Until the Bell Rings: An MMA Fighter Romance

by Roxy Wilson

  “I’ll talk to him,” I said, “and I’ll call you, even if I can’t tell you exactly what he tells me. Safe space, you know?”

  “I do.” Jackie said. “I just want him to be okay, Zahra. That’s all I need to know.”

  I did. We hung up, and I looked at the time. Well, I’d be taking this to go.

  Or…no. No, I would just get back a little late from lunch. Ten minutes wouldn’t end anyone’s world. I hoped. Jackie wasn’t wrong. I needed to do things for me sometimes, or one day I might lose whatever good spirit my momma thought I had.

  So I ate my lunch there, and yes, I was not only ten minutes late getting back—I got back a full fifteen minutes late.

  And you know what? Nobody died.

  Chapter Twelve

  Riley

  “Where are you?” Tully asked. His face was scrunched up as he held up a hand for me to stop hitting the bag. “You got no power.”

  “I’m here,” I said. “Just fucking hold the bag.”

  “Take this seriously,” he said. After a moment longer he shook his head, and braced himself behind the bag again.

  I’d spent the morning trying to decide if I was angry, or heartbroken, and seriously considering telling Logan to deal with his issues himself. But I’d shown up to the gym to train, and Tully had told me that the fight was arranged. The Indonesian—they called him Balrog, and I rolled my eyes when I heard it—was flying in tomorrow; the match would be the evening after. Already money was changing hands. It was too late to back out. You didn’t get to just opt out of these sorts of things.

  Tully had amassed a whole dossier on the guy. An orphan, he’d been picked up by some gang in his home country and trained in Muy Thai originally. According to the guys Tully knew that followed Balrog’s career, it was his heaviest influence. But at some point he’d picked up some other close quarters styles—Krav Maga, Wing Chun—and then started in on mid range styles from Korea and Japan. He was the sort of guy I’d imagined before; a lifelong martial artist who’d been honing his skills under venerable masters and shit.

  Except he wasn’t a little guy. Balrog was six foot six and built like a tank, and he was fast. I’d never seen Tully so serious about getting me ready for a fight.

  “This guy is no joke,” he’d said when I’d laughed about his name. “He’s not like these other mooks you’ve been fighting. Balrog is in it for the blood. Half his previous opponents can’t fight anymore, and two of them are six feet under the ground, you get me? I managed to get the odds set to almost even, and we’re putting a fuck ton of money on it. That means you win this, Logan’s nearly in the clear. You want to be done with this? This is how; but not if you can’t get your fucking head in the game, right fucking now.”

  That much from Tully, all at once, made me pay attention.

  So I hit the bag, I boxed with Tully, I pushed myself hard. And still he could tell there was part of me somewhere else. Somewhere warm, and sweet, and a different kind of sweaty. If I stopped remembering my night with Zahra, I was afraid the next time I tried to go back to it, I’d find it gone; faded, like a dream.

  Logan showed up three hours in, while I was icing down for the next round of punishment. I heard the door to the soaking room open and close, but didn’t open my eyes until he cleared his throat. When he did, I opened one eye, saw him and groaned.

  “What the fuck do you want?” I muttered.

  My brother shuffled closer and sank onto the edge of the other cheap metal tub. “I was just, you know, checking up on you. See how you’re doing. Did you, ah…work things out with that girl?”

  “No,” I said.

  Logan waited for more, but I didn’t have anything else for him and didn’t particularly care to talk to him at the moment. Or even look at him.

  “Jeez,” he said, his face falling into a grimace. “I’m sorry. That was my fault.”

  “Yeah, Logan; it was. What do you want?” I shifted in the water, ice cubes clattering as I did.

  “I heard Tully got the odds changed,” he said. “They’re still in your favor, what with you local and all, right?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t give a shit about odds at this point.

  “I was just thinking, well…” he pressed his lips together. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to say it. “Look, I’ll still be five grand out if you win, man. If you didn’t, we’d be almost thirty grand over. With that kind of money—”

  I opened my eyes to stare at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You still think I’d throw a fight? Fuck, Logan. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “I’m just thinking about the future, Riley,” he said, arms folded, face red around the cheeks. “You want to take care of me forever or what? You think I like you having to pay my debts off? I’m not like you, man. I don’t have…whatever it is you got. I could be out of your hair for good.”

  I wished I could be hurt that he’d think I want that. I tried to be hurt by it. I tried to muster up some kind of sympathy and brotherly words of encouragement but…nothing came. I was empty.

  Throwing a fight would just be about making money. I’d be out of the cage circuit forever. People would put a lot of money down on me, even though they knew they’d make more on the other guy because they knew it was a sure thing. Whether it was or not. They’d never seen me lose.

  Those people, with the kind of money they’d lose on me—they knew what it looked like when someone threw a fight. They didn’t get to be rich as fuck by being stupid. Would they come after me? I didn’t know.

  Logan knew all of this, though. He knew what this world was like, what I’d be getting myself into. He just ignored that part because all he could think about was himself.

  So I should have been able to be furious at him. Maybe the cold was keeping me from getting too worked up. Or maybe I was too fucking tired to care. Either way, I couldn’t do that either. “You’re a selfish prick,” I told him. “You know that?”

  Logan shifted uncomfortably on the edge of the other tub. He shrugged. “I wish it was different. Wish I’d never gotten into all this. Wish I was more like you.”

  “Me too,” I grunted.

  “I know it’ll cost you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know it’s a lot to ask.”

  “It is.”

  Logan stood. “Something else will probably come along though, you—”

  “I’ll do it,” I said quietly. “I’ll throw the fight. Try to make it look convincing. I’ve got friends in the league. Maybe…maybe I can get them to ignore whatever they hear.”

  Logan stood there in the room for a long moment. He wasn’t looking at me. I thought he might change his mind, tell me he didn’t really want that; that he wanted me to win and he believed in me and, hell, that I was his hero.

  Instead, all he said was, “I’m sorry I’m such a shit.” Then he left.

  I leaned back in the tub, and let my muscles twitch with shivers as the ice sapped heat from them. “Me too,” I muttered into the empty room.

  *****

  I didn’t tell Tully until after we’d finished training and were sitting down to a mountain of protein to feed my starving muscles. When I did, he was not happy.

  “You father would be ashamed of you both,” he said. He looked disgusted; I didn’t think I’d ever seen that expression on his face before, but I knew it when I saw it. “What the hell am I training you for, then?”

  “So I can do it without getting killed or crippled,” I said. “I can lose on my own terms. Maybe we could get a message to the Indonesian?” I refused to call him Balrog. Who the fuck had a name like that?

  “No,” Tully said. “Absolutely not. You know those other two guys he killed? Give you two guesses why.”

  “What, he’s got some kind of honor code to follow?” I asked.

  Tully grunted. “Who the fuck knows; all I know is, they threw their fights and now they’re dead. You want that?”

  If I was going to pick a way to go…But, no; I
didn’t want that. “What do you suggest, then?”

  “I suggest you fight the goddamn fight and win,” he said. “Because that’s what I raised you to do.”

  “And what if I don’t want to do this anymore?” I asked. “Any of it? What if I don’t want to fight in the league either, after this season? I could end on a high note, open my own gym. You could have a real job for once. We could open a place together, Tully.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Tully muttered, “I can see it now—Losers’r’Us; we teach you how to lose in style. Or maybe something catchy for the millenials—just, ‘Throw’”—he held his hands up like he was envisioning it on a sign over a door—“one word.” He was getting louder. People were looking, but neither of us cared.

  Tully leaned in. “This isn’t you. What’s going on? Is it this girl Logan told me about?”

  I looked away from him, out the windows of the little diner we’d settled into, just a couple of blocks from the gym. “Doesn’t matter at this point.”

  “It does if it’s got you thinking about quitting your whole goddamn life,” Tully countered. “Maybe literally.”

  “You said I should take care of my brother,” I snapped. “So that’s what I’m fucking doing. What else matters?”

  “What you think of yourself matters,” Tully said, impervious to my outburst. He only had one setting. “What you got going on for you in your life matters.” He sighed. “Who’s this girl?” he asked.

  I almost told him to fuck off but… “Zahra,” I said. Her name felt sweet in my mouth, but I couldn’t smile. “The woman from the floor seats at Digg’s. The one with the kid I had you get for an autograph. I told you about her before.”

  “Tall,” Tully said, eyes searching his memory, “dark-skinned, purple dress? Kinda…” he held his hands over his chest. “That the girl that had your head all screwed up before? I thought that was busted.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s the one. It was. I managed to get a second chance. Made her dinner.”

  “You cooked for her?” he asked, bushy eyebrows up with surprise.

  “You know I like a woman who can eat,” I said. “She found out about the cage fights, though. Won’t have it. Won’t have me.”

  “Did you tell her about Logan? Why you do it?”

  I rubbed my face. I was tired, and didn’t really want to talk about all this now. Tully, though, had rare moments of wisdom; the kind of advice that actually worked. “I didn’t get a chance.”

  “You keep saying that word,” he said. “What did I tell you about ‘chance’ and ‘luck’?”

  “That I’d be lucky if I survived my first professional fight?” I offered.

  He snorted. “Smart ass. Don’t wait for chances, make opportunities.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I tried that.”

  “Oh, well,” Tully said, dramatically relieved. “As long as you tried. You want a gold star? I could get you a sticker board, write your name on it. We can see how fast you fill it up from trying real hard. It’ll be just like kindergarten.”

  “I’m a criminal,” I told him. “She’s not going to care that I do what I do. She’s better off without me around anyway.”

  “Yeah, and you’re better off, too,” Tully said. “I can tell just by looking at you.”

  “Why do you care, Tully?” I asked.

  He sat forward in the booth, both elbows on the table, and looked at me for a long second. He looked older, suddenly. I forgot sometimes just how old Tully was. He was spry, but he was almost seventy. It seemed like he’d been old forever, but only just now did he look tired. “Maybe I don’t want you to end up like me,” he said.

  It was the first time I ever thought maybe Tully regretted being a lifelong bachelor. I wasn’t sure what to say.

  Tully just went on without me anyway, though. “I had a woman once. Well, I had a lot of women. Only one that ever mattered, though.”

  “What happened?” Obviously, something had. I’d never seen Tully with anyone who wasn’t a passing acquaintance—and in recent years, no one at all.

  “She wanted me to give up boxing. I got hit in the head a few times,” he said as he knocked on his skull with his knuckles, “before I was quite as hard-headed. Put me down three days once. Delilah—that was her name—said she didn’t want to see the day I didn’t get back up. Couldn’t take the stress. It was either her or the fight.”

  “She wanted you to give up the best thing in your life,” I said. “Give up your dream.”

  “Damn right, she did.” Tully grunted. “And I should have. I regret it to this day. You know she passed away almost a year ago. I went to her funeral. She married, had three kids.”

  That had to have stung. Tully didn’t care that much for sympathy so I kept it to myself. “You’re saying I should give up what I love most for a woman?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “I’m saying that you need to figure out what’s most important to you, and then don’t leave it up to something as imaginary as ‘chance.’”

  “Yeah,” I said, “okay. Thanks, Tully.” I shook my head slowly. Tully in love. Now that was an alien image. All this time I figured he was stone and clay; a very life-like golem or something. Who knew?

  Zahra, though, had made herself clear. And even if I did decide to make my own opportunities—again—it wouldn’t change the fact that I had a fight coming up. Maybe, I supposed, if I survived it, I could find some way to make it work; convince her to let me explain. Maybe even give up fighting all together if that’s what it took.

  And if that was what it took, I realized; then that’s what I’d give.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Zahra

  I called Malcolm five times before he answered the phone. When he did, I tried not to sound like I was irritated at him for screening my calls—as though I didn’t realize that going to voicemail after two rings meant he was declining intentionally.

  “Hi, Aunt Zahra,” Malcolm said. Right away, I could tell he was up to something. I leaned back in my office chair, and folded my free hand over my chest.

  “Hey Malcolm,” I said. “You must be busy. I’ve been calling you all day.”

  “Uh…yeah. I saw you called, I just didn’t have time to call you back.” He hesitated. “But you got me now. What’s up?”

  “I spoke with your mother,” I said, and waited.

  “Yeah?” Malcolm asked, innocently. Too innocently.

  “Yeah, Malcolm. Can you guess what we talked about?”

  Another long pause.

  Malcolm made a short, irritated sound. “Did she tell you about the applications?” He knew better than to play dumb for too long with me. Smart kid. Mostly.

  “Look,” I said, “I get it if you want to take some time off after high school. Were you hiding it because you were worried she wouldn’t take it well?”

  “Uh, yeah,” he said. “Pretty much.” That was a lie.

  I rolled my eyes. How many times had I proved to this boy that I knew him probably better than he knew himself? “Malcolm, boy—you know you have to be straight with me. What’s really going on with you? You were so excited to go to school. What changed?”

  “I still want to go, Aunt Zahra,” he insisted. “Just…I was looking at the loans and all the money and I just think I need to wait, is all. Save up.”

  “Save up,” I said. “So you have a job?”

  “I’m working,” he said. “And I’m gonna make good money, too. Real good money. The kind I can pay for college with myself.”

  I took a deep breath. A kid right out of high school, with no work experience, was not going to make enough money to pay for college doing almost anything legal. “Your mom is worried about you,” I told him. “Does she have a reason to be?”

  Malcolm paused just long enough to trip the last of my alarms.

  “Malcolm,” I said carefully, “tell me that you are not involved with some fool idea of your father’s.”

  He took a long, deep breath and blew it out.
I could almost see him putting his face into his hands. I felt my heart clench tight in my chest. “Look, I have to find some way to have a future without them having to pay for it. You know how much it costs to go to even a small college? They’ll be paying that debt until they die, Zahra. I don’t want that for them. I want to do it myself and I want to help take care of Mom, too.” The fact that he’d avoided answering the question was the same thing, for me, as if he’d just said “yes.”

  “Listen to me, Malcolm,” I said, leaning forward in my chair now, like I might somehow dive through the phone and pull him out of this mess, whatever it was, “if something goes wrong, sideways, if you’re even connected to anything illegal, that will be the end of your future, do you understand me? There is no price tag on a mistake like this.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Aunt Zahra.” Malcolm groaned. “I’m a grown man. I can make my own decisions. I’m smart, okay?”

  “Baby, I know you’re smart,” I said. “You’re brilliant, and you’re better than whatever it is Tyson has you doing.”

  “You don’t know what I’m doing,” Malcolm said. There was a cold finality to his voice that made me suddenly worried I had lost him. “I can handle this, Aunt Zahra. You all think it’s so easy, like I can just go to school and be whatever I want. Open your eyes. I could go to the best school in the country and still not get anywhere. Look at you; you went to school. You can barely pay your bills, Zahra. I don’t want to just scrape by forever like my Mom and Walter.”

  I went cold, and stood up. I paced while I tried to think of the right thing to say that would pull him back from whatever he was involved in. “Those are not your words,” I told him. “That is not what I taught you, not what your mother taught you. You sound like Tyson. Baby, you do not want to be like him.”

  “Why not?” Malcolm asked. “What’s wrong with the way he lives his life?”

  “He is a thief and a liar,” I said. “That’s what’s wrong. And if he was a real father he would keep you far away from all of that. Malcolm, please; let’s meet somewhere, let me get you dinner and we’ll talk about all of this and look for another option. I understand if you don’t want your parents to shoulder your debt, I do—that is so noble and sweet of you and I love you for it, Malcolm. But please, please don’t do whatever you’re about to.” I had squeezed my eyes shut. My heart was pounding. I could have done something about this. I didn’t know what, but I could have said something before, influenced him differently. Had I not tried hard enough? Jackie would die if she knew Malcolm was following Tyson’s footsteps.