by JJ Knight
“I don’t know that. I’m not leaving.”
Dammit. I motion him down closer to me again. “I can’t go without video. I called the cops so I’d have a moment in the panic to get something.”
He stands up straight and sets down his bag. “We can fix that.”
“No, we can’t. Everybody’s watching my every move.”
“Then you should just do your dirty deeds in plain sight.”
“What?”
He takes out his own phone. He holds it up and waves it at security guard walking the perimeter of the crowd. The man strides right over.
“One victory selfie,” he tells him. “For my personal collection.”
The guard stops and crosses his arms. His expression is all Hell no.
“I’m the big winner, right?” Hudson says. “Come and stop me.”
The guard shakes his head, but he doesn’t come any closer.
Hudson leans back down, “You need anything in particular?”
“Just a panorama of the crowd with a fight going on.”
“That's easy,” he says. “There’s a fight conveniently happening right now.”
He turns us around so that our backs are to the crowd. Then he lifts his phone in the air and starts the video. He's probably not geo-tagging it, but I can add that when I forward it.
Hudson doesn't actually get us in the shot, thank God. But he takes a good ten seconds of the crowd around us, lifting it to get a clear view of the fight cage. Then he brings the phone down and saves the video.
“Will you leave with me now?” he asks.
I’m still in a little shock that he just did that.
He betrayed everyone in the room. Fellow fighters. The people who bet on him. The man who paid him.
For me.
My hands tremble, and I stuff them inside my sweatshirt. There’s only one thing I can say after that. “Okay.”
He shoulders his bag and puts his arm around my shoulder. As we pass the betting table, he gives the entire line of them a big salute. Then we saunter past the security guard at the door, and we’re outside.
“Simple as that,” he says. “The more obvious you are, the less it seems like it could possibly be you doing something dirty.”
I’m blown away. Nobody’s ever done anything like that for me. Put everything on the line to help me. Certainly not Chad. He’s like a distant foggy memory, and not even a great one.
We walk the half block to the opposite corner of the building. I pull out my phone. “We can’t go much farther, or the geo-tag will be off,” I say. I’m still not entirely sure this is real. Maybe he’ll delete it and screw me over huge. I can’t get back in without him. No way.
But he says, “Sure thing.” He taps on his phone, then mine beeps. I have a new message with an attachment.
Holy crap. He meant it. It’s done.
I quickly save the video to my phone and add a geo-tag.
We start walking again as I type in Clarissa's number. I have no messages from her, and our old history has been erased.
I forward the video with a quick note that I ran into some trouble but managed to get the video and get out. It’s fine to call the cops now.
That done, I point out to Hudson that my car is actually the opposite direction.
“That's okay,” he says. “Let's just hold hands and act like we’re having a leisurely lovers’ stroll until it’s safe to double back to Jonesie.”
“You're not so bad at this covert operation work,” I tell him.
“Maybe I can branch out,” he says. “Fighter by day, secret social crusader by night.”
“Is that how you see me? A crusader?”
“You seem pretty opposed to the fights.”
Before I can think twice about it, I just say it. “An MMA fighter killed my father.”
He stops. “What?”
“Yeah. Asshole broke his ribs, took him down, probably a lot like you did that kid back there.” I don’t really want my walls to rise up, but as I talk, they do. Hudson is one of them. “He called for help, and they killed him.”
“Chloe. My god.”
I stand on the sidewalk, my whole body stiff.
Hudson approaches and wraps his arms around me. I can’t let go, not just yet. The anger and frustration courses through me. Like the red-and-white lights did two weeks ago, the things I’ve witnessed tonight have taken me right back.
We stand that way, Hudson holding me close, until my muscles start to relax.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “Assholes are everywhere. Fighters are definitely no exception.”
More like the rule, I think.
The street light turns green, then yellow, then red. A few people walk buy, snicker at our closeness, and move on.
I take deep breaths and try to control myself. We can’t stay here forever.
I pull away to look up at Hudson.
“You okay?” he asks.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever be okay.”
He runs his thumb across my cheek. “I know how you feel. My father…” He falters, and his hand drops to his side.
“What happened to your father?” I ask.
His neck pulses as he swallows hard. “My mother killed him.”
My head pops up. “What?”
“She was a free spirit. A loner. She went home with this guy, my father. She had never met him before. And he locked her away. Used her. When she realized she was pregnant with me, she found a way to kill him.”
“Hudson, oh my god. Did she go to jail?”
“Yeah. That’s why I didn’t meet her until I was five.”
I’m blown away. I can’t imagine having a history like that.
We start walking again.
The night seems so pure and clear compared to the things we just shared. With that behind us, how is anything that’s happening now hard at all?
My phone buzzes. I don’t move to look at it, but Hudson says, “Check it. See if everything is okay.”
So I pull it out. It’s Clarissa.
Cops sent. Good work.
I let out a breath. It’s done.
“So, you off duty for the night?” Hudson asks.
“Yeah.” I grab his hand and hang on. I feel as though we’re the only two people in the world right now, walking the streets of hell, paved by our pasts.
“You want to do something?” he asks.
“Sure.”
“I have a feeling I have a boatload of cash that we can spend like a Kardashian.”
“Should we just toss it from a rooftop?”
He squeezes my hand. “You up for another night of pure escape?”
“You mean even more than we spent at that crazy retro ballroom?”
“I may have overachieved on the first date,” he says. “But the city is at your feet. We’ve earned a break from the world.”
“I’m in. Do you have an idea?”
He leans in close. “I have so many ideas. Let's find the most ridiculous place to spend the night.”
I’m more than happy to put our hard conversation behind us.
And another night like the one last weekend?
Sign me up.
Chapter 5: Hudson
The wail of sirens becomes audible as we walk, so Chloe and I skirt the block where the fights are by a quarter mile. Once we pick up Jonesie, we fairly fly to downtown LA, like criminals on the lam.
It feels that way. The guards, the brawl, the cops, the cash.
I’ve never lived like this. It’s a rush.
And I know exactly where I want to go.
I’ve been in a few fancy hotels here and there. Usually it involves The Cure impressing someone by bringing out the entire fleet of fighters in his extended family.
There’s one hotel I remember well. The view is outrageously spectacular. The suites have full bars. It's the sort of place The Cure probably expected me to stay in when I said I was moving to hotel, but I didn't want to go to that level of expense. Not th
at it would matter to him. But it matters to me.
Tonight is different though. I have my first real win under my belt. Chloe got what she wanted, and most importantly, we both got away clean. That moment on the sidewalk was something. We’ve both been hard places. We get it. We’ve connected on a whole new level.
When we pull up to the address I gave her, I get the laugh that I wanted last weekend as her funky little car pulls up to an outrageously expensive place.
The valet here is a pro, though, and he doesn't bat an eyelash when Chloe and I step out of her bright yellow Beetle.
“Remember to push down the locks,” Chloe says. She glances back at her car with concern as the man trades places with her. “Oh, and sometimes when she's cold, you have to put her in neutral and rev the engine.”
The valet almost loses his composure with that one. But he simply gives her a brisk nod and folds himself down to fit in the driver’s seat of her car.
It isn't terribly late, maybe pushing ten o'clock. The doorman opens the glass entrance to the hotel, and I head up to the registration desk. I probably should've had The Cure's assistant book this for us so that things went smoothly, but it amuses me to show up with an envelope full of cash instead.
The woman at the desk doesn't have quite the stoic face of the valet. When she lets me know that the suite will be two thousand dollars for the night, her eyebrows lift as I count out one hundred dollar bills from the envelope. All my months of frugality are going up in smoke in a single night. Who cares.
A uniformed bellboy arrives with his gleaming gold cart. I carefully place my banged-up equipment bag on its polished surface. It's not even my good one. I’ve never replaced the one that got left at the previous fight.
Chloe giggles as we follow the man into the elevator, and he slides the key card into a slot next to the unmarked button. We look completely out of place, me in sweaty fight clothes with blood on my shorts, and her in a gray hoodie and a ponytail.
I pull her close. Her arms wrap around one of mine, and it feels perfect. I’m loving every minute of this.
The elevator glides past all the other floors until it stops at the empty button, which glows a faint yellow. It would be forty-two, if it had a number. The meaning of life, the universe, and everything.
The bellboy leads us down a carpeted hall softly lit with flickering lights along the walls.
He opens the door to the room. Inside, the air smells of citrus. The man rolls the cart into the bedroom and places the bag on a fancy rack as if it’s expensive luggage.
Chloe walks through the main living area, running her fingers along the back of the sofa. “It’s beautiful,” she says. “I've never seen anything like it.”
I tip the bellboy and wait for him to close the door.
“We should look around,” I say.
She turns to me from her place by the window. “This view is spectacular,” she says.
“It's why I chose this hotel,” I say.
“When did you stay here before?”
I don't know if she’s angling for information about some other girlfriend, or if she’s just curious. I don't really want to mention The Cure.
So I just keep it simple. “A gathering with my sister and her husband was held here.”
She looks out, her fingers pressed against the glass. Below us, the city is a vast sea of lights, some bright, others pale and distant.
I wrap my arms around her waist as we stare out. The negative parts of our evening fall away. The General. The guards. Taking down Face Wrecker. Now it’s just us again and everything is perfect, like the beautiful twinkling lights outside our window.
I rest my chin on her shoulder. Then I realize I shouldn't be able to. “Did you get taller?” I asked.
She laughs. “No.” She lifts one of her feet and we look down. “Platform boots.”
Now that I look closely, away from the dim lighting of the fights, I can see that there are at least six inches stacked on the bottom of her boots. “How do you drive in these?”
“Very carefully.”
“You want something to drink?” I ask her.
“I think so,” she says. “This was quite a day.”
Her phone buzzes as I search through the refrigerator and cabinets. I find lemons, champagne, and gin. That sounds close enough to a French 75 to me.
As I mix it together, she frantically texts on her phone. I assume this is her boss, letting her know what has transpired back at the fights. I try not to picture the other fighters and spectators getting hauled into police cars yet again. I have to keep the thoughts of that away from what I have right now in this enclosed space with Chloe.
I find a glass and carefully mix the ingredients for the drink. I'm still on a post-fight high, so I simply squeeze some lemon into a glass of ice water for myself. I busy myself until Chloe shoves the phone into the pocket of her jeans.
“Everything okay?” I ask as I pass her the drink.
“All good here,” she says. She lifts the glass to the light. “A little bubbly, just a tiny bit of color. Did you make me another French 75?”
Her smile makes me forget the other thoughts in my head.
“I did indeed,” I say. We clink our glasses together.
“Well, here’s to your first major win, Reckless,” she says.
“And here’s to a sabotage job well done.”
We both take sips, watching each other over the rims. I don't see how we can be on such opposite sides of one of the most important things in my life, and yet, here we are. At a hotel. Drinking.
I hold out my elbow. “May I show you around, milady?”
She slides her arm through. “Absolutely.”
The feeling is similar to the one at Hobo Speakeasy last weekend. The rest of the world is outside our door. We won't let it penetrate in here.
We walk into the oversized bedroom.
“This is crazy,” Chloe says, heading over to one of the tall poles of the four-poster bed. The room is a little over the top. Completely white, from the carpet to the bedspread to the painted furniture. It's like we’ve walked inside a cloud.
“I'm afraid to touch anything or I might get it dirty,” I say.
Chloe looks back at me with a naughty smile. “Oh, I think we should get this very dirty.”
That's enough for me. I head straight for her, picking her up and spinning her in a circle.
She laughs and smacks my shoulder to let her down.
“At least wash off the blood of your enemies.” She lifts one of my still bloody knuckles to eye level.
She has a point.
We hold hands as we walk through the bedroom to an incredible gold and white bathroom. In the center is a giant whirlpool bathtub recessed into the floor.
“You know we have to try this out, don't you?” I say.
She can't take her eyes off it. “Totally.”
We feel like kids playing in a grown-up world. The room is huge, with gold faucets and tall ceilings. You could fit a normal hotel room inside.
I sit next to the faucets at one end and work out which one is hot and cold.
Chloe kicks off her shoes. “This is the most amazing thing. Especially after a night like we've had.”
“Agreed.” I look around for a way to stop the water from draining out of the tub, and finally spot a small handle by my elbow. I turn it, and sure enough, the large gold circle in the center drops down until it’s perfectly flush with the bottom of the tub.
When I look up again, Chloe has already pulled off her gray hoodie. Underneath is a tiny red tank top. I swallow involuntarily. She unzips her jeans and slides them over her hips. Forget the tub, I am completely involved in what she's doing.
She catches me and smiles. “Did you want to do the honors?”
“I’m perfectly content to sit here and watch you.”
She steps out of the jeans and leaves them crumpled on the floor.
Now she's just in the tank and a pair of bright yellow panties.
I'm about to lose my mind. I untie my shoes and toss them aside along with my socks. I drop my feet into the water, which has risen to about a foot deep.
“How is it?” Chloe asks.
“Could stand a little more heat.”
She laughs. “Please tell me those are not pickup lines.”
“I'm pretty sure I already picked you up.”
“I picked you up. In my car.”
I adjust the hot water and pull my shirt over my head. Chloe still stands there in her tank top and panties.
“I'm ready for the rest of that to go,” I say.
“All right.”
She grasps the bottom of the shirt and inches it up. By the time she's even got it partway, my dick has risen ahead of it.
She lifts it so slowly, it's painful. But when the shirt reveals those beautiful perky breasts, it is totally worth the wait.
She tosses the shirt to the jeans.
“Ready for the rest?” she asks.
“That's a definite yes.”
Her thumbs ease down the panties with the same agonizing slowness of her shirt. It takes all of my self-control not to leap over the edge of the tub and yank them the rest of the way down.
She laughs. “You should see your face right now.”
“It's not my face that's important,” I say.
She is a glorious sight. As she sits on the edge of the tub, I jerk my fight shorts away in one swift move and toss them behind me.
Chloe drops her feet into the water to rest on a bench. “It feels amazing,” she says.
I slide down the edge and head over to her. It's a deep bath, more like a hot tub.
She glances down. “You look happy to see me.”
Her sitting there so casually, completely naked, is my undoing.
I grab her knees and spread them wide. She sucks in a breath, her hands moving to my shoulders.
It’s beautiful. All the lights are on, and I can see every inch of her. Her thighs are gorgeously tan, leading to a tiny white triangle the sun hasn’t kissed.
But I will. In a bit.
Right now, I’m not willing to wait. I clasp my hands beneath her and pull her body straight onto me.
She gasps a little as I fill her in one bold stroke.
I take a step back to the center of the tub, and her knees lock around me. Her arms encircle my neck. I don't pause, but move inside her.
