Instantly she was pissed again, her hand on her hip, her cheeks going pink as she drew in her breath.
“You know what? Maybe you do need a boss, Auger. At least if you’re going to sell your ass you should get paid.”
“Let’s get one thing clear,” he hissed, pulling up close to her. She stood her ground and he almost lost it, smelling her sweat right there in front of him, her cheeks red, her hair damp along her hairline. “Nobody tells me what to do. I’m not taking that asshole’s money. I make my own decisions.”
Callie said nothing, just stood there glaring like she was daring Auger to make a move. Seconds ticked by. He quaked as a flurry of images pounded through his mind: holding her, smashing Winsor’s face in, Twister’s rage, and the last time he saw Callie’s cheeks that deliciously flushed. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides but Callie held her ground defiantly, her chin jutting out in a brazen dare.
If she doesn’t let up, I’m going to have to...
Suddenly, a bell went off.
“Hey, isn’t that your cue?” Auger whispered snidely, so happy she was going to have to give in. “Don’t you need to get back to work?”
Squinting her eyes, she nodded subtly. Her shoulders went down and she looked smaller. The bell went off again and he saw her wince a little. All at once he saw how silly this all was and wanted to take it all back. Throw it in reverse, start over.
I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have broken my word for a lousy grand. I shouldn’t have dropped that guy to the mat. I should have kept going looking for straight jobs, trying to be the man I told her I would be, so Bryce could be the man he was supposed to be too.
As she turned away he desperately wanted to drag her back and apologize. But as usual, it was too late.
There were still two matches left in the night, but suddenly he desperately needed air. As the lights went on over the ring for the second bout, he slipped through the crowd and made his way back to the dressing room. The hallways seemed too narrow and chilly, and the dressing room reeked of armpits and disinfectant spray.
Reaching for his clothes, he found an envelope with “Odin” scrawled on it in overly-large print. Inside were ten crisp hundred dollar bills. He flipped through them, chewing the inside of his lip and trying to tamp down his disgust. After all that pride-swallowing, he was barely closer to even than he had been at the beginning of the night.
Flipping through the hundreds again, he saw the small cream-colored business card. “Winsor Cooke,” it read simply. Penned neatly on the bottom was a handwritten number and the simple words, “personal cell.”
CHAPTER 6
Callie
The front door banged open against the plaster wall, shaking the whole apartment and hurling Callie out of sleep. She bolted out of her room and toward the kitchen. Auger sat upright on the couch and squinted toward the commotion as Bryce stumbled into the apartment, his arms flung out sideways to steady himself.
“Dammit, Bryce! Do you have to make so much noise?” she yelled, clutching her chest and leaning heavily against the wall.
“Yeah, what the fuck, man,” Auger complained from the sofa, pushing his hair back from his face. “You scared the crap outta me.”
“Yeah… fuck you both…” Bryce slurred, leaning against his forearms and working his gym shoes off slowly.
Auger sighed through his nose and settled back on the sofa, squinting away from the beating sunlight through the window. It was about 9 am. Auger pretended to fall back asleep.
Callie watched Bryce stumbling through the small galley kitchen, slamming cabinet doors, flipping on the tap, opening the fridge three times in a row.
Finally she groaned in defeat. “Dude, sit down,” she said. “I’ll make you some eggs or something.”
“Oh, now you wanna do something for me?” Bryce shot back.
She flinched but didn’t respond. A few more cabinet doors slammed and then a pan clattered against the ceramic tile floor and Bryce cursed at it.
“Seriously, sit down before you break something. I’ll cook,” she insisted.
Bryce lurched from the kitchen, narrowly missing banging his forehead on the beam that separated the counter from the living room. He grabbed for the counter and swung around, planting his body heavily in one of the bar stools on the other side. His head dropped into his hands.
“That bad huh?” she asked carefully as she took eggs and bacon from the fridge and laid them on the counter.
“Fugoff,” came Bryce’s muffled groan from behind his palms.
She grabbed the orange juice, then thought better of it and picked up the Gatorade. She splashed a healthy portion in a glass and slid it toward her brother. Bryce didn’t acknowledge it, just sat there holding his forehead and moaning.