by Naomi Niles
I shook my head. “I’ve never much cared for fountain drinks.”
“Suit yourself.” He set a pink plastic tray down on the table between us. I reached for my sandwich, and for a few minutes we ate in silence.
“How’s your patty melt?” I asked finally.
Nick smiled a warm smile of satisfaction. “Disgusting.”
“As it should be.”
He swallowed a large mouthful. “You sure you didn’t invite me here just to poison my food? Because you were pretty furious the other day. You’d have felt awfully bad later if you killed your best friend in a rage.”
“I feel awfully bad about it now,” I replied.
“Well, I think this is generally the part where you say you’re sorry.”
I had never been one for following etiquette or doing what was expected of me, but I figured I had better start learning now if I wanted a future in polite society. “I’m…” I hesitated, not liking the feel of the words in my mouth.
“Yeah?” Nick smirked. He knew how hard this was for me, and he was enjoying every second of it.
“I’m sorry I came after you the other day.” The moment I said it, it was like a weight being lifted off my shoulders. “Even though we were training, and even though you had insulted my mom.”
“You could have left off the last bit, but it’s okay. You’ll learn. By now you’ve probably figured out I was insulting you on purpose to try and get a rise out of you. Don’t look so surprised: you already know everything you need to know to win this upcoming fight. The only way you can lose is if the other player gets under your skin, tricks you into overreacting.”
I stared at him incredulously. “That was oddly cunning of you.”
He shrugged, looking flattered. “Well, I didn’t come up with it on my own, not entirely. Coach and I cooked it up together in his office. We realized that at this point the only thing that really stands in your way is yourself.”
“I suppose I should be grateful.”
“You should be because we’re teaching you the virtues of restraint and self-discipline. You know better than anyone how easy it is to goad you into a fight. We want to avoid that if possible, but that takes practice. Virtue is like a muscle that has to be trained over and over again. It won’t be easy at first, but over time it becomes effortless.”
“Did Coach tell you that?”
“No, President Carruthers did.”
I nearly choked on my sandwich. “Just how many people are in on this plan of yours?”
“Only three. We’re not taking any chances. We want you to become the sort of person who can let certain things wash over you, without feeling a need to retaliate. And that starts with today’s press conference.”
I stared at him puzzled, not seeing the connection. “What does that have to do with anything?”
A big, beefy man with no hair, wearing a muscle shirt and a pair of faded athletic shorts, came through the door and sat down in a booth at the other end of the restaurant. He didn’t bother ordering; he just sat at the window staring out at the lawn mower repair shop across the street.
While I was trying to place where I had seen him before, Nick opened a second package of honey mustard. “In a couple hours, the media’s going to be throwing all sorts of unwelcome questions at you. Questions about your family, about your past arrests, about any possible history of drug use. It would be really easy for a brash, hot-headed young man to lose his cool and charge after them, but that’s exactly the one thing you should not do. You could lose your career in a heartbeat.”
I didn’t doubt that; over the last couple years, I had always felt my career stood on a knife’s edge. “Okay, so what’s the solution?”
“The solution is to maintain your calm. They’re going to show up with their cameras hoping for some kind of spectacle. You mustn’t allow them to have it. I never thought I’d say this, but you ought to try being boring. I think your temptation, particularly when the spotlight is on you, is to be flamboyant and theatrical. It’s a tendency that serves you well in the octagon but is more likely to lead you into trouble on a day like today.”
“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
Nick nodded and took a sip of his drink. “I just don’t want you to mess this up. There’s so much riding on this, as they used to say about your whore mom.”
My blood rose, and I was about to fly out of my seat until I saw his eyes twinkling with mischief. “Um, yes,” I said, drawing a deep breath. “It’s a lot of pressure.”
“It is, but I believe in you. You were so much brasher and hot-headed when I first met you. Remember when you almost got into a fight with a trash bin because you thought it had tripped you?”
“It was very dark, and I couldn’t see!” I shot back. “I thought it had done it on purpose!”
Nick smirked at the memory. “You’ve definitely calmed down. We used to have fisticuffs every week, but your outburst yesterday was the first one in ages. How’s the girl, by the way?”
I was so startled by the sudden segue that at first, I didn’t know who he was talking about. “What girl?”
“The one you hooked up with,” he said slowly, as though this was obvious.
“Oh, her!”
“Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten about her.”
“No, of course not.” I still couldn’t fall asleep without the memory of her body next to me. “You just never asked, so I thought maybe you had forgotten about her.”
“Well, I liked her a bit better than some of your other girlfriends. But then again, I’ve always been slightly partial to redheads. Where’s she been lately?”
“I haven’t seen her since Vegas. I made the mistake of not getting her number before I left. Why, do you think she’ll be there?”
“Maybe.” Nick shrugged. “I know Carruthers is coming. If I were you, I don’t think I would want her there.”
“Why not?”
“Because the media’s about to be airing all your dirty laundry and there’s potential for some major embarrassment. I don’t mind if a hundred strangers know my shit, but if a cute girl is sitting in the front row watching it all go down, I think I would panic a little.”
“Shit, I hadn’t thought of that.” I felt an explosion of nerves at the base of my stomach. What if she showed up and they grilled me? What if she didn’t want to talk to me again after that?
It was strange: when we had first hooked up, I had been utterly fascinated with her body. But in the week since we had split, my thoughts kept drifting back to our talk by the pool. The way she had laughed, absently wrapping her hair around one finger. The way her eyes gleamed in the neon haze. I was dangerously close to falling for her as a person, and it scared me.
“Shit, we had better get going,” said Nick, checking his phone. “It’s gonna take us about twenty minutes to get there.”
“Mind if we take your car?” I asked as I dumped our tray.
“I walked here from my apartment.”
“Same.” My insides bubbled uneasily. “We’re not going to get there in time.”
But Nick didn’t look remotely troubled. “Maybe this guy can take us.”
As I watched incredulously, he walked over to the other end of the room where the beefy guy sat staring out the window. “You about ready?”
To my surprise, the burly fellow turned and winked at me. “Don’t mind if I do.”
“Do you two know each other?” I couldn’t help asking.
Nick laughed as a parent might laugh at a child’s questions. “Of course we do. Griff is an old buddy of mine. He offered to come by today and look after me just in case anything happened.”
Now it began to make sense. “You mean in case I tried to beat you up.”
Nick shrugged. “Always good to be cautious.”
Griff smiled good-naturedly. He seemed like a pleasant enough fellow, but I had no doubt that if he wanted to, he could have easily crushed my head between his palms like a grape.
<
br /> “Shall we get going then?” asked Nick, motioning to the door, and we followed him outside into the warm spring light.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jaimie
“You know what I’m looking forward to?” asked Randy with a hint of eagerness in his voice.
“Hmm?”
“Fall. I can’t wait to sit down again beside a crackling fire in my jack-o-lantern socks, drinking spiced wassail and eating baked apples glazed with cinnamon.”
“Fall is a long way away,” I pointed out.
“I find that it gets closer and closer the older you get. At my age, it doesn’t seem like it’s that far off.”
We were seated in the second row of a sun-drenched conference room that was rapidly filling up with reporters. A woman in a neatly pressed black suit stood near the door breathlessly talking into a camera. A tall podium stood on a raised platform at the front of the room, surrounded by a row of chairs.
My heart fluttered nervously as I awaited any sign of Braxton. Every time I heard footsteps behind me, my skin prickled. It felt like I was back at summer camp sitting in one of the chairs under the pavilion pretending to read my Bible while I waited for my crush to appear and sit down beside me.
“I think we could be in for a hell of a show today,” said Randy. “Of course, Bruce is the headline speaker, but his record is squeaky-clean. Braxton’s the one the media’s going to hone in.”
“How do you think he’s going to handle it? I understand he’s not known for keeping his head under pressure.”
“I honestly have no idea!” he exclaimed, a smile lighting his face. “That’s what makes it so exciting!”
But we didn’t have long to find out. Within a few minutes, Coach Aardman walked onto the platform, looking uncharacteristically dapper in a gray woolen suit, flanked by Bruce and Braxton. I turned away to avoid locking eyes with Braxton, who flashed me a cocksure grin as they strode to the podium.
Aardman took the podium to introduce the two boys. But almost from the moment he began speaking, he was bombarded with questions.
“Mr. Aardman, what’s your response to the drug abuse crisis among professional MMA fighters?”
“Mr. Aardman, what’s the potential for things to go badly wrong during one of your matches? What precautions have you taken to ensure the safety of all participants?”
“Mr. Aardman, we understand that one of your prize fighters has been in and out of jail. Can you tell us a little more about the nature of the crimes he committed?”
“Mr. Aardman, in your opinion, who is your best fighter?”
The noise level in the room rose to such heights that Coach Aardman stopped talking and stood there quietly for a moment, his hands gripping either side of the podium.
“One at a time, please,” he said finally. “I’m sorry to say I won’t have time to answer every question. But my boys are going to speak, and they’ll try to take as many as they can.”
He invited Bruce to the podium. Fresh off his win in Vegas, Bruce seemed surer of himself than ever. It was clear that some of the journalists were hoping to start a feud between him and Braxton. At first, Bruce resisted admirably, waving away their questions with declarations of modesty. But when the reporter in the black suit stood up and said, “Mr. LaMotta, there have been whispers that your success in the octagon last weekend is entirely owing to the counsel of your friend Braxton.” Bruce let out a low grunt of annoyance and glared as if wanting to set the room on fire.
“I owe my success in the octagon to three things,” he said slowly and softly. “Myself, my mom that raised me, and my coach that trained me. Braxton hasn’t done a damn thing for me.”
Braxton flinched, looking slightly stung, but said nothing. He drew a couple of deep breaths and appeared to be counting to ten.
A second reporter spoke up. “Okay, but we’ve spoken to friends and even fellow players who maintain that Braxton Savery is the ‘crown jewel’ of FAF and that Aardman only allowed you into the octagon last week under intense pressure from Randy Carruthers.”
“I don’t know who these people are who are saying these things,” said Bruce, visibly agitated, “but they ought to be dunked in the sea.”
There was a smattering of laughter, but Bruce did not smile—nor, for that matter, did Braxton.
“But what does Mr. Savery have to say in his own defense?” asked the first woman, who was clearly looking to start something.
Braxton leaned forward, into the microphone. “I, um, guess we’ll find out in a week or so who the real champion is.”
Incredibly, there was a chorus of “oooo.” The press conference was beginning to take on the feel of a live wrestling match. Randy turned to me, grinning, and pulled a large can of cashews out of his blue duffel bag.
Sensing blood, the reporters began shouting their questions willy-nilly at each of the two boys.
“Mr. Savery, how would you rate yourself on a scale of one to ten compared to your opponent, Mr. LaMotta?”
“Mr. LaMotta, if you were trapped in a room with Mr. Savery and Bin Laden, and there was only one bullet in your gun, who would you kill?”
Bruce smiled a crooked smile. “That one’s easy,” he said. “Bin Laden is already dead.”
While this was going on, Braxton stood quietly in the back, his head turning increasingly darker shades of red, barely keeping a lid on his anger. Finally, as the room erupted in laughter, he charged across the platform and around Coach Aardman, a dangerous glint in his eyes.
Randy and I both rose to our feet. This was the moment we had been dreading, the moment when Braxton blew up and attacked his fellow player. Bruce, seeing what was coming, had only a second to prepare himself.
But there with the camera lights and the eyes of the room on him, he seemed to hesitate. For a moment he stood motionless, a look of uncertainty on his face—then, to the surprise of everyone present, he placed a single finger on Bruce’s noise and said, “Boop!”
The effect was instantaneous. As one, the entire press corps rose to its feet in applause, cheering in surprise and delight.
The moment the conference ended, Randy rose from his seat and ran straight for Braxton. I followed behind a little shyly, my hands in my back pockets.
“I don’t think I need to tell you how incredibly you carried yourself,” said Randy, shaking his hand eagerly. “You could very well be the one we’ve been looking for.”
Braxton gaped incredulously, as though not entirely sure what he had done. Rallying quickly, he said, “Thank you, Mr. Carruthers. I aim to please.”
“I have to say, you’ve really gotten a handle on your anger. I thought you were about to deck LaMotta, but it’s to your credit that you didn’t. It’s a bit like firing a missile at another country, but the missile is filled with confetti and glitter. Annoying, but no one dies.”
“Yeah, I wish all missiles were like that,” said Braxton, still in showman mode. “Then we might truly have world peace.”
Giving him a serene pat on the arm, Randy left to speak with Coach Aardman, leaving the two of us to stare awkwardly at each other.
“So, guess it’s been a while since I’ve seen you,” he said finally, not quite able to look me in the eyes.
“Guess it has.”
“Sorry, I would’ve texted you, but you never left me a phone number. I figured I’d run into you again before too long.”
“Well, maybe I didn’t want you having my number.”
Braxton looked perplexed, as if he couldn’t conceive why any woman wouldn’t want him to have her number. At almost the same instant it must have occurred to him that I might be upset about Saturday night.
“Hey, are you okay? You left in kind of a hurry last time.”
“I’ve been better,” I said tersely. “It wasn’t exactly my proudest moment.”
Braxton rolled up his eyes as though doing sums in his head. He was such a goof, but there was something irresistibly adorable about him. So young, delightful, and du
mb.
“Are you upset about what happened?” he asked slowly. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m getting the feeling you’re not too happy with me.”
“I’d really rather not talk about it here,” I said, motioning to the reporters who were still standing nearby.
Braxton motioned to the sunlit windows. “Do you want to go for a walk?”
***
We took a walk along the boulevard, past pawn shops and beauty salons and little rectangular patches of uncut grass where daisies and dandelions were blooming. The noise of traffic on the freeway made it hard to talk, and for a short while, we walked along together in silence.
“So,” said Braxton shyly as we passed an abandoned strip mall containing a sushi restaurant and what had once been a Captain D’s. “Are you mad at me?”
“I don’t know how to answer that question.”
“Oh.” He winced painfully, as though having just been hit in the jaw. “So is that a yes, then?”
Feeling slightly exasperated, I said, “I’ll be straight with you: our little rendezvous could have gone better. Do you even remember what happened?”
“Vaguely,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I remember us talking, and I remember us making love.”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
“Sorry it wasn’t good for you.”
“It had nothing to do with your performance.” There was a slight edge in my voice. “I once made love to a wonderful guy. And he was shy and awkward and clumsy and didn’t know what to do with his hands, but I loved it because he wasn’t just in it for himself. He made me and my pleasure paramount.”
As I spoke, the color flooded back into Braxton’s face. He seemed to be remembering what had passed between us.
“I’m not even going to bother asking what exactly we did,” he said at last. “I can tell you didn’t enjoy it, and for that I’m sorry. All I remember is you being next to me, breathing in the scent of your hair and your body, and wanting to stand there holding you close to me always and never move from that spot.”
“Thanks for saying that.” I could tell he was being sincere, and I felt strangely moved by his eloquence. “It helps.”