Because of His Name (7 page)

“Thanks,” she said, wishing she believed
him.
 
“Maybe I will.”

“Good.
 
Please do,” he said.
 

And then just after she’d left the room,
she heard Vera exclaim, “Well, if that wasn’t the oddest girl anyone’s ever
brought home!”

Grace started walking faster and faster,
and then Liam was calling out to her.
 
“Hey. Grace!
 
Slow down a
second, will you?”

“No, I won’t,” she said, picking up her
pace.
 
Her shoes clacked on the
gleaming floor as she moved faster and faster.
 
“I’m going to wait out front.
 
If you could bring me my dress, then I
can be on my way.”

“Why?
 
Where are you in such a hurry to get
to?” he said, catching up to her and grabbing her elbow.

She yanked her arm away.
 
“I’m in a hurry to get anywhere but
here,” she hissed.

“What did I do wrong this time?” he
chuckled.

She turned and faced him.
 
“You just led me into the lion’s den,”
she said.
 
“Were you trying to
humiliate me?”

“Humiliate you?” he said.
 
“My family’s a bunch of buffoons.”

“Yeah, well all that stuff about where I
went to school and what I do for work.
 
You must’ve known they’d ask me those things, Liam.
 
It was horrible.”

Liam grabbed her arms firmly and looked
her in the eyes.
 
“I brought you
down to breakfast because I wanted to spend more time with you.
 
And yeah, maybe I should’ve warned you
about my family—but if I did—you never would’ve come.”

“That’s right,” she said, “and I wouldn’t
feel like a goddamn idiot right now, either.”
 
She pulled away from him.
 
“Don’t bring me around to piss off your
mother, Liam.
 
If you want to do
that, use some other girl.”

He looked like she’d punched him.
 
“What?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

He opened his mouth and then closed it.
 
“Grace—“

“You’re not stupid and neither am I.
 
And there’s no way you pulled that stunt
because you thought I’d go over so well with your snooty family.”

He folded his arms.
 
“Maybe I didn’t think it through.”

“Well maybe you should have.
 
And maybe you should’ve considered me,
instead of just thinking about what would be fun for you.”

There was a long silence, and she thought
for sure he was going to tell her to get out of the castle, and that he didn’t
particularly need to listen to some ridiculous girl getting on his case for no
reason.
 
But he didn’t say any of
that.

Instead, he nodded his head.
 
“Yeah.
 
You’re right.”

“What?”

Liam smiled, as if enjoying her
consternation.
 
“I said you’re
right.
 
Can you handle that or do
you just want to keep arguing with me?”

She smiled tentatively.
 
“I think I want to keep arguing.”

“Then how about we take the argument on
the road,” he said, grabbing her hand.

“On the road where?” she asked, her brow
furrowing.

“I’ve got something I have to do, and I
want you to come with me.”

“Didn’t we just have this discussion,
Liam?”

“I know, but this time nobody’s going to
even notice you’re there.” He tugged at her.
 
“Come on, Grace.
 
I promise, if you think I’m messing with
you again—well, I’m not.”
 
He
looked into her eyes.
 
“I want to
show you this part of my life.”

“Then can’t you at least tell me where
you’re taking me?”

He grinned.
 
“A nightclub.”

“A nightclub?
 
In the morning?”

“That’s enough,” he said.
 
“I told you where.
 
Now you have to decide if you still
trust me enough to go or not.”

She thought about it.
 
“I don’t trust you at all.
 
But I’ll come along because I’m a
glutton for punishment.”

He smiled and then leaned in and gave her
a kiss that made up for everything.

That kiss, she thought, was going to be
her downfall.

***

They drove up to the nightclub in Liam’s
silver Porsche and there was a small crowd of people standing outside when they
arrived and parked in the lot out back.

The people didn’t at all look dressed for
dancing.
 
They looked more dressed
for a grunge rock show or something—all jeans, tattoos,
piercings
.
 
Mostly young men, but not the type of guys that she’d have imagined
Liam hanging out with.

And the way they’d all stared when he
drove up in his Porsche, she didn’t think that these folks were very used to
seeing people like Liam, either.

“What’s going on here?” she asked, as he
shut the engine off.

The car fell silent.
 
Liam glanced at her and checked the time
on his phone.
 
“It’s a surprise,” he
said.

“No more surprises,” she said, shaking her
head.
 
“I’m not going into that
creepy nightclub with those weirdoes standing out front unless I get an
explanation.”

He looked at her.
 
“I manage a fighter,” he said.
 
“And we’re putting on a fight in that
nightclub.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m dead serious.”
 
He stared at her calmly.
 
“Now I’m running late and I have to get
inside.
 
They’re letting the crowd
in and they don’t waste any time getting down to business.”

“Is this even legal?”

“I told you what’s going on in
there.
 
Now it’s your choice to come
inside or not—but I can’t sit in the car debating the legalities of
underground fighting.”
 
He opened
the driver’s side door and stepped out.

Grace knew she was going in with
him.
 
As crazy as it was, she didn’t
want to be left—didn’t want to end their time together, even if she was
scared of what she’d see inside this nightclub.

So she followed him, yet again, into
another unknown and highly suspect situation.

They went in through the back door of the
club.
 
Liam called someone and
announced he’d arrived, and then the back door was opening and a large man with
a shaved head was letting
them
inside.

They went down a flight of stairs and
came to a large, cavernous space with a bit of overhead lighting and an empty
bar.
 
There were maybe a dozen
people in the room, and more were filtering in through a separate
entrance.
 
A man at the entryway was
collecting money and stamping hands.

“Where do they fight?” Grace asked him,
looking around.

“Wherever the fight goes,” he said.
 

“There’s no ring or…cage or whatever?”

“That’s the beauty of underground
fighting,” he said, clearly pleased with the arrangement.

Moments later, a large young guy with a
pink
mohawk
and tattoos covering almost every square
inch of his body, approached them.
 
“Finally got here, I see,” he said to Liam, and then his gaze moved to
Grace.

“This is my friend Grace,” Liam told
him.
 
“She’s cool.”

“Oh, yeah?
 
You a fighter too?” the guy asked her.

She laughed, and then saw he wasn’t
joking.
 

“Oh, of course not—I mean, no.
 
Not yet, anyway.”
 
She smiled but he just raised his
eyebrows and then turned his attention back to Liam.

“The other guys are coming in and they’re
rolling deep and talking mad shit,”
mohawk
said.
 
He was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and no
shoes.
 
Suddenly, he stripped off
the t-shirt and now he was bare-chested, throwing air punches and kicks and
bouncing on his toes.

“Don’t worry about the other guys.
 
I’ll handle them,” Liam told him.

“Okay, boss.”

Mohawk started moving, shadow boxing,
seeming to enter his own world, while Liam watched him closely.

“So this is the fighter you manage?”
Grace asked him.

“Yeah.
 
His name’s Frank, but we call him
Beans.”

She nodded.
 
“As in Frank and Beans.”

“Yeah, he hates it,” Liam said, watching
as Beans and his pink
mohawk
executed a series of
punches and kicks.

“Nice,” Liam said, approving of Beans’s
moves.
 
“Let me get the pads and
we’ll warm you up real quick.”

Grace watched as more and more shady
people filtered into the club, until soon the place was packed with young men,
all of them dangerously aggressive—some smoking, drinking, taunting one
another.

The large bald man who’d let them in the
back door walked to the center of the room and held up his hands for
attention.
 
Surprisingly, the rowdy
crowd quieted down slightly.

“Hey everyone!” he said, his voice
carrying quite well.
 
“Y’all know
this match has been a long time coming.
 
Frank Beans Johnson versus Mack Truck Radcliffe,” he said, and the crowd
roared its approval.
 
“I know, I
know, we can’t wait either.
 
These
two teams have been jabbering at each other for at least six months now, and
finally we’re going to find out who’s ready to shut the other guys’ mouth.”

A chorus of shouting different names and
insults nearly overcame the announcer’s voice, but he managed to calm the crowd
again.

“We got a lot of money being bet on both
sides, but right now, Mack Truck is the odds on favorite, getting almost three
to one that he’s going to be victorious against Beansy.”

The crowd roared again.

Liam was standing with big pads strapped
on each hand, and his mohawked friend was now really warmed up and sweating,
taking big, hard punches out on Liam’s pads.

Grace had to admit that she was shocked
at what Liam was into.
 
He hadn’t
struck her as this type of person—not even a little.
 
And that made her wonder if anybody in
his family had a clue about his interest in underground fighting.

She scanned the room for the opposing
fighter and finally saw him as he walked his way through the crowd.
 
The guy was scary.
 
He was shorter than Beans, but also much
sturdier looking—very muscular and stout.
 
Unlike Beans, his hair was normal length
and style, and he had no tattoos either.
 
But his ears looked like two nubs that had been ground into his head
like old hamburger meat.
 
And his
eyes were flat and grim, like a murderer.

People were clapping him on the back as
he walked, and they called him Mack, so she knew he must be the aforementioned
Mack Truck the announcer was talking about.

Following after him was a small cadre of
men, dressed in matching dark shirts with two headlights emblazoned on the
front, and beneath the headlights was the phrase “The Truck’s Coming For You.”

His posse seemed scary.
 
They were all mean looking, yelling
stuff and they looked like they all wanted to fight, and were just looking for
a reason to do it.

“Okay,” the bald announcer said.
 
“Looks like the gang’s all here.
 
So we’re just about to start.”

Grace turned her attention back to Beans
and Liam, and Beans was still dancing and punching.
 
His
mohawk
had
gotten sweaty and some little pink bangs were falling onto his forehead.

“One last combo,” Liam told him.

Beans nodded and threw a combination of
punches at the pads, and then suddenly he screamed in pain and bent down,
holding his left hand.
 
“Fuck!” he
shouted.

Grace ran over to see what had happened,
as Liam dropped the pads to the floor.

“What’s wrong, Beansy?” he asked, bending
down to examine his friend’s hand.