“I won’t. I won’t touch her.”
“Because if you do, I’ll come back harder on you than you ever dreamed possible. If you wanna see me in this lifestyle anymore, just try me. I’ll come back and wipe out your whole crew. I’ll make you wish for the days you only had to deal with some punk ass kid named Money.”
Ortiz nodded vigorously. I tossed the wine bottle on the floor and walked out of the restaurant. Now, I just had to get my girl back.
Riley
I always packed too much stuff. I had no idea how cold it got in Paris, but I was going to be prepared for anything. My flight was leaving at eight tomorrow night. If there were no delays, I’d be on the ground in time to grab breakfast.
My phone rang. I flipped it over to see Troy’s name on the caller ID again. He was fighting tomorrow. If I was ever going to talk to him, now should be the time, if only to wish him luck.
I held the phone and wished it to stop ringing. I knew it wouldn’t. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to him, it was just… I had no idea what to say.
I had to bite the bullet.
“Hello?”
“I’ll be damned.” His voice was just as silky as it ever was. I’d never met a person in my life who was so unfazed by anything. He’d probably called me a hundred times and when I finally picked up, he didn’t even sound surprised.
“I finally answered.”
“I knew you would,” he said.
“If I didn’t, I was afraid I’d never be able to get another call through.”
“Nothing good in this life is ever gotten without at least a little bit of persistence.”
“You haven’t ‘gotten’ anything. What do you want? I’m kind of busy.”
“I want to talk.”
“So… talk. That’s why I answered the phone.”
“I will, but will you listen?”
“Troy…”
“Did I ever tell you anything about how I grew up?”
“Only that you lived in the same neighborhood you’re in now back when you were a kid.”
I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but damn him for getting my attention. “You don’t know anything about how I grew up either, but you’ve made your assumptions.”
“I told you already,” he said. “I won’t make that mistake anymore.”
“What do you want to say?”
“My mom was an addict,” he said. “She never could keep us all together.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Who is ‘us’?”
“Just me, her, and my sister. I didn’t know my dad.”
“Is your sister the girl in the photograph at your apartment?”
“You saw that?”
“I did. She’s very pretty.”
“I don’t keep up with her anymore. The state split us apart when we were young and since we both became adults, we’ve only met up a couple of times. She lives in Texas now. I think she’s doing okay.”
“That’s sad.”
“My point is, I’ve had to scrap for everything I’ve ever gotten in life. It’s never been normal.”
I pushed some of my clothes out of the way so I could sit down on the bed. “It had to be hard.”
“Hard? Life is hard for a lot of people. I’m just telling you why I am the way I am.”
“I’m still listening.”
“That old life put me in a position where I had to do what I had to do to get by. It wasn’t always pretty, but I took care of myself. If there was another way, believe me, I would have taken it.”
“But Troy, you were doing so great. You had a good job, you were doing well to follow the judge’s orders... you even got a contract with a big MMA organization. Wasn’t that your dream? So, why now? Why did you have to go and mess it all up with stealing that car?”
“And, you,” he said.
“Me, what?”
“You forgot the best thing I had going for me, which was you.”
“So, why’d you do it?”
“Because, Riley. That old life I was telling you about? Sometimes it sneaks up on you and fucks with the program. It was something I didn’t have a choice on.”
“Troy, you stole a car. I don’t understand how-”
“Sometimes you have to do things to protect the ones you care about, okay?”
“I…”
“I’m not gonna go into it any more than that, but you have to know I never would have done it if there was another way. I talked to the detectives again today, Riley. They’re not going to pursue this any further if that’s what you’re worried about. I think they got the hint that the original owner of that car was no upstanding citizen in his own right.”
“Troy-”
“And what’s behind me is behind me. I can only do my best to make sure it stays behind me. Sometimes things are gonna come up that I have to deal with, and when they do, I’ll do my best to make sure you understand why.”
“This is… the timing on this is bad,” I said.
“Today is the day you picked to answer the phone. I think it’s the perfect time. Riley, I want you to come to my fight tomorrow. We can sort this out. You’re mine and I’m gonna figure out how to keep you.”
His fight was the whole reason I picked Saturday to leave. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand being home while he had his big day so close. It was a symbolic gesture, but now I wasn’t so sure I wanted it that way.
“Troy, I can’t.”
“You can’t, or you won’t?”
“I’m leaving the country tomorrow night. I’m going to be in Europe for a couple of weeks.”
I could practically hear the air going out of him. Maybe it was going out of me, too.
“Tomorrow?”
“What happened with you was hard on me. I needed to get away to clear my head.”
“And now?”
“And now, I’m not sure. But Troy, I have to go. Everything is already booked. It will be good for me.”
His voice was soft. “I guess you have to do what you have to do.”
“Can we talk when I get back?”
“Riley, you’re doing this for a reason, and we both know what that reason is. All I can focus on is today.”
Tears welled in my eyes. I started to choke up. “I… I have to go, okay.”
“Bye, Riley.”
“Troy?”
“Yeah?”
“Good luck.”
Troy
The ritual before a fight is always the same. You go through the same routines with your team, you eat the same food, you take your shower at the same time of day... some guys even where the same underwear every time.
Earlier in the afternoon, Ray wrapped my hands just how I liked them. Most guys waited to put their wraps on until an hour or so before they went out. I liked to do it much earlier than that so I could break them in and mold them to my hands.
Fighting is a very precise business and fighters are creatures of habit. That’s why things were so fucked up. I was doing all the same things I did before any other fight, but it didn’t feel the same. There was an emptiness in me that was usually filled with fire right before I walked to the cage. It was a burning for the competition and the challenge. Today, just like Riley, it wasn’t with me.
I was going through my pre-fight warmup drills with Ray, but there was no snap to my punches. Blake had come along with us to help out and even he noticed it. “C’mon, Troy! You hit me harder in the gym than you’re hitting those pads right now.”
Ray moved the pads low and I delivered a kick that would have looked weak even on my worst day.
“Time out, time out. What’s happening with you, Son, is it nerves?” Ray asked.
“Hell, no it’s not nerves, I’m fine,” I lied.
“You’re not fine. Something’s wrong with you,” he said.
“Ray, put the mitts back up. I need to get my work in.”
“Yes, you do need to get your work in. So, start gettin’ it.”
“L