by Claire Adams
“Yeah, but your hobby tends to have a pretty big downside,” I tell him.
“Nothing’s more dangerous than always running away from things that scare you,” he says.
“Okay, I get that you’re trying to be all ‘charming, pithy guy’ right now and everything, and I will say, up until now you’ve been doing a pretty good job,” I start.
“But?” he asks.
“But this isn’t an infomercial,” I tell him. “You know why you never had a shot with me?”
“Why’s that?” he asks and nothing seems capable of getting that smile to stop returning to his face.
“Because you think it’s appropriate being bandaged up by the stranger-roommate of one of your ex chew toys,” I tell him.
“Ah, I’m a dog now,” he says.
I answer, “Just in the whole puppy-isn’t-housebroken-and-chews-holes-in-all-my-underwear—”
“Hot,” he interrupts.
“You’re too sarcastic for me,” I tell him. “That and I’m not unconvinced you’re a man-whore, and I don’t see that being a good move for me.”
“Well, that’s a shame,” he says and claps his hands together. “Now, do you think we’re ever going to get a refill on these breadsticks? We’ve been waiting ten minutes for that crap.”
“The service does seem exceptionally slow,” I respond.
He’s looking over my shoulder to try and spot our waiter, and I’m thinking this might not be better than suffering through Jana’s mom and the thick, dark cloud that follows her everywhere. Sure, it’s a dark cloud made up of pot smoke and patchouli oil, but a dark cloud it remains.
“You’re really giving up that easily?” I ask.
“Well, if you’re not interested, you’re not interested,” he answers. “If it’s all the same to you, though, I really am pretty hungry, so I’m going to stay and eat. You’re welcome to stay too, of course,” he adds. “I promise I won’t take it as some kind of encouragement of my high-risk lifestyle choices.”
I chuckle softly.
“You know,” I tell him, “for a meathead, you’ve got a decent brain on you.”
“You really don’t hear the term ‘meathead’ as much as you used to, have you noticed that?” he asks.
“So, what was it like dating my roommate?” I ask. “I’ve always imagined it’d be the sort of thing where you have to sign a waiver. I’ve gotta tell you, long have I been interested in learning the rationalizations that could lead a man to make such an odd choice for himself.”
“You two are friends, huh?” he asks.
“Yeah, we’re friends,” I tell him. “Not just that, we’ve been friends forever. I mean, so long that neither one of us really remembers why we started hanging out in the first place, you know?”
“You’ve got a lot of baggage,” he says. “It’s really hot.”
“A girl’s got a work with what she’s been given,” I tell him. “Do you do anything besides flirt with the roommates of ex-girlfriends and get the brains you’ve got beat in?”
“Actually, I spend about as much time adding to the contents of my skull as I do having them pounded out of me,” he says. “I’m going to college.”
“You’re a scholar,” I say, nodding. “I’m actually not surprised.”
“Oh, you’re not?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “You’ve got the frat guy thing down solid.”
“You’re pretty when you’re being unreasonably judgmental,” he says, putting his elbows on the table and his jaw onto his hands like a child.
I’m just afraid the mixture of giggling, blushing and trying to hide my face a little might give him the wrong idea.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” a voice comes from a few feet behind me and I turn to see our waiter coming to the table. “We’ve had a bit of an issue with the breadsticks, but we would be happy to offer you stuffed portabella mushrooms instead, free of charge of course, as an apology for the inconvenience.”
“Pretty diverse menu you guys have here,” Mason says. “I have a problem with mushrooms, though.”
“What’s your problem with mushrooms?” I ask.
Mason looks over at me, and I swear the actual words coming out of his mouth are, “It’s personal.”
“Oh god,” I groan.
“My apologies,” Mason says. “It seems the lady would like a few minutes to consider her order.”
“Very good, sir,” the waiter says and cheerily walks away.
“They really do have a very diverse menu here,” Mason says. “I’m not sure if that means the chef can actually pull off Taiwanese, Spanish, French, and American-greasy-spoon all at once or if he just doesn’t have the common sense to know it’s a terrible approach to running a restaurant, but I’m very excited to find out, aren’t you?”
“Would you like to know what your problem is?” I ask.
“That I try way too hard, especially for someone who’s been told in very clear terms that I have no chance of making any kind of headway with you whatsoever?” he asks. “I have been made aware of this fact, but I don’t see much sense in trying to change it now. Maybe I’m a bit set in my ways, but that’s how I roll.”
“No,” I tell him. “You told the waiter I needed a few minutes, but I love me some stuffed portabellas, and I’m beginning to think they never actually gave our order to the kitchen. So, we’re just going to end up picking at salad and slurping down our drinks when I could have something delicious on my plate.”
“I am very sorry I got between you and your mushrooms,” he says. “It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t,” I tell him, just hinting at a smile.
Even with the bandage, he’s a good-looking guy. I just don’t know that I want to taint myself by getting too friendly with Jana’s former scratching post.
“Married?” he asks.
“No,” I tell him. “Why would I go to dinner with you if I was married?”
“Oh, it’s not that I think you would, although it sounds like you’d do a lot of things to get away from your friend’s mom,” he says.
“So you’ve got some kind of relationship going on?” I ask.
“Nope,” he says. “I just think it’s good to ask. You know, that way everybody’s cards are on the table from the start.”
“Had some bad experiences?” I ask. “Seen some things?”
“I’d rather not talk about it,” he says, taking another drink of his soda. “You wouldn’t sleep right and I’d feel bad and it’d be this whole thing that’d just end up getting in the way of our torrid love affair.”
“You enjoy getting ahead of yourself, don’t you?” I ask.
“Just think about it,” he says. “We’re both young, available, absolutely stunning…” he takes a moment to run his fingers through his short, dirty blond hair before going on. “I know just how these things go.”
“Oh really?” I ask. “Please, do tell. How exactly are you going to sweep me off my feet and onto your beat-up futon?”
“Well, if I told you then it might not work right,” he says with a smirk and nod. “You know, I think we’re gonna be buddies, you and I.”
He is pretty attractive. I don’t usually go for the whole peacocking thing, but he’s amusing. He might even be charming if he’d just stop trying so hard to act like he’s not trying so hard.
Or is that what I’m doing?
I don’t know—I didn’t expect him to be witty, much less engaging. I expected the quasi-adolescent behavior. Still though, if nothing else, going out with him would give me the opportunity to get some more practice treating wounds. But is a relationship built upon gratuitous violence and the healthcare training possibilities it affords really worth the effort?
“You’re funny,” I tell him. “You bother Jana, so that’s a plus.”
“These are positive-sounding words,” he says. “Very positive, I like that.”
“You’re not as phenomenal a specimen as you so cle
arly would like to think you are, but you’re not the person I’m least thrilled about spending time with in the next twenty-four hours, so you’ve got that going for you,” I say, really trying to sell it as a compliment with my chipper tone and my generally ensorcelling demeanor.
“Oh, you,” he says. “You sure do know how to sweet talk a lady.”
“I’m not without my own wiles,” I tell him. “Seriously though, if they don’t bring something other than salad out in the next few minutes, I might have to create an embarrassing scene.”
“You know what I like about you?” he asks.
“What?” I return, my eyes already rolling.
“You have the most incredible eyes,” he says. “They’re judgmental a bit more often than is probably healthy, but you’ve really got a couple of fine specimens there.”
“That still wasn’t quite a compliment, but I think you’re getting closer,” I tell him.
“Yeah, I’ll work on it,” he says.
After a while, our food arrives. I roll my eyes a lot more before the meal is over, but I never get up from my chair.
He’s smug, and all joking aside, what he does “in his free time” scares me more than a little, but he’s so easy to talk to, leaving never crosses my mind. Before I know it, we’re already making plans to see each other again.
It’s not until we’ve paid the bill and we’re walking out of the restaurant that I realize I now have nothing but eventuality standing between me and the intermittent sounds of Dandelion’s mantras for everything from conquer sores to enlightenment. I can put it off, maybe even for a few days if I want to stay in a hotel, but sooner or later, I’m going to have to go home.
I just hope we all make it out of there alive.
Chapter Three
Dreaming in Color
Mason
“Wick got caught, I know that,” Logan says, clenching his teeth as he tries to get a few more reps done on the bench. “I just got the hell outta there, if I’m being honest with you. I know I can throw down like a mofo, but guys as pretty as me don’t do well in the cage. There are just too many guys who wanna get a handle on some of this, you know?” he asks, setting the bar back in its cradle.
“Are you actually bragging about how often you’d be sexually assaulted in prison?” I ask, having seriously considered knocking the bar out of his hands while he was lifting it just to see what would happen.
“It’s not a gift, dude,” he says. “It’s a curse.”
“Anyone know who tipped off the cops?” I ask him, taking the cuffs off each side of the barbell and adding another fifty pounds, twenty five on each side.
“Who knows?” he asks. “Maybe no one did. Those things can get pretty loud, and the way you were screwing with that guy was starting to piss people off.”
“So it’s my fault?” I ask.
“Well, you certainly didn’t help,” he answers, wiping off the bench with his towel.
“What do you know about the tournament?” I ask, giving the bench an extra going over with my own towel.
“Same as you, I guess,” he says.
“Which is what?” I ask. “All I’ve heard is that there’s going to be one.”
“Yeah, man,” Logan says, getting behind the bar to spot me. “Guys from the biggest pits in the state got together a while ago in Madison and they set the thing up. It’s going to be big.”
“How big?” I ask, lifting the bar from its place.
“Ten thou per winner big,” he says. “More than that, though, the guys who are putting this together are going to tape the whole thing and put it up on the internet, so it’s good exposure, too. One guy from each weight class, straw through super, is to be chosen from within each pit to be in the tournament. Eight guys total in each class, so a champ’s gonna have to pull off four wins,” Logan says, his eyes drifting after a passing female in an obnoxiously bright pink leotard. “Nothing you can’t handle.”
“You’re not going to go for it?” I ask. “How do they decide who to put in the tournament?”
“There’s not enough time to put together tournaments within the pits. First fight’s in a few weeks and they come pretty quick after that. We could try to throw something together, but people have jobs. All the guys we got showing up lately, it’d take us a few months to get through ‘em all only to discover you’re the best featherweight and I’m the best light heavyweight. Everyone already knows that. Expect a phone call in the next couple days.”
“I appreciate that,” I grunt, wondering if this is my fifth or sixth rep.
“You get us in the same weight class, whether I go down some pounds or you go up some, I’m going to humiliate you every time, but as long as we’ve got a couple of classes between us, I don’t have to think of you as just another statistic,” he says.
I lift the bar one last time and set it down with a loud clang into its cradle. When I sit up, I’m laughing.
“What?” Logan asks.
“Someone pointed out to me recently that I talk myself up to some pretty ridiculous levels, but I didn’t actually hear what she was talking about until you said what you just said. It’s kind of embarrassing,” I tell him, patting him on the back.
“What are you talking about?” he asks, sensing that I’ve made fun of him somehow, but not quite able to figure out how.
“Just the whole, ‘if you and I get in the ring together, one of us is getting into a body bag,’ thing,” I tell him. “It’s got a real professional wrestling vibe to it, and I’m pretty sure real people don’t actually talk like that.”
“So you’re saying I’m not a real person now?” he asks.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I tell him. “It’s like you’re trying to sell tickets to pay-per-view events and you kind of sound like an ass.”
“You wanna go?” he asks, getting into his stance. He doesn’t seem to appreciate the admittedly enthusiastic fit of laughter that is my response to his posturing.
“I wouldn’t want to do anything to crack that statuesque face of yours,” I tell him. “Who knows when the next fight will get busted? Your new jail friends would be devastated if you went off to the pokey looking like uncooked hamburger.”
“You’re kind of a prick, you know that, Ellis?” he asks.
“Dude, you can call me by my first name,” I tell him.
“What’s up with you today?” he asks. “You’re starting to act like you did after you beat the snot out of that ninjitsu guy last year.”
I do tend to get a little smug when I’m feeling good about my life.
“Well come on, man. I get the whole thing was about espionage and not really focused on traditional combat, but who’s not going to be pretty excited about beating up a ninja?” I ask. “That’s the kind of thing you put on a resumé,” I tell him. “Or a bumper sticker,” I add. “A t-shirt would work pretty well, too, I think.”
“Whatever man,” he says. “Don’t tell me what your deal is, but just know you’re acting like a tool.”
“So that’s it then?” I ask. “I’m just supposed to wait for a call?”
“If they decide you’re the best we’ve got in your weight class,” he says. “The more I think about it, the more I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not nice to get someone’s hopes up like that.”
“You’re a real inspiration, you know that?” I ask.
For the next little bit, I do my best to act like the tournament’s not such a huge deal; but when my phone starts ringing, I can’t get it to my ear fast enough. It might have been helpful to accept the call first.
“Dude, calm down,” Logan says as I answer the phone.
“Hello?” I speak.
“Hey.” It’s Ash. “Are we still going to that boxing match tonight?”
“MMA, actually,” I tell her. “But yeah. Doors open at eleven and it’ll probably go until one or two in the morning.”
She sighs. “All right,” she says. “I told you I’
d give it a chance.”
Ash has been sharing some of her concerns about what I do. I think if she just goes to a match, she’ll see how much time and training these guys put in. She’ll see that we’re not just a bunch of thugs trying to beat each other senseless.
We are that, too, I guess, but that’s not all we are.
“You won’t regret it,” I tell her.
“I wish I had your confidence,” she says. “Are you still picking me up?”
“Yeah,” I tell her, “but we’re going to want to go there on foot. Too many cars around an abandoned building and a fight’s going to stick out like a broken nose. Worse still, if the place gets raided, you’re never going to be able to get to your car without being arrested and if you abandon it, they’ll just run the plates and track you down.”
She’s quiet.
“That almost never happens, though,” I tell her. “We’re careful about where we set up and who we tell about it.”
“Okay,” she says. “I’ll see you a little before eleven, then.”
She doesn’t sound very excited.
* * *
Ash seems nervous as we approach the building where tonight’s matches are to be held, but she’s still putting one foot in front of the other.
“I don’t get why you guys don’t just join a league or something,” she says. “It seems like that would be a safer approach.”
“You’ll have a hard time finding someone that doesn’t want to join up with UFC or Pride or any of the others,” I tell her. “That said, there are probably about as many people who come here in the course of a year as there are active professionals in MMA. Not everyone shows up on the same night, but you get the idea.”
We get to the door and a tall man in a black suit holds up his hand.
“What’s up, Big D?" I ask him.
“Private party,” he says.
“Snooker,” I tell him.
He nods and moves out of the way so we can enter the building.
As we pass D, Ash mutters, “I’m still skeptical about all this, but I have to admit it’s pretty cool you guys have your own password-enabled guard at the door.”