Legend (Real Book 6)

Maverick

I haven’t called my mother. Haven’t wanted her to think I couldn’t do it. Now we’re in Oz’s messy hotel room after picking up our pay and I stare at my first check for 18,005 dollars.

I slip it into an envelope and write a note.

My first check. It’s all yours.

Maverick

“You sure you don’t want to keep some of that?” Oz asks dubiously.

“Nah, she needs it more than I do.”

“Plan to send her all your checks?”

“As many as I can, yes.” I eye him narrowly while Oz rests his head on the back of the couch and eyes the ceiling.

“When you get to fight Tate during the season, we’re talking that check will have six, possibly seven, digits, not five.”

“Next one’s for me. I’m setting us up in a nice hotel like the big fighters do.”

“So you can invite her over?”

“Yeah, so I can invite her over.”

He sighs. “Good girls don’t date fighters.”

“Fighters have good wives.”

“One. One does: Riptide.” He raises his brows challengingly. “All the others are divorced like me.” He shakes his head, then adds, “When you fight for a living, it’s like your whole life is at war; it bleeds into your personal life.”

“Like my father’s.”

He stays silent, then cracks open his flask and takes a long swig.

“What do you know about my father?”

“Oh no you don’t.” Oz cackles and stands to leave, the fucking coward. But before he heads off, he slaps my back. “You don’t pay me for that.” He eyes me. “And you don’t want to know.”

“Actually, I do.”

He sighs and considers it for a moment. “Got all fucked up after being in the fighting world too long. He became a . . .” He searches for words. “Terror.”

“Drugs?”

He snorts, takes another swig, and midswig he frowns at the flask and turns it fully upside down to realize it’s empty.

“He fought dirty; I’ve seen the tapes,” I tell him.

“You don’t fight like him. You’ve got more good in you than he ever did. You fight better than him. That’s all you need to know.” He finds a half-drained bottle nearby and refills his flask.

“Oz, fuck, man,” I say.

He lifts his flask at me in a toast. “I’m taking my baby to bed, let it nurse me into a good mood.”

I sigh, then I flip the envelope and add my mother’s address.