Relentlessly Reckless

by Lucy Covington

  Everyone will want to see us fight. Only next time, it’ll probably be for the belt.”

  I laughed. “Enjoy your victory,” I said. “Go celebrate.”

  And then I walked out of the cage and into the locker room.

  My dressing room was almost empty.

  If I’d won, there would have been two-dozen people in there kissing my ass, but now, there was just Quarry, Z and Brooklyn. And nobody wanted to say a word.

  I pulled on my warm-up outfit as Quarry continued to pack up the last of the equipment.

  Finally, he looked up at me, as if he couldn’t contain himself any longer. “You blew it,” he said.

  “Yeah, I guess I did.”

  “That’s all you have to say for yourself?”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked at Brooklyn briefly, then back at me. “Maybe you’re mind wasn’t on fighting. Maybe you got caught up in some stupid shit and now you’re making me look the fool right along with you.”

  My jaw tightened. “You want me to grovel or something?”

  “I want to see that you care. You just lost the biggest fight of your life and you’re acting like you lost a game of checkers.”

  “Sorry I’m not sobbing and begging for forgiveness, Quarry. I lost a fight. It happens.”

  “It doesn’t happen. You let it happen.”

  “I don’t need to hear this shit right now. Just leave me alone, man.”

  “You want to be left alone? You got it. I have to go and try to smooth this over with Drew Ellis, anyway.” He turned and walked out. Z followed, giving me a halfhearted wave and a look of apology as he went.

  I laughed a little, not very surprised or sad to see them go.

  Brooklyn just stood there, near the doorway.

  “Go ahead,” I told her. “Say what you want to say already.”

  “I don’t know what happened tonight,” she said. “But I guess I agree with my dad.” And then she walked away, too.

  Good riddance, I thought. I slung my bag over my shoulder and made my way to the back exit. The last thing I needed now was to see or talk to anyone. I only wanted to make my escape.

  LINDSAY

  When the fight was over, I just sat there for a second, stunned. Then, before I even realized what I was doing, I was up and out of my seat.

  “Lindsay,” Adam said from the chair next to me. “Where are you going?”

  “I have to find Justin,” I said.

  Adam stood up. “Lindsay, no.” He shook his head. “You can’t. He’s not going to want to talk to you.”

  Rachel pushed him out of the way. “Linds –“ she started, but I cut her off.

  “Rachel,” I said, “Please.”

  She bit her lip. “Can’t you just call him later or something?”

  I shook my head.

  “This is ridiculous,” Adam said. “If you leave, we’re not waiting around for you.”

  “I don’t expect you to.” I looked at Rachel. I was going to go find Justin no matter what, but I wanted her to at least be supportive of my decision.

  “Fine,” she said after a moment, sighing. She seemed to think it over and become even more convinced. “You should go. I understand.”

  Adam moved to stop me again, but Rachel stepped in front of him. “No,” I heard her saying. “Let her go, Adam.”

  I turned and pushed through the crowd. The fight was over, but everyone was still pumped up, still jazzed from seeing what had just happened. People were talking excitedly, and I heard snatches of conversation as I fought my way to the door.

  “…best fight I’ve seen in a long time…”

  “…don’t know what happened, he just cracked…”

  “…almost knocked him out…”

  “…they have to have a rematch…”

  When I got out of the actual arena and into the long hallway that wrapped around the inside perimeter of the building, I followed the signs that pointed me to the locker room.

  There were a couple of fighters hanging out outside the locker room door. They were wearing red t-shirts that said “The Slaughterhouse” across the front.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Is this where Justin Brown is going to be?”

  They exchanged glances. “Who are you?” one of them asked, looking me up and down. I could tell he thought I was a groupie.

  “I’m a friend of his.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet,” the other one said.

  The first one punched him in the shoulder. “Ignore him.”

  “So is Justin going to be coming into the locker room this way?” I asked impatiently.

  “Nah, he’ll go in through the tunnel,” the second guy said. “And when he leaves, I bet he’ll go out the back of the building so that he doesn’t have to talk to anyone.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I was already heading for the front of the building.

  I fought my way out the front door and then quickly walked around to the back of the arena. There was only one door visible in the back lot—a dark green metal door with the words “LOCKER ROOM” stenciled on in black letters. A few cars were parked up against the building, and a fence ran along the other side of the parking lot, but that was it. There was no one else out here.

  I didn’t care. I wasn’t even scared that I was basically in a deserted alley. I was waiting for him, no matter how long it took.

  I waited by the fence, jumping back and forth from foot to foot to keep myself from getting too cold.

  I could hear noise from the front of the building, yelling, cars, horns honking. But out where I was waiting, there was pretty much nobody and nothing going on.

  There was a dumpster back there, and the smell was pretty bad, but I didn’t care.

  I didn’t care about anything except Justin.

  Fifteen more minutes passed, and I was just starting to think that maybe I’d missed him, that maybe those guys had been wrong, that maybe he’d gone out another door or left some other way.

  But then suddenly the green metal door opened and someone came out. As he emerged, I thought I might be hallucinating—except I wasn’t hallucinating at all, because it was clearly Justin.

  My heart started to race and I tried to steady myself.

  He was wearing a gray hoodie and a pair of loose black track pants. His dark hair was wet from the shower. Our eyes met, and I swear I stopped breathing for a moment. I waited for him to say something, anything that would let me know he missed me just as much as I missed him.

  But when he saw me standing there, his expression instantly hardened.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  Now that he was asking me, I wasn’t completely certain. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Okay.” My heart was hammering in my chest and excitement was thrumming through my body. I didn’t know what else to say. But I didn’t want to leave. Now that he was here, in front of me, all the feelings I’d had for him, all the twisted and confusing emotions came rushing back. It was overwhelming. And before I knew it, I was asking him the question that had been on my mind for weeks. “Why haven’t you called me?”

  He shook his head. “Go home, Lindsay,” he said. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because this isn’t the place for you.” He said it so matter-of-factly, like he was dismissing our conversation. Like he was dismissing me.

  My nervous excitement turned to anger. “Really, Justin?” I asked. “Then what is the place for me?”

  “Anywhere but here,” he muttered as he turned and started to walk away.

  “Anywhere but near me.”

  I followed him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I think it’s pretty self explanatory, Lindsay.”

  “Not to me, it’s not.”

  He turned and looked at me. “Isn’t it
kind of obvious that we don’t belong together? You’re trying to be a doctor and I’m trying to break people’s bones. Other than me keeping you in business, we don’t seem to lead complimentary lifestyles.”

  “I don’t care about your lifestyle, Justin. I care about you.”

  Justin laughed bitterly. “You’re naïve, Lindsay. Just go home.”

  My eyes burned with tears. I was angry and embarrassed, and in that moment, I hated him. “Well, sorry,” I said. “Sorry that I wanted to come here and make sure you were okay. Sorry I tried to be your friend.”

  “We can’t be friends. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  My mouth opened and closed. Maybe I had figured it out, but it still hurt to hear him say it. “At least I’m willing to try.”

  His jaw set. “I can’t focus when you’re in my life. And when you lose focus in my line of work, this is what happens.” He spread his arms wide. “This is the end result.”

  “It’s not my fault you can’t focus.”

  “I know that. I said it’s my fault.” He looked down and shook his head. “You never should have come here tonight.”

  I couldn’t believe he was saying those things. I couldn’t believe he would be so mean to me. But most of all, I couldn’t believe I’d waited here just to be subjected to this. “You’re an asshole,” I said, and then I turned on my heel and started to run from him again. I wanted to get as far away from him as I possibly could.

  But he caught up to me, and he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me to him.

  “Let go of me,” I said, and tried to push him away. But it was useless. He was a lot stronger than I was.

  “You want to know why I’m being an asshole?” he demanded. He pulled me even closer to him, his body pressing up against mine. “Because I can’t stop fucking thinking about you, Lindsay, that’s why. I can’t stop thinking about you, and wishing I could be with you, and wishing we were together, that’s why.”

  My eyes filled with tears, and a hot jolt of electricity moved through my body.

  Before I knew what was happening, he’d pushed me up against the fence, my back against it as he intertwined his fingers with mine.

  “I can’t sleep,” he said, looking deep into my eyes. “I can’t eat, and apparently now I can’t fight. I need you. I want you.”

  My heart was beating fast, and my breath was coming in short gasps. “I want you, too,” I whispered.

  He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close, and I rested my head against his shoulder. We stayed like that for a long moment, my face buried in his neck, until finally he pulled back and looked at me. I could see the desire and need in his eyes.

  He ran his finger down over my jaw and over my lips. “Come home with me,” he whispered.

  My whole body was on fire. I wanted him so badly, and I had a flash of us in his bed together, naked, our limbs tangled as he kissed me all over. But the other part of me was filled with confusion and trepidation. I wanted him. All of him. Not just what we’d done in the past, where we slept in the same bed and nothing happened.

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not coming home with you if all we’re going to do is sleep.”

  His eyes narrowed and burned even more intensely. He pulled me close to him once more, and I felt his hand on the back of my neck, pushing my hair to the side.

  I tilted my head, and he lowered his lips to my neck.

  He kissed right above my collarbone, his lips tracing a searing trail up my skin.

  When he got to my ear, he whispered, “We won’t just sleep.”

  And I could tell he meant it. I knew for sure that he was going to give me what I wanted.

  He pulled back again, his hands still tight around my waist. He looked me in the eye, as if asking my permission, and I nodded.

  My heart was pounding.

  And then, suddenly, the back door to the arena opened with a loud creak.

  “Yo, JB,” someone yelled. “Coach wants you.”

  Justin pulled himself away from me and turned around. “Fuck that,” he said.

  “I’m done with that shit for the night.”

  “Nah, man, you gotta come,” the kid said. He sounded excited. “Drew Ellis is with him. It’s a big deal, dude.”

  Drew Ellis. The guy from the UFF, the one that was supposedly a big shot.

  “It’s okay,” I told Justin. “Go. I’ll wait for you.”

  He hesitated. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He squeezed my hand. “I’ll be right back. Ten minutes, tops.”

  I nodded, watching as he turned around and walked toward the locker room door.

  When he got there, he slipped inside, and the door was about to swing shut, but before it could, someone pushed it back open.

  A girl walked outside.

  She was wearing a tight black t-shirt and skinny jeans tucked into black boots.

  She looked familiar.

  “Hey,” she said nonchalantly as she walked over to me. She gave me a friendly smile. “I think I saw you at my dad’s house the other night.”

  “Your dad’s house?” I asked uncertainly.

  “Yeah, he had a party. I’m pretty sure you were there.”

  “Oh,” I said, nodding slowly. I was still buzzing from Justin’s closeness, and I took a deep breath in an effort to calm myself down.

  “My dad’s Quarry. You know, the coach?” She said it like she was used to it getting her special treatment. Automatically, I didn’t like her. I couldn’t put my finger on it – she was being perfectly nice to me, but there was something about her that made alarm bells start ringing in my head.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. The two of us stood awkwardly for a moment, not saying anything. I was hoping she would take the hint and go back inside.

  “Are you waiting for JB?” she asked, finally.

  “Yeah,” I said. “He asked me to wait out here for him.”

  “Are you a friend of his?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, so am I,” she said. Her smile got bigger. “But I have a feeling me and him are even closer than the two of you.”

  I lifted my chin. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She shrugged. “Look, it’s not like it’s surprising. That’s what these guys do, right? These fighters? I’ve seen it a million times. They sleep with one girl, and then on to the next.” She sighed. “Just be careful, okay? You seem really nice, and I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

  She turned then and started walking back toward the locker room door, her hair swishing behind her. I watched her go, feeling like I’d been punched in the stomach.

  Was it true? Had Justin slept with her?

  My eyes filled with tears and my stomach clenched.

  And then I turned around and started to run.

  JUSTIN

  As I walked back inside, Brooklyn was standing just in the doorway, watching me closely. She had a strange look on her face. For a moment, I wondered if she’d seen me talking to Lindsay outside. But then I realized I really didn’t give a shit what Brooklyn saw or what she thought of me. At my lowest moment, she’d turned her back on me and sided with her asshole father.

  I brushed past her and walked down the hallway, wanting nothing more than to get this over with so I could go back outside and see Lindsay again.

  It occurred to me that I was going to have to tell Lindsay about Brooklyn and what had happened the other night. My stomach hurt just picturing it, but I wasn’t about to keep something like that from her.

  I didn’t even care about talking to Drew Ellis, who probably just wanted an explanation about why I’d gotten caught and dropped by Uriah.

  They were waiting for me in the locker room. It wasn’t just Z and Quarry, but also Drew Ellis and probably fifteen or twenty other people.

  “There he is!” Drew shouted, and some flashbulbs went off, nearly blinding me, as the chee
rs erupted.

  I blinked, staring at the bizarre scene. Was this some sort of joke? I didn’t get it.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “What’s going on?” Drew repeated, laughing. “What’s going on is that you and Uriah put on one hell of a fight. It was so amazing and so crowd pleasing, I couldn’t just give the contract to Uriah.”

  My heart nearly stopped beating. “What?”

  Quarry proudly handed me a contract and a pen. I took it from him, unable to even look him in the eye as I did so.

  “Now, we can’t give you three fights, like we did for Uriah. But this is a two-fight deal, and essentially it’s just as good. You’re officially in the UFF, once you sign that damn contract.”

  I stared at it, disbelief and happiness and anxiety and every other emotion washing over me. This was what I’d been wanting, working for—and it had finally arrived.

  I started reading the contract. I couldn’t remember who’d told me this—maybe it was Coach Jansen, but I remembered hearing that you should never sign anything unless you’d read it first, no matter what. The problem was, the contract had a lot of lawyer-speak and I wasn’t totally sure what they were getting at.

  “Jesus, we’re going to be here all night at this rate,” Drew joked, getting a chuckle from the onlookers.

  “Are you going to sign already or what?” Quarry yelled, drawing more laughs.

  “Of course I’m going to sign,” I laughed, then grabbed the pen and signed my name with a flourish.

  More pictures were snapped. Drew wanted to get a few with me and him and my coach. “These will be up on the website tomorrow,” he told me. “You’re going to be big, JB. We still believe in you. Everyone has a loss now and then, and let’s face it, that stoppage was total bullshit.”

  “Thanks for noticing,” I told him.

  Everyone wanted to party now. Guys from the gym were filtering in, trying to get my attention. But the truth was, I didn’t care about any of them right now. So I excused myself and quickly tried to sneak out the back again to find Lindsay.

  But when I opened the door to the outside, she was nowhere to be seen. I looked around, figuring she might have just moved to another spot to wait for me.