turned raspy. “
And it’s okay to be scared. What’s important is that you don’t let fear hold you back, keep you from what you need to do. Never forget that, buddy.”

  “I won’t, Dad. I promise.”

  “Your mother and I—we weren’t like Cora and me. We didn’t love each other the same way. Not the way where you get married and grow old together.”

  Logan nodded. “You told me a little already.”

  I squeezed his shoulder and tried to stay composed. At the same time, I tried to be in the moment for him. So many different emotions and thoughts swirled through my mind that I was actually numb. I wanted to be present for him.

  “You mom was trying to teach me how to love a woman the way I love Cora now. She wanted me to be ready when I met the right girl. For when I met Cora. She was preparing me. And, umm.” I choked on my words and gulped. “Well...” A few involuntary tears formed in the corners of my eyes.

  Logan looked up at me as I wiped them away. “It’s okay, Dad.” He put his tiny hand on my thigh.

  I glanced down at it. Down at the same little hand that once wrapped its tiny fingers around mine that day in the hospital a little more than seven years ago. My heart erupted at the sight. The same way it did when I heard his voice cry out for the first time, and saw his pudgy cheeks and squinty eyes and tiny pink body. My eyes blurred with tears and I swiped them away with my forearm. I smiled through them. Smiled harder than I ever had in my life. There are few moments in life you can recall with such clarity that it’s like you can relive them at any time. But the first time I saw Logan—I’d never forget that. My voice cracked, and I sobbed through my words. “W-we m-made you, Son.”

  A smile spread across Logan’s face, like he’d been worried I was sad, and he now knew my tears were unfiltered, raw happiness. They were a direct product of the joy that he filled my heart with from the moment he sucked in his first breath to the present. The pure happiness that he brought into my world. A light that eradicated every corner of darkness in my heart and radiated brighter than the sun. A happiness I never thought I’d ever be able to know.