by JJ Knight
But the windows have giant glossy letters and a slick logo of a guy kicking a giant Muay Thai bag.
The inside is warm, and I shed my jacket in an instant. A stout, long-haired man with an outrageous handlebar mustache crosses the room and extends a hand. “Power Play. Glad to see you made it over to these parts.”
“Panther,” I say over our handshake. “Been a while since I’ve seen you in a ring.”
“My wrestling days are over,” he says. “MMA is the thing now.”
On the side wall is a giant poster of Panther in his glory days. He was part of the biggest of the big leagues, traveling the country, breaking chairs over opponents’ heads in televised publicity stunts. I’m amused that he’s kept his look so he can always be recognized, although it’s odd to see the iconic hair and mustache topping an old pair of sweats rather than the brightly colored wrestling suits.
One side of the room is devoted to weights and mats. On the other side is a line of two standard square boxing rings and an MMA cage. Panther tilts his head toward it. “This baby is brand new. We’re gearing up for when New York finally gets its act together and lifts the ban.”
“I went to an underground fight the other night,” I say.
“Couple miles from here? In the warehouse?” Panther smooths down his mustache.
“Yeah. Looked pretty organized for what it was.”
He nods. “Some of the boys go down there to take an edge off. Official fights are a lot fewer and farther between around here.”
We walk along the mats. Several guys are lifting weights. Two boxers are sparring in the far ring. A grizzled trainer that reminds me of Jo’s old coach leans on the ropes and yells alternating insults and encouragements.
“Who’s running the underground stuff?”
“Some of us with gyms. As long as you don’t have a kid in the fight, you can run the logistics.” Panther stops by the ring where the two men are grunting, dodging, and landing blows. “I got a boy coming in about a half hour. You wanna show him what you got?”
I lift my duffel with fight shorts and gear. “Show me the showers.”
He waves me to the back, where there is a set of doors. I’m feeling good about this. With any luck, I’ll be on the same side of the country as Lily before Christmas.
***
The fighter Panther pairs me up with is House Ace, a younger guy, twenty on the outside and a weight class below me. But he’s quick, and a good striker. Our movements are fast and energetic in the cage, and before long, most of the people in the gym have come up to watch.
Ace connects with my headgear in a solid blow. I shake it off. “You’ve got some fast moves,” I say.
“And you’re a damn tank to hit,” he says with a laugh.
Panther’s hanging on to the outside of the cage, watching intently. “Show me some floor work,” he barks.
Unless this guy has some solid moves, there’s no way he’s going to make any dent in my ground and pound. I outweigh him by fifteen, easy. I sweep his legs and he goes down hard.
We’re not here to inflict damage, covered in shin guards and helmets, but I hear the air rush out of him when he lands on his back. I get a knee on his belly. “Three elbows,” I say, but don’t throw them.
Ace tries to roll away, but when he does, I grab his shoulder and shove him straight into an armbar.
“Nice,” Panther says.
A small voice says, “Daddy?”
I let go. I realize a bunch of boys are surrounding the cage now. And there’s Josh, the boy from the park. And his sister, Lily’s friend.
And now I can see her, eyes wide.
Lily.
A harried woman holds her shoulders.
“Daddy? What are you doing?” Lily breaks away from the woman and runs up the steps to the cage.
The woman looks apologetic. “I had no idea you’d be here,” she says. “I was dropping off my son.”
“This is the dad I told you about!” Josh says excitedly. “He’s Lily’s dad!”
Ace is still under my knee, so I stand up. Lily is banging on the door of the cage. I head over. “Hey, baby, what are you doing here?” I open the door.
Lily jumps on me like I’ve tried to run away or something. Her little hands cling to my arms in a death grip. “Did he hurt you?”
Ace picks himself up. “It’s all good, little lady. We’re just playing.”
Panther pushes away from the cage and addresses Josh and the other boys. “Get to the mats. Your coach ain’t got all day.” They all hurry to the back corner.
The woman isn’t sure what to do. She puts a foot on the first step to the cage, then takes it off again. Finally, she says, “Lily, come back here. Your aunt will expect you to be home.” She flashes me a quick smile. “I run the preschool carpool on Mondays.”
“I want to see Daddy play,” Lily says. She turns to me. “Can you do it to him again?”
Panther lets out a loud guffaw. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a little fighter there, Power Play.”
Lily’s face screws up in confusion. “Why is he calling you that?”
“That’s my fighter name. Power Play.” I point to Ace. “And this is House Ace.”
“Can I have a name?” Lily asks.
“Sure,” Ace says. He elbows me. “You got something, hoss? Princess Power?”
Lily looks down at her shirt, which has a rhinestone crown on it. “What do you think, Daddy?”
I think Maddie’s going to kill me. But I didn’t exactly bring her here.
“How about Power Punch?” I say. “I play and you punch.”
She laughs. “Okay!” She rears back and starts pummeling her fists into my chest. “Like this?”
I set her back down on the mat and kneel down. “More like this.” I take her fist and change the position of her thumb. “Now keep your fists by your chin and come straight at me.” I move her hands.
She crouches a little, her tiny fists under her face. “You ready, Power Daddy?”
“Sock it to me, Power Punch.”
She comes at my chest, arms flying. I let her rain a whole series of blows that feel like she’s tapping for my attention. Then she pulls her hands back. “You’re sweaty,” she says with a grimace.
I have to laugh. “It happens.”
The woman looks disconcerted. “I really think I should take her to Delores,” she says. “She’ll be worried if I’m late.”
I want to say just text her, but instead I give Lily a quick hug. I’m supposed to drop by to say good-bye to her later, before Maddie gets home. “I’ll see you in a little while,” I say.
“Okay.” She looks at me and Ace for a second. “You were really just playing, like you said?”
Ace puts his gloved hand on his heart. “Just playing.”
“Okay,” she says.
I lead her back to the cage door.
Panther catches her as she hops off the steps. “These are a little big, but you’ll grow into them.” He hands her a pair of pink MMA gloves.
Lily can barely contain her excitement. “For me!” She looks like she’s going to hug the big wrestler’s knee, but then she turns shy. “Thank you,” she says.
“Let’s go, Lily. Come on, Amanda.” The mother looks straight-up panicked as she tries to get the girls to follow her out. I feel for her. Maddie is going to freak at the sight of those gloves. Good thing I won’t be there to see it.
“Let’s go talk business,” Panther says. “Meet me in the office in the back.”
Ace claps me on the shoulder. “I’ll be seeing you around,” he says.
“Fun sparring with you, man,” I say. I hurry down the steps. Lily is gone, loading up in a minivan. All that’s left of this trip is sealing a deal and booking a fight.
Chapter Fourteen
In my motel room that night, I’m relieved Delores didn’t pitch a fit and mess up my good-bye with Lily. She obviously knew about the gym, because Lily was wearing the pink gloves when I arrived. I
tried to convince her to tuck them under her pillow or put them away, but Lily was adamant. They were her new favorite thing.
This was going to be bad.
I’m supposed to head out first thing in the morning back to LA. I’ll train there for three weeks, probably do a fight somewhere, and then fly back here for my first East Coast match.
Things couldn’t have gone better.
Except with Maddie.
My mood darkens, remembering how she acted after I gave Lily the bracelet. I don’t get it. I know this is a crazy life. It’s hard to watch people get jacked up in a fight. But really, I don’t get beat that often, not where I am now. She happened to be there for the worst fight in my personal history.
A knock at the motel door irritates me. The room wasn’t made up all day, and apparently now they’re going to show up late and try to work around me. I fling the door open.
But it’s not housekeeping.
It’s Maddie.
And she’s spitting fire.
She throws the pink gloves at my face. “I can’t BELIEVE you gave these to my little girl. I can’t BELIEVE you would teach her how to throw a punch. Are you out of your damn mind? Did you not listen to a thing I said?”
I back away until I’m in the middle of the room. She steps in and slams the door.
Her hair is wild, like it’s gone electric with her anger. “We’ve never been married,” she says, “so I don’t have the luxury of a divorce decree saying what you can and cannot do. But don’t think I’m going to stand here and let you do whatever you want with Lily. She is not ever to be a part of your fighter world. Do you hear me?”
I sit down on the bed. I don’t think there’s anything I can say that will be the right thing. When we were first together and she would get like this, I’d fight back. Then we’d break up. I’d spend hours and days trying to woo her back until she finally gave in.
Then it would happen all over again.
Eventually I learned it was way easier to just hear her out, stay cool.
Not that there’s anything to salvage of us now. But there’s a lot to lose with Lily.
So I don’t say a damn thing.
She paces back and forth between the window and the door, arms crossed over some fancy gray jacket and pantsuit. Her heels are a mile high, so she’s tall. She looks so beautiful I couldn’t get mad if I wanted to. I just wait her out.
“I’ve raised Lily by myself for four years.” She stops walking and turns to face me. “You are not going to step in and undo everything in one weekend.”
I’m not sure what I’ve undone. I know better than to ask. But I do know I can’t let her think I’m just going to sit by and pretend I’m somebody else in front of Lily.
“I’m coming back for a match in a little under a month,” I say.
“You’re WHAT?” She leans forward, like she didn’t hear me right.
“I booked a fight with a league here. I’m going to get on regular.”
She presses the heels of her hands against her temples. “No!”
“It’s already done.”
“I won’t let you!”
And that’s it. I’m sick of it. My voice booms. “You don’t have a goddamn choice!”
“I won’t let you see her!” Her face is red and full of panic.
I stand up slowly. “I’m her dad. And I have the right to see her.” My voice is low, and I know I sound menacing, but she’s landing low blows now. “We never wanted to get a judge involved, but I will do so if you try to keep her from me.”
Her eyes get very big, and I’m reminded of how Lily looked when she ran up the cage steps. They are so alike.
She sinks into an armchair by the window and drops her purse to the floor. “What’s happened to you? You didn’t care a thing about her for two years.”
“I did too care. I just couldn’t make it work.” I want to tell her how she and Delores made me out to be some idiot who couldn’t manage a kid, but I don’t.
Maddie tucks her hands together on her lap like she’s nervous. “This isn’t good for her.”
“What does it hurt for her to learn to defend herself? It’s a good skill.”
Maddie has no answer to that, and now she won’t look at me. Her eyes are fixed on the carpet.
The anger starts to drain out of me. She’s the same old Maddie, getting all worked up only to regret the things she says. I know her. She’s probably the person I know best in the world.
I sit on the floor next to her. This gives her an advantage, lets her look down on me. I know I can be menacing. I need to bring it down. Right now I don’t even have a shirt on. To her, I probably look like some inked-up street fighter, ready to wrap a chain around somebody’s neck.
I have to remind her I’m not like that.
“I love her, Maddie. I’m trying to get here to be close to her, and fighting is the only thing I know how to do.”
Her eyes roam over me, the burred head, the scruffy jaw that’s grown out a bit more while I’ve been here, the tattoos along my arms and shoulders. I know what she’s seeing. Some guy who doesn’t fit in with the other dads, people like Barry who work in accounting and buy minivans so their wives can run carpools.
I take a risk and reach out to place my hand lightly on top of hers, still all fisted up in her lap. She lets me, and I figure that’s some kind of progress.
Her voice is quiet and a little shaky when she speaks again. “You got pretty banged up in that last fight I saw.”
I squeeze her hands. “I did.”
“You had to have surgery.”
“Yep. It sucked.”
“I didn’t say good-bye.” She won’t look at me now.
“That sucked too.” I was kept overnight so they could wire my jaw. By the time I got discharged, I didn’t know where Maddie had gone. She just disappeared. The next thing I heard, she had taken a bus to New York.
Maddie’s voice gets all quiet. “I’ve never told you what happened. Why I left.”
“Delores said you didn’t want the baby around my life.”
She nods. Her face is in shadow. Only a desk lamp is on. I can’t quite read her expression now that she’s turned away.
“They wouldn’t let me in the ambulance with you,” she says softly.
“I know. That still pisses me off.”
“I had to take a bus to the hospital. Nobody had a car.” Her voice gets even lower.
“You came?” I never saw her. I assumed she just took off from the fight.
She tries to pull her hand free, but I hold on tight.
“What happened?” I ask.
“I started having contractions. Really bad. They stopped the bus and called an ambulance. I ended up at a different hospital than you.”
At that, I jump to my feet. “What? Nobody told me that!”
“Nobody knew.” She stares up at me, towering over her now. “It took them four hours to stop the contractions. I was so scared.”
I can’t look at her. I walk over to the far wall and brace my hands on it. She had nobody. She had to do that by herself.
“I was just dehydrated. I was upset. Lily was fine. But…” She trails off.
I stare at the ground. No wonder she left. No wonder she couldn’t take it.
She’s so quiet that when her hand touches my back, I’m startled.
“I was so scared, Parker. I didn’t know where to go, what to do. I felt guilty, like I wasn’t protecting my baby.”
I’m angry. Not at her. Not really at myself either. Just at the shit world. Stupid screwed-up world.
She leaves her hand on my back. It’s cool and small. I can see her fancy shoes and bottom of the pants that are just the right length. She doesn’t need me in her world any more now than she did back then.
I stand there so long that she pulls away. I can’t bear it, so I whirl around and grab her, yanking her against me.
She doesn’t resist. I press my lips into her hair. “I would have been there, Maddie.
You know it.”
“But you weren’t. You couldn’t be. You were hurt.”
I want to make it right. I want to make everything right. She’s not fighting me, not trying to get away. We were hot with it just two nights ago. Maybe we can get it back.
I push her hair back, away from her face. When my lips connect with her ear, I feel her knees buckle a little.
“I’ve lain awake thinking of you, Maddie,” I say.
Her fingers grip me tighter at my shoulder. I’ve got her. And Delores won’t be coming here this time.
I can’t screw it up.
I’m careful, so careful. I kiss her softly along the jaw, pleased when she exhales and relaxes against me. My hands stay in her hair, cupping her head, then flow through the strands.
I know her. I know that when I push just the right button, she’ll ignite again, like she always did, like last time. She’ll forget why she came here. Why she was mad. She’ll only think about what I’m doing to her. Where I’m touching her body.
I ease my palms down her back, across her shoulder blades, to her waist.
I’m hard as a rock, pressing painfully against my jeans. I pull her just a little bit forward, so we connect.
She sucks in a breath. She knows.
Now I strike, lips capturing hers, hands on her ass, pulling her hard against me. She moans against my mouth, opening to let me taste her.
Our hips grind together. I’m crazy with need, wanting everything now, but holding back, trying to take it easy.
But when she moves her hands to my belt and lets them slide their way up my chest, that’s it. I sweep her up so fast that one of her shoes hits the floor. In two seconds, I have her on the bed, her hair falling everywhere. I take her mouth again, tugging at the buttons of her jacket. Then it’s open, and beneath it is a silky shirt, cool and slippery. I follow the contours of her body, belly to ribs to neck. When I possess her soft breast, she moans again.
Her hands clutch my back, fingernails digging into my skin. I shove the shirt up and out of the way, yanking at the fragile cups of her bra. It’s too many layers, so I sit her up. The jacket hits the floor, then the shirt, and the bra.