Faking It(37)

He whistled. “Some fighters are just bad news, through and through from the beginning. Or they’re the potential for bad news. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone with as much upside—and downside—as Braden Dean. He was always going to be a masterpiece or a catastrophe. Even I was guessing about him. I just told myself it was an educated guess. So many of these kids are lucky they can find a way to get paid to fight, because otherwise they’d just fight their way into prison and do their brawling there, far away from the cameras and money, and with much higher stakes. Some fighters go sour once the fame and glory sets in. We all want to believe our own hype, but some people are particularly ill-suited to notoriety.”

This was a veritable torrent of words from my usually taciturn dad. He must have really meant it. “Sure, dad. I can see that.” And I could still see Braden’s body. Couldn’t help but picture the soap and the water hitting his skin in that shower. Feeling maybe the tiniest bit of regret that I hadn’t followed him in there. Oh God, he would have loved that. Worst, he probably expected it!

“Anything else you’d like me to do for you?” he said.

See, this was part of the problem. I knew that he actually would try to do anything I asked him to. He treated the things I liked as if they were things I actually needed, which made it very hard to turn his offers down because…well, because I liked certain things. Like his help. “Well, maybe next time you could just set me up to interview one of the nice guys. But I guess you’ve already done that, unless this hand cyclist is some sort of holy terror.”

“The sumo wrestler is very nice, by all accounts, as is the hand cycler. And when it comes to the next fighter...I’ll do my best, kiddo. That chip on the shoulder they all have serves them well in the fight. It doesn’t always do a lot for them in the rest of their lives.”

“Well, what else could I ask for?” Besides a nice version of Braden and another shot at that shower.

Dad took the last turn before entering the long driveway to his mansion. The house that fists built, he called it. Those fists had built a hell of a home. Every time I saw it I still thought I can’t believe I live there. It stretched for half of a block and looked like the home of some investment-banking guru. Not that I knew what that looked like, exactly, but the thought was there. “What do you want for dinner?” he said.

“Surprise me, dad. I’m just going to run upstairs and clean up a little.” I knew he would take this as a challenge and I would be rewarded handsomely for it. Dad didn’t seem to know that he couldn’t turn down a properly issued dare, and I had just dared him to make me something so delicious that it would ruin all other food for me, forever.

While dad bustled around in the kitchen, I went upstairs and got in the shower. I had gotten so sweaty in the crowd at the fight. People would get so worked up that there was a mist of booze and sweat that you could almost see in the air. The hot water felt like I had earned it. There are few things as pleasurable as a nice hot shower, especially when it feels like you deserve it.

But there are some.

Once I got soaped up it was impossible not to touch myself. Think about anyone but Braden. Think about anyone but Braden. Then I thought about no one except Braden. Braden Dean, hot jerk. He was probably arrogant enough to think I would go right home and dream about him. If so, he was right. Was it cockiness if you could back it up? At least there were a couple of new interviews coming up that didn’t promise to be titillating or enraging in any way. It was hard to imagine myself fantasizing about a giant in a diaper, no matter how nice he might be.

By the time I got out of the shower I was clear-headed and calmer. Chantelle always said that if she could put an orgasm in a bottle she’d be a billionaire. And that if she was a doctor it was what she would prescribe for most ailments. It never made sense to me. Why on earth would you need something in a bottle when you could just think about...okay, it was officially time to stop thinking about Braden for the night.

Dad’s web of contradictions manifested yet again in the kitchen. The trainer of vicious champions had prepared a gorgeous meal for us, as adept as any TV chef. Challenge accepted. I couldn’t believe that he had done it so quickly, and part of me wondered if he had planned it already and had it waiting on hand. He pulled out a chair for me and sat me down in front of a bowl of bouillabaisse, a beet and fennel salad, and bread for dipping. His own plate had very little on it. “I already ate a little,” he said. “Didn’t want to overdo it.”

“You keep yourself in shape for an old man,” I said, digging in like I’d been held captive for a year, far from food.

“Carb day was yesterday,” he said with a smile. “One day that body’s going to start betraying you. Mine sure as hell did. Taking care of yourself is the only way to stay sane when you start to fossilize.”

He was far from a fossil. Dad was so lean that he looked like a piece of jerky. There were plenty of shlubby, unambitious young men out there who could learn a lot from him in the fitness department. One of my favorite things was to go out with him and see women in their fifties and sixties drooling over him.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Dad frowned. I didn’t grow up with too many rules, which was fine, given that I was almost pathologically well behaved. But dad didn’t like rudeness, and he considered “diddling around” on your phone in the company of another person the height of bad manners. In his view, you did not have a conversation with someone who was not there while sitting next to someone who was there.