Because of His Name (9 page)

But then a strange thing happened.

The fight, although it seemed to be over,
wasn’t.
 

It just didn’t quite end.

Liam never fell down
,
he didn’t go
unconscious
.
 
And although
Mack was still hitting him and beating him with kicks and punches, they were
coming slower and slower.

And then Liam managed to throw a punch or
two, and one of them landed.

The crowd erupted now, louder than
anything she’d heard before.

Somehow, Grace realized—they’d
started to root for Liam.

He was winning them over through sheer
determination.
 
Just the fact that
he hadn’t fallen under the onslaught of his opponent had caused people to begin
to cheer for him.

The fight continued to change.
 
Liam was still taking the worst of it,
as Mack had him pressed up with his back to the wall, and Mack was hammering
him with shots.

But now Liam was throwing punches
occasionally in return, and some of them were landing and getting Mack’s
attention.

Mack seemed to be growing a little arm
weary, and even Grace could tell that the man was tiring.

Meanwhile, Liam was getting slowly
stronger and more confident.
 
The
two wrestled standing up, their arms intertwined, trying to force each other to
move.
 
It looked like a stalemate,
as for thirty seconds or so, they were tied up and nobody was punching.

They
must both be exhausted
,
she thought.

But suddenly, Liam pulled his arms free
and unleashed a combination of five or six punches in a row, and Mack staggered
backwards.
 
Liam continued to throw
hard punches to his opponent’s body, and Mack crumpled a little.

The crowd was going wilder and wilder as
they witnessed the drama unfolding in such unexpected fashion.

Mack tried to reassert himself, swinging
at Liam, but Liam stretched his arms wide and taunted Mack.

“Come on!” Liam shouted.
 
“Hit me!”
 
He stuck his chin out, and Mack tried to
hit him, but Liam just moved his head ever so slightly.
 
“What’s wrong?” he said, moving forward.
 
“What’s wrong?
 
Are you tired?” Liam laughed.
 
“Hit me, motherfucker!”

Mack swung again, and this time the punch
landed flush on Liam’s jaw, but he shrugged it off as if it was nothing.
 
And then he threw two hard, straight
punches that sent Mack’s head snapping backwards and his legs buckled.

Grace found herself cheering with the
rest of them, moving with them, trying to see what happened next as the crowd
converged on the final moments of the fight.

Liam grabbed Mack around the head and
began launching vicious knees to his opponent’s midsection.
 
Two knees landed, and as Mack crumpled
down to protect his body, Liam kneed him in the face, and the man went
completely limp, falling flat on his face.
 

His body twitched a few times and the
referee stepped in and called the fight over, as the crowd surged once more,
enveloping Liam.

Grace felt like she was caught in a tidal
wave of people, as she was moved against her own will.

It was frightening, and she was only
trying to keep her feet.

She caught a glimpse of Liam—and Viggy,
Mack’s new manager—pushing and shoving one another, and then one of their
goons punched Liam in the face out of nowhere and the crowd became a mosh pit
of violence.

Everywhere she looked, people were
fighting.
 

It was a riot.

She ducked down and pushed her way
through the crowd, trying to avoid getting hit herself.

More than anything, she just wanted to
find him.
 
To find
Liam.

The jostling from the people around her
was getting more intense.
 
Someone
grabbed her arm.
 
“Hey girlie, where
you going?
 
You like the fights?”

She turned her head to see a grinning guy
with a cap pulled low over his forehead and a tank top with the words KILL on
it.
 

“Fuck off,” she said, and jerked her arm
away from him.

“Stupid cunt,” he said.

She pushed forward once again, getting
more and more scared now as people were truly unruly, fighting, yelling about
money-and then she heard someone shouting about the police.

Soon more and more people were trying to
escape the riot, and sirens could be heard dimly above the fray.

“Shit,” Grace said, as she fell forward
and her hand was almost stepped on by a booted foot.

At the last second, she pulled her hand
away and then someone was grabbing her from behind.

“Get the hell away from me!” she shouted,
struggling.

“Relax, Grace—It’s just me,” Liam
said, and she spun to find him there.

Her relief turned to concern as she saw
that his nose was pouring blood and he looked completely beaten up, with cuts
and scrapes, red marks and bruising on his face.

“Oh my God, your nose,” she said.

“Let’s get out of here,” he told her,
ignoring her worry, as people cheered him and slapped him on the back, even as
they were still yelling and fighting and running.

It was complete and utter pandemonium.

Grace allowed him to take her by the hand
and lead her out of the crowd and through a small, unused hallway, up the
stairs—finally emerging through that same back exit that they’d
originally entered through.

When they emerged into the parking lot,
they could see cop cars pulling up out front on the street.
 
“Hurry,” Liam said, running toward the
car with her.

They got into his Porsche and he gunned
the engine, leaving the parking lot through a different exit and coming out
onto a narrow alley, then taking that to another street and leaving the madness
behind them.

“Open my glove box and grab me a
napkin.
 
I think there’s a few in
there,” he said, downshifting as they hit traffic on the main thoroughfare.

She did as she was told and was able to
scrounge up a few old, crumpled napkins, which Liam held against his nostrils
while he continued driving.

“We need to go to the hospital,” she
said, watching him anxiously.

“Fuck no,” he said.
 

“You’re hurt, Liam.”

“I’m fine.
 
Never been better.”
 

She was worried for him, but also deeply
gladdened just to be with him again—to be talking to him, and to know he
was mostly all right.
 
“That was
insane,” she said.

“Yeah, but it was a blast.”

“You mean to tell me you enjoyed that?”

“Didn’t you?” he said, laughing.
 
“That was the best thing I’ve ever done,
Grace.”

She shook her head.
 
“Okay, now I know you’re officially
nuts.”

“Look at me,” he said, glancing at
himself in the rearview mirror as they stopped at a red light.
 
“I’m a damn mess.
 
I can’t go back home like this.”

She looked at him.
 
“Your family has no idea about any of
it, do they?”

“Not so much.”
 
He sighed, taking the napkin away from
his face and looking at it—the napkin was soaked with his blood.
 
“I think my nose is broken.”

“Liam, we have to go to the Emergency
Room.”

“If my nose is broken, there’s not much
they can do anyway.”
 
He put his
head back momentarily, closed his eyes, and then the traffic began moving, and
he looked at the road again, hitting the gas.
 

“You should be checked over by a
doctor.
 
That guy hit you about a
thousand times in the head.”

“Luckily, I have one of the hardest heads
in the world.”

“I’m not sure if I should be inspired by
what you did today, or if I should see about getting you committed to a mental
institution,” Grace told him.

“Oh, definitely committed.”
 
He glanced at her and grinned.

“What are we doing now?” she asked.
 
“Where are you driving?”

“I don’t exactly know.”
 
And then he looked at her as they hit
yet another red light.
 
His eyes
were intent, and she saw an expression on his face that made her heart jump.

“What is it?” she said.

“I think we should go to your place.”

“No way,” she told him, shaking her had
emphatically.
 
“That’s off-limits.”

“I need to go somewhere, and I definitely
can’t show my face at home.”

“Liam, this is silly.
 
If you can’t be honest with your
family—“

“Don’t tell me about my family,” he
snapped, and his jaw set.
 
The
friendly, happy atmosphere had been sucked out of the car and now he drove for
a bit in silence.

Grace felt bad.
 
He’d just won a big fight and he’d been
trying to celebrate a little.
 
After
all, what he’d done—although truly stupid and irresponsible—had
also been magical, like a real live Rocky moment.
 
He’d come back and fought, against all
odds, and beaten a man who should have killed him.

It showed that Liam had something
special, something Grace hadn’t often found in men she’d come into contact with
in her life.

Liam Houston had character.

“Okay,” she said, softly.

“Okay, what?”

“Okay you can come and stay for a little
bit,” she told him.

He started to grin.
 

“Please don’t make me regret this,” she
said.

But she already knew that she would, for
a million different reasons.

***

Not long after, Liam Houston was settled
into her bed, watching The Wolf of Wall Street on her small television that was
nestled in the corner of her bedroom.

He seemed happy enough there, and his
nose had mostly stopped bleeding.
 
But Grace was concerned about his health.

His nose was swollen, the skin beneath
his eyes was discolored, and his jaw
was seeming
to
give him some pain when he spoke.

She left the room to go and make him an
ice pack and grab some water and food for him to eat and drink before her
roommate came home.

She’d already explained to Liam that her
living situation was a little unconventional, especially for someone like him.

Grace hardly even knew her roommates.
 
For the last few months, she’d been
living there and already one room had changed hands about three times.
 
Currently, a young Asian woman was
staying in it, and she kept to herself and listened to satellite radio that
spewed mostly talky stuff in whatever her language was.

The
woman
who
owned the apartment, also lived in one of the three bedrooms.
 
Her name was Eliane and she was from
Brazil.
 
She worked as an engineer
and was often not home, but when she was home, Eliane dominated the common areas
and made Grace feel uncomfortable even using the kitchen or living room.

As a result, Grace mostly kept to her
bedroom, as did the Asian girl who’d taken over the third bedroom.

It was sort of like a boardinghouse, and
the good thing about it was that it was cheap and the location was convenient
to the Mass Pike.

But Eliane wasn’t going to like Grace
having a strange wounded man in her room, so Grace’s plan was to keep Liam
quiet and then get him out of there before Eliane even realized he was around.

For now, it wasn’t an issue.
 
The house was empty but for her and
Liam, so Grace went about getting his ice pack ready and making him a peanut
butter and jelly sandwich.

As she spread the peanut butter and then
dolloped liberal amounts of jelly, cutting the sandwich in half at an angle,
Grace found herself smiling a little.
 
She liked this feeling of doing for someone, of making
something—even something simple like a PB&J—for her man.

He’s
not your man, Grace.
 
He’s just a
boy that you hooked up with, and now he’s crashing in your room so as not to
have to face Mommy’s wrath.