Two Weeks (25 page)

I run into Vince Blackstone in the locker room, the last person on earth I'd like to see before the fight. We haven't been on good terms for a long time, not since our last fight in which he lost. He's a couple inches shorter than me, pure muscle to the point of being bulky. His technique sucks. He never wants to admit it—or work on it. There's a long scar on his left cheek, but nobody knows where it came from.

We're in the same weight class, but he's not eligible for the tournament round I'm fighting in tonight. And he's
very bitter
about that. He doesn't handle defeat very well.

"Jackson," he says. "I was wondering if you were gonna show tonight." His tone is like acid.

"Great to see you again too, Vince."

"Who's the new girl?" he asks. "How much are you paying her to sit up front?"

I keep my cool better than usual, maybe because I'm in such a good mood. "That's funny, Vince. Very funny." My level of sarcasm is almost toxic. I kind of hope it kills him. "Still bitter about losing again, I see."

"You just got lucky," he snarls, once again fixated on the past. "You probably paid off the ref with some of that trust fund money."

I shake my head. He's really trying hard to upset me, but it's not working. "I'm just a better fighter than you are, Vince. That's all. And these are just amateur leagues. I don't know why the hell you care so much."

"I want a rematch," he says. "Just you and me. After hours. We'll see who wins then."

"Whatever, Vince," I say. "You're keeping me from getting ready."

"Exactly—that's my plan," he calls as he walks around the corner. "That's my plan."

I scoff disbelievingly and put on my shorts and black regulation shoes. I wrap up my fists with tape and head into the warm up area after securing my bag in a locker.

My whole routine goes smoothly, just the way I like it.

I train on the speed bag for a while and then move to the full size bag. I think about Ally the whole time, think about how I want to put on a good show for her tonight. Positive energy flows through my veins, mixed with pure adrenaline. I hear the growing clamor as more and more people arrive, and it fires me up.

I'm certain I'm going to win. I'm totally ready for this.

***

Ally

I
patiently wait for Jackson, watching everyone run around like a swarm of ants that just discovered a discarded popsicle on the sidewalk. Everything comes together quickly, and I start to see how everything will work. There is a fenced area where the fighters enter, keeping them separated from the fans.

Although I'm just idly waiting, I'm pretty entertained as I watch this initial preparatory stuff going on. And then people start filling the building, and I realize that this is actually a pretty big deal.

Jackson definitely made mention of the popularity, but I had never heard of this, other than catching the end of an MTV special about MMA fighting a couple years back.

There are all kinds of girls flooding in, some of them holding signs, most of them cute. I also see what appear to be the ring girls, because they're the most scantily clad of all. Less cute, more sexy, less clothes. The excitement in the air is almost palpable, and I start to feel giddy.

No one else has entered the VIP area yet, so I'm still in my exclusive club with a bunch of empty seats. Occasionally people covetously glance at me, and that makes me feel even more special even though I'm just sitting here staring at nothing.

However, Jackson returns wearing a robe, taking the seat beside me, ending my VIP solitude. "How are you doing?" he asks.

"Good." I see a group of college age girls enter with a sign that I swear says "
We Love You, Juggernaut!"
but I can't make it out. I point at them as inconspicuously as I can. "Does their sign have your name on it, Jackson?"

He pretends not to notice. It's cute. "Where?" he asks.

"Those girls with the big white sign." The one carrying it happens to angle it just right and I see that it indeed says what I thought it did. "It says your name!"

"So what? They like to root for people."

"I suspect that you've been extra humble about this whole thing," I say firmly. "That conversation with Todd. These girls with the sign."

He shrugs it off. "Just coincidences. I mean, I'm a good fighter, but I'm not the greatest by any means."

"Well, that's a start," I say. "From the way you talk about it, it sounds like you've never even fought before."

Jackson laughs, and his addictive smile really hits me hard. He's clad in a glamorous robe, ready to take the stage and fight someone ten feet in front of me. It's a pretty surreal feeling and the more it settles in, the zanier it feels.

And now he's a hundred times hotter than ever.

Whenever there's a lull in our chatter, my mind's rambling fills the empty space. I remember this feeling, and I remember it well. I'm transported back to Friday night football games in Red Lake, the place where Jackson formerly reigned over all of the competition.

The announcers used to get so out of control every time he scored a touchdown, and even though they were grown men, their voices sometimes cracked like teenagers. It was hilarious. I laughed until I cried sometimes.

I remember how it felt wearing the players' bulky varsity jackets in support. I was never that into the sports program, but that's not to say I didn't have a good time when my friends dragged me out. And everyone went to homecoming no matter how unenthusiastic they were about football or any other sport for that matter.

It was just the thing to do.

Eventually, the building becomes packed, stuffed to the walls with riled up fans that want some action. And with the arrival of an announcer and two ring girls in tight black bikinis, the show begins.

"Ladies and gentleman, it's time to begin! Are you ready for some real action?"

The audience gives an enthusiastic
Yeah!
and then he continues.

"Are you ready for
carnage
? For
mayhem
? For
destruction
?"

Once again, the crowd answers him—and their answer is
yes
, of course—but I'm too hypnotized to join in.

"I love that guy," Jackson shouts over the aural chaos. "He's so over-the-top. I'm glad they found him. The old guy was terrible."

I nod. "He
is
pretty funny," I say. "And
everything
about this is over-the-top."

"You just wait until
my
fight."

As the night begins, Jackson gives me the back stories—and dirty secrets—of each fighter as they arrive on stage. Even though the room is
very
noisy, his voice cuts through everything. It's like we're the only two people there.

"He bites," Jackson says, pointing at the guy on the left inside the cage, the
Lion
as the announcer calls him.

"Is that why he's called the
Lion
?" I ask.

Jackson shrugs. "Well, no. His name is just Lev, which means lion in Russian. Not very original."

I raise an eyebrow and smirk at him. "Does Jackson mean juggernaut in some other language?"

He laughs. "I don't think so. Is it cooler if I say it means something special?"

"I'm not going to answer that." My eyes return to the fight. The room is full of people now, and in a way, it feels like to room itself is alive, a breathing thing all by itself.

I watch the
Lion
charge and try to make a meal out of his prey. He's got a bit of a drunken swagger, and it's fun to watch. "He seems really good," I say.

Jackson stares up and then back at me. "He's not bad, but he's nothing special. He got his start fighting in bars. So he's cheap."

"And he bites," I remind him.

He smiles. "Well, not anymore. They threatened to kick him out for good if he ever does it again. He's been de-fanged."

We watch fight after fight, and I do my best to follow along. We see
Carnivores
and
Cannibals
,
Crusaders
and
Vampires
. It's quite the cavalcade, and it's even funnier to imagine them as their names suggest.

"What if a hurricane really battled a mammoth?" I ask Jackson, just as the
Mammoth
pummels the
Hurricane
and sends his body against the mat.

"I assure you it wouldn't turn out like
this
," he says.

"Ladies and gentleman, the storm shrivels, while the mammoth grows—and
conquers
!"

I giggle in amusement at the declaration. This announcer is terrific. I turn to share the moment with Jackson, but when I do, I notice the guy on the sideline waving to him. "That guy wants you I think."

"Shit, I gotta go," he says. "I'm up next."

"Break someone else's leg up there," I say.

"Thanks." He lightly brushes my arm and it feels tingly. He stands up and heads through the entry way. As I watch him depart, girls start screaming and going crazy from the sidelines, many of them reaching at him, trying desperately to touch those same arms that have been all over me for days.

I'm almost feeling
jealous
.

Are some of these the girls that he, uh...

I nervously gulp as the thought comes to the forefront in my mind—but I catch myself before I go any farther down the rabbit hole. I'm here to have fun, not to get obsessed with petty little details.

It doesn't matter
what
I'm thinking, because the announcer explodes on the microphone—and thankfully his voice doesn't crack. I'm jarred back into the intense reality of being in this room with screaming fans watching sweaty, muscular men duking it out.

"It's time, ladies and gentleman, for a battle of the ages, a mingling of the monsters, a reckless, rowdy rumble of good versus evil, light versus dark, man versus beast! It's the fight you've been waiting for! It's the light heavyweight regional title match!"

My fingers tense up, digging into my thighs as everyone starts screaming. They know what's coming, and although I don't, I can guess. I feel the tension and excitement in the room more than ever.

I feel very, very dirty and I can only assume it's going to get worse once the fight begins.

"At six foot four, two-hundred four pounds, he's epic, a man of steel, a biblical bully that's ready to rock the ring. Ladies and gentleman,
Goliath
!"

Until he says the name, I assume he's talking about Jackson. But clearly it's not Jackson. This guy is taller than Jackson, and he's toned and menacing, way bigger than Curtis. He
is
quite the goliath, no joke.

I feel nervous. People are booing him, but that doesn't make him any less of a physical threat to Jackson. He hops into the ring and shakes his fists at the crowd like they're maracas.

"At six foot two, two-hundred five pounds, he's the crowd favorite, the man of the hour, the unstoppable, unshakeable, relentless king of brutality." There's a long dramatic pause, and shit, it
works
. You could hear a pin drop in that room. "Ladies and gentleman, for your viewing pleasure, the
Juggernaut!
"

Heavy Metal music pours out of the speakers. It sounds like
Metallica
or
Slayer
based on my limited knowledge of the subject. Whatever it is, my brother used blast it in his room and I really hated when I could hear it through the wall.

Now, it's perfect. It makes Jackson a hundred times more intimidating.

If what I just experienced was a total absence of sound, I now experience a
sound overload
, a total saturation of noise. People—including me—are screaming at the top of their lungs, totally drowning out the music. Jackson charges out through the gated entryway and everyone goes nuts. I'm more excited than I've been in years.

The signs are dancing above people's heads, signs that declare their undying love for this man that I've been with all week. Hands grab at Jackson as he walks, and he gives countess high fives and fist-bumps to adoring fans. My gut tightens, both in lust and amazement.

"Juggernaut, we love you!"

"Rip his fucking head off!"

"I'd do anything for you!"

The girls behind me shriek like they've seen a ghost. Well, a very sexy ghost that they want to chase, not flee from.

Jackson's a living, breathing sex-machine.

For real.

My mind floods with all of the dirty images it can muster, all of the times he made love to me and I lost control and just dissolved into him. I feel his hands all over my body, crawling along my sensitive flesh, his incredible intent overwhelming as he takes me.

He goes up the stairs and into the cage, bouncing from side to side, shaking his fists and roaring back at the crowd. When he sees me, he smiles, and my heart feels like it just fell on the floor. He's clearly on cloud nine, loving every second of this.

We're all in the palm of his hand.

Goliath
scoffs, waiting for the display of arrogance to cease. I love every insane second of it. I don't know if Jackson is the hero or the villain here, nor do I care. One way or another, he's
mine
.

"Let's have a fair fight tonight, gentleman." The announcer walks out of the way and the referee steps into the middle, intensely lecturing the two men. I can't hear anything he says over the crowd.

"Let's fight!"

Everyone roars and the bell dings. The two men bump fists and then move into position, raising their arms defensively.
Goliath
appears pretty pissed, ready to knock the smug smile right off Jackson's face.

The fight begins, and Jackson immediately backs off. Goliath charges right at him, but he's ready, blocking every punch thrown his way. He clearly anticipated this move.

He lands a solid jab to Goliath's gut, sending him hobbling backward.

The crowd enthusiastically applauds the punch. It's the first time I've seen him throw a real punch, and I'm blown away as I watch his muscles flex as his arm glides through the air. He's so powerful—but then again, so is this other guy.