It is a rather odd direction for her to go, given she has no idea who I am beyond my name and that I’ve been in a fight very, very recently.
“Not without gloves,” Ash says. “So?”
“No,” I tell her. “Clean and healthy, that’s me.”
“Okay,” Ash says. “Come on.”
She turns and starts walking.
Jana and I just look at each other a for a few seconds.
“Your friend’s kind of weird,” I tell her.
“Yeah,” Jana says. “You got no idea. We better follow her, though. You look like you just crawled out of a collision with oncoming traffic.”
Jana turns and catches up with her friend, who either hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care that I’m still not there, and I’m torn between two possible options, neither one of which make much sense.
Things didn’t end badly with Jana, they just kind of fizzled out, so I have no reason to believe the two of them are going to lure me back to their place and end up stringing me up from the ceiling. Still, it’s been a while and she doesn’t seem quite as sure about having me go with them as her friend does.
Then there’s Logan’s place a few blocks in the other direction. The only problem is that I’m not sure if he’s home, and I don’t have my phone to call him.
I can’t afford to take a chance that I’m going to get there only to have to turn around again. That, I suppose, is all I needed to figure out.
“Hey, wait up!” I call and catch up to Jana and Ash.
Who says you can’t have an exciting Saturday night in a small town?
* * *
“Did you win?” Ash asks as she dabs at my forehead with some sterile cotton balls, dipped in rubbing alcohol.
I’m sitting on a folding chair which is sitting on spread-out newspapers which are sitting on towels which are sitting on the tile floor of the entryway to Jana and Ash’s apartment.
“Haven’t lost yet,” I answer.
“How many fights?” she asks.
“A lot,” I answer.
“Can we go?” Jana asks, her arms folded as she leans against the wall.
“I’m almost done,” Ash says, dropping the cotton ball into the little trash bag sitting next to her.
“Why do you have all this stuff?” I ask.
“What do you mean?” Ash asks.
“Seriously,” Jana says. “This is boring.”
“The medical stuff,” I tell her. “Are you a doctor or something?”
“A nurse,” she says. “Or, at least I will be in a couple years.”
Jana sighs loudly.
“A nurse, huh?” I ask. “That’s pretty hot.”
Ash smiles and shakes her head.
“Jana, could you pass me another cotton ball?” Ash asks.
Jana groans and stomps over to the table just out of reach from where Ash is kneeling down in front of me. She picks up the bag, pulls out a small handful of cotton balls and tosses them to Ash.
“We’ll go in a minute,” Ash says. “Jeez. The guy’s bloody here.”
“It’s a shame we had to meet like this,” I tell Ash. “I usually wear a lot more clothes and fewer open wounds.”
Am I flirting with her? Sure, she’s gorgeous with her wavy hair, turquoise eyes, and absolutely slamming body, but Jana’s standing right there.
“How often do you fight?” Ash asks, rolling her eyes a little.
“Once every couple weeks,” I tell her. “If you’re talking about sparring, too, then I fight just about every day.”
“It’s not a very safe sport, is it?” she asks.
“Could you tell that from the fact that we’re still bandaging Mason up instead of being out, having fun and humiliating ourselves in public for the shot of having one-nighters with some guys who we’re never going to want to see again, like normal people?” Jana whines.
“I’ve survived this long,” I tell Ash.
Jana groans loudly.
“Well,” Ash says, “the good news is that you’re not going to need stitches. There’s a spot where the cut’s a bit deeper and that’s where you’re getting most of the blood. The rest of it’s basically a glorified scratch.”
“Really?” I ask. “I was half-expecting you to go for the sewing needle.”
“Cuts on the head tend to bleed a great deal, even with smaller cuts than what you’ve got,” Ash says. “A bandage should be enough, assuming you’re not going to mess with it.”
“Condescend much?” I ask, smiling.
“I’ve found it’s best to assume whoever you’re working on is going to go out and do the stupidest thing they can possibly do unless you tell them not to,” she answers and presses a gauze bandage over the wound. “At least,” she says, “that’s my experience with guys like you.”
“Guys like me, huh?” I ask. “What are guys like me like?”
“I have no idea,” she says, “but I know you’re dumb enough to put yourself in that ring to get punched in the face, so I just figured it’d be good to cover my bases.”
“Ooh, you are spicy,” I tell her. “I like that.”
“And we’re done here,” Jana says, walking toward the other side of the room and into another one.
“She’s not getting a gun, is she?” I ask.
“I guess we’re about to find out,” Ash says, pulling the gloves off of her hands.
Ash gets up and walks to yet another room, and I think it’s time for me to go.
“Here,” Jana says, coming out of the other room with clothes in her hand, dragging on the floor behind her. “I don’t want my neighbors to see you running around half-naked.” She tosses the clothes at me.
“Hey, thanks,” I tell her. “I really wasn’t looking forward to going back out there in the cold without anything on.”
“They’re yours, anyway,” she says. “I found ‘em when I was moving and didn’t really care enough to get them back to you.”
“Oh stop,” I tease. “If you don’t stop it with the sugary words, I’m going to need a toothbrush.”
“I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean,” she says.
I just shrug. It made more sense before I said it, sure, but I’d say I’m still doing all right given the situation.
“You’re still here,” Ash says, coming out of what I’m assuming is her room.
“Yeah,” I tell her, “I’m just getting ready to take off, though. Thanks for patching me up like that. It was a little weird and pretty uncomfortable, but you did me a huge favor and I appreciate it.”
“Oh, will you just go?” Jana asks.
“It was nice to meet you,” Ash says. “Try not to get hit in the face so much. You keep doing that too much, and eventually it’s going to spoil your beauty.”
Is she flirting with me?
I can’t imagine that she would be. As much as guys like me try to tell ourselves that women love a man who’s bruised and bloody, the truth of the matter—in my experience at least—is that most women just look at you, make a disgusted face, and try to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.