by Maya Rossi
“I’m no god, but I won’t lose either.” Brayden inched a finger in the direction of the showers. “Can I go now?”
“One last thing, that shit you said?” Jack began, expression grave. Brayden steeled himself, mentally rolling his shoulders to get ready if his friend wanted to take this to the canvass. “I never expected that shit from you. From Samson? It’s normal. Homophobic behavior is the least of his character flaws. But you? Apology or not, I’m done. Better get your fists up and ready when you say such shit again.”
Brayden grimaced. “I hear you. But can you not make threats you can’t carry out? Unless I do something real shitty and decide to take it? Let’s be real, you might not get a punch in.”
Jack laughed and Brayden was grateful he was the type to let the punches roll off his shoulders and come out smiling on the other side.
“Remember King Xerxes? He bled. Thought he was a god and shit, but Leonidas made him fucking bleed.”
“Yeah.” Brayden stopped at the entrance to the bathroom, took off his towel and threw it at the grinning Jack. “Believe me, I’m aware of I’m no god. I need no reminders.”
Jack wasn’t listening. He stared at the towel which landed a few feet from him in horror. “I can’t take you to that charity ball game coming up. We have to cancel.”
“Why’s that?” Brayden asked even though he already knew the answer.
“My friends will mock me straight into Jupiter, Brayden Marshall can’t throw to save his life.”
Brayden ducked into the showers to hide his grin. Jack went so crazy for baseball it wasn’t even funny. He shook his head remembering the thousand times he drew that perfect blend of horror/pity/disgust from Jack over a game.
His good mood only lasted as long as it took to meet his brown eyes in the mirror as he shaved. He even had his eyes, Brayden despaired for the millionth time. Predictably, his stomach heaved and in the next second, he was gagging over the toilet.
“Dammit man, you didn’t tell Duke about this?” Jack bustled around the bathroom, getting a glass he kept there ready for just this purpose. He filled it to the brim with water and brought it to Brayden.
“Christ man, I don’t understand you sometimes,” Jack waited by his side as he rinsed out his mouth exactly seven times. “Yes, that’s the seventh one, I got it.”
Brayden rose gingerly, like a woman testing a new pair of heels. Placing his hands flat against his stomach, he breathed deeply. “Were you watching me bath or something? How did you come in here so fast?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” Jack rolled his eyes. “Not gonna lie, you’re good-looking but not exactly my type, you know?”
“I know your type. Slutty, unfaithful--”
“Dude. You haven’t gotten laid in a hundred years so don’t come at me.”
Brayden pressed a palm harder to his stomach. He opened the medicine cabinet and in a quick glance confirmed what he already knew. There was nothing he could take to settle his stomach without Duke’s say so. Settling on a bunch of crackers, Brayden munched quickly and rinsed his mouth again.
“That’s number eight, out of routine even for you.” Jack began to chuckle. “Samson is so heavily invested getting his champion ready for battle he doesn’t realize you will probably fail at the weigh in.”
“That’s not going to happen.” Brayden grabbed a toothbrush and made quick work of his teeth.
“Yeah? And how are you going to fight your way through that? You can’t keep your food down. It’s like you’re allergic to water or something. You throw up every time you shower. If Duke can’t do something, fire him and get another doctor.”
Brayden wiped his face with a towel and headed out to the lockers. Slowly, Jack followed. “Wait, he doesn’t know, does he?”
“Remember, Mr Brown?” Brayden pulled on jeans and a white shirt. “We’re going visiting.”
Jack muttered his usual complaints about not having time to get security in place and began making calls. In ten minutes, there was a car waiting out front and guards checking out the hospital.
“Is Luke coming?” Jack asked as they walked through the hallway of the gym.
“Yeah, he’s going to control how much of this we leak to the press.”
“Who’s Mr Brown?”
“Your boyfriend’s father,” Bryden replied mockingly. “He’s the former Janitor at my old gym, let me sleep over in his office when I had nowhere to go.”
Jack didn’t speak through the drive to the hospital fifteen minutes away. He didn’t need to. Brayden’s jaw hardened as he recalled Jack’s response the last time he got the press on one of his ‘feel good things.’ The disgust from his friend had been palpable. Yep, he was a bastard alright.
Luke and Garth waited when they got to the hospital. Brayden took one look at his personal assistant, Garth and his mood soured. In pencil slim trousers and a dressy blue shirt that made his eyes seem bigger than normal, Garth looked like they had dragged him out of date.
“Why’s he here?” he snapped at Luke, his publicist and friend. “He hates hospitals you told me that, prefers to see his father at home.”
“He was still at the office when we got the call,” Luke spread his hands helplessly. “There was nothing I could do to stop him. Besides you hired him, fire him or something if you dislike him that much.”
“I don’t dislike him, I just don’t like him with Jack.”
“Well, I couldn’t stop him from coming.”
“Why not tie him to the nearest chair or something?”
“That’s more your speed, not mine.”
“Waste of muscle,” Brayden mocked the six foot nine mountain of a man.
“Waste of space,” Luke returned automatically. “Here, I got a network, five bloggers and two newspapers tipped for this. We’re ready for the cameras. Now smile.”
“He was on a date, wasn’t he?” Brayden asked, watching confident Jack turn to potatoes around Garth.
“Yeah,” Luke sighed. “Why are you worked up over this? Jack is a grown man, Garth’s a slut, everyone knows this, especially Jack-- come on.”
Mr Brown was approaching eighty and so painfully old, he barely recognized Brayden. After making the rounds for the cameras, shaking hands, smiling and spreading condolences all round, he found himself at his bedside. It was so unfair, he thought, staring at Mr Brown’s wrinkled and liver-spotted skin. People like Mr Brown ought to live forever if there was justice in the world.
“You’re a good man, Mr Marshall to remember my husband after all these years.”
Brayden forced a smile and faced Mrs Brown. Hunched over her walking stick, white hair fanning her sunken cheeks, he feared she would keel over but knew better than to offer her a chair. The last time he tried that she almost whacked him over the head with her cane.
“He deserves it, Mrs Brown.”
“Call me Lucy.” She watched her barely breathing husband for a minute. “He always loved you, you know. Cried when you gave Garth the job, cried when you paid off our bills. Thank you, Mr Marshall.”
Brayden coughed and rubbed at his knee. “My knee, I need to sit, Mrs — Lucy.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “I thought it was your shoulder.”
“And my knee, this one’s new, just got it sparring with Jack in training.”
“You have to be careful, boxing isn’t everything you know.” Lucy walked extra slowly to accommodate his ‘bad knee.’ “You would think of a wife and kids soon. You want to be able to run around with them.”
“So, when are we getting the wife and kids?” Jack asked as they walked out of Mr Brown’s rooms an hour later.
“Shut up,” Brayden said absently.
“What’s going on? And don’t tell me nothing. You get this look sometimes, like you’re scared or something.”
Brayden tipped his head back and closed his eyes. “A good man’s about to die and the ones rotten to their core just keep on growing in good health.”
Jack pushed hi
s hands into his trousers. “We all die, Brayden. Good or bad, we all die.”
“So we’re all the same?”
“No, never. We just have the same end that’s all.”
He gave that some thought. Finally he shook his head. “That’s unfair.”
“Did you see Mr Brown’s visitor’s book? The most visited in the hospital’s history, the pretty nurse told me. That’s one difference between the bad and the good. The bad die alone.”
Brayden mulled over that as they exited the lift and walked through the foyer. He took note of the peeling paint on the walls of the foyer. “Text Luke, he should have the hospital board contact BMF, maybe we can do something in Mr Brown’s name here.”
Jack took out his phone and typed. “Uhhmmmm, done.”
Just before they got into the car, Jack paused with his hand on the door. “Maybe we should go out for a couple of beers?”
Brayden gave a long-suffering sigh. “I get it, you’re in love. One look at Garth and your priorities changed. Go on, have a good time and don’t feel guilty about me.”
“Fuck off,” Jack muttered.
“Open the door, man. Be careful with Garth.”
“Always.”
Brayden waited until they were two blocks away before tapping the divider. “Take me to Terry’s.”
Chapter three
“Ryan fucking Highland. This place is like some sort of shrine to him or something,” Edward muttered under his breath.
An older woman with a basket on her arm trudged along the sidewalk. She aimed a death glare at him, giving a nonplussed Edward a withering look before crossing to the other side of the road. Ava admired the daredevil grin and handsome face displayed in every conceivable surface all over Navesink. It was safe to say the locals loved their champion.
Edward spread his hands. “Was it something I said?”
Ava’s fingers tightened instinctively on her handbag not to lay into her fiance. As a failed boxer turned sports journalist, nothing annoyed Eddy more than seeing a young boxer ‘miraculously’ fly up a division on luck alone. It was one thing she didn’t understand, how a former boxer would think luck had anything to do with taking and receiving punches for a living.
“Better him than ‘The gentleman’, right?” Ava deflected trying to ward off an argument.
“Nah,” Edward’s voice dropped to a respectful hush, “that man is a fucking beast. If I ever meet him, if he ever gave a fucking interview for once in his legendary career, I will suck his cock and thank him for it.”
An image of Eddy on his knees sucking cock burst into her brain, destroying every logical thought in her head. Ava sputtered, choking on nothing but air. She marveled at staid Eddy’s unusual ability to appreciate one man’s hard work while denigrating another’s. “Jesus, that bad?”
“That bad,” he confirmed almost grimly.
“What’s the difference between Ryan and The gentleman?” she asked, curious to see the distinction from the perspective of a former boxer. “Apart from being two ridiculously good-looking men in the prime of their careers and — aww.”
He smacked her arm lightly. “Good looking, really?”
“You take offense to that when you just vowed to give Brayden Marshall head if you met him?” Ava asked in disbelief.
“I guess you have a point there.” Eddy finally conceded.
“So what’s the difference?”
“Don’t play the reporter with me, you know what I’m talking about.”
“I can hardly be a reporter when my assignment is taken off my hands and given to a misogynistic pig.” Old fury hurtled through her veins with the force of an avalanche.
Throwing a hand across her shoulders, Eddy hugged her close. “You’ve got to get your mind off it. Look at it like a fight, you lose and move on to the next fight.”
“Concentrate on a loss and you never come back,” Ava agreed, “don’t you think I know that? But when something that’s yours is taken away from you, it hurts.”
“I know,” he murmured, kissing the side of her head. “We’ll fight this. I’ll talk to Frank.”
Shaking her head, Ava pulled away. “No, I don’t want my boyfriend running interference for me every time something comes up. I’ll be fine.”
“Honestly, I think it shocked everyone when Frank picked Mason over you. That guy’s a douche. The fighters don’t wanna talk to him and you won’t blame them because his questions are fucking awful.”
“Well, tell that to Frank. I go to him with my ideas and he decides who executes them.”
“Just give it time, imagine how much time Ryan lavished as an unknown before getting his chance. Bout after bout and he’s a champion. An interim champ but that’s something.”
Ava arched an eyebrow. “See who has something good to say about Ryan Highland.”
He shrugged. “We can’t all be Brayden Marshall but little as it is, that man,” he pointed at a lifelike poster of Ryan Highland, “has paid his fucking dues.”
Ava laughed hard. “You rolled an insult somewhere in there.” With a cheeky grin, she said, “I guess ‘The gentleman’ is okay but he can’t be a champion forever.”
Eddy aimed a blistering look her way. “No one is touching him.”
Snaking her hand around his Ava grinned up at Edward. With his eyebrows pulled tight in a frown and his shoulders tucked tight, he looked genuinely offended on Marshall’s behalf. “I’m not the one who wants to suck the man’s cock.”
Edward laughed. “I bet it will be as impressive as the man.” They laughed harder at this. When their chortling died down, he shook his head. “I just marvel and maybe I’m jealous of some people, you know? Marshall has ruled boxing for over twenty years. The man started as a fucking teenager, he got nothing handed to him. He was a gym rat, a gutter slime.”
“I heard he started that low, but really?”
“Really.” He shrugged deprecatingly, a spattering of colour painting his cheeks as he ducked his head. It was a sure reaction whenever he or someone alluded to his failed career. “I was there you know? Dad would bring me to the gym, you know the one, deep in the slums? And there was this guy, never spoke, thought he was dumb. No one paid him attention.”
“How old were you?”
“We were all teenagers doing the grind, training, taking punches. It was fucking awful but awesome.”
Before she would reply, a car came barreling out of Terry’s, it hit a pothole with an audible bump, splashing water in a wide arc. Ava jumped back, almost stumbling in her heeled boots in the process but somehow she kept her balance. Edward wasn’t so lucky. It drenched his black dress trousers.
The first thought to pop into Ava’s mind was Robin’s disapproval the last time Eddy visited Terry’s with her. Her friend insisted in her blunt way, “Never trust a man who wears pants to a damn bar.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Eddy reached a hand towards the wet trousers and pulled back. His slightly pimply face suffused with color. “What the hell is your deal with this place? Move in with me in my fucking apartment on the upper east side and you choose to remain in this hell hole--”
“Here,” she shoved a napkin into his hand, “clean the hell up and stop complaining. You won’t stop me from enjoying this fight.”
Edward sputtered. “What the--”
“I’m sorry,” Ava murmured, ashamed of her reaction. “But just stop complaining, all right? It happens. We’re going to a low scale bar to watch a fight, no one would notice.”
“I’ll fucking notice,” Edward fumed, dabbing at the wet spot ineffectually with the napkin. “Do you pack your whole fucking apartment into that handbag?”
“Is that your problem now?” Ava struggled not to laugh. “Come on, I will ask Terry to give you a change of clothes or put it in the wash or something.”
“But give moving in together a thought, yeah? It’s been two fucking years since I asked you and you change the subject every time.”
Edward’s ire could
be measured by the number of times he used ‘fucking’ as an adverb or adjective. Unfortunately or fortunately, Ava wasn’t sure, his crude speech was rubbing off on her.
To be honest, he was right. There was no reason they couldn’t move in together already. Like her best friend Nance, would say, if she couldn’t live with the man, she shouldn’t marry him. But her inability to live with Eddy wasn’t the issue. Ava didn’t want to stay too far from her family. Plus, she had a home, a fully paid for home right here in Navesink.
“Let’s not do this here--”
“Then when--”
“Not here.” Heaving a sigh of relief when they turned into Terry’s bar, Ava quickened her footsteps to avoid Eddy’s question.