Raw Deal

  “I know, but I can’t promise that. The last thing you or I need on our conscience right now is knowing my brother messed with her head, or worse, and we set it all in motion.”

  “We can set it in motion, but whatever she decides to do is on her. Same with us all.”

  “How about you ask her what she wants? Go see her. Take her to lunch. Something. Whatever his motives, Zane wants to see her again. Let her know that, and let her decide.” She drew a deep breath, and he saw on her face how much the thought of facing Rowan alone scared her. “She said some pretty harsh shit to you, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah. I can’t blame her, but I don’t want to hear it again. I guess that seems cowardly to someone like you.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Words hit harder than fists ever will.”

  Savannah stared up at him as seconds ticked by, then shuffled the last couple of steps toward him, letting her umbrella fall with a clatter and putting both arms around him. He held her as her head rested on his chest. “It’ll be okay, sweetheart,” he murmured, then turned to look at the ornamental structure where Tommy and his ancestors rested.

  There aren’t many things I can do for you, man, he thought, hoping that wherever he was, Tommy could hear him. But if I have anything to say about it, you don’t have to worry about this one.

  They walked the wet streets of the French Quarter hand-in-hand, where the weather had done little to chase people indoors. Savannah brightened considerably, he noticed, and it brightened him in turn to see her smile. This emotional roller-coaster ride would eventually end for her. He doubted she had much to worry about anymore in the way of her family staying angry with her. What he’d seen at the cemetery was three people ready to move on . . . maybe he could finally count himself among them.

  She insisted on getting the beignets this time. He fought, but eventually submitted to her intimidating stare-down, joking that she was scary and he would be glad to show her a move or two if she ever wanted to fight.

  “Hell, no!” she gasped in astonishment as they sat. “The thought of hitting another person makes me physically nauseated.”

  “You never got in any schoolyard scraps?” he asked with a grin, and stuffed his mouth with decadent pastry and powdered sugar, thinking Jon would disown him before long.

  She shook her head adamantly. “No. Never.”

  “Never fought some other chick over a guy or—”

  “Another chick being in the picture at all was always my cue to run.”

  “If only some of the girls I fought over could have been as smart as you.”

  Smiling, she leaned over to wipe away a bit of powdered sugar from the side of his mouth, then licked it off the tip of her thumb, holding his gaze. “Or maybe you should have been smart enough not to fight over them.”

  “Touché.”

  “Still, I guess I wouldn’t object to you showing me a hold,” she told him with a wink.

  “Oh, yeah?” Noticing a speck of white at the corner of her mouth, he leaned closer and returned her earlier favor, only he kissed away her smudge of sugar. “I’ll hold you all night, baby.”

  “Mmm. Just don’t make me tap out,” she murmured against his lips.

  They walked more, flirted, laughed. Kissed. Listened to street music, shopped in the shops. She showed him Marie Laveau’s tomb in the Saint Louis Cemetery. And since the beignets hadn’t exactly counted as lunch, they grabbed some po’boy sandwiches on the way back to her apartment.

  Mike hadn’t been on top of checking his cell phone all day. And it was just as he expected when he plucked the device from his bag—Jon and his training partners had been blowing it up. But there was another missed call that made his eyebrows draw together: his manager, Brad Eastman.

  It wasn’t unlike him to check in occasionally. They had to make a decision about his future in the business at some point, because the speculation was still rampant. Mike had disappeared from social media, from public appearances; he’d basically gone into hiding, not giving interviews since the immediate aftermath of Tommy’s demise. He’d hoped that tactic would make the press forget about him, but instead, it only whipped them into a frenzy when Tommy was who they should be remembering.

  Savannah turned on the TV while they sat down on her couch to eat, and he set his phone aside, deciding to enjoy her company and deal with it later. She was flipping through the channels while he took a bite of his sandwich when she passed ESPN, where on the screen next to the anchor was an image of Frank Meyers, current AF heavyweight champ, facing off with challenger David Anderson.

  “Wait,” he said, as she clicked past it. “Go back.”

  “Oh, sorry.” She did so.

  “ . . . know the extent of Anderson’s injury,” the anchor was saying, “but it’s enough for him to pull from his AF Mayhem match with Franklin Meyers in a month. Meyers, however, says he’s ready to fight anyone, anytime.”

  Then flashed Meyers’s ugly mug at a press conference, talking his usual rapid-fire stream of never-ending shit to whomever his new opponent would be. “Doesn’t matter who they get, if they can get anyone, if anyone’s even ready,” he snapped into the microphone in his face. “I’ll take ’em out in two minutes, they’re jokes, and they’ll be hiding. No one trains harder, no one hits harder, and no one goes to the ground better than me—”

  “Ah, fuck that asshole,” Mike grumbled, going back to his sandwich. “Change it, I can’t stand to listen to him talk.”

  Savannah laughed and continued in her quest for something to entertain them, chattering about shows she liked and didn’t, while Mike suddenly froze mid-chew. One thought burned white hot at the front of his mind, eclipsing all else. Fuck. Could it be?

  He forced the bite down his throat and jumped to his feet, practically cutting Savannah off in the middle of what she was saying. “Hey, babe, give me a second,” he said, snatching his phone up and heading to her bedroom. “Sorry, I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay,” she said affably, popping a chip in her mouth as he closed the door.

  For a moment, he simply stood staring at the phone in his hand.

  There was probably a reason Brad had called him.

  Scrubbing a hand over his head, he hit his name in contacts and waited. It didn’t take long.

  “Mikey,” Brad greeted in his big, booming voice, obviously on speaker phone. Yeah. He only called him Mikey when something was on the table. He could picture him now, kicked back in his executive chair with his feet on his desk, his whole king of the world thing in full effect. “Where ya been? I tried Jon, he said you were AWOL.”

  “Hey, man. Decided to get out of town for a few. What’s up?”

  Brad didn’t believe in beating around the bush. “Listen up. Anderson is out of the title fight at Mayhem next month. He tore his rotator cuff in training and needs surgery.”

  “I just saw it on TV.”

  “So I gather you know why I’ve been trying to reach you. We need to make a decision, Mike. You can get this fight. Your name’s already been thrown out there as a possible replacement—hell, son, you’re trending on Twitter. With all that buzz, Meyers is eating it up. It’s only a month to prepare, though. Can you do it?”

  Of course that asshole was eating it up. He’d probably had Mike in mind when he made those comments to the press. The thought made his blood begin a slow boil. “I thought we said laying low was the plan,” he said, but his heart was picking up speed, the old itch creeping through his veins. Well, hello, my old friend, he thought wryly, it’s been a while. Jesus Christ, if anyone was going to get a shot at closing Frank Meyers’s big fucking mouth . . .

  And for the title this time.

  “It still is the plan, if that’s what you want. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it for you, it’ll probably be a PR nightmare, and you’ll be off on a whirlwind of promotional shit. But you can either keep hiding out, or you can come back and show ʼem what you’re made of, kid. It’s up to you, you’re the boss. If you can come
out holding that belt high, Mike . . . I think it’ll make it all worth it for you. I know you can do it, but I need to know if you know it, and I need to know today.”

  He stared blindly at the door, on the other side of which sat the woman whose one hang-up seemed to be his chosen career.

  “It’s in Mexico City,” Mike said, thinking out loud. He hadn’t let himself go; he was still in good shape. Jon’s philosophy of “stay ready so you don’t have to get ready” forever at play. But a month . . . Yeah, he would have some work to do. A lot of work, if he was going to have time to engage in the promo circus AF would demand: press conferences, interviews, shooting the commercials, all the while training to peak condition, cutting the weight Jon wanted, and then fighting someone he’d never beaten. At a high-altitude venue.

  “It is. And if you agree to it, we’re off to New York as soon as we can catch a plane to meet with the Reid.” Being the Reid Downing, president of Attack Force. “You know they’ll want a press conference as soon as the ink is dry.”

  Of course they would. Shit. Was he dreaming? To think he’d opened his eyes this morning with a gorgeous woman in his arms and an entire day of not a damn thing planned. He wouldn’t mind waking up like that every morning from now on. “Brad . . . I didn’t tell you this, but I had retiring heavy on my mind.”

  “Mike, listen.” There was a click, and then Brad’s voice suddenly seemed closer, clearer; he’d taken him off the speaker. “Think about the long term. If that’s the way you want to go out, no one would blame you. I damn sure wouldn’t. But you didn’t do anything wrong. There’s no reason to throw in the towel on your career because of an accident. I know you know that, you’ve just gotta get it straight in your head. Now, if you want my input, and I hope you do . . . either take this opportunity to have your comeback, because you might not get a bigger or better chance, or take it to announce your retirement now. Don’t dick around your fans who’ve been with you from the start.”

  Mike picked at the rumpled sheet on Savannah’s bed, still unmade from their lovemaking this morning. A month, he thought. A month without her. And probably forever without her, if she decided she couldn’t deal with him stepping back in the game.

  “But personally,” Brad went on, “I say the iron is still hot, so let’s strike. Let’s cement your future, Mike. Train your ass off. Go these five rounds, these twenty-five minutes, with that big-mouth prick, see how it feels, and make your decision then.”

  Because retiring after a third loss to Meyers wouldn’t give the asshole something to gloat about from now until the end of fucking time.

  But I won’t lose. I can’t lose. I can’t go in thinking about losing, or I’m done before I start. The old adage he’d lived by for years.

  “Hey, think about it if you need to. I know it’s a lot to swallow. But like I said, let me know before the day is out, because this opportunity won’t be there for long. You aren’t the only name on the table.”

  “I didn’t figure I was,” Mike told him. “I’ll call you back in a few hours.”

  Then he sat numbly, staring at the hardwood floor, wondering what the hell he was going to say to that sweet smiling face on the other side of the door. That everything he’d said to her about retiring had been bullshit all along? That he’d taken her to bed knowing his fighting was her kryptonite, but he hadn’t given a shit?

  He realized he was already thinking about it as if the fight were already set. On impulse, he dialed Jon, who answered with frantic concern over Mike’s whereabouts and excitement over the news of him possibly taking Anderson’s place on the main card at Mayhem. “We got this, baby,” Jon told him with a fervor that bordered on ecstasy. “This is the one we’ve been waiting for.”

  “I haven’t said yes yet,” Mike pointed out.

  “I’m here for you. Whatever you need. You want to spend the month in Mexico City training in the altitude, we’re there. We won’t stop.”

  “Yeah, Jon, it’s a month. A month when I’ll be doing as much press as training. I don’t know if it’s enough time, and yeah, I know that’s my own fault for slacking off, but—”

  “I’ll be with you every step of the way. Let’s go after this asshole hard. Set it, Mike. We can get it done.”

  There was an awful lot of we, we, we coming out of Brad and Jon’s mouths, but Mike would be the only one of them getting his face kicked in four weeks from now.

  If he had really made up his mind, why was he arguing so hard against it?

  “All right,” he told him. “I just wanted to see what you thought given my conditioning right now.”

  “I say we’re good to go. Lay down the carbs, boy, go have your meeting, and then we’re getting down and dirty.”

  Oh, God. He hurt just thinking about it. “See you soon,” he said, and hung up.

  He didn’t have to call his brothers to ask what they thought. They would both be cheering him on. There was only one person who wouldn’t be, he thought, and he couldn’t hide out in her bedroom forever.

  Chapter Twenty

  She was sure he hadn’t realized how thin her walls and doors were. It wasn’t that she’d meant to eavesdrop; there was simply no way not to hear what he’d been saying. His voice was deep, and it carried.

  Savannah sat staring at the half of her sandwich that remained untouched, trying to deal with the sick feeling churning in the pit of her stomach.

  The Meyers fight. Mexico City. A month from now. The words swirled in her head, a maelstrom of pain and fear following them, chasing out any of the good feelings he’d given her these past few hours. She’d begun to put the pieces together after the ESPN report had triggered his escape into her bedroom.

  All conversations had ended in there now, given the silence, but he wasn’t coming out. She got to her feet, feeling shaky and weak, and moved to the French doors that led onto her little Bourbon Street balcony. There was a small bistro table with a couple of chairs out there, and she sat there now, watching the tourists stroll the street. A horse-drawn carriage clattered by, the people inside laughing along with their tour guide. Probably headed for a stop at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop for a hurricane. She could use one herself, had hoped they might go for one later.

  Five or so minutes passed, and he stepped out on the balcony with her, his handsome features tight and closed off. Even those full lips were in drawn into a grim line, and a hard, steely determination had seeped into his eyes. The Michael who had emerged from her bedroom bore little resemblance to the man who had gone in twenty minutes ago.

  This man looked like the one who had stepped into the cage with Tommy.

  But his dangerous expression somehow drew even more attention to that dangerous body, and she had to suck in a breath and tear her gaze away before she began to hyperventilate from her racing heart. Without speaking, he pulled the other chair from the table and dropped into it, lacing his fingers across his flat abs and glaring at the buildings across the street.

  “I take it you heard,” he said finally, when an unbearable silence had stretched out.

  “I didn’t mean to. My walls are thin.” She hated the way her voice trembled. “What happened to retiring?”

  “It’s a title shot. I told you from the start I hadn’t decided what I was going to do yet.”

  “And this decided you.”

  “Well, it’s a pretty damn big incentive. It was something I never expected to come along, especially now.”

  “It’s up to you, though, right? You don’t have to take it.”

  “No, I don’t have to.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “Savannah,” he began patiently—at least, she forced herself to think he was being patient, because she wouldn’t be able to handle him being patronizing—“this is what I do. It’s the path I chose, and I have to think long term. It will be a damn good payday, and I have to plan for the rest of my life here, you know? I’m not like you or your brother, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and I won’t
be able to climb in the cage and throw hands when I’m sixty. You see fighters years after their careers are over, washed up, broke . . . that can’t be me. I won’t let it be. I have to be smart and take any opportunities that come my way, because they won’t always be there.”

  “But if you get hurt or worse, what about the rest of your life then? I hear what you’re saying, Michael, I even realize that I’m probably being irrational, but . . . this scares me so much. And you know it does, and you don’t care. That’s what I can’t wrap my mind around right now. I know we haven’t been together for very long, but I thought what was happening here meant something.”

  “It does. It means so much, Savannah, you mean so much.”

  But this means more, she thought. It was a cruel truth she would have to live with if she wanted a life with him. It would be unreasonable to expect him to throw an entire career away over a woman he’d only known a couple of months.

  “When we were in your kitchen that night,” she said, tracing the iron patterns of her bistro table, “you told me we have to seek solace wherever we can find it. I had the thought that my solace was you. If you do this . . . you can’t be my solace anymore. There’s too much hurt, too much grief, tied up in what you do. I can’t see through it. I would live in constant fear for you.”

  “But you shouldn’t, baby.” He reached across the table to put a hand over hers.

  “I know I shouldn’t,” she snapped, “but I would all the same.”

  Maybe this was the sign she’d needed. How fucking tragic that it had come just when she thought things might be smoothing out somewhat with her parents and Rowan. Like fate had stepped in and kicked her in the head while she was struggling to get to her feet. Boom! Ha-ha, got you, you dumbass. You were thinking you could have him after all, but you still can’t.

  “It’s a chance I’ll just have to take,” he said at last, glaring out at the street again. The clouds above were breaking into a clear blue, the wet street and sidewalks glistening in the golden light of early evening. “The risk has always been there, the same way it’s there for everybody. I know you had a bad experience, but it’s so rare, darlin’. I’m good, and I’m careful.”