Page 64 of Liar & Champion
I flashed him a smile then sat down in time to see the fight begin. I’d seen Beastie fight before, but I’d always stepped in before he really got going. Except for that one time when he had his friends hold me back so he could teach the guy who had dared grope me a very thorough lesson. I was so mad, him using me to indulge in his favorite addiction. Violence. I wanted to march right out there into that ring surrounded by millions of bloodthirsty fans and stop him, but no way I’d make it without someone stopping me first.
The opponent was in red shorts, and he came at Beastie from the back, throwing a low punch to get his kidneys. I gasped and gripped the couch, but Beastie spun around, dodging the blow and delivering a punch to his face that whipped the guy’s head back, throwing off his whole trajectory.
“Don’t worry,” Tom said, crossing his arms. “These guys know what they’re doing. Most of it is for show.”
“Oh. I see.” What a stupid reason to do something, so that the audience could cheer for blood.
“Not that they aren’t capable fighters, but this is about making it look good for the audience.”
I nodded then gulped as the other guy pounded on Beastie until my friend was against the ropes. After that, I closed my eyes and only opened them when a guy came in with food. Tom got a plate while my stomach roiled around. I hadn’t had anything since the pink lemonade, but I wasn’t about to eat while Beastie was getting the crap beat out of him. Wasn’t he better than this?
“He’s not very good, is he?” I said, swallowing down nausea.
“Who, blondie? It’s his first public fight, and that’s Bulldog’s favorite to initiate the new and cocky. Blondie’s got to earn the right to winning, pay for it in blood.”
“How enlightened and logical,” I muttered, before I took deep breaths through my nostrils. “How long will this fight last?”
“Fifteen more minutes. Do you want some nachos? What about some steamed vegetables? There’s quite a spread here.”
I shook my head and kept watching my friend get the crap beat out of him. The bell would ring, and they’d take breaks, but seriously, Beastie wasn’t pretty anymore, and the other guy had hardly a mark on him.
“This is the last round,” Tom said, and then the bell rang, and the psycho came out of my bestie. Not just psycho, those were skilled moves that he’d learned from all his boxing club days. He broke the other guy, no longer pretty, but relishing in the blood, sweat, pain, like a true psychopath.
“That’s unexpected,” Tom said while I stood up and made my way to the door. “Where are you going?” he asked, following me out.
“I need some fresh air. I guess that fight was a little intense for me. Is it this way?” I turned left at the next corner, and Tom followed me, hurrying to keep up.
“I guess it was a bit of a shocker, but you never know how it’s going to go with fresh blood. Sometimes they crumble, and sometimes they come up with fire in their eyes.”
Or madness. “Oh, look, a bathroom. I’m going to duck in here and check my makeup. I’ll be right out.” I walked in while Tom frowned after me.
“There’s a restroom in the box,” he called after me, but I kept walking, right into the long bathroom past all the stalls and straight out through the doorway on the other side. I didn’t need Tom for this part. Nope. I’d checked the layout of the place and thanks to Tom putting me in such a convenient box, the timing was perfect.
I was in Beastie’s changing room when he came in, so I could grab his ear and stab his face with a needle.
“What the…” He put his arms up when he saw it was me, but I couldn’t tell what expression he had, because his face was such a mess.
“And that you came to Las Vegas but didn’t bother to visit me!? What kind of friend are you? And you didn’t tell me about the fight, but of course you wouldn’t, because you know exactly how stupid this kind of thing is. Why did you do it? Your brains are more valuable than a million dollars. Did you win? You better have won, otherwise it would be a complete waste,” I said, digging in my bra for more medication while dragging him by the ear to the nearest chair.
He sat down and I straddled his legs, working on his face with my best drugs. Was he smiling? He was. Such an idiot. “I won. You didn’t watch the end? It was a good ending. I knocked him out with one— Ouch! Sunshine, you say you don’t like to see me get hurt, but then you stab me in the tenderest part of my nose?—”
“Hold this,” I said, taking my ice pack out of my purse and pressing it too hard on his broken nose. “I can’t believe Trevor wasn’t lying. And you never texted me back.”
“I didn’t get your text. Trevor’s in town? He saw you? Did he hurt you?” He grabbed my wrist while I was trying to clean out the cut around his eye so he could look at me.
I rolled my eyes. “Trevor? He’s not a violent meathead like you.” I thumped his chest where he had a really good bruise developing. I sighed heavily and then injected it with my favorite anti-bruiser.
“He does fight. How do you think we met? He actually beat me pretty good, but I was distracted.”
“No, you were distracted by fighting. Whatever else you were thinking about was a million times more important. Unless it was Stina’s breasts.” I wrinkled my nose at him.
He rolled his bloodshot eyes. One was positively nasty looking. “You’ve got to get over that.”
“I’m totally over it. If I wanted perfect breasts, I’d buy them. I don’t want to be with someone so incredibly superficial, anyway. It’s a blessing to be imperfect when—” He covered my mouth with his hands and stared at my face like he did sometimes, like I was an extreme curiosity.
“You know, Sunshine, it’s really good to see you.”
I stopped struggling because in spite of the bleeding and the bruising and the drama, it was really good to see him, too. I hadn’t seen him all summer, and then only for a few hours before that in the spring. He uncovered my mouth and touched my face, the top of my lip, brushing it like he was fixing my lipstick when I knew for a fact that the high quality stuff didn’t drift. I could make out with him for five hours and it would still be in place.
