Trouble (2 page)

“We’re currently accepting amateur fighters now!” The ringmaster calls out, and the young woman beside me elbows me in the ribs.

“You look like you could take him!”
She shouts at me over the shouting of the crowd. I watch as five men stand up to get their chance in the ring.

“Nah, he’s hyped up on something, probably LSD. I don’t want to go up against an amped up druggie,” I take a sip of my beer and
look over at the girl sitting next to me. She’s not sipping on her beer. She’s just staring at the man in the ring.

“Yeah, probably, sometimes he likes good old Coke too when he can get his hands on it.” She finally takes a swig of
beer and I watch her brunette hair fall back behind her as she raises her head. It’s so long I could wrap my hands around it several times to get a firm grip, but I had better stop having thoughts like that.

“You know him?” I ask, finishing off my beer. She gives me a slant-eyed look, her lips turning down. She looks away from me and at the fighter in the ring before she nods.

“He’s my handler,” she whispers, finishing off the beer in her hands. I blink a few times and shift away from her. I know what that term means, and I know what it means to have her sitting next to me. If someone sees her here and knows whose she is, I’m going to get the fight I came looking for and more.

“What?” She asks as she looks over at me. I shake my head and stand up to throw away my beer. I’m sure someone’s already spotted her and trouble will be meeting me outside if I don’t get out of here soon. “Hey, where you going?” She grabs a hold of my arm and follows me down the steps. I manage to toss my empty bottle in the trash and pry her fingers off my arm.

“I’m going home before you get me killed!” Ronnie told me about these girls when we came
here a few times. Women that were property of the bikers or the fighters here. Sometimes for entertainment amongst themselves they’d flirt with men outside of the group and get them into trouble. I can’t believe I didn’t see her for what she was when she was walking up the bleachers.

“Oh relax, the Big Man’s busy and I managed to get away for a few minutes. Look, wait up!” I stomp out of the building.
As I’m approaching my bike, I hear her yelp and turn to see what’s got her riled up now. The man at the door is holding her by her pretty hair, snapping her head back, and sniffing at her neck like she’s free for the taking.

I shouldn’t get involved. I tell myself that over and over again as I walk back. “Hey, let her go, man.” I try to placate the guy by the door
. He’s just another thug. Placating a thug is hard to do.

“This is Big Man’s property, scumbag, get lost.” I see the wild fear in her eyes and tell myself that it’s a trick, a ploy. These women don’t feel
. They’re psychopaths or something. At least, a lot of them are. But this one is staring at me, pleading for me to help her.

If Ronnie w
as here he’d help me, but Ronnie’s not here. It’s just me, a young woman, and a man who looks like he could punch my lights out in a heartbeat. I don’t have bulky muscles like him. I’m a lean muscled sort of guy. Fear balls up in the bottom of my gut, but I force myself to keep moving forward anyway.

I feel a cold wind blow through the front parking lot and one of the lights overhead flickers. My hands ball up into fists and I keep moving
. If I don’t, I’ll bolt. I see her hands go wide as my fist comes up into the air and I hit the man square in the face. It makes a strange crunching noise, and when the blood starts squirting from his crooked nose I realize I’ve broken it.

“Shit!” I yell, taking a step back. I don’t think I meant to punch him quite that hard. His eyes narrow and I see the sneer coming over his ugly, ruined face. He’s sweating even though it’s not hot out up here. It’s rather chilly.

“Run!” I hear the young girl scream. There’re three men coming around the building at a fast rate. I’m not that brave. I grab her by the arm and drag her back towards my bike. I manage to get it started just before they reach us and peel off into the dark. I don’t turn on the headlight. I ride by the moonlight.

I hear the sound of bikes starting up in the distance and cuss under my breath as I veer off onto a side street.
We miss colliding with a dumpster in a dark alley by inches, but she doesn’t make a sound. Her arms are wrapped around my middle with an iron grip, and she’s leaning on me hard. Every time I turn, she leans into it like I do as if she’s used to being on a bike. I feel her heartbeat hammering against my back, and mine does a strange flip flop at how fast hers is beating.

Even though it’s cold, I’m starting to sweat
, and my hands are feeling slippery on the handles. I turn down another alley and turn off my bike, listening for any that might be following us. I decide I’ve done my part and pry her arms off me.

“Get off,” I tell her gruffly, keeping my voice low. She doesn’t move off the bike
, and I turn to look at her face. She’s crying. There are tears streaking down her face like she’s a little kid. Her eyes are dark brown, and I’m suddenly reminded of my sister. She might be someone’s sister.

With that thought playing in my mind, I grab her hands and put them on my middle again. Her fingers tighten in my shirt as I start the bike again and calmly pull out onto the deserted street. I’m hours from home
, and I have no idea where this girl lives, or lived, so I’m just going to have to take her back to my apartment for the time being.

It’s an hour and a half drive to Seneca Falls where I rent out an apartment on the outskirts of town. It’s an eight hundred square foot, one story apartment with one bedroom and bathroom. It was never enough for my parents, but for me it is. Who needs a fancy apartment when they’re living alone and never entertain? My sister’s been to it twice.

“Where are we?” I’m shocked she has a voice by the time she gets off the bike. The gray of dawn is upon us.

“We’re in Seneca Falls, home sweet home.” I tell her, not bothering to look at her as she gets off the bike. When I finally do look up she’s stari
ng at the door to my apartment, her eyes half-lidded as she fights fatigue.

It might not be protocol, maybe I should be taking her to a hospital or the police, but I fish my keys out of my pocket and open up the door. I flick on the lights as I walk in and grab some of the trash off my living room couch. I
honestly do live like a caveman sometimes. Embarrassed, I stuff it into the half full trash can. By the time I have a spot cleared off for her to sit, the trash can is full, and I have to take out the bag.

When I come back in she’s passed out on the couch with her chin on her chest, her hair falling in her face. I watch her steady breathing for a few minutes and then gently close the door. The click of the deadbolt has her eyes snapping open and her head rising.
Her breathing is no longer slow and steady; she looks like she might be on the verge of a heart attack.

“Go back to sleep,” I tell her, pulling off my shirt as I walk into my dark room.
In an hour, the sun will be rising. It will be the fifth sunrise without my best friend on this planet anymore. At the thought, I collapse into bed and close my eyes. I want to miss this sunrise too.

Several hours later the sound of water running wakes me up with a start. I run my hands over my face when I realize it’s the shower and roll over on top of the covers to catch a few more minutes of sleep.
When I next wake up the sun is past my bedroom window and shining in the living room area, it’s past noon. I sit up in bed and grab the shirt from the night before. It stinks, so I grab a fresh one from my drawer and pull it on. My hair is probably sticking up at odd angles, but I don’t really care.

I pick up all my dirty laundry and shove it into the hamper in the tiny closet.
It still smells somewhat in here and needs vacuumed, but at least some of the evidence of my neglect is gone. It was never this vulgar, not until a few days ago when my best friend ended up mangled and unrecognizable. They had to identify him by his dental records even though I told them who he was. They still had to go through protocol.

The bedroom door doesn’t make a sound as I open it and tiptoe out. She must have cleared off the couch after her shower and found a fresh sheet in the living room closet. It’s spread across the couch
, and she’s stretched out on it with her legs up on the back of the couch at an angle, her head resting against the arm of the couch.

Her eyes are closed
, and her jaw is slack, so I assume she’s actually sleeping. The steady rise and fall of her chest tells me that she’s in a deep sleep, but her hair is still damp from her shower. When it’s wet it’s wavy near the ends. She looks pale and worn out, but otherwise I don’t see any signs of drugs or alcohol abuse.

Satisfied that she’s not going to rob me while I’m in the shower, I grab a fresh pair of clothes from my room and hop in. I don’t bother locking the door
. I’m not afraid of a girl that’s two thirds my size. I’m not a particularly tall guy either, average at six foot. I might be exaggerating; she might be a little over five feet.

My shampoo is open, which means she used it. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I use it anyway.
It’s not like she looked particularly dirty. But when I notice the rag is damp from her using it I step out of the running shower, drip all over the floor, and grab a fresh one from the rack over the toilet. I have no idea what the girl may or may not have and I can’t be taking chances.

While the warm water runs over me
, I wonder what Ronnie would have said about me taking home a girl from a fight. He’d tell me I did the right thing, but that I was a damned fool. Then we’d hang out after I dropped her off at home and have a few beers. We’d talk about the tattoos we might be doing this weekend, or he’d show me some of his drawings for clients. I lean my forehead against the side of the shower until the water starts running cold.

Even then I can barely pull my forehead away from the tiles. I wish I could cry. But I swallow the lump in my throat and feel nothing but water running down my face when I turn to shut
it off. I grab a fresh towel and dry off, and then I clean up the mess of water on the floor. I shove it all into the bathroom closet and sigh when I see the pile of dirty laundry there.

When I open up the bathroom door she’s sitting up on the couch with her legs curled under her, her hair pulled up into some weird bun that allows a few strands to hang loose near her face. She looks at me
with her dark brown eyes, and I wonder why I ever thought they looked like my sister’s. Maybe because it was dark because her eyes are nowhere near my sister’s; they’re darker than my sister’s.

“Where you live?” I ask her, making it obvious that she’s not going to be staying here for long. The sequined top glints in the light as
she shrugs one, small shoulder.

“Nowhere, everywhere, mostly on the back of a bike.”
I know my lip goes up in a disgusted sneer, and I cross my arms over my chest. Classic. “It’s not like I like it, and I don’t need you judging me!” She stands up off the couch and moves for the door. I watch her unbolt it and realize that her shoes are still under the now clean coffee table.

“Your shoes,” I tell her, pointing at them. She looks down at her feet and huffs in frustration, and then grabs the shoes. When she bends over I have to look away, afraid I might see something I shouldn’t be.
I don’t look back up until she’s standing at the door, looking back at me as if I’m going to stop her. I wait.

She opens up the door and closes it, walking out of the apartment. The door is solid so I can’t see her, but I wait about thirty seconds before I go to it to see if she’s
actually gone. She’s sitting on the lone step I have that leads up to the door, her face in her hands. She’s not crying, but I can tell that she’s close to it. And judging by the way she puts her heels of her hands to her eyes, I think she doesn’t want me to see her cry.

“What?”
She asks angrily when I keep the door open.

“If you don’t want to be judged, why stay on the back of some asshole’s bike?” I stare out at my neighbors fiddling with flowers or checking the oil in their cars. A few of them glance up and stare open mouthed at the girl sitting on my small
stoop in her small jean skirt and her sequined top. This will be the gossip of the complex for weeks.

“Nowhere else to go,” she mumbles under her breath, leaning down to pick at a particularly long blade of grass. Mr.
Ishkner, my neighbor from across the street, stares when her sequined top bunches at the top and reveals some pretty impressive cleavage. At least it’s impressive to Mr. Ishkner. I see him grin at me and give me a thumbs up. I roll my eyes and hold out a hand to the girl on my doorstep.

“Why don’t you come back inside and eat some breakfast,” I whisper the last part under my breath, “before you give Mr.
Ishkner a heart attack.” She catches the last part and turns to look at the old man staring at her. She wiggles her fingers at him in a cute wave and smiles at him. I grab her and shove her in the door.

“
Ow!” She yells at me, glaring at me as I slam the door so that Mr. Ishkner doesn’t get any ideas. She crosses her arms over her chest, and I wonder if she’s actually
trying
to get me to look at her breasts, what is with this girl?

“I’ve got cereal.” I tell her, pulling out a box of Captain Crunch. I slam two bowls on the counter and pour some cereal and milk in them.

“What if I want pancakes?” She asks in a bratty tone, and I shove a bowl in her hands.

“Too bad,” I tell her, settling down on the other end of the couch.
It’s not a particularly large couch, so I put a pillow between us and grab the remote to the television. The little clock on the cable box reads four thirty in the afternoon. I guess this is dinner, not breakfast.

It takes her about ten minutes, but when she realizes that I’m not going to entertain her with pancakes she finally eats her cereal.
I flick on the news and cringe when I see an accident report that involves another eighteen wheeler. I quickly change the channel, but after that I put my bowl of half-finished cereal down and try not to throw up.

“Listen,” she starts, and I turn to glance at her. She’s set her cereal bowl on the table and has her arms stretched out behind her. “If you let me stay here a few days I can clean, cook, and show you a thing or two between the sheets.”

It must be some of the deals she’s made in the past, but I’m not that kind of guy. Sure, I’ve had one night stands with a few of my tattoo clients, and some pretty women from the bars. But I’ve never had to pay for it, and I’ve never had to make a deal for it. I look up from her C cups and into her eyes. Her body language contradicts what I see there, is that disgust?