Off to the Races

The sounds of yelling and shouting from old and young men alike could be heard from the top of the stairs. Once we were in, there was no hearing each other anymore. We both knew that. It was all texting from here on out. I’d been to Marty’s before, and I’d been to a couple of the fights and parties as well with Emily. We had a system to abide by, a set of rules to follow.

Rule #1: Always stay in sight of one another.

Rule #2: Always shoot a text of where you’re going and who you’re with if you decide to leave without one another.

Rule #3: Never, ever go to a man’s home if you don’t know him.

Other than that, it was free reign. We could go where we wanted, talk to who we wanted, and drink whatever we wanted as long as we went by those three rules. I watched as Emily moved her way into the crowd, finding herself on the lap of who I was guessing was Ron from Hyatt.

I, however stood on the last two steps of the staircase, leaning to the side as others walked past me. Suits. They were all in suits. Had they ever heard of changing? Didn’t most of these sweaty men have wives to come home to?

Nevertheless, my eyes focused steady on the man in the ring. He was the only one in sweats and a hoodie that I could see. He looked different from all these men, aside from the suit to rags ratio being 1:100. It was Hardy, I could only assume. His face was covered, but I could see the blood dripping from his chin and onto the floor.

The fight had already started. I felt bad for this man, honestly I did. Did he know what he was getting himself into? These men, they didn’t play. I’d seen a handful sent to the hospital after a fight down here. He was going to be wiped out, there was no one there to back him up, I could tell. He needed a pick me up. He needed something.

I made my way towards the bet maker, shouting over the obnoxious threats and insults being shot towards Hardy.

“Any bets on the lost cause?” I asked in the man’s ear, hot and old.

“No ma’am. This is the last round. If Hardy can make it through he wins the fight, but I doubt that’ll happen. Marty’s son has got him in the ringer, I tell ya. He’ll be out within the next couple throws. Why, you wanna make a bet pretty lady?” A smirk placed across his face, I nodded, watching the sweat fall off his face.

“Yeah, I bet 100 Hardy beats the living shit out of him.” I called, slipping a bet form into the man’s thick pocket, already full of forms against Hardy. I smiled back to him as he stared in disbelief, then weaved through the crowd and over to the ring where Hardy stood.

“Hey!” I called, over the noise. No response. “Hardy!” I called again. He turned his head, looking back towards me.

I still couldn’t see his face, but I really didn’t care what he looked like who he was, or why he needed to win this fight. At this point I just wanted all the pretentious ass holes to eat shit when Marty’s son gets knocked to the floor. He was an arrogant ass anyways.
“If you knock him out, I’ll take you out for a drink.” I shouted in his ear, this time he turned his whole body around and I locked eye to eye with the gorgeous man before me. He looked baffled, honestly surprised. I couldn’t blame him. His earthy-green eyes scanned over me, and it almost looked as if he was contemplating before nodding in agreement.

“Alright.” I couldn’t hear the words, but I knew from the determination on his face and the crease of his pink-lipped grin that I had given him that something.

I backed away, finding a chair to stand on so that when he looked in the crowd, he could see my face. The bell went off, time for the final round. There were no nerves within me. I had a good feeling about him, about this fight.

They shake hands.

And just like that, Hardy turned into a machine.

I locked eyes with Emily from across the room.

She gave me a look of confusion, and all I could do was smile back before turning my attention to Marty’s son, bloodied, face first on the ground in the ring.