Two Weeks
Ash
“Don’t get up!” I command before Mason’s actually awake.
He opens his eyes to find my smiling face a few inches from his.
“Good morning,” I say. “How’d you sleep?”
“I thought I was sleeping,” he tells me, rolling over and closing his eyes again.
“Nope,” I tell him. “You said you wanted to get up at ten.”
He forces one eye open to look at the radio alarm clock next to his bed. The clock reads eight-thirty.
“You’re early,” he says.
“I was excited,” I answer. “Stay in bed.”
Without another word, I get up and leave the room. Today’s the day, and I want to make sure he has a good start to his day.
After his last fight, I’ve started going to the gym with Mason. I told him that I wanted to work on cardio, but he didn’t buy it. I was there to keep an eye on him and make sure I wasn’t making a huge mistake giving him my blessing to fight.
I meant what I told him in the hospital, but if there were any signs he wasn’t in the condition to go through with it, I would have said something. Fortunately for both of us, though, he’s strong.
When I woke up this morning, I wanted to let him sleep, but I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm. I tried to channel it into something useful by cooking up a nice breakfast for two, but it’s already done and I don’t want it to get cold.
I plate Mason’s breakfast consisting of three eggs, one scrambled, one hardboiled and one fried just the way he likes them, a stack of pancakes, and six strips of bacon. I take it in to him, carrying a glass of orange juice in the other hand.
His groan in response to the sound of me coming back into the room turns into a grin when he turns over and sees what I have for him.
“You are the best, you know that?” he asks.
“I do, actually,” I tell him. “Thank you.”
He sits up and takes the plate, and I set his orange juice on a coaster on his nightstand before going back to the kitchen to retrieve my own food.
After this, there’s nothing between him and the fight except a very long drive.
* * *
I never realized how many abandoned buildings there are in a given city until I met Mason.
Right now, we’re walking into an old high school gymnasium, surrounded by a slew of other forgotten, empty buildings.
Logan spots us and comes over to offer his advice and encouragement, although his words are heavy on the former and light on the latter. After that, person after person comes over, each one of them with some kind of inside scoop into Mason’s opponent, though nobody seems to know who he is.
This time, there’s not going to be any waiting. Everyone who’s here is here for this fight, Mason’s fight.
The way it was explained to me, all of the championship bouts in the tournament are going to happen more or less at the same time, each in a different location to cut down on the risk of discovery. Personally, I couldn’t possibly care less about the other fights going on around the state of Wisconsin tonight, but Mason seemed pretty happy about being able to find out who takes what.
I squeeze Mason’s hand and he turns to me, saying, “Yeah?”
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“I’m good,” he says.
“Good,” I tell him. “Do you need anything before—”