Tyson recovered quickly and got to his feet, but his unsteady stance revealed he was rocked. And Calder capitalized on his advantage against the champ. Closing the distance, he threw a jab, followed immediately by a straight right—not hard shots, but both landed. When Tyson responded with his own combination, Calder went in for a real takedown, throwing Tyson’s body to the mat just as the end of the first round bell rang.
Parker stood, her knees unsteady. She didn’t even recognize the guy inside the cage.
“Where are you going?” Walker asked, looking as disappointed by his coach’s performance as the rest of the booing crowd.
“I’m sorry. I can’t watch him lose either,” she said sadly.
He stood and gave her a quick hug. “He might need you after this fight,” he whispered.
She gave a sad smile as she broke away. “You know him better than that. It’s Tyson we’re talking about. He doesn’t need anyone.”
* * *
Her grandmother hugged her tightly the next morning at the airport. “Call as soon as you get settled,” she said.
Parker forced a smile as she pulled away, readjusting on her shoulder the weight of her oversized purse she was using as a carry-on. “I will, Grandma.” She checked her watch. “I should go. They’ll start boarding in five minutes.”
Her grandmother nodded.
Still, she hesitated, scanning the busy airport. Passengers hurried toward their gates and through security—business people in suits, families going on vacations, couples saying good-bye . . . She sighed. The faster she could get out of there and on a plane, the faster this crushing weight on her chest would go away.
“Parker, darling, are you okay?” Abigail asked, looking concerned enough to risk her recent Botox injection by frowning.
She nodded and forced a smile. “I’m great. I just thought . . . Never mind.” Tyson obviously had no intention of saying good-bye to her that morning and she was crazy to keep hoping he’d be there. He’d lost his fight the night before. She knew he had his own problems to deal with and she wasn’t on the list of things he cared about. He’d made that clear.
“You fell hard this time, huh?” her grandmother asked, touching her cheek.
The rare gesture brought tears to her eyes and she blinked them away. She shrugged, not trusting her voice.
“Use this. All of it—the passion, the heartache—put it all into this role and you’ll be fantastic.”
She suppressed a sigh. Unfortunately, there was nothing else it was good for. She hugged her grandmother quickly once more. “Thanks, Grandma. I’ll see you in a few weeks.”
The older woman waved as Parker disappeared through security and, a few minutes later, Parker lingered at the gate as the last of the passengers boarded the flight to Los Angeles.
She really had spent too much of her life living in a fantasy world, Parker thought. What was she expecting—Tyson to come running into the airport, past security, to tell her he loved her?
Bah! As if.
No. Tyson Reed had done a lot for her these past months, but none so much as teach her the reality of the world. He hadn’t lied when he’d told her he wasn’t a forever kind of guy. She’d been the one to take a chance on him anyway. Not that her heart had given her much choice. She’d fallen in love with him.
She sighed, her foolishness making her dizzy. Hadn’t she learned her lesson the hard way before? But she’d been so successful in breaking down Tyson’s walls; he’d let her in. Therefore, she’d thought maybe . . . just maybe . . .
“Ms. Hamilton, we need you to board,” the airline attendant at the gate’s door said.
“Right, of course,” she said, handing the girl her boarding pass and identification.
“I’m a big fan,” the girl said. “Are you on your way to LA to start filming a new movie?” she asked quietly.
Parker nodded. “Yes.”
“That’s so exciting. I wanted to be a performer . . . Guess that’s why I’m in Vegas. Everyone here is a performer just waiting to be discovered. I guess we’re not all as good as we’d like to believe,” she said with a laugh and a shrug.
And others could win an Academy Award for their performance without even trying, she thought. With one final glance over her shoulder, she boarded the plane.
* * *
“How long are you going to waste away up here?” Walker asked, opening Tyson’s apartment door a few days later.
“Get out.”
“No.” Walker came into the apartment and looked around. “This place smells. You smell. It’s time to get your shit together, man.” He opened the window curtains and the blaring sun nearly blinded him.
Tyson covered his eyes with an arm as he lay on his couch. “Walker, I will knock you the fuck out if you don’t get out of my home right now.”
Walker laughed. “Bring it. You haven’t moved off the couch for almost a week. I might actually be able to take you.”
Sighing, Tyson sat up and rested his elbows on his knees, wiping his face. Obviously Walker wasn’t going to let him wallow in peace.
“Look, you lost. Get over it,” Walker said, collecting empty water bottles from the floor and end tables and carrying them to the recycle bin in the kitchen. “And clean yourself up. Seriously, what is that smell?”
Tyson stood. “Okay, I’m up. Stop cleaning my apartment,” he grumbled, picking up discarded chocolate bar wrappers and an old pizza box and tossing them into the garbage.
“I know you’re pissed off right now and disappointed in that shit performance you gave out there . . .”
“Are you here to cheer me up or convince me to slit my wrists?”
“Neither. What was it you said to me once? Oh, right. I’m not your therapist. I just need my coach back because I have a fight in six weeks.” He opened the fridge and then shut it quickly. “Okay, that smell of rotting feet is coming from something in there.”
Tyson glanced around his home—or what used to be his home. Walker was right. It was a mess. He was a mess. The decision loss after the fight had put him into a depression like he’d never felt, but the thing that had broken him was the fact Parker was gone. He cleared his throat, as he picked up several beer bottles from the coffee table. “She left after the first round, huh?” he asked.
Walker nodded.
That was good. At least the woman he was undoubtedly in love with hadn’t watched him go down. He let out a deep breath. “Okay. Tomorrow. We start your training camp tomorrow.”
Walker tapped him on the shoulder as he headed for the door. “Great. See ya tomorrow, Coach . . . Clean yourself up.”
* * *
The noise outside his apartment woke him as he slept on the couch later that evening. Tomorrow, he’d return to the gym; tonight he was continuing his self-pity act and the interruption pissed him off. Grabbing his trusty bat, he swung open the door and stormed outside.
Connor stood at the bottom of the stairs, jiggling the handle to the back door of the gym. “What are you doing?”
“You changed the code,” Connor said.
Damn right he changed the fucking code. Pretty soon, he was going to start locking anyone out of the gym who didn’t have a good Goddamn reason to be there. His father was right. He’d let so many other things take away his focus. He’d lost that fight because of his own lack of judgment. That wouldn’t be happening again.
“I’ll give you four seconds to get away from my gym.”
“I wanted to return this,” Connor said, picking up the championship belt off of the ground next to him.
The sight of it made him ill. Perfect fucking timing once again, Connor. Pouring salt into wounds seemed to be his older brother’s specialty. He turned to go back inside but Connor’s footsteps on the stairs made him stop. “What exactly do you want from me?”
“I told you, I wanted to bring this back . . . I’m sorry.”
Running down the stairs, he grabbed the belt from his brother and threw it across the parking lot. �
�Go! Take it, sell it, get your next fix, but just leave me the fuck alone.”
“I saw the fight. You should have had him.”
Should have had . . . What the hell did Connor know about it? Five brutal rounds of the guy schooling him because he’d let everyone else’s problems become his own. No more. He’d let down his father, but more important, himself. “I said, leave.” He dropped his gaze to the stairs.
“You were fighting injured. I saw you favoring that right shoulder, avoiding your overhand right, which usually knocks them out . . .”
He didn’t want to hear any of this. He’d lost because for the first time in his life he hadn’t been prepared, he’d been stupid and cocky, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again. He climbed the stairs and grabbed the bat.
“I’m going to rehab. I’m done messing up.”
A part of him wanted to ask his brother if he needed cab fare, if that was why he’d shown up . . . but the humbled, depressed, and angry person inside couldn’t do it.
He went inside.
Connor’s voice drifted through the closed door. “This loss is a good thing Tyson,” he said. “You’ve been winning in the cage so long, you didn’t realize you were losing at life . . . Now’s your chance to change that. Start winning at life, man.”
He shook his head as he collapsed back onto the couch. Right, cause his brother was such an expert in that department.
Chapter 14
“Okay, I think we are ready to start taking questions. Guy in the back—gray tie, red shirt,” the movie’s publicity rep, Angel, said, pointing to the reporter in the back of the standing-room-only conference room at the Beverly Hills Marriott a week later.
Parker had never seen so many media personnel show up for any of her previous movies. Obviously, everyone believed, as she had, that this movie was going to be a success. The pride she felt about it returned, tainted only by the fact that Brantley Cruise sat at the end of the table, beaming as though this was his creation, his baby . . .
“My question is for Parker,” the guy said.
She smiled and sat straighter. “Go ahead,” she said into the microphone.
“Why did you decide to take the role of Jessica ‘The Crusher’ Carlisle?”
Good, they were starting with an easy one. “Well, I read the script and fell in love with the story, the main characters . . . the writers really did a fantastic job with the emotional portrayal of the struggles women fighters still have to face, even though the sport is becoming more accepting of them as athletes. Um . . . combined with the struggles my character faces in her personal life with the loss of her husband and raising her son alone, the role was too dynamic to pass up. I’m fortunate that I was able to get the opportunity to play such a powerful role.” It no longer mattered to her why she’d gotten the part—she was just eager to start filming to bring the story to life.
The reporter nodded. “Thank you,” he said as he sat.
Hands flew upward in the room, and questions were fired at everyone on the panel. Brantley explained why he’d decided to take on the project and the writers discussed the inspiration behind the story. Her fellow cast members answered questions about their motivations for being a part of the film, and Parker started to tune out, her thoughts far away from LA and the movie.
Then a young female reporter in the back of the room stood. “My question is for Parker.”
She sat forward in her seat. “Yes?”
“First of all, I just have to say, you look incredible.”
“Thank you.”
“My question is, What was your secret? How did you transform your body so drastically in such a short period of time?” she asked.
Tyson. He was the reason she’d accomplished the look she’d needed for the role. He was the reason she was confident she would deliver a realistic and compelling portrayal on set.
And she should have known she wouldn’t get through this media press conference without talking about him. She swallowed hard before answering. “Well, I trained MMA at Punisher Athletics in Las Vegas for the last several months,” she said simply, hoping that was enough to satisfy the reporter.
It wasn’t. “Under head coach and former MFL champ Tyson Reed, isn’t that right?”
Former MFL champ . . . it still ached to hear those words. She wondered how he was doing dealing with the recent defeat. She shook the thought aside. “Yes. I trained with him and his camp.”
“You were also photographed with him at a Vegas nightclub. Were you two an item?” the woman asked.
Parker’s mouth went dry. She glanced quickly at Brantley but the smug jerk wasn’t coming to her rescue. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying watching her squirm. The room was silent as everyone waited for her response. She hesitated, but recovered quickly. “Tyson Reed and I were . . .” She blinked as the room started to close in around her. Hundreds of eyes stared at her, awaiting her response, like hungry hyenas waiting for their prey to weaken so they could pounce. Her mouth was dry and she took a sip of her water, before forcing a playful smile. “Well, I mean—come on—look at him. Who wouldn’t fall for him?”
The room filled with laughter but the young woman still didn’t look happy with the vague response.
Thankfully Angel moved on. “Next question.”
Another woman in the front row stood. “This question is for Brantley . . .”
No longer on the hot seat, Parker slid to the back of the chair and tuned out again as Brantley went on and on about how he’d immediately knew the film was different, unique blah blah blah . . . All those words and not one of them meant anything.
Unlike Tyson’s silence—which spoke volumes when he was loving her and letting her go.
* * *
Tyson’s cell phone rang and he ignored it. The Desert Hope Treatment Center number was one he’d been ignoring all week. So, his brother had made it to the drug addiction therapy center. Good. That didn’t mean he wanted to have any part of the healing process and twelve-step program to recovery. If Connor needed forgiveness, he could start with the other people in his life that deserved an apology. He just wanted to be left alone.
Silencing the call, he stared at his fighter roster, looking for a replacement fighter to offer Erik Johansen for the December match that Dane wouldn’t be fighting in. After the recent headaches he’d caused the organization, he felt as though he had to make things better somehow. As he reached for the office phone, it rang. Desert Hope again.
He sighed as he answered. “No hablo Ingles.”
“I taught you that one,” his brother’s voice said.
“Look, man, I’m kinda busy . . .”
“I know. I won’t keep you. I just wanted . . . I mean, here at the center, they encourage us to reach out to family. They are having a family dinner tonight and I thought maybe . . .”
“Thought maybe what? That I’d come?” His brother couldn’t be serious. The front door to the gym opened and his father entered. Perfect timing. He hadn’t seen his dad since their argument about Dane and now he was showing up while he was talking to Connor?
“No. You’re right. That’s too much to ask. I. . .uh . . . I’m sorry, man.”
His brother hung up just as his father entered the office.
“Hey,” he said, stacking the fighter files on the corner of his desk.
“Hi.”
“So, your brother’s in rehab,” he said.
“I heard.” About four seconds ago.
His father looked uncomfortable as he rocked back and forth on his heels. “I thought maybe I’d drive out there tonight.”
Tyson’s mouth fell. His father was going to go to the Desert Hope Treatment Center’s family dinner?
“The lady from the support group called. She said it helps when the family offers support throughout the process.”
His jaw tightened. Wasn’t that what he’d tried to do? Wasn’t that what his mother had tried to do? They’d all failed. What made anyone believe Connor was serious abo
ut this now? Hadn’t his brother’s failed attempts cost their family enough?
“Anyway, I wasn’t sure if you planned to go or not.”
“No.”
He nodded. “That’s fair. You tried already; no one expects more from you. I’m the one who stood back and let everyone else shoulder the impact this has had on our family over the years. It’s time I stepped up . . . for my son.”
Tyson’s gaze fell to the desk. “Dad, about the fight . . .”
His father crossed the room and placed a hand on his head. “Don’t. I’ve failed both of you over the years and it’s me who should be sorry. I forced you to become something I wanted you to be and I pushed Connor away because he was a distraction who could never be the idea of perfection I thought our family legacy needed. Fuck family legacy—it’s time to focus on family.”
The lump in his throat at his father’s words preventing him from speaking, so he nodded.
“We will get the belt back. That is, if you want it back.”
“Of course I do.” It was the only goal he’d ever worked toward. He didn’t know anything else.
“Anyway, I should go if I’m going to make it on time.” He hesitated for a second at the door, then nodded. “Okay, see you later, son.”
“Hey, Dad,” he called as he father left the room. “Uh, tell Connor . . .” What? He had nothing. He shrugged.
His dad nodded. “Will do.”
* * *
A week later, Tyson scanned the crowd inside ShadowDancers at Walker’s bachelor party. Billy and Carlos were at the bar doing shots off of one of the dancer’s chest and he grinned. They better enjoy it while they could. Starting the following morning, they were training twenty-four-seven in preparation for their upcoming fights. His loss had already done enough damage to his camp’s reputation. His fighters were going to be ready for their fights.
Across from him in the booth, the groom-to-be was texting, a goofy grin on his face.
“You know, I thought the point of a bachelor party was for a final hoopla before you cut your balls off and yet all night you’ve been sitting in this booth texting Gracie,” he said, but he understood. Walker had found a good one; you didn’t mess that up.
Fighting the Fall Page 20
