The Art of Being Tony (Tony Winters Book 1) Read online

  Ash snorted at him.

  “Ah, but I’m easy?”

  She was pretending to be hurt by the words and he nearly teased her, but then decided that cool Tony, the best boy ever, wouldn’t do that just then. Later, possibly, but not when she needed a boost.

  “Nope. Right now I think you’d be able to take on either of those guys. At least in skill. In fact, we should have you work with Nick, if we can get him not to hold back too much. You need to spar with someone that has more strength than I do. Or than Fox has. That’s the real trick here. You’re used to that now and can get around it, but the idea is to train for more than you’ll face, if possible.” He thought and didn’t really know that was the plan all the time.

  Rick nodded, his eyes locked on the road.

  “That’s not a horrible point. You can set that up, Tony? Get Nick not to hold back too much?”

  He didn’t think so, but let his mouth run anyway.

  “Oh, sure. I’ll put on those girl clothes and make him beat me up until he doesn’t care about things like that anymore. He’ll be ready in… Call it four days?”

  That wasn’t really going to work, he didn’t think, but everyone chuckled over it. The inside of the van was warm still, since the day had been and he was pushed a bit, by Ashley.

  “Thanks. For going the extra mile for me? Just so you don’t think I haven’t noticed that part. I mean, using that fog machine… Plus, dressing up all cute each time.” She laughed then, but it wasn’t mean, he didn’t think.

  “All part of the service.”

  It took a bit to move all of her stuff to the upper guest room and Steve didn’t go home, just planning to stay the night, in case a fight broke out. He was back to training already, after a small break for his health. That meant he needed to be around at the gym early each day again.

  “So, I can be here. I’ll just sleep on the sofa?”

  Anthony shook his head.

  “No, you get a real bed, so you can rest well. I’ll stay down here. The living room is my natural habitat anyway.”

  That got the man to debate the idea for a bit, though Tony won. Rick stepped in on his side, since the idea was a good one. One of the guys was training for a large ticket prize fight. The other simply wasn’t. It really did make sense for Anthony to sleep on the uncomfortable sofa. Not that it was that bad, really. It had nice soft cushions and everything. The springs didn’t even try to stab you, which was a constant hazard with that kind of thing.

  Then, after eating a meal that was kind of traditional for him now, being a few lean pieces of savory chicken and a large salad, with a bit of rice, since Denny had decided he could handle that for the time being, they all sat around and went over fights. Mainly over his technique. Steve actually focused on that too, even if it wasn’t what he was used to doing, which he explained after about two hours.

  “This stuff, MMA. It’s the future of fighting. Even if I don’t go into it, if I ever do any announcing or anything, or commentary, then knowing this will really help.”

  It made sense. It was, also, bedtime. A bit past that really. Nearing eleven. That meant Anthony was up six times that night, thinking he heard something. It wasn’t a person prowling around at all, however. On the fifth trip, he saw that there was a cat, one that was all orange with a white patch on its tummy, that had a red collar around its neck.

  The beast stared at him, but then, rather calmly, moved to the neighbor’s house and sat on the porch. Ready to defend the place from him, it seemed. That was the yellow house next door, not the green one.

  After that he only had to get up one more time, which was just to use the bathroom. The one on the bottom floor. He kind of missed having one just off his room, but that was the price of keeping Ash safe and protected. A small one, really.

  At six he got up for the day, given everyone else was and caught a shower, since it was too humid not to, if he could. Then he ate with the others, actually getting a bowl of plain oatmeal and some ripe pear slices. It was good, which shocked him a bit.

  Anthony had never thought that the day would come he’d honestly think that about fruit. There it was though, all fresh and inviting.

  Smiling, he got to his day. Given it was Sunday, that meant going to church first, before running.

  Chapter ten

  They took a six mile run, but only after they ran sprints first. Steve was fine with it, and Ashley only grumbled a little, but Mark, and surprisingly, Denny both grumped their way through it like they were hung over. They weren’t, but both of them were on diets. Really, they all were, but Denny had been eating a lot more for a while, and it wasn’t fun cutting way back suddenly.

  Mark was just living on a diet, and didn’t have to lose any real weight for his big fight coming up in a few months. Then, he might have just been complaining since it was running, and he hated that with a passion. It didn’t matter.

  They ran, because it was needed. It was too hard to fight through ten or twelve rounds if you weren’t going to be in shape for it. After that, they got right to work, which was boxing heavy for the first part of the day. After lunch Ashley and Dani grabbed him, and ran technical grappling drills. They didn’t stop, and when one got tired switched out so that he could keep working on things. The only real difference was that Ash wasn’t letting him get away with any clumsy work this time.

  “Nope. Just above the elbow. Pull it down, then sweep. Almost all at once, but not quite. Try it again.”

  They did that for hours, until he had to run to hand out the wondrous white towels they had there and mop up sweat. Not even thinking about it he recorded the class. The blue haired lady, Laura Smart, was there, after all. She hadn’t said much in a while, but for some reason he just didn’t trust her. Which might have been right, or, just possibly, was him being a jerk. Still, getting what she was doing down like that couldn’t harm anything. From what he could tell, she just worked, like most of the class did that night.

  Leslie smiled at him, seeming pleased to see that they had their mop person there, but didn’t say more than hello, and even the blue haired lady and one of the men waved, and took their towels. They seemed friendly.

  Really, other than polite conversation with a few people, mainly about towels, or in one case a man wanting to know if he could buy gym sweats, which he actually could at the front desk, not much seemed to be going on. Not until he noticed that Rick’s trash, from his office, needed to be emptied. Sure, the janitorial team would do it after closing, but it didn’t hurt to be nice to people. Especially the one that could kick him out at a moment’s notice.

  Pulling the bag, he walked it back to the dumpster, which meant that the man that was sitting in the back on the far side, away from the visible camera kind of stood out. Anthony just loaded the metal box and clapped the lid down suddenly.

  “Hello, Daren.”

  Anthony was a bit nervous, since the man was larger than he was, but he was pretty certain that the guy would have problems catching him in a foot race. He looked kind of average, not really in shape or anything. Ash hadn’t mentioned that he was a brilliant fighter, but getting into fights over girls was a bit beneath Tony. He didn’t need to. No one did, of course.

  “Um… This isn’t what it looks like.”

  The man had set up a folding chair, one that looked to be made of sturdy fabric and metal. There was no cook stove, but he had a water bottle, binoculars and a nice looking video camera.

  “You aren’t setting up to watch Ashley Lancaster? Good to know. How about we call the police and see what they have to say about this? This… Look, you dated for a while. You broke up. It happens. It’s been years, right?”

  The man nodded, not seeming all that bothered to have been caught.

  “It was a mistake, breaking up like that. I should have made her stay.”

  “Look… You can’t do that. Make anyone stay with you. That isn’t how life works. Trust me, I know that one. Anyway, do you want to come in, or try to run away, f
orcing the cops to hunt you down? Or, you know, I suppose we could fight. Trust me, it won’t be fair.” The guy was bigger than he was, after all.

  Also known for shooting at people. Rather than do that, the other man shrugged.

  “I can leave. It… I just love her. I’m not trying to hurt her or anything. You can’t understand. Have you ever been in love with anyone? I mean that deep, just heartrending kind of thing that makes it so you can’t sleep at night? Where your mouth gets dry and you can’t even imagine going on without them?” The words were almost like poetry. Just hearing them was persuasive, after a fashion. Like anyone that said them wouldn’t be a massive creep.

  Anthony shook his head.

  “No. I can see how that would be hard though. Still, no one owes you that. You can love her, but you can’t make her love you back. Either she does, or doesn’t. Getting stuck like this… It would be better for you to just leave, even if it hurts. Find someone else, or just go, but if you really love her, you can’t keep doing this. You’re stopping her from being who she really is. That isn’t what you do to people you care about.”

  The man seemed not to be getting the basic idea. His face contorted. Not into rage, but something closer to disbelief. It was one of the things that people did just before they did stupid things. Still, when the man reached into his pocket no gun came out. Instead he had a knife. It wasn’t long and had to be folded out, but had a nice silver gleam along the edge.

  The lunge that came was decently quick, but Anthony was used to getting out of the way of punches thrown by pros and hadn’t trusted Daren enough to let him get very close. So, while there was a lot of thrashing around and hopefully some nice slips and bobs going on, Tony didn’t really get cut.

  Not too bad. A few times, on his left arm which was out front to block for him, but it didn’t hurt that much. Not enough to get him to hold still or stop dodging. He ran carefully, however. Doing it backwards, with the other man coming right for him. The slashing really slowed down his forward progress, but the man, being insane, was truly dedicated. It seemed like he wanted to kill someone and since there was a handy Anthony right in front of him, that was who was going down.

  “Stop!” He said the word, even though Anthony could already tell it wasn’t going to have any real effect. The fact of the matter was that he wasn’t certain if the parking lot camera had sound or not. So he kept moving, letting the man come for him.

  Except that Daren was already breathing hard and while a bit of blood was dripping from Anthony’s arm, he could tell it was just a scratch. Keeping his face serious and trying for scared, he rounded the corner, not letting the man ever get too far away. When he stopped his frantic slashing, almost in front of the clear glass doors, Daren started to rush him. Faster without the knife work going on. Much so, in fact.

  Meaning it was time to turn and run. Inside.

  Not because it was safe, just due to the fact that on the first floor, to the right, the Cardio-Boxing class was being recorded. The parking lot and that room were the only cameras he thought were going at the moment. Sure, he might go down if the man stabbed him enough times, but attacking a kid, one that wasn’t even doing anything wrong, with a deadly weapon like that was good for at least a few years in prison. It might not keep him away forever, but Ashley could focus on her own life for a while, given that.

  So, it meant that their favorite towel boy ran into the decently crowded room fill with witnesses, with what seemed like a madman chasing him. Trying, rather obviously, to kill him. The thing there was that the guy tried to slash at anyone that was too near. The ones that got in his way, as well. Thankfully no one was hurt.

  Leslie, clearly freaked out, yelled.

  “What the hell is going on here?” She sounded panicked and most of the people moved away from the knife, starting to notice that there was blood on it. The ground, too.

  “He’s trying to kill me! He’s crazy! Call nine-one-one! He said he’s going to kill us all! Get the police!” That last bit was so hard to get out. In part because he didn’t trust the cops further than his slender body could throw them.

  The other reason was that Daren rushed him then, slashing again. Only this time he couldn’t really back up, since there were people not five feet behind him and the man didn’t seem to care who he hurt at the moment. The blade came in low, under his left arm, cutting his chest, just under the ribs. That burned, but probably wasn’t all that deep. The next one would have been, he didn’t doubt, but thankfully one of the chunky guys that collected in the upper right corner picked up his jump rope and threw it at the insane would be killer.

  That move wasn’t some kind of special martial arts trick. It wasn’t even done well. It did however, get everyone there to start throwing whatever they could. Including their water bottles and in one case a small kettlebell. It was probably a five pounder and belonged, if the blue blur was indicating the right thing, to the woman that had him recording the class in the first place. The move wasn’t inspired by God. Unless it was. If so and Jesus had his back, the rest of it would be up to him. Reverend Keene was always good about reminding them of that part. God got you a leg up, or a hand. The rest was on you.

  The small blue weight flew awkwardly and slowly at Daren, hitting him right in the chest, which somehow, rather miraculously, got him to drop the knife.

  Jumping in, trying not to slip on any blood, Anthony started to fight, kicking the blade back and turning the man over, locking a rear choke hold with his good arm around his neck and driving his forehead directly into the back of the other man’s head as he rolled, so the bigger guy was on top of him.

  It took a bit, but eventually the man blacked out. Just as other people got there to see it.

  It was Mark that came in first, still there for some reason. Probably to make sure things like what had taken place didn’t get a chance to.

  “Fu- Call the cops. Call the cops!” Then he ran over and figured the rest out from context and looked ready to beat the man on top of Anthony to death. He was unconscious though and while killing him by holding the pose for a while made a certain amount of sense, he wasn’t willing to go to prison himself for it.

  Tony might have been, but this really wasn’t the place for a nice kid like him. No, now it was time for Anthony to come out and play. The one that knew how the world really worked and wasn’t above playing the system if he could.

  “He… He told me he was going to kill us all and kidnap Ashley. I was trying to talk him down and he just flipped out. Came at me with that knife. Make sure to guard that. It’s evidence. We have this on video. He said he was going to kill me. All of us. Then take her. Ashley. I didn’t know what to do! I tried to run…”

  He pretended to shake then, as Jen and a few of the others got there, followed by Rick.

  Unlike most places that he’d lived, the police there weren’t that long in responding, so they didn’t have to beat Daren back into unconsciousness, or anything. Laura, the blue haired woman, got him some of the white towels, to try and stop the blood. The wounds weren’t that bad, but he started to hyperventilate a little bit, on purpose, just as the two men in blue walked in. Hamming it up, trying not to seem too fake about it.

  “It was him. He said he was going to kill everyone, starting with me and kidnap my friend, Ashley. I just asked him not to. I said we could get him help, or even get him a date or something, or… Really that he should get one. We were just talking when he… Tried to murder me.”

  Then there was sobbing, even though no tears fell. Part of that was covered when Jen hugged him, like it was all really happening. Which, to be honest, a lot of it was. Not the part where the man was a would be kidnapper. Or had said he was going to kill anyone. That was just what the police needed to hear, so that they’d know that Anthony was the victim. The poor, defenseless kid that the room full of adults had to help protect.

  Which was kind of a point. They really had helped.

  “They… The people in here, Laura an
d Jack… They all saved me. He would have killed me, if they hadn’t gotten the knife away from him.” Then he buried his head, like a little kid, in Jen’s shoulder. It didn’t exactly make him seem tough, but it wasn’t about him. It was about using the law to save Ashley. Mainly by being above board and legal.

  He had to go over the whole thing and tried to seem half panicked and like he was going to pass out from fright the whole time. Rick got copies of the video, making sure to keep one for them, which was a good idea. They also had what happened in the parking lot, which fit his story, as long as there was no sound out there. Which there wasn’t, now that he thought about it. At least he hadn’t found it when he’d noticed the man a few days prior and got the freeze frame of him.

  It was possible that he laid on the kidnapping angle a little thick, but that was a pretty serious crime and coming from a cut up person, who kept insisting on it, the police seemed to think it might be real. Especially after the video really did make it seem like that could have been what they were doing.

  Talking about how Daren wanted to kill and kidnap and how good boy Tony was only trying to gently help change his mind. The only thing that really threw anyone was the way he’d choked the man out. He’d gone calm for that and his form had been nearly perfect. He’d even hooked his heels into the man’s upper thighs, so he couldn’t roll out of it. It wasn’t until they were riding to the hospital, since he was going to need stitches and it would be faster to go by car if he was going to live anyway, than to travel by ambulance, that anyone mentioned that part.

  They were in Steve’s car and wasting good white towels in an attempt to protect the seats from his blood, when Rick locked eyes with him. They were a rather stark blue, for some reason.

  “You… You looked freaked, but you fought well, after the knife was dropped. Almost perfectly. That’s not what people do, most of the time. Not if they’re scared.”

  Since there were no cops, just Jenny, his uncle and Steve, he let the act drop. Going still and just possibly looking kind of fierce. Not that he could prove that. It was enough that Jenny’s eyes went wide.