Fighter

Holding back a grin, I ignored my brother and turned to watch the Green Jacket instead. He made his way toward the ring, and as he got to us, he grabbed the ropes—and saw the mascot. Pausing, he frowned, but glanced at the crowd. They were clearly loving the mascot, and he shrugged, pulling himself up into the ring.

I hit Dylan’s shoulder and pointed to Haley. “You might want to help her.” The carolers had stopped singing, and instead, the one closest to Haley was giving her the up-and-down look. He licked his lips, and his eyes darkened.

Dylan groaned. “Where’s Jax, Dale?” He started walking backward toward Haley, but he was still waiting for my answer.

I pointed to the mascot. “He’s already in the ring. You’re too late.”

Dylan turned to look, and the announcer started the introductions. “Ladies and gentlemen, your main event! In one corner, at two hundred sixty-three pounds and six feet, two inches with a record of twenty-eight wins and six defeats, heralding from our neighbor Broughten Falls, is the Green Jaaaaaaaacket!”

The announcer pointed, and Jax’s opponent went to a corner in his green elf robe. At the end of the introduction, another man removed it and handed it to a group standing outside the ring like I was. The Green Jacket swiveled his head around, a questioning glint in his eyes. The only others in the ring were the announcer, who turned to the corner where I stood, and the mascot, who continued to swing his black stinger at the crowd.

A hip-hop song came over the loud speakers, and the yellow jacket waved his stinger with the beat, pretending to pounce and thrust it out at the crowd, to their continued amusement. Laughter and cheers filled the room.

Then the announcer started again. “And in the other corner, we have our local reigning champion. Weighing in at one hundred seventy-two pounds and standing six feet tall with an impressive record of twenty-four wins and two defeats: Jaxon Cutlerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”

As the announcer finished, the yellow jacket jumped one final time, then reached up and yanked off the mask. A grinning Jax smirked back across the ring at his opponent, whose eyes took on a feral glint. Then Jax turned and looked down at me. I wasn’t even trying to hold back my own smirk. The plan had gone off without a hitch. As one, we looked over at Dylan, who’d stopped in the middle of an aisle, halfway back to Haley. His mouth dropped open. Then he snapped it shut and sent me an accusatory look.

I shrugged.

Jax squatted and touched my shoulder. “Part one complete.”

I nodded. Part one was getting him in the ring. Part two was his actual fight. My brothers couldn’t interrupt it, but he needed to win. Then there was part three: getting him out of the ring and out of the bar without my brothers getting him.

The first bell rang, signaling the fight to start, and I glanced back at Haley. She nodded. She was ready for part three too.

The Green Jacket didn’t fare well during the fight with Jax, who looked more like he was getting in a workout than waging a battle. He jumped around his bald opponent, dodging, weaving, doing funky-looking patterns with his feet. At the end of the first round, he dropped to his seat with a wide smile on his face. I didn’t have a towel, but I used the arm of the yellow jacket costume to wipe off some of his sweat. The fact that he wasn’t sweating much had my competitive side cursing at him and the girl in me swooning. Wrinkling my nose, I pressed the sleeve to the two tiny spots and wiped at some imaginary sweat on his cheek.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“What?”

He gestured to my nose. “Do I smell?” Lifting an arm, he smelled under his armpit and jerked back, wrinkling his own nose. “Whoa. I don’t blame you, but that’s from being in there.” Tapping the mascot costume, his smile widened even more. “Are you ready for part three, because I’m getting ready to knock this bitch out.”

I nodded, gathering the costume together into a ball of cloth. I tried to squish it as small as I could. “Yeah, just wait till it’s almost over, though. I need time to get this to Haley.”

“Thirty seconds,” the ref called out, making sure Jaxon heard him. “Thirty seconds.”

Jax nodded at him and looked over my shoulder. “How are you going to get it to her?”

This was the third part of the plan. Haley would wear the yellow jacket mascot costume out of the bar, and because we weren’t too original, we were going to use the same ploy as the night before: I’d pull the fire alarm. Jax thought it was genius. My brothers wouldn’t expect the same distraction, and anyway, it was the best idea we had.

Sneaking Jax inside with the mascot costume had been the most brilliant point of our plan. I only hoped Haley could get away from my brother long enough to put it on.