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The few men I did date had to be outside the fighting scene, and that never really lasted long. It was hard to blend the worlds, and one thing I had learned fast, was that fighting a man for money was a beast only a few truly understood.
My lack of a love life didn’t matter too much to me, and I really didn’t have the time to invest in a relationship anyway. It wasn’t exactly essential to me since I did have Frankie. Whatever Frankie and I were, the sex was always epic.
“Where have you been?” Frankie asked as soon as I entered the gym. His tone instantly told me he was upset and frustrated, which put me on edge right away.
Whenever anything happened around the gym that wasn’t up to his ridiculously high standards, Frankie would raise holy hell, causing everyone to walk on egg shells around the guy. He hadn’t earned the name Freakshow in the cage; he was a goddamn mad man on most days. He wasn’t exactly a people person. I could usually talk him away from the edge, but it took a hell of a lot of effort.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
I sometimes resented the way he kept tabs on me, but also had accepted it was simply the way he was. Much like my overprotective father had been, so why push back against their tradition? It could be worse. Frankie could decide to lock me up in a tower like Rapunzel, and as much as I’d enjoy the whips and chains of the tower’s dungeon, I definitely wouldn’t care for the restrictions and lack of freedom.
“Bobby’s Gym.” He sighed deeply and dropped his head into his hands. “They’ve finally gotten to Marcus.”
Oh shit.
My heart sank as I slid into the nearest chair. The news was like a punch to the gut. Marcus and Frankie had been butting heads for a while now, and the other gym had evidently pounced on it. They’d been trying to sweep Marcus away from us for ages now, and he’d been wavering though trying to keep it from us. Deep down, I had known this was eventually going to happen, but I really didn’t want to have to face it.
The real problem we had was that Marcus might have been a douchebag, but he was a fucking good fighter—the only fighter with whom we had a shot at earning real, life-changing money.
What the hell were we going to do without him? Of course, I couldn’t direct all my concerns to Frankie. Not if I wanted him to keep his cool. I needed to be the calm and collected one. It was the role I played.
Frankie was the fire, and I was the extinguisher.
“Okay, so the deal is done?” I needed as much information as I could get before I snapped into action. If I could solve this problem before it got too huge, then there wouldn’t be any need for panic. “It’s all gone through?”
“Pretty much,” he said with clenched jaw and darkened eyes. Frankie obviously knew we were just as fucked as I did.
“Okay, so there’s no more damage control. There’s no point in trying to keep him now. If Marcus’ mind is made up, even if he doesn’t go now, he won’t fight his best for us, and it will just be a matter of time until he leaves anyway. So fuck it. Fuck him. What we need is someone new.”
“Heathens Hollow is coming soon, and we don’t have anyone good enough to put in the cage. Not if we want them walking out in one piece. The promoters are going to be pissed. There’s a lot of goddamn money in that venue. Money Smiley’s needs bad if we want to keep the lights on.” Frankie groaned, the pressure already getting to him. “I need to get back in the cage.”
“No,” I snapped. “We agreed after your last fight that you’d stop and focus on running Smiley’s with me. We agreed.”
“Well, we need fighters that can actually hold their own, Ari. So unless you have a better idea.”
“You aren’t fighting. That isn’t an option.” I crossed my arms and turned my back to him. It was my silent cue to him that this conversation was over.
The doctor had warned us that he was one more blow to the head away from brain damage. Real damage. We had too many scares, and after the last one… He knew this. I didn’t need to point it out to him again.
“If everyone could just up their game, then maybe we’d have a chance to win a damn match,” he boomed, clearly not caring who heard his rampage.
“You have no one else to blame for Marcus leaving. It’s because of you. He didn’t get along with you. And this isn’t the first time this has happened! You can’t be a trainer who is constantly pissing people off. My dad didn’t train like that, and that was why he was the best.”
