Consumed: A MMA Sports Romance (4 page)

“Well, I think I may have
given you the wrong impression regarding my motives,” I tell him.

“What?” he asks with a
smirk. “We met, we hit it off. I’m incredibly attractive, although I do think
it’s pretty weird you thought so, too, given my appearance at the time, but—”

“Does that work?” I ask,
sipping my coffee.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“The whole overconfident
thing,” I tell him. “I was flirting with you before because I saw how much it
bothered Jana when she saw you again, and sometimes that particular friend of
mine just needs to be taken down a peg or two, but I’m not looking for some
desperate slap and tickle with a juvenile walking phallus.”

“You’re kind of mean, you
know that?” he asks, but he’s still smiling.

“You’re used to
rejection, aren’t you?” I return.

“Very,” he says. “If I’m
not being rejected in a public and humiliating way at least once a day, I feel
like I’m not trying hard enough.”

“So it’s all about the
sex for you then, huh?” I ask. I don’t know if he’s figured out that I’m not
interested, but either way, toying with him is just too delicious.

“Not really,” he says. “I
mean, I do enjoy me some—what’d you call it?—slap and tickle, as much as
anyone, but that’s not what it’s all about for me.”

“Oh, and what’s it all
about?” I ask. This should be entertaining.

“I don’t know,” he says.
“A lot of people are worried about who they’re going to get to spend the night
with them. I always thought mornings were more romantic.”

“Oh really?” I ask, not
hiding my amusement.

“Really,” he says. “I
think it’s much more a statement when someone wakes up and wants to spend their
day with you than when someone just wants to spend the night, you know?”

“Wow,” I say. “So, did
that punch to the face knock something loose or are you actually telling me you
consider yourself a romantic?”

“I don’t see why I can’t
be a romantic just because I happen to spend a good portion of my free time
training to beat the crap out of people,” he says. “We all have hobbies.”

“Yeah, but your hobby
tends to have a pretty big downside,” I tell him.

“Nothing’s more dangerous
than always running away from things that scare you,” he says.

“Okay, I get that you’re
trying to be all ‘charming, pithy guy’ right now and everything, and I will say,
up until now you’ve been doing a pretty good job,” I start.

“But?” he asks.

“But this isn’t an
infomercial,” I tell him. “You know why you never had a shot with me?”

“Why’s that?” he asks and
nothing seems capable of getting that smile to stop returning to his face.

“Because you think it’s
appropriate being bandaged up by the stranger-roommate of one of your ex chew
toys,” I tell him.

“Ah, I’m a dog now,” he
says.

I answer, “Just in the
whole puppy-isn’t-housebroken-and-chews-holes-in-all-my-underwear—”

“Hot,” he interrupts.

“You’re too sarcastic for
me,” I tell him. “That and I’m not unconvinced you’re a man-whore, and I don’t
see that being a good move for me.”

“Well, that’s a shame,”
he says and claps his hands together. “Now, do you think we’re ever going to
get a refill on these breadsticks? We’ve been waiting ten minutes for that
crap.”

“The service does seem
exceptionally slow,” I respond.

He’s looking over my
shoulder to try and spot our waiter, and I’m thinking this might not be better
than suffering through Jana’s mom and the thick, dark cloud that follows her
everywhere. Sure, it’s a dark cloud made up of pot smoke and patchouli oil, but
a dark cloud it remains.

“You’re really giving up
that easily?” I ask.

“Well, if you’re not
interested, you’re not interested,” he answers. “If it’s all the same to you,
though, I really am pretty hungry, so I’m going to stay and eat. You’re welcome
to stay too, of course,” he adds. “I promise I won’t take it as some kind of
encouragement of my high-risk lifestyle choices.”

I chuckle softly.

“You know,” I tell him,
“for a meathead, you’ve got a decent brain on you.”

“You really don’t hear
the term ‘meathead’ as much as you used to, have you noticed that?” he asks.

“So, what was it like
dating my roommate?” I ask. “I’ve always imagined it’d be the sort of thing
where you have to sign a waiver. I’ve gotta tell you, long have I been interested
in learning the rationalizations that could lead a man to make such an odd
choice for himself.”

“You two are friends,
huh?” he asks.

“Yeah, we’re friends,” I
tell him. “Not just that, we’ve been friends forever. I mean, so long that
neither one of us really remembers why we started hanging out in the first
place, you know?”

“You’ve got a lot of
baggage,” he says. “It’s really hot.”

“A girl’s got a work with
what she’s been given,” I tell him. “Do you do anything besides flirt with the
roommates of ex-girlfriends and get the brains you’ve got beat in?”

“Actually, I spend about
as much time adding to the contents of my skull as I do having them pounded out
of me,” he says. “I’m going to college.”

“You’re a scholar,” I
say, nodding. “I’m actually not surprised.”

“Oh, you’re not?” he
asks.

“Yeah,” I tell him.
“You’ve got the frat guy thing down solid.”

“You’re pretty when
you’re being unreasonably judgmental,” he says, putting his elbows on the table
and his jaw onto his hands like a child.

I’m just afraid the
mixture of giggling, blushing and trying to hide my face a little might give
him the wrong idea.

“I’m sorry to keep you
waiting,” a voice comes from a few feet behind me and I turn to see our waiter
coming to the table. “We’ve had a bit of an issue with the breadsticks, but we
would be happy to offer you stuffed portabella mushrooms instead, free of
charge of course, as an apology for the inconvenience.”

“Pretty diverse menu you
guys have here,” Mason says. “I have a problem with mushrooms, though.”

“What’s your problem with
mushrooms?” I ask.

Mason looks over at me,
and I swear the actual words coming out of his mouth are, “It’s personal.”

“Oh god,” I groan.

“My apologies,” Mason
says. “It seems the lady would like a few minutes to consider her order.”

“Very good, sir,” the
waiter says and cheerily walks away.

“They really do have a
very diverse menu here,” Mason says. “I’m not sure if that means the chef can
actually pull off Taiwanese, Spanish, French, and American-greasy-spoon all at
once or if he just doesn’t have the common sense to know it’s a terrible
approach to running a restaurant, but I’m very excited to find out, aren’t
you?”

“Would you like to know
what your problem is?” I ask.

“That I try way too hard,
especially for someone who’s been told in very clear terms that I have no
chance of making any kind of headway with you whatsoever?” he asks. “I
have
been made aware of this fact, but I
don’t see much sense in trying to change it now. Maybe I’m a bit set in my
ways, but that’s how I roll.”

“No,” I tell him. “You
told the waiter I needed a few minutes, but I love me some stuffed portabellas,
and I’m beginning to think they never actually gave our order to the kitchen.
So, we’re just going to end up picking at salad and slurping down our drinks when
I could have something delicious on my plate.”

“I am very sorry I got
between you and your mushrooms,” he says. “It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t,” I
tell him, just hinting at a smile.

Even with the bandage,
he’s a good-looking guy. I just don’t know that I want to taint myself by
getting too friendly with Jana’s former scratching post.

“Married?” he asks.

“No,” I tell him. “Why
would I go to dinner with you if I was married?”

“Oh, it’s not that I
think you would, although it sounds like you’d do a lot of things to get away from
your friend’s mom,” he says.

“So you’ve got some kind
of relationship going on?” I ask.

“Nope,” he says. “I just
think it’s good to ask. You know, that way everybody’s cards are on the table
from the start.”

“Had some bad
experiences?” I ask. “Seen some things?”

“I’d rather not talk
about it,” he says, taking another drink of his soda. “You wouldn’t sleep right
and I’d feel bad and it’d be this whole thing that’d just end up getting in the
way of our torrid love affair.”

“You enjoy getting ahead
of yourself, don’t you?” I ask.

“Just think about it,” he
says. “We’re both young, available, absolutely stunning…” he takes a moment to
run his fingers through his short, dirty blond hair before going on. “I know
just how these things go.”

“Oh really?” I ask.
“Please, do tell. How exactly are you going to sweep me off my feet and onto
your beat-up futon?”

“Well, if I told you then
it might not work right,” he says with a smirk and nod. “You know, I think
we’re gonna be buddies, you and I.”

He
is
pretty attractive. I don’t usually go for the whole peacocking
thing, but he’s amusing. He might even be charming if he’d just stop trying so
hard to act like he’s not trying so hard.

Or is that what I’m
doing?

I don’t know—I didn’t
expect him to be witty, much less engaging. I expected the quasi-adolescent
behavior. Still though, if nothing else, going out with him
would
give me the opportunity to get
some more practice treating wounds. But is a relationship built upon gratuitous
violence and the healthcare training possibilities it affords really worth the
effort?

“You’re funny,” I tell
him. “You bother Jana, so that’s a plus.”

“These are positive-sounding
words,” he says. “Very positive, I like that.”

“You’re not as phenomenal
a specimen as you so clearly would like to think you are, but you’re not the
person I’m least thrilled about spending time with in the next twenty-four
hours, so you’ve got that going for you,” I say, really trying to sell it as a
compliment with my chipper tone and my generally ensorcelling demeanor.

“Oh, you,” he says. “You
sure do know how to sweet talk a lady.”

“I’m not without my own
wiles,” I tell him. “Seriously though, if they don’t bring something other than
salad out in the next few minutes, I might have to create an embarrassing
scene.”

“You know what I like
about you?” he asks.

“What?” I return, my eyes
already rolling.

“You have the most
incredible eyes,” he says. “They’re judgmental a bit more often than is
probably healthy, but you’ve really got a couple of fine specimens there.”

“That still wasn’t quite
a compliment, but I think you’re getting closer,” I tell him.

“Yeah, I’ll work on it,”
he says.

After a while, our food
arrives. I roll my eyes a lot more before the meal is over, but I never get up
from my chair.

He’s smug, and all joking
aside, what he does “in his free time” scares me more than a little, but he’s
so easy to talk to, leaving never crosses my mind. Before I know it, we’re
already making plans to see each other again.

It’s not until we’ve paid
the bill and we’re walking out of the restaurant that I realize I now have
nothing but eventuality standing between me and the intermittent sounds of
Dandelion’s mantras for everything from conquer sores to enlightenment. I can
put it off, maybe even for a few days if I want to stay in a hotel, but sooner
or later, I’m going to have to go home.

I just hope we all make
it out of there alive.

Chapter
Three

Dreaming in Color

Mason

“Wick got caught, I know
that,” Logan says, clenching his teeth as he tries to get a few more reps done
on the bench. “I just got the hell outta there, if I’m being honest with you. I
know I can throw down like a mofo, but guys as pretty as me don’t do well in
the cage. There are just too many guys who wanna get a handle on some of this,
you know?” he asks, setting the bar back in its cradle.

“Are you actually
bragging about how often you’d be sexually assaulted in prison?” I ask, having
seriously considered knocking the bar out of his hands while he was lifting it
just to see what would happen.

“It’s not a gift, dude,”
he says. “It’s a curse.”

“Anyone know who tipped
off the cops?” I ask him, taking the cuffs off each side of the barbell and
adding another fifty pounds, twenty five on each side.

“Who knows?” he asks.
“Maybe no one did. Those things can get pretty loud, and the way you were
screwing with that guy was starting to piss people off.”

“So it’s my fault?” I
ask.

“Well, you certainly didn’t
help,” he answers, wiping off the bench with his towel.

“What do you know about
the tournament?” I ask, giving the bench an extra going over with my own towel.

“Same as you, I guess,”
he says.

“Which is what?” I ask.
“All I’ve heard is that there’s going to be one.”

“Yeah, man,” Logan says,
getting behind the bar to spot me. “Guys from the biggest pits in the state got
together a while ago in Madison and they set the thing up. It’s going to be
big.”

“How big?” I ask, lifting
the bar from its place.

“Ten thou per winner
big,” he says. “More than that, though, the guys who are putting this together
are going to tape the whole thing and put it up on the internet, so it’s good
exposure, too. One guy from each weight class, straw through super, is to be
chosen from within each pit to be in the tournament. Eight guys total in each
class, so a champ’s gonna have to pull off four wins,” Logan says, his eyes
drifting after a passing female in an obnoxiously bright pink leotard. “Nothing
you can’t handle.”

“You’re not going to go
for it?” I ask. “How do they decide who to put in the tournament?”

“There’s not enough time
to put together tournaments within the pits. First fight’s in a few weeks and
they come pretty quick after that. We could try to throw something together,
but people have jobs. All the guys we got showing up lately, it’d take us a few
months to get through ‘em all only to discover you’re the best featherweight
and I’m the best light heavyweight. Everyone already knows that. Expect a phone
call in the next couple days.”

“I appreciate that,” I
grunt, wondering if this is my fifth or sixth rep.

“You get us in the same
weight class, whether I go down some pounds or you go up some, I’m going to
humiliate you every time, but as long as we’ve got a couple of classes between
us, I don’t have to think of you as just another statistic,” he says.

I lift the bar one last
time and set it down with a loud clang into its cradle. When I sit up, I’m
laughing.

“What?” Logan asks.

“Someone pointed out to
me recently that I talk myself up to some pretty ridiculous levels, but I didn’t
actually hear what she was talking about until you said what you just said. It’s
kind of embarrassing,” I tell him, patting him on the back.

“What are you talking
about?” he asks, sensing that I’ve made fun of him somehow, but not quite able
to figure out how.

“Just the whole, ‘if you
and I get in the ring together, one of us is getting into a body bag,’ thing,”
I tell him. “It’s got a real professional wrestling vibe to it, and I’m pretty
sure real people don’t actually talk like that.”

“So you’re saying I’m not
a real person now?” he asks.

“That’s exactly what I’m
saying,” I tell him. “It’s like you’re trying to sell tickets to pay-per-view
events and you kind of sound like an ass.”

“You wanna go?” he asks,
getting into his stance. He doesn’t seem to appreciate the admittedly
enthusiastic fit of laughter that is my response to his posturing.

“I wouldn’t want to do
anything to crack that statuesque face of yours,” I tell him. “Who knows when
the next fight will get busted? Your new jail friends would be devastated if
you went off to the pokey looking like uncooked hamburger.”

“You’re kind of a prick,
you know that, Ellis?” he asks.

“Dude, you can call me by
my first name,” I tell him.

“What’s up with you
today?” he asks. “You’re starting to act like you did after you beat the snot
out of that ninjitsu guy last year.”

I do tend to get a little
smug when I’m feeling good about my life.

“Well come on, man. I get
the whole thing was about espionage and not really focused on traditional
combat, but who’s not going to be pretty excited about beating up a ninja?” I
ask. “That’s the kind of thing you put on a resumé,” I tell him. “Or a bumper
sticker,” I add. “A t-shirt would work pretty well, too, I think.”

“Whatever man,” he says.
“Don’t tell me what your deal is, but just know you’re acting like a tool.”

“So that’s it then?” I
ask. “I’m just supposed to wait for a call?”

“If they decide you’re
the best we’ve got in your weight class,” he says. “The more I think about it,
the more I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not nice to
get someone’s hopes up like that.”

“You’re a real
inspiration, you know that?” I ask.

For the next little bit,
I do my best to act like the tournament’s not such a huge deal; but when my
phone starts ringing, I can’t get it to my ear fast enough. It might have been
helpful to accept the call first.

“Dude, calm down,” Logan
says as I answer the phone.

“Hello?” I speak.

“Hey.” It’s Ash. “Are we still
going to that boxing match tonight?”

“MMA, actually,” I tell
her. “But yeah. Doors open at eleven and it’ll probably go until one or two in
the morning.”

She sighs. “All right,”
she says. “I told you I’d give it a chance.”

Ash has been sharing some
of her concerns about what I do. I think if she just goes to a match, she’ll
see how much time and training these guys put in. She’ll see that we’re not
just a bunch of thugs trying to beat each other senseless.

We are that, too, I
guess, but that’s not all we are.

“You won’t regret it,” I
tell her.

“I wish I had your
confidence,” she says. “Are you still picking me up?”

“Yeah,” I tell her, “but
we’re going to want to go there on foot. Too many cars around an abandoned
building and a fight’s going to stick out like a broken nose. Worse still, if
the place gets raided, you’re never going to be able to get to your car without
being arrested and if you abandon it, they’ll just run the plates and track you
down.”

She’s quiet.

“That almost never
happens, though,” I tell her. “We’re careful about where we set up and who we
tell about it.”

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll
see you a little before eleven, then.”

She doesn’t sound very
excited.

*
                   
*
                   
*

Ash seems nervous as we
approach the building where tonight’s matches are to be held, but she’s still
putting one foot in front of the other.

“I don’t get why you guys
don’t just join a league or something,” she says. “It seems like that would be
a safer approach.”

“You’ll have a hard time
finding someone that doesn’t want to join up with UFC or Pride or any of the
others,” I tell her. “That said, there are probably about as many people who
come here in the course of a year as there are active professionals in MMA. Not
everyone shows up on the same night, but you get the idea.”

We get to the door and a
tall man in a black suit holds up his hand.

“What’s up, Big D?"
I ask him.

“Private party,” he says.

“Snooker,” I tell him.

He nods and moves out of
the way so we can enter the building.

As we pass D, Ash
mutters, “I’m still skeptical about all this, but I have to admit it’s pretty
cool you guys have your own password-enabled guard at the door.”

“I’ve got to prepare you
for something,” I tell her.

“What, the possibility of
being sprayed with someone else’s blood?” she asks, a little pale.

“No, you don’t have to
worry about that,” I tell her. “Just don’t stand in the first row or two and
you’ll be fine. Even if some does manage to get on you, everyone who fights
here has to have clean blood test results from within three days of a given
match or they aren’t allowed to fight. We’re careful about that sort of thing.”

I may be fighting a
losing battle here.

“What I’ve got to prepare
you for,” I tell her, “is the volume. These things can get pretty loud.”

We enter the building,
this time a foreclosed house without any neighbors for a quarter mile, and we
make our way through the empty space to the stairs. The basement is large,
open, unfinished. Everyone’s congregated where the family room was supposed to be.

“This feels weird,” Ash
says. “I don’t think I’m really comfortable here.”

“The fights haven’t even
started yet!” I exclaim, drawing the attention of the group.

“Why are they staring at
us?” Ash asks in a near-whisper.

“It’s fine,” I tell her.
“Let’s just pick a good spot to watch and I’m sure you’ll blend in just fine.”

I appreciate the fact
that she got dressed up nice for tonight’s festivities, but I probably should
have told her that these gatherings aren’t exactly formal. Personally, I think
she looks great in her short, black dress, but she can’t be too comfortable
seeing that most of the people in attendance didn’t even bother wearing a
shirt.

“So do women like never
come to these things or what?” she asks.

“Women are here all the
time,” I tell her. “They make up almost half our fights.”

“That’s sick!” Ash
blurts.

“How so?” I ask.

“You make women fight for
your entertainment?” I ask.

“First off, we don’t make
anyone fight,” I tell her. “Second off, we’re not going to bar a whole gender
from a sport. That’s incredibly sexist, don’t you think?”

Yeah, this isn’t going
how I’d hoped. I’m just crossing my fingers that she starts to have a little
more fun when the first fight gets going. We don’t have to wait long to find
out.

The first match is
between two bantamweight guys who end up talking crap to each other for most of
the first round. By the time the first punch is thrown, Ash is ready to go.

“I don’t think I’m ever
going to understand this. How many points do they get for leveling criticism at
their opponent?” she asks.

“None,” I tell her. “Some
guys do that to puff themselves up, but most people who get in there have a
little better sense than that.”

“Okay, so what we’re
really here to see is the violence?” she asks.

A couple of heads turn in
our direction, each with a single eyebrow raised.

“We like to think of it
more as sport than simple violence,” I tell her and the people eavesdropping on
our conversation turn back toward the fight.

In the middle, the two
guys are into their second round and the one with the long, blond hair is
getting pounded by the one with the spiked, black hair. I don’t know these two.
I’ve never seen them before and there’s a decent chance I never will again.

A lot of people come here
the first time and either they don’t get to fight so they lose interest, or
they’re so viciously mocked before, during, and after the fight, they can’t
bring themselves to come back.

Imagine:
 
Someone spends hours in the gym every week,
years with trainers or coaches or senseis—often all of the above—and when it
comes down to it, they decide taunting strangers are too great an obstacle to
overcome.

Amateurs.

Longhaired blond guy
manages to get to his feet and he catches black spiky hair guy hard on the
chin, the latter’s knees buckling with the loss of consciousness.

The crowd of about two
dozen erupts and Ash is covering her ears. If I can get her to stay for at
least another fight or two, I have no doubt she’s going to start getting into
it.

A lot of people are
turned off by MMA the first time they see it because it’s so brutal, but the
people who give it enough of a chance almost invariably end up hooked. I just
need to find some way to convince her that it’s worth it.