By the time we were on our second beers, things were loosening up between us.
Brooklyn took a sip of her drink and noticed I was watching her. She swallowed and gave me a look. “Why are you staring at me like that, Brown?”
“I’m surprised is all.”
“Surprised? Why?”
“First of all, you drink almost as fast as me and that’s kind of impressive. Or scary. I’m not sure which.”
“What’s scary is how slow you drink, Brown. Where I come from, you’re a lightweight.”
I laughed, not sure if she was being serious. “You just—you seem like you belong here. And I didn’t think a girl like you would belong in a place like this.”
“A girl like me? You don’t even know me.”
“No, but…I mean, you’re cute and put together and smart. You seem like the kind of girl who’d want to be taken to a nice dinner or maybe a Celtics game. Not to a shitty dive bar.”
Taryn snapped her towel as she walked by. “What kind of way is that to talk about your second home?”
“Yeah, Brown,” Brooklyn said, smirking as she took another sip from her beer.
“Where are your manners?”
“Sorry. I’m trying to compliment you.”
“It doesn’t sound like it.” She leaned forward, eyebrows raised, mouth open. “I think you’re scared of me, Brown.”
“Why would I be scared of you?”
“Because you know I’m not a pushover.” She suddenly got up from her barstool and stood next to me, her breasts practically pushing up against me as I stayed in my seat.
“I never thought you were a pushover.”
“I bet you’re used to those dumb fight groupies. The ones who just want to screw any guy with a tattoo and a pair of TapOut shorts.”
“I don’t mess with groupies.”
“Sure. That’s what they all say. I grew up around fighters, don’t forget. My daddy was the meanest, most full-of-shit one of them all. So excuse me if I don’t buy the nice guy act.”
I looked at her, trying to read her expression. I wasn’t sure if she was playing a game or not, but it seemed like she might be. “Daddy issues much?” I replied, putting the beer bottle to my lips.
She gave me a light slap across the face. It sounded louder and harder than it was, and some of the beer sloshed down my chin. “Hey. What the hell?”
Taryn whooped from the other side of the bar and started clapping. “Standing O, sister,” she called out.
Brooklyn nodded. “I told you, I’m not like those other girls. I don’t put up with that kind of shit.”
“Has anyone ever told you that maybe you’re a little high strung?” I asked, standing up and leaning over her now.
“A few guys have said it before.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
“But they stop complaining when I give them the best blowjob they’ve ever had in their life.”
I had to admit, she was kind of turning me on. Maybe it was the combination of drinking and flirting, and the fact that she was cute as hell and coming onto me. At the same time, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to go down this road with her. She was Quarry’s daughter.
A short guy with a Bruins cap and a curly red beard walked up beside me and asked for the set of darts.
Taryn reached under the bar and pulled out the box, handing it to him. “Make sure you bring ‘em all back. I count them and any are missing, you have to buy the entire set.”
“Sure thing.” The bearded man grinned.
Brooklyn was looking at him skeptically. “I bet my boyfriend and I can you’re your ass in darts,” she said.
I just stared. I couldn’t believe she’d actually referred to me as her boyfriend.
The guy looked at her. “Excuse me?”
Brooklyn pointed to another guy standing a few feet away. “Is that your friend?”
“Yeah.”
“And you two were going to play darts?”
“Yeah.” He grabbed the box and held it by his hip. “So what? You’re saying you two can beat us?”
“Fuck yes.”
I shook my head. “Brooklyn, you’ve never even seen them play.”
“Nope. But I know I’m damn good. I think I’m better than them.”
“You’ve never seen me play, either.”
She looked at me. “Afraid of getting beaten, Brown?”
“No. But damn, you really talk a lot of shit.”
The bearded guy reached his hand out to me. “I’m Neil, and my friend’s name is Tyson.”
“Oooh, Tyson, sounds scary,” Brooklyn laughed.
Neil leaned in closer. “Is your girlfriend drunk or just an a-hole?” he whispered.
“Uh—I guess I’m not sure,” I replied. “Maybe both.” And she’s not my girlfriend, I wanted to add, but decided not to bother. She was probably drunk and messing around with me.
He nodded as if this made total sense. “Anyway, we’ll play you guys. Want to put some money on it?”
Brooklyn was already walking toward the dartboard. She was carrying her nearly empty beer in one hand, and her hips swayed provocatively as she went.
I sighed. “Sure. Say, ten bucks a game?”
He grinned. “I love a gambling man. Come on.”
***
Another beer and two rounds of darts later, and we were about to lose the rubber match against Neil and Tyson.
Brooklyn was screaming, heckling Neil as he stood confidently at the line, marked by a piece of black tape on the floor, and held his final dart aloft.
“We’re about to close these fools out,” Tyson said. “Stay focused, bro.”
“Yeah, bro,” Brooklyn shouted. “Don’t lose focus or you might have to start questioning your manhood. A girl is about to kick your ass, bro. And then make you shave that big red Paul Bunyon beard.”
The smattering of customers in the bar laughed. Everyone was enjoying the Brooklyn show, which had been going on for well over half an hour.
I wasn’t so sure that I was enjoying it as much as everyone else. Half the time she’d been heckling our opponents, but the other half she’d been heckling me.
Finally, Neil tossed the dart. It went in a perfect arc and hit the final number they needed to close out the game.
Brooklyn bent over and pounded her fist once on the floor. “Dammit!” Then she straightened up and shook her head at me. “If you hadn’t choked on your last turn, we would have beaten them.”
I took ten dollars out of my wallet and handed it over to Tyson, who gave me a sympathetic shrug. “Nice playing with you.”
“Yeah, same here.”
“It wasn’t nice playing with you,” Brooklyn said, rolling her eyes.
Neil shoved the box of darts against my chest. “You can have it.” He leaned closer to my ear. “I’d keep playing, but personally, I can’t stand the sound of her voice.”
I took the box, nodding my understanding. “Thanks.”
“Like nails on a chalkboard,” he muttered, and then the two of them left the bar.
Brooklyn was watching me, her eyes almost turned to slits. “You threw that last game,” she said darkly. “I know it.”
“I didn’t throw the game, Brooklyn. And I think you need to slow down on the beer.”
“Fuck you, Brown.”
“Not likely.”
Her eyes widened for a moment. “What did you say?”
I smiled, enjoying the fact that I’d gotten under her skin. “You heard me. What’s the matter, you can dish it out but you can’t take it?”
She drank the last sip of her beer and then placed it on the small table beside her.
Then, quick as a cat, she reached out and grabbed the box of darts from my hands. “Oh, I can take it all right. I think you’re the one who can’t take it, Brown. You can’t take the heat.”
“Really.” I crossed my arms and smirked at her. “You think I’m afraid of you.”
“Oh, I know you’re afraid of
me, and I’m going to prove it.”
“Go for it.”
“We each get one shot,” she said, and then held up one finger. “One shot only.
Whoever gets the highest score wins.”
“Wow, that’s really frightening,” I sighed. “You do remember I fight for a living, right?”
“But it remains to be seen if you have what it takes when everything’s on the line, Brown. One shot. If I win, you kiss me.”
I laughed. “You think I’m afraid to kiss you, Brooklyn?”
“Yeah. Because I’m a real, strong woman and not one of those drooling fight groupies you’re all about.”
“You have no idea what I’m all about.”
My mind flashed to Lindsay. She was about as far from a fight groupie as you could get.
Yeah, but Lindsay’s not here, is she? Because she doesn’t belong here and you do.
“Prove what you’re all about then, Brown. Show me what you’ve got.”
“And if I win, you have to kiss…my feet.”
“Your feet?” She pulled a face.
“Two big kisses. One for each foot. Down on your knees.”
“Oh, I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Me down on my knees?”
I just laughed. “Go ahead, Brooklyn. Take the first shot. Enough talking.”
She glared at me, but then she put the box of darts down on the table next to her empty beer, pulled one yellow dart from the case, and walked to the line. She was focused, like this was the Olympics and she was going for a gold medal.
I decided that Brooklyn might have been the most competitive girl—no, the most competitive person—I’d ever met in my life.
She took aim and threw. The dart landed in the outer circle of the Bulls eye.
“Not bad,” I told her.
“Not bad? Not bad? Brown, you are toast and you don’t even know it yet.”
I went and grabbed a dart from the box and quickly moved to the line. I focused in on the Bulls eye. I knew I could hit it. I’d done it a few times already that day. But the question was, did I really want to win?
Sure, it would be funny for Brooklyn to have to kiss my feet. It would be satisfying to beat her and shut her mouth for a second.
On the other hand, I was starting to feel like I was in quicksand. I couldn’t stop thinking about Lindsay. I hadn’t been able to sleep, and she continually crept into my mind at the worst moments. Maybe what I needed was a shock to the system.
Maybe what I needed was someone to take my mind off of her.
“Are you going to throw it or what?” Brooklyn demanded.
I glanced at her. She was beautiful. She was hot. Maybe she wasn’t Lindsay, but she was damn good looking. And she acted as though she liked to keep things interesting in the bedroom. There were worse ways to spend an evening then with a girl like Brooklyn. And maybe…maybe afterward, I’d be able to sleep.
I smiled at Brooklyn and tossed the dart without even looking at where I was throwing it.
“You lost on purpose,” she said.
“What if I did?” I turned to face her. “Is that bad?”
“I don’t know. We still haven’t answered the question about you. When there’s a big moment, can you really come through? Or are you just going to choke?”
“Okay, let’s answer it then.” I walked towards her, and she seemed a little taken aback.
“What are you doing, Brown?”
“You made the best, Brooklyn. Are you scared to go through with it?”
“No.” But her eyes were nervous. She looked up at me.
“I think you might be. Just a little bit.”
“Fuck you.”
“We’ll see.” And then I leaned in and kissed her.
We kissed for longer than needed.
And then we broke off. Brooklyn’s face was flushed. She smiled. “Damn, you’re a great kisser.”
“I think we’ve made our point and now it’s time to go.”
“Go where?”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go to your place.”
LINDSAY
“Oh my God!” Rachel exclaimed. “It’s Justin!”
“What?” We were studying in the library and I turned and looked behind me, my pulse racing, half-expecting to see him walking through the door.
“No, not here here,” Rachel said. “Here.” She turned her laptop around and showed me the screen.
It was open to a page on Boston.com, and sure enough, there was a picture of Justin. “TWO LOCAL BOYS SET FOR SHOWDOWN,” the headline read.
I read the first few lines.
“Two local fighters, Justin Brown and Uriah Burns, will take to the cage on Saturday to try and determine which hometown boy will make it to the big-time and a chance at UFF stardom.”
I quickly stopped reading. “I don’t care,” I said.
Rachel looked at me skeptically. “Really? You don’t care?”
“No,” I lied, wishing that is was true—that I really didn’t care.
The picture of Justin on the screen was making me yearn for him. I didn’t know where they’d gotten it from, but he had his hands up in a fighting stance, and the look in his eyes was intense and sexy. You could only see him from the waist up, but it was still obvious how completely perfect his body was. The visual I had of him in my mind was enough to keep me on edge — I didn’t need a picture to remind me.
“You do care,” Rachel said. “You care a lot, I bet.”
“Care about what?” Adam asked. He’d been studying with us, but had left to go grab us coffees. Now he set them down on the table and slid back into his seat.
“Nothing,” I said and gave Rachel a look. It was a look that said “don’t bring this up in front of Adam” but either she didn’t get it, or she just didn’t care.
“Justin,” she said. “Apparently he’s going to be in some big fight.”
“A fight I don’t care about.” I turned the laptop back toward Rachel, and Adam leaned over and peered at the screen.
“Oh, God,” he said. “Please tell me you’re not still hanging out with that douche bag.”
“I’m not,” I said.
“But she wants to,” Rachel reported.
“No, I don’t!”
“I wonder if he’s going to win,” Rachel said, wrapping a piece of her hair around her finger in contemplation. “They’re saying it’s a big fight, that Drew Ellis is going to be there and everything.”
“Who the hell is Drew Ellis?” Adam asked.
“The head of the UFF,” Rachel said.
I looked at her, raising my eyebrows. “How do you know all this stuff?”
“It’s in the comments!” she said.
“You read the comments?”
“Yeah, I’m reading them right now.” Her eyes were back on the screen, her fingers on the mouse pad as she scrolled through. “Wow, a lot of girls think Justin’s hot.”
Adam shook his head in disgust. “That guy’s not hot. That guy’s a thug. That’s like saying Chris Brown is hot.”
“I think Justin’s nice,” Rachel said, her eyes still on the screen. “I think I’m going to go to his fight.”
“You are not!” I reached out and grabbed for my coffee, mostly so I’d have something to do with my hands. My body was suddenly filled with nervous energy, and my leg started jittering up and down.
“Why not?” Rachel asked, like her going to Justin’s fight was the most normal thing in the world. “I’ve never seen an MMA fight before.”
“They’re violent,” I said.
“You’ve been?”
“No, but I mean, I’ve seen them on TV before.” I didn’t mention that after I met Justin I’d spent a bunch of time watching YouTube clips of UFF fights. It wasn’t an important detail.
“We should go,” Rachel said. “It’ll be fun!” Her eyes were sparkling, like she’d just come up with some great idea for a day at the water park or something, and wasn’t suggesting that I go somewhere that a g
uy who had broken my heart was going to be.
“No way.” I shook my head.
“No way,” Adam agreed. “That guy is trouble. He’s a stalker. He stalks Lindsay.”
Rachel shrugged. “Well, whatever. I’m still going.”
“You’re not!” The thought of her going was almost unbearable.
“Why not? I don’t have any other plans.” She started typing something on her laptop.
What was I going to do, knowing that she’d be in the same vicinity as Justin? I imagined her coming home from the fight, and me asking her millions of questions, driving her crazy with everything from if he’d won to what he was wearing and whether or not any other girls had been trying to talk to him.
“You’re not going to talk to him, are you?” I asked desperately.
“Please,” Adam scoffed. “Good luck trying to have a conversation with that guy.
He can hardly speak English.”
Rachel didn’t say anything. She was still typing.
“Hello!” I said. “Don’t just ignore me.”
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I was just typing a comment.”
“A comment?”
“Yeah, you know, on the article? There’s a whole bunch of people talking about what an epic fight it’s going to be.”
“What did your comment say?”
“Just that I know JB, and that I’m sure he’s going to bring it.”
“You didn’t leave it under your real name, did you?” I had a mental picture of Justin reading the article and scrolling down to the comments, recognizing Rachel’s name and thinking I’d put her up to it.
“Hopefully not,” Adam said. “That dude is dangerous, you really need to stay off his radar.”
“Of course I didn’t leave it under my real name,” Rachel said, and rolled her eyes like she couldn’t believe I would insinuate such a thing. “I’m using my screen name, GoddessAthena99.”
“You have a screen name for Boston.com?” I asked.
“How else am I going to comment?” Rachel replied.
“Why do you have to comment at all?” Adam asked. He shook his head in disgust and glared down at his textbook.
“Because some people on here get me worked up,” Rachel said. “Like in the political articles.”
“You shouldn’t argue with people on the internet,” Adam said. “It’s a waste of time.”
Relentlessly Reckless Page 3
