Chapter 8

The next morning, I got up late and called Cecilia.

“Hey, Stud,” she said sweetly. “How’re you feeling today?”

“A little hung-over,” I admitted. “You talk to Princess Barb today?”

“Oh yeah!” she said enthusiastically. “She told me about your talk last night and the promises you got out of her. You know she’s gonna fail them, right?” she asked.

“I knew before I asked,” I told her. “You think you can get around to driving past the house on your way home from work while I’m away? I just want to know if his car is parked there after hours.”

She chuckled. “It’ll be a pleasure,” she told me. I promised to give her my home address so she could check that out too.

“She’s got a lot of grandiose plans for how to calm you down and smooth things over,” she admitted.

“Anything that I need to hear?” I asked warily.

“What kind of car do you want?” she asked sweetly.

“I see. Anything else?”

“She’s compiling a list of women she thinks might be compatible with you,” she said, amused.

“Let me guess, she took the list of female employees and just started crossing off the ones that she knew I’d reject right away,” I said, wishing I’d stayed in bed.

She laughed. “At least she’s whittling it down,” she said in mock commiseration.

“I have a candidate in mind, but it’s ... That’s one that I’m keeping in my vest pocket for when I need it.”

“Do I know her?” she asked, excited at who I might have picked.

“Not directly,” I laughed.

“Don’t keep me in suspense! Who is it?”

“Doris Davis,” I said smugly.

“Brad’s wife?!!?” she snorted in laughter. “You said her body is wrecked from her pregnancy. How’re you gonna work with that?”

“I’m a professional athlete. I can get her in shape without surgery. That’s my opening gambit for when I go to war though. Once Brad goes out of bounds again, which I expect will happen while I’m in Vegas, then I’ll pour the gas and strike the match.”

“I want to meet her,” Cecilia said.

“You and Marty can double-date with us,” I promised. “That puts you in the front row to watch the whole show.”

“Sweet. You’re taking us somewhere nicer than Hannibal’s though,” she teased me. “Not that it was terrible, but ladies like something other than steak.”

“Fair enough. Florentine’s work for you for a first date?” I suggested, feeling better. Florentine’s was a classier restaurant that frequently saw a celebrity or two. The last time I’d been there with Barb, we’d seen Scarlett Johansson having dinner with that kid that was famous for the Captain America thing on the east coast. Lucky little asshole. That had been in January.

“It DOES!” she enthused. “That would be perfect. Brad’s not a terrible seller, but the only way he could afford that place is if Barb was picking up the tab.”

“Well then, let’s all hope that Brad doesn’t behave while I’m away,” I chuckled. “Anyway, that’s not why I called. I wanted to know if Barb gave you the key for the other place. She said she’d give it to you and I could pick it up.”

“Yep. I have it,” she said. “She also wants me to give you the updated deed to the property, so I have that too. Lunch?”

“Sure,” I said. I told her where I was staying since I could hear her driving.

“I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes,” she told me and we hung up.

I got showered, shaved and dressed and was downstairs with a minute to spare. She was parked in front of the building, waiting for me and I got in, giving her a kiss on the cheek as she passed me the deed and the key. We had a very pleasant lunch and I was reminded again of how compatible we were. I tamped that thought down firmly.

“Marty was very grateful for what you said last night,” she told me as we sipped our drinks, relaxing for a few minutes at the end of the meal. “He’s felt a little threatened by you. Telling him that you weren’t going to stick around if you weren’t in control of yourself made him realize that he doesn’t have to worry. He knew that we were close and I told him we slept together. He knows he can trust you to do the right thing though. He trusts you.”

I smiled. “I’m glad. I’d never do anything to mess things up for you two. I expect an invitation to your wedding when you get around to it.”

She smiled, telling me that she was already planning.

She dropped me back at the hotel and I called Otto to see if he was available for another quick wiring job.

“How long do you think it will take?” he asked since it was after lunch.

“Not long, but it can be tomorrow if you want,” I told him.

“Yeah. That’s probably best,” he admitted. I reminded him of the address and then I thought about something.

I called Barb to find out. “John?” she answered the phone. “Is everything okay?” she asked, surprised that I was calling her out of the blue.

“Everything’s fine,” I assured her. “I just wanted to know if you set up the new place with internet access, phone or cable.”

“Everything’s ready to go,” she said. “The computer’s set up and ready to go. It’s in the same room as your office at home.”

“Thanks, Barb,” I said, relieved. “I was worried about getting an appointment for installation this time of year. Especially when I’ll be gone for a lot of next week. Now I have to go shopping for a laptop I can use on the trip.”

“Happy to do it,” she said. “I started talking to Cecilia this morning about what the next steps should be.”

“She mentioned that you had plans, but didn’t go into much detail,” I told her.

“Well, I have a lot to make up for,” she said pleasantly, obviously glad to have a chance to get herself back in my good graces.

“You’ve got some time to figure it all out,” I told her lightly. I secretly thought that she’d fall on her face over the next week and wreck it all, but I was giving her the chance that she’d asked for.

We hung up because she had to go and I went computer shopping. Best Buy turned out to have a laptop that was what I needed and I took it back to the hotel to set it up.

After three hours of updates, installing important programs and arranging things, I had the chance to review the video from yesterday. The videos were time-stamped and I watched Barb come home exceptionally late. She came in, went upstairs and stripped her clothes off. She had to peel her panties off and she looked at the sticky mess of them and made a sound of disgust, rinsing them in the bathroom sink before tossing them in the laundry hamper. She showered and then lay back in bed for the call to me. After she hung up, she gave my side of the bed a look and a sigh and went to sleep.

This morning’s recordings were completely mundane as she started her day. Barb was still a beautiful woman. I admired her shape as she got breakfast naked. She was out the door and then there was nothing.

I had dinner in the hotel restaurant, again, courtesy of Barb and the joint account and then went back to the room for some Netflix and a chat with Jim Beam. That was the end of my day.

Early the next morning, I met Otto at the new place and he wired it relatively quickly. He placed the cameras in a lot of the vents and then we put two in the garage. One was covering the interior of the building, but the other was angled to get a view of the pool and hot tub. It was a simpler install since I didn’t need a lot of coverage here, so we were done before lunch. He shook my hand and I paid him for the installation at the second location.

I went downstairs to review the equipment and get a sense of how the gym was set up. I vowed to move a few things to work better, but it was a good start. If I had my work-out gear here, I might have started using the place.

Instead, I went back to the hotel to change and hit the gym. I had a secret weapon that I’d been working on to keep me in fighting form. UFC had sent out a camera crew to interview me a few weeks ago and I’d been a little worried, but I hadn’t seen any training footage in any of my materials on my opponent, so I figured they kept it mostly discrete. They’d also interviewed me at work and had gotten a few sound-bites from my boss about how proud they were and how hard I worked in the office and the gym.

My secret weapon was waiting for me with a shake of his head. “No discipline!” he barked in his funny accent. Ganju was a Gurkha and had a wealth of experience in fighting, especially larger opponents. He was somewhere between fifty and a thousand years old. I was never quite brave enough to ask. I’d found him by chance, having coffee on a break from work. He saw me in the coffee shop and recognized me. We struck up a conversation and that led to friendship and THAT led to Ganju becoming my spirit animal.

“Sorry, Ganju,” I said with a contrite look. “I’ve had some problems at home and it’s taken some time to arrange things before the trip.”

“What’s so important that you can’t put it off?” he growled.

“Another man climbing on top of my wife,” I told him.

“Did you get rid of the body?” he asked.

“Not yet. She’s still using it,” I replied dryly.

“I meant HIS body.”

“So did I.”

“Oh. I see. Well are all these arrangements made?”

“Down to the last detail,” I promised.

With that, we got down to business. For the rest of the day, Ganju punished me for being absent too much. He was also kind enough to disguise it as teaching so the rest of the gym wouldn’t make fun of me. He was good like that. Ganju and I were flying out to Vegas and that was the full extent of my team. He’d taught me some Nepali, so that he could bark orders at me without telegraphing to my opponent. I was hoping that he was magic. He had me thinking about fighting a larger opponent with a whole new mindset. He was my own personal Yoda.

Two days later, we were in Sin City and I left all the bullshit behind me. Ganju put me to work right away, telling me he wanted to cut three more pounds before weigh-in the next day. We were already good for weight, but Ganju was in charge. If he wanted me to drop ten pounds, we hit the gym and dropped ten.

That night, I called Cecilia and let her know I’d gotten to Vegas safe and sound.

“Chasing showgirls already?” she asked with a chuckle.

“Not yet. Ganju says to save that for after the fight. He tells me to think of it as the other guy’s fault that I’m not getting laid,” I laughed. “If only he knew.”

“We’re gonna watch it tomorrow night. I told everyone in the office that you’re fighting on TV. Barb didn’t even know it was televised. She seemed stunned that you were going to be on.” Cecilia was laughing about that.

That got me started. “Anyone ask how you knew all the details and she had no clue?”

“A couple,” she admitted. “I asked them if they were fucking Brad on the side, how much do you think their husbands would talk to them.”

“Any new rumors about why Barb prefers Brad?” I asked curiously.

“There ARE, actually. There’s a rumor that Brad’s all about kinky shit and you’re vanilla to the bone. There’s also a whisper that you’re beating her.”

“If only,” I said dryly.

“I snubbed that rumor. I pointed out that you’re a professional fighter. If you were beating her, she’d be too scared for her life to risk pissing you off.”

“So that leaves Brad being a hardcore deviant,” I said with a shrug she couldn’t hear.

“Well, you can learn all his best tricks from his poor neglected wife when you get back,” she said sweetly.

“You’ve seen his car where it shouldn’t be?” I asked, surprised.

“At your old house,” she said. “You flew out this morning and he landed there for dinner.”

I smiled. My mood had taken a nosedive, but that was what I wanted. I wanted to be angry. “That sounds like the last straw in my marriage,” I admitted.

“Sorry,” she said. “Maybe I should have kept it to myself until you got back.”

“No,” I said quickly. “It’s cool. I visualized Brad’s face on my last opponent. This’ll make me more aggressive. I’ll need it.”

We chatted some more and she told me they were all rooting for me before we hung up.

I went to my laptop and pulled up the list of today’s recordings. I started playing them and they started with Barb coming home. She looked preoccupied as she started dinner. She set the table for one and then there was a knock at the door.

“Brad!” she hissed at him. “What are you doing here! I told you we cant ever meet here. How did you even find out where I LIVE?!!? Scratch that. I don’t care. Get the fuck out of here! If John even suspects that you were here, he’ll kill you.”

“He’s not gonna kill me,” he scoffed. “He’s not even gonna know. He’s out of town until next week. What difference does it make?”

“I promised him that I’d never bring you here. THAT’S the difference!” she snarled. “I’m on thin ice with John as it IS. You want to get ME killed alongside you?”

“How would he even KNOW?” he scoffed. Yeah. He was ALL about respect. “Come on, just let me in, we’ll do our thing, you wash the sheets and John-John never knows I was here.”