Love Bites: Rock Star Romance

by Amy Faye

  "So you're putting the girl up as collateral?"

  "Not hardly. But you were going to use her as a threat, and I'm telling you that I'm wise to it. You want to do it, then do it, but don't pretend I don't know about it in advance, you feel me?"

  Coogan's cheeks puffed out and then he blew out his mouthful of air, and scratched at his head of thin gray hair. "So let's say I agreed. You've been missing the better part of a week now. Your manager going to let you fight looking like that?"

  Shannen's face split into a grin. "My manager does what I tell him to do. You hire employees very often who don't listen to you?"

  Coogan looked over at something out of view, as if he were sharing a knowing glance with someone that she couldn't identify. "No, I suppose I don't," he answered, without looking at them.

  "So you understand, then. Do we have a deal, or don't we?"

  Coogan looked at him, and Caroline suddenly realized he'd never put the pistol back into his pocket. He caught her looking at regarded the pistol, holding it up to look at the slide like he hadn't realized it was in his hand.

  "Deal?"

  "Do we have a deal," Shannen repeated. "Or don't we?"

  Coogan pocketed the pistol and held out one rough, leathery hand. "We have a deal, assuming you hold up your end of yours."

  Caroline looked over and hoped to high heaven that nothing went sideways, because she was in too deep for anything else.

  43

  In some ways, it could almost have been called a better plan. The fact that Caroline had to qualify it all, well, that went to show exactly how little the difference between a bad plan and a 'better' plan could be.

  For one thing, this one had more points of failure than the last one. There were no less than a hundred possibilities she could name in that exact instant. That was more than she was really ready to think about at all, she knew, but she wasn't about to start thinking too hard about their chances if she could avoid it.

  Still, the thoughts ran through her head regardless of whether or not she wanted to let them, and it didn't exactly help either way. She swallowed hard, and the thoughts kept going as she tried to stifle and ignore them.

  First, they were assuming that Coogan was good for his word. He'd told them he would let them go, but there really wasn't anything stopping him from reneging as soon as the money was his. That was if everything else went well. They just had to trust a criminal that he would let them go, no questions asked, and Caroline was the furthest possible thing from certain that they could do that.

  Second, they had to assume that Shannen, if he did everything right, wasn't going to get himself killed right there in the ring. His injuries had barely managed to even close up, and the internal wounds were no doubt worse than those outside. If he took a particularly bad blow to the ribs, it would just tear open that hole inside him, and then whether it tore the skin or not he'd have internal bleeding to contend with.

  Of course, then he had to try not to win the fight on some absurd lucky punch, and had to make sure that he wasn't getting himself knocked out too soon, either. It was a precise dance of things that all had to come together just right, and she didn't know how they could be sure that any of it would happen, but in particular she didn't know how they could ensure that it was all going to happen smoothly, seamlessly, with nobody noticing that it had been a facade all along.

  That would be the hardest part, probably. Avoiding the state boxing commission noticing the fix. Of course, it was also possible that Coogan was going to pay them off, and they wouldn't have noticed if he'd taken a well and truly obvious dive. It didn't pay to take risks.

  They drove in silence for a while. With Coogan's men driving, he wasn't about to start running off at the mouth, and Caroline had long since gotten used to the silent rides to and from the house. It would have been stranger to speak than not to.

  Her heart thumped in her chest, hoping that everything was going to be fine, fearing that it wasn't. Shannen's hand on hers made Caroline jump, and then she looked at him.

  He looked like he'd been tenderized with a hammer, but he smiled at her softly, and she allowed him to try to comfort her. It wasn't his fault that it wasn't going to work, so she might as well encourage him to do his best, right?

  The car eased up to a stop, and the side door opened, and Caroline got her first good look that wasn't through a blacked-out window, providing little more than shapes along the side of the road.

  She'd expected a larger venue. It was always possible that the weigh-in took place in a completely different location, rather than taking place in the arena, but she'd just assumed. If she wasn't right, then it was fine, but if she was, then the arena wasn't very big. What sort of title fight was he in again?

  They started guiding Shannen out first. She followed along behind, as if they were all part of Shannen's entourage. As if his actual entourage wasn't waiting for them just inside the door as they walked in.

  Well, she wasn't in a position to complain, she reminded herself. Nor was it all that strange. If they managed to pull it all off, then there was no problem. This wasn't a point of failure. This was just a formality before the fight. If he came in under weight, and he would, then the fight was on. That was as far as Caroline knew, anyways. Perhaps there were hidden depths and traps here as well, things she didn't even know she was supposed to be worried about.

  Her eyes swept the hall as they walked in, looking for reporters, or cameras. They apparently didn't make it this far back. Nobody was there to take photos. They were taken forward into a dressing room to allow Shannen to get changed. Caroline thought that she probably shouldn't have been allowed in, but they did. Coogan's bruisers waited outside.

  Shannen started to undress quickly, but he gave Caroline a severe look regardless, until she realized that he was waiting for something from her. Some confirmation, or something.

  "What's up?"

  "You look nervous," Shannen told her, as if he thought she needed to be told how nervous she was. That was a laugh.

  "I am."

  "Then let's leave. I know a back way, and Sal can keep those guys out there busy long enough that we can be in a car and moving before they know we're gone."

  Her eyes widened. They could do it, too, she guessed. The facility seemed to have a dozen entrances visible only from the street. If they had a few back ways, maybe a couple of side entrances, there was no way that Coogan could be watching them all. And yet, the way that her guts twisted up into a knot told her immediately without needing to think that she wasn't confident in it.

  "But what if we get caught?"

  "We won't get caught."

  Caroline's brain hurt. "And even if we do get away, somehow, then what?"

  "What do you mean, then what?"

  "He'll come after us," she said, nervous. "He'll come after us without a second thought. You saw him. He's crazy. He's a killer."

  Shannen frowned. "No, he won't. I guarantee, he'll stop chasing us if we leave town."

  "How can you be so sure?"

  "Because outside of his territory, his name means nothing, and he doesn't want to start a gang war. That's how."

  The whole suggestion seemed obvious when he said it. "But then how can I come back to town, to see my Dad? I don't want to belabor the point but he's not doing that good, and I don't think we have the money to move him across the country."

  Shannen frowned at that. "You're not wrong."

  "If you think you can't do it, I mean, we'll do what we can."

  He let out a long breath. "I can do it."

  "I don't want you to get hurt."

  He snorted. "Jim Jones is not going to hurt me."

  Caroline's eyebrow raised. "He's the champ, isn't he?"

  "I suppose, a little longer now that I'm not going to win the fight next week."

  "You sound so certain you were going to win."

  "That's because I was going to win. You want me to pretend I thought there was a chance I would lose? I can, if you w
ant."

  She couldn't help smiling at that. "Calm down there, cowboy. I just wanted to know what you were talking about."

  "Sure you did," he agreed. "Obviously. Come on, help me get these trunks on."

  He didn't look like he needed any help at all, but Caroline let herself enjoy the feel of his skin against hers until he was dressed. The clothes fit him tight. Apparently, mixed martial artists don't wear boxing trunks. They wear clothes that might as well be fighting nude. Shannen seemed completely comfortable with it. Then again, she had known that from the first time she'd ever met the man.

  "You ready?" Her voice sounded unsteady, and she didn't know whether it was the upcoming fight making her nervous, or the strands of arousal, that made her feel off-balance.

  "I'm ready. Not looking forward to the questions, though."

  He let out a long, loud breath. "I can do this. No problem. I'll get a rematch, at some point."

  "Yeah," she agreed. "And you'll be fine."

  "Yeah, I mean, that part was obvious," he told her. Caroline wanted to punch him. The difference between a guy getting knocked out and a guy getting killed was less than he seemed to think. Take a solid hit the right way, and you'll stay standing, holding your head, saying 'ow that hurt.' On the other hand, take it the wrong way, and you might never stand up again.

  It might have been the nurse in her talking, but the whole sport seemed like a recipe for concussions and getting people hurt so bad that they never really recovered.

  Shannen straightened, pulled her into a hug, and pressed his lips against her head. The worries in her gut didn't vanish, but she couldn't hold onto them forever.

  "Go on," she told him. "You've got this."

  And she told herself, whether she believed it or not, that he did.

  44

  Caroline sat in the seats and watched with a feeling in her gut that she didn't want to think about. The ring sat empty for a long time, and it had already been a long time. Music played, too loud, through the speaker system. The entire venue might have sat ten thousand, and if things went the way that they seemed to be going, Caroline had little doubt that they would be able to fill nine out of ten of those seats.

  Her stomach twisted up and she felt like she was going to be sick when Coogan settled into the seat beside her, his face as pinched and his expression as flat as it had ever looked. He seemed like he was here because he had to be, and he was going to make the best of it.

  Caroline imagined that she probably didn't look much like that. If anything she was going to look like she was here against her will and didn't know how on earth anyone could possibly get over it. The fact that it meshed so well with how she was actually feeling didn't hurt.

  "What happens now?"

  The old man looked over at her as if he were surprised to hear her speak. With the slowly increasing volume in the venue, she was a little surprised he heard her, as well. He took in a deep, slow breath and then finally decided that she might as well get an answer, apparently.

  "Now we wait for the fights to start. Your boyfriend's fight is the second to last, but there are going to be eleven. Five main events, four under card fights, and two dark fights that won't ever make television. Which is probably for the best, to be honest."

  "Is this a particularly big event?"

  "No."

  "So how long is that?"

  "Three five minute rounds, one minute between... an individual fight shouldn't take more than half an hour. But then, there's time between. You should just relax. I'm sure everything's going to be fine."

  Caroline wished she could feel so confident herself. It might have gone a long way to making her feel better about the whole thing. There had to be some kind of blood lust in these people, that they actually wanted to see guys beat the hell out of each other in a cage. But then again, blood-thirst was, apparently, the order of the day. After an eternity, the first round began. She was close enough to practically smell the sweat that was already starting to form on the fighters before they ever entered the cage.

  They were small guys, probably as light as she was, but if there was an ounce of fat on them then she couldn't see it. One of them even had his head shaved, so he had to have been saving weight there, as well. They moved in fast and started swinging hard. The men seemed to treat the punches like mosquito bites, more or less ignoring them.

  The kicks were a little harder, hard enough to hurt. Eventually they started rolling around on the ground in some sort of abstract mating ritual, or something. Caroline had to fight from laughing as neither succeeded in getting any kind of hold on the other, neither landing any decisive blows. If this was the level of competition, she thought, maybe there wasn't going to be any 'beating the hell out of' anyone going on here.

  A bell rang and the men separated easily, going back to their respective corners and talking, too quiet to hear anything. The music continued to pump into the room loud enough to drown out any sort of thought, never mind any conversation she might have wanted to have below a shout.

  But the only person there to have a conversation with was the old man, and she had more than enough talking with him from the very beginning.

  The second round went the same as the first, and the third the same as the second. In the end the referee got over the loudspeaker and announced the the one in gray trunks had won the fight. If there was any difference between the performance of the two men, it was a subtlety lost on Caroline.

  The second fight was between bigger guys, and they managed to land some solid hits. Putting together a series of consecutive blows, though, was not the order of the day. In the end, that fight went three rounds, and they announced one of the fighters had won. It was an unremarkable experience from beginning to end, and so far, there was nothing to recommend the sport.

  Still, there was more to come. A lot more, she knew, before they were going to be able to walk out of this with their lives still relatively intact. Another pair of fighters came out, small and wiry. They looked almost the same as the first two, except that both had hair cut so short that she guessed they'd both been to the barber within the past three days. Further, they both looked considerably sharper than either of the first two fighters.

  The one in blue had a Russian-sounding name, Nabokov or something. He took the fight in the second round, twisting the other guy's arm until Caroline couldn't watch any more, and apparently continuing to bend it until the bell rang and the ref ended the fight. Caroline had to assume that the other man had submitted, but she wasn't going to watch it happen, and she didn't know to a certainty outside of that.

  The nurse rubbed at her face and asked to use the bathroom. Coogan nodded and she was followed by one of his bruisers up the stairs and away. Jimmy, she thought, the one who did the cooking. He gave her exactly enough space that she didn't feel like he was stuck up her ass, and it was enough because she wasn't exactly in a position to make a run for it in the first place.

  When she came back they were starting up the music to announce another pair of fighters coming into the ring. She watched the fight because there was nothing else to be done to pass the time. It wasn't her thing, she thought sourly, but at least she could watch it without throwing up. A gout of blood started to pour from one guy's nose after it connected with his opponent's knee, supposedly accidental. Caroline wondered exactly how accidental it had been.

  A minute later, the fight was over, the guy's bloody nose continuing to seep into the canvas mat as he flopped around like a fish trying to get up. The other guy stood and waved to the crowd, making a ham of himself.

  The fights continued like that, one after the other. Eventually they started to blur into one massive thing that Caroline didn't particularly care to watch, until finally the name she was waiting for came out.

  Shannen came into the ring slowly, his shoulders tight and pulled back. He almost managed to look impressive, even after she'd known him for months. Even after she'd seen him in much more impressive situations, up much closer. Ev
en though he was barely a shadow of his former self.

  "Go on, boy," called the old man beside her. His face looked flat as he settled back into his seat, the same expression he always wore, but there was something else there as well, and that surprised her. He almost sounded excited from his tone, even if his face didn't show it.

  There might have been an interesting fight to be seen here as well, Caroline thought glumly. The other guy who came out had a mean-looking expression and hair cropped close with a pattern that had been cut into it with a razor, to make it look like lightning shot up the sides of his head.

  Caroline watched as they spoke momentarily with the referee, then moved back to their respective corners, and the whole rigmarole began. They were announced properly, then the rules were announced as if they might have changed from the last fight, and then they were entreated to touch gloves.

  They did it all with practiced ease, stepped back a bit and came out, as they said, fighting.

  If Shannen intended to screw the old man beside her over, he wouldn't have done anything differently than how he did it. He came out like a wolverine, all swinging and rough attacks. Most of the blows sailed wide or high, or the other guy slipped them.

  Not all of them, though. One particularly solid blow caught lightning's head at the right angle and sent him rocking back onto his heels. Caroline watched him take the fight to the mat, and then things were twisting up, and neither could quite gain an advantage as they turned.

  The bell rang after what felt like an eternity of Shannen being much, much too close to making this a real fight. When the second round began it started much the same, until a kick came out of nowhere and caught Shannen on his chin. He dropped down, though he tried to stay up. The other guy followed him down and grabbed an arm, twisted it up around behind Shannen's head and pulled hard.

  It would have been a good time to submit, Caroline thought. It looked like the other guy was ready to tear his arm solid out of the socket. But Shannen continued fighting, continued pulling. The other guy slowly tightened more and more, the obvious pain on Shannen's face showing clearer and clearer, until...