"Yeah, well, I'll cover him up and sing him a lullaby." He could only imagine the satisfaction of connecting heel to chin with that scumbag and watching him fall.
"Impeccable timing there," Jon commented, strolling over to slap Kason on the back and hand him a water bottle. "You all right? Got all your teeth?"
He worked his jaw back and forth. "I think that headgear needs heavier padding. Almost feel sorry for that guy right now."
Mike shook his head. "Don't. He'll get exactly what's coming to him."
Kason headed out for the day, jokingly calling out that he was going to go throw up now. Mike went to the floor and rested on his back for a few minutes, cooling down and staring up at the lights until he went half blind. After a while he was aware of Jon's concerned gaze on him. "Tomorrow morning, we need to work on that kesa-gatame escape. Meyers has been using it a lot."
"Yeah." Mike sat up and cranked off the cap on his own bottle of water. Nothing would ever be worse than losing to Frank by submission. He'd rather lose by decision for the third fucking time, black out, take his own nap on the floor, than have to tap. He wanted an answer for anything the guy might try to pull out of his bag of tricks.
"You okay, kid?"
Maybe someday everyone would quit asking him that, but he guessed not any time soon. He wasn't okay. He missed Savannah. None of this seemed to mean a damn thing without her. Not that he wanted to think about losing to that colossal asshole in a couple weeks, but how was he supposed to win when he felt like he'd already lost everything? Win the belt, hear the cheers, celebrate his victory . . . go home to an empty, echoing apartment and a cold bed, alone.
What was the point?
"Fine," he lied, leaning back again and closing his eyes. Jon ambled away to the facility's small office. Mike might have even lay there and dozed; he wasn't sure how much time passed before he was startled by Jon calling his name, and his eyes popped open.
"You still out there? You need to see this!"
Sighing, he got to his feet, hating the effort of it-damn altitude-and grabbed a towel before going to heed his coach's call. He found him in at the desk in the little office, his laptop open. Looking up and seeing him in the door, Jon waved him over. "Come here and watch this. Hang on, let me back it up."
There was a sportscast in full-screen mode on the computer. Jon let it reload while Mike looped the towel behind his neck and clutched the ends, not expecting much because Jon was always finding little tidbits and sound bites to show him.
Until a certain surname left the anchor's mouth and every one of Mike's senses went on full alert.
" . . . interesting press release from the Dugas family regarding the upcoming Meyers – Larson title bout at Mayhem. Tommy Dugas died shortly after his own bout with Michael Larson over two months ago, something Meyers isn't willing to let the fans forget. But now Dugas's wife and sister have released a joint statement through his manager stating the following: ‘Because we cherish Tommy's memory, we cannot allow Frank Meyers to continue to capitalize on it to benefit his own name and image. We do not know him, he did not contact us after Tommy's death, and therefore he does not speak for us. Michael Larson, however, went above and beyond to reach out to us and offer his sincere condolences in our time of grief. In him we found a friend, a source of comfort and solace, and we wish him all the best.' The match is set for five days from now, and there's certainly no love lost between the two AF fighters. They've been at each other's throats in the weeks leading up-"
Jon clicked the pause button. Solace. Mike blinked as his coach turned to look up at him. "Hey, that's gotta make you feel good, right?"
"Yeah," he said, still stunned beyond the most basic words.
"So help me put two and two together here. Is that where you ran off to?"
"It is."
Understanding dawned across Jon's face. "Mike . . . you've been in a funk. You're doing good work but you're not yourself." He could see the question there. Which one of them is it?
"The sister," he confessed. "Savannah."
Rubbing the graying stubble on his jaw, Jon regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. "Sounds like she thinks a lot of you."
"I thought she did, and then I signed on for this fight. That kind of killed most of her good thoughts."
"No wonder you were so torn about it at first. I thought it had to do with Tommy, all that shit still on your mind."
He shrugged. "That's part of it. Probably always will be."
"Will she be at the fight?"
"Considering the last one she went to ended with her brother dying, I'm thinking that's a no." There was no hiding the bitterness in his voice.
"That's a shame."
Indeed it was. But there wasn't shit he could do about it. She didn't want to have anything to do with his life. "It's my fault. I told her the first time I met her I was thinking about retiring. Because I was, Jon. I was thinking about it hard. And then I took this shot."
"I figured you were having thoughts like that. I also figured they wouldn't last long. You've got the beast in you, kid. If you don't let it out to play every now and then, it'll eat you from the inside out." Jon sighed and shut his laptop. "Go rest up. We have a long day tomorrow."
As the days ticked by, Savannah found herself winding tighter, restless, uncertain. She worked and helped Rowan with the nursery. A few reporters called for comments, but she told them she had nothing to say that wasn't already said in their press release, and requested privacy. Rowan told her she'd had the same calls. Her response had probably been far less polite.
Savannah's TV remained on sports channels more than Netflix lately; she'd heard their statement read numerous times, heard the anchors talk it to death, heard the responses from both the fighters. Mike's had been succinct, as all of his comments about Tommy had been.
"They're a wonderful family who didn't deserve the hand they got dealt," he'd said to the microphone in his face, looking weary to her eyes. "It's an honor to know them."
Frank Meyers's was far more antagonistic, and of course, far wordier. "It's guilt, man. It makes a guy do crazy [bleep]. And they're just trying to make him feel better. It goes to show that he's beat down mentally, he doesn't deserve to be here, he doesn't deserve a chance to take what's mine, and I'm gonna take him out."
Yeah, she might've had to restrain herself from hurling her remote at his face on her screen. But she'd said her piece, so there would be no further statements no matter how the reporters who called tried to entice her into trash-talking.
The fight crept ever closer, and the closer it came, the antsier she grew. She even found herself looking up flights to Mexico City. Most of them connected in Houston. The very name of the city on her screen set off a barrage of sweet memories in her head. At the front of them was the dizzying whirl of the elevator plunging down while he kissed her against the glass, making her drunker than the champagne ever had.
Memories were bad. Memories were prone to trigger a deluge of tears out of nowhere. She couldn't handle it. She was sick of tears; she'd cried enough.
When he gets back, she told herself. When it's all said and done, maybe we can pick up where we left off. But that wasn't fair to him. She couldn't be there through the good times and disappear through the struggles. It wasn't who she was. It wasn't. If she let this go by, let him go in that ring without her there, they were done. She felt it like an ominous looming deadline.
She visited the cemetery more and more, though there was little to do but sit and stare at Tommy's name on the plaque. He wasn't here; he was gone. She didn't feel any closer to him here than she did anywhere else, but she came anyway. Rowan came with her sometimes too, and held her while they both cried. Tommy might not be in that tomb, but he was there inside Rowan, and that was the most comfort she could find. While her sister-in-law seemed to be getting better, though, after almost three months, Savannah feared it was only just now starting to hit her . . . really hit her, and it felt like a punch to the gut. All the anxiety over Mike's approaching fight didn't help, and she woke so many nights feeling sick, shaking, bathed in a cold sweat with his name on her lips.
It was only getting worse.
"What do I do, big brother?" she asked at the tomb two days before AF Mayhem would take place and seal her fate. It was a bright, beautiful day, not unlike the day they'd interred him, only much hotter. Humidity had her shirt sticking to her and a bead of sweat rolling between her breasts. She sat on one of the two steps leading up to the structure, twirling a blade of grass between her fingers.