by Lux Miller
I’m completely lost in my daydream when I feel a cold hand on my wrist. I snatch it away and look up in surprise to see a pair of familiar blue eyes staring down at me. Blushing, I rub my wrist where he grabbed me, and he grunts, an unforgiving sneer twisting his otherwise handsome features. I shiver as the realization hits me that the fight must be over. And Brad looks like he’s ready to rip someone’s spine out Mortal Kombat-style. I don’t know what the odds were tonight, and I couldn’t pick good ones if they stared me in the face, but I can tell from the way Brad is huffing that whatever happened, it isn’t what he wanted to happen.
“I need a drink,” he growls, digging into my apron where I keep my tips. Old habits die hard. It may be my first day back on the job, but Brad knows me too well. I used to always keep my tips in the front left pocket of my apron, right where those three twenties plus a couple dozen singles are resting right now.
He pulls out a wad of cash and his sneer softens into a snide smile. He flips through the cash and nods, “Well at least one of us made some money tonight. That no good fighter threw the match, and now Crosby’s breathing down my neck about the four to one odds we posted up. Storm was supposed to win, hands-down. We’d even pegged the fight to only last three rounds before he got a knock-out. Yeah, well, he got a knock-out alright. A light welterweight knocked out his lights at the start of round two. Two-time Worlds’ champion goes down like that in round two… fucking hell, he’ll be lucky if the house breaks even on that match!”
Brad’s voice is almost shrill as he finishes, taking my tips and wadding them up in his fist before he shoves them back down into my apron. Oh well, at least I’ll get a proper paycheck, too.
“Come on, wife. I’ve had a shitty night at work. Let’s get a few beers and some dinner. Maybe you can shake your ass at our waiter and get us some free dessert. Unless of course, you want me to throw you on the table and have a snack of your pussy. A little chocolate sauce drizzled all between your lips… it’ll be like an ice cream sundae.”
I shudder. I can’t smell his breath from here, but my guess is he’s already started drinking… again. He’s acting crude, well, cruder than normal, but I know there’s no point in arguing with him over dinner. We’re either going to a restaurant, or he’s going to take his frustrations out on me in the car once we leave the casino. He gets sadistic when he’s angry, so the more I keep him in public, the more likely I’ll end this night with a shred of dignity intact.
“Dinner sounds nice,” I murmur, trying to placate his raving down to a level where half of the security staff is watching us. I grab his hand like we’re high-school sweethearts again and pour it on strong. “Come on, baby. Don’t stress over work. You can’t help what a no-good two-bit fighter does in the ring. Let’s get some drinks and have a nice, quiet dinner out.”
Brad stops huffing long enough to actually look at me, his eyes wide like he’s shocked I agreed. He stops his howling and nods as he looks down at our joined hands. The sadistic look fades from his face, but I know that the smile that takes its place is fake. Fake for the benefit of the handful of security guards who are still watching us. He leads me out of the gambling floor where someone just hit what sounds to be some sort of small jackpot. It’s obviously been a rough night for the house, too.
Thankfully, we don’t have to walk far to get to the restaurant that’s located inside the casino, away from the gambling floor where half a dozen young families are seated around the six-top tables, waiting for upscale casual fare to be brought out from the kitchen. The place isn’t a top-of-the-line steak house where they cut yours fresh in front of you, but it’s a place where Brad and I have been coming for years. So far, it’s also the only place in Atlantic City where Brad hasn’t gotten us kicked out and banned.
We’re led to the back wall of the restaurant and seated with other young couples at a two-top table with lighting designed to create ambiance. Neither Brad nor I wear our wedding rings anymore, so the hostess probably assumes we’re a young couple in love and out on a date ahead of Spring Break. Once upon a time maybe, but now we’re just two people who can barely stand one another, going through the motions of day to day marital life.
As the young, pimple-faced waiter approaches, Brad tenses. If there’s one thing he hates more than me looking at other guys, it’s other guys looking at me. The irony that he designed the very outfit I’m wearing isn’t lost on me either. He’s silently seething as the young boy introduces himself and turns to me first to take my drink order. Brad snaps his fingers to get the boy’s attention before I can get a single word out of my mouth. “My wife will have a water. I’ll have a vodka tonic on the rocks and a Coors Light.”
I sigh at his intrusiveness and shake my head, correcting Brad, “Oh, I’m sorry. My husband was mistaken, hon. I think I’d actually like sweet tea with extra sugar. Can you do that for me?”
I bat my eyes at the waiter, and he swallows hard, his gaze bouncing back and forth between Brad and I. “So that’ll be a sweet tea, a vodka tonic, and a Coors Light? Do you mind waiting on the sweet tea? We don’t usually have it pre-sweetened, but we can make some if you’d like, ma’am.”
I shudder at his usage of the word ma’am. I’m probably not even three years older than this kid, yet he’s throwing out respect like I’ve got one foot in the grave. To be fair, I am married to Brad, so it’s kinda the same thing. I nod and plaster on my best beauty queen smile. “That would be fantastic, dear. I don’t mind waiting at all. We’re certainly in no hurry, are we dear?”
Brad ignores me, keeping his gaze glued to the door we just came through not five minutes ago. Great, he’s already scoping out a future conquest. Just keep his attention anywhere but on me, and maybe I won’t have to endure Brad’s “marital expectations” tonight. Once a day is more than enough. I don’t think I’d complain if it became once a week or never again for that matter. Having sexual relations with my husband turns my stomach any way I look at it, but my curiosity is piqued. I turn around in my seat and from across the room my gaze locks with a pool of molten honey that’s staring back at me… and everything in my world shifts.
FOUR
Storm
Coming to in a stark, white room with both your manager and trainer hovering over you is never a good sign. Sure, I’ve been knocked out before, but I’ve always woken up to the deafening roar of the arena all around me, not the near-silence of a blindingly bright room. My manager, Peter, is standing over me with a concerned look on his face. I blink a couple more times, breathing a sigh of relief when the hazy edges of my vision start to sharpen.
“You look worried, Pete. Surely that guy couldn’t have made me an uglier motherfucker than I already was.”
Peter crosses his arms across his chest and shakes his head, glancing to my trainer, Joe. Joe returns to the look of concern, then turns to me. “Storm, you went down hard that time. Rocket landed a stone-cold kick to the side of your head and out went your lights. You dropped to that floor faster than a wet bag of concrete… and you didn’t get back up.”
My brain is still a bit fuzzy, but even with only half my wits working, I can read between the lines. I sit up too fast and wince as a familiar, thundering pain flashes through my head.
Peter jumps to my side and grabs hold of my shoulders, easing me back down onto my back on the makeshift table. “Whoa there, partner. No sudden moves. Not unless you want to revisit that Taco Hell you had for dinner.”
I cringe and grip his arm as the wave of nausea crashes into me. “Too late,” I murmur as I retch in his direction. He yelps and jumps out of the way, but not before I splash his imported shoes with chunks of a semi-digested mass of what was once Ninja Tacos. They burn like hell going down and they burn like hell coming back up.
Peter stumbles back from me, slapping his hand over his own mouth. That’s right. I forgot he has a weak stomach. His eyes are bugging out over his hand as he motions to the door. I wave my hand around aimlessly in the air to let him know he shou
ld go. It’s not like there’s anything he can do for me now, anyway.
Joe sighs beside me and asks, “Feel better?”
I turn my gaze to him and shake my head, my long curls whipping back and forth around my face. “Not particularly. Should I?”
He shrugs and hands me a bottled water, which I crack open and promptly drain. His expression looks grim as he replies, “Not particularly, but it confirms what I suspected.”
I swipe the back of my hand across my mouth, and I’m sure my gaze would be burning a hole in him if that kind of thing was possible. “Out with it, doc. What’re we looking at?”
Joe sighs and shakes his head. “Truthfully, Storm? Retirement.”
I cough in surprise and crush the empty water bottle in my fist, shaking my head again. “No way. I’m too young to throw in the towel just yet. I’ve still got a few years in me yet.”
Joe levels his gaze at me. “Not if you take another hit or two like that. Storm, you went down hard. In fact, now that you’re awake, I need to check you for secondary injuries, but you know what we’re talking about here. It’s not normal to be out for over half an hour like that. You know it. I know it. The twelve thousand fans who saw that hit happen know it. We carted you out after you’d been down for fifteen minutes, and by my watch, you’ve been down thirty-seven. The next hit you take could be your last.”
I wave him off. “Hit, schmit. That was a blind, lucky ass kick, and we both know it. Rocket don’t usually fight like that. I’m surprised to see him getting dirty.”
Joe shrugs. “When in Rome…”
I roll my eyes. “I know I fight dirty, Joe. It’s what kept me in the game this long, but I thought men like Rocket had honor or some other bullshit like that, and they stuck to legal moves?”
Joe pulls out his clipboard. “Use of colorful and varied language, check.”
Heaving out a breath, I grumble, “Really? I’m sitting here complaining like a Prima Donna, and you’re just gonna go over the concussion checklist? Look, I can wiggle all ten fingers and toes, too.” I give him an annoyed look as I demonstrate, wiggling my fingers first, then lifting one foot to wiggle the toes. Except they don’t wiggle when I command them to. Not until the third try, anyway.
Joe makes another big check mark on his clipboard, but his expression is grim. “Look, Storm. I know this is your bread and butter, fights like these. But the next hit you take might cause some permanent nerve damage… if it hasn’t already…” He looks pointedly at my stubborn foot, so I stick the other right in his face and wiggle the toes in defiance. He nods and put another checkmark on the paper on his clipboard.
“I’m not your momma, Storm. I can’t tell you what to do, but I am telling you this as a medical professional… and as your friend… if you go back out into that arena again Friday night, you’re going to be playing with fire. It may not happen then and it may not happen next week, but eventually, your luck is going to run out, and you’re going to take a hit that will end your career… and you’ll be lucky if that’s all it takes away from you. The next hit could be the one, Storm. You’re already showing signs of—”
I hold one hand up to him and put the other to my forehead, rubbing my face back and forth over the skin that’s calloused from years of fighting — both in the arena and not. “Yeah, I know, Joe. CTE… whatever the fuck that means. You said yourself there’s no guarantee that it’ll even affect me down the road. Why should I give up a lucrative career for something that might happen? Nothing else I could ever do in this world is going to make me the kind of money fighting does. And let’s be frank, you know me almost as well as I know myself. I’m going to be fighting whether I’m in the arena or not, so I may as well get paid for it.”
Joe rests his hand on my shoulder and pulls out his miniature flashlight, shining it back and forth between my eyes as I glare at him. “While that may be true, I cannot with good conscience, give you a clean bill of health. Your pupils are blown man, I’m gonna have to call an ambulance.”
I growl under my breath, but Joe cuts me off. “I’m not playing games, Storm. You took a nasty hit. You hired me to protect your health, and that includes protecting you from yourself. You need to get checked out. Get a CT, make sure there’s not a brain bleed somewhere. Don’t make me be an asshole and call your father. You went down and didn’t get back up. I should’ve called the paramedics right then. You’ve vomited, your pupils are fixed and dilated, and I’d bet my left nut right now you’ve got a headache the size of Texas. You’re just too damn stubborn to admit it.”
I wince, because he’s right. The undulating thumping is running around my head like a cat on speed, but that’s nothing new. I’ve had headaches for years now. They come and go and they vary in intensity, but nobody’s ever acted like they’re a big deal. Now, I puke up diarrhea-inducing tacos, and everybody’s panicking. I shake my head. “I’m not going to a hospital, and I’ll fight anyone that tries to force me…”
I trail off slowly, and Joe opens his mouth to argue, but I cut him off. “However… I’ll let you call them here. They can check me over and what not, and if it’s truly an emergency, then I’ll take the damn ambulance ride. Deal?”
Joe looks like he’s pussyfooting around the issue, so I emphasize, “It’s that, or I walk out of this fucking room and go about my business, which includes fighting Friday night.”
With a defeated grunt, Joe backs away from me, pulling out his cell phone and making a call. I can tell he’s pissed off at me right now, but I don’t care. It’s my way or no way. That’s the only way. It’s how I’ve survived all these years being a mixed kid in a city that’s still racially divided. Not that my home life growing up was a bad one. My mother took off when I was six, never to be seen or heard from again. But my father’s been my rock. He raised me up the best way he knew how, and he did a damn fine job of it, too.
It’s not his fault I have a temper like a hurricane. It just seemed fitting that my last name was Storm - made for a good fighting name. When my father realized I wasn’t gonna stop getting into fights, he put me into martial arts to try to channel all of my angry outbursts into something productive. He wanted to quell the tempest in his young son… but I learned early that while fighting on the streets didn’t get me very far, fighting in the arena could make me a superstar. And it has.
Ask anyone on the MMA circuit about me, and they’ll tell you I’m a skilled fighter, if a little unpredictable. I’ve been selling out fights since before MMA was viewed as cool. There’s kids on the street just like me that are counting on me to prove that no matter where we start, anyone can become someone if they put in the effort. Even a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who never really fit in on either side of the race war.
“You gotta promise me, kid… whatever they say, you’ll listen.”
I roll my eyes and tilt my head to the side, groaning, “Fine… but only because I like you. If you were just any Joe-Schmo and not my Joe, I’d have already punched you in the nose, anyway.”
Joe grunts as there’s a knock on the door. “That must be them. It’s good to know you care, kid, but I’m not the one who needs a wake up call.”
It takes the paramedics, a couple of young guns with plenty to prove, about fifteen minutes to give me the full workup. While they agree that I’m displaying early signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE for those of you with a high-school education like me, I’m a bit disappointed to hear them agree with Joe. But I’m not alarmed. They didn’t tell me I couldn’t fight. They just told me that I have to be careful if I choose to continue fighting. If… ha, like I could walk away from this contract anyway.
Even if I could, there’s a half dozen more like it waiting in the wings. I may not be able to sell out Vegas, but I can sell out a venue. Of course I’m gonna fight. I’m a fighter — it’s what I do. I did promise Joe that when this six weeks is up, I’ll look into taking a hiatus. They’re not unheard of, especially in the MMA circuit. You can only get your brai
n knocked around so many times before you gotta take a breather.
Because of my promise, and only because of it, he’s agreed to let me finish out my six week engagement here. It’s not like I’ll be fighting every night, anyway. I only fight twice a week, so I’ll have several days to let this migraine subside and gain my bearings before I face off against The Rocket again. And this time, I’ll know what to expect. Apparently, he’s joined the dark side with me and gone dirty. Which just means I’ll have to fight even dirtier. But that’s fine with me. There’s moves in my arsenal I haven’t used in a while that could stand to be dusted off.
I’ll worry about strategy later. I’ve got three days to figure out my new plan of attack. What needs my attention immediately is my now-empty stomach, since I puked up the greasy dinner I ate earlier. By the way, Peter’s shoes will survive. Can’t say if his patience for me will, too, but I guess only time will tell. For now, I’m off to the casino restaurant to get some grub and try to numb this excruciating migraine with the experimental drug Joe got me into a trial for and gorge myself on the joint’s double-fudge chocolate cherry cake.
