Page 42 of The Slayer
The cage doors opened, and Clay, Wyatt, and Jasper, one of Chuito’s other coaches, ran in. They all piled on him and hugged him. Chuito looked a little shocked, sort of like Alaine felt, just thunderstruck that it was over. That he had won.
There was so much chaos in the aftermath, but Alaine didn’t see it.
She burst into tears instead.
All the fear. All the hope. It all flowed out of her as she slid off the couch and sobbed there alone for Chuito. For what he had achieved. She cried through his octagon interview, where the announcer told everyone that the entire island of Puerto Rico had shut down for his fight, and all Chuito could say about that was, “Gracias, esto fue para mis Boricuas.” He looked to the camera and grinned, showing off his dimples, and actually yelled into the mic, “Weeepa!”
The interviewer asked, “This is a big win. You trained hard. What does it mean to you to be the champion?”
“It means, uh, a lot. Not for myself, for the other people who helped me. I did it for them. It’s not for me. It’s for them. I won for them.” Chuito smiled again, those dimples making him look so handsome. Then he took off the black UFC hat that he was wearing and rubbed a hand over his head that was shaved down to black stubble. The action made him look humble in a way the other fighter didn’t. All the more so when he said, “It was for my brother. For my tiá. Maybe they were watching over me.” He hit his chest as he said it, touching the tattoo over his heart. “For my mother. My cousin Marc.” He lifted an eyebrow at the camera. “My bros in Miami. My bros at the Cellar.” He turned around and reached out to Wyatt, clasping his hand quickly before he turned back to the camera and said, “It was for you too, mami.”
More tears ran down Alaine’s face, because it felt like he was talking directly to her. He didn’t say her name. He didn’t have to. She knew he was talking to her.
Then the moment was over as Chuito finished with, “¡Y fue para Puerto Rico!”
It wasn’t the last thing Chuito had to say throughout the night. He did another postgame interview, this time wearing dark sunglasses to hide the cut over his right eye. His black UFC hat was pulled low on his forehead, making him almost look normal, rather than battered and bruised.
The other fighter was surprisingly gracious in his defeat.
Just as Chuito was humble with his win.
Not all fights ended like that. Some fighters were cruel and cocky in the aftermath. Chuito wasn’t one of them. He was genuinely likable in the limelight, though Alaine knew he would argue with her if she told him that.
All she could think about as she watched it was his promise that it was for her too. It felt like it meant something. Like he was going to stay here, and maybe, just maybe, they could be more than neighbors and friends who had sleepovers more often than not.
Chapter Fourteen
Las Vegas, Nevada
March 2011
Chuito had eighty-seven missed calls when he finally got a moment in the locker room. The noise was still crazy, but he managed to pull away when Wyatt started running his mouth with a postfight breakdown.
Those cameras just fucking loved Wyatt, with his hickisms, big mouth, and bigger ego. Chuito left him to it and stood in a corner, looking at the phone in his hand when it started ringing again.
He picked it up with a grin and held it to his ear, wincing even before the shout reached him, because he knew it was coming.
“WEEEEEEEEEEEEPA!”
“Ay, Marc.” Chuito groaned, though he was still grinning. “I got a headache.”
“Weeepa!” Marcos shouted in response, because the noise was deafening on his end too. “Suck it up, chica! Suck it up and let me scream at you! My cousin just became a world fucking champion!”
Chuito laughed when the entire room erupted in chaos along with Marcos, but he couldn’t help but ask, “Where are you?”
“Don’t worry about where I am. Talk to your mother.”
Chuito lowered his head, because he knew where his mother and Marcos had gone to watch the fight, and it wasn’t at a bar.
“Que emoción,” his mother said in a singsong voice. “I’m proud of you.”
“Wow.” Chuito raised his eyebrows at that, because he didn’t hear it too often in his life. “Proud enough to let me buy you a house?”
“That proud,” she agreed, and he could hear the smile in her voice before she got louder, making it obvious she was talking to others instead of him. “Myneneis gonna buy me a house!” The entire room screamed again, as if every gangster in that room knew just what a feat that was for Chuito to achieve. His mother was laughing as she said to him, “A big house with nice furniture and a nice car and nice clothes.”
“All that?” Chuito was sort of impressed with himself. “All I had to do was almost get my ass kicked on national television.”
“Almost,” she agreed. “Next time. First round. I don’t like watching that, chico. Took too long.”
