“So, you’re eighteen with a month to live, what are you going to do? How do you see yourself spending your final days on earth so that you leave it with no regrets?”
Instantly, I see my younger self with nothing to lose standing in the middle of a six-foot high circular fence cage. My gloved fists are raised in the air as a sold-out crowd cheers and shouts my name after I knocked a man even bigger than me out with a single hit. Lights from cameras flash as my family comes into the cage to congratulate me, along with Cass, who I pick up and swing around in celebration before covering her lips for a kiss that’s so hot the television cameras have to go to a commercial break.
“Well, what do you see?” the imaginary Cass in my arms asks.
“You.”
“Me?” she exclaims and pulls away from my grip. That’s when the real Cass removes her hand from my eyes, and I open them to find her blinking at me in confusion from just inches away.
“You…you don’t want to know the crazy shit that goes on in my head,” I assure her and cover up my slip at the same time. “It’s all pretty ridiculous.”
“Oh, come on, you can tell me!” she says when she flops back to her side of the sofa and slaps me with the throw pillow again. “It doesn’t matter if it’s ridiculous. You’re running out of time, remember? Death is on your doorstep.”
“Right,” I say and finally admit the truth. “I won a fight.”
“A fight?” she asks with her brow furrowing in confusion. “Who were you fighting and why?”
“I don’t know who he was, but I beat him in front of a huge crowd.”
“Oh,” Cass says, her green eyes brightening in understanding. “You mean like a cage fight?”
“Yeah, like that,” I reply. “Stupid, right?”
Her face immediately falls like I just ran over her puppy. “You regret not taking the same path as your father and uncle.”
“What? No, I don’t regret it. My dad and Uncle Jude are fucking IFC legends. There would’ve been all these high expectations put on me, and I would’ve just embarrassed myself and my family when I sucked and lost every fight.”
“You won every fight in college.”
“Those were just for amateurs,” I point out.
“What was your record?” Cass asks.
“Seven and oh,” I answer.
“You never lost a fight? That’s pretty incredible, Xavier.”
“I was just screwing around with some other college kids. Most were wrestlers who wanted to make some quick cash by throwing punches too.”
“If you could go back in time, would you train to fight instead of going to college?” she asks.
“I honestly don’t know,” I tell her. “Probably not. Too much pressure and hype. I don’t know how Macy handles it.”
“She’s a woman, Jackson Malone’s daughter, so there’s not as much attention on her as there would be on his only son.”
“Macy is a badass,” I reply.
“Yeah, she is,” Cass agrees because her and my sister have always been tight. “And so are you, Xavier! If fighting is what you want to do, it’s not too late…”
“Yes, it is. Most MMA fighters hit their prime in their twenties. I’m almost thirty!”
“You won’t be thirty for two years. And you’re not most MMA fighters. You come from a family of champions. It’s in your blood and why you were built supersized compared to normal men.”
“So, I’m supposed to what, throw seven years of working my ass off in school into the garbage to let people beat the shit out of me?”
“If you’re not happy, then yes,” Cass tells me.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Sure, it is. You just have to be willing to take the chance.”
“I can’t,” I reply.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“You’re a pain in the ass,” I say when I jerk the pillow out of her hands to whap her on the top of her head with it. “This week was supposed to be about relaxing and catching up, not making me second-guess every decision I’ve made for myself.”
“Sorry,” she says as she reaches up to run her fingers through her hair to smooth it out and redo her ponytail after I ruffled in. “But I care about you and want you to be happy. You deserve to be happy, even if that means hanging up the stiff suits for a while and breaking out the tight undies again.”
That gets a grin out of me.
“It doesn’t have to be forever. You could go back to practicing law after you give fighting a shot,” Cass suggests.
“Everyone would think I’ve lost my mind if I quit my job to start training for one of the bloodiest sports in the world.”
“Who cares what everyone thinks?” she asks. “Everyone, especially my parents, thought I was insane when I told them I wanted to start my own business at eighteen. I did it anyway because it was what I wanted. It wasn’t to make anyone else happy. And now I’m successful enough to buy a house with no mortgage and even open up a second location if I want.”
“Really? That’s awesome, Cass. I’m so damn proud of you,” I tell her.
“Thanks,” she says with a shy smile. “It’s nice to know I did one thing right. Now, if I could just figure out dating.”
“Dating?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she replies. “Finding a husband and popping out a few kids by the time I’m in my thirties. Why do you think I bought a house with four bedrooms?”
“Oh,” I mutter since I didn’t even consider that. “Are you dating many guys?”
“A few,” she says. “None serious, just playing the field.”
“How many is a few?” I ask.
“Just two.”
“Just two?” I exclaim. “Why haven’t you told me you were dating two men before now?”
“Because I’m pretty bad at it. You should see me when they show up to pick me up and take me out. It’s like being sixteen all over again with the awkwardness. I either talk too much or not enough or drip tomato sauce all over my blouse. It’s all pretty pathetic.”
“I bet your dates don’t even notice,” I say.
“Maybe not because they both ask to come inside when they drop me off.”
“Come inside?” I repeat, wondering if she means that in the literal sense.
“Yeah, but it’s just sex. They know about each other, and I’m sure they’re dating other women too.”
“So you’re sleeping with two men?” I ask in disbelief. In my mind, I think I knew Cass probably wasn’t a virgin, even though she never talked to me about guys she was seeing, but I liked to pretend she was innocent, for some reason.
“I’m not sleeping with them at the same time,” she answers with a grin.
“Jesus Christ, Cass,” I mutter once she puts that image in my head.
“What?” she huffs. “I bet you’ve slept with more than two women in the past week!”
“Are you calling me a whore?” I ask with mock indignation.
“Yes, Xavier. You are a manwhore, and everyone in town knows it!”