The initial burst from the crowd has died down, but the basement is far from quiet as over twenty voices all try to talk over each other.
Ash is still covering her ears, and I’m not entirely sure what to do here. I give her a pat on the shoulder to let her know that I’m still here and she turns toward me, hands over her ears, yelling, “How many more fights are there?”
“I’m not sure,” I answer. “We’ll go until the energy levels start to drop. It could be as few as five, as many as ten.”
“What?” she asks, partially uncovering one of her ears.
“It’ll be going for a few more hours,” I tell her.
“Oh,” she says. “Do we have to stay the whole time?”
Only a few people turned before, but with Ash’s question, nearly the whole basement is looking in our direction. It’s not a response of anger, but one of confusion.
Why would someone be here who didn’t want to be here and how the hell did they get in?
The answer, obviously, is that I could see myself really getting into Ash as we get to know each other better, and I don’t want her to run for the hills before we’ve had that chance just because I choose to fight. To the pit, however, this is an intriguing and unique scenario.
“Why are they staring at me?” Ash asks quietly, lowering her hands.
The good news is that the people here tend to have short attention spans when it comes to anything that isn’t fighting, so they quickly start to turn back to the middle in anticipation of the next fight. Still, I think this may have been too much, too soon for Ash.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “You’re fine. You’re just new, that’s all.”
“Yeah, but…” she trails off.
“I’m here,” I tell her. “Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“So if you weren’t here, something would happen to me?” she asks.
I smile. “No,” I assure her. “Despite clear evidence to the contrary, these are generally peaceful people.”
About then, the next match starts and these guys don’t waste time trash talking, they go straight to blows.
After each thump or smack, admittedly rather loud in this enclosed space, Ash winces. I think it’s probably time to get her out of here before she ends up psychologically scarred.
I really thought someone training to be a nurse would have a bit more stomach for this sort of thing. Then again, it’s entirely possible that she can see the damage these guys are doing to each other more clearly than anyone else here because of her medical training. I can imagine that being worse.
There’s a loud thud as one fighter slams the other to the ground, and instinctively I turn back toward the center. I don’t know the guy who just got put into the ground, but I’ve chatted a bit with the one standing over him with a grin. That’s Paolo Menendez, and I’m just glad we’re a couple of weight classes apart.
I kid around with Logan, but Paolo is vicious and unpredictable. He’s gotten better in the time that I’ve known him, but at first, there was about a fifty percent chance that half the guys in the pit would have to pry Paolo off of this opponent or that after he’d already won the fight. It wasn’t until he was threatened with being banned from all future matches that he started to clean up his act.
Still, you never know what’s going to push him over that edge.
Paolo’s hesitation lasts less than a second, but I’m distracted long enough I don’t even notice Ash is gone until I look back to my side to find she’s not there.
This can’t be good.
I make my way through the people who got here after Ash and me, and head up the stairs. My phone’s in my hand now, and I’m calling Ash’s number as I make my way the rest of the way out of the house. It rings a couple of times and then goes to voicemail.
I come out the front door and ask the bouncer, Big D, if he’s seen a shorter brunette with blue eyes leaving the house.
“She didn’t look happy, bro,” D says. “I’d give her a little time to cool off. She seemed pretty freaked.”
“Did you see which way she went?” I ask.
“Why is it nobody listens to me when I’m trying to be the voice of reason?” D asks.
“D?” I press.
“Right at the sidewalk,” he says. “I didn’t really pay much attention after that.”
“Thanks, D,” I tell him and start off after Ash.
I pull out my phone again and call her, but after a couple of rings, it goes to voicemail again. This time, I leave a message.
“Hey, Ash,” I say into the phone. “You just left the fight and I’m trying to catch up with you. I’m sorry if that was a bit much for you all at once. We don’t have to go back or anything, but I don’t want to have things end like this to—”
“You have reached the maximum message time available for this mailbox,” the robotic voice says.
I didn’t get everything I wanted to say in the message, but it pretty well covers the bullet points. Maybe I’ve just been trying to idealize Ash because of my physical attraction for her. Maybe she’s one of those people who get turned off by MMA and stay turned off to it, regardless of how familiar with it they become.
As I call a third time, now being forwarded directly to voicemail, I’m starting to think this whole thing with Ash is just a failed experiment.
I walk along the side of the road where D had seen Ash heading for a while, but break off my efforts before too long. I’m not going to spend my whole night going after her when she’s making it clear she doesn’t want to talk to me.
It’s not the end of the world if this is the end of the relationship—we’re still just getting to know one another—but I had hope for this one. She really seemed like my kind of chick, but maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see.
At least we didn’t get too deep into the relationship before the cracks started to show. That’s something, right?
Chapter Four
Callbacks
Ash
It’s been a long week.
First I went AWOL at that fight Mason took me to and then, ever since I came home, it’s been all Starbright—Jana’s mom’s latest nom de plume—all the time. Right now, I’m just thankful the woman sleeps as much as she does.
“Why is she here, anyway?” I whisper to Jana, looking up from the open textbook in front of me.
“What do you mean?” she returns at full volume.
“Your mom,” I whisper back. “Did something happen? Is she all right?”
“She’s fine,” Jana says. “I’ve noticed you haven’t been seeing too much of Mason lately. Did something happen there?”
“I just don’t think he’s really my type—” I start, but the question, apparently, was rhetorical.
“You know, I almost freaked out when I saw him,” she interrupts. “I really didn’t think I was going to see him again.”
“Well, it’s not like this is the biggest city in the world,” I tell her. Leaving my textbook open on the coffee table in front of me, I get up from the couch to follow Jana as she tries to squeeze all of her chores into the next five minutes.