Playing with Fire

“Are you sitting down?”

West

The night before.

“Holy shit, dude. You’re forty minutes late!” Max greeted me by throwing his arms around me, like we were a couple or some shit. I pushed him out of my vision, making him stumble back and fall flat on his ass. I zigzagged my way into Sheridan Plaza, the sound of my Ducati collapsing sideways behind me thudding in my ears.

I forgot to park it properly. My bad.

There goes my precious fucking paint. Sorry, Christina.

I stumbled over my own feet, soldiering forth. The faster I could get it over with, the better. Max regained his footing and managed to catch me—barely—groaning for help. East, Reign, and Tess appeared by his side.

“Oh, wow. Finally found a West nuttier than Kanye,” Reign deadpanned. Tess cupped her mouth, shaking her head as she judged me hard.

“Ohmigod, Westie.”

“Dude. He’s trashed.” East hoisted one of my arms over his shoulder. Reign took the other side. Tess scurried behind us, a curious little mouse I wanted to throw to the lions.

“You need to cancel the fight, Max,” East pressed. “It can’t happen. He can’t even stand straight.”

“Yerrucan,” I slurred, pushing them away as I tried to make my point. East and Reign let go of me, and sure enough, I managed to stand upright.

See? No problem. Perfectly capable of …

Thwack!

It took me long seconds to realize the heat spreading across my cheek wasn’t me pissing on myself.

“I fell on maface, didn’t I?” My voice was muffled by the gravel sticking to my tongue. Since when did concrete feel so nice and cozy? It was outrageously nappable.

“Is nappable a word?” I inquired.

I heard East groan.

Max sighed. “I’m gonna go talk to Shaun. See if we can postpone it by a few hours. But we can’t cancel. They made that pretty clear, and I want both my balls intact.”

“The fight is happening,” I heard myself say as I dusted myself off, rising up to my feet slowly. I felt seasick. A reasonable side effect to polishing off an entire bottle of the cheapest whiskey I could find at the grocery store. “I’m getting into that ring and finishing this thing.”

“Are you crazy?” Tess thundered behind me.

I turned around to face her. I had a bone to pick with Miss Davis. Not only as she appeared in front of me, but I saw multiple images of her. They blurred into one another, like an accordion of cut out Tesses.

“What kind of heinous crimes have I committed in a previous life to deserve seeing six Tesses?” I pondered aloud. The need to barf in my mouth punched me in the stomach. “And to think all it took was one fucking Tess to screw things up between me and my girlfriend.” I leaned forward, tapping her nose. I missed by a few inches and poked her eye. My bad, take two.

Reign stepped between us, swatting my hand away and furrowing his brows.

“Ex-girlfriend now, and don’t dump this on Tess. It’s not her fault you kept this from Grace. Did you really think no one was going to tell her?”

“I was hoping to tell her closer to the fight. You told Tess I was holding back on Grace, and she told her because she missed my dick too much.”

My snarl came out with a burp. Extra classy.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Tess winced. “Really sorry. I never thought it would be this bad. I didn’t want to ruin things for you. Just make them … difficult.”

My phone rang in my pocket. Ignoring Tess’ apology, I fumbled to take it out. Max was pacing back and forth, talking on his phone, explaining shit to Appleton and his crew, probably.

I checked my screen.

Mother.

How drunk was I to think it might actually be Grace?

I had my chance. A few of them, if I was being honest with myself. And I blew ’em all to hell. Good news was I was finally thinking clearly. I knew what I had to do to make sure Grace would be saved.

“He looks like he’s planning something, which cannot be good, considering his current state.” Easton’s voice stabbed through Reign and Tess’ simultaneous groveling. They said they were going to get me water and something to eat. It took me a few minutes to gather myself before someone propped me against the wall, like I was a piece of furniture. Upstairs, I could hear the crowd roaring and cheering.

Full venue. Sold out tickets. The whole enchilada.

And I was unfashionably late.

A few minutes later, Max killed the call. A senior lab nerd jogged toward us with a wrapped sandwich and a bottle of water.

“Here.” He passed it on to Easton, who shoved the food and the drink in my face. “Chug it down. All of it.”

“Want me to piss myself by round two?” I murmured around a stale bite. Who’d made this sandwich? It was next level bad. The bread was sour, the cheese too soft, and the ham was probably my age.