Love all men. Except lawyers.
—Irish Proverb
Freya
It’s unmistakable, the sound a body makes when it connects with the front of your car.
I yelp and slam on the brakes just in time to see legs flailing in the air before disappearing to the ground, the view of the body blocked by the rounded hood of my old VW Beetle.
Dear mother of God.
I just ran someone over.
Slamming the stick shift into park, I fumble with the seatbelt, race out of my vehicle and stop dead in my tracks when I see a familiar blond head on the ground.
Holy mother of all shitballs.
I didn’t just run over some random pedestrian. I ran over the biggest, baddest, most unfeeling person I’ve ever met who happens to find me the stupidest and most irritating person he’s ever met.
He’s unconscious. There are books and papers all around him and his bag is lying busted open, about two feet away from the body.
The body.
It’s not my fault. There’s been construction in front of my apartment building all week, blocking the sidewalk and forcing pedestrians into the street. There are giant trucks and machines all over the place, making it impossible to see what’s coming from beyond.
I fall to my knees, laying my head on his chest. He’s still breathing. I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Once he regains consciousness, he’s going to kill me.
I remove my head from his chest and pat him gently on the cheek.
“Mob guy,” I say. Dang it, I can never remember his name!
Nothing.
I smack him a little harder. “Mob guy!”
His eyelid twitches slightly.
I’m about to punch him in the face when his eyes blink open. He looks dazed for a second, but then those intense, laser-blue eyes focus right on me.
“You,” he says.
“Yeah. It’s me,” I confirm.
Six months earlier…
“I’m looking for the mob guy!” I yell into the ear of the dude guarding the entrance to the warehouse-turned-boxing-match.
The fight hasn’t started yet. There are still a million people in line behind me and I’ve waited thirty minutes only to be informed I needed to hand over five bucks to even get in to this dump.
The guy doesn’t seem to register what I’ve just said.
“Five dollars!” he yells back, for the second time.
“I don’t need to get in, I need to find the guy in charge,” I try to explain.
He shakes his bald head. “He never shows up to these things anymore. Now five dollars or get out of here. You’re blocking the line.”
“Where can I find him?”
This question gets me an utterly incredulous look. “You think I’m going to tell you where he lives?”
“I’ll give you the five dollars.”
He laughs. “That’s not worth my neck. Now move,” he says with a jerk of his thumb.
Damn it. I keep hearing about this mob guy, but actually finding him is like nailing down a worm dripping in baby oil. He’s like a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, shrouded in mystery, and covered in…something that makes him invisible.
This whole “getting a guy to beat up my evil ex” is harder than I expected.
“Can I at least get a message to him somehow?”
The guy at the door is getting annoyed with me. I know this because he says, “You’re really annoying. Go on in and find the ref. His name’s Jose. He reports to Dean every night after the fight.”
“Dean?”
This gets me another look. “Uh, the guy you’re looking for?”
“Right, right.” I nod like I knew this.
Mob boss guy has a name. Dean. I’ll have to remember that.
I enter the crowded warehouse without having to fork over my five dollars, so I give a big mental “suck my fat one” to the bald dude at the door.
When I first heard about the fights, I didn’t think much of it. I’ve never understood the male compulsion to beat one another into bloody pulps and walk away better friends for it, and watching it is not something I enjoy. But when I heard about the guy who runs these things around the same time my boyfriend the superdouche went to the dark side, I knew. I could hire him to kick Cameron’s ass, therefore making Cameron suffer and making me feel…better.
I can’t believe how packed the warehouse is. It’s a giant space, but it’s filled with people, most of whom are crowding around the boxing ring. I have no idea how this is pulled off. There’s a new fight every weekend, and every time, there’s also a new location. No one knows where it will be until the day of, and then the word spreads through campus like people spreading through Walmart on Black Friday.
I should have brought someone with me—heading into the dark corners of town late at night doesn’t seem like the best decision—but I didn’t feel like spilling my sob story to anyone after my horrible experience in the peer counseling clinic the other day. I totally lost it. I was a blubbering, sloppy, train wreck of epic proportions. When I mentioned the revenge idea to the chick at the clinic—who looked like she was sixteen and talked like she was sixty—she made me feel like an idiot.
I wander through the crowd, trying to find anyone who looks like they’re in charge, but everyone seems to be waiting for the fight to begin. This Jose guy is probably near the ring, I rationalize, heading in that direction. The crowd gets increasingly thicker the closer I get to where the action will be, but finally I make out a group of people that seem to know something. One of them is wearing a black-and-white striped shirt with the words, fuck with the ref die like the rest sewed in red lettering on the back, and hot pink, super tight, teeny tiny shorts. Must be Jose.
I stand on the outskirts of their little group for an embarrassingly long time, trying to get someone’s attention or make eye contact, but it’s not happening. I catch snippets of their conversation.
“How much so far?” the ref asks.
Someone answers, but I can’t hear the response.
“You’ve got to be shitting me!” some chick covered in tattoos and topped with dreadlocks yells.
“What do you mean Johnson’s pulling out? He can’t do that!”
“Ha…Johnson’s pulling out,” I snicker. Nobody hears.
“He’s going to flip a fucking gasket,” the ref says.
Some dude with giant seventies-style sunglasses and a fedora walks up and says something I can’t hear over all the talking and noise.
“Did you call him?” Girl with dreads asks.
“Yes I called him, what the fuck else was I gonna do?” Giant glasses says.
“Well, is he coming?”
“He’s on his way, he said he’s going to fight himself.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Uh, is Dean on his way?” I ask loudly.
Now they hear me. All eyes flick to me.
“Who are you?” dreadlock girl asks.
Shit. What do I tell them? This might be my only chance to talk to this guy.
“I’m his sister.”
Dreadlock girl crosses her arms over her chest and eyes me up and down. “His sister?”
“Step sister,” I say quickly.
She opens her mouth, but then the crowd gets louder, the roar of voices starts outside and rolls in like a wave. I can’t hear anything except the ref guy who’s on my immediate right.
“He’s here,” he says.
And then I’m being pushed around by people clamoring the stage and jolting me this way and that. For a second, I can’t breathe and I’m worried I’m going to be swallowed by the horde, but then the ref is yanking me along with him, around the ring and through the madness to a small door just behind the ropes.
It’s dark and the space feels enclosed. I freak for a minute, wondering why this guy dragged me in here. What if he’s going to hurt me? What if he knows I’m lying and he’s going to tie me up, torture the truth out of me, work me over with brass knuckles and those things that pull out people’s fingernails until I crack?
I’m a total wuss, I won’t last a second. I’m about to yell, “I’m not his sister!” when a light flicks on. I blink against the sudden brightness. The hanging bulb swings to reveal a small room. No windows, just a bench, a small counter with shelves, and another door leading outside which the ref is opening to let in…Thor.
No wait, it’s not Thor, but it looks a hell of a lot like him.
If this is torture, sign me up.
“Hey man,” ref claps Thor on the back. “Your sister’s here, I thought I should keep her safe.”
Thor is Mob guy?
He looks shocked and then pissed for a split second before a calm settles over his features. “My sister? Where is she?” he asks, voice hard.
“Here.” Ref points in my direction.
Thor’s eyes flick to me and he blinks.
“Heyyy…brother!” I say before he can speak. It’s like I can’t control myself. I know he knows I’m not his sister, but that doesn’t stop me from continuing the charade and stepping up and hugging him. Awkwardly. He’s got a giant gym bag strapped over his shoulder and I pat it instead of his back.
“Uh, could you give us a sec?” Mob guy says. He hasn’t moved. I feel like I’m hugging a giant, immobile boulder.
For a minute, I think he’s speaking to me, telling me to leave, so I step back but before I can get very far, I realize the ref’s already leaving. The noise from outside fills the small space for a second before the door slams shut and the sound is reduced to a hum.
“Who are you and what do you want?” His voice is flat. He shrugs the bag off his shoulder and sets it on the counter top.
“I have a proposition for you.”
He doesn’t turn around, just rummages through his things, pulling out boxing gloves and strips of linen. “Look, I’m not into the whole role playing thing and I’m not interested in whatever proposition you have. You can leave out the back door.”
I can feel myself flushing, the heat rising up my face.
“It’s not that kind of proposition,” I say, more firmly than I thought possible after he just implied that I was there to try and sleep with him or role-play? As his sister? Has this happened to him before? Gross.
“Then what do you want? I have a thousand people waiting out there. Make it quick.” He pulls his shirt over his head, exposing a muscled back and my mouth goes dry.
“I just…I want you to beat up my boyfriend.”
Ex-boyfriend, I meant to say, but he’s got me all flabbergasted with the skin and the muscle and the…a mini George Takei is oh mying in my head.
He stops rummaging through his stuff and turns to face me. Slowly.
He looks even better from the front than from the behind. Holy hell.
I swallow and remind myself why I’m here, and it’s not to hit on some guy, even if he is lickable. “I’ll pay you,” I add into the silence.
He just stares at me, expression flat. Maybe that girl in the peer counseling clinic was right. This is crazy. What made me think this was a good idea in the first place? Ugh. I’m always doing this, throwing myself into ridiculous situations and getting in way over my head. What’s wrong with me?
“Is your boyfriend waiting in the ring right now?” Mob guy asks.
“Um…no.”
“Then no.” He turns away again. “Have a nice life.”
“Please? I’ll pay you. A hundred bucks.” I sound pathetic, even to my own ears, but I’ve come too far to turn back now.
My whininess must affect him somewhat.
He drags a frustrated hand through his shaggy blond hair. “Why should I beat up your boyfriend? Why don’t you just break up with him?”
“I did break up with Cameron. He’s not my boyfriend anymore. He’s an asshat and he really deserves to be in some sort of physical pain.”
I’m not kidding. He deserves more than pain. He deserves some kind of curse that makes his willy turn green and fall off.
“So you’re the judge and jury, and I’m the executioner?” He begins wrapping a thin band of long fabric around one hand, back still to me.
“Something like that.”
He laughs but the sound isn’t a happy one. “Listen, uh…?”
“Freya,” I supply.
“Yeah. I’m sure your ex-boyfriend Calvin—”
“Cameron.”
“Whatever. Wait.” He stops and turns, his eyes meeting mine, dark and focused. “Cameron who?”
“Cameron Myers.”
“I’ll do it.”
He answers way too quickly.
“Wait, what?”
“I’ll do it,” he says a little bit louder. “Pay me fifty bucks now and fifty bucks once it’s done. And you’ll have your proof by next Thursday.”
“That was the quickest one-eighty I’ve ever witnessed.”
He lets out an irritated sigh. “Listen Freddie—”
“Freya,” I correct, but he’s still talking.
“I don’t have time to haggle with you. Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it.” I stick my hand out. He eyes it dubiously for a second before giving me a quick, bone-crushing shake with his unwrapped hand.
“Great. Now get the hell out of here. Pay the man at the door.” And then his back is to me again.
What a jerk.
“Fine. Pretty sure I met my asshole quotient for the day two minutes into this conversation, and now my cup runneth over,” I say as I’m heading for the exit. I’m not sure, but I think I hear him laugh just before the door slams shut behind me.
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