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Eighteen years old/October
Ismiled as I picked up the newspaper that sat on the table in the sitting area. The picture was in color and covered the front page of the Las Vegas newspaper.
Fight Night is here!
TCF Presents
Carlos Agustin vs. Hollis Ward
I grabbed a bottle of water and took the newspaper out to the balcony of my suite and sat at the bistro-sized table. The sun was barely up over the mountain and felt good in the early October air. I skimmed the article while I drank some water. I made the front page of the local paper. Pretty fucking cool.
I looked inside the suite when I heard the hotel room door open and then close. Patrick and Corey walked in with more newspapers and came outside with them.
“The caterers are on their way up. Steve is going to step inside before he lets them in,” Corey explained. My family was coming into my suite in about fifteen or twenty minutes for breakfast. Though I’d been in Vegas all week leading up to the fight, my family flew in yesterday. I saw them last night for dinner and was allowed to take them to the arena where the event would be tonight.
“Sounds good. What do you guys have?” I angled my head to see what paper they brought in because it looked different than the local one I had.
“These are a handful of newspapers where you and the fight are listed,” Corey said. He pulled the papers off the stack and held them up for me to see or he’d read off the headlines.
“Your mom is going to want these,” Patrick said.
“Don’t worry, I’ve collected three of each,” Corey said.
“Three?”
“Yes, last night as we were leaving the restaurant, I mentioned to your mother that Patrick and I would collect the newspapers this morning, and your grandmother spoke up and requested a set as well.”
I laughed and shook my head. I could picture her sharing the newspapers among her card-playing friends.
I stayed out on the balcony with Patrick while Corey and Steve oversaw the breakfast set up.
“Ready for tonight?” Patrick asked.
“Fuck yeah.”
“You’ve got this. You’ve trained so hard for it.”
“So has Carlos Agustin.”
“Agustin won’t know what hit him,” he said.
My family arrived in the suite for breakfast, and Patrick and I went inside. Chase raced around some of the caterers and pretended to punch me. I wrapped my hand around his, took hold of his upper arms, and picked him up off the floor. I walked with him toward the balcony.
“Want to check out the balcony?” I teased.
“Nooo wayyy.” Chase squirmed, so I let him down. “I was just testing your reflexes. Your opponent doesn’t stand a chance,” he explained.
I sat on the couch and pulled him down next to me. I felt like I’d hardly seen him since I graduated last May. With high school out of the way, I dedicated every waking hour to training and preparing. The day after graduation, TCF announced my first fight. When I wasn’t physically training, I was studying film on Carlos Agustin.
“So, you think I can take Carlos Agustin down?” I asked Chase. It had been a while since I’d had a fighting conversation just with him… or any conversation with only him.
“Yes! And I’m not saying that because you’re my brother.”
I laughed.
“Thanks, man. I’m glad to hear it.”
“And I’m certainly not saying it because I’m endorsing you by wearing your promotional wear,” he joked.
