by Amity Cross
I hoped it was Hamish because Storm had an ass beating coming to him.
The crowd let out a collective ohhh as someone landed a hit, and I squirmed.
“What’s up your ass?” Sandra asked. “You’re pacing like a hungry lion.” She gestured to the empty bar, waving her hand like a model gesturing to the grand showcase prize pack on a game show. “We never get lulls. Enjoy the silence, Lori. Enjoy it.”
The last thing I wanted to do was explain my raised anxiety levels. Then the questions would start, and I didn’t want to be flapping my gums about what happened with Storm. It was humiliating enough, and if it began to spread around The Underground, I may as well just curl up into a ball and cry endless tears of humiliation.
The fight went on, and I tried to put it out of my mind even when everyone started chanting Goblin at the top of their lungs. Pulling a rack of clean glasses out of the dishwasher, I smiled to myself. I hoped he’d landed one right in Storm’s filthy balls.
Placing the heavy load of glasses onto the bench, I got a funny feeling I was being watched. My skin began to prickle, and I uncurled my fingers from the rack, wondering if it was a good idea to turn around. Maybe I should arm myself. For a second, I tried to think of a suitable weapon that was within reaching distance until I shrugged off the stupid notion. The only thing there was a stack of pint glasses.
Glassing a guy at The Underground. That was a surefire way to get booted out onto the street.
Sighing, I turned and saw Hamish standing on the other side of the bar, his gaze fixed on me like a target. He’d come straight out of the cage and was dripping sweat and blood everywhere. He was bare chested, and his hands were wrapped tight, and I found myself staring at his tattooed pecs. I think I licked my lips, but I wasn’t sure I was seeing things clearly or if he was a mirage. You know, like water in a desert or some other metaphor for the sexually starved.
I blinked once, and he was still standing there. I blinked again, and this time, I realized he was real.
“What’s with you and Storm?” he asked, slamming his palms down onto the bar.
“You’re bleeding,” I said, hedging around his question. Grabbing a serviette from the stack under the bar, I pressed it against his eyebrow. He swatted my hand away but took the little square of paper and pressed it over the cut himself.
“What’s the score with you two?” he asked again.
“It’s no big deal,” I said with a shrug.
“Lori,” he said more firmly. “Tell me.”
“We went out a couple of times,” I said, which was true. “He went to America to try his luck in the UFC, and I stayed here. It didn’t work.” A thin explanation that glossed over all the major plot points and cut out all the spoilers.
“I don’t like the way he talks to you,” he snarled. “I don’t like the way he talks about you, either.”
“What?” I asked, my blood starting to chill.
“He’s got a fuckin’ nasty mouth on him. I shut it once, and I’ll shut it again if I hear him talk about you like that again.”
“Like what?”
Hamish pulled the serviette away from his eyebrow. Glancing at the blood, he hissed and then dabbed the cut again.
“Hamish, like what?” I asked more forcibly.
“He was talkin’ about your…” He gestured to my vagina, and I scowled.
“My vagina is none of his business.”
His jaw tensed. I’d pegged him for a teeth grinder, and right now, he was going for broke. His teeth would be bloody stumps if he didn’t take a beat.
“Did you win?” I asked.
“Smashed his face into the ground,” he replied, his eyes blazing.
“Well, go wash up, Hercules,” I retorted. “You’re dripping your man sweat all over my clean bar, and your testosterone is maxing out all over the place.”
He glanced down. “That thing is clean? You’re delusional.” He opened his mouth but then shut it like he thought better. Then he said, “No woman ever complained about my testosterone levels before.”
I scrunched up my nose. “You might want to put a cold compress on your head, too.”
He slammed his free hand down onto the bar and eyeballed me. “There’s more to it.”
I shrank away slightly. “More to what?”
“You and him.”
“Leave it,” I said, glancing at the people around us who were enjoying the show. If they weren’t talking before, they definitely were now. I didn’t want to be the center of anyone’s attention. I just wanted to coast under the radar. It was safe and warm where no one had anything they could use against me.
“He thinks he’s got a claim on you.” Hamish glared at me as if it were all my fault, and maybe it was—for forcing a guy like him, like Storm, to commit when I couldn’t even put my own life on hold to go to America while he fought for his dream. Shit, now I was blaming myself for the guy’s infidelity.
“Don’t,” I snapped at Hamish. “Don’t think you know shit about it because you don’t. I don’t need you to fight my battles, Hamish. I didn’t ask you to.”
“Don’t you want anyone to care for you?” he asked.
“What’s that meant to mean?”
“Shove a little harder,” he hissed. “I can take it.”
Glancing at my hands, I took a deep breath. After nothing for so long, now there was an influx of everything. Hamish. Storm. Swirling emotions I thought I’d locked away for eternity had been set loose.
The only thing I’d learned tonight was I hadn’t dealt with the pain from what had happened the night I walked in on Storm’s fuck fest. It was like the universe was playing a cruel trick on me. The moment I was strong enough to take a risk and put myself back out there, my past had come sauntering back into my present like a parasite.
“Hamish, we’ve known each other for what…two weeks?” I said, looking back up at him. “It’s a little soon to be fighting like this.”
He stared at me for a moment and then pushed off the bar. “Yeah,” he said, dabbing his eyebrow with the serviette again. “Yeah…”
Then he turned and strode away, the crowd parting to let him through. Seriously, they just stepped aside like he was bloody royalty or something. I supposed in these parts he was, which was just another carriage on the insane train of The Underground.
Hamish and me? That was just as absurd.
Sandra appeared beside me, snapping me out of my daze. Her mouth was hanging open as she stared after Goblin. “What was that about?”
A man that protective over a friend after two weeks? I didn’t know what that was about, but it was leaning too far into a zone that didn’t have much to do with friendship. I was clearly not ready to go there with anyone.
“We’re friends,” I said, knowing it sounded lame. “He was looking out for me.”
“He fought Storm?” she asked, grabbing my shoulder. “The dude you doused in soda water?”
I blinked hard, dazzled by her overenthusiasm. “Yeah.”
“Shit, Lori,” she said. “You and Goblin?”
“It’s not like that,” I complained, shrugging her hand off. “It’s not…romantic.”
“Are you sure? Because he looked mad.”
“I’m sure.”
She eyeballed me in much the same way Hamish had just done. It was an attempt at intimidating me into handing over the goods. “Are you really one-hundred-percent super-duper sure?”
“Why does it always have to be more? He’s a guy, and I’m a girl. So what? We can be friends without all the other shit. What’s the big deal?”
Sandra looked me up and down and pouted. “If you say so.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I cursed, much to her amusement, and strode off to the opposite end of the bar.
“You just keep telling yourself what you want to hear,” she called out after me. “It doesn’t change the fact he was making eyes at you.”
I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to fall for another guy who
was constantly propositioned by other women. I didn’t want a guy who’d screw around on me. I didn’t want to let anyone in far enough to hurt me ever again.
So what the fuck was I doing with Hamish?
What did I want from him?
I wanted his friendship, but deep down, I didn’t want to be alone anymore.
Loneliness strangled the life out of people’s souls. I had taken a master class in it, so I should know.
I didn’t want to be alone, but was this thing with Hamish genuine or a Band-Aid for something that might never be able to be fixed? I had to figure it out before either one of us got deeper in this unconventional relationship.
Hamish didn’t deserve the runaround. He was one of those rare mythical creatures that believed in treating a woman like she had a brain. Then there was the fact he was a fighter with a body that begged to be worshipped. Hamish McBride was the Holy Grail.
Nope. He didn’t deserve the runaround.
Not at all.
11
Hamish
I felt unsettled for days after the fight with Storm.
Thursday turned into Friday, which turned into Saturday, and I was still jittery.
They’d moved Ma into a different ward at the hospital, one specifically designed for cancer patients, and I’d taken to calling before I visited. Today, she was feeling better, so I went in to sit with her for a few hours before I went to The Underground.
When I walked in, she looked me up and down and asked, “Who are you?”
On days she didn’t recognize me at all, I decided to tell her I was a volunteer, and I was there to keep her company. It was better that way. I’d learned the more I tried to force her to remember me, the more distressed she’d become, and that wasn’t good for either of us.
If I pretended to be just a guy, she’d be much happier. I wanted her to be happy, and Ma was at her brightest when she could talk someone’s ear off.
“I’m Hamish,” I replied, dragging the chair across the room and placing it next to the bed. “I’m a volunteer…”
“I have a son named Hamish,” she declared. “And you’re Irish.”
“That I am.” I sat, placing my bag at my feet.
“What is a handsome young fellow like you volunteerin’ for? Are you some kind of student?”
Playing along, I nodded. “It’s to teach us bedside manner. It’s very important, you know.”
“I’ll say. Some of these people are rude as hell. It’s good to teach you young people how to relate to someone to their face and not through a screen.”
I smiled, trying not to let my broken heart show. “You’re right.”
“So you just come and sit with all the old, sick people?” she asked, looking me over.
I nodded.
“They tell me I’ve got cancer again,” she declared, taking me by surprise. Ma didn’t recognize me, but she understood what was happening to her. I wasn’t sure if there was a medical term for it, but there was a little bit of clarity in her mind today. Selective but it was there. I lived for these moments.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied.
“Would you stay for a while?” she asked. “I don’t have much to talk about, but I’d like the company. My husband isn’t around anymore, and my son is a hard worker. He’s a fighter, you know.”
At the mention of me, I felt a pang of sadness. “A fighter? You don’t say?”
“He’s really good,” she said proudly. “He does that mixed martial arts. He’s not in the professional leagues or anythin’, but he wins a lot of tournaments. I tell him all the time he should be one of those big-time world champions, but he won’t listen.”
“I’m sure he has a reason…”
“He won’t leave me. That’s his reason.”
My heart twisted. “He obviously cares a great deal for you, then.”
She smiled, a faraway look in her eyes, and I knew her mind was slipping again. Her memories came and went without a care for where or who she was with, but that was the disease. No matter how much I hated it and wished for the opposite, it was just how it was.
“You should get some rest, Mrs. McBride,” I said. “I’ll stay with you awhile if that’s what you’d like.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, settling back into the pillows. “Because I’d like that.”
“It’s no problem at all.”
“Do you have homework? Because you can do your homework, and I won’t tell.”
I laughed and nodded. “You’re real clued in, Mrs. McBride.”
“Of course, I am. I’m Irish.”
She smiled and smoothed her long, graying hair behind her ears, flipping the length over her right shoulder. The gesture was so familiar I found myself smiling as memories from my childhood in the Australian outback flooded back. We’d gone from green rolling hills and snowy winters to blistering summers and red dirt that got into everything.
Technically, I did have some homework to do on Lori’s behalf.
Opening the laptop I’d stashed in my bag, I connected to the hospital’s Wi-Fi, clicked on a web browser, and started searching. I didn’t know Storm’s real name, but how hard could it be to track down a guy in the UFC? Those guys had high profiles, what with all their stats and training publicized for gambling sites, television, and Internet coverage…the whole works. I just had to find the right keywords, and then I was set.
Glancing at Ma, who was sleeping soundly, I wondered what she’d make of all this. Of me and Lori and my sudden need to protect. She’d tell me to take the risk, that’s what she’d do. Ma was always about living life to the full, taking leaps and bounds into the unknown. She was one-hundred-percent Irish, through and through. I wondered if she was like that before Da left or if his betrayal had caused her to see life from another perspective. She’d agreed to move to Australia with him when I was still a child, so maybe she had been like that her entire life. Halfway across the world was a big thing.
Turning back to the computer, I continued my search for dirt on Storm. If he’d done something that would come back and hurt Lori, I’d find it.
It didn’t take long before I hit pay dirt. A few choice keywords like Australian UFC disqualification narrowed down to the last year had given me all the information I needed…including his name. Staring at the picture attached to the article on a UFC fan site, I couldn’t believe my luck. I’d recognize his ugly face anywhere, especially after I slammed it into a concrete floor two nights ago.
Mark Ryder.
I scanned the article, and the further I went down the page, the more my rage grew.
Six months ago, a ring girl came forward to the UFC complaining about a fighter who she’d been dating. She had bruising around her neck that police later confirmed were strangulation marks. Someone had placed their hands around the girl’s neck and tried to choke the life from her. The perpetrator was later named as one Mark Ryder, an Australian fighter who was a new entry into the UFC’s welterweight division.
The ring girl had also made claims he’d harmed her in other places that were easily hidden after convincing her it was just some twisted sex game he liked to play. It wasn’t until things went too far that she realized she was in real danger and got herself out.
When the story broke in the media, Ryder lost his sponsorships, and the UFC was forced to drop him from the roster altogether, effectively banning him from ever competing again. Considering they had a zero tolerance policy against physical abuse of any kind, there was nothing Ryder could do to sway the UFC to reconsider.
No wonder the guy had come back to The Underground with his tail between his legs. No one knew his real name, at least not yet, and it was the only place that was left he could fight at. Even if his true identity came out, it wouldn’t matter. That was the screwed-up part. I could name at least five guys in that place who had worse rap sheets than Storm. Way worse.
Snorting, I closed the laptop, my mind going to Lori. She’d been with a guy like that? It explained
a lot of things but left a great deal of question marks over everything else.
What if he abused her like he did that ring girl? She was holding something back when I’d asked her about him after the fight. She’d hedged around the obvious like a pro. Like somebody scared of being hurt would. I’d thought it was emotional, but now I was practically certain it was otherwise.
I began to imagine the same kind of marks on Lori’s skin—black bruises and broken bones—and my blood began to boil, causing the vein in my forehead to throb. I should have cracked his skull wide open. If he’d touched Lori like that, I’d fucking kill the guy.
Turning my attention back to Ma, she was fast asleep and snoring softy, oblivious to her son sitting next to her. There were a lot of things I didn’t have any control over, like her cancer or her Alzheimer’s, but I did have control over Storm and his access to Lori. I could do something about her safety, and that was everything to a guy like me.
Sliding the laptop back into my bag, I stood and leaned over Ma. Kissing her forehead softly, I pulled up her blankets and tucked her in. Before I went, I made sure she had water and her bag of lollies was in reach. She loved her barley sugar candies.
One good thing came out of my search for the scumbag of the century. It kept my mind off the cancer I may or may not have and my ma and her first chemotherapy session on Tuesday. At least it had done something for my troubles, for whatever pittance it was worth.
Right now, The Underground was calling with another fight and a frank discussion with Lori Walker.
Talk about the weight of the fucking world on my shoulders.
I beat my opponent in record time that night.
The last thing I wanted was to have a blow up with Lori right before I stepped into the cage, not when I had a new round of bills from the hospital to pay. Now more than ever I needed to win and win big. The best of the best cost a pretty penny.
With my hair still damp from my shower, I was weaving my way through the crowd around the bleachers, intent on finding Lori, when I almost smacked into a familiar face.
