H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (91 page)

“You want to go get some breakfast? I’m
starving.”

“I thought you didn’t eat.”

“I’ll have some cottage cheese and egg
whites. It’s my breakfast of champions.”

“That would be fine, but let’s stop by that
bar and get my car.” Sasha stood up and stretched. Damn, she had a
hot little body.

“Want to take a shower?”

“Considering we did have sex, I’d
better.”

“Yeah, you might have my cooties.”

“I hope that’s all it is—is cooties.”

“I’m good, little girl. We did use
protection.”

“I know we did.” Sasha reflected a bit on
the night before. She looked at me and smiled, “You know, you are a
pretty damn good kisser.”

“How could you tell?” I said, laughing.

“What do you mean?” Sasha seemed
confused.

“You seemed to have your agenda in the
kissing department.”

“I do like to kiss.”

“As do I, my lady.”

“That’s good to know because you haven’t
seen anything yet.”

Sasha walked out of my room into the
bathroom completely naked and jumped in the shower. I shook my head
at the sight of a gorgeous woman walking naked in my lonely
bedroom. Wow, some nights it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. I
got up and put on a pair of basketball shorts and waited for her to
get out of the shower. I got in after she was done and took a very
long, hot shower.

When I was finished, we threw on some
clothes and Sasha and I headed out. My apartment was about 15
minutes from Shiners. It didn’t take long to get there. I whipped a
left on Tustin Street and looked to over my left at the bar’s
parking lot where Sasha’s Jeep was parked. There was a fairly large
muscular man standing next to Sasha’s Jeep. He had a giant, black
4Runner parked adjacent to Sasha’s car. I slowed down my Mustang
and looked over at Sasha; she looked on in horror. Oh, this wasn’t
going to be good.

“Tommy, remember last night when I asked if
you had me figured out and you spouted off all those details?”

“Yes,” I said, hesitantly.

“You were right on just about everything.”
She took a deep breath. “Everything, except the part about me being
single!”

“Seriously, Sasha, that overgrown heap of
muscle is your boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“About a year.”

“Fucking great. Now this meathead is going
to want to try to kick my ass.” I pulled my car in the driveway
expecting this guy to charge my car and pull me out of the window.
I slowly inched my way through the parking lot. I stopped and put
my car in park almost a hundred feet from where he was parked. I
wasn’t taking any chances.

Sasha got out of the car with her hair still
wet from her shower. “I’m sorry, Tommy. I left my number by your
television at your apartment. This situation is complicated.”

Complicated? Was she kidding me?

Sasha slammed the passenger door and walked
over to her boyfriend who stood by her car. I knew I shouldn’t whip
out of the parking lot because that would look bad and was
definitely the cowardly dick move. And I was anything but a
coward.

I watched as Sasha talked to the fellow with
the dark brown hair. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem upset. He just
leaned back and listened. He was at least 6’5 and weighed 250
pounds. He looked like he should have been playing linebacker for
the Green Bay Packers.

Sasha turned around and walked toward my
car. Then she stopped and motioned for me to come out of my
vehicle.

Was she serious? This was the last thing I
wanted to do.

But I had no choice. I slowly got out of the
driver’s side. I rolled my eyes as I turned around and gave my best
Hollywood, good-guy smile that I had in my arsenal in times of
turmoil. I confidently walked over to Sasha’s Jeep.

“Hey, brother,” the large man said.

“What’s up?” He eyed me in a way to see what
I was about trying to read me before we even began to engage in a
conversation. I gave him a sincere, warm stare not knowing what
Sasha could have possibly told him.

“Thanks for taking care of her last
night.”

“No problem,” I said, just going along with
it.

“Not every guy would help a drunk girl and
not try anything.”

Try anything? There wasn’t much we didn’t
try last night! But that was definitely not something to blurt
out.

Meathead continued, “Thanks for making sure
that creep that was hitting on her didn’t take advantage of
her.”

Wow. Sasha laid it out and gave him a
detailed story. A lie. Oh, she was good.

Sasha jumped in, “I told Gary about that
jerk that was grabbing my arm and not letting me get in my
car.”

“Yeah, what a douche,” I said, with zero
expression in my voice. “He was a real asshole.” I emphasized
asshole, so Sasha could tell I was referring to her.

“Well, maybe you and your wife would like to
come over and barbecue sometime,” said Gary the meathead.

Huh? My wife? Okay, I’m cool with helping
someone get out of trouble, but don’t get me hitched, not even in
fantasy land.

“Yeah, I told Gary that you and your lovely
wife let me sleep it off in your guest room. You two were great.”
Sasha smiled at me innocently. Wow, she was a piece of work.

“That’s what we do, my wife and me, we love
thy neighbor,” I said. Hell, if she was going to lie, I was going
to go all in, too. “And don’t worry about the bed,” I continued.
“We knew you were drunk and everyone wets the bed, once in a
while.”

“You wet the man’s bed!” her boyfriend said,
disgusted. He stared at Sasha with an embarrassed, horrified
look.

“We don’t have to go into that,” I said,
reassuringly. “She got real crazy and free and ran outside naked.
My poor wife chased her down the block.”

Sasha looked at me as if to say, ‘Are you
kidding me?’

“Why the hell would you allow yourself to
get that drunk?” Now her boyfriend was irate.

“Yeah, she gave those junior high boys an
eye full.” I said, piling on.

“Junior high boys?” Now, he was about to
explode.

“Yeah, they were more like our local street
gang,” I said, pressing the point.

“Where the hell do you live?” Meathead
apparently didn’t like my pretend address.

And like I said, I went all in.
“Unfortunately, I live in a not-so-safe neighborhood in Anaheim,
but we only had one drive-by shooting last week, so it’s
improving.”

“Let me get this straight, Sasha. You got so
drunk that some jerk tried to take you home forcefully. And then
this poor guy helps you out and lets you sleep it off at his
house…in what appears to be downtown Compton. If that wasn’t bad
enough, you stripped naked and ran down the street and this guy’s
poor wife had to run you down at four in the morning. Are you
serious?”

Sasha looked stunned and just had to nod.
She was in no position to dispute anything, so I couldn’t resist,
“Don’t forget she peed our guest bed, and maybe even pooped in it a
tad bit.”

That was it! Gary was done! “New rule, you
are to never go out anywhere again unless I’m with you.” Gary then
turned to me. “Thanks, bro. You are good man. Please apologize to
your wife for me.”

“Oh, I will. She’s at the Laundromat washing
the sheets.”

Then Gary reached into his wallet and pulled
out forty bucks and handed it to me. “I hope this covers it.”

It didn’t exactly. All the drinks and food
she ate last night came closer to about sixty, but it was a good
gesture, even though he thought it was for the sheets.

“Let’s get the hell out of here, Sasha. I’ll
deal with you when we get home.” Then Meathead walked past me and
jumped into his giant truck and slammed the door.

“Thanks,” Sasha said to me. “Thanks a lot,”
she said sarcastically.

“No problem!” I said, stoically, then turned
around and walked back to my car. That was the story of my life—bad
decision after bad decision. I meet someone great, and she turns
out to be a cheater, a liar, and most importantly, a bed
wetter.

Chapter Five

For the next three weeks, I trained my butt
off and lost the weight I needed to by eating a 1400-calorie-a-day
diet and kicking my ass in the gym. My opponent was a fighter named
Jorge Vasquez; he was an established pro and had a 16-6 record with
twelve knockouts. He was the opposite kind of fighter than me, he
was a striker and I loved the ground game. I worked on some
standing techniques with my trainer, Mo. For the most part, my job
was to take him down and pile on the elbows and maneuver him in a
way to do one of my infamous submission moves.

The night before my fight, I had a light
workout. I was going to be on the under card at the Staples Center
and was the first fight out of the gate. I knew I needed to get
some rest, so I got home and went to straight to bed. I wanted
eight solid hours, no more, no less. I quickly fell asleep, as I
usually did after a glass of warm milk.

I had started out in a very deep sleep and
then I began to hear a constant beeping in my dreams. It didn’t
matter what I was dreaming, from unicorns to bikini babes, there
was this damn beeping sound in the distance.

Finally, I woke up and right beside my hand
was my cell phone. I stared at my cell phone screen—23 missed
calls. Are you kidding me? They were all from a 714 area code
number that I didn’t even recognize.

I got up and went to my bathroom to wash my
face. I was apprehensive about calling back. Whoever it was didn’t
mind blowing up my phone in the middle of the night before my big
fight. Maybe it had something to do with my grandma. I knew I
needed to call the number back, but I was groggy and tired and
needed at least four more hours of rest.

I went into my kitchen and sat at my table.
I knew I needed to call the number back because it could be an
emergency. It wasn’t every day I got 23 missed calls in the middle
of the night. I sighed and I pressed ‘call back’ on my cell phone.
The phone rang once and a woman answered the phone.

“Tommy,” the woman yelled.

“Who is this?” I asked. My voice was louder
than I wanted it to be in trying to match her volume.

“It’s Sasha!”

“Who?”

“Sasha! From a couple weeks ago.”

“Sasha! Are you okay?” I asked. I was pretty
shocked that, of all people, she was the one blowing up my
phone.

“No, I’m not. I’m stuck in Balboa Beach. I
have no money and my boyfriend left me.”

“Why are you in Balboa Beach?”

“I was having drinks with a friend, and he
turned out to be a freak. He fell asleep and I slipped out of his
house and I’ve been walking around in circles and have no idea
where I am.”

“What do you want me do?”

“Could you come get me?”

“Don’t you have someone else you can
call?”

“No, or I wouldn’t have called you so many
times.”

“How did you get this number anyhow?”

“I got it from your phone when you fell
asleep the other night.”

I really didn’t want to help her, and I
wasn’t quite sure if she truly was broken up from her behemoth
boyfriend, but for whatever reason, she did call me. She probably
didn’t have too many options available if she was calling me.

“Listen, I have my fight tomorrow and I need
my rest.”

“Tommy, please! I’m almost to the point
where I am going to hitchhike.”

“Don’t do that,” I said. Shit, I was never
one to leave a damsel in distress hanging out on the streets in the
middle of the night—even one who lied to me. “Where are you
exactly?”

“I’m on PCH near Harbor.”

“I know where that is.” I had gone down
there plenty of times.

“I’m at an all-night donut shop called
Cakes. It’s on the corner.”

“Okay, I’ll be there in a half an hour.” I
ended the call and just stared at the clock on my microwave. It was
three in the morning. You have got to be kidding me. I was running
out in the middle of the night before a big fight. Part of me
wanted to turn off my phone and let her rot at the donut shop. I
should make her whore herself out for a ride home, but I wasn’t
that kind of guy. I’m a man of my word, and in the end, that’s
really all you’re left with—your honor. She might not have had any
honor, but I did. I went to my bedroom and put on a pair of
basketball shorts and a Lakers T-shirt and shoes, then headed out
the door, keys in hand.

It didn’t take long to get there and I
pulled into the donut shop’s parking lot. There she was, sitting in
the front, looking miserable and bereft. I motioned for her to come
to my Mustang from my car. She got up and walked over to my car. I
unlocked the passenger door and she got in the passenger seat.

“Thank you, Tommy. I was running out of
options.”

“You must have if you’re reaching so far
back in your rolodex that you’re calling one-night stands from two
weeks ago.”

“You know you were more than that,” she
said, in a flirtatious way that I was definitely not in a mood to
hear.

“No,” I said. “I was definitely just a
one-night stand. That’s all it was and nothing more.”

I slowly backed out of the parking lot,
turned my lights back on and pulled onto Harbor Boulevard. I
stopped at the red light and sighed. I didn’t feel like talking to
her but I needed to know where I was taking her. “Where to?” I
asked.

Then the most bizarre thing happened.
Someone jumped on the hood of my Mustang. “What the fuck?” I yelled
out.

Then that same guy punched my front window
with his fist. I jumped out of the car and saw that there were
three of these assholes.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I yelled at
them.

The person who had just punched a hole in my
windshield with his bare fist said, “Why don’t you ask your
friend?” He had long brown hair and looked really dirty.