Let Go (33 page)

Fight day
comes and Greylan is feeling uneasy. He’s not sure what to expect
in the cage today. Watching Marcos’ videos didn’t help his
strategy. He is unpredictable and in the cage that makes for lots
of injuries. Greylan has been lucky in that department so far.

He gets out of
the shower at Meyer’s house and dresses in street clothes to go to
the venue. It’s a casino on the strip this time. Jimmy is excited
because this is Greylan’s first one that is billed as a big fight
making it available for the world on pay-per-view. It’s the little
things, Greylan guesses.

As he makes
his way to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water, Meyer is sitting
at the table with his head in his hands. Greylan glances over at
him considering ignoring it but he has been a shitty friend lately.
He leans against the counter and asks, “Okay Meyer, what’s up?”

Meyer looks up
miserably. He shakes his head, wiping his hands over his head.
Through his hands he says, “Grey, can you sit for a minute?”

Hell no,
not this shit.
It’s always drama with him.

“That’s okay,
I’ll stand.”

Meyer looks
up, his eyes worse than Greylan has ever seen them.

“I have to ask
you something.”

Greylan looks
annoyed thinking it’s going to be some shit about Mollie. Meyer has
ribbed him occasionally about Mollie making snide comments about
taking her away from him.

“Grey, you
need to throw the fight tonight.”

Greylan pauses
a moment, wondering if he heard Meyer correctly.

“What the
fuck? You want me to lose on purpose? From what fucked up planet
did you just come from? How could you ask me some shit like
that?”

Meyer looks
up. He stands holding his hands out, “You need to lose. There are
things that you just don’t understand. Please just throw it.”

“This is my
life Meyer. You can’t ask me to do that. Hell no. If I lose that’s
fine, but not on purpose.”

“Whatever
Greylan. I knew you wouldn’t just do what I tell you. Back in
Jersey I told you as long as you listened to me, things would be
good. But you’re so fucking stubborn.”

Greylan’s
voice comes out furious now, “I don’t think you realize what you
just asked me to do. I can’t just throw a fight. That’s illegal,
it’s dirty.”

Meyer’s hands
go up in frustration, “Luciano is the mob Grey, and they have a
bigger stake in this than you do. Just lose the fight and get over
yourself. Think of Mollie.”

“You mean like
organized crime, illegal shit, you got me involved with the mob?”
Greylan’s hands move over his face as Meyer’s last words run
through his head, Mollie. How is she involved? Will they hurt her?
His skin turns crimson as he looks back over at Meyer who is
waiting for what he has to doll out. He storms out leaving his
friend behind. Suddenly he is panicking, the same feeling years ago
when his dream was lost; he starts to feel it again. He’s losing
his grip and it’s nothing that
he
did this time. He can’t
lose Mollie, she is more important than anything else, even
fighting, he realizes.

He climbs into
the black truck he bought a month ago and speeds too fast to the
fight. So many thoughts roll through his head but he can’t focus on
any. He can’t decide what he should do. This could ruin his career
but he fears it could ruin more than that if he doesn’t go through
with it.

The night
seems to move in fast forward. Once Greylan arrives he looks
around, suspicious now of all the people around him. Did they all
betray him? Does Jimmy know? By the time the fight starts Jackson
is the only one there and he doesn’t have it in him to tell his
trainer. He knows what the man’s response would be, fuck them all.
But Mollie sitting in the first row beside Parker and Trinity is in
the forefront of his mind.

As the whistle
sounds he attacks with a kick but doesn’t put his full force into
it. This goes against everything in him not to put all of himself
into it. Cortez doesn’t disappoint, his feet move around Greylan
while his arm latches around his neck. He slams Greylan against the
mat before he can move. He flinches with the impact and considers
just lying there but his body won’t let him do that. He tries to
roll out of the hold. The man’s grip tightens. His elbow moves into
Cortez’s ribs loosening the grip just slightly. He brings his feet
under him pushing back into the other man with all of his strength,
but time sounds before he can make any progress. A decision is made
declaring Cortez as the winner.

When he moves
back to the corner, Jackson lays on the guilt for making him fly
out here just to lose. Greylan’s guilt grows. Jimmy strides up and
Greylan glares at him trying to decide if he knows. He shakes his
head and looks to the floor, his hands on his hips.
Of course,
he fucking knows.

The beginning
of the next round starts. Greylan moves onto the mat swiftly and
spins landing a round house kick to Cotez’s side. His fists clench,
hammering into the same side. His anger surges and he uses it. This
is what he needed, the fucking anger. Cortez ducks under a hit and
lands a punch into Greylan’s side. He falls to his knees with the
contact, but rolls away when Cortez comes after him trying to take
him down. Greylan moves over him and thrusts his hips down in a
sprawl over Cortez. He collapses allowing Greylan to take a side
control pin just as the whistle sounds ending the round. Greylan
walks to the side of the cage and glares daggers at Jimmy. He looks
away causing Greylan to follow his gaze. He meets Mollie’s stare.
She looks scared and it’s written all over her face. She knows
something. He isn’t sure what and he’s pissed she didn’t tell him
but that look just decided it for him, he can’t lose her. He can
let the fight go but not Red. The Ref calls Greylan as the
winner.

The final
round begins with Cortez slamming Greylan down into the mat.
Greylan doesn’t make a huge attempt to move away. His hand comes up
in a jab hitting the jaw of the other man but he still lands all of
his weight against Greylan. He’s pinned. He knows how to get out of
this pin but it’s a moot -point. He reasons though if Jackson
doesn’t see him try, he’ll ask questions and he needs to protect
him
at least. He brings his legs up and knees Cortez in the
side. The man falls away allowing Greylan a chance to get up. He
makes it to his knees and gets a jab in before Cortez slams a fist
into his eye and takes him in a guillotine hold. The whistle sounds
and the decision rules in Cortez’s favor.

When they exit
the cage everything seems muffled around him. He’s so broken over
the fact that he just had to lose on purpose. Jackson pats him on
the back obviously fearing Greylan will take it harder than he is.
Greylan makes nice with Jimmy for Jax’s sake and calls it an early
night.

As he leaves
the holding room with his bag, Vincent Luciano comes up to him in
the empty hallway. He tells Greylan, “I know that was a hard one.
There will be wins, I promise, but now that you’re on the payroll,
you do as I say.”

Greylan eyes
him a moment considering a comment but decides he’s not even worth
it. He walks away shouldering his bag. He passes down the hall and
spots Red standing by the door, nervously waiting for him. He stops
in front of her and asks, “I just need to know one thing.”

She nods a
guilty expression all over her face. She winces, he’s sure from the
swelling he can feel on his eye from the hit that he took or the
fact she is about to break his heart all over again.

“Did you
know?”

“Yes, Grey, I
did but…”

He cuts her
off, “That’s all I needed to know.”

He pushes
through the door, his chest heaving as he walks away from her.

An hour later
Meyer comes in through the screen door. Greylan is settled at the
tiled table, an ice pack held calmly up to his swollen eye. The
warm air, barely coming in through open windows, does little to
cool the place off or make him feel any better. Greylan eyes him as
he moves around the kitchen getting a glass, ice and fills it with
water from the tap. His nervous movements alert Greylan that there
must be more. He wouldn’t come near Greylan for fear of getting hit
if he didn’t have more to tell.

The last time
Meyer acted like this was the summer before their senior year. They
were beachside with a group of friends enjoying the last days of
freedom. He avoided Greylan like the plague all day. Finally, as
they were working out ride arrangements back into Brunswick,
Greylan made Meyer ride with him. He played with the radio, put the
window up and down, and bobbed his leg up and down for half the
trip.

After letting
him suffer for a while Greylan asked, “Okay Meyer, what’s up?”

His guilt
burst from his mouth, “I slept with Maggie. Grey, I know you guys
were together but we’ve been spending some time together. I’m not
sorry though, I really like her.”

He remembers
how he felt hearing Meyer admit that. His reaction was shitty but
he was angry at the time. It pissed him off that Meyer had to go
after what was his. He told him, “That’s okay. You can always have
my sloppy seconds.”

Now in
hindsight maybe he was part of the cause of Meyer’s reluctance to
come and see him in prison. He shakes his head at how inconsiderate
he was back then. He thinks about Mollie sitting at the fight
tonight, a look of fear on her face as the referee called the
winner. The thought of Mollie makes his heart speed up. He couldn’t
face her tonight knowing that she had knowledge of this thing that
Meyer told him. The fucking mob. How does someone like Meyer get
involved with the Mob?

He told Meyer
the day that he slept with Mollie for the first time that he wasn’t
sorry for it. Those were Meyer’s words so many years ago. And he
wasn’t sorry for it. Now there are so many other things he’s sorry
for.
Regret at its finest
.

Meyer slams a
cabinet bringing him out of his thoughts. As he did years before he
waits him out. Meyer walks the room with displaced energy. After
twenty minutes with nothing more to drag out the inevitable, he
sinks into the chair across from Greylan. He leans forward glaring
at Greylan as if in a staring contest. If he didn’t know any better
Greylan would mistake the look for hate. Finally his breath comes
out in a rush, “Grey, why do you have to be so good?” Those are the
same words that came from Mollie the night they found each other
again.

He continues,
“I convinced myself while you were gone that you’d come back
pissed, angry at the world. You’d be damaged and broken. I reasoned
that what I did would be deserved. But what the fuck, you came back
the same. The same damn compassionate asshole.”

Greylan waits,
still calm and unbelieving of Meyer’s earlier revelation. He’s far
from compassionate but he’s not going to interrupt the guy while
he’s on a role.

“You fucking
gave up the fight Grey, why? This was everything to you and you
just let it go.”

Greylan looks
down at his arm, bruises already surfacing from the match. He
glances past Meyer and watches the sheer curtains move in the
almost stagnant air. He wipes the sweat from his brow and states
simply, “You asked me to. I did it for Mollie.”

A tear runs
down Meyers’s cheek. He moves his hands in frustration as he starts
yelling, “Greylan it was planned, all of it. Mollie being in the
alley that night, you were supposed to get her away from that
douche and fall for her. We paid him fifty bucks to come on to her
so you could rescue her. She was our leverage. But you killed him
and the stakes grew. We had to find someone else. You fucking went
to jail when you were supposed to be the golden boy. Where Harris
is now, that was your spot.”

Greylan is
confused; he frowns, about to respond but remains silent, his gaze
on Meyer unwavering. This seems to propel Meyer on, “You were the
one they picked. You could have been on top where Harris is but you
were gone so they found him to replace you. I thought you’d be
done. So I left and decided I’d close the book on that part of my
life. It’s shitty, but it helped me sleep at night. I came here to
get away but they found me. They knew when you came out and started
up again that they’d have a problem. You became the problem. They
couldn’t lose money on you. So I had to do it.”

Meyer points
to his head like a crazy person as he gets up and starts pacing
across the room, “I think they knew, they knew it wasn’t the last
of you. They had to know, otherwise why did Harris get involved
with Trinity?”

This seems to
pull Greylan out of his daze. He asks, “Trinity and Parker, that
was planned? My fucking sister is with him now. Is he involved with
this Luciano creep? So help me Meyer if anything happens to my
sister…”

Greylan
growls, “Meyer, is Trinity in danger right now?”

Meyer runs his
hand through his hair. He stutters, “I, I think they always know.
They had to have some kind of leverage. Then they sent Mollie with
me. I fucking hated doing that to you again especially after I saw
that you hadn’t turned into a prick. Dude I’m so sorry.”

Greylan slowly
pushes up from the table. He sets the ice pack down and crosses the
space. He leans in almost close enough to feel Meyer’s ragged
breath and asks, “Mollie was part of the plan? She wasn’t in it for
me?”

Meyer steps
back, fear in his eyes, “Greylan, Mollie is the daughter of Vincent
Luciano.”

This causes
Greylan to move backward. He looks up again as he realizes what he
just learned. In that moment his heart breaks and hardens in mere
seconds. He walks back up to Meyer and spits in his face before
turning away and walking out the door. The last thing he hears
before climbing into the truck is the slamming of the screen door
which breaks his heart further releasing the love of his life and
his best friend all at once. But did he really ever have them to
let go?