by Leigh, Ember
But wasn’t the man allowed a night off? Except that we barely get nights together…and we haven’t seen each other since eggplant lasagna on Sunday…and I was going to tell him about Lane tonight…and this just doesn’t seem like Lex.
The last part bothered her. It just didn’t seem like Lex. When she pressed him for a reason he laughed it off and didn’t tell her more. She blinked a few times, rereading his text for the hundredth time.
What didn’t seem like him? It was hard to say. You’re overreacting because you want to see him. Calm the hell down.
She sighed heavily, dropping her purse on the couch before heading to the kitchen to get dinner ready. She needed to let the disappointment settle before she wrote back to him. If he had something else to do, she didn’t want to come across as whiny—or worse, controlling. They’d been in that place before. It was dark and cramped. No room for two adults to truly thrive.
Now she had no interest in controlling his vices, his habits, his schedule. Lex had worked all that out for himself.
Lila fired a quick text off to Amara, asking her if she wanted to come hang out with her and Lane. And then she busied herself with preparing dinner: fish sticks and mashed potatoes for Lane, and roasted veggies for herself.
Her phone beeped about a half hour later. Another message from Lex. “Are you mad? Talk to me.”
Lila wiped her brow, peering down at the text. She typed out a quick response. “Not mad at all, babe. I just forgot to respond because I was making dinner. I’ll miss you tonight. When will I see Mr. Sexy again?”
Her own message rang in her ears as she called Lane over to the small dinette. He jabbered happily while he took bird bites of his fish sticks, telling a story about some creature in the sea that she wasn’t sure he’d made up or seen on television somewhere. She smiled as he danced around the table after eating, singing off key about kangaroos.
This was Lex’s baby. He needed to know him.
So when will it be? She’d emotionally prepared herself to ruin Netflix and Chill night with the confession. The words were hovering on her lips. Desperate to escape. And now that he’d cancelled it, suddenly tonight felt like the Only Perfect Moment, and there might never be another one.
Truth was, there’d never be a great moment to drop the Hiroshima truth bomb she had in her arsenal. Tucking Lane under her wing was getting harder and harder. Lex wouldn’t accept her excuses to avoid her apartment without question forever. Say it. She just had to come out and say it.
Panic wrapped around her throat like an anaconda. If she wanted to imagine the fond look in Lex’s eye beholding their son, then she had to imagine what came before that: the anger. Him going ballistic. Possibly never speaking to her again. An entire childhood of Lex picking up Lane for part-time custodial visits and not even glancing her way.
Because that’s where they were now. Lila wanted him in it for the long haul. No doubt about it.
The confession throbbed inside her, stealing her breath. If not tonight…then it had to be next time she saw him. No matter what.
The resolve helped, but restless energy coursed through her, like gearing up to go to a concert and then finding out she’d gotten the date wrong all along. When Amara texted a moment later stating she was just about to arrive, her nerves switched over to high alert.
The confession would happen tonight. Even if it wasn’t to Lex.
Her mind swam with opening lines and justifications. Amara would at least serve as a test group. Like a pilot episode for a TV network, gauging the waters before launching a new sitcom. Except this was the worst premise for a show in the history of mankind. She might even be booed off stage.
When the knock sounded on the front door, Lila jolted. Lane didn’t even look up from his toys. Lila tugged open the door, sweeping her friend into a hug before they could even say “Hey, girl!”.
“It’s been forever,” Amara said, revealing a bottle of wine from a paper sack she’d brought in. “I figured girl’s night in could use this.” She bent down to ruffle Lane’s head, who popped to his feet to hug her knees and show her his dinosaur.
“Sweet dino,” Amara said, settling into the couch. Lane cuddled up beside her, dancing his dinosaur’s plastic clawed feet over her thigh.
“I have something to tell you,” Lila blurted, heat creeping into her face. If this was hard, it would be a million times worse with Lex. This was necessary practice.
“Oh. What’s up?” Amara slowed her strokes through Lane’s hair, looking up at Lila with a line forming between her brows.
Lila opened her mouth to go on, but then cleared her throat. “Lane, run to your bedroom and find that new puzzle you got from grandma and grandpa. Mar Mar needs to see it.”
Lane gasped and hopped to his feet, scrambling off to his bedroom. “You’re gonna love it, it’s so so so cool!”
While Lane rummaged in his bedroom, Lila leveled her friend with a look. “We’ve never talked about who Lane’s father is.”
Amara’s brown eyes were wide and confused. “Should we have? You said that he was a one-night stand.”
“He wasn’t.” Lila swallowed a sick wrench in her gut. “It’s Lex.”
A stunned silence throbbed in the living room. It felt like neither of them blinked for a half hour.
“Okay…” Amara began. She opened her mouth to speak then closed it again.
“Lex doesn’t know.”
Realization crept across Amara’s face. Lane raced back into the room, hopping from foot to foot as he held out his new puzzle, desperate for a reaction. Amara blinked a few times, the heaviness in her gaze disappearing as she appraised Lane. “Wow, that’s so cool, bud!”
Lila grabbed the paper bag from the table where Amara had left it and whisked it into the kitchen. They needed alcohol, stat. Amara humored Lane over the new puzzle for a few minutes, as Lila opened the bottle and poured two generous glasses. She handed Amara a glass and settled into the arm chair near Amara.
“So.” Amara cleared her throat, taking a gulp of her wine. “Wasn’t expecting you to open with that.”
“I had to tell you. I had to tell somebody.” She fought to keep a wave of despair from drowning her. Thank God for good girlfriends who always brought wine. The two of them watched as Lane busied himself with an encroaching fleet of GI Joes and desert animals.
“And…why now?”
“Because I’m going to tell him.” Lila took another sip of wine. “I was going to tonight, except he cancelled on me. It needed to come out.”
A burst of air passed Amara’s lips. “Wow. I have so many questions.”
“I know. Just…” Lila nodded toward Lane. “You know.”
Amara nodded, tapping a slow rhythm against her glass. “How does he not know?”
“I told him I was going to…end it. That was right before we broke up. I changed my mind, but by that point, we were no longer speaking.”
Amara blinked rapidly. “And why didn’t you tell him sometime after?”
“I don’t know.” Lila rubbed at the space between her eyes. “Things didn’t end well. I somehow thought I’d never see him again. Like somehow, it wouldn’t matter. I wrote him off as a lost cause. Forgetting that LA can sometimes be impossibly small.”
The friends watched Lane play for a few moments. He was lost in his own world, oblivious to the conversation happening around him. Pertaining directly to him.
Amara shook her head, dragging her gaze to meet Lila’s. “I can’t believe it.”
“Am I a horrible person?”
“No. I don’t think so. You had your reasons.” She paused, a but all but dangling on her lips.
“You were going to add something,” Lila prompted when Amara didn’t go on.
Amara deflated. “He’s going to be upset. I don’t think there’s any way around that.”
“Right.” Lila tucked her legs under her, taking another reassuring gulp of wine. There was no way around the anger. So she had to jump in head first.
With any luck, Lex would be able to see past the hurt and betrayal and remember the love they shared. The love that had created this beautiful, sweet boy. The child that sometimes acted so similarly to Lex that it made her choke.
But she worried the betrayal might be too great to forgive.
Her second chance with Lex might be dead in the water.
* * *
Lex sat with his forehead pressed to his steering wheel for what felt like an hour. The leather seam bit into his skin, the faint glow of Tito’s parking lot lights illuminating the roll of tape in his lap.
You’re doing it. You’re here.
He tugged off the start of the roll, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger as he took a deep breath. Time to go in. Face down his demons. Figure out who the fuck was throwing money at the Kings to get him back in the circuit.
Lex pushed out of the car, the cool night air caressing his cheek as he tugged his black hoodie low over his head. He strutted up to the restaurant, where regular looking people occasionally entered, probably in search of endless chips and margaritas on the rocks.
But instead of filing in the regular entrance, Lex headed for a dark doorway off to the right. A hallway wound around the side of the building, leading to a dimly lit steel door. He knocked twice, shoving his hands in the front of his hoodie as he waited.
The door clanged open a moment later; a stern face peered out at him but relaxed once he was recognized.
“Fighter’s here.” The door guard stepped aside to let Lex in. The warehouse backend of Tito’s became visible, sending a spiral wave of nostalgia crashing through him. But it wasn’t the good sort of nostalgia; his nostrils burned with the sudden kneejerk recall of a hard line of coke, the drip in the back of his throat that would invariably arrive as a result. His thighs tensed, remembering the way he used to stab the syringe into the side of his leg, desperate to get the bulk enhancing juices inside him.
Fluorescent lights glared above him as he hung off to the side, taking it all in. The cement floor gleamed as if it had been coated with something, but Lex knew it wouldn’t hurt any less when a skull connected with it.
Probably fifty men had gathered already, most in small pockets of conversation. Wads of cash flashed through the air; heated conversation bounced back and forth between a group of guys off to the left. He only caught snippets. The odds. The UFC career. Favored to win.
Back in the day, this sort of predatory attention had made Lex swell with pride, or something like it. The way people talked about him as if he wasn’t there, the money tossed in his direction like he was a fucking display piece in a store…those things hadn’t grated on him nearly as much as right now, this instant. He clenched his jaw as Knuckles approached, a shit eating grin on his face.
“Fight’s on in five,” he rasped, clapping a hand onto his shoulder. “Come with me.”
Knuckles led him across the swept cement. The people gathering had left a natural space toward the center of the warehouse, where he and his opponent would fight. Taping hands was about the only precaution allowed.
“Who am I fighting?” Lex scanned the room, trying to pinpoint anyone he recognized. Lots of men in shiny suits and well-combed hair. Secret millionaires, sometimes billionaires. Plenty of guys with a bad habit for gambling, too. It was the next-level cock fight.
Because for a certain subset of society, roosters just didn’t cut it. They needed to see a man go down. Roosters didn’t have anything to lose.
What they didn’t know was that sometimes, these fighters didn’t have anything to lose either.
But Lex wasn’t one of those fighters anymore. The stakes were too high. Uncomfortably high. He needed to knock this guy out, and then get the fuck out. Knuckles pointed to a scrappy looking kid across the room. His muscles were tightly drawn and sinewy, as if he was made entirely of twisted rope. The kid watched Lex with a dark gaze, eyebrows drawn tight.
“He’s royalty,” Knuckles said, which meant the kid was family to someone very high up. “He’s been training for years, doing the circuit here and there. But kid’s convinced he can make the leap to big time.” Knuckles’ snide laugh told Lex all he needed to know.
“Coulda just seen him in the gym,” Lex mumbled, unrolling a length of tape and wrapping it around his thumb. “We train for going pro, you know.”
“Well, royalty needs him to prove his chops. And because of that, we have a bona fide wild card fight ahead of us.”
Lex expelled a burst of air, giving Knuckles a look that said come on. “I know better than to believe that.”
“Yeah, but the bets are rolling faster than you can imagine, Cheshire.” Knuckles sent a seedy grin out toward the clusters of men waiting for the fight. “Everyone’s putting their money on royalty getting a free pass. Imagine what the poor fucker thought when we told him we had a real UFC champ for him tonight!”
Lex’s stomach pitched down to the floor. He tugged his sweatshirt off, revealing a loose racerback. “So you want me to put him in his place.”
“You work your magic,” Knuckles said. “And Cheshire…” His tongue darted out, wetting his bottom lip. “Don’t kill this one.”
A courtesy that wouldn’t be extended to Lex, if he faltered or failed. Knuckles set off before Lex could respond. Across the room, the kid rolled his head in a slow circle, eyes lethal slits. Lex pushed his track pants down to reveal standard issue black mesh shorts, then tugged his racer back off. Lex plopped onto a steel folding chair nearby to tape his other hand as the kid hopped from foot to foot across the room.
Couldn’t be older than twenty-one, but Lex knew better than to wager anything on how old a fighter was. Hell, Lex had burst out of high school ready to kill the first person who looked at him wrong.
The spectators gathered in a loose circle, as though sensing the fight was about to start. Knuckles hovered nearby, nodding as a guy said something into his ear. Knuckles flicked his fingers toward him, ushering Lex and the other kid closer. At the center of the gathered group, Knuckles appraised each of them with a grin.
“Here we are, men.” He clapped a meaty hand onto their shoulders. His voice projected easily out over the gathered audience. “You know the rules. There are no rules. Fight until you can’t.”
Lex nodded, drawing deep breaths as he focused on his opponent. The dark sweep of hair over tortured eyes. Light scars on his cheek, his forehead, like a road map to his fighting career. And beneath the steely veneer of a fighter hardened in the underground, where death was more likely than not, flashed uncertainty.
Knuckles swept his hand up. “Fight!”
Lex’s stomach bottomed out as his vision shrank to encompass only the “octagon” formed by the gathered crowd. Bodies shifted around them, shouts and whistles fading to the background as the two fighters faced off. The kid bounced from one foot to the other, fists held up in a boxer’s stance. Lex stood still, blinking slowly, watching as confusion made a slow trek across the kid’s face.
This was the game. A cat with his prey. Lex’s mind shrank to a watchful silence. Primed. After enough time, the kid got bold, comfortable. He bounced close, like testing the waters. Lex didn’t move. The audience roared around them; some of the men watching demanded that Lex move, get his ass in gear, fucking blink for god’s sake. But Lex held steady.
The kid swiped at him, launching a fist toward Lex’s shoulder. Lex took the blow, barely stumbling to the side. The kid’s eyes went round, his surprise echoed in the reactions of the spectators around them. Lex stood tall, staring his opponent down.
The kid launched at him again, this time aiming for the head. In regulated fights, a dirty blow. Not allowed. Lex snapped, blocking the kid’s arm with his own and bringing it down hard to his side. Gasps sounded as Lex whipped the kid around, bringing them both down onto the ground. Cement bit into his knees as he wrestled him into a hold.
The audience pressed closer, desperate to see. But all Lex could see was Lila, the wispy idea of th
em as a couple, fading from view the longer he stayed here. Anger surged through him—who were the Kings to take that from him? The kid launched punches through Lex’s attempt to pin him down. His fist grazed Lex’s ear, his throat. One landed on the side of his head, and his ear immediately began ringing.
Anger roiled through him. This wasn’t what he wanted to fucking do with his life. Dancing when his masters said dance. Like some sort of fucking monkey in the circus. Lex grunted as the kid slipped out of his hold, wriggling out and landing a steady stream of blows to his head. The crowd oooh’d. Lex roared, pinning him again, the rough ground tearing at his knees. Blood smeared in a trail behind them as they grappled.
The kid fought like a trained boxer, which meant his ground game was weak. Lex needed to keep him here. His opponent’s knuckles connected with Lex’s cheekbone, hard enough to send him reeling backwards. Another swell of shouts from the audience. Lex blinked a few times, trying to reorient himself. The kid hopped to his feet, bouncing a safe distance away. Like he needed the break already. Like he knew Lex’s plan of attack was to keep him where he was weakest.
Lex stayed on the ground for a few moments, elbows propped against knees. He sent a wry smile to the kid, who once again looked increasingly unnerved. From behind him, angry viewers shouted their opinions.
“Get up, faggot! Take him out! It’s what we’re here to see!”
“Are you kidding me? You’re just gonna let him sit there and stare at you?”
“Fucking rip his head off!”
Lex ground his jaw as he watched the kid. And then he hopped to his feet, taking a predatory path around the clearing. The kid hopped away, but it wasn’t far enough. Lex swung his leg out, kicking the kid off balance, sending him right back to the ground.
From there it was easy: Lex had capitalized on both fear and skill to back the kid into an ideal space, one where he went rigid with self-doubt and more reactionary than predatory. Lex punched him as if on auto pilot, the lights and glare of attention receding to a distant murmur.
If they wanted a show, they’d get their fucking show. Lex’s knuckles ached under the wraps as the stream of punches became methodical. The longer he punched, the louder the shouting. After a while, the kid stopped punching back. Blood spatters framed the kid like some sort of gory art installation. Lex hopped to his feet, well before the limit of no return. He knew what a lifeless body felt like, what happened to the limbs when the zest went out of a man. The kid would be fine.