I leave the armchair and Darryl follows closely behind me as I head back to the door. I reach for the handle, but he catches my shoulder. “Do me a favor and tell Jackson before you go back to Olivia. He’s not going to take it very well… it’ll give him the day to cool down.”
I nod. “Can you call her and tell her I’m coming back after I see Jackson?” I open the door and step out into the hallway. “I would, but I smashed my phone.”
Darryl leans against the door frame and stares at me with that fatherly disapproval. “Of course you did.”
I roll my eyes and turn away. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I stroll down the hallway toward the elevator. From memory, Jackson’s staying on the floor above Darryl.
“Hey, Seth!” Darryl calls, making me turn around. His lips pull up at the corners, curving into a wide smile. “I’m proud of you, you know that, right?”
“You were singing a different tune this morning,” I tell him, but his smile stays plastered in place.
“That wasn’t you, that was the old Seth. The new one makes me proud every day.”
He slips back inside his room and closes the door. I catch myself smiling stupidly at the wood and quickly drop it. It’s still too early to be happy, I have to tell Jackson and make it up to Olivia before I’m in the clear and it isn’t going to be an easy feat. The way I see it, it can go two ways. One, Jackson punches me in the face (hard) and tells me to go fuck myself. I have a feeling he’s still pissed about what happened between Selena and I. And two, Olivia is also going to punch me in the face (hard) and tell me to go fuck myself. I hear those pregnancy mood swings aren’t too good for the man responsible for them. I step into the elevator and hit the glowing button above the current one. Now that I have a clearer head, it’s time to do some damage control.
***
Selena answers her door quickly and pouts when she sees my face. “Oh, it’s only you. How’d she take it?”
She makes no move to open the door and let me into the room. That’s fine by me, it’s not like I really want to go in there, anyway. Selena plucks a chopped strawberry from the container she’s holding and stuffs it into her mouth. She’s on edge—cranky, too. I’m assuming things didn’t go too well with Jackson after the whole Aria incident.
“I didn’t tell her,” I admit on exhale.
“Oh, awkward. I hope you’re not here to declare your love for me.” She smirks. “It was only a kiss.”
I narrow my eyes at her. It’s way too soon for ‘we kissed’ jokes, but it beats an awkward silence, I guess.
“Firstly, if anyone is falling in love with anyone, it’s you. I’m that good a kisser.” She rolls her eyes. “And secondly, sorry, but I prefer brunettes. Where’s Jackson?” I leave no room for more small talk. I just want to know where Jackson is so I can tell him that Don is my last fight.
She shrugs, popping another strawberry into her mouth. “Well, he yelled at me a little bit and didn’t want to discuss what happened, so he left for a place called Lucky’s.”
I turn away and head for the elevator. It’ll take me straight to the ground floor. I should have known Jackson would disappear to Lucky’s. Now that he and Selena are on a rocky path, that’s where he spends all of his time outside of training. It’s classic tortured Jackson bullshit. I find it strange he’d go there. I know for a fact Lucky’s doesn’t have day fights. Their fights start after eleven p.m. so Jackson is either going there to start a fight or drink until there’s nothing left.
“Seth? Where are you going?” she calls after me. “Is it Jackson?”
I ignore her, but only because I know if I tell her, she’ll insist on coming with me and, if I’m being honest, I’d rather not spend any more time with Selena. When I reflect back on my day later on—when I’m telling Olivia about it—I don’t want Selena’s name to pop up more times than it should. I don’t want Olivia to think for a second that Selena means anything to me. Selena is Olivia’s friend, and most of the time I dislike her. She helped me out today and that was it. I want nothing else to do with her.
***
Lucky’s bar. I haven’t been here in years. I rest my arm against the window frame and survey the seedy tavern. It looks the same. It has the same old busted, stone exterior and green trimmings. It has the same old picture windows and low door frames, and it definitely lacks the classy prestige the rest of Las Vegas has, but so did many other bars in this part of town. The only difference between then and now is the thicker blanket of sand shrouding it. On the surface, it looks like your classic run down bar, but underneath its floorboards, there is a whole new world. The surfaces were cleaner, the women hotter, and the alcohol more expensive. Amidst all of the new age decals and accessories, situated in the center of the room, was a tall, steel cage. The cage wasn’t like the rest of the room—polished and clean. It was worn and spattered with blood. I used to love it here. This place instilled in me the passion to fight. This is where my love for Vegas began… back then, though, I only saw this joint at night time. In the middle of the day, all of its appeal didn’t, well, appeal to me.
“Here I go,” I breathe, stepping out of the car. The hot Vegas air fills my lungs and I try not to breathe too much of it in. On this side of town, there’s only so much piss-filled air you can ingest before you throw up all over the sidewalk.
As I approach the steps of the establishment, I hear shouting coming from the alley adjacent to the bar and I don’t need to look to know who it is. There’s only one angry man walking around Vegas at this time—the rest are still asleep. I break into a quick jog and sure enough, I see Jackson, drunk and shirtless, trying to take on two of Lucky’s security guards.
“Jackson, you’re drunk. Go home.” the taller one orders, turning his back.
“Fight me, you pussies!” he demands, spitting onto the gray gravel beside him.
The second guard barely flinches. He’s relaxed, not threatened in the slightest by Jackson’s show of aggression. Instead of acting on Jackson’s drunken demand, the guard throws his shirt at him. “Come back when you’re sober, man.”
They disappear back inside, leaving Jackson outside on his own. He growls ferociously before cocking his hand back, turning and letting it fly into the concrete wall.
“Shit!” He shakes his hand and flexes his fingers. “Fuck! Fuck you!”
Blood flows from his knuckles, dripping onto the colorless stones. I step forward and my shoes scuff on the gravel. Cradling his hand to his chest and smearing it with blood, he snaps his head in my direction.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Well… I guess someone isn’t in the mood to see me. His aggressive tone doesn’t affect me. I let it roll right off my squared shoulders.
“I’ve come to talk.” I stuff my hands into the pockets of my jeans.
Jackson snorts and unknowingly begins to pace. “You’re shit out of luck. I’m not in the talking mood.”
“You never are.”
Silence falls as he wraps his hand in his black tee. “Let me guess. You’re here because Olivia doesn’t forgive you and you want me to make it better?”
I clench my jaw and then relax it. “I don’t need you to do anything. I can handle Olivia. I’m here because—”
“—because Selena’s upset I yelled at her and she called you in to save the day.”
“No, I’m here—”
“Because you—”
“Will you shut up and let me finish?” I snap.
“No, you shut up!” He shakes his head, taking a hostile step forward. “I’m done hearing you talk. I’m done always coming second to you!”
He marches forward until he’s right in my face. I want to hit him. I want to punch him square in the eyes and kick start his brain. He smells of whiskey and cigarettes—not on his breath, but on his skin. “Why’d you come looking for me? To talk about today? To talk about what you did?”
I frown. “What I did?” I have to think hard, then it hits me. Ohh, he’s talking about Selena. “That didn’t mean anything, Jacks. It was all part of a plan—an act.”
“And the second time? When you grabbed her like she was yours?”
I put my hands on my hips, realizing what this whole childish act is about. He didn’t like the way I put my hands on ‘his’ woman. In my defense, she isn’t his. “I think you’re blowing this way out of proportion.”
Minutely, he shakes his head. “Blowing it out of proportion? That’s awfully rich, coming from you, asshole. Just the other morning you made me switch seats when Olivia rested her legs on me.”
“So? At least everyone knows she’s mine. At least I make it clear to her that she belongs to me. You can’t claim something you don’t truly want the minute someone else touches it. What are you, seven?”
He steps back, his face pinching into a violent scowl. “You know what I want? I want to hit you.”
I smirk. That’s the difference between Jackson and I. He threatens, I follow through. If that was him kissing Olivia, I’d have destroyed him at the Aria. “Do it, if it’ll make you feel better, but you wanna hope you can outrun me.”
On a heavy exhale, Jackson runs his shirt over his face, collecting drunken sweat. “Why did you find me?” His tone is even and calm. I savor the moment because the second I tell him about Olivia, he’s going to lose his mind. “I get the feeling it’s not to save me from myself.”
I shrug. “You know I let you handle your own shit. It’s too complicated for me.”
He scoffs, taking another step back, but never dropping his slack, intense eyes from mine.
“Olivia is pregnant.” Like I expected, the air grows tense again. “I’m going to be a dad, Jacks.”
The bright sun above illumines his skin, making it seem extra pale—even green—between his myriad of tattoos. “That’s why you came out here? To pass on your ‘good’ news while I’m drowning in my own fucking problems?”
Fucking hell. I lift my hand and pinch the bridge of my nose. There’s no reasoning with a drunken Jackson. No matter what I say to him, he’ll flip it on me, dragging me into his shit and making everything my fault.
“Why does my happiness piss you off so much?” I ask. Fuck beating around the bush.
“Why?” he repeats, shouting. “C’mon, Seth, you said it yourself. You have everything that I wanted and you claimed you never did. I wanted the fighting career, the good wife, the big house—a family—I wanted a family.”
He stumbles as he takes another step back and I inch forward, but he thrusts his hands at me, warning me off. When he straightens, he begins to pace, back and forth.
“You can still have those things.”
“I’m not like you!” he snaps. I take in his scrunched face and dark eyes. “I can’t fight publicly. When I fight, it reminds me of Amelia and I can’t break apart in front of thousands of people. I sure as shit can’t have a relationship like you because I’m fucked. I’m fucked from head to toe and there’s no redemption for me!” I watch as he stalks toward Lucky’s and slumps against its dirty wall, defeated. “I’m going to be stuck here.” He gestures to the bar. “Fighting in illegal establishments and hooking up with random girls. I’m going to die alone. No one can love me like Olivia loves you—I don’t deserve that kind of love.”
I shift my weight onto my left leg. “Selena lov-”
“—Selena loves what I do to her.” He rakes his teeth over his bottom lip repeatedly before speaking again. “She wants to change me… but even I know if you’re deeply in love with someone, you love them for all that they are, not what they could be.”
Easy fix. “So leave Selena and find someone else.”
Jackson’s shoulders pull in and he sags, putting an unnatural curve in his spine. “I can’t leave her…”
“Out of moral obligation?”
“Out of desire!” He straightens his back and squares his shoulders. “Out of possession and lust. I’m stuck to her, like a grenade strapped to her hip. I can’t bring myself to leave, even if I tried.”
“Because you love her.”
He shakes his head and it’s like an etch-a-sketch, all his lines fade away, softening his features. “Because I love what she does to me… because I love the passion she brings out in me. Others see the fire in my eyes and they fear it, but not her, no.” His lips twitch and he drops his stare to his shoes. “She sees the fire and wants to play with it.”
Sounds like love. He’s in love. The idiot is in love, but refuses to see it. “Maybe it’s time to stop focusing on what you deserve and more on what you have,” I say… and I’m not sure if it’s for him or me.
I don’t know how long I stand there watching him in silence, but after the first ten minutes it’s clear our conversation is finished. Regardless, I stay a little while longer to show him that I’m here for him. It’s the least I can do considering I’m the reason he’s spiraling out of control. When the sun becomes too hot to handle, I walk away.
“You’re going to quit fighting, aren’t you?” Jackson calls out, forcing me to stop and turn around. It doesn’t sound like a question… more of an ‘I know you are’ kind of statement.