"I mean, I do, I guess," he said. "Because I'm good at fightin'. It's what I do, it's how I make my living. But the whole thing with these tournaments, the interviews, the press, the pictures, the televised fights. It just sort of makes it all seem so…Hollywood. At the end of the day we're all guys who just want to do our best, make our living and get home."
"Only one of you gets to make a living, though," Drew pointed out. "Right?"
"Well, only one of us gets the purse," he conceded. "Sometimes managers can work it out so that their fighter gets a percentage of the ticket sales."
"Did yours?"
Heath shook his head. "I don't do any of that," he replied. "I make enough from what I do on a day-to-day, and I'm considering some endorsement deals."
"If you win the purse, what'll you do with it?" Drew asked.
Heath gave her a sidelong, playfully sly look. "Why? You plannin' to steal it from me or somethin'?"
"Trust me, sweetheart," she retorted. "I do not want your money."
"What if I could make all your dreams come true?" he teased, but he was thinking of her studio.
"Then I'd be paying you back every red cent," she answered, giving him a stern look. "Enough about that. Answer the question."
"Well," he mused. "I'll be giving some to Aida. For the kids."
"Joaquin's wife," Drew said.
"Yeah. I've sent her enough so far to get trust funds started for them. Joaquin would want them to go to college. I'm hoping I can win this purse and get the funds set up fully for them, give her something to live on comfortably. Then I guess I'll invest some of it. I don't really have any debt or anything. Maybe put some of it into the gym."
"That sounds responsible," Drew commented. "Speaking of Joaquin, I saw the memorial you have for him—and your mom—in your apartment."
Heath shrugged, feeling instantly uncomfortable. "Yeah."
"I think it's nice," Drew said sincerely. "To remember them that way."
She was watching him again. He nodded in reply.
"Do you…do you pray at it a lot?" she asked. "What's your faith, anyway?"
He let out a short bark of laughter. "I was raised Catholic, if that's what you mean," he replied. "My faith these days, though, is skepticism and anger."
She tilted her head. "Why?"
Heath sighed. He really didn't want to get into any of it, but she'd given him so much of herself that it was only right. "I haven't—I haven't made peace with losing Joaquin, or Mom," he replied quietly. "I'm workin' on it, but I don't feel it yet. I guess I just feel let down by God. By life."
"Let down how?" she asked softly. He knew she wasn't contesting him; just probing for more information and better understanding.
"My mom was my rock," he said simply. "Then she was gone. Joaquin was my rock after her. Lost him. Growing up, I had an old man that beat the shit out of me and Connor. Connor had always been my rock, too—then he chose Lana and bailed. Or at least that's how I saw it then; I understand a little better now. I mean, I don't dwell on this shit. But when you've lived with it for so many years—it gets hard to shake."
"I can see that," Drew said with a nod. "I totally can see that. When you experience nothing but disappointment and loss you start to question whether anyone 'up there' gives a shit about you anymore. And if they don't give a shit about you…why should you give a shit about them?"
He glanced over at her, and met her gaze. For the first time, he felt truly understood.
"What about you?" he asked. "Your faith? I'd think you'd be the most skeptical and angry out of anyone."
"Oh, I have faith," she said with a decisive nod. "A lot of faith. I believe."
"Oh, yeah?" he said, feeling a mixture of grudging admiration and disbelief. "How's that?"
She shrugged. "Don't get me wrong. When it first happened I was angry and skeptical like you. Constantly shaking my fist at God and demanding to know why me. After a while, I had to take on a new perspective, or else I would have killed myself." She glanced at him again. "Not joking. It's unbearable to live life feeling like you're cursed, like you have nothing else to live for, that your quality of life is just gone. I had to do some serious soul-searching and eventually, I decided that I had to start thinking in terms of reason. Everything happens because of a reason." She paused carefully. "You going through what you went through with your father happened for a reason."
"And what reason is that?" Heath asked, unable to keep the skepticism out of his voice.