Death Blow Page 8

  It hung in the air, silent except for Tiffany’s steady, heavy breathing. Lila was staring at the carpet until she realized, and then she looked up at Jackson. He was already looking at her. She settled back into his gaze and that was all they did for a moment—just look at each other. It was maybe the calmest, quietest moment Lila had ever had, by herself, let alone with another human being. They just looked at each other.

  “I’m sorry, Lila,” Jackson said finally. He said it so gently she wanted to cry.

  She’d always thought that if she talked about her mom with anyone, they might say the wrong thing, or ask a bunch of questions, or look at her with that awful pity that she’d gotten from some classmates throughout school. She rarely talked to anyone about anything, but she definitely didn’t talk about her mother. But here, with Jackson, she didn’t feel like she needed to talk. The way he looked at her, the tone to his sorry, the way he didn’t press or prod her, or simper in his apology.

  Chapter Ten

  Things were going well. A week into her new life, and Lila felt like things had always been this way. She’d settled in nicely at Club Malevolence and worked there almost every night, some nights as a cocktail waitress, and two nights as a bartender. She and Raechelle were on their way to being the best of friends, and she’d met Lucy and Georgia, the two other girls who worked there, and got along with them just fine. They were all young, attractive women, and Lila was by far the least fun.

  Lucy was tall and blonde and cold as ice, but knew how to party after the work died down. Georgia was short and curvy and olive-skinned, and had such a charm about her that she could bring the baddest man down into a puddle around her. They could all do their jobs well, all had good senses of humor, and all had the right stuff to make money like Lila’d never seen in her life. She was walking out with hundreds in cash, had already made more in a week at the Club than she’d made in months at the Dirty Pint, and she was blowing way more money than she’d been used to.

  One day, she and Raechelle went shopping. “You can’t wear the one dress Cassandra gave you every single night, you slob,” Raechelle had joked one evening. The next day, she picked Lila up and they drove into New Orleans, and stepped inside shops Lila had only dreamt of. Raechelle had a great fashion sense, and Lila hadn’t done any work—she’d mostly just stood there and let Raechelle dress her, then front over the money when they got to the register.

  Lila made sure she set aside what she’d need for the mortgage, and some money for her dad as well. Ever since he’d tried to talk to her, Lila hadn’t seen him—mostly because she hadn’t been home. He’d texted her a few times asking where she was, but she never responded. One evening, she’d gotten home late from the Club and he was passed out on the floor, and for a couple minutes, everything seemed normal. She cleaned him up and put him to bed, and left the next morning before he’d gotten up.

  If she wasn’t at work, she was probably at the Morans’. She and Jackson had hung out almost every day, doing nothing, just sitting in the living room or in the backyard and talking. They could riff for hours, start on a topic and let it landslide as long as they could stand it, talking over each other, building on arguments neither of them had quite expressed, responding to comments the other one had only been thinking. They got along like they’d known each other their whole lives, and anyone else present disappeared into the background.

  Sometimes, Cassandra and Lyle sat around with them, and they all had fun together—until someone would bring up fighting, and Tiffany would get huffy, and Jackson would get moody. But Cassandra and Lyle never seemed to get miffed. Every once in awhile, Lila could see a cloud cross over their bright faces—a certain look thrown at Tiffany, a glance exchanged as she chastised something about the ring—and she wondered how long they’d let Jackson continue to see her. Because they did seem like the type of parents who would intervene if they needed to, and they definitely would need to. Lila wasn’t sure how much money they made off Lyle’s business, but to her, Jackson seemed to be their main source of income. He’d fought twice more since the first night she saw him, and he’d won both fights, at great expense to his opponents and at great payoff to his parents.

  After the fights was definitely when Jackson’s mood was most foul. Something about it got to him: his parents’ glee, their cool congratulations, their seeming disregard for the danger of it all. Lila’d already learned to handle him delicately after a match, give him shit at just the right moment to break the storm clouds up. Since Tiffany was never there, the burden fell on Lila to make sure Jackson was taken care of—Cassandra and Lyle certainly weren’t going to do it. Jackson never hung around long, and neither did they. They’d all chat after the fight and then head off in their separate directions.

  Who Lila hadn’t seen again, and who she thought about all the time, was Barrett. She’d hoped he’d fight as often as Jackson, but since he was really only the fighter everyone loved to hate, he got less ring time apparently. He hadn’t fought or even been to the club since that first night. Lila lived her life as though he might walk into the room at any moment, she saw herself from a crane shot and judged her every pose, every move, considered every angle. But he hadn’t shown up again since that first night. The girls at the bar weren’t made privy to the fighter lineup, and Jackson was the only one she’d know about beforehand. It was torture, to be so turned on by someone who was more or less a ghost. Lila’d found herself having to satisfy her needs more in the last week than she’d ever had to before. Anytime his face flitted across her mind, she felt herself clench, grow wet, flush across her chest. She waited on pins and needles every time she walked into Club Malevolence, until the moment she walked out, and still, she hadn’t seen him for a whole week.

  Tonight, she was running drinks for Lucy behind the bar. She said hello to the bouncers, who loved her now, and slinked over to the bar. Lucy was already setting it up the way she wanted it—she was very particular.

  “Hey girl,” she said, slapping down a drying mat.

  “Hey Luce, how’s everything?” Lila set her clutch down in the usual spot underneath the bar and straightened up.

  “Good, good. How’s everything with you? Love that shade of purple.”

  Lila smoothed out her dress, a new one, a tight, off-the-shoulder mini dress in a deep, dark purple. “Yeah? I worried it was maybe too girly.”

  “Too girly, seriously? You’re too much. I can only tell it’s a color because I’m staring at it, and you’re worried it’s too girly.” Lucy swatted her with a towel. “New heels too?” Lila spun around for her.

  “Raechelle took me shopping. You like ‘em?” Lila showed them off, a pair of black suede peep-toes.

  “Raechelle’s turning you into a new woman.” Lucy said it without a smile, but Lila could tell she approved.

  “Someone’s got to,” Lila leaned against the bar and looked around. A couple early patrons were taking their seats. “They all order from you already?” Lucy nodded, setting up the rest of her glasses.

  “Yep, early crowd tonight, and they’re only going to keep coming.”

  By now, a week in, Lila saw the same faces every night, knew everyone’s name, knew most of their drink orders. She had a knack for names and faces, and the people at Club Malevolence really loved her. She had a great rapport with everyone, already had some inside jokes with a couple select regulars, and generally knew how to handle the crowd at the Club. It was a pretty amazing job, relatively low work for maximum pay-off.

  A couple hours later and two fights in, the club was getting busy. Lila was running her ass off, glistening lightly with sweat, but goddamn, she was making bank. People tonight—maybe there was a full moon or something—were handing her enormous bills as tips and drinking more than they normally did anyway. Her clutch was full of crumpled money already.

  “Oh my god,” Lucy wheezed behind the bar. “When the next fight starts, can you do me a solid and hop behind the bar? I need a fucking tampon.” Lila nodded at her as
she cracked open the shaker she had in her hands and poured a ruby red drink into a martini glass. “This goes to the Edwards over there, this and that vodka rocks,” she nodded at the glass.

  Lila swept the drinks up, laid them on her tray, and strutted off in the direction of the patrons. They were on a fight break right now, which was when most people rolled up to the bar and ordered directly from the bartender, but the Edwards were the kind of people who didn’t leave their seats the whole evening. They settled in when they got there, they only got up when they were ready to leave, and they tipped the shit out of the cocktail waitress.

  Lila made her way back up to the bar as most of the patrons started back for their seats. The last fight was about to start, and the fighters had just come out of the locker rooms. Lila heard the crowd reaction—an intense, guttural boo—and her insides froze. She turned around slowly, only to see him there, sliding under the ropes, shirtless and sweaty and exactly as she’d remembered—Barrett. He had a cocky smile on his face, and was giving the crowd the finger. He slid his mouth guard in and looked around the club. His eyes caught hers. She was trying so hard to keep her face neutral, despite the feeling that every pore of her body was opening up for him. He held her gaze for a moment, then winked and blew a kiss at her.

  “Asshole,” she muttered under her breath. Warmth spread between her legs regardless.

  Barrett’s opponent tonight was an enormous black man, dark and intense. He had a look on his face that promised Barrett a long, slow, painful loss, and this seemed to egg Barrett on further. He taunted the crowd, wagged his eyebrows at the other fighter. Lila could feel herself staring at him, trying to take in every inch of his body with her eyes, and she so desperately wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. The men sat with their trainers in the corners one last time, and the bell rang.

  Lucy ducked out from behind the bar. “Thanks for the favor, girl, I owe you one.” She kissed Lila on the cheek, grabbed her purse, and rushed towards the bathrooms. Lila slipped under the bar and leaned back against the shelves of alcohol. The beginning of a fight was always the calmest time, when most everyone had a drink and was too wrapped up in the early moves to bother with a cocktail waitress. She had a moment or two, at the very least, to just watch. And thank god she did. Barrett was on fire tonight.

  He danced around a bit, letting his strong, silent opponent hold his ground for a moment or two. Then, Barrett began feinting, leaning in quick for a punch only to pull back out and laugh at him. The crowd hissed and jeered. The black man seemed to be made of concrete, that’s how unmoved he was by Barrett’s performance. He kept his hands up and his eyes trained on Barrett, who got more and more ridiculous the more his opponent held out. He was shuffling his feet like crazy and dodging all over the place, when finally, his adversary struck: a hard, clean attempt at Barrett’s face.

  As if he knew the move was coming, Barrett ducked under it and hit the man square in the ribs, and hard. Lila had seen him joke around, but tonight, he was not doing that. Once the man went down just a little from Barrett’s first punch, his fists became pistons, rapidly attacking the man’s gut, ribs, and face. He wasn’t ready for it at all, no one was. The crowd leapt to its feet, screaming and groaning. The man faltered again, pulled his arms up too high trying to defend his face, and Barrett brought a knee swiftly into his stomach. A loud oomph, and boom, he was down on one knee.

  For all his feather-puffing beforehand, Lila could tell that when Barrett saw an opening to win, he took it, and he wanted his man to go down as fast as he could possibly get him down. With his opponent down on one knee, without so much as a grin or a jest, Barrett swept him up into the same effortless chokehold she’d seen him get the last Zen Master into. The move seemed unbeatable. First that sprightly martial arts fighter, and now this burly, built black man, had both gone down near instantaneously against Barrett’s signature move. Tonight, Barrett wasn’t fooling around though. He wanted this fight over. Lila could tell, because at this moment, with the man’s head wedged tightly in the crick of his arm, Barrett looked at her directly. Lila felt herself go hot and cold all at once, felt the wind simultaneously leak out of her and rush into her at the same time. She felt Lucy’s hand on her shoulder.

  “Hey girl, thanks.” Lila nearly jumped out of her shoes.

  Lucy jumped back and clutched her chest, laughing. “Whoa, girl! Christ. What, did you black out there for a moment?” Lila laughed, more out of nervousness than anything else, as she inched past Lucy and slid back out from under the bar.

  “Just got wrapped up in the fight, I guess,” she muttered, trying not to look at the ring despite the screeching of the crowd.

  “Easy to do when Barrett’s in the ring, they only last about two seconds anyway.” Lucy rolled her eyes and looked towards the ring. Lila followed her gaze as the crowd erupted—the black man pounded the mat furiously with his hand, and Barrett had won. “Aw, what a shame,” Lucy deadpanned. “We missed the part where he tried to rip his arm off.”

  Lila laughed again, nervously. The fight was over and the crowd was already throwing their trash at the ring, trying to hit Barrett as he dried off in his corner.

  “Wait, have you seen him since you smacked him?” Lucy asked. The Smack Heard Round the World—by now, all the girls working at the Club knew about it. Lila shook her head. She could feel Barrett getting closer, inch by inch, even though he was still all the way across the room. “Oh my god!” Lucy squealed. “I can’t wait to see this.”

  Lila couldn’t either.

  And, as if on cue, there he was, two stools away, emanating a heat that Lila could feel all over her body. She averted her eyes to the bar. Now that he was actually here, she felt shy and withdrawn, like she never wanted to look at him again. But she could feel his eyes on her, poring into her.

  “Well, well, well,” his voice broke the silence. Lila knew he was talking to her but she couldn’t bring herself to respond.

  “Nice fight, Barrett,” Lucy’s cold drawl responded. “I love it when you nearly wrench some guy’s arm out of his socket, it’s my favorite thing.”

  “Aw, Luce,” Barrett cooed. Lila finally looked up to see the two of them talk. “Listen, I know you’re still mad about that one time you tried to sleep with me and I didn’t want it but—“

  “Oh my god,” Lucy nearly rolled her eyes out of her head. “Go fuck yourself.”

  “Hey, weird! That’s exactly what I said to you that night!”

  Lucy gagged and headed down to the other end of the bar, where patrons—some too busy scowling at Barrett to look anywhere else—were hankering for drinks. Barrett turned his eyes back onto Lila, and again she felt that swell in her ribcage. She held his eyes this time, though.

  “Long time, no see,” she said finally. His face broke into a grin, and his cocky eyebrow went up.

  “Only a week—did I really leave you that hot and horny for our next meeting?” His ego was the thing Lila hated about Barrett, but it was also what drew her toward him. She couldn’t help but think that he’d probably been with a lot of women who just took it from him, and she couldn’t help but think he maybe liked her a little bit because she wasn’t going to do that.

  “Was it only a week? Hm. I guess I’d always heard that time really dragged in hell.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “Hell because you couldn’t wait until you saw me again?” He moved a stool closer. Lila felt it in her thighs.

  “Hell because I knew an asshole like you existed.”

  Barrett laughed. “Come on now, I don’t want to fight. I just did that.”

  “Barely,” Lila quipped. Barrett’s eyes snapped to hers and she saw something like anger flash through them, but the way Barrett bit his lower lip after that made her think it might be lust, too.

  “Down, girl, down,” he said, quietly. She was taken aback by it actually, his quiet tone, and she wasn’t sure how to respond. She didn’t, and Barrett, in the gap, took in her entire body with his eyes. Like the be
ad of sweat the first time, Lila felt like his hands were in his gaze, like they were all over her. She was so turned on she didn’t know what to do. The wetness between her legs was spreading, and she could feel her nipples hardening under her tight dress. She wanted to jump him right here.

  “Do a shot with me?” The thought flitted through her mind that maybe this gentle thing he was doing right now was just another tactic to bed her, one he used on all the women he must have slept with. She wasn’t sure how a cocky bastard like Barrett switched so suddenly, but it only served to drive her crazier. She should say no, she should refuse the shot, she should not drink with Barrett. She knew that the girls would all be shocked if she said yes, because the smack had branded her as the only one to resist Barrett’s charms, but—oh god, the last thing she wanted to do was resist. “Yeah,” a sly grin overtook his face now, “you want to do a shot with me.” He turned away from her to yell for Lucy.

  She took him in—the back of his head, the hair shorn short and close to the scalp, his muscular neck, his broad shoulders, the amazing definition of his biceps, the soft curve of his lower back into the top of his tiny shorts, the ass that strained underneath those.

  “Lucy! Come down here and make me two shots!”

  “Kind of busy, Barrett,” she called from the other end of the bar.

  “I’ll do it,” Lila snapped back into action. Barrett turned to her again, looking a bit surprised that she had volunteered now. “What do you want?” She stooped to duck under the bar and wondered if Barrett would look at her ass.

  “Four Horsemen,” he said to her as she straightened up on the other side.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “That’s what I want,” Barrett shrugged, not breaking eye contact. A smirk, now. “What, too strong for you? I pegged you for a tougher girl than that.” Lila scoffed at him and set to making them the shots. She could feel Barrett watching her the whole time, and surprisingly, a calm set in. She was flipping liquor bottles like she’d been born doing it, and the shots were done to perfection in no time.