The crowd shrieks, “Gooooo, Riptide!!!!!”
They want the excitement he always delivers, and I’m certain Remington wants to deliver. He glances at me, and I don’t know what he’s expecting to see in my gaze, but whatever it is, he seems to get it. He glances at his next opponent, a young fighter whom I’ve never seen before, and before I know it, with the speed of light, he delivers three fast blows, to the side, the center, and finishes with a hook up his jaw—and he falls splat.
“YES!” Pete hisses, pumping his arm into the air. “YESYES YESSSSS!”
The entire room is screaming, “Riptide!!!” while I sit motionless in my chair.
The pain starts like a throb, and it progresses into a cramp. I put my arms around my stomach and shift uncomfortably.
“Riiiiptiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide, folks! Once again, I give you, Riiiiiptide!!!!!!”
His arm is yanked up in victory, and I notice the open gash in the center of his plump bottom lip. He flashes his dimples at me, his eyes twinkling, and I’m dying to lick up that drop of blood and put salve on it. Then the cramp feels like a pinch and I fold over a little, and when they bring out his next opponent, I’m not even watching. I feel more than a little sick.
My lungs constrict as I glance up and see every possible muscle in existence working as he fights, his arms corded and flexing. I see him, but I keep retreating into my head. Worried sick. Wondering what’s happening to me.
“Pete, I need to go to the bathroom right now,” I say in a voice I’ve never heard before. It sounds scared, truly scared, and it trembles. But he stands with his eyes on the ring and distractedly follows me to the filthy makeshift bathrooms.
There, I wait in line, standing there for a couple of minutes, and when it’s my turn to go into the little plastic house, I pull down my panties—which feel gooey—and I see they’re soaked in red, as if I’m having a bad period. “Oh, god,” I say.
I drag in a thousand calming breaths, but they do nothing to actually calm me, and instead a nauseating, sinking feeling of despair takes over. For minutes, I try to settle down, then I come out and at least try to appear put together until after the fight. Pete grins at me. “Dude, I’ve never seen someone puke as much as you do. How many pounds have you lost?”
“Let’s just go sit,” I say. I walk slowly and slightly hunched over, because standing hurts even worse, and instinctively my body seems to want me to curl into myself. I lower myself to my seat with extreme caution, while Remington is still up there, his name being screamed. “Remy!!” they call.
He seems to be waiting for another opponent, his head turned in Pete’s and my direction as if he’d been waiting for us to return to our seats. He winks when he sees me. Then his sleek eyebrows pull low over his eyes and he looks at me more closely.
Suddenly he grabs the ring ropes and jumps down, and the public comes alive when they realize he is up to his usual mischief, like he always is when he climbs out of the ring. “Rem-ing-ton! Rem-ing-ton! Rem-ing-ton!” the crowd chants, and when they realize he’s headed toward me—and that all that tower of brawn and strength and testosterone is coming my way—they change their tune to “Kiss, kiss, kiss!”
He swings me up in his arms.
The public goes crazy and my heart does too.
But he looks down at me, alert and on edge. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m bleeding,” I say tearfully.
THE NEXT HALF hour goes by in a blur.
“Get the car,” Remington instructs Pete as he carries me out of the arena.
The word “Riptide!” still rings in the background when we go outside, into the fresh Vegas air, and to the parking lot of the warehouse hosting the Underground tonight. He tucks me into the back of the Escalade, and Pete gets behind the wheel, punching at the GPS buttons to pull up the nearest hospital. I hear myself speak almost frantically, “I’m not losing it. I won’t lose your baby.”
Remington doesn’t hear me. He’s talking to Pete in a hushed voice as he holds me to his chest, telling him to “turn right—into the emergency” and I continue talking, in my most determined voice. “I won’t lose it. You want this baby, I want this baby, I eat right, I exercise, you eat right, you exercise.”
He carries me into the hospital and stalks over to the counter to demand attention, and when they bring a wheelchair, he speaks to the nurse behind it, “Tell me where to take her.”