Chapter 24 Jake
JAKE
Look, I’d be the first person to admit that I had a hard time letting things go.
Whether it was working through trauma or dealing with my dysmorphia, having good mental health was a work-in-progress in my life, and my therapist was way more understanding of my backsliding than I was.
“Little steps,” she liked to say to me when all I wanted was to take one giant leap forward and put whatever it was I was dwelling on out of my mind for good.
“Little steps make for steady progress.”
It sucked that she was right. I wanted to be able to brush things off, to push them aside and go on with my life the way Carson seemed to.
The bad stuff just didn’t get its claws into his brain the same way it did mine, which was clear from the fact that the first time we met up in person after I hurt him, he walked right up and hugged the shit out of me before saying, “It was so great of you to do that video, man, you didn’t have to. ”
I didn’t have to try and make sure Carson didn’t drown in debt for the injury I caused?
I didn’t have to be there for him as a friend when it seemed like he was down to almost none of them?
I didn’t have to stick by his side when the organization he worked for told him they weren’t responsible for his medical care?
Fucking bullshit.
I knew this thing with the EFC and Ethan could be like a black hole in my brain, consuming all my attention in the same way until I exasperated my boyfriend so much he thought better of being with me.
It wouldn’t be the first time my OC tendencies had made someone push me away, so from the moment I was back with Ethan I took steps to distance myself from what had happened.
I went on a social media blackout—nothing was getting through my guardrails.
I stayed off the computer and my phone as much as possible, and I screened all my calls.
We ended up staying at Ethan’s place instead of mine, since mine still had three boxes of EFC bullshit I needed to get rid of.
It helped. It was nice, even; I could focus on Ethan and making sure he was all right while avoiding the triggers that would draw me back into thinking about the fight that had landed me in jail. Not even for a night, but still. It wasn’t a happy memory.
It was made even worse because the last thing I saw when I was being escorted out by the cops was Ethan, pale and sweaty from pain as he sat in the chair waiting for the paramedics while another cop grilled him about what had happened.
But he’s okay. He’s going to be fine. And the guy who’d laid hands on him was going to be nursing a broken jaw for six weeks, so there was that. Plus the charges were dropped, which I hadn’t expected, so…
“Are you going in to the gym today?” Ethan asked around a yawn as I set a cup of coffee in front of him. He’d slept in late, which was what he needed, but I’d been up for hours already.
“Yeah,” I said. “Beth is back, and I wanted to check in with her before I step in for classes.”
Ethan shook his head. “Didn’t Carson say that the gym has had, like, twenty new people sign up since the fight? She’s not going to be mad about that.”
That was perilously close to topics I was trying to avoid thinking about. “Still,” I said. “I want to make sure.”
“Jake.” He put his good hand on my arm as I reached for the half and half. “That fight wasn’t your fault.”
“I know.” I did know that, just the same way that I knew I could have handled it better despite that.
Just the same way I knew that Ethan was a grown man who could take care of himself, and that Dimon’s goon hurting him had been more accidental than anything.
Just the way that fact didn’t matter to me because fuck that.
“Maybe we could—” His phone buzzed, and he stopped to check it, then rolled his eyes. “Fuck’s sake,” he muttered.
“More videos?”
“I keep telling those punks to stop sending them to me,” he muttered as he texted a reply.
Apparently there were a lot of videos of the EFC altercation floating around now, and his teammates were obsessed.
Ethan didn’t watch any of them because he knew I was avoiding it at all costs and he was an amazingly supportive person, but that didn’t stop them from coming in.
“It’ll die down soon,” I said, trying my hardest to believe it.
Ethan nodded, then turned his phone off and put it on the counter behind him. “I’m going to go in to practice today,” he told me between sips of coffee. “I don’t get to be on the ice yet, but my PT says I’m ready for some supervised training in the weight room.”
I grinned. “That’s great!” It was genuinely good news that Ethan could start training again. Sitting still for more than a few hours was anathema to him, and as he’d pointed out numerous times, “the rest of my body isn’t broken, damn it!”
“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it.”
“You want me to drop you off at the arena on the way to the gym?”
“Nah, I can ride with my roommates,” he said. They were both out on a run—they’d asked if I wanted to go with, and I’d said it sounded like hell to run in this heat but I’d make coffee for them to come back to. “But if you come get me this afternoon, we could have a late lunch out.”
“Deal.”
An hour later, I kissed Ethan goodbye and headed to the gym for the first time since the fight.
My bruises were at their peak, which was irritating since I’d barely been touched.
Stupid peach skin… Carson was going to handle all the kids classes until I looked less like a piece of rotting fruit, but I could do the noon and evening adult classes.
I let my lesson plan take over most of the space in my brain as I drove, which was a great distraction…
until I arrived at the gym and saw the Lamborghini parked out front.
A neon-yellow Lamborghini with a custom license plate that read DIMON1 on it.
Jesus fucking Christ, would this piece of shit never stop haunting me?
I slammed my door as I got out and left my bag in the car as I marched over to the gym door.
It didn’t take me long to spot him, sitting in a sprawl across from Beth like he owned her fucking office.
They both turned toward me as I entered, her with relief and him with a weird expression I couldn’t quite place.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded as I walked over to them.
“Now, Mr. Radovitz—”
“No, you said you were done with me at the fights and I’m fine with that, by the way, so why are you here now?”
“You know what?” Beth said as she got to her feet. “I’m going to give you guys some space. Feel free to stay in here as long as you need.”
Guilt shot through me. “No,” I protested, “this is your office, we can take this somewhere else.”
She gave me a smile. “It’s fine. I’ll be right outside if you need me, though.” Then she was gone, closing the door behind her, and I was left caught between gratitude and irritation. I didn’t want to be talking with Dimon, I wanted him to leave.
“Sit down already, you’re making my neck hurt.”
“Ask me if I care.”
He smirked. This bald, brazen, bad-suit-wearing asshole stared at me like a man who thought he held all the cards, and it pissed me off even more.
The sooner this was over with, the better. I sat down in Beth’s chair and stretched out my legs so they were actually comfortable instead of bent up to my chest, then waited.
“You follow any fight stats, Radovitz?” he asked.
What? “No.”
“Huh. Maybe you should start. I know you follow the EFC, I looked you up on our socials.”
“I’ve hardly touched my phone since I ended up in jail,” I said pointedly.
Dimon seemed surprised. “You haven’t even watched your fight?”
“Nope. Don’t really like thinking about it.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “Hey, I dropped the charges for that. You’re welcome, by the way.”
Oh bullshit, I wasn’t going to thank him for that.
“Too bad you had to leave before the main event,” he went on.
“Barovsky took it on decision, but Tachiyama put up a hell of a fight. Not enough striking experience, though. Still, I knew it would be a good one for us, lots of great clips to put up.” He looked straight at me, his forcibly light demeanor melting into seriousness.
“And you know the clip that fucking trended on every media source that night? Your fight, Radovitz. Your fucking two-punch wonder of a fight that ended with my guy knocked on his ass and you being escorted out in cuffs. You’re a goddamn jiu jitsu guy, not a fucking boxer, and you knocked out a man with two inches on you like it was nothing. ”
“He shouldn’t have touched my boyfriend,” I said.
Dimon snorted. “Right, your boyfriend. God damn, the first fighter in two years to make us trend for more than twenty-four hours and he’s got a boyfriend. Not just us!” he added, turning his phone toward me. The EFC was at the top of the list, then there was political bullshit, then—
“Bushi Fighting Federation… Mordoboy… ” The biggest players out of Japan and Russia, respectively. “Why?”
“Goddamn mock brackets with you and their top-tier fighters,” Dimon said. “Even your last video has tens of thousands more views over the past few days.”
What? “The IDCC one?”
“That’s the one.” He looked at me like he was staring at a particularly juicy piece of steak. “Everybody wants to watch you fight right now, Radovitz. Without even trying, you’re topping every chart and creating the kind of buzz I want for the EFC.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “That’s not happening.”
Dimon was silent for a second. “You know,” he said at last, “I wasn’t going to drop the charges at first.”
“Your guy started it, and he—”
“My guy was doing his job, wasn’t his fault he couldn’t see the cast under the jacket. It was just a regrettable misunderstanding.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “And so was punching your guy until he let go.”
“I think a judge mighta seen it a different way.”
“What are you trying to say?” I snapped.