So Nathan had opted for distraction and had gone out. Maybe it would do him some good. A few hours staring at sweaty, grunting men pummeling each other for the fun and skill of it sounded like a winning strategy for not thinking about the approaching engagement party, Laura, work, lies, deals, or drugs. Maybe he could even find a seriously dark alleyway to get blown or—
Nathan mentally punched himself and almost swerved off the road. What the hell was
wrong
with him? He was never this careless, not even in his own head. He needed a grip, and he needed one now.
Navigating the gravel parking lot situated beneath the interstate overpass proved entertaining. By the time he got to a free space, Nathan was taking deep breaths to control the shakes. It was like he was sitting on top of a volcano ready to erupt and ruin his life—what little of it there actually was. He couldn’t let that happen. Not yet.
Across the street, people streamed into the Bass building. Tractor trailers and traffic rumbled overhead. The pallid glow of safety lights lit up most of this lot and the one next to the building. An SUV pulled in to park next to Nathan, and a gaggle of women with the exact same color of bottle blonde hair climbed out. They adjusted their clothing and crossed the street with cries of excited conversation. Nathan sighed. God, he was tired.
It was a clear and unseasonably cold night. Nathan’s breath fogged, and he was grateful he’d picked a thin sweater to wear under his leather jacket. He shrugged deeper into his coat, locking the car and tucking the keys into the pocket of his jeans. He crossed the street, getting blinded by headlights, and he was reaching for his phone to text Paul when he heard his friend shout his name. Paul stood with a brunette under one arm and Kayleigh from the sales floor under the other. Paul was smiling like he’d won the Best Pig Prize at the fair, and Nathan had to struggle not to pivot and bolt.
“Hey, man,” Paul said when Nathan got within conversation distance. Paul withdrew his arm from around the brunette, who was probably at least out of high school, and Nathan shook Paul’s hand. “Didn’t think you’d make it.”
“Tried to go the wrong way down a one-way street,” Nathan said.
“Yeah, I hate that shit,” Paul said amiably.
Kayleigh slithered closer, and Nathan retreated a few steps. “Didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.
“No?” Kayleigh laughed. “Paul texted, said he had four tickets to the fights tonight, and you and he were going. Did I have a friend, did I want to join, and so here we are.”
“Awesome,” Nathan said.
“Um, can we go inside?” asked the brunette. She gave Nathan a hesitant smile. “It’s freezing.”
“Sure, sure,” Paul said. “Sorry. Nathan? Sarah. Sarah? Nathan.”
“Hi,” Sarah said, shivering in her heels and skintight jeans. She was cute, with long curls and a heart-shaped face.
“Hey. Here.” Nathan unzipped his jacket and hung it across Sarah’s shoulders.
Sarah’s smile grew genuine. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” Nathan shrugged.
“Aw, such a gentleman,” Kayleigh crooned, squeezing Nathan’s forearm.
“Yeah. The fiancée seems to like it,” Nathan said pointedly.
“You’re engaged?” Sarah asked.
“Yeah. I am.”
“Oh.” Sarah frowned at Kayleigh, clearly confused. “Cool. How nice for you.”
Kayleigh huffed a sigh. “Come on, guys. Sarah’s right. It’s freakin’ cold out here!”
Wondering how long he’d have to stay to make a good show of effort, Nathan trudged along with the others. Paul exchanged their tickets for a set of hand stamps, and Nathan spent the time it took to get to their seats fantasizing about gyrating bodies and a high that obliterated reality.
The interior of the Bass building was one big, open room. In the light of day, Nathan thought it’d look like the shell of a war-bombed warehouse. Tonight, though, there were vendors along the back wall, and the smell of hot dogs and grease made Nathan’s stomach growl. There were booths and tables with posters and merchandise. There was a news team setting up, and other cameras were placed around the room.
Their seats were affixed with laminated letters and numbers. There were four groups of chairs arranged around the fighter’s ring, which wasn’t circular at all but a six-sided stage raised a few feet off the ground and surrounded by a black platform. In the center of the stage was a round white mat. The entire ring was enclosed by a mesh cage; it looked like chain link to Nathan. That had to hurt when one got thrown into it. There was a swinging doorway cut into one side of the cage for fighters to enter.
Nathan didn’t know much about fighting. WFC, MMA, MDMA, MOMA…whatever. He had been to a few events but didn’t know all the rules, though he knew kicking the opponent in the nuts was outside the realm of polite. Other than that, two men went at each other, got into poses and holds that were remarkably sexual, and it was over when somebody tapped out or time got called. Tonight it looked like there would be five matches, each with three five-minute rounds. Or so Nathan assumed from the information on a massive blackboard leaning against a wall next to the stage.
“Your guy’s up fourth,” Paul said, tossing his coat onto his chair. The girls took the seats between Nathan and Paul.
“Your guy?” Sarah asked. She took off Nathan’s coat and handed it back to him.
Paul grinned. “Nathan’s a Fury fan.”
“Who isn’t?” Kayleigh asked. “The guy’s amazing.”
“C’mon.” Paul nudged Nathan toward the aisle. “Let’s get a beer. Ladies?”
“We’ll have what you’re having,” Kayleigh said.
Drink orders taken, Nathan and Paul got in line at one of the vendor stands. “Hey, man, we cool?” Paul asked.
“Say what?” Nathan asked Paul, holding up two fingers to the guy behind the stand. “Beer, please. Bud’ll do.”
“I dunno. You said you didn’t want to bring Laura, so I thought…you know.”
“That I’d want to hang out with your piece of sales-floor ass and her preteen sister?”
“Hey, Sarah’s in college.”
“Which means she’s too old for you, huh?”
“And definitely not her sister,” Paul continued, ignoring Nathan.
Nathan grunted and shook his head. “Don’t know how you do it. Sleep your way through everything south of forty with a set of C-cups or better and still manage the role of family man.”
Paul paid for his beers. “Some of us are talented.”
Nathan snorted. Paul wouldn’t last a day trying to maintain the fiction Nathan did on an hourly basis.
Paul shoved change into his wallet and seemed stricken with a moment of real conscience. “Seriously. You cool?”
“It’s fine.” Nathan hoped the answer didn’t sound as fake to Paul as it did to himself. “I’m just here for the fight.”
“Good.” Paul started heading back to their seats. “’Cause last thing I need is you flipping out and ruining my chances of getting laid.”
“My life’s goal was always to be your wingman.”
“I know, right?” Paul asked with a grin, and Nathan rolled his eyes.
They got back, handed out the beer, and Nathan made idle small talk with Sarah. She was sweet as well as cute, and she was nice enough to let the chitchat dwindle into silence when they ran out of weather observations.
A short while later, the lights dimmed. An announcer climbed onto the platform around the mat. A ref ducked into the cage, the announcer’s microphone came to life, and he started working up the crowd. He addressed each section, had them stand or cheer or yell an answer back to his questions. Nathan played along. The announcer had a booming voice that Nathan couldn’t really understand, and it got worse as the catcalls and screams got louder and louder until they practically vibrated the very walls.
The first two fighters entered on the far side of the room. When the audience rose to its feet, Nathan did too. There were still plenty of empty seats, and Nathan had a clear view of the men entering the cage. Men in all black flanked the stage. The judges, Nathan assumed. Women appeared, wearing skintight black leather minishorts, jackets, and heels. The girls got signs and began circling. One side of the signs had the fighters’ names and stats. On the other was a single word: SCREAM.
The ref bellowed, and a bullhorn went off like a siren. The fighters took their marks, the ref yelled “Set!” to each man, and the first round began. Since Nathan didn’t know the contestants, he watched the crowd more than the action. Slowly but surely the Bass building crept toward capacity. As everybody shoved their way inside and began obeying the leather girls’ signs with increasingly drunken enthusiasm, Nathan’s own excitement climbed on a lazy incline. It was infectious—the rippling emotions in the sea of people— and as the night wore on and the fighting threw down, he was even happy he’d decided to come. He ducked out during the second match to grab a hot dog and more beer, and by the end of the third match, he was well on his way to pleasantly buzzed. He didn’t even mind the way Sarah clung to his arm, tugged on his sleeve, and grinned up at him with big, hopeful eyes.
When the announcer began the introductions for the fourth match, Nathan thought the roar was going to take the roof off the building. Fury might not be the main attraction, but he had serious crowd support. There wasn’t a single person sitting when Fury entered, and Nathan turned just as Fury came down the aisle, stalking toward the cage. Fury wore red shorts and shoes, and Nathan was close enough that he felt the air stir as Fury went by.
Fury climbed onto the stage and stepped inside of the cage. His opponent, another heavyweight who went by the name Stomper, bounded down a different aisle. Stomper was paler, shorter, and meatier than Fury, with a close-shaven skull and cauliflower ears. A few people yelled for Stomper, but cries and chants for Fury had already begun and were gaining volume, and the fighting hadn’t even started.
“Have you seen him before?” Sarah yelled, pointing in Fury’s direction.
Nathan shook his head, wishing that he had, in fact, seen much more of Fury and willing himself to get completely lost in the here and now. The fighters hopped around, rolled their necks, put in mouth guards, and Nathan’s heart started thudding with sympathy adrenaline. He couldn’t tear his gaze off Fury, who appeared calm and ready. His bare upper body was mesmerizing, the tattoo ink gleaming in the spotlights. Nathan’s cock stirred, and he ached like he’d not gotten any in years.
“Fury’s gonna take that guy
down
!” Paul yelled.
When the contestants came to the middle of the mat and bumped fists, the crowd went from uncontrolled enthusiasm to unbridled anticipation. Nathan’s heart was in his throat, his ears were ringing, and he thought it was beautiful when Fury bowed to the other fighter. The ref waved them to their lines, barked, “Set,” and jerked his arm forward, then back to signal the beginning of the round. Nathan held his breath, and the noise in the room seemed to get sucked out in a vacuum.
Fury moved like a thunderstorm embodied. He circled slowly, looming and sliding to miss Stomper’s testing jabs and kicks. Then Fury’s fists flew out of nowhere. One second, they were close to his body, and the next they were ramming into Stomper’s flesh, strike after lightning strike. Nathan had no idea how a guy that big danced, ducked, and dodged in such a blur, but Fury’s opponent didn’t have a chance. Stomper landed a few blows that didn’t even slow Fury down, and a mere moment later, Fury had Stomper on the ground. They rolled and spun, each man grappling for a hold. The ref bent and roamed with them, checking for fouls. Nathan didn’t know he was leaping and bellowing until his beer sloshed onto his hand. He screamed and pumped his fist, his own voice sounding far away.
Stomper tapped out at four minutes forty seconds. When Fury got up and prowled away from Stomper, Nathan’s triumph was sexual. He was half hard, breathing fast, and he drained the dregs of his beer as the fighters took their minute break. The judges declared the round a ten-eight, and the announcer stirred the crowd into a frenzy.
The next two rounds were ten-sevens, which meant, from what Nathan had learned, that Fury decimated Stomper without breaking a sweat. Paul let out a war cry and picked up Kayleigh, both of them cheering. Sarah grabbed Nathan’s arm, and they grinned at each other, but Nathan’s gaze swung back to Fury like a magnet seeking its opposite charge. Fury lifted an arm, but that was it for celebrating. He bowed again to Stomper, who was getting a cut swabbed by a medic; then Fury ducked out of the cage. Security flanked him, and Fury strode up the same aisle from which he’d entered, flinching away from the hands outstretched to touch him. He kept his head and eyes down, and this time the air in his wake was tinted with sweat, blood, and musk. Nathan gulped, staring after Fury until he had disappeared into darkness.
“God, he is so awesome!” Sarah yelled, pressing against Nathan’s side.
Fury was awesome. All-consuming and awesome. Mesmerizing and… intoxicating. Nathan tingled all over. He held up his empty beer cup to Sarah. “More?”
“Sure!”
Nathan dashed up the aisle and told himself it wasn’t in the hope of seeing one final glimpse of Fury. The fighter was nowhere to be found anyway, so Nathan went through the motions of standing in line and buying drinks. It seemed like it took forever until he was making his way back to his seat. The final match was setting up, but Nathan felt oddly hollow, like the excitement had gotten poured into him and then scraped out with a dull knife. He didn’t care about the last round. The show was already over. Fury was done and gone, and without Fury to look forward to, the rest of the night paled to unimportance. Flashes of Nathan’s life flickered in his head; the pins and needles of his brain waking up.
He handed over Sarah’s beer, and he saw her mouth
thank you
, but he didn’t hear her. Nathan’s ears were full of cotton. His guts lurched, and desperation reached out and clamped his nuts. He was totally alone in a crowded room. He wanted to run, toward the parking lot, a new high, Fury, toward anything but where he was, but he knew if he started running, he might never stop.
Sitting down, Nathan gulped his beer in long swallows. The announcer’s voice rattled around inside Nathan’s skull. Sarah tugged on his arm, and he let her pull him to his feet. She babbled, Paul made out with Kayleigh, and Nathan thought he might be having a panic attack. His skin felt tight, he was sweating, and his heart was in danger of ripping out of his chest at any second and flopping around like a dead fish on the concrete floor. It was all fun and games until somebody needed the emergency room. Nathan’s anxiety went into overdrive. He had to get the hell out.