The thought of a morning workout had gone to shit. Even though I just had a fight the previous night, I couldn’t afford to take any time off. I knew that within a couple of weeks, it would be time to fight again and I needed to be ready. My plan was to be up with the sun each day but that wasn’t going to be happening.
I grabbed my phone to look at the time and was shocked to see that it was almost noon. As I rubbed my eyes and looked around, I began to freak out a little. After a night of drinking, it took me a minute to realize where I was. I was used to waking up on top of my lumpy mattress with a spring poking into my back. It was no wonder I slept so long on Shelly’s pillow top mattress.
Through my aching head, the memories of the night before came screaming back. We had a great time drinking and partying. And then there was the sex. God damn that sex was smokin’ hot, and I couldn’t wait for round two. I always knew those quiet, shy girls were freaks in the sheets.
When I walked into the kitchen, I saw that Shelly had left a note for me.
You were sleeping so well and I didn’t want to wake you.
I had to go to work but make yourself something to eat if you’re hungry. I won’t get off work until 7:00.
TTYL
Shelly
Apparently I’d made a good impression on her. I didn’t plan on staying very long, however. I grabbed a quick shower, got dressed and called a cab. My car was still at the last bar we were. I only hoped I remembered which bar that was.
I was relieved when the cab pulled up in front of The Prophecy bar where we were partying late into the night. After paying the cab and sending him on his way, I decided I’d go and visit my brother. I’d been so busy with training that I hadn’t seen him in a few days. Plus, I’d have a chance to see Shelly for a few minutes.
As soon as I walked inside the assisted living center, I saw Shelly standing in the hall, writing something on one of her patient’s charts. She looked beautiful and refreshed even though I’d kept her out all night. I walked up behind her and gave her a light smack on the ass. She jumped and almost dropped the chart she was writing in.
When she turned and saw me standing there, I leaned in for a kiss on the cheek. She pushed me away and started rushing in the other direction. One of the girls at the front desk had witnessed what happened and was standing up at the nurse’s station, I guess hoping for a show of some sort.
“Come with me,” she said as she turned her back towards me.
I followed her down the hall, around the corner and into Casey’s room, where she closed the door behind us.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked with her voice in a panic. I had to admit that I was a little confused by her reaction, especially considering I woke up in her bed.
“Holy shit, what in the hell did I do? I was just coming up to see my brother and you looked so good standing there.”
“Yeah? Well, you can’t come into my place of work and grab on me like that. It’s not professional.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling bad that I seemed to have offended her. “I was just trying to play around a little. I won’t do it again.”
“Thank you. It’s nothing against you. I like you—probably more than I should—especially after only knowing you for a short time.”
“Yeah? Tell me more, Nurse Shelly,” I teased her.
“Here’s the thing, there’s been all kinds of bullshit going on around work lately. I’m up for a pretty big promotion soon and there are certain people here that will do anything to prevent me from getting it so they can have it for themselves. One of the biggest rules we have here is that we’re not allowed to date the family of any of our residents. I could lose my job if anyone found out about us.”
“I get it. I don’t want to cause you any trouble. I’ll be more careful when I come up to visit.”
Shelly
“It’s okay. You didn’t know and I’m sure you were only trying to play around. I promise there will be a time and place for that,” I winked.
As I grabbed Casey’s chart to see if the doctor had made any notes that morning, I noticed Candace standing at the window of the door, watching our every move. She had her face pushed all the way against the glass, putting her nose where it didn’t belong. The second she realized that I noticed her, she pulled back and began to walk away.
She was acting strange and I immediately wondered if she had witnessed what had happened out in the hallway. Candace had a habit of being all up in everyone’s business when she should have been focused on doing her damn job. If she saw what happened, I had no doubt that she’d run right to her aunt and file a report against me for inappropriate conduct.
Annoyed and worried, I needed to get away to clear my head. I didn’t tell Jason that I had seen her there and he hadn’t noticed her.
“Well, I’ve got some more rounds to make so I’ll let you and your brother have some privacy. Give me a call later, okay?”
“Don’t worry, your phone will be ringing before you even get home.”
I wanted to give him a kiss goodbye but there was no way I was going to risk that. Instead, I left the room, leaving Jason alone with Casey.
§
As usual, there weren’t enough hours in the day for me to complete all the tasks that I needed to get done. It was getting close to 3:00 before I was even able to take a break to eat my lunch. In between tasks, I ran into the break room to grab the salad I made that morning. I wasn’t going to get to eat in peace like everyone else does. I’d have to take my lunch back to my desk and take bites between entering chart information into the computer.
While I was trying to put my salad together, Candace came barging into the room, looking smug. I was hoping she was coming in for coffee or something but I had a feeling I wasn’t going to get that lucky. Instead, she came right up to me.
“I saw what happened in the hall,” she said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, attempting to get myself out of the situation without it turning into a big confrontation.
“Don’t give me that. I saw that man grab a handful of your ass in the hallway when he walked in. Are you going to stand there and tell me that didn’t happen? I saw it with my own eyes.”
“Candace, I don’t know what you think you saw but I can assure you that he didn’t touch my ass in any way.”
This is bad. This is very, very bad.
“No? Then why did you take him into Casey Stark’s room and close the door? It sure looked like you two were having a pretty intense conversation.”
“Well, if you knew our residents a little bit better, you would know that he was Casey Stark’s brother. I was going over how his brother was doing and how he had been reacting to his treatments with the doctor.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Maggie was seated at a table in the corner of the room. I had no idea how long she had been there but I had a feeling she had heard everything we’d been saying. She stood up and took her wrappers to the trash can before coming over to us.
“I’m sorry to interrupt the two of you but Candace, may I have a word with you please?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Maggie pulled her over to the side but spoke loud enough that I could clearly hear what she was saying.
“Candace, I’ve been going over your charts for the past several weeks and I’m seeing a lot of mistakes being made over and over again.”
“Mistakes? What do you mean?”
“I’ve sent you an email with everything that I’ve found. As of now, I haven’t copied Angie on any of the messages but you had better start paying more attention if you don’t want everything officially documented and reported. I’m pretty sure there are enough mistakes there to put you out of a job.”
Flustered, Candace stormed out of the room like a child throwing a temper tantrum. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that, at least for the time being, I didn’t have to deal with her incessant questioning.
&
nbsp; “I didn’t see what led up to that but it sounds like you need to be a little more careful as well,” Maggie said to me.
“You’re not kidding. It was a one-time mistake that will never happen again. I promise you that.”
“That’s what I was hoping to hear. By the way, did you see how big her eyes got when I mentioned reporting her mistakes?”
“I did. What was that all about anyway?”
“I wish I could tell you the specifics but I can’t. All I can suggest is that you keep a close eye on her whenever she’s working. Something is going on with that girl. I’m not quite sure what it is yet but I’m going to find out.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jason
It had been three weeks since my last fight. My promoter had been trying to get another fight for me but nobody wanted to step up and take it, especially on such short notice. There was a lot of talk going on around the MMA community. Everybody knew that I’m tight with Damon and they’ve all been saying that’s why I was getting the fight with Dodson. I knew it was bullshit and I suspected all of them knew it was bullshit too.
I’ve always busted my ass inside the cage to put on a good show for the fans and to try and get noticed. Since there was quite a bit of jealousy going around, nobody wanted to step into the cage with me. I’d heard that most of the fighters in the locker room wanted me to fail. They knew I didn’t have a camp to train with so they didn’t want to get into the cage with me so I could stay sharp. They were hoping that by me not fighting, I’d go into the fight out of ring shape and blow my big chance.
Even though I didn’t have a fight scheduled, I never stopped training. I’ve always been told to be ready for anything and that’s what I was doing. It didn’t matter If I didn’t get another fight before Dodson, I was going to do whatever I had to to keep myself physically and mentally sharp.
Keeping myself physically sharp was never a problem. I was a wreck mentally, however. Even though I knew my big fight was coming up, it was hard to keep myself from getting discouraged. I knew that even if I won my fight, it didn’t guarantee anything. There were no guaranteed contracts on the line and there was a chance that my fight would never even be seen by anyone who mattered.
Even if my fight did get seen, what if I came out on the losing end of things? What if I put in a horrible showing and got my ass handed to me in the first round? I’d never had those kinds of thoughts before and they scared the shit out of me. All I wanted to do was make it to one of the big groups so I could make enough money to bring my brother home with me. If I lost my fight and didn’t at least put in an impressive showing, I could kiss my aspirations of ever making it anywhere goodbye.
Shelly called me when she got off of work. The two of us talking every evening was quickly becoming routine. As a rule, I hate talking on the phone. I always have. With her, it’s different. When I’m talking to Shelly, the rest of the bullshit going on in my life seems to disappear, at least for a little bit.
While we were talking, she started dropping hints that she wanted to come over. I haven’t had a woman—well, not one that mattered—over here since…I don’t even remember when.
“Eh, I don’t think that’s a good idea for you to come over. How about we just talk for a while? I’m sure you’ve got to get some rest for tomorrow.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m on my way,” she giggled.
I looked around my apartment, terrified of her actually coming over to see it. I'd been to her place a couple of times already. Her home is beautiful and virtually spotless. Her apartment is so clean that you could probably eat off the floor.
My apartment? Not so much. The place was fucking trashed, and I had to move fast. I couldn’t believe that she was coming over.
"It's already getting late and I really don't want you to have to drive through Detroit at night," I tried to persuade her into staying home.
"Jason, I'm a big girl. I think I can handle a drive through Detroit. You know, I've been a hockey fan my whole life. Do you have any idea how many times I've driven to Joe Louis Arena by myself to watch a Redwings game? I’m on my way."
Shit. She wasn’t taking no for an answer. "Fine. I’ll see you in a minute."
"Okay, I'll see you soon."
Since she was in her car already, I had to run around like a chicken with my head cut off to make my place at least somewhat presentable. I went from one room to another, picking up dirty clothes and throwing them into the hamper.
I looked around and decided it was decent enough. I should have done some deep cleaning but that’s hard to do when you don’t even own a broom or vacuum cleaner. I had to make do with what I had available at my disposal.
While I was waiting for Shelly to show up, my phone started to ring. It was Damon.
“Jason, I got a fight for you. It won’t happen for two weeks but it should be a good tune-up for you. This guy’s size is identical to Dodson and, from the training I’ve seen, he has the exact same fighting style.”
“Who is it?”
“His name is Chris Peters. He’s a former golden gloves boxer out of Minnesota.”
“I’ve never heard of him.”
“You’re not the only one. This is going to be his first professional MMA fight.”
“Great. How am I supposed to prepare to fight a guy who’s style I can’t study?”
“Jesus Christ, Jason. Just go out there and fight your fight. You’re going to be fine. I’ll get with you tomorrow to go over the specifics.”
Just like that, I had the fight that I needed. Someone to have a warm-up fight with that had a similar fighting style to what I was about to go up against.
Shelly
I don’t remember Detroit looking like this.
I remember riding through with my daddy on Saturdays when he would go to the Chrysler plant where he worked to pick up his paycheck.
I was always in awe of that factory. It was so big and when we pulled into the parking lot, I felt like I was entering another world. There were so many new and flashy cars parked throughout the lot, as discounts on vehicles were a big perk for everyone who worked there. Whenever I would bring up the idea of us getting a new car, my dad would scoff at it.
“What do we need a new car for? What’s wrong with the one we have?”
“Nothing daddy, but look at how nice all these cars are.”
“I know they’re nice, sweetie, I build them. Even though this place provides me with a good living, I would rather save my money for important things rather than throw it away on a new car when the one we have drives perfectly fine. When this one starts giving us problems, then we’ll look into new ones. It’s important to be smart with your money because you never know what might come up.”
Since that day, I took the conversation my daddy and I had to heart. Because of him, I save as much of my money as I can. As much as I would love to buy a new car every couple of years, I remember the words he told me and put any extra money I have into savings.
Detroit had changed so much since then. It had even changed a lot in the last five years, which was the last time I drove up for a hockey game. When going to Joe Louis, you don’t see all of Detroit. You just see the highway and the little bit of downtown around the stadium, which the city takes great pride in looking nice.
I certainly wasn’t downtown as I drove to Jason’s apartment. There were more abandoned and boarded up buildings than there were houses that actually had people living in them. The streets were filled with homeless people, and my heart ache for them.
Pulling up outside of his apartment, I noticed the neighborhood may have been even sketchier than the ones I drove through. There were a couple of thugs hanging out by the entrance to the building that were glaring at me as I sat in my car. I didn’t feel safe passing them to get into the building so I called Jason.
“Hey, there are a couple of questionable looking guys hanging out by the front door. Would you mind coming out and getting me?”
“Oh, those are
just our friendly neighborhood drug dealers,” he laughed. “I’ll be right out.”
He showed up outside my car door within seconds, ready to whisk me away to his apartment. I got a good look at the two guys as I passed them, you know, just in case.
We got inside safely, even though I wasn’t particularly fond of the looks the men at the door were giving me. I hoped they wouldn’t be here when I left but I had already decided that I was going to have Jason walk me back to my car at the end of the night.
Even though I was already there, he seemed hesitant to let me into his apartment. Looking around, I could see why he might not have wanted me to come over. I took a seat on his couch as I looked around. He wasn’t much for decorating, that was for sure.
The Silencer: A Bad Boy MMA Romance Page 6
