Bounty (35 page)

"
O
h my god
, what the hell happened?" Amber cried out as Joel staggered through the door. She'd never seen him like this, not even after he'd lost the fight the night they'd met. His face was a mess. His nose looked crooked, and there was dried blood everywhere. His left eye was black and completely swollen shut.

He opened his mouth to say something but then began to cough into his hand. When he brought it away she saw the bright red shine of fresh blood on his palm.

"Shit, Joel, you're coughing up blood? You might have an internal injury, we need to go to the hospital!"

"No," he croaked. "It's just from my mouth." He opened his mouth to show her his left canine was missing, the gap still oozing blood.

Amber gasped at the sight, but a thrill of relief flooded through her as she realized it wasn't something more serious. She was still horrified at the sight of him. She reached forward and put her arm around him, leading him to the couch.

"I'm going to get some ice," she said after sitting him down. There was a welt on his forehead the size of a baby's fist. "What happened?"

She hurried to the kitchen, putting some ice in a paper towel and worrying about her boyfriend. The last time he'd been injured seriously he'd had a concussion that was left untreated for a while. If he was hurt badly this time as well, he'd never admit it.

Joel was laying down across the couch with his eyes closed when she returned. He still hadn't given her an answer. Her lips pressed tightly as she pressed the ice to his head. He opened his eyes in surprise at the sudden cold.

"You were fighting in alleyways again, weren't you?" she accused.

Joel closed his eyes again, but he mumbled a response.

"What?"

"I said it was an abandoned factory, actually."

Amber pressed down hard with the ice against his welt, causing him to gasp in sudden pain.

"You promised me you were done with that," she said.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Why the hell would you do this again, Joel?"

He didn't respond for about a minute, and Amber wondered if he had fallen asleep or passed out. Then he took a deep breath and opened his eyes again. At least, she thought he was trying to open them both. The swollen one was too battered to tell.

"I wanted to live with you. I wanted this to work. But the only way I could convince myself to do it was if I could pay my way."

His voice was quiet and weak. Was it because he was tired and hurt or ashamed? She wasn't sure. "There's no job at Rock House, is there?"

Joel's head moved slightly before he winced. "No. I'm sorry, Amber."

She let out a long and shuddering breath. She was angry that he lied, and even more so that he put himself in danger again. But now wasn't the time to deal with that. "I know. Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital? I think your nose is broken."

"It is," he said. "But no hospitals."

"Fine," she said. She removed the towel from his head and took the ice out, placing it on the table next to the couch. Then she gently wiped away the dried blood from around his nose and held the towel against his nostrils. "Blow."

The towel turned crimson as he did.

"How long ago did this happen?"

"I don't know, maybe 30 minutes? I took a cab back afterward."

It was cutting it close, but she could still help. She raised her palms and brought them together and then lowered them so that they were touching the top of his nose. "This is going to hurt," she said.

She pressed firmly as Joel exhaled in pain, bringing the bottom of her hands together under his nose. Then she pulled her palms down the sides of it, putting pressure until it looked to be roughly straight again.

The final step was inserting a finger into each nostril, aligning it from the inside as well. Picking up the towel, she instructed Joel to blow out again. More blood and pus came out.

"Where'd you learn that?" he asked when she was done and started to stuff tissue into his nostrils to help keep it set and absorb any more blood.

"The benefits of having a wannabe nurse as your girlfriend," she said, shrugging. "But you really should see a doctor. I don't know if it's going to stay straight."

Joel grunted. "I wouldn't be the first fighter with a crooked nose."

She shook her head at his stubbornness. "Well, you might as well sleep on the couch tonight, I don't think you're in any shape to clean up and I don't want you bleeding all over the bed." And she was still mad at him. "We can re-evaluate in the morning after we see how you look."

"Okay," he agreed. His eyes were already closed again. Amber stared at him for a few more moments before sighing and turning toward bed herself.

J
oel's nose
looked a bit more crooked in the morning than when she had left him, but it was still a lot better than when he had first come home.

"It's going to set that way if you don't go to a doctor," she said, standing behind his shirtless body as they examined him through the bathroom mirror. Now that they had washed away all of the blood, it was easier to evaluate his injuries.

The bump on his head had already receded a bit, so Amber wasn't that worried about that wound. His nose, although crooked, would be fine as well. But his eye was completely swollen shut and he couldn't even open it this morning. He had some other pretty angry looking bruises on his body, but they were less serious. When she had pressed along his rib cage, although he was tender, she could tell that nothing was broken.

She scoffed at him when he mentioned possibly still going to Rock House. "Are you kidding me? Are we looking in the same mirror?"

He shrugged and turned away, walking back into the living room and returning to the couch.

"I think I'm in trouble," he said.

Her heart sped up and she sat down next to him. "What do you mean?"

"Rock House has a policy of no outside fighting. Shawn basically said if I continued I would be kicked out."

Amber took a deep breath and closed her eyes as she let it out slowly. 
Then why the hell didn't you stop?
 She knew the answer, though. His twisted sense of obligation to not feel indebted to anyone. If he wanted to live here, he needed to help pay the bills. "You'll have to lie," she said.

"What am I going to say? It's pretty obvious this came from a fight."

"Okay, so tell him you got in a fight but it wasn't because you were competing or anything. Tell him it was a bar fight."

Joel raised his eyebrow.

"Shawn knows me, he knows I work at a bar. He knows you're a hot head. Tell him you came to the bar where I was working last night and saw some guy giving me a hard time. One thing led to another and you ended up like this."

"I think he'd probably question why I couldn't defend myself against a drunk," he argued.

"Fine, tell him it was a group of guys if that satisfies your macho need to look tough," she said. "Anyway, if he questions how beat up you look, just say 'You should see the other guys.'"

Joel laughed. "That might work."

"Tell him to call me if he doesn't believe you. I'll convince him."

Joel smiled and leaned forward, giving Amber a gentle kiss on the lips. "You're amazing," he said. "No matter how much I fuck up, you're always there to bail me out."

She kissed him back. "How about you stop fucking up for a little while?"

Joel kissed her again. "I'll try, Amber. I promise. I know living with me isn't simple."

"Sometimes I think getting in the ring with you might be easier," she teased.

Joel's look became serious as he pulled his head back a bit to look at her. His blue eyes seemed to draw her in as she waited for him to speak.

"I think I love you," he finally said.

Her heart was pounding in her chest. She hadn't been sure he would ever be able to tell her that. "I love you, too," she replied. "And I don't have to think about it."

He leaned forward and their lips met, and then he bent down and swept an arm under her knees, lifting her from the ground with a little wince as he carried her to the bedroom.

"Are you sure you're up for this?" she asked, giving him a little kiss on the earlobe as she held tightly around his neck. He was injured, but she still hoped he'd say yes.

Joel nodded and smiled at her as he lowered her onto the mattress and slid alongside of her. "Just be gentle with me."

She giggled and swung a leg over her waist, pulling herself on top of him as she looked at his battered face. It didn't matter what he looked like, she really did love him. "Fat chance of that." And then she lost herself on his lips.

J
oel took
a couple of days off to heal before heading back to Rock House, at Amber's insistence. When he returned, Shawn asked him to come into his office.

Joel was impressed when he stepped into the owner's private room for the first time. Plaques and framed magazine covers adorned the walls from when Shawn was still a competitor. There were trophies and medals on display as well, but he didn't have time to examine them as much as he would have liked.

"So a bar fight, eh?" Shawn sat down behind his desk and picked up a little blue stress ball, working it in his hand as he looked up at his young protégé.

Joel nodded, sticking to the story he had already gone over on the phone when he had called to tell his trainer that he wouldn't be in for a couple of days.

"Joel, I know I made myself clear the first night that you weren't supposed to continue your after-hours fighting, although obviously if this was really just a case of you defending your girlfriend, that's another situation altogether."

"If you'd like, you could call and talk to her. She should be home, she doesn't work today."

Shawn's gaze drilled into Joel, his bottom lip pulled down below his teeth before he finally put the ball down and exhaled heavily. "I have no doubt she'll tell me the same thing," he said. "Look, Joel, I don't know what happened for sure. Maybe your story is true, and maybe it isn't. And since I don't know for sure, I'm not going to do anything about it. But let me be clear. If anything like this happens again, you're out.

"I know shit goes down, but you're going to have to learn to walk away. If something comes up that makes you think you can't handle shit on your own, I want you to come to me first. Let's see if we can come to a solution together. I know you haven't had an easy time of it, which is why I gave you a shot here. I see potential in you. Don't fuck it up."

"I understand," Joel said.

"Now get out of here and go train. Lay off the sparring for a few days while that nose heals a bit more. You don't want it any more crooked than it already is."

As soon as Joel closed the office door he let out a long hard breath that he'd been holding. Shawn obviously didn't completely buy his bar fight story, but at least he was still training. He needed to make sure he didn't fuck up again. He may not have earned anything from his fight with the Executioner, losers never did, but he already had enough money from his previous fights to keep paying rent for a few more months. Until then he had time to figure something else out. Maybe he could ask Shawn if there really were any odd jobs around the gym that needed doing - turning his initial lie into a reality.

For now though, he needed to do as Shawn suggested and double down on his training. He needed to stop being distracted by other things.

He walked over to the free weight section. Most importantly, he needed to start working on his power, like Chris had suggested. He wouldn't let brute strength be his undoing again.

I
t was already
past dinner when he left that night, one of the last ones to go home. As he walked through the parking lot toward the bus stop, he heard someone calling his name. It turned out to be the bald guy that he'd seen at his fights a couple of times.

"Hey Joel, how's the face?"

"It's healing," he said. "I hope that other guy's fists will be okay though."

The other man laughed. "At least you can joke about it."

Joel nodded. "What are you doing here? Looking to join a training camp?"

The other man cocked his head. "You don't remember me, do you? I didn't think you recognized me, but I wasn't sure. I looked a bit different, of course. Had a goatee."

"Have we met before?"

"Not officially. I was one of the fighters in the tournament at Golden Dragon. My name is Darien."

As soon as he said it, Joel remembered him. He'd fought against Carlos and gotten creamed. "Oh right, I remember now. Sorry I didn't recognize you before."

Darien shrugged. "No worries. Anyway, I still train at Golden Dragon. With Carlos."

"Oh," Joel said. "I guess you aren't one to hold a grudge then."

"A fight's a fight. Nothing personal. Carlos is damn good and he beat me. I figured if I'm going to train from someone, it should be someone like him."

Joel didn't say anything. He had his own feelings about the big Hispanic.

"You hear he was signed to a fight with Titan? It's going to be television in a few months."

Joel nodded. It was a big opportunity for a fighter. If you did well in one of these smaller televised events, it sometimes led to a bigger contract shortly after with a more well-known organization.

"Anyway, he wants to talk to you. He asked me to find you. He told me you were training in the Rock camp now."

"What does he want?"

"You'll have to ask him yourself. I have a car here, we can go right now."

Despite his feelings about Carlos, Joel was intrigued as to what the other man could possibly want to talk to him about. As far as he knew, the enmity between the two of them went both ways. He nodded and followed Darien to his car, but his body felt tense. He would be ready for anything.