by Claire Adams
I nodded. In my head I imagined Fenton sulking in a dark corner of some seedy strip club where he would not even look at the women. He would see me, and his blue eyes would brighten. He could not hide the way he liked seeing me. I would tell him the truth.
"I've decided I can mix business and pleasure if you can," I practiced in my head.
"Miss, I don't feel right leaving you here," the cab driver said. "You go ahead and look for your guy. I'll be out here if you need me."
"Thanks, but I'll be fine," I said. I paid him in full plus tip and opened the cab door.
I took a deep breath and plunged into the dim tunnel of the strip club entrance. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust and when they did, I wished the bright lights of Fremont Street had blinded me.
Fenton was surrounded by fawning strippers, flashing a fan of cash in one hand as he knocked back shots of tequila from the bottle with the other. There was a bruise on the left edge of his jaw and a cut above his eyebrow. In the short time since he left me, Fenton Morris had lived up to every detail of his reputation.
I watched as a bouncer tried to kick him out. "Come on, I bet I can take you in eight seconds," Fenton told the mountainous man. Then, he turned and saw me. His smile disappeared, but not as fast as I did. I was out the door with the whole scene scarred into my memory.
CHAPTER TEN
Fenton
Dana Maria walked away from me, but I could not leave. I marched up to the mountain-sized bouncer and asked to see the manager. When the white-suited manager came out to see me, I paid him to send my sister home. The least I could give her was the night off. There was a commotion back stage between numbers, and I could hear her yelling. But when the manager emerged, he assured me Dana Maria had left for the evening.
The only thing to do then was to get blind drunk. I went to the bar and ordered tequila shots. When the bartender put down the bottle and turned to get a shot glass, I grabbed the bottle and swigged straight from it. I left enough money on the bar to cover it.
My father had never even bothered to ask about my mother. Did he even know she was dead? We had no address to reach him when it came to send out the funeral arrangements. Not that there were actually arrangements. It was just a quick goodbye in the hospital chapel before she was wheeled downstairs to the morgue.
Dana Maria had disappeared after that. She made sure I went to school, her network of friends from the neighborhood telling on me every chance they got. It wasn't until I was in college that I realized she skipped school to work two jobs.
"There's no reason for you to drink alone," a sultry voice interrupted my thoughts. A stripper in a gold outfit that consisted of three small triangles took the barstool next to me. She ran a gold platform heel up my leg. "How about we find a table? You've got a bottle and I've got friends that want to meet you," she said.
"Why me?" I asked. Did they know Dana Maria was my sister?
"Your billboards, silly. Fenton Morris can't walk in here without getting some lovin'. More handsome in person than two stories up in the air," the golden stripper said.
She led me to a table and as soon as I sat down, the girls surrounded me. Across the room, a drunken patron complained that I was hogging all the women.
"You got a problem?" I asked. "Come over here and tell me about it toe to toe."
"Now, honey, there's no need for that. He's just jealous of you, but there's nothing to worry about. Enough ladies here to satisfy everyone," a red-haired stripper said. She adjusted her heavy breasts in their black leather bra and blew the man a kiss.
I remembered my mother soothing my father in the same easy way. A hand on his forearm, soft words, and a smile that told everyone it was all okay – except it had not been then, and it was not now. I wanted to smash the man's face in. I knew I could do it with one punch. Was I becoming my father?
I continued to drink, but the tequila did not block out my biggest fear. I worried I was just like my father, deep down in my core. When things did not go my way, when all my hard-earned money disappeared and I was too old to hold on to my talent, I would become mean and spiteful like him. I would turn and walk away from the people that depended on me, because I was too tired to care.
My father slumped in his chair, the one good, steady chair in our tiny apartment. His drink of choice was cheap vodka, almost rubbing alcohol it was so sharp and harsh. From there, if he moved at all, it was to reach out and slip a hand up my mother's leg. She slapped him away, too busy doing laundry or getting dinner or helping her children. He would scowl and drink again.
"Oooh, your muscles are just as cut as your billboard. They don't look real up there, but, wow, they don't look real now and I'm touching them," a platinum blonde stripper dressed all in hot pink squealed with delight.
"Everyone in town says you're going to win," the golden stripper said.
I finally took a deep breath. That was the only difference between my father and me. I had talent. My God-given talent had earned me free lessons when I was an angry young boy. Then, I was given a scholarship in high school. I was recruited for college and all but failed while my MMA career skyrocketed. I had not needed my father for any of those things. My talent and hard work got me what I wanted.
I pulled out the wad of cash Kev had given me for gambling. Instead of throwing it away on Blackjack or craps, I had stashed it. Now, I fanned it out and told the ladies I was ready to have some fun. They all giggled, clapped, and bounced. I told myself this was what I wanted. I had the money and I was going to flaunt it.
"The party is on me, ladies. Literally on me, my lap is feeling lonely," I announced.
I was glad when the redhead dropped across my thighs first. Any sight of blonde hair made me think of Kya. So did the color purple, a beauty mark near one stripper's mouth, and the way another put her hands on her hips.
"No touching the girls," the mountainous bouncer barked.
"You mean like this?" I asked. I hoped he would haul me outside for a fight. Anything to stop thinking about Kya.
"It's alright, Roger, I like it," the stripper said. "He's got a soft touch for being such a hardcore fighter."
"That's right," I said. I tipped up the tequila bottle and realized it was empty, so I smashed it on the floor.
A few of the strippers jumped away, careful to avoid me and the broken glass under their impossibly high heels.
"Another bottle over here and a clean up in aisle one," I yelled. The bouncer approached again and I hoped he would grab me by my collar. Instead, he brushed some glass off a strawberry blonde in a blaze orange bikini.
I was saving the strippers from the broken glass by piling them onto my lap when I looked up and saw Kya. She stood, frozen, in the doorway. I was three deep underneath strippers and almost dropped my fan of cash in my haste to get up. One of the girls slipped on the spilled tequila and cried out as she landed on a piece of broken bottle.
"Sorry, move, move!" I said. I evaded the bouncer and ran for the street.
Kya disappeared into a waiting cab and refused to turn around. The driver shut the door and blocked me from knocking on the window.
"How could you do this to a beautiful woman? I hate men like you, don't know what they've got until it’s gone. Or is it that you think now that the challenge is gone, the excitement, that there is nothing left?" the cabbie asked. "You don't know a single thing about what it takes to make a commitment, what it takes to make a woman happy. And, you're going to lose her. You deserve to."
#
I woke up the next morning hungover and sore. Still, before I could assess the damage to myself, I thought of Kya. The look on her face was raw, and it rubbed my memory hard – disappointment, disgust, and a bone-deep sadness I recognized too well. Kya found out she was wrong about someone she cared for and it hurt more because she had cared.
Kya had cared for me. Enough to come find me after our argument. Enough to stick around even after I teased and pushed her. Enough to look for me after I made her uncomfort
able.
I heaved myself out of bed and got dressed. I needed to find her. I knew I was the last person she probably wanted to see, but I had to face her. Kya had to know why I had gone to the strip club. It would be a painfully intimate thing to tell her, but that seemed a small sacrifice to see her green eyes again.
I pried open the door of my suite bedroom and my manager slumped into the room.
"What? Oh great, Aldous was right. At least, there was a reason I slept on the floor all night," Kev said.
"There are things called locks," I said.
"Yeah, but not on the outside. I'm trying to keep you from running off and burning any more energy. You remember you've got a match tonight, right?" Kev asked.
I felt sick and hoped it was just the tequila. "I have to do something first."
"Nope, no way, not happening," Aldous said. He appeared from my suite's kitchen with a specially blended drink. "You're going to finish this and then do everything else I say."
Hours later I was detoxed, primed, and ready to fight. I shadowboxed against the green room wall and waited for my music to come on. I had to pump myself up.
No one tells you what to do, you do it alone, you're going to take this Peretti guy, no one else in the ring can do it. Once you've finished him, it’s on to the big title, then you're a champion, then you can get the big bucks, I told myself.
I stopped and stared at my shadow. I should have signed endorsement deals all along. It hurt my career and especially my bank account to resist them. Besides, it did not matter. I had branded myself, sold myself into a hollow replica of my father – the lone wolf, the man that goes it alone, the fighter that doesn't need any endorsements paying his way.
I got in the ring, but I already felt a step off. Mario Peretti was fast, wings of the hummingbird fast, and I took a few hits right after the first bell. I shook it off, but could not rid myself of the feeling I had gotten into the ring on the wrong foot.
His leg snaked out and I just barely jumped back in time. Another inch and he could have gotten my knee. There were some injuries I could not come back from. We danced around each other again, but instead of thinking about his close and hard attacks, I wondered if last night's injured look was ever something Kya would come back from.
Mario Peretti lunged in, his feet fast across the ring. I heard a chop whistle past my ear and lifted my leg for a kick. The move did not land, but it swung my leg out of the way of his roundhouse kick. My rival smiled at me, his eyes flat, as we circled around again.
Kya had to know what she was getting into when we started spending time together. Even as I thought it, I knew it was not true. I remembered Kya in the nightclub, the first time we met. She had drunk too much, left herself too open. Then, she came back for more. I used her, she entertained me, and then I finally shocked her and she dropped me. I would never see her again.
I got in a fast and hard combination, but Peretti was still standing. When he circled around the opposite way, my eyes traveled past him and into the crowd. Kya's green eyes looked up at me.
I stumbled and heard the arena crowd gasp. It was something I had never done before. I was the unstoppable fighter, the angry fighter, the one that came back from a hit harder and fiercer every time. I did not lose my footing; I did not lose my way.
Fenton Morris did not get distracted by a pretty face. A face that wanted me to be different, to be more or better. I was what I was, and I was good.
Still, I looked at Kya for one second too long and Peretti struck. The arena tipped sideways and blackness swallowed me before I hit the mats. It was a total knock out.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kya
I let the crowd push me along out of the arena and into the casino. I did not put up a fight we moved towards the slot machines and bars, instead of the door that lead to my hotel. Instead, I drifted along and eavesdropped on the fans as they discussed the fight.
"Peretti fights dirty, that's the only explanation," a short man said.
"I've never seen Fenton Morris slip. How could he not see that hit coming?" The short man's bald friend threw his hands up in the air. "Something had to be wrong."
"It's all over already, they’re calling it the surprise upset of the year," an older woman with bottle red hair announced as she studied her phone.
"Bet Morris is the most surprised," her husband said, "he's never lost yet."
"Best he did it now so he won't in the title fight," the man next to them in the crowd said.
Upset, I thought, is the right word for it. My stomach heaved as the image of Fenton falling to the mats flashed through my head again. I was just as surprised as everyone else, more so since I had been close to Fenton and felt his strength. He had seemed invincible until tonight.
And, it was all my fault.
"I heard he was out at the strip clubs last night, probably why he wasn't up to the fight tonight," the short man continued.
"I believe it. He looks like the kind of man that comes to Vegas for the strippers," the young man closest to me said.
"I saw him there," an older man in a garish cowboy shirt said. "Me and my buddies were down near Fremont Street and saw him head into one of them gentleman's clubs."
"A night out drinking at the strip clubs could be enough to throw anyone off their game, eh, Ed?" his friend said.
"Yeah, but it was worth it," Ed agreed.
I swallowed hard and slipped out of the crowd. I took refuge from the wave of people in a small gift shop and tried to stop my spinning thoughts.
The look on Fenton's face when I walked into that strip club was the same he gave me seconds before Mario Peretti knocked him out. I was interfering and it was wrong. Fenton Morris did not need anyone's help, much less mine. He did not want me. I was just getting in his way.
My phone rang and in the relative quiet of the gift shop, I had no reason not to answer it. "It's not a good time, James," I said.
"Just tell me if you found him last night or not," my boss said.
"I did, but we didn't talk, it was a huge mess. He was at a strip club, all surrounded by women. I kinda just turned around and ran," I said.
"So, you kicked him out, slammed the door in his face, then found him with a bunch of strippers but didn't say anything? No wonder he was shocked to see you at the fight," James said.
"You're kidding, right? Do you really think that's why he got knocked out? Everyone thinks something was wrong. He was distracted. He looked right at me and didn't even see the hit coming." I picked up and twisted a Vegas keychain tight around my finger.
"Jesus, honey, I was joking, but really? He looked at you right before?" he asked. "I mean, you turn heads, darling, don't get me wrong, but now you're taking down fighters just by being in the audience?"
"It's not funny, James. I've ruined everything. The vitamin supplement people are not going to want him anymore, not that Fenton would ever sign with me." I let my finger turn purple before untwisting the key chain and returning it to the rack.
"Oh, now there is where you are wrong," my boss said.
"Great, everything is backwards," I said. "You're supposed to tell me there is no way I caused Fenton to lose the fight, and of course, I've lost the account and can just come home. I think I hate Vegas, or maybe it hates me."
"Sweet cheeks, you're the one that's going to have to figure out if you distracted Fenton from the fight. And, who knows, maybe you did and that means good things for you and your bad boy," James said. "All I know is that a comeback campaign is even better than a seamless rise to the top. You are still on the account and can make a killing if you sign him now and then help him win the title fight."
"Sign him and help him win the title fight? Sure, yeah, that totally sounds like something I can handle, considering how well I've done here so far," I said.
"You're going to do it, I know you are," my boss said. "Oh, and Kya?"
"What?"
"Always bet on black." James hung up.
I bought the Ve
gas keychain, considering that I had bent it out of shape, and wished the purchase had taken a whole lot longer. The only thing for me to do was find Fenton and face him right away. I cringed at the thought, but finally left the gift shop and fought my way upstream against the crowd. Access to Fenton's floor was restricted, but one security guard was letting up gaggles of short-skirted women.
"You too, honey?" the guard asked me. "Now, I know why he took that hit. I'd let Peretti bash my head in too, if I knew it'd get me all this sexy sympathy."
He let me in the elevator where the women were all adding a layer of lipstick, adjusting their cleavage, or fluffing up their hair in the mirrored walls. I glanced at myself briefly and wondered if he would see the guilt on me right away. It felt like a weight on my shoulders, but I straightened them and strutted my way into his suite with the rest of the women.
Club music vibrated the walls of Fenton's penthouse suite and the crowd was thick inside. Most of the women made a beeline for the dance floor, where every stick of furniture had been removed from the sunken living room. I turned and went straight for the bar and a straight shot of bourbon.
How exactly was I going to say sorry for getting him knocked out? I stopped cold and ordered a double. Even worse, what if I apologized and it turned out he had not even seen me? Either way, I was sure to make an ass out of myself. I had no idea how to turn that into a comeback campaign pitch.
"Well, hello, pretty lady," a voice said.
I turned around and sipped my bourbon to hide a grimace. "Hello, Mr. Casey."
"Please, call me Kev. I plan on calling you Kya, at least, until we come up with a more intimate nickname," he said.
"I'm afraid I'm not here for intimacy, I'm here on business," I said.
"Could have fooled me. I saw you in the crowd tonight. Pretty sure our boy did, too," Kev said.
"That's impossible, there were hundreds of people there," I said.
