Love Game (22 page)

“That’s not right,” I said. “Don’t they understand about liability issues?”

“Are you a lawyer?” asked another fighter. “Because I got a beef that needs settling.” The fingers of his left hand were gnarled, and his nose was bent at a right angle. It was like they had all gone through a communal meat grinder.

“Come here, babe, and sit with us,” one of the fighters shouted.

“Yeah, let me take you for a ride on my Eiffel Tower,” came an offer from the other side of our bench.

Spencer leaned in close to my ear. “Gladys, you are going to get me killed. I don’t want to have to protect you from getting gang-raped by ten cage fighters.”

“Don’t call me Gladys,” I said.

The flat-nosed man took two of the fighters into the
arena. Cheers and a few boos erupted from the spectators.

“You’re going to have to hold this.” Spencer handed me a little package. It was heavier than I expected and wrapped in his shirt. “It’s my gun,” he said into my ear. “Don’t shoot anybody.”

I gave it back to him. “I don’t like guns. They make me nervous.”

“They make me nervous, too, when you’re holding them, but I have no choice. Bringing a gun to a cage fight would be considered an unfair advantage.” He smirked and handed it to me again. I slipped it into my purse.

“You’re next,” the flat-nosed man told us. My stomach rose into my throat, and the room spun around. I gripped Spencer’s arm for support, even though I was sitting down.

“Don’t pass out yet,” Spencer said. “They won’t let me in the ring without my corner man.”

“Corner-man babe,” the flat-nosed man called, and handed me a tote bag, bucket, and stool. “Try to have him toss his cookies in the bucket and not the ring. We just had it resurfaced.”

I nodded, and he pushed us out. A spotlight shined on Spencer as he jogged through the crowd toward the cage. I struggled to keep up while lugging the corner-man supplies.

I followed him to the stage and hopped up a few stairs into the cage. Spencer slipped off his shoes. I plopped the supplies down and wiped my forehead and took my shoes off, too. Spencer was dancing around with his arms raised.

“The things I have to do,” I muttered under my breath, and danced around behind him, too. “Yay, violence. Yay, blood,” I sang, as I hopped up and down and shook my head from side to side.

There was a shift of noise in the arena. The audience grew louder than the rock music. Something had gotten their attention, but I didn’t know what. It sounded almost like they were laughing. I looked around to see what had changed, but it was all the same to me.

Spencer stopped dancing, and I ran into him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing!” he yelled. He grabbed me by the scruff of my shirt and dragged me to our corner.

“I’m doing what you’re doing!”

“Well, don’t!” he shouted. “You’re the corner man. The
corner
man! Got that? So stay in the corner!”

“Joke’s on you, Spencer! The cage is round.” I made a circle in the air with my finger, and the audience grew even louder.

Spencer wiped at his face with his gloved hands. “Where are your shoes?”

“I thought I was supposed to take them off. You did.”

“Just give me some water and shut up,” he said.

“I don’t think I like your tone.” I wagged my finger at him, but I riffled through the tote, searching for a bottle, because he looked a little worse for wear, and I didn’t want him to get dehydrated.

“Come on, come on, the fight’s about to start,” Spencer complained.

“I don’t think there’s water in here,” I said.

“Of course there’s water. Look harder.”

I took out a towel and a jar of Vaseline. “What’s this for?” I asked, holding up the jar.

“The water! The water!”

“Fine! You don’t have to have a cow!”

I laid the towel and the Vaseline out on the floor. I kept searching the tote and found a roll of gauze, tape, and Q-tips, and laid them out next to the other supplies. “Q-tips? That’s a funny thing to have at a fight.”

“Are you kidding me?” Spencer barked, and knelt down on the ground. He shoved his gloved hand into the tote and found the water bottle. He squeezed it and shot water into his mouth.

“What a cool straw,” I said.

He handed me the bottle, and I took a sip. “What are you doing!” he yelled, grabbing the bottle back. “I’m thirsty, too!”

The referee approached. “You’re going to have to get your supplies out of the ring, or I’m going to disqualify you before the fight begins,” he told Spencer.

“That might be a good idea, Spencer!” I said, thrilled to find a way out of the fight. “He’s not really a fighter,” I told the referee.

“Just get your shit off my mat,” he said.

“They packed the bag very badly,” I explained to the referee.

“Clean it up. Clean it up,” Spencer ordered between clenched teeth.

“It’s not my fault!”

I repacked the tote, and the music changed to an even louder, acid-rock song. I put my hands over my ears, but it didn’t help to drown out the noise. The
spotlight moved to an area on the floor, and in danced Remington Cumberbatch, now Junior Clay. He quickly got into the cage.

“Hey, Remington, look who’s in the cage.” I pointed at myself and waved. He stopped dancing and waved back. His eyebrow shot up to just under his hairline.

His focus went from me to Spencer, and then he punched his fists together a few times and flexed his pectoral muscles.

The referee called Remington and Spencer to the center of the ring and gave them instructions for the fight. I couldn’t believe Spencer was going through with it. Had he flipped his lid?

After the instructions, the men went back to their corners.

“Change your mind, Spencer,” I urged. “Don’t do this. I don’t want to see you disemboweled. I don’t want to see your nose punched into your brain.”

“Gee, Pinkie, your confidence in me is heartwarming. How about the other guy? Aren’t you worried I’ll disembowel him?”

I looked over at Remington. He was focused but relaxed, poised to strike, like a king cobra. Or a really good-looking leopard.

“No,” I said. “I think he’ll be fine.”

“Mouth guard,” Spencer said.

“What?”

“Mouth guard! Mouth guard!”

“No need to get pissy,” I grumbled. “What’s a mouth guard?”

Spencer tore through the tote until he found a
mouth guard. Meanwhile, the referee told me to exit the cage with my supplies.

“I know what I should do, Spencer,” I said, before I left the ring. “I could trip you. You’d only break a leg.”

“Get out!” Spencer shouted, pointing toward the exit. It took me three trips to get everything out of the ring. I thought I was done after two trips, but Spencer reminded me about my purse.

The bell rang, and Spencer charged Remington, who seemed apprehensive about pulverizing his boss into dust. He merely fended off Spencer’s attack, adopting a defensive posture instead of actually trying to win. It was a great relief. For the first time that evening, I didn’t think I would be a witness to Spencer’s murder.

I decided to make myself useful and organize the tote while I waited for the round to end. I had figured Spencer wouldn’t last a round, but now that Remington was taking it easy on him, Spencer would need his water and maybe the Vaseline, and I would have to be able to find them.

But the round was shorter than I had thought, and when Spencer went back to his corner, I wasn’t ready for him.

“Stool,” he mumbled through his mouth guard. I took the mouth guard out for him. “What?” I asked.

“The stool,” he repeated.

I ran out again and got the stool. “There you go,” I said, patting it. “Right where you need it.”

Spencer huffed and puffed and tried to catch his breath while he sat. “Water,” he panted.

“Oh, yes, of course,” I said, but then it was too late. The bell rang.

“Are you kidding me?” he asked. I put his mouth guard in his mouth and left the ring with the supplies. I was getting the hang of being a corner man. I managed the supplies in one go.

“Spencer, I got it all out in one trip this time!” I yelled from outside the cage.

Distracted by my voice, Spencer turned toward me. It was a mistake. Caught off guard, Remington landed a punch on Spencer’s jaw. I heard the crack over the noise of the crowd, and I screamed.

Spencer flew to the floor, landing headfirst. Remington gave me a pointed look, shrugged as if he was apologizing but had a job to do, and joined Spencer on the floor, where he put him in a bare-naked choke hold.

It was sexier on TV. In person, I merely watched in horror as Remington choked Spencer. There was nothing exciting or thrilling about it. Spencer suffered in silence, while the life was literally sucked out of him. I watched Spencer’s chest rise and fall and rise and fall. I feared that if I looked away, he would stop breathing.

Stop the fight before his last breath
, I prayed.
Stop the fight before he dies
.

They did stop the fight, and Spencer continued to breathe. They ran him back to the changing room on a stretcher and laid him on the table, where a doctor diagnosed him as alive and breathing.

Then they left me alone with him, because there was some other gravely injured fighter who needed attending. I leaned over his face.

“Do you want some water?” I whispered. “Do you want some Vaseline?”

Spencer moaned and stirred.

“The doctor said you were alive. Don’t prove him wrong.”

Spencer opened an eye. “Ouch,” he said. “You’re alive,” I said.

“At this moment I’m not sure I want to be,” he croaked.

“Where does it hurt?”

Wordlessly, he pointed to his forehead. I bent over and softly grazed his forehead with my lips. He was warm and salty. I tasted life on him, strong and resilient.

“Better?” I asked.

“It hurts here, too,” he said, pointing to his cheek.

I kissed his cheek, allowing my lips to stay a little longer on his skin.

“And here,” he said, pointing to his lips.

I touched his lips with mine, and I felt the familiar electric zing through my body that I felt every time I touched skin with Spencer. He tasted clean, hot, like he was bathed in fire, and maybe he was. I was heating up nicely, too. It could have been a by-product of our chemistry, a connection I couldn’t deny, even if I wanted to.

He welcomed my kiss, opening his mouth, and I pressed deeper, slipping my tongue inside. His arms wrapped around my body, and his fingers combed through my hair. Time slowed, and the room disappeared. I felt an almost uncontrollable urge to join him on the table and take the kiss as far as it would
go, but something—either common sense or ridiculous prudishness—stopped me, and I broke from our embrace.

“There, all better?” I asked him, my voice coming out deep and hoarse.

Spencer thought about that for a minute. “No, I still hurt,” he said. “Here.”

He pointed down low, below the belt of his trunks. I slapped his arm.

“You are five years old,” I said.

“No, I’m feeling all grown up right now,” he said. “And you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

It took a while, but Spencer managed to get upright, cleaned, and dressed. Besides a black eye, he didn’t look like he had almost been killed in a cage in front of thousands of people. I helped him with his shoes, and he clipped his gun onto his waistband.

“Spencer, why did you do this?” I asked.

“Because I’m five years old, remember?”

“No,” I insisted. “Why did you fight Remington? Don’t you like him?”

Spencer looked me dead in the eyes. “No,” he said after a moment. “I don’t like him at all.”

“He’s not a good cop?”

“He’s an excellent cop,” Spencer said.

After a moment of silence, he added, “I didn’t do too bad tonight.”

“You were great.”

“I mean I didn’t die. I’m still walking. My balls are still on the outside of my body.”

“All good things,” I agreed.

“You didn’t have faith in me, Pinkie.”

“Shows what I know. You’re a born cage fighter.”

I opened the door for him, and we walked out into the hallway. “You’re not such a bad corner man yourself, Gladys.”

“Don’t call me Gladys.”

I WENT
to bed with a smile on my face. For once, I had no new injuries, no one had tried to kill me, and my clothes didn’t smell of bear. Besides, I had kissed Spencer, and it didn’t end with him passing out or saying something reprehensible. Sure, he did try to get me to kiss his doodad, but I took that as more of a joke than anything else.