Consumed: A MMA Sports Romance (2 page)

I get between buildings
as soon as I can. The cop hadn’t seen me, but if they’ve got my ID, they know
what I look like. Even if they didn’t, I’m still a guy walking around in
nothing but trunks and some hand tape with blood all over him.

Coming to the sidewalk on
the far side of this block, I glance down the street in both directions, making
sure I don’t have the 5-0 coming down on me, and I go. My feet are starting to
hurt.

“Mason?” a woman’s voice
calls from down the sidewalk as I reach the other side of the road.

I turn to run, but glance
back first to see what I’m dealing with. Given who I see coming toward me, this
might actually work out all right for me.

“Jana?” I ask the short,
black-haired woman staring at me with her body half-turned like she’s trying to
decide whether or not to grab the hand of the woman next to her and run.

I don’t know if Jana and
I ever said the words boyfriend and girlfriend when we were whatever it was
that we were, but she’s definitely my ex-something.

“What happened to you?”
she asks, covering her mouth.

“Oh, just a little
sporting event that got interrupted,” I answer and look to the brunette woman
standing next to Jana, looking at me with raised eyebrows and a wide-open
mouth. “Hi,” I say to the woman. “I’m Mason. I’d shake your hand, but, well…”

“You should go to the
hospital,” the woman says. “That cut looks pretty bad.”

“Yeah, I was trying to
head home, but…” I stop. I’m already terrifying enough right now just by my
appearance. There’s no solid reason to tell them that I’m also on the run from
the cops.

“But…?” Jana asks.

“…but I can’t,” I finish.

It’s a stupid
explanation—not really an explanation at all. Still, though, it keeps the
conversation moving and I don’t have a lot of time to stand here and talk.

“You should really get
that cleaned up,” the woman standing next to Jana says.

“I’m on my way to do just
that,” I answer. “Hey, it was nice to meet you, but I really should…”

“Are you going to the
hospital?” Jana asks.

My mind’s a little blown
right now, as I can’t imagine why two people would want to stand and talk to
someone in my position.

“Hadn’t planned on it,” I
tell her. “I really need to go.”

“Are you doing it?” the brunette
asks.

“What?” I return,
baffled.

“Are you going to be the
one treating the wound, and if so, do you have any experience as a paramedic,
nurse, or a doctor?” she asks.

“You’re kind of freaking
me out a little here,” I tell the woman. “What, do you see my skull or
something?”

“No,” she says, “but I’m
pretty sure that’s just because of the blood.”

Jana’s looking a little
pale.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “I
was going to just jump in the shower or something and put a bandage over it.
I’m sure it looks worse than it is.”

“You really need to get
that taken care of now,” the brunette says. “And I really think you’re going to
want to have someone who knows what they’re doing take care of it.”

“Ash, if we’re going to
be drunk and dancing by midnight, we should really get going,” Jana says.

“Hold on a minute,” the brunette
woman, apparently Ash, says and comes a little closer to me. “Do you have any
communicable diseases?” she asks. “AIDS? Hepatitis? Anything blood borne?”

“You’re going to touch
his blood?” Jana asks. “Eww!”

It is a rather odd
direction for her to go, given she has no idea who I am beyond my name and that
I’ve been in a fight very, very recently.

“Not without gloves,” Ash
says. “So?”

“No,” I tell her. “Clean
and healthy, that’s me.”

“Okay,” Ash says. “Come
on.”

She turns and starts
walking.

Jana and I just look at
each other a for a few seconds.

“Your friend’s kind of
weird,” I tell her.

“Yeah,” Jana says. “You
got no idea. We better follow her, though. You look like you just crawled out
of a collision with oncoming traffic.”

Jana turns and catches up
with her friend, who either hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care that I’m still not
there, and I’m torn between two possible options, neither one of which make
much sense.

Things didn’t end badly
with Jana, they just kind of fizzled out, so I have no reason to believe the
two of them are going to lure me back to their place and end up stringing me up
from the ceiling. Still, it’s been a while and she doesn’t seem quite as sure
about having me go with them as her friend does.

Then there’s Logan’s
place a few blocks in the other direction. The only problem is that I’m not
sure if he’s home, and I don’t have my phone to call him.

I can’t afford to take a
chance that I’m going to get there only to have to turn around again. That, I
suppose, is all I needed to figure out.

“Hey, wait up!” I call
and catch up to Jana and Ash.

Who says you can’t have
an exciting Saturday night in a small town?

*
                   
*
                   
*

“Did you win?” Ash asks
as she dabs at my forehead with some sterile cotton balls, dipped in rubbing
alcohol.

I’m sitting on a folding
chair which is sitting on spread-out newspapers which are sitting on towels
which are sitting on the tile floor of the entryway to Jana and Ash’s
apartment.

“Haven’t lost yet,” I
answer.

“How many fights?” she
asks.

“A lot,” I answer.

“Can we go?” Jana asks,
her arms folded as she leans against the wall.

“I’m almost done,” Ash
says, dropping the cotton ball into the little trash bag sitting next to her.

“Why do you have all this
stuff?” I ask.

“What do you mean?” Ash
asks.

“Seriously,” Jana says.
“This is boring.”

“The medical stuff,” I
tell her. “Are you a doctor or something?”

“A nurse,” she says. “Or,
at least I will be in a couple years.”

Jana sighs loudly.

“A nurse, huh?” I ask.
“That’s pretty hot.”

Ash smiles and shakes her
head.

“Jana, could you pass me
another cotton ball?” Ash asks.

Jana groans and stomps over
to the table just out of reach from where Ash is kneeling down in front of me.
She picks up the bag, pulls out a small handful of cotton balls and tosses them
to Ash.

“We’ll go in a minute,”
Ash says. “Jeez. The guy’s bloody here.”

“It’s a shame we had to
meet like this,” I tell Ash. “I usually wear a lot more clothes and fewer open
wounds.”

Am I flirting with her?
Sure, she’s gorgeous with her wavy hair, turquoise eyes, and absolutely
slamming body, but Jana’s standing right there.

“How often do you fight?”
Ash asks, rolling her eyes a little.

“Once every couple
weeks,” I tell her. “If you’re talking about sparring, too, then I fight just
about every day.”

“It’s not a very safe
sport, is it?” she asks.

“Could you tell that from
the fact that we’re
still
bandaging
Mason up instead of being out, having fun and humiliating ourselves in public
for the shot of having one-nighters with some guys who we’re never going to
want to see again, like normal people?” Jana whines.

“I’ve survived this
long,” I tell Ash.

Jana groans loudly.

“Well,” Ash says, “the
good news is that you’re not going to need stitches. There’s a spot where the
cut’s a bit deeper and that’s where you’re getting most of the blood. The rest
of it’s basically a glorified scratch.”

“Really?” I ask. “I was
half-expecting you to go for the sewing needle.”

“Cuts on the head tend to
bleed a great deal, even with smaller cuts than what you’ve got,” Ash says. “A
bandage should be enough, assuming you’re not going to mess with it.”

“Condescend much?” I ask,
smiling.

“I’ve found it’s best to
assume whoever you’re working on is going to go out and do the stupidest thing
they can possibly do unless you tell them not to,” she answers and presses a
gauze bandage over the wound. “At least,” she says, “that’s my experience with
guys like you.”

“Guys like me, huh?” I
ask. “What are guys like me like?”

“I have no idea,” she
says, “but I know you’re dumb enough to put yourself in that ring to get
punched in the face, so I just figured it’d be good to cover my bases.”

“Ooh, you are spicy,” I
tell her. “I like that.”

“And we’re done here,”
Jana says, walking toward the other side of the room and into another one.

“She’s not getting a gun,
is she?” I ask.

“I guess we’re about to
find out,” Ash says, pulling the gloves off of her hands.

Ash gets up and walks to
yet another room, and I think it’s time for me to go.

“Here,” Jana says, coming
out of the other room with clothes in her hand, dragging on the floor behind
her. “I don’t want my neighbors to see you running around half-naked.” She
tosses the clothes at me.

“Hey, thanks,” I tell
her. “I really wasn’t looking forward to going back out there in the cold
without anything on.”

“They’re yours, anyway,”
she says. “I found ‘em when I was moving and didn’t really care enough to get
them back to you.”

“Oh stop,” I tease. “If
you don’t stop it with the sugary words, I’m going to need a toothbrush.”

“I don’t even know what
that’s supposed to mean,” she says.

I just shrug. It made
more sense before I said it, sure, but I’d say I’m still doing all right given
the situation.

“You’re still here,” Ash
says, coming out of what I’m assuming is her room.

“Yeah,” I tell her, “I’m
just getting ready to take off, though. Thanks for patching me up like that. It
was a little weird and pretty uncomfortable, but you did me a huge favor and I
appreciate it.”

“Oh, will you just go?”
Jana asks.

“It was nice to meet
you,” Ash says. “Try not to get hit in the face so much. You keep doing that
too much, and eventually it’s going to spoil your beauty.”

Is she flirting with me?

I can’t imagine that she
would be. As much as guys like me try to tell ourselves that women love a man
who’s bruised and bloody, the truth of the matter—in my experience at least—is
that most women just look at you, make a disgusted face, and try to get the
hell out of there as quickly as possible.

“Such as it is,” she adds
after the long interval.

“Yeah,” I say, “well. I
appreciate it. Are you sure I can’t pay you for your time?”

“Unless you’re hiding it
somewhere I’d rather not think about, you don’t have a wallet,” she says.

“Fair point,” I tell her.
“Well,” I stick my hand out to shake hers, “thanks again.”

She looks down at my hand
and shakes her head.

“Nice to meet you,
Mason,” she says.

“Okay, can we go now?”
Jana asks, and I’m starting to think that I’ve outworn my welcome. “Get your
clothes on and get out of our way.”

“You know, I remember you
being nicer,” I tell her.

“That was when I liked
you,” she says.

I quickly slip on the
white t-shirt and sweats I apparently left at Jana’s old place and turn to the
door, opening it.

“So, where are you two
ladies headed this evening?” I ask.

“None of your business,”
Jana answers.

“Neptune,” Ash answers.
“It’s a new club that just opened up in Milwaukee.”

“Getting kind of a late
start if you’re heading out of town, aren’t you?” I ask.

“Ha!” Jana exclaims.

Ash locks the door to
their apartment and we walk down the hall and out the side door of the
building.

“Well, I guess this is
it,” I tell them.

“I swear, if you give another
big, long goodbye, you’re going to have another bruise on your face,” Jana
says.

“And I guess that should
about do it,” I say. “See ya.”

“Hold on,” Ash says. “I
think the corner’s coming loose on that bandage. Hold still.”

“Will you hurry up?” Jana
complains. “By the time we get there, we’re only going to have like an hour.”

“This will just take a
second,” Ash says.

“So, is Ash short for
something or are your parents
Evil Dead
fans?” I ask.

“My full name’s Ashley,”
she says, patting down one corner of the bandage on my forehead.

“Good to know,” I say.
It’s kind of awkward having this near-stranger attend to me like this, but not
awkward enough to complain.