Broken Lion (11 page)

Daniel leaned against the railing and buried his face in his arms.

I whispered, “He’s still shy around girls.”

“No I’m not,” Daniel mumbled.

“See? Dan the Man isn’t shy around girls. He’ll probably have ten girlfriends in no time.”

I could see Daniel smiling, but he was still burying his face in his arms. Lion flashed me a grin that Daniel couldn’t see. It warmed my heart in a way I hadn’t felt in years. Okay, now my odds of remaining just friends with Lion were down to 40/60. When we finally rode Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, which was in the dark and had our feet dangling at least ten feet off the ground, I got scared and may have squeezed Lion’s hand without realizing it. He squeezed back and leaned against me.

“I got you, Irish.”
That voice.

I felt it dribble down my chest and swirl between my legs like a tingling massage.

He had me, all right. Was it appropriate for me to ooze on a family theme park ride? Because that’s exactly what I was doing. Good thing my yoga pants were thick and absorbent. Now my chances were down to 30/70. Things were not looking good. When we walked off the ride, we passed a wall of monitors showing souvenir photos of people riding the ride.

“Where’s ours?” Daniel asked.

“There it is,” Lion said. “I’m totally buying a copy of that.”

“No you’re not!” I gasped. Why? Because the photo showed me clutching Lion’s hand for dear life and looking scared to death. Not only was it embarrassing, it was also incriminating. It was even dated, making it literally evidence of my inappropriate relationship with Lion. Could I ask Universal Studios to delete the photo from their servers? Or would it be used against me when the state of California called me before their medical ethics committee?

Before I could stop him, Lion had already bought the 8x10 print. Framed. Lion showed it to Daniel.

“Look at Mom,” he giggled. “She’s really scared.”

“This is going on my wall when I get home,” Lion chuckled.

“Maybe you should put it in the garbage,” I groused.

“Nope. Wall. Got a place for it in my office next to my trophy case.”

“Trophy case?”

“From all my fights.”

“Oh, because I’m one of your many victories?”

“No. You’re the grand prize.”

Was it wrong for me to like the ridiculous things he said?

“What are you guys talking about?” Daniel asked.

“Just giving your mom a hard time.”

Hard…

Ooze.

The question was, would I be able to resist him giving me a hard time in private at some future date?

The chances of that did not look good.

20/80.

If I was lucky.

Chapter 12

LION

There was no way I was gonna be able to stay friends with Brigid forever. She was too damn sexy to resist.

Good thing I wore my shades to Universal Studios. Whether we were waiting in line for a ride or wandering from place to place in the park, I couldn’t stop staring at her. Even with the tinted lenses of my shades, it was so bright out I was worried she’d catch me constantly checking out her ass in her yoga pants.

No matter how hot it got, she never unzipped her hoodie far enough to see any cleavage, but I stared anyway. I didn’t think she had any idea how hot she was. She acted like her body was an afterthought. Her torch of red hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but all that did was call attention to her beautiful face. She didn’t wear makeup, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off her mouth. Every time she laughed or smiled, which she did all day long, all I could think about was kissing that mouth. I had ample opportunity on some of the rides to make a move, but I was going to honor our agreement to stay just friends.

Good thing I had willpower to spare.

I was glad Dan was with us. He was a great distraction from drooling over Brigid. I really liked the kid. It took him a while to warm up to me, but once he did, we were cracking jokes all day. When we walked through the Despicable Me Super Silly Fun Land, we were talking about farts, so I started making fart noises by blowing raspberries into my hand, Dan started busting up.

“Do you have to do that?” Brigid groaned.

“It’s funny, Mom,” Dan giggled.

“Everyone is staring,” she hissed and glared at me.

I pointed at the nearest actor in a yellow Minion costume and said, “It wasn’t me. It was that guy.” The Minion heard me and pretended to act embarrassed. I made another fart noise and the Minion hopped up in the air like he’d just farted. With the wacky eye goggles and goofy smile permanently fixed on his face, he looked like he was in on the joke too.

Dan laughed so hard he bent over and put his hands on the ground.

“You two are terrible.” Brigid laughed, but you could tell she was trying not to, which made me and Dan laugh even more.

“Don’t deny it, Irish. You’re loving this.”

“No I’m not,” she laughed.

Damn if that laugh didn’t make me want to marry her on the spot every time I heard it. I lifted my shades so she could see my eyes. She locked hers on mine. I felt a jolt go straight to my dick. Seeing her have a good time was a total turn on. She was so damn serious the rest of the time. Watching her let down her guard was better than if she’d unzipped that hoodie and pulled her tits out. Not that I would’ve complained if she had. But not here with a million people around.

“Hey, aren’t you Lion Maxwell?” The guy asking wore a Tapout shirt. He had some woman with him.

“That’s him,” the woman said. “You’re Lion Maxwell.”

I smiled at them. I should’ve worn a ball cap to go with the shades. Today was supposed to be about Brigid and Dan, not me.

“Dude, can we get a picture with you?”

I wasn’t gonna be a dick and say no. “Sure.”

The guy pulled out his smart phone and turned to Brigid. “Hey, uh, can you take the picture for us?”

“Oh, okay,” she said.

The dude and his woman stood on either side of me. I put my arms around their shoulders. “You guys ready?”

“Yeah.”

Brigid snapped the photo. “Let me take a couple more, just in case. Say cheese.” They didn’t but she took more pictures anyway then handed over the phone. “Here you go.”

“Thank you so much, man,” the dude said. “I’m a huge fan of yours. How’s your knee doing?” He eyed my crutches and knee brace.

“Getting better.”

“When do you think you’ll fight again?”

“Once the doctors fix my ACL. I still need surgery. Then plenty of rehab. Could be a while.”

“Man, that happened to my cousin playing soccer. He couldn’t play for a year.”

I ended up talking to the guy for another five minutes. He knew all about my fight career and my fighting style. Really knowledgable about MMA. When it was obvious his woman was getting bored, I did my best to ease the conversation to a finish. The guy thanked me again for the photos and him and his woman wandered off, both smiling from ear to ear. It was the least I could do to brighten their day.

“Sorry about that,” I said to Brigid.

“That’s okay. I forget you’re a celebrity.”

“Not really. Just in the MMA world.” I always felt weird when people came up to me. I breathed the same air they did and shit like everybody else. I wasn’t special.

After that, I did buy a yellow Minion’s baseball cap with a picture of the goggles and the eyes. I got one for Dan and Brigid too. Brigid tried to say no, it was too expensive, but I bought them anyway.

“Now we’re all one big happy Minion family.” I put the cap on her head and screwed it into place.

Brigid acted like she didn’t like it, but she wasn’t fooling me.

Dan loved his.

“What do you say, Daniel?” Brigid prompted.

“Thank you so much, sensei! Mom, can I go out and see the carnival games?”

“Go ahead, but don’t go too far.”

“I won’t.”

“And stay where you can see me and I can see you. We’ll catch up in a minute.”

When he ran off, I said, “He’s a great kid.”

“You’re a great big kid. That hat looks adorable on you.” She flicked the brim of mine. “Thanks for the hats. Really. You didn’t have to do that.”

“It was nothing.”

“I’m really glad you suggested this. I haven’t had this much fun with Daniel in ages.”

“You need to get out more. You should be having this much fun every weekend.”

“You won’t get any argument from me on that subject. I can’t believe work hasn’t paged me all day.” She checked her phone.

“Must be the luck of the Irish.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t jinx me. Now they’ll probably call.”

“Nah. Good luck always shines on me, Irish.” I meant her.

She knew what I meant. The moment was charged for both of us.

I reached up and brushed my knuckle across her chin.

“We should go find Daniel.” She broke eye contact and turned her head away.

“Yeah.” I backed up a step on my crutches to give her space.

She walked right out of the gift shop without looking back.

Damn.

Did I go too far?

This “friends only” thing was bullshit.

Man, I hated rules.

<<<<<<<>>>>>>>

We hit up every ride in the park before the day was over.

Revenge of the Mummy. The Jurassic Park water ride. The Simpsons. Transformers 3D. Shrek 4D. The studio tour on the buses where we saw King Kong and Jaws. The WaterWorld show with the stuntmen and the guys riding the WaveRunners in the huge pool and all the explosions. No matter what we did, it always ended up that Dan sat between us. I couldn’t figure out if he just wanted to be next to me or if Brigid was putting distance between us.

Either way, it was frustrating.

All I wanted to do was hold her hand or touch her like couples normally did in a place like this. Every time I saw some guy with his hand in his girl’s back pocket or the other way around, I was totally jealous.

When I came out of the restrooms and saw Brigid talking with some guy next to the Megatron photo op, I nearly lost my shit. The guy had a muscle shirt on and was pretty built. He was all smiles, trying to charm the pants off of Brigid. I could tell he was a tool from way over here. She laughed at something he said but I couldn’t hear what. Time to put a stop to that. I swung toward them on my crutches. I probably looked like an idiot with my crutches and my Minion hat, but I didn’t care.

“Hey, guys.” I tried to sound friendly but I was pissed. “What are we talking about?”

Muscle Shirt gave me a funny look. “Hey buddy.”

“You like my hat, don’t you?” I tipped my head, motioning with the hat. I was gripping my crutches so tight I thought I might snap the handles off. I tried to relax.

“Who’s this guy?” Muscles chuckled.

“I’m the guy who’s with her.”

He frowned. “But is she with you?”

He was pissing me off and he was barely trying. I laughed, “Did you not see her matching hat?”

“Bro, half the people here are wearing a hat like that.”

“Are you?”

“No, but…” He trailed off, unsure of himself. I was intimidating him. Good.

Brigid made a strange face.

Whoops. Was I out of line? Was I being a jealous dick? Probably. I didn’t want to say anything else and end up looking worse than I already did, so I clamped my mouth shut.

Muscles looked back and forth between me and Brigid. He also noticed the size of my arms. Nothing like walking around on crutches all day to keep them pumped. He said to Brigid, “You with this guy?”

Please say yes, please say yes.

“Yeah,” she groaned like she regretted it.

What was that about?

Muscles smirked. “You two have fun.” He wandered off.

Brigid muttered, “Is everything okay?”

“Uhhh…” I didn’t know what to say because I didn’t want to sound like any bigger of a tool than I already felt. “Sorry. I was just… sorry.”

She smiled. “It’s okay.”

“Where’s Dan the Man?” I needed a distraction.

“He’s waiting in line to take a picture with Megatron.”

“Oh, right.”

The guy in the eight foot tall Megatron suit was making jokes over a PA about all the people standing around watching him. The crowd laughed at his rude humor as he tormented them.

“
A youngling Minion, eh?
” Megatron said in his rumbling robot voice as Dan walked up cautiously and stood in front of him. Megatron stomped his huge robot foot and Dan hopped back, giggling nervously. “
You are obviously an Autobot sympathizer based on that ridiculous hat!
”

Dan laughed.

“Turn around so I can take your picture, Daniel,” Brigid said, pointing her phone at him.

Megatron roared, “
Listen to your mother, Minion!
”

I chuckled. This guy was great.

“
Don’t dare laugh at me, giant Minion on crutches! I could conquer you and your entire Minion army with my little finger!
” Dan rushed back into the crowd. “
Next victim!
”

Two more kids wandered up for a photo op.

“That was so cool,” Dan said. “Lemme see, Mom!”

She showed him her phone.

“Wow! I wanna be Megatron when I grow up.”

“Me too, buddy.”

Brigid gave me that strange look again.

I could only hope she was over my bad behavior earlier.

If she was, she wasn’t showing it.

<<<<<<<>>>>>>>

It was dark when we left the park.

“That was so much fun, Mom!” Dan said as we walked past the Universal Studios wireframe globe on our way out.

“It sure was.” She rubbed his shoulder and looked at me.

Her marry me smile was back. I didn’t want the day with them to end. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starving. What do you think about dinner?”

“I don’t know,” Brigid said. “It’s been a long day.”

“Mom, can we get dinner? Please?”

I said, “Since we have to go past all the restaurants in the CityWalk to get to your car, we may as well stop for something to eat, right?” I hoped she said yes.

“Okay. If you insist.” That smile.

“I insist. Dan the Man, do you insist?”

“I insist too. Mom? Do you insist?”

“I guess I’m outvoted.”