Consumed: A MMA Sports Romance (13 page)

“You know,” I tell him,
wetting my hair, “Jana was standing out there, too.”

“Yeah, but me and her
already dated,” he says. “It was your turn.”

I playfully smack his
chest and he laughs. Maybe this
is
better. Instead of getting bogged down with the way people are “supposed” to
process things, maybe we should just focus on actually processing it.

If that means he comes
off a little callous when his brother gets arrested, so what? That’s probably going
to come in handy down the road, too. Chris doesn’t seem like he’s the changing
type, although I’m sure he’ll come out of jail “a new man.”

Every con has a simple
concept behind it and that one’s just begging to be grabbed.

I’m a little surprised
when Mason leans in and kisses me, a bit more when the kiss keeps going, but it
feels good. I’ve been so busy accusing him of not being upset enough and he’s
been so busy denying he’s upset at all that we haven’t really focused on the
more important things in life.

I kiss him back and put
my arms around his shoulders. He’s shaking.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Bit cold,” he says.
“About done with the water for a minute?”

“Oh yeah,” I answer.
“Sure.”

We switch spots and he
puts his head under the water. He turns around to face me, and I’m thinking
that’s the end of the romantic part of our shower together when he’s reaching
out for me again, pulling me toward him.

Only, he doesn’t have the
best footing and so he slips a little. He manages to catch himself before he
falls, but his reflex to catch himself caused him to pull me a little harder
than he’d intended and I’m now shoulder-checking him in the sternum.

I don’t know how, but we
don’t fall over. It’s when I run into him, though, that I notice he’s starting
to grow hard. Maybe if it were just in the context of my nakedness or our
proximity, I’d take it as a compliment; but with as awkward as the lead-up to
this particular erection was, it’s more confusing than anything.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I answer, getting
my feet more securely under me and taking a step back so he can stand up
straight again.

“You think the mood’s
killed?” he asks.

I do. I really do.

That’s not what I say,
though. Sex, even sex that starts as clumsily as this, is something I know I
could really use right now and, from the way Mason feels in my hand, I’d say
he’s good to keep going.

“No,” I tell him. “That
was just a momentary hiccup. Come here.”

I pull him closer
(slowly) and kiss him deeply on the lips, my mouth parting as we come together,
and I’m putting one arm back around him.

“That’s better,” I say
optimistically as I stroke his dripping wet shaft with my free hand.

“Ah!” he says before a
sharp intake of air.

“What?” I ask. “What’s
wrong?”

“Are you wearing a ring
right now?” he asks.

“Yeah, I forgot to take
it off,” I answer. “I would have once we got in, but I didn’t want to lose it
and it’s cold out there so I didn’t want to get back out.” I narrow my eyes a
little at him. “Why?”

“It kind of,” he says,
“the skin on my—it went between the ring and your… ya caught me a little—”

“Oh!” I say, letting go
of him and pulling my hand away. It’s not until he’s saying he’s fine, that
he’ll be all right that I realize I’ve just made the very problem he was trying
to tell me about much more painful. “Are you all right?” I ask.

“I think so,” he says.
“Am I bleeding?”

That’s a question
everyone wants to hear when they’re trying to enjoy a little foreplay.

Still, I refuse to
believe that this sexual endeavor is hopeless. If Mason and I have one thing,
it’s chemistry.

“No, you’re good,” I tell
him. “Still wanna…?”

“Hell yeah,” he answers,
and this time, I take the ring off the eponymous finger of my right hand and
toss it over the shower rod.

It makes a surprisingly
loud kerblubb when it lands in the water of the toilet bowl.

Mason asks, “Did you
just…?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I
tell him and we’re kissing again.

I’m not in denial.

Neither’s Mason.

This is great.

This feels
so
—

“Okay,” I say, clutching
my face. “I’m done.”

What does it is when
Mason reaches his hand up toward my face, seemingly to persuade some strand of
my hair away from my face, but ends up with his index finger in my eye instead.

He’s trying to stammer
through an apology, and I’m trying to forget how recently I’ve hurt him so I
can continue to be mad at him for poking me in the eye and at this point, I’ll
just be happy if we’re still talking by the time we get out of this bathroom.

Chapter
Thirteen

Eggshells

Mason

He’s right there,
standing in front of me. The crowd’s mouths are open, but they’re silent; or at
least I can’t hear them.

This is my second match:
the quarter-finals.

It’s insane how they
threw this thing together so quick, but someone’s got to be make money off of
it somehow. Right now it doesn’t bother me that nobody knows how.

Right now, nothing
bothers me because there’s simply not enough in the world.

There’s Ash standing
behind me, supportive in my corner.

In front of me is the man
I’m about to fight.

To either side of me are
walls of flesh and bone.

Beneath me is the floor,
above me is the ceiling, and here I am in the center, ready to do what’s
necessary.

The fight must have
started because he’s walking toward me now. My hands are up, I’m ready.

He throws a left and
tries to catch me with a quick follow-up right, but he’s sloppy and I’m better
and he’s down and I don’t know why all these people are trying to pull me away.
All I know is that the fight just started and now it’s over.

It’s not until one of the
guys holding me reaches up and slaps me hard across the face that I come back
to a wider view of the world.

I don’t hear the crowd,
but that’s because nobody’s cheering. My opponent’s on the ground and Tom’s
with him, checking him.

“Is he gonna be okay?” I
ask the open air.

I’m only greeted by harsh
glares.

I turn around and look
back at where Ash is standing and her mouth is open under her hands.

“You need to come with me
right now,” a sharp, but familiar voice says.

Logan’s got me by the
hair on the back of my head and he’s leading me through the crowd toward one corner
of the room.

He lets go of my head
with a shove, saying, “What the hell was that? What do you think you were
doing? Were you trying to kill him? What’s the matter with you?”

“Is there a particular
question you’d like me to answer?” I ask.

He slaps me in the face
and pushes me up against the wall, seething, “You’re lucky we’ve got the people
we do in the crowd, man,” he says. “If these people weren’t all fighters, they
might have missed the fact that you’d snapped and would have killed the guy if we
didn’t jump in.”

“I wouldn’t have killed
him,” I scoff.

“Six punches,” he says.
“In the time between when the match was called and they pulled you off, you’d
thrown six punches and that guy looks like he got hit by a truck. You can’t
tell me you were in control of anything.”

“Six?” I ask. “People
always end up throwing a few after it’s called. It happens on reflex: The
command hasn’t processed yet because you’re in fight mode. You know this stuff
as much as I do.”

Logan just shakes his
head and, getting within two inches of my face, he says, “That’s not what this
was. Pray that he’s okay,” Logan says. “We’re not the damn UFC, Mason. We don’t
have full-blown doctors or ambulances waiting around in case someone really
gets damaged. We’ve got Tom. It’s a miracle something bad hasn’t happened by
now without people trying to
make
it
happen. Get the hell out of here and you pray that he’s all right, man. You do
that and you get your head checked because you’re losing it, man.”

I look toward the ring
where it’s still almost silent. “Let me know if he’s okay,” I tell Logan and I
push him out of my way.

Most of the people there,
they don’t look at me. The people who do are counting the seconds it takes for
me to get the rest of the way out of there, and I don’t know when someone’s
going to hit their digit and this all goes very, very bad.

Even with that in mind,
I’m not going to leave Ash here in the middle of this. I take a couple steps
toward the ring, though, and everyone in the room turns to face me. It would
actually be a pretty amazing sight if it weren’t directed at me.

“Ash!” I call.

Nobody in the crowd is
saying anything. I can’t see the guy I beat through the crowd, but a few people
start turning back toward the center, then a few more.

Finally, everyone’s
turned back toward the center of the ring and everyone’s cheering.

I’m moving around, trying
to find an angle from which I can look without having to get any closer, but I
can’t see through. I suck up my fear and start walking toward the group again,
but Ash saves me the trouble as she comes through and starts walking toward me.

Once she’s close, I grab
her hand. Once we’re far enough away from the abandoned shop I’m not worried
someone’s going to come up and try to enact some vigilante justice for what
just happened, I let go of her hand.

I keep walking.

“What happened in there?”
she asks, catching up with me. “Do you know what you did?”

“I don’t want to talk
about it,” I tell her.

Has that phrase ever
worked on anyone?

“It was… frightening,”
she says.

“Is he going to be okay?”
I ask.

“He’s going to be fine,”
Ash says. “You’re lucky those guys pulled you off when you did. They called the
fight and tried to push you off, but you just kept going.
Why?
”

“I don’t know,” I tell
her. “I didn’t really know what was going on. I didn’t know the fight was over
until they were dragging me out of there.”

She asks, “Did you black
out or something?”

“I didn’t black out,” I
answer. “It was different. I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it.”

I know I’m being short
with her, but I don’t know how to stop.

For whatever it’s worth,
I’m starting to think she was right about that whole “don’t bottle things up or
you’ll explode” thing. I can’t answer the question as to why I let my anger
take over and control me. In a match, anger can be a useful tool, but it
has
to have its limits.

At first, I was just in
my zone. I was focused, I was clear. Then, when he took those swings at me, I
just snapped.

“I think we should go
home,” I tell Ash. “Me to mine, you to yours. I don’t think I’m going to be
able to talk about this without the adrenaline wash right now.”

She almost stops walking
for a moment, but continues, asking, “You don’t think it might be better to
have some company?”

“I don’t know,” I tell
her. “It’s nothing to do with you. I just need to clear my mind.”

“Yeah,” she responds
quietly. “Give me a call tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” I tell her.

“And a text when you get
home, so I know you’re back safe?” she asks.

“Sure,” I answer.

“Okay,” she says and we
stop walking. She looks up at me with big eyes and gives me a hug. “Let me know
if you need anything, okay?” she says.

“Yeah,” I answer.

We part ways.

*
                   
*
                   
*

I wake in the morning as
sore as if I’d been on the other side of last night’s beating. I’m not proud of
myself.

Denial’s not going to
work anymore, that much is clear. No matter how much I hate Chris, I still love
him. It’s stupid and illogical, but that’s family I guess.

I’m mad at him. I’m
almost always mad at him for something, but right now, I’d love to have a few
minutes alone with whoever picked up the phone and put my brother behind bars.
I’ve been told I can be rather persuasive when I want to be.

That’s not me, though.
It’s not what I want, either. It is, whether I like it or not, the way I feel,
though.

I feel bad that I went
off on that guy last night, but I feel worse that I took out my pent-up
aggression on Ash. She had nothing to do with any of it.

I’ve given up on denial,
but now I can’t find the will to get out of bed. I barely want to move. Right
now, I’m happy being here, alone in a room with a closed door in a house where
no one but me lives anymore.

And now I’m back to
thinking about Chris.

Before I decided my brother’s
choice in illegal activities was beneath me, we actually used to get in trouble
together. I couldn’t have been more than four or five, but I remember thinking
Chris was the coolest guy in the world.

No matter what kind of
trouble he got into, he could always talk his way out of it. He could talk his
way out of fights, too, a faculty I never quite developed.

I’ve gone the rounds
blaming myself for abandoning Chris, even going so far sometimes as to blame
myself for his stupid messed up choices, but there’s no water left in that
well. Chris is where he is because of his own choices and not because of mine.

Still, I’m thinking about
kindergarten and getting my ass kicked by third-graders. I was doing my best to
stay on my feet, but I didn’t know how to fight back then and I was a lot
smaller than the guys who were picking on me.

I remember seeing Chris
coming toward me as I was picking myself up off the ground, and I remember
thinking he was going to jump into the mix, beat the snot out of those kids and
save me, but that was never him.

Instead, he walked up
casually, even waiting for a few more punches to land before he said anything.

“What are you guys up
to?” he asked.

The third-graders looked
over at him and hesitated a minute. He was a little bigger than them, but they
still had us outnumbered and in retrospect, I don’t know how effective I really
would have been if it went that way.

“None of your bees’ wax,”
one of the kids called back.

I never said they were
intelligent attackers.

Over the next five
minutes or so, Chris just chatted with the kids who had so brutally assaulted
me as if they were just having a normal day at recess. The funny thing is, the
more Chris talked, even though he wasn’t saying anything about what they were
doing, the kids slowly lost interest in me.

Finally, after talking
about everything from the cartoons from the previous Saturday morning to which
professional wrestler could make it in a fight with Bruce Lee—the conclusion
was none of them, but a match with the Undertaker would be the coolest to
watch—the kid who had picked me up by the shirt let me go. Without warning, the
kids who had been so intent that I be taught a lesson for being smaller than
them slowly started walking toward my brother.

I thought they were going
to beat him up for wasting their time and then they were going to come back and
beat me up that much worse for the interruption, but they just walked off,
laughing and talking with each other.

I knew that Chris usually
got what he wanted from just about everyone but our parents, but the concept of
graft hadn’t really clicked in my young brain. When we got home, I was
astounded to find out that those kids had bought him lunch and even given him
some money so I could get something the next day.

Chris told me to take it
as an apology, but I was a bit of a hothead as a child. I yelled at him for not
beating the crap out of the kids and I called him all sorts of names for going
off and having lunch with my tormenters. I’m pretty sure I phrased it
differently.

Chris just sat there and
listened. I didn’t know back then that that was just part of his innate talent
for manipulating people, but even as mad as I was, I couldn’t help but feel
like he was really listening to me, really taking what I was saying to heart.
By the time I was done going off on him, I didn’t even feel angry anymore and
he hadn’t said a single word.

He waited until he was
sure that I was done and he asked me whether I would rather have revenge on
those kids now and feel good for a few hours or trick those guys into being my
friends. That way, he said, I’d have protection from other bullies and I could
slowly bleed them of their lunch money.

I didn’t really
understand what he meant by the last part—partly because I stopped listening
after he asked if I wanted revenge, and I immediately decided the answer was
yes—but he heard me out as I described every violent thing I wanted him to do
to those kids.

I told him that as my big
brother, it was his responsibility to take out anyone who messed with me. He
just let me talk myself out.

When I’d finally gotten
it all out, he just took a breath and told me to let him try it his way for a
week. If I didn’t like the way it was going, he’d “mess them up with a tree
branch or something.” I don’t know why I remember the phrase so clearly.

I didn’t want to wait a
week. I didn’t want to wait a day.

I wanted Chris to track
them down right then and there, and I was ready to help him go through the
phone book to do it, but something had happened in the time he was letting me
go off. I wasn’t as angry.