I got a thrill when the fights turned intense, and found myself cheering for one fighter or the other. I even felt an electrifying jolt of morbid fascination when the third and penultimate fight resulted in both fighters getting so gorily bloody that they had to be rinsed off and wiped down between rounds, leaving shimmery, slick, red patches of blood in the trampled grass.
When the third fight finally ended after six punishing, slogging rounds, the strippers/dancers made a lewd, gyrating, provocative show of removing their bikini bottoms—which meant they would be dancing completely nude between the rounds of Baxter’s fight.
Which, strangely, didn’t bother me…until I began picturing them rubbing themselves all over him, at which point jealousy blasted hot and sudden through me. I stamped it out quickly, refusing to let it gain traction, but it stuck stubbornly in the pit of my belly.
After their dance, the women exited the arena, only to return, as I feared, accompanying Baxter as he approached the ring through a wild, cheering, screaming path through the gathered crowd, which had doubled in size throughout the course of the previous three fights. He was a bona fide local celebrity, it seemed, at least in the underground fighting world, and these plastic-breasted, heavily made-up, spray-tanned strippers were hanging on his arms and bouncing along beside him at each step as he swaggered through the crowd.
He had earbuds in, connected to his cell phone, clutched in his hand. His hoodie was off now, leaving his torso bare, rippling with muscle and gleaming with a sheen of sweat. His hands and forearms were wrapped in white tape from knuckles to mid forearm, and his face was closed down, hardened, focused. He was no longer Baxter, the sweet, confident, crude, thoughtful, attentive, and wildly sexy man I’d spent the last two days with; no, he was Basher now, the primal, brutal fighter, with fists like concrete blocks and abs of marble. His hair was tied back into a small bun, and he’d shaved the sides of his head.
Despite the naked strippers hanging on him, he was utterly focused on his approach to the ring, not even seeming to notice the girls. And, when he got to the ropes, he shrugged them off brusquely, ripped his earbuds out of his ears and tossed them with the phone to Zane, who caught them and stuffed them into his pocket.
Baxter ducked between the ropes and swaggered arrogantly into the center of the ring, raising his taped fists above his head as the crowd began chanting—Basher! Basher! Basher!His eyes raked around the crowd, settling on me, perched in my chair in the bed of the pickup truck, and he made a beeline straight for me, ducking back out from beneath the ropes and stomping across the grass to me.
The milling crowd between us parted for him like the Red Sea for Moses, and he reached the side of the truck, palmed the edge of the bed, and vaulted in a single lithe bound into the truck, palmed my face in his big hands, rough and scratchy from the tape. His thumbs grazed my cheekbones, and his lips slanted across mine, claiming a quick, searing kiss from me before leaping back out of the truck as easily as he’d jumped in, returning through the crowd to the ring.
Juarez was waiting for him by then, having entered to little fanfare, without the strippers and without the wild howling and chanting of the crowd, making Baxter easily the favorite.
A man in a three-piece suit entered the ring and stood between the two fighters. “WELCOME TO THE MAIN EVENT!” he boomed in a voice that needed no amplification, silencing the wild audience as he prepared to introduce the fighters. “You all know the boys fighting tonight: Basher, the undefeated and unstoppable face-battering sensation, and Antonio Juarez, hardened veteran of the underground circuit and a tough, proven fighter.” He turned to the fighters and addressed them. “We’re fighting clean tonight, boys. No gouging, no biting, no bone-breaking, just good clean MMA brutality.”
He paused for effect, surveying the crowd, which was growing restless.
“ARE YOU READY!” he bellowed.
To which the crowd promptly went berserk, screaming, some chanting “Basher!”, some chanting “Juarez!”, most just howling crazily.
The announcer pressed his palms to the chests of the two fighters, pushed them apart, then backed away and chopped his hand downward. “FIGHT!”
And then he exited the ring entirely, and the fight began.
I watched with my heart in my throat, my stomach twisting and fluttering, and excitement bubbling up inside me.
At least, until I felt a ripple of uneasiness flitter through me, prompting me to turn around to glance at the entrance to the field, where I saw four black SUVs and a black limousine enter at a barreling pace.
I didn’t know forsurewho was in that limousine, but the uneasiness in my gut gave me plenty of reason to have my suspicions.
Baxter saw them too, but Juarez was circling him by then, and he had to turn his focus to the fight.
Abruptly, Zane was squatting in the bed of the truck beside me. “Those newcomers look like trouble.”
“I think it’s my father. Although how they knew about this, or could even find this place I don’t even want to know.”
“What’s the play, here, Evangeline?” Zane eyed me carefully. “Your call.”
The crowd around the ring was manic and wild-eyed, pawing at the fighters whenever they inched too close to the ring’s ropes. “The crowd looks…unpredictable.”
Zane nodded. “Things look like they could get out of hand.”
“You have to watch Baxter’s back.” I felt the heavy hand of loathing pressing in on me. “I always knew they would end up finding me. I have to go.”
“Really? Doesn’t sound like you want to, though,” Zane remarked, eyeing me sidelong.
“I don’t. But…” I shrugged.
“It’s your life, your choice, Evangeline. Don’t let others choose for you.”
I sighed. “I wish it was that easy.”
He stood up in the truck bed, watching with hawklike eyes as the intensity of the crowd surged, until the air fairly shook with the energy and the volume. “I have to get over to the ring. Kevin’s got your back while you’re in the truck.”
