Consumed: A MMA Sports Romance (23 page)

I open the passenger’s
door and take a quick glance to see who’s in there waiting for me.

“You’d think with all
your money you’d be able to afford better disguises,” I tell my parents.

It’s bad. Dad’s wearing a
bald cap with tufts of fuzzy hair-like matter in a horseshoe pattern along the
sides. The edges of the bald cap aren’t quite blended properly, so it looks
like my dad has a farmer’s tan under his hair, but nowhere else.

My mom is in a white
pantsuit, wearing Elton John glasses and a voluminous and very curly redhead
wig. Both of them are holding handkerchiefs to their mouths.

“What are you doing?” I
ask, getting in the car.

“We can’t be too
careful,” mom says. “The way they just went after you like that—we don’t know
how long it’s going to be before they come after us.”

“Dear,” my dad chimes in,
“you’ve got to come with us.”

“I’m not putting on a
disguise like that,” I tell them. “I’d rather be back in lockup.”

“Darling, she’s speaking
like an ordinary criminal,” mom says to dad. She doesn’t lower her voice or
shield her mouth. She says it just as loud and clear as everything else she’s
said so far.

“Would you prefer I was a
bad one like the two of you?” I ask. “At least ordinary criminals seem to have
some kind of sense about them. You two—”

“We’re leaving the
country,” mom interrupts. “You know the way the US treats its wealthy. We
simply cannot weather the PR.”

“On the bright side,
they’d probably give you a job in government after you served your week and a
half in the Palm Springs Luxury Resort and Detention Center,” I taunt.

“You know, that doesn’t
sound so bad,” mom says, turning toward dad.

“She’s mocking us, dear,”
dad explains.

“What is your lawyer
doing?” I ask.

Johnson B. Witherton VI,
Esq. is standing in front of the car, pacing back and forth talking to no one.

“He’s used to a finer
quality institution,” dad says. “Coming to a common jail is a bit of a step
outside all our comfort zones.”

“Where are you going?” I
ask. “Which country, I mean.”

“I don’t think we should
discuss this until we’re already on the plane,” mom says, turning toward dad
again.

I’m gritting my teeth.
“Unless it’s a private plane,” I start, “it would be good for me to know before
we walk up to the counter at the—”

“Of course it’s a private
plane, dear,” mom says. “You don’t think we’re going to abscond to another
country flying coach, do you?”

They both laugh their
affected laughs and I really think there’s a chance the two of them were
dropped on their heads as children…and then again as teenagers…and then another
time when they entered adulthood.

As I was coming out of
the jail, a thought began to occur, but I quelled it before it had formed
entirely. I don’t have to go with my parents. I mean, I’m not leaving the
country with them no matter what, but right now, I don’t have to be here in a
car with them waiting for the press to show up.

Actually, it’s kind of
weird that there haven’t been any reporters or cameramen at all.

“Did you guys pay off the
press?” I ask. “Why haven’t they turned the front of the jail into a temporary
red carpet?”

“John takes care of those
things,” mom says, waving her hand as if swatting at a fly.

As if he’d heard his
name, Johnson B. Witherton VI, Esq. opens the driver’s side door and gets in,
saying, “All right, it looks like we’re clear for now at least. Is she going
with you?”

“No,” I answer, though
both my parents respond differently. “I didn’t do anything wrong and I’m not
going to start acting like I did just to take the focus off the two of you.”

I don’t usually talk to
my parents like this, but they’ve crossed the line a bit more than usual this
time.

“That
is
true, dear,” mom says. “Once we’ve
touched down in Urug—I mean, wherever we’re going—”

“Smooth,” I quip.

“We can start leaking the
story—trusted associates, of course. Once everyone’s heard what we’ll say
happened, they’ll have to exonerate her, won’t they, Charles?” mom asks dad.

“What exactly are you
planning on saying happened?” I ask.

“I still think it’d be
better if she came with us,” dad says. “If they do take her in after we’ve left
the country, they might try to use her in order to get us to return and face
prosecution.”

“I’m not going with you,”
I tell him. “Whatever you’re planning, it better include me being cleared of
any kind of involvement in any of this.”

“Of course, dear,” mom
says, flipping her hand up and down in my direction in a gesture I’ve seen a
few thousand times, but have never been quite able to decipher. It’s not a
shooing motion, it’s not a wave. It’s kind of like a come here/go away thing, though
I doubt that’s what my mom’s thinking when she does it. “Your safety and peace
of mind through all of this is most important.”

“We need to leave now!”
Johnson shouts out of nowhere. Honestly, I’d kind of forgotten he was in the
car there for a minute.

“I’m not going,” I tell
him. “You can just drop me off at my place and be on your way.”

“You’re just being ungrateful!”
Johnson yells. “We’re going to the airport.”

I look at the lawyer. I
really would have thought someone like him would be better in a crisis. If this
is the way he’s dealing with things, though, they must be a lot worse than I
think they are.

“Ungrateful?” I ask.
“Should I be grateful that I was just put in jail for something I had nothing
to do with? Should I be grateful that you guys thought it’d be a good idea to
basically steal my identity so you could fund your fraudulent enterprise?”

“I really do think it
should be her choice, John,” dad says.

The lawyer huffs, “We
don’t have time. We need to get out of the country and we need to do it now. If
one of us stays behind, how do we know that person’s not going to call the cops
while we’re still on the way to the airport?”

“I just want out of
this,” I tell the lawyer. “I want nothing to do with it. I’m not going to talk
to anyone, I just want to—”

“Get out,” Johnson B.
Witherton VI, Esq., who had previously been so nice to me, says. Maybe nice
wasn’t the word, but he wasn’t this hostile when he was bragging about getting
me into the pee room.

“John, please,” mom says.

“It’s fine, really,” I say.
“You guys have a fun trip to Uruguay. Let me know if you’re going to be
extradited back home and I’ll come visit you at whichever white-collar resort
they send you to.”

Before anyone utters
another ridiculous syllable, I open the car door and get out.

The door’s barely closed
before Johnson peels out of his spot, though given the space between the rows,
he has to stop again just as quickly and make a three point turn to get pointed
in the right direction.

I really don’t think
that’s the guy I’d choose to be my lawyer, but what do I know?

Now comes the thing I’ve
really been dreading: I pull my phone from my pocket and dial Mason’s number.

When I was coming out of
the jail, I considered telling the lawyer that I already had a ride and call
Mason to come pick me up. It was more a fantasy than a real plan, though.

Whatever he feels about
Chris being locked up, there’s no way it’s going to go over well that I’m
already out on bail while Mason’s brother sits remanded. Town’s five miles
away, though, and I’d just really like to get as far away from this building
and this parking lot as possible.

Chapter Nineteen

La Petit Mort

Mason

This is so stupid.

I was trying to get some
kind of answer out of the clerk at the city jail when Ash called. I guess I
should have figured they’d take her to county.

I’m about half a mile
away from the same building my brother’s locked up in, and my knuckles are
white as I grip the wheel. He’s there on remand and Ash is out the same day.

I’m not mad at her,
though.

When I get close enough
to the county jail to see into the parking lot, I immediately spot Ash sitting
on a low concrete barrier. Her shoulders hunch forward a little as I can see
her letting out a deep breath.

I pull up in front of her
and unlock the doors to the car. She gets in.

“Hey,” she says. “Thanks
for coming to get me. I’m sure you’re sick of this place by now.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I wasn’t
just going to leave you here, though.”

“Mason, I want to start
by telling you that—” she starts, but I interrupt her.

I tell her, “Let’s just
get you home and then we can go from there. You must’ve had a pretty rotten
day.”

“You can say that again,”
she says.

I wonder if Chris is
having a worse one or if he’s already conned the people in his cellblock into
thinking he’s everyone’s best shot at getting out early. That seems like the
kind of thing he’d do to make friends in there. Of course, his inability to get
out of there when someone finally catches on might have him behaving very
differently.

“It’s kind of weird that
they have both men and women in there,” Ash says. “I think we’re on different
halves of it, but still, don’t they usually break that sort of thing into
gender?”

“I really don’t know,” I
tell her.

She bites her bottom lip
and turns toward her window.

It’s a quiet drive.

We get to my house and
we’re barely through the front door when Ash starts, “It’s always been like
this. As long as I can remember, they’ve been pulling something and I’ve never
seen either of them take sincere responsibility for anything.”

“That must have been
rough,” I say.

She narrows her eyes a
little then widens them again, saying, “I’m not trying to say that I had a
worse—I’m not trying to compare our situations.”

“I’m not saying you are,”
I tell her. “I honestly think it must have been tough growing up the way you
did.”

“It kind of was,” she
says. “I know that must sound so stupid and out-of-touch coming from someone
like me.”

“Not at all,” I tell her.
“I wouldn’t want that kind of childhood.”

She’s looking at me with
those narrowed eyes again, this time turning her head a little to the side. “If
you don’t want me to talk about this, I don’t have to,” she says.

“No,” I tell her. “I like
hearing you talk.”

“I never know when you’re
being sarcastic,” she says.

“Really,” I laugh, “I’m
being serious. What’s on your mind?”

“They’re leaving the
country, you know,” she says. “They’re actually trying to skip town, state, and
nation to avoid taking any kind of responsibility for what they’re doing, and
you know what’s funny? I don’t really blame them. If I’d been committing stupid
crimes as long as they have and suddenly it looked like everything might come
out, I’d probably want to get the heck out of town, too. No offense,” she says.

I furrow my brow. “None
taken,” I say, more a question than reassurance not knowing which part of that
was supposed to have offended me. She was referencing Chris, but it’s not like
I didn’t know my big brother gets into a lot more than his fair share of
trouble.

“Have you talked to him?”
she asks.

“No,” I answer. “He
hasn’t called me and I haven’t called him. Honestly, I think he’s embarrassed
or ashamed or something.”

“All the time I was
growing up, I spent most of my time with the maids,” Ash says, returning to her
original topic. “If it weren’t for them, I might have turned out more like my
parents.”

“Eww,” I say, with an
exaggerated shudder.

“Right?” she says. “Can
you imagine what that would be like?”

“Thanks to most of the
people on reality TV shows, I can make a decent guess,” I answer.

She smiles.

“You know,” I tell her,
“before I found out my girlfriend was in the slammer, I was on my way to talk
to you.”

“Who’s your girlfriend?”
she asks.

I try to exude the lack
of being impressed, but I’m not so sure that’s how it’s coming across as Ash is
now holding her hand over her mouth, trying to stifle laughter.

“What were you coming to
talk to me about?” she asks.

“I wanted to tell you
some things,” I answer. “Now’s not the time, though. Now, we need to figure out
what we’re going to do about your situation.”

“Hey, we can work on a
conspiracy charge,” she says. “Sounds like fun.”

“I didn’t mean we should
plan a crime,” I say. “I mean we should figure out how we’re going to approach
this.”

She lifts one eyebrow a
little and the corners of her lips rise a little. “I have to tell you,” she
says, “I like how you keep saying ‘we’ here.”

I smile back at her. “I
kind of like you,” I tell her. “Don’t let that go to your head or anything,
though.”

“I’ll do what I can,” she
says and lets out a long sigh.

She takes a step toward
me and opens her arms. I pull her into me and we embrace.

“When we’re a little
further out from your whole just-got-out-of-jail thing, I should probably tell
you about my session today,” I mention.

“Oh yeah, how’d that go?”
she asks, resting her head against my shoulder.

I close my eyes a moment
and shake my head. “It was interesting,” I answer. “One thing at a time,
though. What do you want to do?”

“They’re leaving the
country,” she says. “I’m not going with them, so that probably means I should
try to find my own lawyer. They didn’t say anything, but I get the feeling
their guy isn’t really going to do his best work for me.”

“Okay,” I tell her.

“They’re just going to
get into the same stuff when they’re in South America, though,” she says.

I can’t help but laugh a
little.

Ash pulls away enough to
look into my eyes, but she doesn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“It’s just a little strange to hear someone say that and know they’re not
joking. It’s the sort of thing people talk about in mafia flicks.”

“I guess,” she says,
resting her head back against my shoulder. “I just know they’re going to try
something stupid while they’re down there and they’re not going to be able to
play the system the way they can here. I’m starting to think the best thing to
do for them is to rat them out.”

“Why did you agree to go
out with me that first time?” I blurt.

“What?” she asks, pulling
away again. “Where did that come from?”

“Nowhere,” I answer
honestly. “I don’t know. It’s just something that’s been on my mind for a
while. Even before I got to know you, it was pretty clear you weren’t the type
that’s into fighting and when we first met I wasn’t exactly in a position to
make a great impression. We don’t have to talk about this right now.” He
repeats, “It’s just something that’s been on my mind.”

“At first I was just
screwing with Jana,” Ash says. “Then you were kind of charming and I thought
that was rather off-putting, if we’re being honest here. After that, I don’t
know. It just seemed like there was more to you than the troglodyte you looked
like.”

“I don’t know what that
means, but I’ll take it as a compliment,” I tell her.

“We’ve really got to get
you a dictionary,” she says. With that, she lets her arms drop and we release
the embrace. “I’ve got to make a phone call,” she says.

“Who are you calling?” I
ask.

She already has her phone
out, and she doesn’t look up at me when she says, “I’m calling the police. I
don’t know if they’re actually planning on scapegoating me or not, but I’m not
going to take the chance.”

“Okay,” I tell her. “Do
what you think is right.”

She puts the phone to her
ear and I get an idea.

I may not know anyone as
high up on the legal food chain as Ash’s parents have, but I do know a guy.
Okay, so he’s not really the kind of lawyer I’d hire if I knew anyone else, but
he did help a few club owners get out of charges for holding our matches in
their buildings.

That was back when we
didn’t have to look so hard for a place to fight. Come to think of it, I’m not
sure the guy’s still around, but the number’s still in my phone.

I press call.

“Yes, I have information
about an investigation currently underway regarding Chuck Butcher and Gertrude
Shecklemeyer,” Ash says into her phone.

I’m about to ask her who
Gertrude Shecklemeyer is when my own call is answered.

“You’ve reached the
offices of Blake T. Millhouse and Associates,” a man’s voice says. “Millhouse
speaking; what kind of mess did you get into this time?”

“Mr. Millhouse,” I say.
“I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Oh, sorry,” he says. “I
get a lot of repeat business you know, so I guess I just assume… Anyway, how
can I help you?”

I give him the basic idea
and, by the time Ash is done with her phone call, he’s ready to talk to her.

“Who is it?” she asks as
I hand her the phone.

“It’s your new lawyer,” I
tell her. “That is, unless you had someone in mind.”

She shrugs and takes the
phone. Before she starts talking, though, I try to squeeze in a quick question.
“Who’s Gertrude Sheckler or whoever?” I ask.

“Shecklemeyer,” Ash says
covering the phone with her hand. “You didn’t think my mother’s name was really
May Weese, did you?” I ask. “That’s just as close as she could come to calling
herself Mae West as she thought people would let her get away with.” She
uncovers the phone and puts it to her ear. “This is Ashley Butcher,” she says.

What a strange life I’ve
made for myself.

*
                   
*
                   
*

The FBI showed up before
Ash was finished talking to Millhouse. She spoke to them for a while. Then they
tried to speak to me, only I didn’t have much to add but the bits and pieces
Ash forgot to mention.

For a while, my house was
a pretty popular scene. Everyone was respectful enough, I guess, but the cops
acted more like fans wanting an autograph than they did officers of the law.

They didn’t take Ash
away, though. That was the big thing I was worried about, but they seemed to
believe her.

When I left the house,
she’d decided to take a quick nap. I waited about two hours before leaving to
come here, to the gym.

After her ordeal, Ash
needs her rest. Me, on the other hand, I’ve got a fight coming up soon and I’m
still not where I want to be in my training for it.

It’s late. I’m the only
one here. Logan was nice enough to make me a copy of his key to the place. He
and the owner go back quite a ways, though Logan’s still never deigned to
introduce me to the guy.

I’m getting tired, but
I’ve got to keep going. I’m only on my first circuit and I’m seeing spots. This
can’t happen when I get in front of Furyk. My body needs to be at its peak.

Even with the added
adrenaline that comes from knowing I’m screwed if I don’t start picking it up,
though, it’s all I can do to make it through a set with my lats.

I keep eyeing the water
fountain on the far wall of the gym, but I can’t overload myself on fluid right
now. Gotta keep going.

There’s no doubt I’m
slowing down when I start my second set on the bench. I can’t even make it
through the whole set before I’m putting the bar back in its cradle.

I sit up slowly, trying
to breathe through it. My body’s not that sore, it just has nothing left to
give.

This is what separates
the fighters from the spectators. The guy in the crowd is going to stop right
here every single time. I don’t have that luxury.

My next stop is the squat
rack, but I stop to chalk my hands. They’re sweating even more than normal.
I’ve already decided to call it a night after this set, but I may as well make
it a good one.

I take twenty pounds off
the bar before I get into position. Twelve reps and then I can hit the shower
and head home. I’m disappointed, but a body needs rest just like it needs
exercise. The key is in knowing how to keep that balance just right.

By my fifth rep, I’m
seeing spots again. By the sixth, I really have to focus on metering my breath.
By the ninth rep, I’m pretty sure I’m just going to keel over right here and
now. By the tenth I’m wondering if I already have.