Consumed: A MMA Sports Romance (8 page)

“Mase,” he starts.

“I hate that name,” I
interrupt.

“Mason, brother, whatever
you want me to call you, look,” he says. “I’ve got some money
[7]
and collateral
[8]
tied up right now, and I
can’t just walk away from that.”

“How much are you down?”
I ask.

“It’s really not all that
much,” he says. “I never like to let a client
[9]
hold onto too much money
for too long. A lot of people don’t know how to handle large sums of money. They
start to get ideas.”

“How much?” I ask.

“Does the number really
matter?” he asks. “It’s not like it makes any difference.”

“Chris,” I say, looking
my brother hard in the eyes, “how much?”

“I don’t have the exact
figures at the moment, but if you’ll give me and my secretary until Friday—” he
starts.

“You have five seconds
either to tell me how much you’re down or to grab your stuff and get out of my
house,” I tell him.

He sighs.

“It’s really not that big
a deal,” he says. “My partner
[10]
doesn’t know about my
other investors
[11]
,
so it’s not like I’m really down,” he says, “but I’ve got about two-fifty tied
up in all of it.”

“Tell me that’s just in
normal dollars and not in the hundreds of thousands,” I breathe.

“Yeah, sure, of course it
is,”
[12]
he says.

“Where do you even get
your hands on that kind of cash?” I ask. “I thought you dealt with smaller
cons. Even the longer ones were only ever a couple thousand here and there.
What have you gotten yourself into? Are the cops looking for you? Do they know
about you?”

“No,” he says. “I’ve got
a friend on the force
[13]
who gives me the heads-up
if someone files a report. I’m not that worried about the money,
[14]
really, I just want
what’s mine.”

“You’re not in with loan
sharks or anything like that, are you?” I ask.

“Are you kidding me?” he
asks. “People like that hate people like me. It never really made sense to me,
though. When ya think about it, we are pretty much in the same line of work.”

“So there’s nobody that’s
going to come after you if you don’t go back for that money,” I say.

Chris’s eyes go wide and
he’s shaking his head as he takes a step back.

“That’s mine,
[15]
bro,” he says. “I love
you and everything, but this place isn’t exactly worth giving up all I’ve
worked so hard to achieve.”
[16]

“It’s not your money,” I
tell him. “You have an opportunity here. You can finally make the change we
both know you need to make and I’m willing to help you every step of the way,
but I need to know—and I mean absolutely know—that you’ve given up the life.”

“I don’t see why your
panties are in such a bunch,” he says. “I pitch in with food. I’ve helped you
with rent when I’ve stayed with you before…”

“You mean last time you
were here and you gave me fifty bucks to replace the toilet seat you broke—how,
I still don’t know—and with the food, I’m assuming you’re talking about that
time you bought Funyuns
 
and forgot to
take them with you when you left?” I ask.

“You can paint me any way
you want to, but this isn’t a one-sided deal,” he says. “I help you, too.”

“You’ve helped me
before,” I tell him. “You helped a lot when I was younger and that’s probably
why we haven’t had this conversation until now, but I’m sick of it, Chris! I
never know when you’re going to show up, and when you do, there’s always the
chance I come home to police cars and helicopters.”

“Oh, I’ve never brought
the fuzz home with me,” he says, making another grab for the remote control.

“That’s just the worst
case scenario,” I tell him, pulling the remote away from him. “Usually, you end
up drinking all day, every day, and you never miss a chance to humiliate me.
It’s really not that much better.”

“So, what?” he asks. “You
want me to give up a quarter of a mil just because I like the sauce?”

“If it was actually your
money, I’d tell you to spend it on rehab and some serious counseling,” I tell
him. “Since it’s not, I’d say the bigger gesture would be giving it all up in
favor of your new life.”

“I can’t do that,” he
says. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’d do that.”

“Then I guess we both
know what happens next,” I tell him. “You’ve got five seconds to grab your
stuff and get out of my house.”

For a second, he just
stands there, but as soon as I actually start counting, suddenly, he has a lot
to say.

“Whoa, whoa, wait,” he
says. “Just hold on and let’s talk about this.”

“Four…” I count.

“What are you going to
do?” he asks. “You going to literally throw me out of the house?”

“Three…” I count.

“The cops?” he asks.
“You’re not actually saying you’d call the cops if I don’t—”

“Two…” I count.

“Do you have any idea
what we could do with that kind of money?” he asks.

“One,” I count and take a
step toward him.

“All right!” he cries.
“I’ll give up the money, but I’m not paying rent. You’ve kind of just poached
my nest egg there.”

“That’s fine,” I tell
him. “First thing I want you to do is start looking at therapists.”

“You said I didn’t have
to do that if I gave up the money,” he says. “I’m giving up the money. How am I
supposed to pay for a therapist?”

“I’ll take care of it,” I
tell him.

I have no idea where I’m
going to get the money to cover someone else’s therapy, but I’ve got a very
small window here, and I’m not going to let it close without doing everything
in my power to get my brother to stop swindling people.

“I’ve been to therapists
before,” he says. “You know that. Why do you think this time’s going to be
different?”

“I don’t,” I tell him. “I
just hope that it is.”

“You really think some
shrink’s going to make me not want to work?”
[17]
he asks. “I really don’t
think it’s a psychological issue.”

“Maybe it won’t do
anything,” I tell him. “Maybe it will. I don’t know. It’s one of my
requirements, though. I need to know that you’re making a real and honest
effort.”

“I’m not going to any
Freudians,” he says. “They’re all about Oedipus complexes and penis envy. It
freaks me out.”

“As long as you’re going,
I don’t care whose philosophy your therapist subscribes to,” I tell him.
Remembering my brother’s unique way of twisting just about everything I’ve ever
said, I decide to be more specific, saying, “It has to be a real therapist,
though.”

“Who’s to say who’s a
real therapist and who’s not?” Chris asks.

“I think that would be
the American Psychological Association,” I tell him.

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll
give up an hour a week if it’ll get you off my back, but I’m going to need
something in return for all that money I’m giving up for you.”

“You’re not giving it up
for me and it’s not your money,” I tell him. “I will let you stay here rent
free for the first month, and after that, I expect you to have a job—a real,
normal person job. We can figure out how much is going to be fair with rent after
that.”

“You don’t even know what
I was going to ask,” he says.

“Yeah, but I know you,” I
tell him. “I’m not going to give up anything more than I’m already giving for
this. If you don’t like the deal, there’s the door.”

He looks at me, then at
the door and then back at me.

“Just know,” I tell him,
“you walk out that door now, and I don’t ever want to see your face again, you
understand me? You walk out that door and show up again, I call the cops. You
walk out that door and I run into you out in public, I call the cops. You walk
out that door now,” I tell him, “and we are done.”

“You don’t have to be so
dramatic,” Chris says.

“Call it what you want,”
I tell him. “If you don’t believe I mean what I’m saying, just try me. Go
ahead,” I tell him. “There’s the door.”

Chris scratches his head
and looks at the ground.

“All right,” he says. “I’ll
give it up; will you get off of me about it now?”

“Yeah,” I tell him,
handing back the remote control. “Over the next little bit, I’m probably going
to need some further evidence that you’re not just going right back to it,” I
say, “but for now, we’re good.”

“Okay,” Chris says,
glaring at me as he throws one hand over the opposite shoulder and turns the
television back on again. “Hey,” he says, walking back to his spot on the couch
and sitting down, “this is a momentous occasion in my life. I think we should
celebrate.”

“I’m not thirsty,” I tell
him.

“Oh well,” he says, “more
for me.”

He goes back to his
liquor and his decades-old cartoons, and I’ve got to get out of here.

Chris promises to change
more frequently than anyone I’ve ever known, and I’m not stupid enough to think
things are going to be hunky-dory from here.

Still, on the off chance
this is some kind of genuine breakthrough, I don’t want to stick around and let
him see all of the doubt written across my face. He’d probably end up using
that as an excuse to blow up his end of the bargain.

I’m walking now, no
particular direction or destination in mind.

Chris said what he said
to avoid getting kicked out, that’s plain. The biggest change is that this
time, I’m not going to accept his excuses.

If he fails, he’s out and
this time, I’m not just going to give him warning after warning.

This is the most
ambitious I’ve ever been in trying to get Chris to stop doing what he’s doing
before things take a turn that can’t be fixed by a drunken week or two at
“little bro’s” house. That doesn’t mean anything if I’m not willing to follow
through, though.

For now, I just walk and
try to find something else to put my mind.

Immediately, my thoughts
turn toward Ash. She’s at school right now, but we have plans to get together
later.

As soon as I’ve got the
image of Ash in my mind, though, the last half hour comes crashing back into my
thoughts.

She knows about Chris,
but that doesn’t mean it’s fair to drag her through all of this. If I know my
brother, he’s going to try to weasel his way out of this every step of the way,
and this is far from the last argument he and I are going to have about it.

Do I really want to ask
Ash to deal with this when we’ve only been sort-of dating for a couple weeks?
It doesn’t seem fair.

Conventional wisdom says
it’s her choice whether or not to have this be a part of her life, but she
doesn’t know Chris like I do and I don’t want to have him take off one day,
only to find he’s sold her some kind of sob story and made off with her life’s
savings.

Maybe the best thing for
both of us right now is to break it off, but at the same time, I’m really
starting to feel like those walls between us are beginning to come down, and I
don’t want to miss out on knowing her better.

I don’t know what I’m
going to do.

Chapter
Eight

Reminiscing

Ash

I’m just leaving for
class when I find Jana standing outside our building, smoking a cigarette.

“Hey,” she says as I come
within speaking distance.

“I thought you quit,” I
say, walking up to her.

“Don’t worry about it,”
she says.

“The apartment’s empty,”
I say.

Jana looks down at her
cigarette and then back at me with a smirk. “I
am
outside smoking,” she says.

“Where is she?” I ask
nervously. If Starbright—I’m getting tired of even thinking the name—could push
Jana to picking up the pack again, I’m not sure I even want to know what she’s
done.

“Oh, she’s out at a
cooking class with some people she met earlier today,” Jana answers, flicking
her cigarette before taking another drag.

“That sounds
uncharacteristically normal of her,” I say.

“Today,” Jana says,
blowing out a cloud of smoke, “they’re making an herbal lube that’s supposed to
enhance pleasure and stimulate—”

“Why do I ever ask for
more information when it comes to your mom?” I interrupt, smiling.

“Yeah,” she says.
“Anyway,” she flicks her cigarette and when she looks back, her demeanor has
changed, “how’s it going with Mason?”

“Oh, could we not do
this?” I ask.

“Do what?” she returns.
“I’m just checking up on my roomie. Things not going so well?”

“Things are going fine,”
I tell her. “We haven’t hung out in a couple of days, but we’ve both been
pretty busy. We’ll get our schedules figured out.”

“That’s good,” Jana says.
“You off to class now?”

“Bio chemistry,” I tell
her.

“Ooh,” she says, “that
sounds like my idea of hell. Have fun!”

With that, she flicks her
cigarette into the street and walks back into the building.

When I get to bio
chemistry, I can’t focus.

The professor is going on
about valence electrons, and I can’t stop thinking about Mason. It’s true that
we’ve both been busy, but it’s really starting to feel like he’s actively
avoiding me.

He’s got that tournament
coming up, and I know he’s got to focus a lot on his training; I just wish he’d
pick up a phone and call every once in a while.

None of this would be an
issue if it weren’t for Jana. At first, I had to deal with the mental image of
my longtime friend with my new boyfriend, but she doesn’t talk about that so
much anymore.

Actually, for a little
while there, Jana was really great about everything. I asked her to maybe ease
up on the fond remembrances of their past sexual dalliances and she did.

The problem is that she’s
developed this strange habit where she feels it necessary to inform me every
time she remembers yet
another
woman
in town she’s heard Mason’s been with.

The list, at this point,
is still manageable, but every time she adds a new name, I start feeling a bit
less secure in my relationship.

Stupid Jana.

The last time I
did
talk to Mason, he told me that he’d
dated a lot of women, but hadn’t slept with all of them. He said that a lot of
what people spread about him isn’t true.

I don’t know whether to
believe him.

One could argue that a
person who’s sewn such wild oats would say he hadn’t in this situation, every
time the question comes up. One could also argue, though, that a person who’s
innocent would say the exact same thing.

It’s not the end of the
world; it’s just harder now to feel like this is something that has the
potential to last.

The professor takes a
detour from the regularly scheduled lecture to answer a question about
Breaking Bad
. You wouldn’t believe how
often this still happens.

I wish I could just skip
class today, but this isn’t an elective. Bio chem is required for my major and
I’m not going to jeopardize my perfect attendance because I’m having
relationship worries.

The closest I’ve come to
convincing myself Mason’s sexual history, whether Jana’s version of it is true
or not, doesn’t matter is by speculating that so much experience may be to
thank for his uncanny ability to make a woman achieve climax.

That
is
pretty cool.

I don’t know. It’s in the
past and I guess it doesn’t really matter from an objective standpoint. Mason’s
not the first man I’ve been with, and while I don’t think my own history, even
were it to be exaggerated, would hold a candle to his, I also don’t think it
would be fair for him to judge me by the people I’ve been with in the past.

At least I know he’s clean.

Mason’s got a fight
coming up, the first one of the tournament, and so he had to go in for a blood
test before they’d let him enter the ring. I went with him and the guy’s clean
as a whistle. I got one too, just for the hell of it. No surprises: I’m clean,
too.

Still, if he does have
the kind of past it sounds like he did, is he really going to be able to handle
a real, serious relationship?

I almost don’t notice
when class ends.

“Hey, Ash,” Nyla, one of
my acquaintances from class says, walking over to me. “Got anything going right
now?”

I’m so lost in my
thoughts it takes me a few seconds to process that I’m being talked to, a few
more to process what she’s asking.

“Uh,” I say, pulling out
my phone to check the time. “No, I’m free. What’s up?”

I don’t know why I had to
check my watch. I know what time my class gets out. I’ve really got to figure
out a way through the clutter.

“Wanna grab some lunch?”
she asks. “We haven’t really gotten a chance to talk over the last little
while. You’ve been pretty busy with your boyfriend.”

Not in the last week or
so.

“Sure,” I tell her. “I
could eat.”

“Great!” she beams.

Nyla and I don’t know
each other very well, but after we hit it off in a class we had together last
year, we’ve tried to get together every once in a while for food and a chat.

We chat a bit about
classes and professors and current events on campus at first, but once we’ve
gotten our food and we’re sitting down, the conversation stalls.

I’m eating my watery
penne pasta with its flavorless marinara sauce on top and Nyla’s looking away
every time I glance in her direction.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Do I have something on my face?”

“No,” she says. “Well,
kinda.”

“What do you mean?” I
ask.

“You just look like
you’re totally somewhere else,” she says.

Yeah. I suppose I am.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“So, what’s new with you?”

She starts talking about
a new boyfriend and I’m tuned out again. I start to get a little nervous as it
sounds like she’s in the middle of asking me a question I wasn’t listening to,
but an incoming text saves me.

“Sorry,” I tell her. “I
really have to check this.”

“It’s fine,” she says,
and I check the message.

It’s from Mason.

It says, “We need to
talk.”

Okay.

Everyone knows that
phrase only means one thing. It’s the pre-breakup breakup that kind of softens
the blow when the axe comes down.

“Nyla, I’m sorry,” I tell
my classmate. “I’ve got to go. Something’s come up, and I—”

“It’s all right,” she
says. “I hope you find the answer to your problem.”

I smile. “Thanks,” I say.

I get to my car in a
daze.

With everything going on
with his brother and with the extra training he’s doing, I know Mason’s been
having a difficult time balancing everything, but things were starting to go so
well.

By the time I’m pulling
up to Mason’s house, I’m about as prepared as I can be for what’s to come.

I get to the door and
lift my arm, though I hesitate a moment before I let the motion complete
itself, knocking on the door.

I’m consciously taking
slow, deep breaths.

Mason is a deceptively
nice guy, so I don’t expect any screaming or rending of garments, but then
again, you never know.

The door opens to Mason,
standing there smiling.

“Hey,” he says. “Come on
in.”

“I got your message,” I
tell him as I come through the doorway. “You said we needed to talk.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Notice
anything different?”

I look around and the
difference is obvious.

Where once there were
beer bottles and tortilla chip bags, now there is a clean, well-kept home.

“What happened?” I ask.

Mason laughs. “Oh, it
wasn’t
that
bad.”

“It was getting there,” I
tell him.

“Care for a drink?” he
asks. “I don’t have anything too exciting: I think just water and orange
juice.”

“I’m fine,” I tell him.
“What did you want to tell me?”

“Well,” he says, sitting
down on the couch, “I think I’ve asked for a lot of understanding without
giving you a lot of candor on my part.”

“Okay, you’re kind of
talking like a lawyer right now,” I tell him. “Should I be worried?”

“No,” he says, “nothing
like that. I just wanted to let you know that it’s almost over.”

“What is?” I ask, leaning
forward a little too far, my hands on my knees as I wait impatiently for his
answer.

“The whole situation with
Chris,” he says. “I’m done trying to clean up after him, and just as soon as he
comes back—whenever that’s going to be—I’m going to tell him he’s got to go.”

“What happened?” I ask.
“I thought things were going better with you two?”

“I thought they were,”
Mason says. “Well, I
hoped
they were.
As much as I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, just one more time, I
wasn’t surprised when it happened.”

“What did he do, though?”
I ask, finally leaning back a little in my seat.

“He’d spent the day out
looking for a job—I know because I made him take me with him—and after we got
home, we got to talking,” he starts. “He hadn’t been hired, but he’d had a
couple of successful interviews and things were really starting to look up for
once. He told me we should go out drinking to celebrate his new chapter or
whatever, but I’m not too into that. When I convinced him that I wasn’t going
to go, he convinced me to fund his little celebration. It was a hundred bucks.
I don’t know why I expected to get it back.”

“He stole your money?” I
ask.

“Yeah,” he says. “I
haven’t seen him or heard from him since he left for the club that night. It’s
only a hundred bucks, but at the same time, it’s a hundred bucks.”

“That’s screwed up,” I
respond, still waiting for the conversational turn.

“I’ve been distant with
you since Chris showed up,” Mason says. “In some ways we’ve been moving
forward, but in others… All my life, I’ve just gotten so used to ignoring my
past and trying to minimize it when it shows up passed out on my couch in the
middle of the night. The problem with that is that I really like you, Ash,” he
says. “I’d love to see where things with you can go, and I just want to let you
know that I’m not going to try to hide my past by pulling away from you
anymore. That’s not fair, and I’m sorry.”

“Hmm,” I respond. “Thanks.
To be honest with you, I was expecting a very different kind of conversation.”

“What do you mean?” he
asks.

“Well, you sent the
relationship killer text,” I answer. “Next time you use that phrase, I expect
you to be breaking up with me, because that false alarm crap isn’t going to
work for me.”

“Okay, okay,” he laughs.
“Next time, I’ll put it differently.”

“So?” I ask.

“So what?” he returns.

“You said you were going
to stop trying to hide your past,” I say. “So, what have you been hiding that I
should know about?”

“What do you wanna know?”
he asks. “From here on, I’m an open book. I want to make this work.”

“I don’t know,” I tell
him. “When did Chris start with the whole con man business?”

“I’ve tried to figure
that out,” he says. “I really can’t remember a time when he wasn’t pulling some
kind of confidence game. When it started out, it was hardly ever about money; I
think he did it as a survival instinct. There was a certain way to talk to mom,
and if you couldn’t figure out what to say in any situation with her
beforehand, chances were, things were going to go bad.”

“Where was your father?”
I ask. This is the most he’s ever told me about his family. He’s never even
mentioned his mother before.