by Josie Kerr
“Carmichael.”
“Holbrook.”
“I just want to thank you for backing off of Bailey. It’s been real nice to get reacquainted with her.”
Colin ground his teeth and forced himself to say pleasantly, “Maude deserves the chance to be part of a happy family.”
“I’m glad that you realized that.”
The two men stood in the hallway and looked at each other until Dig came around the corner.
“Hey, C, what are you still doing here?” he said with a laugh. “Thinking about packing up that little gym in the hood?”
Colin laughed and offered his hand to shake, which Dig did. “Nah, you just wish you could train at DS.” His smile faded as he looked at sling and cast on Dig’s arm. “That’s a rough injury, man. Tough break. Um, no pun intended.”
“Colin, I’ll let you get out of here, but thanks again,” Tripp said. He nodded at Dig and went down the hall to the locker rooms.
Dig’s smile disappeared. “Watch out for that guy, C.”
“How so?”
Dig looked like he was choosing his words carefully. He started to talk several times, but then just said, “I don’t trust him. He’s…sleazy.”
Colin huffed a bitter laugh. “Believe me, I don’t trust him either. At all.” The two fighters stared down the hall. “I really am sorry about your injury.”
Dig shrugged his uninjured shoulder. “It is what it is, man.”
“Hey, I’m gonna go to the hospital and see a sick kid who loves MMA. You wanna meet me there?”
Dig looked at Colin, chuckled softly, and then jerked his chin up. “Sure. Kid’s in the pediatric ward at the hospital up the street?” Colin nodded. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Chapter Thirty-five
Fight Night
Junior wrapped Colin’s hands. He was concerned. No, he was worried. No, he was really fucking goddamn worried.
Colin’s head was not in this, and that could mean at best a loss and at worst, a devastating injury.
Colin’s head bobbed to unheard music, but if Junior knew Colin, it was some sort of bullshit classic rock. Junior shook his head and grinned as he tore the tape from the roll. Where most of the other fighters worked out to and walked on to some sort of new industrial metal, Colin was all about the classic rock for his work outs, and silence for his walk out.
Not tonight, though. While Junior didn’t know what he was listening to in order to get himself into the zone, and Lord knew Colin needed to get into the zone in a bad, bad way, he was walking on to something that Mick had arranged.
Junior looked at Colin’s face. The fighter’s eyes were closed and his head continued bobbing, but his jaw was working and he was breathing heavily.
Colin’s eyes flew open when he felt a big hand curve around his neck.
“Gordo. You got this?”
Colin looked at Junior and didn’t say anything.
Oh, fuck.
“Yeah, man, I got this.”
Junior cocked his head as he looked at Colin. “What’s on the headphones tonight?”
Colin grinned and slipped the headphones off his head and handed them to Junior. Junior put them on his own head, grimacing in anticipation of hearing some godawful song, but seconds later bleated out a laugh.
“What in the ever-loving fuck in this?”
Colin grinned. “Triumph. The other Canadian power trio.”
Dios Christos. “Whatever it takes to get you hyped, Gordo,” Junior said with a laugh. Fucking Triumph.
“Hey, Junior?”
“Yeah, C?”
“I got this, okay?”
Junior nodded. “You got this.”
Colin waited in the corridor, headphones still on but no music playing. He needed to hear what Pierce was walking out to tonight.
Ah. Nickelback. Obnoxious song for an obnoxious fighter.
Contrary to what he told Junior earlier, no, he didn’t have this, he didn’t have this at all.
He cracked his neck and clenched his jaw. He saw Junior studying him, but this was his normal pre-fight behavior, so his trainer wasn’t worried.
What Junior didn’t know was that Mick had talked to Colin earlier in the day, before Colin and Junior headed to the arena.
As Colin listened to the Pierce’s pulsing music, he thought back to their conversation.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Mick had asked.
“I’m giving them a chance to be a family,” Colin said.
“You’re running scared, is what you’re doing. I never figured you for a coward, Colin.”
Colin had scoffed and for the first time, actually considered planting a fist in his older brother’s face. “Fuck you, Mick.”
Mick’s face had hardened. “No, fuck you, Colin. Be a man about this. If you don’t want a relationship with her, have stones enough to tell her.”
“Is that what someone told you when you were being an ass to Em?”
Mick huffed a laugh. “Basically. Ashley handed me my arse in a Waffle House.”
That made Colin snort. Fucking Ashley. She was a ball buster. Thank God she was too pregnant to come to the fight. Colin didn’t want to listen to what would come out of her big mouth tonight.
“She loves you. She misses you.”
Colin shrugged. “It’ll be better for Maude if she has an intact family.”
Mick shook his head. “When you were growing up, how many people did you know with parents who hated each other? And then think about how many parents were divorced? Which kids ended up being the most functional, hmm?”
Colin didn’t say a word while Mick continued to look at him.
“She can’t even say your fucking name because Maude looks for you, and that breaks her heart. Think about that, Colin.” And then Mick had walked away, but not before turning around laying one final blow. “And fuck an ‘intact’ family, Colin. Think real hard about who she considers her family.”
“C, you ready? It’s time, Gordo.”
Colin cracked his neck again. He pulled his headphones down around his neck, and pulled his hoodie up. He lifted his chin to Junior. “I got this.”
Colin made his way down the corridor, Junior at his back, a security guard at his front. Colin grinned at the fact that the security guard was probably six inches shorter and 40 pounds lighter than he was.
The crowd grew quiet as the unexpected music started.
Junior got a chill. Damn, Mick. Just…damn.
Colin made his way to the octagon, his hoodie open but the hood pulled up to shadow his face. The cut man checked him, and then he joined Pierce in the cage.
The buzzer sounded for the beginning of the fight and Colin stretched out his fists to bump gloves, but Pierce pulled his hands up in refusal.
Okay, then. That’s how we’re gonna play this tonight.
The two men danced around the cage, each getting a jab in here, a kick there, but they were fairly evenly matched, even with Colin’s dramatic weight loss. They traded punches some more, and by the end of the first round, neither of the fighters had drawn blood.
Colin sat on the stool, as Junior rubbed ice over his head and chest.
“C, something’s off. You need to finish this fight. I don’t like it. Don’t hold back.”
Colin nodded. “Junior, I got this.” Junior started to talk again, but Colin interrupted. “Hector! I. Got. This. And I’m not talking to the press after the fight, okay? I’ve gotta go see Bailey.”
A slow smile crept over Junior’s face. Oh, yeah. You got this.
The buzzer sounded for the second round, and the fighters touched gloves this time and immediately started circling each other, Pierce throwing wild punches in his usual style and Colin waiting, biding his time for that one devastating blow that would take Pierce down.
Suddenly, Pierce let loose with a spinning roundhouse kick that caught Colin off guard, a kick that smashed into the sid
e of Colin’s skull and sent him to the mat.
The crowd roared at the sight of Colin on his back on the mat, blood streaming down his face, his nose obviously broken. The referee stepped over to stop the fight but Colin, taking advantage of Pierce’s shock at the power of the kick, swept his opponent off his feet to bring him down to the floor of the cage as well.
“End him!” Junior screamed. “Fucking submit him and go get your girl, Gordo!”
Pierce’s huge body landed with a thud and Colin moved to grab his neck. Pierce elbowed Colin’s broken nose and Colin roared in pain, anger, and frustration. Pierce’s body was slick with sweat and Colin’s blood, and Colin couldn’t get a bit of purchase on the other fighter.
The two of the grappled for a bit, Pierce trying to get loose from Colin and Colin desperately trying to keep hold of Pierce.
The buzzer sounded for the end of the second round.
The cut man was in the ring the moment Colin sat down on his stool, applying pressure to the wounds on Colin’s face and looking at his nose.
“I’m finishing this fucking fight,” Colin growled when the ring doctor stepped in to ask him some basic questions. “I know what fucking day it is and what year it is. I am finishing the fucking fight.”
The referee consulted with the doctor and they allowed the fight to continue. The buzzer for the third round sounded and the men moved to the center of the cage.
The men traded jabs, both of them slowing down from the exertion of the previous two rounds. They moved around the cage, trading punches and kicks. Colin had just gotten Pierce against the cage when he saw a small familiar figure headed toward the cage.
What the hell was Bailey doing here?
Pierce took advantage of Colin’s momentary distraction and took him down to the mat. Colin didn’t fight back. He watched Bailey talk to the security guard, pointing at the cage.
Pierce was talking to him. “I have to do this,” he was saying.
And suddenly Colin was on his side with Pierce’s legs wrapped around him and his arm locked behind his back.
“This is for Andrea, you sack of shit. You fucking deserve this, fucker. Andrea is mine,” Pierce said in his ear.
Andrea? What the fuck?
If Colin had been looking at Pierce, he would have seen the desperation in the other man’s eyes. But he wasn’t looking at Pierce. He was looking at Andrea, not Bailey, who had approached the cage and was now standing next to Junior.
“You’re a motherfucker, Carmichael,” Pierce said, and he applied more pressure to Colin’s arm, and tightened his chokehold. Colin felt his shoulder dislocate and the last thing he saw before he passed out was Andrea’s smile of satisfaction.
“Puta desgraciada, you need to get the fuck out of here and don’t come near again.” Junior got in Andrea’s face. “I don’t know what you’ve done, but I know you had something to do with this crazy shit that went down in that cage tonight.” He whistled and motioned to a security guard.
Andrea pulled her arm away. “Fuck off, Junior. I’m leaving.” She turned to walk away, but then spun back around. “You know he’s never gonna love you.”
“Fuck!” Junior roared, but then ran up the steps into the octagon.
Colin was still laying on the mat, and Pierce stood on the opposite side of the cage, still breathing heavy, but with a look of vague concern on his face. Several medical professionals surrounded Colin, and Mick was already in the cage, standing back but still near his downed brother.
After what seemed like a hundred hours, Colin sat up. Junior could see him trying to answer questions, but his head seemed wobbly on his neck and he wasn’t really moving his mouth. Finally, the EMTs brought a stretcher into the cage and they managed to get Colin on it. They stabilized his neck and put something around his left arm. Mick wrapped his hand around the top of Colin’s head and bent down to whisper some encouraging words in his ear, his face intense.
The EMTs took Colin out of the cage, and Mick followed them, but Junior saw Paddy stalking over toward Jett Raptor and Bruce Pryde.
Raptor stepped in front of Paddy. “Whoa, Doyle, where do you think you’re going?”
Paddy shot Raptor a poisonous look as he pushed by him to approach Pierce, who was now out of the cage and talking quietly to Pryde.
Paddy grabbed Pierce’s arm and when the huge fighter turned to face him, he landed a left hook squarely in the middle of Pierce’s face. The big fighter dropped to the ground.
Paddy clenched and unclenched his left fist as he turned to Pryde. “I don’t know what sort of shite this is, but be certain that I’m gonna find out.”
Pryde shot a look at Pierce and then turned back to Paddy. “Oh, I assure you, Doyle, somebody’s going to be explaining a lot of things to me. And you can also be assured that as of this moment, Damon Pierce is no longer fighting for Raptor Pryde.”
“Bruce, you can’t make that decision by yourself,” Raptor began, but stopped when Pryde help up his palm.
“He’s out, Jett. Either he’s out, or I’m out.”
“Pryde, can we talk about this?” Pierce asked, now back on his feet. His voice was nasally and muffled by his hand over his now-flattened nose. “At least let me talk to you.”
Paddy shook his head in disgust. “You make me sick,” he said, pointing at Pierce. “You all make me sick. I’m gonna go check on my fighter now.”
The other three men watched him walk away, and then Pryde turned to Pierce and said, “Okay, start talking.”
Bailey cracked her eyes open a slit when she heard the phone ringing. She wasn’t really asleep, but she was in bed hoping to lose consciousness until Fight Night was over because she couldn’t bear the thought of Colin fighting and possibly getting hurt.
“Bailey, he doesn’t want you. You just need to stop,” she had said out loud. Great. Now I’m talking to myself.
The phone continued ringing and Bailey rolled over to answer it.
“Bailey, honey, I’m outside,” Em’s sweet voice said. “Open up.”
Oh, God! Bailey flew to the front door and threw it open to find Em with Emily in her arms.
“Oh my God, Em. What happened to him?” Bailey whispered frantically as she stepped aside to let Em in the house. Em put her sleeping daughter on the couch and motioned for Bailey to come in the kitchen.
“You need to go to North Fulton Hospital, Bailey. That fight was ugly, honey, and Colin’s really hurt. He’s gonna need you, no matter what you think. He needs you.”
Bailey nodded her head and rushed into the bedroom to get dressed.
“I’m his fiancée, and there’s something you gotta know. There’s a girl, Bailey Jenkins, that’s probably going to be showing up here any minute. She’s a stalker, and she’s even gone so far as to try to look like me,” Andrea opened her eyes wide in faux disbelief. “You need to arrest her on sight. Bren doesn’t need the agitation that she would cause.”
The off-duty policeman that served as hospital security assured Andrea that they would be vigilant and Andrea slipped back into Colin’s room.
“Bren, baby, I’m here for you,” she crooned in his ear. “I’m gonna prove to you that you need to be with me, baby.”
The policeman walked down the hall, stopping only to murmur some instructions to another cop. He made his way towards registration where Mick was filling out paperwork and Junior and Paddy were pacing.
“Hey, Mick, I need to talk to you,” the officer said.
“Oh, hey, Johnny. You moonlighting?” Mick asked as he pushed the paperwork across the desk.
“Mick, there’s some crazy-ass woman in Colin’s room. She said she was his fiancée, but she called him Bren.”
Junior, who had come up to talk to Ashley’s brother because Johnny worked out at the Fight Club fairly often, got ready to bolt toward Colin’s room. Johnny caught his arm and shook his head. “I told another cop to keep an eye on the room. He’s fine, okay, Junior?” J
unior stopped, but Johnny saw his jaw clench in frustration. “What the fuck is going on? Why is that girl impersonating Bailey?”
“Man, that is a long, long story,” Junior said. He gave them a quick synopsis of the Andrea Situation, and Paddy, who hadn’t heard the entire story, whistled through his teeth.
“So that’s the woman who Colin was avoiding back when we first found each other?” Mick asked. Junior nodded. “She’s persistent, I’ll give her that.”
“She’s also completely nuts,” Junior said.
Bailey rushed through the automatic doors just then. “Oh my God, how is he? Is he all right?” She made a bee-line to Junior, but frantically looked at anyone who could answer her questions.
“Mother fucker, she has gone full-metal Single White Female on you, hasn’t she?” Johnny said, amazed at the resemblance between the two women.
Bailey looked around in confusion. “What?”
The walkie-talkie on Johnny’s hip chirped. “Jennifer Jason Leigh has left the fighter’s room and is headed your way.”
The men looked at one another.
Bailey stomped her foot in frustration. “Will someone tell me what’s going on?”
“Honey, there’s something I gotta warn you about,” Johnny started, but Bailey caught sight of Andrea, and started walking toward the other woman.
“Oh, holy fuck,” Junior said. “This is gonna be ugly. We gotta stop her.”
“Hold up, b’y,” Mick said. “I think we need to wait a bit.”
The men watched as Bailey stalked towards Andrea. The other woman’s mouth curved into an ‘O’ of surprise as Bailey poked her in the chest.
“What the hell is your damage?” Bailey said. “Why the hell are you doing this to him?”
Andrea’s lip turned up into a cruel smirk. “He doesn’t want you, Curlylocks. If he did, he wouldn’t have pushed you back into your baby daddy’s arms.”
Bailey narrowed her eyes. “He might not want me, but he doesn’t deserve you.” And Bailey’s right fist flew into Andrea’s surprised face.