“Who are you kidding, Sophie, you are the freak of the group.” Holly turns to her and raises an eyebrow. “Our girl here is just appreciating a well-endowed man. It’d been a while for her and she got excited. You, on the other hand, would be asking if they’d tried anal yet. Big difference.”
Sophie just sits there and so do I. I’ve never been one to talk openly about my sex life, even with my closest friends. But like everything else with Lucas, I’m different than my normal self. I’m Mila 2.0, and I’m loving this new me—the one who talks about the size of her man’s dick to her friends. Sophie and I look at each other, and I brace myself for the question I know is coming.
“Well. . .” she asks. “Have you?”
We all start cracking up. Once again, I get the crazy looks from everyone around us for talking about dicks with my girlfriends. Eh, so what?
<><><>
Sophie and Holly head off where they’re going next. They invited me to go with them, but I’ve become that friend—the bad one who’d rather hang out with her boyfriend than her friends. It’s not really an either/or thing for me, but I really feel better when I’m around him. I feel secure, I feel confident, and that’s really what I need right now with everything that’s been going on. On top of that, I think I’ve been good for him too. I like supporting him, cheering him on, helping him to realize the dreams he’s always had. We’re not just hot for one another—we’re good for one another.
And how many guys would just hand over a spare key to their apartment just like that after dating a girl for just a few weeks? Not many, but Lucas isn’t like most guys. Not how he looks, not in what he does, and not in how he behaves with me. I texted him my order while walking back to his place, and I’m secretly—okay, not so secretly—excited about Chinese take out. I went a little later with the girls than I thought. It’s almost seven now, so I head up to set the table for when Lucas gets back.
As I put the key in the door I hear footsteps from behind me. I don’t turn around like I normally would because I’m practicing my confidence. But when I hear those same footsteps approaching me I turn my head. I don’t even realize that I’ve screamed, but I did. I turn around, struggling to turn the key in the lock faster. I hear a click as the footsteps get even closer, moving faster. I push the door open with all of my strength, and just as I’m about to step through the doorway I feel my entire body being pushed through space, and by the time I realize what’s happened I’m on the ground.
I look up and see Wyatt standing over me. He’s wearing a black overcoat and sunglasses—like a bad disguise in an old spy movie. He takes his glasses off right away, and all of who he is comes flooding back to me. It’s one thing seeing someone a long time ago, or hearing their voice on the end of a bad cell phone connection—it’s another thing to see them again in person. It brings everything back, and for a second, I really think he’s going to pull out a gun and kill me.
Jesus, how did he find me?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lucas
That girl really loves her Chinese take out.
This is the third time she’s asked in two weeks to get it. Each time I tell her I’m cutting weight, which she usually remembers, but she’s got a one-track mind when it comes to chicken lo mein and pork fried dumplings. It’s not fair—that shit smells so good that for a second—and only a second—I think about opening up that container and cheating on my diet. The last thing I need is Matt and Mila mad at me for eating two stupid dumplings. Three—I’d definitely eat three.
I use all the self control that I have to just pay the guy and take the bag. It’s a short walk to my place so the food will still be hot when I get there. I’m dog tired from that cardio session today—I’ve never gone so hard in my life, but it’ll pay dividends when I’m deep into the third round.
But I’ve dedicated enough of myself to the fight game today—physically and mentally—now it’s time to wind down and enjoy some good food. . . scratch that, watch her enjoy some good food, while enjoying her company. Some R & R would do me good right now. I do one last cardio session by charging up the stairs to the third floor where my place is, pushing as hard as I can while balancing a brown bag of take out. It’s a feat to be witnessed, only I’m all alone. But not for long. . .
I hear something inside. First, I think it’s my imagination—that Mila has the TV blasting, but she doesn’t really do that. I step up to the door and get my keys out of my pocket. It’s not the TV—there’s something going on in there. As I struggle to turn the key I hear the sounds of things crashing, and I hear Mila calling out.
Fuck the keys.
I take a giant step back and run, full force, into the door, shoulder first, the bag of take out a forgotten mess on the hallway floor. It flies open as I burst through the doorway. My eyes scan the room and I see a man on top of Mila. At first, I panic because I think he’s hurting her, but as I rush over I see that she has him in her full guard—her legs wrapped around his waist, ankles locked, and she’s controlling his posture by wrapping one arm around his neck and hooking his other arm with her arm.
Good girl. Jiu-Jitsu self defense 101–whoever controls the distance controls the damage. As long as she holds him to her body he can’t hurt her, but it’s all strength. She doesn’t have long before her arms will crap out. I sprint the rest of the way to them, faster than I’ve run in my life, and grab him by the arm. Most people think the best way to pull someone off someone else is to grab their body and pull, but the best way is to drag their arm. I grip one of his wrists with both of my hands and then circle behind him.
“Let go of him!” I yell.
She opens her guard immediately and I pull him off. My adrenaline’s pumping, but not nearly as much as his is about to be. I let go of his wrist and he falls on the ground, onto his back. I follow him down, right into full mount. It’s incredible what training does for you—even in this crazy situation my body just responds. It’s just muscle memory. I didn’t ask who he was, what he was doing, or what was going on—I just become the grappler I’m trained to be, and this mothafucker is about to be in a world of hurt.
They called the great Mark Coleman the “Godfather of Ground-and-Pound”, but that’s only because ‘they’ never saw me right now. With this man trapped underneath me, I lay into him with all the fury I have inside of me. I drop elbows like rain, and when I feel a few of them get through, he starts to turtle up. That’s when I start to drop fists on him.
One after the other. Brutal punches. One at a time, until I lose count. I feel his nose break when I get a clean shot with my right hand, and once he stops fighting I know it’s over. I jump off of him as fast as I jumped on him. And once I’m sure he’d down and knocked out, I run to Mila, who’s still on her back, crying hysterically.
“It’s okay. He’s not going to hurt you. Are you okay?”
“I. . . think. . . so.”
She’s sobbing, and I hold her close to my body for comfort. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I got him. He’s down.” I look over at his limp body, getting my first real look at him and realize who he is. The first thought I have is hoping that he’s alive. The man needs to stand trial like his piece of shit brother. I can’t believe he came here. How did he ever find this place? “I need to call the police right now. Can you sit here while I call? I’m going to be right here, don’t worry.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Good. Sit tight.”
I reach into my pocket to pull out my phone, and as soon as I do I know that something’s wrong. I drop the phone on the floor, and Mila looks up at me with teary eyes.
“What’s the matter, Lucas?”
I take a deep breath before I say the words I’m about to say. “I think. . . I think I may have broken my hand.”
Chapter Thirty
Lucas
The Next Day
My fight—the only fight that’s ever mattered—is in three weeks, and I’m sitting here waiting to hear if I can even make it to the cage. Matt’s waiting f
or a text to find out if we need to pull out, and Mila is sitting in the waiting room.
That piece of shit who broke into my house got the worst of it. My hand might be fucked up, but his face is going to need reconstructive surgery. I laid into him good—better than I should have. I wasn’t thinking about my own well being, or keeping my body intact for the fight. I wasn’t thinking at all, I just reacted like I’ve been trained to do. I should have dropped more elbows or used my Jiu Jitsu to choke him out or break his arm, but my brain wasn’t doing much critical thinking in the heat of the moment.
The cops came, arrested Wyatt, took statements from me and Mila, and that was that. It was a pretty open and shut kind of situation. Between the call to Mila’s cell, the pushed in door, the state of my place, and a bunch of other evidence that clearly showed he stalked Mila and broke into my place to attack her, Wyatt was in deep shit. I’m probably going to have to testify against him at some point, but he’s going away one way or the other. Good. Sometimes the bad guys get what they deserve. I just hope this didn’t send Mila back to having bad anxiety again. She was doing so good.
The doctor walks in holding up an x-ray. I can read his energy before he opens up his mouth to tell me the bad news. I brace myself.
“Mr. Esparza, how are you feeling?”
“I’ve been better, doc. You?”
“I’m good, thanks. Look I know this is very consequential to you, so I’m not going to beat around the bush. Your hand is severely fractured.”
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Part of me already suspected that. Part of me knew deep down. The rest of me was in total denial. Now I have to face the truth of that x-ray. Matt’s gonna flip the fuck out.
“I see. Does that mean I can’t fight?”
“When is your fight?”
“A few weeks.”
“It would be medically inadvisable to strike anything with your hand for several months, and really not at all. That’s how this happened in the first place.”
No, doc. This happened because I was brutally beating someone who tried to assault my girlfriend—but you don’t need to know about that.
“Right,” I say, lost in my own thoughts. “So, theoretically, if I did hit something with this hand?”
“You would fracture it in even more places, and there’s a chance you’d never fully heal correctly. To state it plainly, son, it could end your career if you try to use it before it fully heals.”
It’s rare in life that you get to hear the exact combination of words that you never want to hear strung together. This is one of those moments for me. I really can’t believe that this is happening right now. Of all the shit timing. I try not to freak out. The doctor doesn’t deserve the shit show of what it would look like, so I just thank him and head out.
Mila’s waiting for me, and when she seems me coming out of the back she stands up and we make eye contact. I know what my face looks like right now, and it isn’t pleasant. She can read that it’s bad news, and after signing out we walk out of the doctor’s office in silence.
When we’re in the parking lot is when she finally breaks the silence.
“How bad?”
“Basically broken. Doctor said if I punch anything with this hand, I could end my career.”
“Oh my God, Lucas, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe this is happening to you. Your dreams about the UFC—the title fight—all of it. Do you want me to come with you when you tell Matt you’re pulling out?”
“No,” I tell her. “Because that’s not what I’m going to tell Matt. I’m still going to fight.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Lucas
I let Mila come with me, but I asked her to stay in the car.
I went in to talk to Matt about everything. The poor guy didn’t even know that the break in happened, let alone what came from it. When it’s over, I meet her back in the car, and we drive back to the apartment to talk.
The tension in the car is strong. I’m stewing in my anger and frustration while Mila watches me, concern etched all over her face.
“How’d he take the news?” she asks me once we’re in my apartment.
“Which news? The break in? Or the legal issues? Or my broken hand?”
“Any of it,” she says. “All of it. Whatever you want to talk about.”
I feel anger rising from the pit of my stomach. It’s intense and sudden, and it feels like the type of thing that’s going to boil over if I’m not careful. I should say nothing—I should fake a headache and go lie down and hope that when I wake up I’m not as pissed as I am right now. But of course, I don’t do that. I open my mouth and start talking.
“Well, let’s see. He felt terrible about the break in, which I expected. He was concerned about how you’re doing after what happened. Then I told him about my hand and he flipped out like I knew he would. Matt’s a pretty level-headed guy, so him going from zero to sixty like that is rare. Then I told him that I wanted to fight despite my broken hand, and he looked at me like I was the biggest asshole in the world.”
“Jesus, I’m so sorry.”
“Wait,” I say, getting pissed again thinking about what just happened. “It gets better, I haven’t even gotten to the punch line just yet.”
“Oh no.”
“He said that if I try to fight anyway, that he’s not going to train me or corner me in the fight. That he’s not going to be a part of me. . . how did he put it. . . ‘Throwing away all of the work everyone’s put into me over the years.’ Yeah, that was it. I might be off by a word or two but hey, it’s hard to remember exact phrases when you’re being yelled at and threatened.”
I can hear the edge in my voice, it’s cutting through the air like a sharpened blade. I really can’t help it. There’s too much to process right now, and none of it is good. And the more I talk the more I start to feel something else that I didn’t expect at all, something I feel guilty about as soon as I realize what it is—I feel resentment towards Mila.
“Lucas, I. . .”
“What? Are you going to say you’re sorry again? I don’t need an apology. It is what it is.”
“You sound mad.”
“You think?” I yell. “Why would I be mad? I mean, what could I possibly have to be angry about? My lifelong trainer telling me he’s about to drop me? My fucking hand being broken? The fight that may have gotten me into the UFC being in jeopardy? Not sure why I’d be in such a bad mood.”
“I get it. I’m sorry.”
“Please stop saying that. Your sorries aren’t going to fix my hand. It’s broken because of. . .”
I stop short of saying what I really want to say, but I’ve said too much for it to go unnoticed.
“Because of me,” she finishes. “Is that what you were going to say? Your hand is broken because of me?”
“No,” I say, calming down just enough to not get crazy. “It’s not because of you. It’s because of the drama that followed you to my doorstep. I beat Wyatt senseless and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. He was going to hurt you, and he needed to be stopped. But nonetheless, this is what I get. You get saved, he gets thrown in jail, and I get my dreams taken away from me.”
“Look, maybe I should go.”
“Yeah,” I say, my blood still boiling. “Maybe you should.”
“Fine. I’ll let you lick your wounds.”
She sounds hurt as she storms off. Of course she’s hurt, I just said some pretty nasty stuff. And the worst part is that I don’t totally mean it. What I said is true, but she didn’t need to hear it said to her in that way. She doesn’t go right to the door and walk out like in a movie—she goes into the bedroom. I hear her scrambling around so I go in there.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“What does it look like? I’m getting my stuff and leaving. My place is safe now, right? That’s why I was staying here in the first place. Wyatt’s in jail, so there’s no need for me to be here anymore. You seem like you need your space to heal up. It’s all
good.”
Which is code for, ‘it’s not good at all’—it’s the opposite of good.
I don’t try to stop her. I don’t have the energy. I walk into the living room like a zombie and collapse on my couch. It takes ten minutes for her to get all of her stuff together in the same suitcase she brought it over in. She’s moving fast, and I don’t blame her. I’m toxic right now, and I just took a world’s worth of stuff out on her.
She doesn’t even say goodbye, just slams the door behind her, and I’m left alone sitting on my couch, wondering how shit went so far south so quickly.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mila
“You haven’t spoken to him in two weeks? Mila! You were all hot and heavy, what happened?”
Holly looks genuinely concerned for me—for us, if there is an us to be concerned about. I’m not sure. My experience is that if you pack your stuff, walk out, and don’t talk to the other person on the scale of weeks, then you’re kind of de facto broken up, but I don’t actually know.
“He lost his shit. His hand is fractured, but he was trying to fight anyhow. It went south with his trainer. Came home all angry. Blew up. I walked out ‘cause I’m not dealing with any more unstable men in my life.”
Holly shoots me a look like she’s not buying my liberated woman act—she sees through me sometimes. “Is he unstable? Or were things just falling apart for him in that moment? Because there’s a difference, and it’s an important one.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be my friend, Holly? Not his.”
“I am your friend. I’m your best friend—which is why I don’t want you to throw away the best thing that’s come into your life in a long time over a stupid fight. Fights happen. Outbursts happen, but Jesus, Mila, look at what you came from. Lucas didn’t hit you, or pound the wall, or threaten you, or say anything so terrible to you. You were head over heels, and then you walked away the second there was conflict. I mean, the man jeopardized his career to save your life.”
The Savage Gentleman Page 15
