by JD Hawkins
I can hear the hurt in her voice, and it hurts me too. “Jaime,” I say, making it sound like encouragement. “That’s not true.”
She tries to speak again but instead she covers her mouth with her hand, looking out at the street with faintly damp eyes as if embarrassed someone there might see her like this.
I reach across the table and put a hand on hers. She turns her eyes to it, before biting her lip and blinking back her tears, nothing to say, only nodding at the connection of my hand with hers.
The drinks come just then, causing us to break apart, and Jaime to gain some composure from having something else to focus on, the teaspoon breaking the cream, whipping the cinnamon on top of it into her drink.
“Anyway,” she says, her voice steadier now, “we don’t have to talk about it.”
“I want to talk about it,” I say, still focused on her, my smoothie untouched.
Jaime looks at me over the lifted coffee cup as her thin lips take the most royal of sips.
“I’ve thought about that fight we had, a lot,” I admit, “every day since it happened. I still think you were out of line, to talk to me like that.” Jaime raises an eyebrow, waiting for the sign of a fight, but I continue, “but I still overreacted. I get that. I’m a proud person,” I say, laughing at myself a little, “and I can’t really deny that anymore. I don’t want to be given a handout, or charity. I don’t want to succeed at something because my sister is wealthy and incredibly successful—it might sound like a small thing to you, but it’s huge for me.”
“Frankie, everybody needs help sometimes, there’s no shame in that.”
“Maybe,” I say, breathing in deeply, bracing myself for the moment I rehearsed in my head a million times on the way here, “but I don’t want it for free.”
Jaime bites the inside of her lip and looks at me askew, as if the rest of what I’m thinking will reveal itself if she looks hard enough. “What do you mean? I know you’d pay me back eventually, and if you can’t then you can’t. That money was meant to be a gift, a contribution.”
I breathe deeply again, push my smoothie aside, and put my elbows on the table, as if I can show her what I mean with the space between my hands.
“If you do want to…give me that money…then it’s only right that I give you a share of the business.”
Jaime’s eyes seem to explode in size, her mouth opening in a shocked smile.
“You want to take me on as an investor?”
“Yes. If you’re interested. And you’d get a share of profits…” I trail off, looking away bashfully, lowering my voice, “when I—we—make them. And we will.” I turn back to her. “And you can have a say in the business decisions, too. I trust your judgment.”
If Jaime looked surprised before, she looks like she’s hallucinating now, eyes slightly unfocused as if in a daze, mouth still wide open.
“What would I know about running a yoga studio?”
“I’m the yoga teacher,” I answer quickly. “But I’m not—”
“Good at finances,” Jaime says, with a wry grin.
“Exactly,” I admit. “I’m sure I’ve made a bunch of mistakes with my budget, pricing, that kind of thing. I’ve spent more time staring at spreadsheets than I have actually giving lessons, and I’ve only just figured out what the big ‘Z’ is for.”
Jaime laughs at my ineptitude, and I somehow manage to laugh along with her. “Autosum,” she says, and for once it sounds more like a friendly gesture than a motherly lecture.
“Right,” I say, keeping the smile even after the laughter fades.
“I told you, Frankie, I’d be happy to do your accounting for free.”
“And I wouldn’t be happy with you doing it for free. But maybe if we actually were in it together…”
“Frankie...it takes more than a neatly-done budget report to make a business work.”
“I know—but things are happening! I made this three-month plan, and I’m just over two months into it. I’ve started advertising a lot more, Woodland Shakes is giving me coupons to hand out, and they might even start selling their products in the studio. There’s a local sporting goods store interested in giving us free mats and other equipment in exchange for company yoga lessons. My class sizes have almost doubled, Jim’s doing extra classes as of next week, we’re on the verge of hiring a receptionist again and once Connor starts giving kids’ judo lessons we’ll really be—”
“Connor?” Jaime says, her previously relaxed voice tightening into a sharp, angular strike. “The fighter you were fooling around with that day I…” she trails off, decency restraining her from bringing up the incident, but the bitterness is there in her expression.
“Yes,” I say, sitting up straight to show I won’t hide. “That Connor.”
“You’re not…” she trails off again, but the incredulity with which she says those two words are enough to extrapolate from.
“I am. He’s my boyfriend. And he’s a great one.” I think for a moment about this morning, about how I tried to break things off with him, how awful we both felt about it, and then shove the thought away.
Jaime twists her lips together and tightens her posture. It took a long time, and we went the long way around, but I should never have been foolish enough to think the stand-off wasn’t going to happen.
“He’s not a thug anymore? He’s working for you instead?”
“He’s still very much a professional fighter,” I say, annunciating fighter enough to erase her dismissal of him as a thug. “But believe it or not, he’s also really great with kids. And he wants to help me, and this is just one of the ways he’s doing that.”
“Frankie,” Jaime says, after shaking her head for a full five seconds, “all this about the studio sounds wonderful. But getting involved with someone like him will undo everything that—”
“I’m not asking you to invest in my relationship,” I cut her off, sternly, “I’m asking you to invest in my business.”
Jaime grits her teeth, if only to hold back the barbed comments and strict advice that are boiling inside of her. She looks away, shakes her head a few more times, then looks back at me.
“What’s going to happen to the studio if I don’t take up your offer of investment?”
I pause, looking down at my lap as I genuinely consider the prospect. I don’t want to sugarcoat, but at the same time I don’t want to concede complete defeat.
“It’ll be tough,” I say, meeting her gaze to assure her I’m telling the truth. “I’ll just about be able to cover last month’s expenses. I asked David for three months—if I had asked for four I’d have been sure to make it, that we’d cover everything we owe and start turning a profit. We’re getting stronger every day, but the fact is, if David doesn’t give me just a little more time, he can still pull the plug.”
Jaime’s face is drawn tight, but I can still see the battle raging just beneath the skin. Her disapproval of Connor, the memory of finding me with my hand on his cock still jabbing at her prudish sensibility like an insult. All of it set against the knowledge that I might lose it all if she doesn’t reach over and help, indulge her little sister’s unrealistic optimism and naïve business ventures.
She breaks away to grab her purse, in a single motion opening it and pulling out a twenty dollar bill with the quickness of somebody who knows exactly where her money is. She slaps it down on the table and clicks her purse shut, then stands up.
“I’ll need to think about it,” she says, before turning and walking away.
The fact that I know she means it is all the farewell I can expect.
21
Connor
We’re in the same room, the three of us. Me, Butch, and Matt. No camera followed us in here today; they’re probably in Pete’s dressing room on the other side of the conference hall. In less than one week we fight, but today we’re going to play head games to a hall of baying journalists.
I used to love this, maybe even a little more than fighting, and maybe t
hat was part of my problem, but now it feels like a chore. I wanna fight, wanna get in the ring with Pete and put everything Frankie’s taught me to the test. I feel like there’s an army on my side, like I’m ten times tougher than anyone else could possibly be. I used to love telling people I’m invincible—now I’m just happy to know it.
“He’s gonna try and bait you,” Butch says, leaning over me as I lounge back on the couch. He steps away and Matt comes forward as if tagged in.
“Don’t get angry, don’t lose control,” Matt says, like the next line in a rap song.
Butch comes forward again. “He’ll look for something to wind you up with. Your mother, your father, your performance at the Hendrix fight. Be prepared for any shit that he throws at you.”
“And the journalists will, too,” Matt says, picking up the thread again. “They’ll probably try and throw you curveballs. Ask you if this will be your last fight in the UFC. What you’ll do if you lose—with an emphasis on the ‘lose.’”
“Be as boring as you can, Connor,” Butch advises. “You can make your jokes, talk yourself up a bit, but don’t go after Pete. Let him get himself into a frenzy.”
“What are you thinking? You nervous, dude?” Matt says, joining Butch as they peer down at me like doctors to a patient.
They wait for me to speak, for me to reveal what’s simmering inside. Anxious anticipation in their eyes. I switch my lazy gaze between the two of them.
“I got to get a yoga mat. I keep forgetting.”
They both disperse, Butch shaking his head at Matt, who casts an expression like he’s out of options. Doctor’s verdict: he’s crazy.
Only I’m not. Well, not from Pete, anyway. Frankie’s the only one who can stir me now. Who can make me angry, sore, make me lose my mind—or more likely, give me a sense of achievement and happiness I never got from a fight. Pete’s gonna have to be happy appearing as a minor footnote in a life that’s now about the beautiful, incredible woman that’s taken it over.
“Time!” a head poked through a crack in the door calls.
I nod, get up, and hammer two palms onto the shoulders of two friends.
“Relax,” I say. “I got this.”
I lead the way through the corridor, through the side doors, out onto a stage. Claps this time, reserved and respectful, but nowhere near as excited as the cheers I got last time. I don’t showboat, keep a polite smile, take my seat like I’m sitting down to dinner.
I hear Pete coming before I see him—or more precisely, hear the roar of the impartial journalists as he appears. I don’t need to glance over to see what he looks like—one glance at him and Pete’s face would be burned into anyone’s memory.
Round head, scarred and pockmarked. A post-watershed slasher villain, Frankenstein’s monster on a bad hair day. A face that looks like it was made of clay by a kid with no patience, who gave up around the time he tried smoothing that giant nose. Pete’s the only one who can psyche another fighter out by smiling at them, ‘cause you just know a face like his can’t hold thoughts that aren’t as horrific and twisted as what’s on the surface.
I wait for him to reap in the applause and take a seat, feeling his eyes burning into the side of my neck. I turn to him, give him the kind of smile I usually reserve for women across barrooms, a quick wink, and look back at the audience.
Screw trying to keep calm—this is gonna be fun.
The crowd noise dies down and after a few words the host opens the floor, pointing out a journalist to ask the press conference’s first question.
“Hey, this is for Pete. After what happened with Hendrix you’re the favorite for this fight, and a lot of people are treating this match like it’s a foregone conclusion. Is there a danger that you might underestimate Alpha Male? Are you expecting the fight to be tougher than a lot of people think?”
“I’m not expecting very much, to be honest,” Pete says in his husky, gravel-ridden bass tones. The kind of voice that sounds like it’s being filtered through hot rod exhaust pipes. “I’m not underestimating him at all. He’s a big guy, can hit hard, and can take some hits—he’s an ok fighter. But you’ve all seen just how good he is when the pressure’s on, and we all know Hendrix should’ve won that fight. Me? I’m a fucking destroyer. I can’t underestimate nobody, ‘cause I’m the undisputed champion in this division.”
He puts the mic down and the host points at someone else.
“Pete, you gave an interview where you seemed quite angry about having to fight Connor. You said you thought it was a waste of time. Do you still feel like that?”
“It’s a fucking waste of a title card,” Pete snarls into the mic as the crowd erupts in whoops of pleasure. “Give Reinaldo a title fight, give Daniel Vavros one, give Hendrix one. This guy…he’s an imposter. He’s like a snake oil salesman. He’s come into the lion’s den thinking that it was gonna be easy, but it’s very different on this side of the cage. Talking doesn’t get you anywhere once you step in the ring, and I’m gonna be the second guy to teach Connor that this year.”
I grab the mic from the table in front of me, bored of smiling at it as Pete goes on. I don’t want to disappoint Butch, but some things are just too irresistible.
“You know,” I say, “I remember once upon a time Pete would keep his big mouth shut before fights. He’d just sit there and grunt, pretend to be the strong, silent, ugly type. Now, for some reason, he’s talking big, trash talking. You know why? It’s because of me. I changed this game and I’ve only been here for five minutes.” I turn to look at Pete, who looks like he’s sitting on a volcano. “So let me tell you this: stick to looking like a bouncer at the worst strip club in town, and leave the talking to the real men.”
The crowd erupts into the kind of shocked frenzy usually reserved for car pile-ups and national disasters. The host steps in front of Pete to block his vision before he can get up, soothing him back into his seat where he grabs the mic in a grip that could break it.
“Boy, you’ve got some fucking balls on you to talk like that after getting your ass beat by a guy I wiped the floor with in February,” he spits into the mic. “I’m gonna finish your fucking career. The only fights you’ll be having are with that yoga bitch of yours.”
Sirens scream in my head, the veneer of laid-back coolness falling like a drawn veil. It takes half a second for me to realize he’s talking about Frankie, and the idea of her name coming out of his mouth sets my muscles ablaze.
I stand up, seat flying backward, and move toward him, as primitive instincts going back thousands of years, those of the caveman protecting his fire, the warrior his home, surge through me. I want to knock Pete’s head back so hard he won’t even be able to think of Frankie’s name, let alone say it.
Bodies dive in front of me, the black shirts of security filling my vision, stiff hands on my arms pulling me back. But it’s not them that stops me—I could barrel through all of them with the anger inside of me right now—it’s the idea of what Frankie would say, what Frankie would think if I lost it. Her conscience so intimately known to me it’s become a part of who I am, her concern so important to me I feel it more deeply than my own.
I smile, then laugh as one of the security guards sets my chair back up and I take it, Pete already motor-mouthing at his mic.
“…I’m training with the best guys in the country, and this guy’s giving judo lessons to toddlers. That’s about his level. And it’s a good thing he’s got something to do when he’s finished in the UFC—but I’m gonna embarrass him so badly even kids won’t wanna train with him.”
I laugh as the crowd revels in the chaos, then lean toward the mic again.
“Seriously though, some of those kids are pretty tough,” I say through a grin. The crowd laughs along with me, and I almost feel the steam flying out of Pete’s ears. “You don’t know pain until a seven year old girl has kicked you right in the balls. These animals don’t hold back.”
After a few more questions that Pete grimaces his way throug
h, and which I treat like an open mic night at a comedy club, we face off for the camera. This time there’s a security guard between us, keeping us at arm’s length—neither of us to be trusted any closer. Pete spits and snarls while I grin at him like a kid on his first zoo trip, and then I’m gone, back in the dressing room with a confused Matt and a pretty typical-sounding Butch.
“Are you fucking playing me for a fool, Connor?” he says, pacing up and down, eyes roving for something to kick. “You did the exact same fucking shit you did last time holy Mary mother of God!”
“It was different,” I say, grabbing a water and gulping from it. “I was completely in control this time.”
“In control?! You lost your head again!”
“Correction: I almost lost my head. And only ‘cause he mentioned Frankie,” I say, turning to Matt. “That’s a low blow, right?”
Matt shrugs, and Butch storms up to plant himself in front of me.
“You’ve just wound up the best fighter in the UFC. Given him every fucking reason to come at you with everything he’s got. He’s going to walk into that ring on Saturday at his very best, and don’t expect him to fight fair.”
“Good,” I say, swallowing down another gulp.
“Good? What the fuck does that mean?”
I put a palm on Butch’s shoulder.
“I want Pete at his best. I want to beat him at his best. I’ve got a point to prove.”
“Jesus Christ,” Butch says, smacking a hand to his forehead and walking away. “I can’t tell if you’ve gone completely mad or completely stupid.”
“Neither,” I respond. “I’m completely unafraid.”
22
Frankie
I’ve never played the part of ‘woman behind the man’ before, and I’ve never dated a fighter about to fight the biggest match of his life—so it isn’t a shock to find out I’m not that great at either. During the week leading up to the fight I get about as nervous as Connor should be, but annoyingly isn’t.
