Never Choose Flight (A Fighter Romance Novel) (2 page)

I felt a hand brushing my hair behind my ear. The thing I was resting on moved a bit. I bolted up in my seat. I’d fallen asleep. On his shoulder.

I looked at him and quickly wiped each side of my mouth, hoping that I hadn’t drooled too much. He was smiling at me, though. Not angry or anything. “We’re coming in for landing,” he said.

I shook my head, trying to wake myself up. Threw back the rest of my cup of coffee, rubbed my eyes, and then I was back to normal. Fully awake before the wheels screeched against the tarmac.

Normally, after a conversation like this, I would just slink away from the man, convinced that he didn’t want anything to do with me. The idea of, like, trying to continue things after the plane landed was never in my head. And especially a man like this - the kind of man my mom would actually be disappointed I was dating - I had no reason to try and make things carry on. But I tried anyway.

“So what are you doing now?” It was nine o’clock, february, so it was already dark. I immediately thought it was a dumb question, because he was probably just going home.

“Catching a cab,” he said. “Going to work.”

“I have a car,” I said. It was one of those thoughts that fell out of my mouth for everyone to hear.

“Lucky you,” he said.

“No, I mean I can give you a ride.”

“You sure?” he asked. “I’m not headed towards a very nice neighbourhood.”

“My life’s boring,” I said. “Let me break the monotonous pattern. Just by giving you a ride.”

“Sure,” he said. “I’d love a ride. But you’re just going to drop me off and leave, got it?”

“Sure,” I said.

He helped me get my bag down, and then we walked to the lot where my car was parked.

“So,” I asked, “Where to?”

“Terminal Island,” he said, and then got into the passenger side of my car.

“I never thought I’d be driving a stranger into a neighborhood like that,” I said.

“Never say never,” he said.

Terminal Island
. I knew of the place. It was not known to be the best neighborhood around. There’s a big prison there. It’s part of a harbor, that plenty of drugs flow through. Gang violence. Homeless people. Generally not the kind of place I like to hang around.

I started up the car and got onto the freeway, panicking on the inside all along. What did this man need to do at Terminal Island? Was he going to kill me or something? Because if so, that would be the place to do it. There is plenty of manufacturing down there, lots of noise, so no one would hear my screams. He could dump my body in the ocean. I looked over at him, and he seemed totally relaxed in my little car.

“So,” I said. “Are you, um, a prison guard or something?”

He laughed. That was not reassuring. “No,” he said, “I am not a prison guard. I don’t work at the prison.”

He looked over at me, looking me up and down, and he could tell that I was a bit worried. “I just have something I need to do there. You can drop me off and drive away. That’s probably best.”

“Is it dangerous?” I asked.

“It’s not as bad a neighborhood as everyone seems to think.”

“No,” I said. “I mean the thing you need to do.”

“Oh,” he said. And then he paused. “Not for me, no.”

“Is it dangerous for someone else, then?”

“It’s kind of dangerous for exactly one guy,” he said. “But not me. Or you. But you really should just leave once I’m out of the car. Thanks a lot for offering to drive, by the way.”

He seemed so nice, I thought. Friendly. Polite. What dangerous thing could he possibly be going to do? And why was it dangerous for someone else but not him?

I pulled off the freeway and onto one of the long dark streets of Terminal Island. The roads were wide, so that huge trucks could drive down them. There were cranes and trains, moving those shipping containers around. He told me where to turn, and we wove deeper and deeper into the night.

“There,” he said, pointing. It was a huge warehouse. There were several other cars parked outside. A few guys, some of them with girls, straggling around near the entrance which had one huge guy standing on either side. There were lights on inside, and I could practically hear the drunkenness from my car.

“What’s going on?” I asked him, moving my hand onto his seat belt before he could unbuckle.

“Just a normal Sunday night,” he said.

“Come on,” I said. “Just tell me what you’re doing.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Would it be dangerous for me to know?”

“No,” he said.

“Then why won’t you tell me?”

“It’s just…” he started. “It’s just that you seem like a perfectly nice woman. You’re well adjusted. You have a career. You go home to visit your family. Your life is exactly what most people want. Mine is not. I don’t want to spoil what you have going.”

I stared at him. That wasn’t a good enough reason.

“And I’m scared of you,” he added.

“What?” I said.

“I’m scared of you.”

“Why on earth would you be scared of me?”

“You’re the kind of girl I always hoped I’d meet. The kind of woman I think I’d like to get to know better. Maybe take out to dinner. But I can’t. I can’t do anything like that.”

I was blushing. “Why not?”

“Okay,” he said. “Right now. Right this minute. You need to drive away. Or else your whole life could be ruined. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

He undid his seatbelt and stepped out of the car. He closed the door and started to walk away from me, towards the strangely lit-up warehouse.

I watched him for a moment. I thought about what he’d said. My whole life being turned upside down. How he thought that my life was what a lot of people wanted. How he couldn’t have a woman like me in his life.

I thought about my job. The endlessness of my work. I thought about how tired I was every night when I got home, even though it felt like I hadn’t done anything. I thought about how I needed to drink coffee all day just to keep from passing out.

And I thought about what he might be doing. He didn’t need to drink coffee to stay awake. He was strong. He was happy. He seemed well adjusted. But there was something about him that I knew I had to be worried about. He straight up told me that we couldn’t be together. That I couldn’t become a part of my life. That he was
scared
of that happening.

And I knew that if I just followed him into that building, I would find the answer to my question. Find out what he did.

I didn’t want my life to stay the same. I wanted something to change. I wanted my whole life turned upside down.

I got out of the car and ran after him.

* * *

“Malcolm!”

He turned around and saw me running. He stopped walking so that I could catch up. “Jessica,” he said.

“I’m coming with you. I don’t care if my life gets flipped upside down.”

We both kept walking. “No guarantees on that,” he said, “by the way.”

“That’s fine,” I said.

He started to veer a little, not pointing towards the entrance anymore. Then he pulled off his hoodie. Underneath he was just wearing a thin white t-shirt. It wasn’t the kind that was made to be tight, but on his body it was.

He was ripped. He had tattoos. They ran down each of his arms, from the shoulder to the elbow. Some of them looked a little distorted by the size of his muscles.

But it wasn’t a gross kind of buff. It wasn’t the kind of muscle you get by hitting the gym three times a day and working out one muscle at a time. No. These were the kind of muscles you get by doing some physical. Using your whole body to accomplish something.

“Can you hold this?” he asked, as we walked around the side of the building.

“Sure,” I said.

He handed it to me and then I saw what we were walking towards. “I need to get pumped up for a minute. You can watch if you want.”

At the side of the building, underneath the one light that did a terrible job of lighting the place, was a punching bag. One of those full-length ones, that hung from a chain off one of the rafters that stuck out the side of the building.

He pulled some tensor bandage from his pocket and wrapped his hands as we got closer. Tight. “So,” he said. “I guess you’re going to find out soon anyway, so I might as well tell you.” He looked me in the eyes and said the following words. “I’m a fighter.”

I had no idea what that meant.

But before I could ask, he was at the punching bag. He got into position. Knees slightly bent. One leg forward, one leg back. Hands up, in fists. Thumbs on the outsides. He bobbed up and down slightly.

And then, lightning fast, he took two steps and threw a punch. It was so fast that I could hardly see it happen, but the bag swung violently. As it swung back towards him he took a few more fast steps and threw another fight of punches. The loud thumps echoed through the streets and the buildings around us.

Then again, as it swung back towards him, he hit it hard enough to turn it around. It swung and hit the side of the building.

Then he looked back at me. And his face said that he was only getting started.

And then. Bam bam bam. Punch after punch after punch. Non-stop. Maybe four or five hits landed every second. It sounded like a loud, steady drumbeat. Beating faster than my heart.

He started breathing heavily. And his feet kept moving at a ridiculous speed. Always landing sturdily before his next barrage of punches, giving him optimal force and strength. He moved from one side of the bag to the other, faster than I could imagine reacting to.

Then the kicks started. One kick and then, like, thirty punches. Then another. Then a jump and a kick with both feet at the same time. Then he landed sturdy and threw another couple of punches.

His pump-up session lasted five minutes, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. The way every movement blended into the next. How coordinated everything was. He did everything perfectly. Like he’d done it a million times before. He wasn’t slowing down at the end. He hadn’t tired himself out. This was his warm up.

I’d never seen anything like it. I’d never seen anyone so
skilled
. They say it takes ten thousand hours to become an expert at something, and it looked like Malcolm had done this for at least a hundred thousand hours.

Eventually he did stop though. He steadied the wildly swinging bag, and then walked back towards me. There was a hop in his step now. Something wild in his eyes. His skin was shiny with sweat. He had a huge grin on his face. “Well,” he said, “Let’s go.”

We walked around back to the front of the building. I had nothing to say. I was stunned.

The two huge men, I realized, both had baseball bats. But they recognized Malcolm, I guess, and they let us both by without moving a muscle.

The building was like nothing I’d ever been inside before. The floor was sticky, probably from a combination of booze, blood, sweat, and piss. There was a crowd of at least a hundred people, loudly babbling amongst themselves. There were only a few lights that dangled from the ceiling. The whole place smelled like a highschool change room with a lot more alcohol and a bit more pot.

I looked around, but then I realized that Malcolm had me by both shoulders. Over the noise of the crowd, he said, “Don’t worry, no one is going to hurt you. I’ll be in the ring. You can watch if you want.”

I just nodded. I clung onto his hoodie tightly as he walked away. I watched him walk through the crowd and saw many women putting their hands on him. Groping at him. But he didn’t respond. He just kept walking.

A short man in a cheap suit walked into the center of the ring. “Last call for bets!” he yelled through a megaphone. “Last call. The Beast versus The Destroyer. Two minutes.”

There were several hands that went up into the air with wads of cash as the man stepped back out of the ring. The ring itself was just some mats on the floor with a rope fence up around it.

I navigated through the crowd to get a bit closer. In one corner I saw Malcolm. I looked in the opposite corner and saw the other man. And then I was worried. Malcolm is a big guy. Tall. Strong. But this other guy was taller. And stronger.
He
was the kind of guy who must hit the gym three times a day. They could use his body to teach student about all the muscles in the body. He stood there flexing at the crowd, several of the women yelling for every pose he struck.

Malcolm wasn’t showing off. He was just standing there, bouncing up and down a bit. Eyes focused on nothing. He was ready. But I was still worried. It was going to be like a black bear fighting a grizzly. Both very scary, but one definitely had the upper hand.

The short man got back into the ring. He outstretched one arm towards Malcolm and yelled into the megaphone. “In this corner with have our own Malcolm ‘The Beast’ Thomson!”

Malcolm stepped into the ring and there was some applause. I clapped loudly. He didn’t look at the audience though. His eyes were locked, like a heat-seeking missile, on his target.

“And in this corner we have tonight’s contender. Jonny ‘The Destroyer’ O’Neil!”

Jonny stepped into the ring, and there was more applause. I did not clap, but most people did. It occurred to me that most people probably clapped for the man they’d bet money on.

They walked towards each other in the ring. “Let’s make it a clean fight, boys,” shouted the announcer. “Or not. Fuck each other up.”

He had his hand down between them, and both men assumed a fighter’s stance. Then he started to count. “Ten, nine, eight…”

The whole crowd started chanting. One hundred voice, in unison, shouted the count down. “Seven. Six. Five. Four.”

Both men got more tense. They were staring at each other. Sizing each other up. Malcolm moved his feet side to side, just the slightest bit.

“Three. Two. One!”

The announcer pulled his hand away and ran to the corner. The whole audience went dead quiet. Not a noise was made in the whole building.

For a second, neither man moved. The stared. No one wanted to make the first move. The Destroyer stood a head above Malcolm. Malcolm looked up at him.

Malcolm watched carefully as the man brought back his left hand, in a fist, winding up for his first bone-shattering blow.

But before he got a chance, Malcolm’s fist flew forward. It made contact with The Destroyer’s chin, low enough that he only hit the jaw, but high enough that he hit it hard.

There was a sickening crack noise, and the man’s head rotated a full ninety degree. The fist that he had been winding up fell limp, and his whole body crashed to the ground. Out cold.

The crowd erupted. Yelling and screaming and clapping and laughing. No one was silent. I burst out clapping and cheering as well. He’d done it. Malcolm had done it.

I looked at him and he still had that glint in his eye. The bounce in his step.

The announcer walked out and held up Malcolm’s arm, and the crowd somehow got even louder. “The Beast has won again!” The man let go of his arm but it didn’t fall. He kept it up, every muscle in his body still tensed.

Once the crowd died down a bit and all the gamblers were collecting or doling out money, Malcolm left the ring. He looked at me but then walked right past. I followed him as he carried on out of the building and then back around to the side. Back to the punching bag.

He walked faster than me, and was in full fight-mode before I caught up. He was hitting it even faster than before the fight. Destroying it. I just watched from a distance. He was doing quick jabs. One after another after another.

Slowly he started to make a noise. Just a grunt at first. Then he got louder. It turned into more of a yell. As he got louder, the hits became faster. The thumps got louder. The growling turned into an all out yell that last a good ten seconds, during which he hit the bag well over one hundred times.

Then he turned to face me. Looked me in the eyes. He unbandaged his hands as he walked towards me. “Well,” he said in a strange voice. “Thanks for sticking around. Too bad there wasn’t more of a show.”

“I still enjoyed it,” I said.

The bandages went back in his pockets. “That was nothing,” he said. “I got myself all pumped up. That fucking Destroyer. I was expecting a fucking fight. Now I’m pumped up for nothing.”

I looked at him. His eyes were on fire. He was walking with a tense posture, like he was about to fight. Even though the fight was over. He was done for the night. He had nothing left to punch.

Then he looked over at me. I looked at him. “So what do you want to do now?” I asked, taking the keys out of my purse.

“I know a place,” he said. “Can I drive?”

“Sure,” I said. My keys were in his hand before I even finished the word.

He got into the driver’s seat and the car was running before I sat down. The second my seatbelt click, we were off. Speeding into the cool dark night.

The car whipped around corners. He ignored stop signs completely.

“Malcolm?” I said. “Where are we going?”

He looked at me. “It’s up to you,” he said.

“You said you knew a place.”

“I do,” he said, “but if you don’t want to go there that’s fine.” It was like he was trying to convince himself.

“Well what are you suggesting?” I asked.

“That we go to my place,” he said. “And I fuck you till you can’t stand.”

No one had ever said anything like that. I hadn’t even gotten laid in years. I looked at the man driving. Ripped. Sweaty. Tattooed. A professional underground fighter.

“So where are we going?” he asked.

“Your place,” I said. Those words surprised even me.