Nora's words echoed through my ears as I gripped the phone tighter and asked Lobo, "What's his name? The fighter nobody thinks will win."
"Uh, Anthony Reyes," Lobo answered. "But everyone calls him Tony."
CHAPTER19
Sunny
"What do you mean,you don't need me anymore?"
The crowd was yelling so loudly behind Tony, I could barely hear myself, much less him. And I was sure I must have misinterpreted what he just said.
Surely, the man on the other side of the chain-link cage wall…the man who had called me sobbing his heart out. The man who'd wrapped me up in a bear hug and said, "Of course, you can stay with me,mi amor! You know, I always got you! You my heart, boo!" after I told him about my temporary spell of homelessness. The man who had even offered me a quick job as a ring girl for his fight, on top of the right side of his bed at his place in Paradise. Surely, the man I considered my best friend after Pru wasn't just dismissing me with a "Hey, we don't need you anymore. You can go."
But Tony hadn't taken any head hits in the first round. And he was wearing that shifty-eyed look he got whenever any member of his huge extended Filipino family used to ask when he was going to put a ring on my finger already.
Tony glanced out into the audience, then ducked down quickly to hiss, "I mean, Cherenity's back!"
"Wait..." Now it was my turn to look over both shoulders in search of Tony's recent ex, a popular local drag queen who wonAmerica's Got Dragfive seasons ago and hosted Mimosa Gospel Brunch at the Tourmaline. "You two got back together in the fifteen minutes since I convinced you to stop crying over the breakup and come out here for your fight?"
"I mean, no, but she'shere. That means she's changed her mind about us not being together. I think she just got scared when I started talking about retiring and maybe adopting a couple of kiddos."
I shook my head, trying to keep up. "You want toretire? And adopt kids?"
"I told you all of this back in the dressing room!"
I tightened my mouth and leaned my head back. "With respect, Tony, it was hard to understand most of what you were saying when you were sobbing so hard."
Tony flared his eyes at me, like I was being deliberately obtuse and trying to kill his chances of getting back together with his longtime lover. "Well, main point: she's here, and I don't want her to think I'm bearding again! You've got to go!"
"Listen, I want you and Cherenity back together myself. Plus, Pru would absolutely kill me if she heard I'd messed up our source of free Mimosa Brunch tickets. But how about the ring girl job? I'm supposed to be signaling round two in, like..." I glanced at the cage's countdown clock. "Nine seconds."
"Yeah, about that..." Tony turned his whole head, looking away guiltily.
Which allowed me a full-on view of the petite Latina ring girl who was already poised behind him with a Round 2 card.
Tony shook his head apologetically. "Word came down from up top. Did you piss off the Los Lobo cartel or something?"
The bell rang before I could answer.
"Text me the tea,mi amor!" Tony shouted over the roar of the crowd as the subbed-in ring girl strutted across the cage.
Then he shoved his mouthguard back into his mouth and returned to his fight.
I genuinely loved Tony. We'd become instant friends from the moment we met in Modern Dance 101 during my first year at UNLV—his only year before Tony dropped out to pursue his father's dream of having a pro boxer son. I'd held his hand—at least publicly—through years of lost fights on the amateur circuit.
And I couldn't help but root for him to win tonight's fight, especially knowing it might be one of his last bouts in the ring.
But as for me, I had never felt like such a loser as when I turned on my aching feet and limped through the cheering crowd toward the industrial warehouse's exit doors.
The fight's start time and location in a graffiti-covered warehouse probably should have tipped me off that Los Lobos had a hand in this obviously illegal fight. But I'd been too caught up in the prospect of earning some money to note all the red flags.
Seriously, was there any place in Vegas where Cole couldn't interfere with my plan to pay him back as quickly as possible and avoid sharing a space with him?
I stomped out of the fight space, feeling more than a little defeated.
But there was still Pru, I remembered, pulling my phone out of my clutch....only to find a text from her.
Hey, just got your voicemail. On an overnight. Dark until tomorrow night. But text me back within the next five minutes if it's important. I don't know when I'll be able to safely check my phone again.
