Chapter 9

CHAPTER

NINE

RUST

THREE WEEKS LATER

"One-two, one-two," Marquis yells from the edge of the cage, leaning against the interlocked metal with one hand twirling his outlandish, hipster mustache. His pale face glares at me when the round buzzer goes off. He walks over and raises his hand like he's going to slap me, though he's several inches shorter and a hundred pounds lighter. "Are you sick, Rust? Has your health rusted as much as your name, hmm? Please answer. Use your words."

I roll my shoulders, pacing up and down the cage. It's late, a private session, just Marquis, me, and my training partner, the appropriately named Mitch Cage, a fellow fighter. Mitch removes the focus mitts—big pads for me to aim my punches at—and swigs a blue sports drink from a big bottle.

"Where's the snap? Where's the pop? These are simple boxing combinations. You've been boxing ever since you were a little worm in your father's nuts, no?"

"Not quite that long." I keep rolling my shoulders, thinking of the last night at the house, staying in my room, leaving in the morning, and not seeing Mary again since I inked her skin. I told Brad I had to start camp early. He understood. Of course, he did. He's a good friend, unlike me. "I need to focus more."

Marquis paces up and down with me, constantly trying to keep himself in my eyeline. "All you are is focus, Rust! You have nothing else. You are a focus machine. I've never had a fighter who can focus like you. Focus more , Rust Hadley? You? That has to be a joke. You're spitting poison in my ears."

I nod to Mitch. "Let's go again."

"No, no, no." Marquis waves his finger. "You're not going to overtrain because you failed to focus . You need to rest your body. Rest your mind. You'll try harder tomorrow."

"Lay off, coach. My wrist is hurting from holding those pads."

"He's right, though," I tell Mitch. "I could've hit you harder, quicker, less distance, less telegraphed."

"Thank you, yes, yes," Marquis says. "You listen, Mr. Cage. This is how you get into the top fifteen and get a title shot. Not my wrist hurts ."

"Coach," Mitch chuckles. "Some folks might call you a bully."

"Never to my face!" he declares, leaving the cage as he twirls his mustache.

"He looks like a villain when he does that," Mitch says, taking out his man bun and toweling down his blond hair. He's a light heavyweight, one weight class down from me, but he's big since he water-cuts twenty pounds every fight. "I meant it about my wrists, bro."

"He's an ass, but he's right," I say. "It's the mind, Mitch. It's what I'm always telling you. The mind has to be one hundred percent focused on the task. Completely consumed by it."

"It's the heavyweight championship," Mitch says in a confused tone. "Cain's got the only win on you. What else are you thinking about?"

I grind my teeth. Besides what happened to me as a kid, I've never had a secret. That wasn't a secret, really, because it's just not worth talking about. No drama. This is different.

"Nothing," I grunt, leaving the cage.

"You seen this shit?" Brad says on speakerphone. We chat like this fairly often, but sometimes, we'll do video, too. Lately, I've made an excuse every time, not wanting to look at him or have him look at me. Just speaking to him is enough to make me feel wrong. Feel . I'll never be the cold bastard I was before.

My woman has changed me. Not my woman . Fuck.

"What is it?" I ask, watching the video recording of this morning's grappling session, spotting several obvious and avoidable errors in positioning.

"Cain's Instagram story."

"I never watch that stuff."

"It's ridiculous."

I swipe on my phone and open the app. I rarely even check it. I have a social media manager who shows up now and then demanding photos to post on a staggered timeline, but that's it. Finding Cain's page, I click on his story.

Cain Cruz fills the screen, a large Mexican-American man with a black handlebar mustache and a thick neck, with weirdly childish, mischievous eyes. He's sitting at a bar, wearing a cowboy hat. When he speaks, it's in a unique mixture of a Texan and Mexican accent.

"Now you listen here, Rust. I dominated your ass once, and I was going easy. The simple fact is, you felt weak, boy. Weak and soft . When I'm done ragdolling you around the cage, they'll need a goddang body bag, and that's a fact ."

The story ends. I shrug. "It's just talk, Brad."

"It's like he thinks you're the same fighter you were back then."

Usually, it gives me that content reaction when Brad starts defending me. It's like we're blood brothers, warriors against the rest of the world, the two kids who met at the lake and got the Cross back. But now, after that night , it's all wrong.

"You were a blue belt back then, right?" he says.

"Yeah."

"You're a purple now. Almost brown."

"Four stripes, yeah," I tell him, "but don't worry about belts too much. A purple can tap a black. Hell, even a blue can tap a black if he's athletic, strong, and naturally talented. Cain is a white belt. He never trained Jiujutsu, just wrestling and MMA grappling."

"Still," Brad says, "it's going to be a different fight. How's training going?"

Whenever he asks me this, I'm forced to lie. Okay, not forced to, exactly. I could tell him that, one stormy night, I spanked his sister, and we took each other's virginity. Or I could keep my word to Mary and lie to my best friend. He hasn't mentioned her tattoo yet. I guess she's managed to keep it a secret.

"It's going fine," I tell him. "Just trying to stay focused."

"Trying?" Brad chuckles. "All you do is focus, Rust. That's why they call you ‘No Rust.'"

I went several fights without a nickname, but then the fans started calling me No Rust because, with every fight, I looked sharper, my technique got better, and my fitness improved. Other men had families, Christmases, financial stress, and dependents, but not No Rust . He only had the game. Not anymore. Mary, I want you, need you, but to win this fight, I have to pretend we never even kissed.

"Yeah," I say lamely. "Brad, I've got to go. Nice talking."

"And you," he replies, and I hang up.

My mind returns to a memory, a few months after Brad and I got the Cross back from those assholes. Brad had watched me call up a restaurant, asking if they had any jobs. "You just hung up on them, Rust," he said. "You can't do that. It's rude."

"But the conversation was over."

"It's still rude ." He laughed, like he often did, as if I was some amusing puzzle. I would've hated it if anybody else had laughed at me like that, but not with Brad. "Say goodbye or nice talking or something like that."

"Nice talking to a restaurant?"

"Okay, maybe not there. Thank you for your time or something. It's manners."

"We don't really do manners at my house."

"Well, it's time to start if you want to get anywhere in this world. That's what Dad always says. Manners cost nothing."

He was so full of hope back then. Hell, he still is the most optimistic person I know. It seems like a different life. His mom, Vanessa, was alive. Mary wasn't even one year old. Christopher was an upstanding member of the community and a good cop. Life's a strange, strange thing.

"Nice talking," I said back then, practicing it.

Brad clapped me on the shoulder. "That was excellent. Top marks."