Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,13
kind of voice that works its way into your subconscious.
“You were unbelievable. No tricks. No tells. The sheer ingenuity and power …” I trailed off, letting her fill in the spaces, before holding up the paper I’d been reading. “The sports section doesn’t do it justice.”
Then I turned away, hiding behind the pages, and waited.
She could have walked away then, or closed her eyes and pretended she was alone. She could have gone ahead and called security to toss me out, spa slippers and all. She held the power to decide what happened next, if anything.
A minute passed where all the words on the newspaper blurred into a haze of black and white. I turned a page, pretending to read, until she cleared her throat and asked my name.
We traded the usual tidbits—work, life, origin stories—the stuff that fills Tinder profiles now. At one point an attendant brought water with sliced lemon. Logan sipped it, made a face, and pushed the glass aside.
On an impulse, I stood up and held out a hand. “Let’s get some real food.”
We went to Venice, the faux Venice down the street, for a victory breakfast. Logan ordered an egg white omelet and a drink that almost made her cry. It was called the green goddess smoothie and she finished it in three orgasmic gulps. I laughed and ordered two more, another for her and one for me because I had to try it now, too.
We talked about Vegas, the unnatural nature of the city itself, a mirage in the desert, while we sat by a Venetian canal and drank liquefied gardens. It was a perfect date, the kind of date that wasn’t. I told her crazy stories about growing up in Chicago, making her bust out in infectious gut-laughs, while stealing bites of her omelet and offering her some of my steak and eggs in return. We watched the people who’d been out all night stumble down the canal in their miniskirts and booze-stained Cherry Poppin’ Daddies blazers.
After we finished eating I threw a few bills on the table and stood, tipping a smile toward the boulevard. “Let’s keep those tendons loose.”
We walked the surreal canal, then headed down the Strip where a guy—who was trying to give us flyers for prostitutes—recognized Logan and followed us for half a block, miming punches at our backs.
“Do you know what’s strange?” I asked as the guy leapt and jumped behind us, shouting to all his flyer pals. “Yo, this is the Mill City Miracle! Logan fucking Russo!”
She didn’t answer. She seemed like she was struggling not to cram the flyers down the guy’s throat.
“I couldn’t taste the parsley or cilantro at all. They combined forces to create some bright new super herb. It’s still here.” I touched my neck and sighed. “I was going to try to kiss you, but now I just want to ride out the smoothie aftertaste for as long as I can.”
Her laugh lit up the whole street and the flyer guy melted into irrelevance. We talked protein shakes then, and how Logan had spent years tweaking her homemade formula for maximum performance.
“Most protein powders are geared toward men, toward male hormones and physiology. You should see my kitchen—it’s like a mad scientist lab of bottles and machines. I buy dried peas in bulk and grind them down. There’s pea dust everywhere.”
“And I didn’t think I could find you more attractive.”
We wandered back into MGM almost four hours after we’d left, only to find Logan’s manager and coach panicking at the front desk. They hadn’t called the police—yet—but had spent most of the morning searching for their lost champion. She’d forgotten about a press conference that was supposed to have already begun. They whirled her away and I followed, snuck into the back of the room, and ignored the repeated glares of her manager.
During the Q&A, a reporter asked what it was like to be breaking the glass ceiling of combat sports. Logan shrugged and said, “I get that question every time I win a fight, so I have to wonder—how fucking thick is this glass? Because I’ve been breaking it my entire life.” Every woman in the room cheered, literally cheered, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. My body absorbed the significance of the moment in a way my head couldn’t yet fully grasp.
When another reporter asked Logan what she planned to do next, her eyes met mine. A smile lifted one corner of her mouth,