Challenge: A Contemporary MMA Romance: Oni Fighters Book 3

by Natalie Gayle

  My stomach dropped. That was bad. Mater Private was one of the fancy hospitals in Brisbane City, about twenty minutes from Logan in good traffic. I was pleased he was getting the best of care, although it just reinforced how serious it was if Logan had immediately transferred him.

  Then, something occurred to me. God my brain was hazy this morning. Why had I trashed myself last night? “Where’s Tori?”

  “We caught her on her way out the door to work. She knows and I promised I’d text her as soon as I knew anything.”

  The rest of the trip was pretty much done in silence. I nursed my hangover, Xander and Eden chose to listen to one of their playlists. My head was all over the place, between the the fear and self-inflicted pain.

  Finally, we made it into the hospital and the clerk at the reception desk directed us to the waiting room servicing the theatres and intensive care.

  Dane and Arianne were already there when we arrived. They stood and rushed towards us when they noticed us approach.

  After hugs all round, Xander asked the question that I wasn’t game to. “Any news?”

  “Not as yet,” Dane replied, shaking his head. I’d never seen him look so pained. “One of the nurses said it shouldn’t be much longer. Apparently they are expecting him in recovery soon.” I watched Xander nod and I could see the strain on his face as well. Seth was incredibly close to both Xander and Dane. He’d also been a key training partner for both of them in their recent MMA title fights.

  Seth was the lovable larrikin that was there and now he was behind those heavy grey doors and none of us knew how he was doing.

  I moved over to the first row of chairs in the waiting area. If I didn’t sit down, I feared I’d fall down. A few seconds later, Eden came over and sat down beside me.

  “How are you feeling, sweetie?”

  Without thinking, I responded with, “I’ll survive.” Then, I realized what I’d carelessly said and my throat began to really burn with unshed tears.

  I was only starting to realize just how close Seth and I had become over the last few months, ever since the day of Isaac’s birthday party. We’d spent a lot of time together secretly seeing each other.

  We both told ourselves it was only sex, but why did it feel like so much more? If our relationship was meaningless, then, why did I feel like I was hanging onto my world by a thread?

  I could feel Eden looking at me and I purposely averted my eyes. My sister knew me well and it wouldn’t take too much effort for her to figure out that my feelings for Seth were a lot more than just friends. Sure, we trained together at Onigashima and we hung out together on occasion as part of our group, this was different. She’d read my feelings were a lot more and wondered why.

  Dane and Arianne had taken the seats opposite us. Xander moved over and sat down on the other side of Eden. Like always, he’d taken her hand. They were so sweet together. I was so pleased for my sister. She deserved a great guy like Xander after all she’d been through with the fire.

  Shit! I owed her so much, including my life.

  I also felt a big stabbing heap of envy and longing. It struck me right then that I wanted what they had—that intimacy, love, and togetherness.

  “Tori mentioned to us that she saw Seth last night, leaving the house just after one.”

  Oh God, here we go... The inquisition. I could feel it coming. Everyone seemed to have stopped talking and were now focusing their attention squarely on me.

  “Yeah, he made sure I got home. I’d had a lot to drink.” Through my lashes, I noticed Dane smirk, there’d be no sympathy there. Not that I expected any. These guys were all world class athletes; they very rarely drank. Even if they did, it was only one or two—not like Seth and I had last night.

  “That was nice of him.” I just nodded, and waited for the next obvious question.

  “So, how did you two meet up last night?” Xander asked. His voice was too perfect and his face too guarded.

  “We both ended up at the same party. When he realized I’d had too much to drink, he brought me home.”

  “So, he drove you home,” Dane clarified.

  Fuck! It suddenly occurred to me where this conversation was going. They were trying to figure out if Seth had been driving under the influence of alcohol. Was the accident due to that? Shit, shit, shit. What should I say? I didn’t want to get him into trouble nor did I want to divulge our relationship.

  I ran the scenarios in my aching head. What should I say?

  “Come on Soph, it’s not that hard a question. Just tell us the truth,” Dane prompted me.

  The truth!

  Then something snapped in me and I gave in. I’m sure they already suspected anyway.

  “Seth went to the party with me. He drove over to home and left his car there. We caught a taxi to the party and one back to home.”

  I watched the inhales of breath all around me as my friends and family started to calculate what that meant.

  “Run through exactly what happened, Sophia,” Xander said firmly. It was almost his Sensei voice—the one you didn’t dare question or challenge.

  “We went to the party, we both drank…a lot. Then, we caught a taxi back to the house…” I didn’t want to go on. I remembered what happened vaguely. Some of it seemed like a dream though and I wasn’t sure if it was real or my imagination.

  “What happened when you got back to the house?” Xander pushed.

  I snapped. “Do we really have to do this?”

  Dane glared at me from across the narrow divide between the chairs and his voice came out as an angry hiss. “Yes we do. Seth is one of our closest friends, in case it’s escaped your hung-over state. He’s currently in there fighting for his life. You were the last one that spent anytime with him. You owe it to him and us to tell us what happened. We want to know what would prompt him to drive when he’d been drinking.”

  I buried my head in my hands and said nothing for a long moment.

  “You two fucked, didn’t you? Did you freak out or something? Did things get out of hand? Why did he leave you?” Dane accused me. Arianne put her hand on his arm and said, “Dane enough.”

  Oh, what did it matter?

  “Yes, we fucked and no, I didn’t freak. We’ve been seeing each other since the day of Isaac’s party.” That got some very audible intakes of breath around the group.

  “I figured as much. I just didn’t realize it had been going on for so long. Why are we only hearing about it now? Why are you two hiding it?” Eden asked me quietly.

  “Because it’s not serious. We just enjoy each other. Friends with benefits. You know the score.” I glanced up and both Xander and Dane were frowning at me.

  Fuck them!

  I wasn’t going to put up with their condescending attitude on this. “And don’t give me those looks. I know both of you guys at least have enjoyed similar relationships in the past. Just because you’re both all loved up and deliriously happy now doesn’t give you the right to judge what we’ve been doing.”

  Both Eden and Arianne gave their respective men withering looks and suddenly Xander and Dane didn’t look quite so formidable.

  “I must have passed out after and for some reason he left. It’s hazy. I don’t know why. We hadn’t argued or anything like that. I certainly don’t know why he didn’t call a cab.”

  “How much had he had to drink?” Xander asked me.

  “I don’t exactly know but I wouldn’t have thought he should be driving. I mean, he wasn’t falling down drunk or anything. He managed to perform just fine.” I said that purposely for the Xander and Dane. They were guys, they could draw their own conclusions from that titbit on how drunk he was or wasn’t.

  “I can’t tell you much more than that. The next thing I remember after, well, you know…was waking up in desperate need of the bathroom. That’s where Tori found me. Hugging the porcelain express.”

  There was silence.

  “Well, that explains why you were missing your pants this morning
.” Eden giggled.

  “Eden!” I shrieked.

  “Oh, relax. You’re amongst friends and family. We know the score and how these things go down.”

  I shook my head and glared at Xander. “This is all your fault. She would never have said such a thing before she met you.”

  “Me! What did I do?”

  “You’ve corrupted her.”

  He dropped a light kiss to my sister’s lips and her face went all soft and happy. “I wouldn’t call it corrupt. I’d call it liberate.”

  I couldn’t do this right now.

  “Didn’t you say Tori saw him on his way out. Have you asked her how he seemed?”

  “Of course. She said he seemed fine, just in a real hurry,” Eden clarified for me.

  “Well, then, I guess none of us are any wiser why he headed out, until someone found him at around five this morning. The cops finally called us around eight, I think.” Dane filled in the gaps for me.

  My brain did the calculations; he’d been injured and trapped in his car for probably close to four hours. My stomach turned and I had the devil’s own job keeping my stomach under control.

  Nobody said anything for a few minutes.

  Arianne finally broke the uneasy silence. “Why aren’t his parents here?”

  I watched Xander shake his head resignedly. “They don’t get on. Seth hates his stepdad and his relationship with his mum is strained, at best.”

  “But surely they should be here or at least know what’s going on.” Arianne looked puzzled.

  “His mum knows, but I have no idea if she’ll make an appearance. They’re interstate with Rachel at some sort of dance thing she’s doing and catching a holiday, apparently. She hadn’t decided if she was coming back when I spoke to her earlier. The cops couldn’t get hold of them then they found one of my cards in his wallet. I don’t think it hurt that one of the cops that attended seemed to be an MMA fan.”

  That was how foggy my brain was today. I hadn’t even thought about his parents. Seth never spoke of them. It was almost as if they didn’t exist. Rachel had been cast in the production of Cats. She was one of the dancers touring with the show. I think they were in Perth at the moment.

  All that aside, what sort of parent didn’t drop everything and come home to be with their critically injured son? How fucked up was that?

  Just then, the heavy doors to the theatre opened and a middle aged man in scrubs came out and moved towards our group.

  “Are you all here for Seth Harris?”

  I guess it was a fair assumption. We were the only ones in the waiting room. His face gave nothing away and my stomach crashed further.

  3

  Sophia

  We all stood and the doctor moved towards us.

  “I’m Doctor Joseph Wilkinson. Are one of you the next of kin?” He looked directly at me. I figured that was because I was the only female not curled around a man. Xander jumped in and took charge.

  “We’re his closest friends. I’m Xander Todd and this is my wife, Eden. Dane Roberts and his fiancée, Arianne. And this is Sophia Sommers. She’s Seth’s woman.” Xander nodded towards me and I read the warning in his eyes. He wanted me to go along with him. He’d also cleverly labelled me as Seth’s woman, rather than provide specifics. The doctor shook hands with the guys and nodded at each of us women. He seemed to be satisfied with Xander’s introductions.

  Then, we all looked at the man, anxiously waiting on whatever he had to say.

  “Let me start by saying he’s in recovery at the moment from surgery. He’s in a critical but stable condition.” I let out a sigh of relief and I think the others did as well.

  “He has some serious injuries. It’s not ideal that he wasn’t found for several hours given the level of trauma he’d sustained. Every minute is crucial, particularly when we’re dealing with internal and head injuries.”

  That didn’t sound good.

  “How bad is it?” I asked in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.

  The doctor turned more towards me and there was no doubting the concern written all over his face. He seemed to be bracing himself before he delivered the news to us. Nope, that was bad.

  “Seth has a fractured pelvis. It’s broken in three places and will require a surgery to stabalise with plates in a few days once the swelling has gone down. One of the breaks put a slight tear in the wall of his bladder so we had to go in and repair that. As serious as all that is, I’m not particularly concerned about those injuries. He’s in extremely good physical shape and is obviously an athlete of some description.”

  “Marital arts,” Dane clarified.

  Recognition crossed Dr. Wilkinson’s face. “Ah, I thought you guys looked familiar, I was just struggling to place where. Well, he should recover fine from the pelvic injuries in two or three months. It’s the head injury I’m concerned about right now. He’s taken a good whack to the head. At the moment he’s in a coma and there is some brain swelling and bruising. The scans all look okay, although there are a couple of areas that concern me specifically. However, we’re not going to do anything invasive just yet. It’s pretty common for there to be a requirement to go in and alleviate a buildup of pressure or a bleed. I just want you to be prepared in case. We’ll be constantly monitoring that until we know definitively he’s turned the corner.”

  My eyes darted back and forth between the group. We were all trying to take it in. Looks of shock lined all of our faces and I was sure mine looked exactly the same. Eden must have thought so too, because she placed her arm around my shoulders in support.

  “When will he wake up?” I finally gathered the courage to ask.

  “Hard to say at this stage. Could be a few hours or days. I also can’t tell you at this stage if there is any permanent damage. Every one of these sorts of cases just takes as long as it takes. Until then, we keep him comfortable, monitor him, and make sure his condition doesn’t deteriorate.”

  Permanent damage!

  Those two words scared the hell out of me, but I had to know. “You said you didn’t know about permanent damage. Did you mean brain damage?”

  The doctor nodded. “There’s a lot of different types of brain damage. It can be very minor and temporary to incredibly severe and permanent or even fatal. At this stage, I’m hopeful that anything will only be minor and temporary.” He must have seen the relief on our faces. “I said hopeful. I can’t say conclusively until he wakes up and we can do more tests and assessments. Head trauma is always tricky. I suggest you hope for the best but prepare yourselves for the worst. The most positive thing Seth has in his favour right now is his excellent physical condition and strength. I’m almost certain a smaller framed or frailer person would not have survived the accident from what they told me about the vehicle.”

  We were all silent while that sunk in. How close had I come to losing him? And although the doctor seemed hopeful, the “prepare yourself for the worst” terrified me.

  “Can we see him?” Xander asked.

  “It’ll be a couple of hours yet, but you’ll be able to go in and sit with him when they get him settled in the ICU ward. The nurse unit manager will advise you regarding visiting but it’s usually no more than two at a time and ICU is pretty flexible around times. I should warn you also, he’s on a ventilator, has a couple of drips running and a mass of other tubes and machines monitoring him. So, try not to be too alarmed by all that.”

  He looked from one to another of us, before asking if we had any more questions.

  “How long is he likely to be in here?” Arianne asked.

  “Very hard to say at this stage. Just taking into consideration the pelvic fracture and surgery we’ve done, I’d be estimating a few weeks. Given his health, I’d say it would be less as long as we don’t have complications, infection, etcetera. It’s the head injury. Until he wakes up, we can’t tell. So, I wouldn’t be expecting him home for a few weeks and then he’s going to need some significant rehab. Again, his physical condi
tion will work in his favour.”

  We thanked the doctor and he turned to go back into the theatre before spinning back to us.

  “One last thing. Seth’s the patient at the moment but don’t underestimate how tough this is going to be on all of you. I strongly suggest you set up some sort of plan amongst yourselves on how you’re going to do visits, eat properly, and just go about your own lives. You all need to look after yourselves physically and emotionally as well as support Seth. With these sorts of cases, it’s very tough on the support people. Please don’t let yourselves fall in a hole because you didn’t plan for this to be an extended period of time.”

  Dr. Wilkinson nodded one last time and headed off. We all took our seats again and kind of just looked from one to another in stunned silence.

  “Okay, I guess we can sit around here and mope or we can be thankful for the fact he’s still with us. Now we need to figure out how we’re going to swing this with our own commitments.” Then those black eyes of Xander’s seemed to drill into me. “What do you want to do, Sophia?”

  Heat rushed through me and suddenly I felt all flustered and discombobulated.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you two seem to have some sort of relationship, you’ve been seeing each other for the last three months for God’s sake.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not sure I’d call it serious. We’ve not really talked about a relationship being any more than friends with benefits,” I protested.

  Dane shook his head and looked exasperated. “Let me ask you a couple of questions. Do you talk to him every day?”

  “What?” I shrieked.

  “Just answer the damned question, Sophia.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you two text more than twice a day?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many times do you see him in person each week?” I felt a blush rising in my cheeks.

  “Most days.”

  Dane snorted. “And you’ve obviously been having sex regularly. Only one conclusion to draw here, Soph. You two are in a relationship, regardless of whether you’ve discussed it or not. As the old saying goes…looks like a duck, quacks like a duck…”