Beauty and the Billionaire

by Claire Adams

  I love fighting, but it’s not the only thing in my life. It’s the only thing I want to do, but I don’t have that single-mindedness Logan has.

  He’s one of those people who was put here for a single purpose. Ask him anything not fight or training-related, and chances are he’s not going to have a clue what you’re talking about. Bring up a topic in his wheelhouse, though, and he’s the smartest guy in any room.

  For now, there are a couple of guys in the ring, so we wait.

  “What’s the word on the next fight?” I ask.

  Logan smiles with half his mouth. “You’re going to have your work cut out for you,” he says.

  “Anyone I know?” I ask.

  “Have you ever heard the name Mitch Furyk?” he asks.

  Yeah, I’ve heard the name. “He’s next?” I ask.

  “That’s good,” Logan says. “You’re confident. Still, I’d start hoping you catch a second wind or something, because if what you brought in here today is what you bring to the fight, we’re going to have to scrape you off the ground with a pancake turner.”

  “Spatula,” I correct.

  “No,” Logan says. “I mean a pancake turner.”

  I’m not nearly interested enough to argue. Even if I wasn’t in a particularly bad mood today, I still don’t think I’d care.

  “Mitch the Fury, huh?” I ask. “Wasn’t he doing flyweight for a while?”

  “Yeah,” Logan answers, glancing up as one of the guys in the ring gets staggered by a hard right. “He was flyweight for about a year. Before that, he was all the way up at welterweight for a couple of years until he decided to go vegan and lost a ton of weight. Word on the street is that he packed on the extra twenty pounds because he heard you were in on this thing and he wanted the pleasure of putting your head through the floor.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I’m all he thinks about,” I mock.

  The guys in the ring finally call it quits and Logan and I get our gloves and headgear on and cinched.

  “He should be all that you’re thinking about,” Logan says.

  “Given that I just found out who I’m up against, I’d say it’d be pretty hard for me to retroactively obsess about him,” I answer, ducking my head as I step into the ring.

  “Yeah, I don’t know what any of that means,” Logan starts, “but you’ve got to get your head back, man. One of the things that always made you a good fighter was that you knew when to strike and when to save your energy. You waste an ounce trying to be the big freak in the ring and me and your girlfriend are going to be taking turns feeding you through a straw.”

  “Her name’s Ash,” I tell Logan, though I’m not sure why I bother. It’s not just math he can only do with a fighting corollary; it’s pretty much everything.

  “Whatever,” Logan says. “You ready? Are we doing this Rocky Two style or do you actually want to have someone start us off?”

  I’d feel better about the punch I just threw as an answer if he didn’t easily duck it and start laughing loudly enough to draw the attention of most of the gym.

  “You’re a prick,” I tell him.

  “And you’ve got a fight to train for,” he says. “Now quit throwing half-assed crap and hit me.”

  The last word’s not fully out of his mouth before a punch I swear I didn’t even see rocks me back a little.

  Okay, different weight class or no, this isn’t going well.

  “What are you doing?” Logan taunts. “You acted like you didn’t even know it was coming.”

  He throws a left hand, followed up quickly with a right knee. I manage to dodge the strikes, but when I go to counter, Logan’s prepared.

  This is Logan’s play time, though he likes to call it “giving back to the community.” That’s condescending enough, but he likes to have people witness his generosity.

  What that means for me is that I’ve got until people start crowding around to watch us spar to put Logan into the mat. Once he has an audience, he tends to become a bit of a showman and it’s absolutely infuriating.

  I give him a shin kick just above his right knee, but I may as well be kicking a lamppost. He actually smiles at me as he glances down toward where the blow had landed.

  If this was a real fight, I’d be pretty freaked out right now. As it is, his amusement at my attempts to beat the crap out of him distracts me long enough to drop my guard just a little, giving Logan the perfect opening. I know what’s going to happen before it does, but there’s no stopping it.

  Logan glances over my shoulder to see if we’ve got a sizeable enough crowd for him to stop tooling around and get it over with. As I’m picking myself up off the mat, I’d say we’re pretty well there.

  “Still in?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I answer, getting the rest of the way to my feet.

  “You sure?” he asks. “I don’t want to push you too much before a fight.”

  I’m pretty sure he’s baiting me.

  “How are things with your brother?” he asks.

  Yeah, he’s baiting me.

  “Left,” he says, calling his own punch to prove his martial superiority. “Right,” he says. I manage to deflect the blow, but it catches the edge of my headgear, forcing me to lose sight of Logan for the smallest moment.

  It’s enough.

  They tell you when you’re thinking about learning something new to always have a mentor, someone who’s at least twice as good at what you’re doing as you are. That’s a pretty good way to get to the middle.

  If you really want to master something, the only kind of person who’s going to be able to get you there is someone who’s mastered it themselves. If someone’s not at least ten times better at what you’re doing than you are, you’re never going to get all the way.

  At least that’s been my experience.

  Logan isn’t my sensei, but he’s done just as much, maybe even a little more to help me understand the finer aspects of going toe-to-toe than any traditional teacher I’ve had.

  In that fraction of a second Logan’s not only in my head, but has pulled up a chair and is sitting down with some coffee and today’s paper. It’s only a fraction of a second, but it’s enough for him to surprise me with a body blow.

  Once that’s landed, my focus is back where it needs to be, but I’m playing catchup. My hands are up, and I’m doing my best to anticipate Logan’s next move, but he unleashes a flurry of light blows. It’s enough that it keeps me off balance, but not so much that he’s risking knocking me out.

  He’s just toying with me. This is light sparring with Logan.

  He’s got his right arm cocked back, telegraphing his next blow, and he’s asking, “In or out?”

  “In,” I answer and ready myself for the punch he may as well have told me about last week. Only, that punch doesn’t land.

  He keeps his right arm cocked back a little as he turns away, his left shin coming up and slamming me hard in the head. I’m off my feet and on the mat, my headgear still partially on, but not protecting anything.

  “You’re done,” Logan says, helping me up before it’s fully dawned on me that I’d been knocked down. He sighs. “I don’t know what to do with you, son,” he says. “You’re taking some pretty big steps backward. Is something on your mind?”

  Seriously: Logan fighting=genius. Logan with anything else=idiot.

  As willing as I usually am to swallow a little pride to gain a lot of insight, he’s so casual after having humiliated me in front of pretty much everyone here that I’d punch him in the face if I didn’t know with certainty that he’d more than return the favor.

  “I really don’t want to talk about it right now,” I tell him.

  “Whatever’s going on, you’ve got to knock that out of your life, man,” he says. “The only way to have an edge in a fight is to be better prepared. If you’re wasting all your time and energy thinking about anything else when you’re up against Furyk, he’s going to beat you down almost as bad as I did.”

  “I
think it’s your humility I find most inspiring,” I mock.

  We walk a few more steps before I stop.

  “What’s the matter?” Logan asks.

  “I don’t remember getting out of the ring,” I tell him. “How are my eyes?”

  Logan steps in front of me and covers one of my eyes, then the other, watching my pupils closely.

  “Ah, you’re fine,” he says. “I knocked you a bit, but I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about. Do you remember me helping you up off the mat?”

  “Yeah,” I answer. “I remember that and our conversation starting from there and going all the way until now, but I don’t remember getting out of the ring.”

  “Oh jeez,” Logan groans. “You had me scared there for a second.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask. “I’ve never not remembered something like that after a fight—even sparring.”

  “You’re just distracted,” he says. “It’s nothing, but it’s quite possibly the worst thing that could happen. I’m telling you, man. You’ve got to put everything else on the back burner or else you’re never going to make it past this round.”

  “It’s not that easy,” I tell him.

  “Of course it is,” he says. “Put it out of your mind.”

  “It’s not that easy,” I repeat.

  “No, it’ll piss you right off,” he says. “At least you’ll be controlling it instead of letting it control you. Put whatever’s got you looking like a kid who just got a wedgie away and get your mind back in the game, son.”

  “Yeah,” I say dismissively.

  Logan doesn’t understand relationships the way most people do. To him, they’re just an occasional distraction.

  “What have you got going after this?” Logan asks.

  “I’m getting together with Ash,” I tell him. “She’s been kind of weird lately.”

  “What do you mean?” he asks.

  “I don’t know, man,” I tell him. He’s really not the guy to go to for relationship advice. “I’m gonna cut out of here. Thanks for the session.”

  “Stop worrying about picking yourself up off the mat and start worrying about making sure you’re not put there in the first place,” Logan says. It almost sounds like mystical advice, but he’s not being metaphorical. I’m not sure if he knows what a metaphor is.

  “Thanks,” I tell him and head off to the showers as he returns to bask in the glory of his public victory.

  The fact that he’s got me by forty pounds won’t come up once.

  I get showered and changed into my normal clothes before heading home. When I get through the door, I pull out my phone and give Ash a call.

  She answers, “Hey, you. Are we still on for our picnic?”

  “Yep,” I tell her. “I just got back from the gym. I just need to get changed into some better clothes and make sure I’ve got everything ready.”

  “All right,” she says. “Do you want me to head over now?”

  “Sure,” I tell her. “I’ll see you when you get here.”

  “All right,” she says. “I’ll talk to you then.”

  She hangs up.

  Recently, I learned the perils of pretending like nothing’s wrong when it clearly is. I don’t know what’s been bothering Ash, but I know something is. There have been a few times that I’ve almost gone as far as to ask her what’s going on, but the truth is that I’m not really sure I could deal with anything else going wrong right now.

  I change out of my normal clothes and put on something a little bit nicer.

  Today, we’re having a picnic in Lake Park. I’ve never really gotten the big draw of picnics, myself, but maybe this will be a good opportunity for us to clear the air.

  I get my share of the food in a cooler and watch a little television while I wait for Ash to get here. When she arrives, we get in her car and go to the park.

  She’s quiet, so I’m quiet.

  It’s not until we’ve got a blanket down and all the food set out that we finally start talking.

  “How’s your day going?” I ask.

  “It’s fine,” Ash says. “I’ve been looking forward to this. I haven’t been on a picnic since I was a kid.”

  “Me either,” I tell her. “What made you think of it?”

  “I don’t know,” she says.

  Then comes the all-too-familiar silence.

  I want to say something, but I’m honestly a little afraid at what she might tell me. Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with me, but whatever it is, it’s hijacked the last week of our relationship.

  The spread is mostly made up of the standard picnic fare, or at least what the internet says is standard picnic fare. There are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips, dip and soda. The most interesting addition to the meal is the bar of raspberry German chocolate Ash brought for dessert.

  We sit and eat, hardly talking more than to ask each other to pass something. Eventually, the awkwardness gets to be too much and I put down my sandwich.

  No, that’s it. I don’t say anything or do anything else. I just put down my sandwich to indicate that I’m done eating and I leave it at that.

  It’s not clear whether Ash knows what I’m doing and why or not, but she puts her sandwich down, too, and we start clearing up the food. We’re hardly speaking to each other.

  We get the food put away and we start carrying everything toward the car, waiting a moment for a jogger to pass before crossing the paved walkway. Only, the jogger doesn’t pass. She stops about five feet away from Ash and I. She peers at us.

  I squint through the evening sun toward the woman walking toward us. She looks really familiar.

  “I’m sorry, I know this is going to sound weird, but do we know each other?” the woman asks.

  “A friend of yours?” Ash asks.

  “I don’t know,” I answer quietly, before looking back to the woman. “You do look really familiar.”

  “What’s your name?” she asks. “I’m Heather.”

  “I’m Mason,” I answer, looking to Ash for a moment for any kind of advice on what to do here.

  “That name sounds really familiar, too,” she says. “Do we know each other?”

  “I honestly couldn’t tell you,” I answer.

  “I’m sorry,” Heather says, extending a hand toward Ash. “I’m Heather. I would tell you how I know your husband, but—”

  “Oh, we’re not married,” Ash interrupts.

  “Oh, well, I’m really sorry to bother both of you, but you just look so familiar,” Heather says.

  This is more than a little weird until it clicks and I remember who she is. Now it’s a lot weirder. I’m just hoping she either really doesn’t remember me, or that she knows better than to let it slip.

  “That’s right,” she says, her voice sounding remarkably like the mockery of the universe at my expense. “It was at the mall here in town.”

  “Oh yeah,” I respond, hoping that’s as far as she goes. “I remember you.”

  She starts giggling.

  Oh please, for the love of god…

  “Yeah,” she says. “I was just hanging out in the food court, waiting for some friends to show up when you came over and started talking to me.”

  “Yeah, I remember that,” I tell her. “Well, it’s been great to see you, but we should really—”

  Heather giggles again.

  Oh, just make this stop.

  I glance back at Ash to try to gauge her mood, but her expression is inscrutable.

  “You were pretty convincing,” she says. “Not that I didn’t flirt right back.”

  “Oh, really?” Ash asks. I cannot, for the life of me, tell whether hers is a teasing tone or an “I’m about to gut you right here and now” tone.

  “Yeah, well, it’s good to catch up, but we’ve got to get this stuff in a refrigerator before it spoils,” I tell Heather.

  She just giggles at me again.

  This is exactly what I don’t need right now.
/>   “Was the office behind a Sbarro or an Orange Julius?” she asks. “I don’t remember.”

  “Pretzel Maker,” I answer, hoping I’ve sated her curiosity.

  “I thought you two said you were in the food court,” Ash says. “What were you doing in an office behind a Pretzel Maker?”

  Someone kill me.

  Heather giggles again, and although I’m positive Ash pretty well has the basic idea down, she doesn’t say anything. Apparently, Heather isn’t so shy.

  “I had just gotten out of a bad relationship,” Heather tells Ash. “The guy was a real jerk, but I could just never quite seem to put an end to it. Then, of course, he slept with my mom and my sister, and—”

  “You slept with this woman’s mom and sister?” Ash interrupts.

  “No,” I answer quickly. “No, absolutely not.”

  “I’m talking about the guy I was with before I met Mason,” Heather explains.

  How can she not get that she really needs to stop talking? She knows where this story goes and how she thinks it’s an appropriate conversational topic is beyond me. Still, she continues.

  “Mason and I never really got to know each other that well,” Heather says, staving off my nervous breakdown for at least a few seconds. Of course, then she immediately undoes all the good that statement could have done. “I really needed a good lay with a stranger, and I don’t know how he knew, but he knew.”

  “We’re talking about Mason now?” Ash says.

  “Oh yeah,” Heather responds. The way she says it would be very flattering if I wasn’t standing right next to Ash. “He did things in that little room I can’t even begin to describe. I’ve got to thank you for that,” she says. “Before then, I didn’t know I was particularly flexible. Now, I do yoga.”

  Seriously, take a knife and stab me. Take a gun and shoot me. Take a rope and hang me. Hire a hitman. I’ll pay for it.

  Unfortunately, the only two people here that might be able to help me with any of the above are the person telling a story I really don’t want told and my girlfriend who seems determined to hear all of it. I guess I’ll just have to deal with it.

  “You two used to date?” Ash asks.

  “Briefly,” I answer.