Let Go (9 page)

She passes by
him seeming annoyed and calls back, “Okay big boy, follow me.”

Her sudden pet
nickname seems wrong in the seductive way that she says it but he
follows her anyway. He muses, at this point, what does he have to
lose? He can’t get much lower.

They enter the
bar from the hall. It’s dark even though there are lights
everywhere. He follows Juno down the length of the counter and
around the side. A girl is washing bar glasses in the lone sink.
She glances up, her brows raised suddenly. Her blond hair is wound
into a tight braid down her back. Bright blue eyes stare at him
down a straight nose. Her face is so pale that the freckles dotting
it stand out like the stars on a black night. She looks back and
forth between Greylan and Juno for a minute before Juno says,
“Christina, I’d like you to meet Greylan. Greylan, this is
Christina.”

Greylan nods
to her, “Nice to meet you.”

A smile
spreads over her lips as she looks to Juno, “Where’d ya get this
one?”

“Does it
really matter, you’re short -handed and I promised I’d find
someone.”

Christina
straightens her shoulders and asks Greylan, “Have you tended bar
before?”

He frowns
feeling like this is the third degree. What the hell, it’s just
serving drinks to people. How hard can it be? He shakes his head in
response. She sighs and looks past him to Juno, “Are you serious
Juno? Experience would be nice. He’s gonna get his ass kicked.”

Juno’s voice
takes on an annoyed edge, “Take him or leave him. What do I care? I
did someone a favor. This is what you get.” She turns around and
strides back to her office. Greylan stands still glaring at this
chick who knows nothing about him and has already dismissed
him.

She turns
around and walks to the other end of the bar slamming things
around. Greylan isn’t sure what to do but one thing is clear, this
chick has no say in whether he stays. He needs this job regardless
of what she says.

He glances
around the room. Televisions are spaced evenly on the walls. Three
pool tables litter the back of the space. Directly across from the
bar is a stage, the wall behind it littered with posters for
various bands. What he finds odd is the scarcity of tables. There
are about ten high top tables but the rest of the room is void of
places to sit, the exception being the chairs lining the bar. He
turns back to Christina and she’s staring at him curiously not like
she wants to jump him like Juno, more as if she is studying him to
see if he can actually do the job.

She opens her
mouth to say something but quickly closes it. She looks away to
what she’s doing and calls over to him, “Get to work then. The
coolers won’t stock themselves. The beer is in the walk- in down
the hall in back. You have exactly thirty minutes before show
time.”

He smirks at
her and her feistiness. She definitely seems like a short fuse kind
of girl. Maybe proving himself to her is in his best interest.

An hour later
Greylan finds out exactly what Christina meant by show time. The
bar is full, so full that he realizes why there is such a lack of
tables. If tables took up the space there wouldn’t be enough room
for all of the people. He stays busy serving drinks constantly.
Christina has started warming up to him a bit. When they pass each
other she makes snide remarks at him about being a rookie. He stays
pretty quiet but keeps up with the demand. Other servers have
appeared at different intervals throughout the night helping to
keep up with the amount of people.

Hours later a
band starts playing, filling the loud room with even more noise.
Greylan actually looks forward to that grungy motel he now calls
home, at least the bed sounds good.

He sleeps
until almost ten the next morning. A few more nights like last
night and maybe he’ll be able to get out of this dump a lot faster
than he thought. He walked away with a lot more in tips than he
would have imagined. Maybe tending bar isn’t as bad as he thought.
He rolls over and thinks about Christina. She seems to be a closed
off person like himself. Not that they got a chance to really talk
because it was slammed all night. Every comment out of her mouth
seemed like an innocent dig at his lack of experience. He took each
remark as her way of accepting him. At the end of the night after
all of the drunks left he was quiet and tired. She didn’t pry or
ask anything about him. She just instructed him on how to close the
bar down. He was thankful for that.

Tonight he has
another shift. But first he needs to make a decision about Jackson.
He climbs out of bed and showers in record time. The warm water
seems even less today than yesterday. When he climbs into the
truck; his phone rings. He pulls it out to see Trinity’s sweet face
flashing across the screen.

“Hey
Trin.”

“Greylan, how
are you? How’d your first night at Juno’s go?”

He chuckles,
“It was good, busy. How are you?”

“I’m great.
Are you sure you’re okay? I feel like we kicked you out. Like you
didn’t really have a choice about leaving.”

“Trinity, you
know I couldn’t have stayed there forever. This is your life with
Parker and you don’t need your big brother hovering over your
shoulder at every turn.” He can’t believe he’s saying this. Maybe
it’s to convince himself that it’s alright to move on; more so for
his sister’s sake.

“I know but
the circumstances that you left on. I just…I don’t want you to hate
Parker. I know he’s not your favorite person and that’s fine but…”
Her voice trails off. Does he really want to have this conversation
with her? No, Parker is unfortunately in her life and he doesn’t
like it. The last thing he wants to do is assure her that he’s okay
with Parker because he’s not.

“Trinity, it’s
fine. Why don’t you come out to Juno’s one night? It’s a world of
its own.”

“Way to change
the subject big bro. I’ll check it out one of these nights. Okay, I
better go.”

“Alright kid,
take care.”

“You too.”

He thumbs the
end button needing suddenly to get this anger surging through him,
out. He heads in the direction of Westside Gym. It hits home as he
thinks about it that he is really going to go through with this. In
his mind there are no other options. He is a fighter all the way
through. It also occurs to him that he is an amateur again,
starting at the bottom. At least this time he knows how it all
works. Carlo was right, it won’t happen if he doesn’t want it bad
enough. The bar gig last night was fun but not something he wants
to continue for the rest of his life. Get back to the top, that’s
all he needs to focus on. And once again Parker pops into his head.
There isn’t room up there for both of them. If he pursues this,
will his sister forgive him if he knocks Parker down? He shakes it
away, one thing at a time.

The truck
angles into a spot across the sparse lot from the broad warehouse.
He takes a deep breath before opening the door. The wide space
greets him along with loud heavy rock music. It reminds him of the
bar last night. The band that played was definitely hard rock. It
seeps into him as he sets his mind to what he’s about to do.

A whistle
louder than the music, rings through the building. Greylan looks up
and spots Jackson exactly in the same place as yesterday. This time
though there are no fighters in the ring. Greylan shoulders his bag
and aims for the ring. When he’s ten feet away Jackson exclaims,
“You came back. Does that mean what I think it means?”

Greylan allows
a small tilt of his lips as his presence calls out that he’s going
to go for it again.

Jackson
orders, “Well get yourself ready then, I don’t have all day.”

Greylan heads
to the locker room. He opens a locker to put his bag in but a man
just closing his own calls down the row, “I think this one might be
yours.”

Greylan looks
up and walks toward the place the man implied. Pace, in small
lettering is fitted onto the metal door. He takes a deep breath
placing his bag into that locker. His hand grazes the lettering as
he closes the door.

As he nears
the ring where Jackson is still leaning while chewing on a
toothpick, he asks, “What made you so sure I’d be back?”

Jackson stands
and grabs a punch mitt off of the wall nearby, “There are two
people in this world Greylan Pace, fighters and observers. If
you’re a fighter, you’re screwed because you can’t just give it up.
I know you still want it but you’re gonna have to work and it’s
gonna be harder than it ever was. You’re five years older and the
guys you’ll fight are five years stronger.”

Greylan wraps
his hands and asks taking a deep breath, “Then why are we wasting
time talking about it?”

A booming
laugh bursts from Jackson as he centers the mitt and angles across
from Greylan. Greylan starts punching the mitt and with each hit he
taunts him claiming that he hits like a girl or that he might as
well give it up. It has the desired effect and Greylan steps it up
focusing on his stance and method. He falls into the familiar
routine that his body knows so well. Jackson’s loud voice gathers
an audience though. Greylan tries to block them out but more
comments spread through the group. He stops punching and looks to
the other gym members. Jackson yells at Greylan still chewing on
the toothpick, “Gonna have to get over it. There’ll always be
someone. Don’t let that be your weakness.”

The same blond
dude, Jonesy from the day before pipes up, “Let me get at him, Jax.
I bet I could give him a beat down. I heard of him, he had his
chance. I don’t know why you’re wasting your time on that when you
could train this for the pro circuit.”

Greylan waves
the guy over as his anger rises. Jackson tells him, “Not a good
idea on your first day. Don’t think this is the way to make
friends.”

Greylan pulls
out his mouth guard and tells him, “I’m not here to make
friends.”

He looks to
Jonesy and asks, “So you think you are the next big thing?”

“Yep, I’ll
enjoy kicking your ass.”

“Really, did
they tell you I killed a man?”

Jonesy looks
between Greylan and Jackson, his brows are raised in a question, to
gauge how serious Greylan is. He turns back to the gathered crowd
almost as if deciding to change his mind but he firms up his
shoulders and claims, “No, it doesn’t matter.”

“Whatever you
say.” Greylan chuckles as they both bite their guards and move in a
circle feeling each other out. Greylan makes the first move. He
punches Jonesy in the side which he blocks but immediately follows
it with a sweep of his foot. The connection makes Jonesy lose his
balance; he quickly regains his balance but not before Greylan is
in his face forcing an uppercut to connect with his jaw. Jonesy
grabs his arms and forces Greylan down on his back. He rolls before
Jonesy can land across his body and gets back to his feet. Both men
move toward each other grabbing in a clinch, moving in circles each
trying to take the other down. Greylan takes a deep breath and
tries to sweep Jonesy’s legs out from under him again. This time it
works. He lands on top of him and elbows his chest repeatedly until
a tap vibrates through his shoulder.

Greylan stands
slowly and thrusts his hand out to his opponent, a trickle of a
smile spreading. Jonesy takes it as his lips spread in a grin. He
looks to Jackson and back to Greylan, “Thanks for not killing
me.”

Greylan frowns
and looks back to Jackson. The smug expression on his face tells
him all he needs to know. He asks, “That was planned, wasn’t
it?”

Innocently
Jackson states, “I had to know if you still had anything left.”

He adds, “I
told you yesterday, don’t waste my time.”

Greylan jokes,
“So is Jonesy the best you got?”

Jonesy smirks
and mutters, “Better watch it.”

Jackson shakes
his head, “Nope, you gotta work your way up.”

Jonesy
exclaims in an angry voice, “Oh that’s just great Jax, here I
thought you had some confidence in me.”

Jackson looks
to him and tells him, “Go get a shower Jonesy, you’ll feel
better.”

Greylan takes
it all in. He remembers training with Carlo years ago. They
frequented his basement but on occasion they made it to a local
gym. It was tiny, owned by an old friend of Carlo’s. There was
never any animosity there. Everyone had a goal they were working on
and it was understood. He never felt threatened when they went
there for practice matches. The atmosphere here reminds him of that
gym. He glances around at the crowd that is dispersing going back
to what they were doing and back to Jackson. He is busily pulling
down a rope in the corner that is attached to the high ceiling.
It’s all new but Greylan has a feeling he is going to like it
here.