The Wide Receiver's Baby (14 page)

Chapter Three

Kayla

I made it to New York.  The city where no one asks your name.  A place where I could be invisible while I figured out what to do next.  I just needed time, and moving out here would buy me that.  I decided to check into a motel and the next day it was all about seeing where I could make some cash. 

It didn’t take long for me to find a job, after asking a few diners and bars if they had any work.  I got a few regular shifts at a particular diner, because the waitresses seemed to be constantly sick.  I wasn’t like them.  I couldn’t give them my social security number and get a permanent job.  I was a girl on the run.  I had to keep a low profile.  That meant working here for a while and then… who knew?  I certainly didn’t.

“Hey girl, those abs are tight,” one of the waitresses said in the changing room.

“Yep, you can’t be too careful.  I’ve always trained.”

I kept myself to myself; I had learned that from Mom when we were first on the run.  ‘Only talk to those who you think you can trust and even then, you still have to be careful’… those were her words of wisdom when we first were on the run. 

Right now, I was alone.  I had been in the city a few weeks and usually, after a shift in the diner, I would go and change in the motel.  But, tonight I just didn’t feel like being alone.

“Lately I’ve got a bit of an appetite, so my 6-abs are turning more into 2-abs.”  I said as I rubbed my stomach.  It was growing a little bit.  Something that I hadn’t really taken any notice of until now.

She laughed as she lifted up her shirt and said, “Well, I’ve always been a 1-ab type of gal.”  Sheryl was sweet, and always had a smile on her face.  I knew the other girls hated her, because of her plus size. 

‘The food is for the customers, not you,” some of them would smirk as Sheryl would gasp as she took out the owner's famous steak and mash potatoes.  Even my eyes lit up when holding one of those plates.

Damn, it always looked so good.

But, that didn’t stop Sheryl smiling at the clients and even the other waitresses.

“You know there were a couple of girls here who left.  They used to fight.”

She managed to spark my interest.  Fight.  That was like music to my ears at the moment.  Besides my pokey bedroom in the apartment., the diner and the odd conversation with a client, I spoke to no one.  Not until today.

Having this conversation in the dingy changing room, where some of the girls managed to change out of their black uniform and come out looking as if they were going on the catwalk. 

I remembered there were a group of girls talking about a fight. But I assumed they were talking about the official MMAs, which I dreamt of signing up for, but the same problem: I would have to register with ID and I didn’t have any that I could use.

“Really?” I questioned as I sat down on the thin bench and waited for her to continue. 

She lifted an eyebrow as she realized that she had caught my attention, “Yep, it’s not the MMA or anything clean like that.  Some of those girls get beaten like crazy.  One even ended up dead.”

She stopped, probably thinking that her revelation had put me off.  She had no idea where I came from.  I had become immune to people and their actions. 

“Tell me more.”

She did, and I listened.  As tempting as it was, it didn’t feel like an option.  I had a steady amount of money coming in from the diners and even on the weekend I would do the odd shit at a nightclub.  The only thing that could completely turn things around was if I became broke.  Right now, I wasn’t there yet. 

I listened, thinking it would be something to ease the pain. 

That was why I had started studying karate, when I was eight.   To use it on my dad.  I had visions of him hitting me and me retaliating.  Finally, being able to fight back brought a sense of security.  But, for all the times, he hit me, I never did fight back.  He was too strong.  His ferocity and the shock of my own dad doing this to me, put me off each and every time.  I kept promising myself that the next time I would do it. But, by the time I finally plucked up the courage, it was time to escape. 

I don’t know if I ever would have used it.

Probably not.

***

Earl, the owner of the diner, had something that he wanted to talk to me about before I started my shift.  I was sat in his office, which kind of made me nervous.  Even when he’d hired me; he’d thrown me an apron and said, “Start.  If you make it to the end of the night, then you’re hired.”

Today, I had a feeling that the news wasn’t good.

Then again, it was written all over his face.

“Sorry, Carolyn, I can’t keep you on anymore.  Not for cash.  Unless you want to start letting me pay you socials.”

I sighed, avoiding his gaze. 

Shit.

“Taxes are getting higher and I need to offset all my damn expenses.  The IRS are coming down hard on us all.” 

I wanted to cry.  I’d been lucky getting this job on my third day in the city.  No one wanted to hire someone who only wanted cash.  I’d heard one of the owners say it normally meant trouble.  Earl had hired me so easily.  And just as easily, he was letting me go.

I stood up, unable to speak.  I couldn’t think; could only hand him back his apron, knowing that I wouldn’t be working that night.

That was when I saw Sheryl.  I had two hundred and fifty bucks stashed at the motel - and nothing more.  I couldn’t afford to live on that for too much longer.  I knew I had two choices.

Prostitution, fighting or to go back home.

Wherever that was, at times I used to think it was at college.  But, that was only temporary.

I had only given my body to one man.  The idea of giving it to anyone who paid for it was impossible.

Which meant I would need to get into black market fighting.

Chase used to say that I worked out way too much.  I couldn’t help myself.  Even after years of being away from my dad, I still felt the need to stay in shape in case a man decided to use me as a punching bag. The man that used to tuck me into bed as a child became my enemy.  I’d even taught self-defense classes in college. 

Sheryl smiled as her eyes lit up, “Girl, the other night you said you weren’t interested.”

I whispered, “Earl’s had to let me go.  So I need to get interested.”

I did, because the clock was ticking.  The first couple of nights I had thought about going back.  But it had been eight weeks.  Maybe I had made a mistake and should have gone back to Chase. Begged for his forgiveness, and then told him the truth about my dad. 

The problem was I couldn’t.

Maybe it was pride.

Maybe it was stubbornness.

But there was that feeling deep down inside of me, that kept me in New York.

And right then I knew it was the same thing that had kept me going back home each and every night knowing that my dad could turn around and beat the shit out of me.

Fear.

Chapter Four

Chase

I didn’t feel like going.  It was four weeks until the end of college, and the last thing I felt like doing was going to a black market fight.  Seeing a couple of girls beat the shit out of each other wasn’t exactly my idea of fun.

“Chase, you need to unwind.  Shit, man, I went to the semifinals, and this thing is fucking hot.  Hotter than hot,” Reg said.  He’d been my best friend since high school.  After Kayla left campus, I’d needed a change.  I didn’t feel like going to Stanford anymore, so I’d switched to Yale.  Dad was happy; it was the tradition in our family for all Logan men to go to Yale.  As soon as I told him that I needed a change after the first semester, he didn’t waste any time making sure that my transfer happened.

When you’re as rich and influential as my dad, shit like that happens all the time.  I knew that for the average student this was near enough impossible.  But for Dad, anything was possible.

“Final year exams, man.  We should be studying,” I blurted out as I got my scarf and coat.  I knew that if I didn’t go, I wouldn’t hear the end of it.  Going to any type of fight just reminded me of Kayla, and the last thing I wanted to do was have her on my mind.

The first year had been painful. 

I’d finally confessed my true feelings to her the first night we’d started college.  We had been playing a cat and mouse game for years.  When she’d first moved to Dallas, she was an awkward, shy girl who didn’t want to talk to anyone, especially me.  But boy, did she love to fight.  The teachers told her to save it for the ring, but that didn’t stop her from trying to bully nearly every guy in school.

Our parents met at a parents’ meeting.  They hit it off from the start.  They started dating and, before we knew it, we were living in the same house.

That was when things got awkward.

The shy girl who loved to fight had started coming out of her shell, after our parents dropped us at college.  As soon as they left, I went to her room and had it out with her. 

“We’re at the same college.  Our dorms are across the campus from each other, so we don’t need to be friends.  But at least stop pretending that we don’t know each other,” I blurted out.  It was a speech that I had rehearsed for many nights.  I was like a lovesick teenager.  Which was kind of crazy, because I was kind of popular at school.  The guy with a wealthy dad and who gets good grades earns some popularity in school.  I was the one who held pool parties, went on expensive trips, and at times could take a friend or two on the trip.

Kayla replied with a smug look on her face, “Make me!”

That statement resulted in her being tackled, and I got her in a compromising position, and I couldn’t wait to kiss those lips.  They were thick and full and just screaming out my name as she lay underneath me that day.  I got hard just thinking about it. 

From that moment onwards, I’d known she was mine.  Not just in my dreams, but in reality.

***

“Shit, man.  We all know you don’t need to study.  Your dad’s an oil tycoon for crying out loud,” my roommate, Miles, screamed out, as if there was an audience in the room. 

He didn’t hide the fact that he hated that my dad was filthy rich, but we’d ended up sharing a room at college.  He had worked like crazy to get into Yale from the public school his parents had put him into; worked two jobs, even though he was on scholarship. No one in his family had been to college.  Studying wasn’t easy for him, but it came naturally to me.  Yet, that didn’t stop him from accusing me of cheating, or my dad of buying my grades, whenever the results came out.

I hated going out with him, but Reg had insisted, saying, “Come on, in a few months’ time you won’t see the guy again.”  Those few months felt like a lifetime.  Especially because both my roommate and my best friend loved the underworld MMA.

I just didn’t get it.

Some girl had died at the last fight they went to.  They said she was beaten to a pulp.  I just didn’t understand why anyone would get any sense of enjoyment out of it.  The whole thing felt crazy to me.

“We are at one of the most prestigious colleges.  We’re educated men, and yet you guys get a kick out of seeing grown women beat the crap out of each other.  Why not just get a prostitute?”

I wasn't sure why I was comparing one to the other.  But BDSM seemed to be the thing at the moment.  I was sure that Miles would engage in something like that.

“Hell no,” Miles blurted out.  “You could catch something.”

I shook my head, because that made no sense.  I was trying to make a point, but as usual it was wasted on Miles.  His head was always somewhere else. 

Chapter Five

Kayla

“Kayla, a penny for your thoughts,” Hannah asked as she prepped me for the big fight.  Hannah had the reddest hair that I had ever seen on a woman.  I often wondered if that, and her emerald eyes, were natural.  She could be deemed a rare beauty, but I knew what lurked underneath.  Something evil.  Something the underdogs were scared of.

Hannah and I were in the back room.  It was a typical fight room; even after it had been cleaned and bleached, it still carried the stench of blood.  The girls and guys who had been in the room before had been either been beaten to death or were dragged in here half alive from the fight.  I hated coming into this room before a fight.  It didn’t feel comfortable, it felt cheap.  The room was dim; the lighting was always the same so that no one could see the real state of the fighters before the fight.  There was never a mirror in the room.  If there had been, it would probably stop the fighters from competing.  That was one thing that I’d always avoided doing, even back home.  I hated looking in the mirror and seeing what I had become.

There was one light hanging from the ceiling and a bench that used to be white placed in the middle of the room.  Earlier, the doctor had checked me over to make sure that I was fit for the fight.  There was nothing worse than people paying for a fight and a fighter not being able to last more than a round because they had either taken too many drugs or they had been fighting outside of the market. 

The whole thing was dirty. There were no rules.

I had been given the all clear, so I was allowed a little time to talk to my coach.  But this time, Hannah had refused to let Willy, my coach, come in the room.  She wanted to talk to me, help me prep before the big fight.  She wanted to make sure everything was in place and that nothing was going to go wrong.

This fight was the big one.  The one that people were talking about all around New York.  I had heard them talking about it in the casinos; that was where most of the people who attended the fights hung out.  The guys and gals with the big bucks at the casinos.   Also, that was where Hannah spent most of her time.  She loved to gamble, which was another reason why she needed the money from the fight - to keep up her bad habits.  One thing she ensured, which was not true of most gamblers, was that she never owed.

She only bet if she had money in her pocket.

If not, she didn’t go.

But it had become like a drug to her.

I had seen her happy when she won, but when she lost, it wasn’t a pretty sight. Not at all.

This fight would lead to a big payout, money that I had dreamed would come my way. For the last six months, I had been working practically day and night to get out of this world. 

Two months ago, I had lost two teeth in the last sixteen finals.

Last month, I had nearly lost the use of my eye in the quarterfinals.

Last week, I’d been confined to my bed after the semifinals.  I could hardly move.  This shit wasn’t like the real MMA.  The fights were getting tougher, and the pain was getting unbearable.  Shit, the other girl in the semi nearly died.  There were rules, but they were so loose, sometimes I wondered if the audience got more of a kick out of seeing one of us die.  I wanted to win.  No, I
needed
to win to finally be free.

Yet, it was taking me longer and longer to recover from a fight.  The fighters felt as if they were made of steel.  A punch to the head just made them look the other way.  I needed more blows to knock them out.  I had been training like a dog to make sure that I won this fight. 

This was black market fighting; there were no drug tests, so most of the fighters took steroids or some kind of stimulant to get so far.  There was no board or censorship; fighting was about winning, pure and simple.   Every kick and punch felt like metal beating the shit out of me, but I kept on.  I refused to take that shit. 

I had seen a couple of girls that had taken drugs and they had lost their minds.  Maybe I was old-fashioned and thought that playing it safe would lead to a win.  Hannah said I was naive. 

Yet, she knew the real reason why I didn’t take that shit.

“I just don’t know if I can go on like this,” I said as I started to get nervous.  No, I was fucking scared.  Not only of my opponent, but of Hannah too.

My final fight was with Natalie Nathan.  She was taller than me, bigger than me, and a whole lot stronger.

The only thing I had in my favor was speed, but that didn't always allow me to win a fight.  When I’d first started out, it was fucking tough.  As the years rolled by, it became easier.  All I had to do was see my dad’s face and I fought.  Now, it was hard again.  Maybe I was getting sentimental, or maybe the nightmares were finally going away. 

Either way, hearing their voices and feeling their punches no longer made it easier to deal with the pain.

“You wanted this.  I told you about the risk, about what could happen.  You said you could do this.”  Hannah started panicking.  “Shit, do you know what is at stake if you back out now? It’s not just
your
life.”

I nodded my head, pretending that I had gotten myself together.  I’d said I wanted the final fight.  She had supported me for nearly two and a half years.  This fight would mean that I could finally pay her back and then I would be free.

I knew that Hannah was powerful, but over the last few months, I’d found out just how powerful she really was.

“Don’t worry.  It was just nerves talking.  I’m okay.  I know what tonight means.  I won’t let you down.”

The stakes were high.  She reassured me with a fake smile and a kiss on the forehead.  It was a deadly smile.  One that didn't say, “try and do your best”.  It was one that said, “if you don’t win, and you let me down, if your opponent doesn’t kill you, I will”.