Tyed(7)

Don’t panic. Don’t scream. Do. Not. Pull. An. Izzy.

I bolt from of my seat, rushing toward my bedroom. “Need to get dressed, be out in a sec,” I choke, disappearing into my room.

I rummage through my closet to make some noise. Maybe the clicking of the hangers will quiet the thoughts swirling in my head like a tornado, ripping every single house, tree and car in its way. My best friend made a pass at me out of the freaking blue. Brain. Does. Not. Compute.

I watch his frame in the reflection from my bedroom mirror as he runs his hand through his hair, probably thinking the exact same thing. This is bad. A calamity. A deal-breaker.

“I’ll wait.” His eyes lock on mine in the mirror. And I know exactly what he means...

***

Driving to Concord, Shane and I try to regain our tension-free banter. We have this thing where he makes up stories to keep me entertained. They are always the stupidest stories ever, but he tells them with such conviction you can’t help but laugh your ass off. This time he amuses me with a story about a baby anteater that went to boarding school with—you guessed it— ants. All the baby ants resent him and bully him for who he is, and he is lonely, sad and isolated, until he forms a punk band with a beaver and a frog and they become a national sensation in the Portuguese forest where they are all living.

No, we are definitely not smoking anything in the car.

Yes, I’m aware this sounds mega-stupid.

But it’s working. By the time we arrive at the gym, my stomach hurts from the cupcakes, laughing and anticipation.

We jump out of Shane’s Mustang and enter the gym, and I actually feel a tad proud when I lead our way toward the rings where the MMA fighters train. I first noticed the enclosed platforms when I climbed the stairs with Ty yesterday. I made a mental note to check them out next time I was here.

“Ich Will” by Rammstein is blasting through the speakers. The beat drops and bodies crush into one another violently, twisting and wrestling on the mats, mosh-pit style. That one's called sparring.

“This place is crazy, B. You’ll develop testicles just by breathing the air here.” Shane is puffing out his cheeks.

We stride toward Dawson, who is teaching a class. He is roaring at his students while they brawl. Shane’s right. The levels of testosterone in this place are intoxicating and the music blasting through the speakers is threatening to burst my eardrums. In fact, my BFF and I are the only people who aren’t soaked in our own bodily fluids head to toe.

“I don’t know about testicles, but I may sport a mustache by the end of this assignment.” I lean on a red and white sign asking the gym goers to Please Clean up Your Blood after Practice and Keep Our Gym Clean.

Shane rests his leg on a nearby wall, arms folded on his chest.

“Marco, you dropped to the ground!” Dawson thunders. “That’s no good, man. The ground is your worst enemy!” He is pacing back and forth and looks like he’s about to explode.

“Marco zero. Gravity one. Poor guy didn’t stand a chance.” I nudge Shane and we share a laugh.

But the truth is, I’m impressed. These men are doing their own thing, inching closer to their dream one punch at the time. What am I doing with my life? They have determination—purpose. I want to feel as passionate about something as they do, sans the cracked limbs and mangled ears. I want to feel fulfilled and alive like them.

“Didn’t you say your roommate is training here?” I ask Shane.

The dude has a gazillion roommates, each weirder than the other. I try to keep my communication with them to a minimum. This is a philosophy I apply to most of the human race.

“Yeah, Josh. Stopped coming here a while ago, though. Someone broke his nose.”

“Damn,” I say. Not that this comes as a surprise after the videos I watched. "No wonder he said the place is full of jerks."

“Yeah. The * really screwed up his face. Good thing I prefer to express my masculinity by watching NFL and running every once in a while."

After a few minutes of us silently looking at the guys dancing in semi-gay thigh grips and grunting like Anna Kournikova in a white skirt, Dawson approaches us.

“Yo,” he says, shaking both our hands. “You can talk to these guys if you want or wait for my two stars to arrive. Remember I told you about the two pros that are ranked super-high in the XWL? Jesse and Ty. They’ll be happy to talk to you when they finish practice in ten minutes.”

Shit. I didn’t know Ty was one of the guys I was going to interview. I’m not sure he’s going to be all that happy to talk to me, but my heart skips a beat the minute I hear his name. It’s pounding all over the place. One second it beats fast enough to jump out of my ribcage, and the next, it’s slow and I almost feel faint.

Get a grip, Blaire. He’s just a guy, and not a very nice one either.

“You okay?” Shane rubs my arm, his eyebrows pinched together.

I ease my arm away, still anxious about that earlier thigh grip. “Yeah. Cupcake overdose is all.” If this is my reaction to hearing Ty’s name, I’m dreading the thought of what’s going to happen when I actually see him in the flesh.

“There they are, the men of the hour.” Dawson raises his hands to greet his approaching stars.

Ty strides toward us, accompanied by a taller, even more muscular, black guy—Jesse, I guess. Between them, they have enough tattoos to cover the whole of NorCal. They swagger toward us like B-movie gangsters. There’s something incredibly cocky about the way they carry themselves. Everything, from their posture to their clothes to the way they chew their gum and the smug glint in their eyes. I'm guessing that Dawson referring to them as his “stars” doesn’t help with piercing their inflated egos.