Christmas in the Cage: A Fighting Series Short Story Read online

  Christmas in the Cage

  A Fighting Series Short Story

  JB Salsbury

  For my readers.

  Contents

  Christmas in the Cage

  Also by JB Salsbury

  About the Author

  Christmas in the Cage

  Jonah

  “All I’m asking is how many dicks do you think it would take to repopulate the earth?” Blake leans against my kitchen counter with his arms crossed awaiting my answer.

  I finish basting the roast and then slide it back into the oven actively ignoring him.

  “It’s not a trick question.”

  I toss the oven mitts and grab my beer.

  “Do you think one would do? Two? What’s the least amount of dicks you think you’d need—”

  “How long will it take you to realize I’m not listening to you?”

  His eyes narrow. “Do you think one could do it?”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “Two, right?” He nods. “It would take at least two.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Do you think your dick would fall off if you were tasked with the job?”

  “Raven!” I call for my wife hoping her presence will end Blake’s pointless and obnoxious line of questioning. “Could you come here for a minute?”

  “Good idea.” Blake says, and swigs from his beer. “We should get a woman’s opinion.”

  Her heeled boots click on the marble floor as she comes into the kitchen. Her gorgeous body is wrapped in a tight red sweater and all her dark hair falls over her shoulders in waves. When those bright blue-green eyes shine up at me I suck in a shuddered breath at the sight of her.

  After all these years she still manages to make my heart thud and my blood hot by simply walking in a room.

  “You need help cooking?” She eyes the food prep for twenty people on the countertop as if searching for a place to start.

  “No. Our son’s woman will hardly let me help.” I tug her against me and press my lips to the top of her head.

  Rowan, Carey’s fiancé, breezes into the kitchen with wine bottles in her arms, and thank God. Maybe now Blake will shut up and if not at least there’s plenty of booze to drink myself into a coma.

  “Jonah and I are trying to figure out—”

  “I’m not trying to figure out shit.”

  “—dicks it would take to repopulate the world after an apocalypse.”

  “You don’t have to answer him,” I say into my wife’s hair and breathe in her sweet scented shampoo. “Please don’t answer him, it’ll only egg him on.”

  She chuckles and rests her head against my chest and fuck me if that tiny gesture doesn’t make me feel like the most powerful male on earth…like maybe I could repopulate the planet myself if I had only Raven to do it with.

  “Ninety-eight,” Rowan says while arranging the wine bottles on the countertop.

  Blake and I share a silent look that is all kinds of what the fuck.

  She shrugs. “Assuming guaranteed DNA diversity, my guess is ninety-eight humans. Ten percent male.” She moves to the double ovens checking all four timers and continues as if she’s talking to herself. “Nine point eight dicks. Even better if this new civilization had access to a sperm bank, which would be unlikely if life ended because of an asteroid or nuclear holocaust.”

  “Huh,” Blake says, and scratches his jaw considering her answer.

  “However, if we’re talking Cybergeddon, climate change, zombie apocalypse… if we still had access to sperm banks, one man can offer over twenty million sperm per ejaculation. A stocked sperm bank would negate the need for men completely.”

  Blake holds up his hand. “Stop right there.”

  Rowan smiles innocently.

  He takes a swig of his beer. “No way a sperm bank would survive a zombie apocalypse.”

  “Why not?” I shake my head and hold up a hand. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  “They eat people’s brains.” Blake’s eyes grow big like the rest is self-explanatory.

  “Oh God,” Layla says as she comes to join us in the kitchen. “He’s not talking about the dicks to save the world thing again, is he?” Despite her semi-annoyed tone, she wraps her arms around her husband and tilts her chin up so he can kiss her lips. “Do we have to talk about dicks on Christmas?”

  “I’m going to grab the pies from the garage fridge,” Rowan says on her way out.

  I look away when I see Blake’s hand move down his wife’s back to take a full grip of her ass.

  “I actually have some dick related issues to go over with you,” he says to her loud enough for the room to hear. “Or go inside you, as soon as we get home.”

  Layla smacks her husband's gut making him grunt. “Be good.”

  “Ew.” Jack, Blake and Layla’s offspring, and my son-in-law, is frozen in the doorway staring at his dad’s hand on his mom’s ass with a look that resembles curdled milk. On his hip is his two-year-old daughter, Poppy. He covers her eyes and whisper-hisses, “It’s Christmas, for eff sake.”

  “Dad!”

  My pulse jumps at the sound of my daughter, Sadie, who is also Jack’s very pregnant wife, calling to me from the living room.

  “I’m starving to death! When is dinner going to be ready? Can you bring me a snack while I wait?”

  Jack hands off Poppy to his mom. “Came in here to get Sadie a buttered roll and get an eyeful of dad buttering mom’s roll,” he mumbles to himself as he slaps a pad of butter between two halves of bread.

  Blake takes Poppy from Layla and she leans her tiny head of pale brown curls against his massive chest. “If it weren’t for me buttering your mom’s roll, son, you wouldn’t be here.”

  Jack makes a gagging sound.

  “I think Rex and Gia just pulled up,” Layla says while spying out the window.

  Raven presses a kiss to my throat and then scurries to the door to greet them. Layla follows her and Jack takes Poppy back then returns to Sadie to deliver her snack.

  The sound of cheery voices saying Merry Christmas comes from the foyer but those are drowned out by Carey when he stomps into the room with his six-foot-five two-hundred and fifty pound football player body.

  “You told me I had to wait till dinner, but you’ll let Sadie have a roll now?” He points at my face and mouths, That’s fucked up.

  “She’s nine months pregnant. When you’re growing a tiny human inside you I’ll let you snack too.”

  “I’m starving. I haven’t eaten since…” He checks his phone.

  “It’s been an hour,” Rowan, says while slipping past him to place two pies next to the wine. “Did you baste the roast, Mr. Slade?”

  “Jonah,” I correct, smiling down at the little redhead. “And yes, I did exactly what you told me to.”

  “Perfect.” She drops the oven door and pulls out a large dish of bubbling, cheesy potatoes. I spot my son watching her with a dopey grin on his face as she moves around the space with ease.

  Am I surprised Carey settled down while he was still in college? A little. I expected him to be like I was, playing the commitment-free field while he focused on his professional football career.

  Am I pleased as fuck the kid is clearly smarter than I was at his age? Hell yes.

  “We’re good for dinner service in t-minus thirty minutes, Mr. Slade,” she says while pulling cold sides from the SubZ.

  Am I at all surprised Carey fell in love with a woman with a genius IQ who loves to cook? Not even a little.

  Judging by the way he’s eyeball fucking those pies, I’d say Rowan could get him to do absolu
tely anything bribing him with food. Not that she’d need to. My boy would do anything for his woman, delicious food or not.

  In that area, he is exactly like me.

  Rex and Gia come into the kitchen and place a six-pack of IPA on the counter along with a casserole dish, which I know is filled with Rex’s vegetable bake.

  I do a double take when I see Henry, their son, standing next to him. He’s as tall as his dad and covered in as many tattoos—he’s a spitting image of his dad when he was in his twenties. Henry slips a beer from the six-pack and screws off the cap.

  “Why does Henry get a beer and I don’t?” Stevie, the youngest of the two girls, who now has purple hair (last I saw her it was flaming orange), glares up at her parents. “It’s Christmas!”

  Rex hooks his daughter behind the neck and pulls her close to drop a kiss to her forehead. “Chill, woman. You’re twenty.”

  “I’ll be twenty-one in three months,” she pouts.

  “You’re such a lush.” Presley, their middle child, I see every day at the UFL gym, looks so much like her mom—same natural red hair and gray eyes. “Try having water. You could use the hydration.” Pres is one of the leading female Muay Thai fighters in the world. At the age of twenty-one, she wouldn’t touch booze, or sugar for that matter.

  “Aunt Gia?” Sadie calls from the other room. “Stevie? Presley? Come in here, I’m too lazy to get my pregnant ass off the couch! And can you bring me a buttered roll when you come? I’m starving to death!”

  The women, save for Rowan who is currently trying to put a green salad together while being sexually harassed and groped by her fiancé, all move to the living room. Gia is buttering a roll for Sadie when Blake leans in.

  “Gia, quick question…”

  “Ignore him.” I mentally will Gia to run from the room before he asks, but she clearly doesn’t get the message when she peers up at him.

  His eyes narrow conspiratorially. “Post apocalypse. How many dicks do you think it would take to repopulate the earth?”

  She frowns, her gaze shifts to the side and then narrows on him. “How do you always manage to find a way to work dicks into Christmas?”

  He blinks rapidly as if her words blew hot air into his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “You do,” I agree.

  He gasps and reels back in offense. “I do not.”

  Gia cocks her head to the side, a crooked smile flashing his way. “What about the year you gave everyone dick-shaped Yule logs?”

  “Or the year you handed out boxes of pink truffles and you called them Testiffles?” I add.

  “Or,” Carey calls out from the other side of the kitchen, his arms wrapped around his woman from behind. “The time you hung little green dicks in the mistletoe above all the doorways and called it Missle-toe.”

  Gia nods. “And no one will ever forget the time you helped set the dinner table for twenty-five and every napkin was folded to look like a gigantic hard-on. That image is seared into my memory forever.”

  “You ungrateful sons of bitches.” Blake grabs his beer bottle and storms from the room, stopping once to turn and point at each of us with his longneck. “Remember those knitted dick sweaters I gave you all a few years ago? I want those back.” He tucks his chin and his spine stiffens. “You don’t deserve them.”

  Gia and Rowan dissolve into a fit of laughter in his wake.

  Every family has that one relative.

  Blake is ours.

  Blake

  Those bastards don’t deserve me. God forbid I try to bring a little joy and laughter to the Christmas celebration every year.

  I make my way through the living room where most of the women surround Sadie, fawning over her swollen belly. Jack is in the corner with a beer while Poppy plays with toys on the carpet at his feet. His eyes are glazed over as if he’s left his body to get some open-eyed R&R.

  The sun is bright and high, a dry seventy degrees in Las Vegas. I step onto the back patio to join the few people who do appreciate me.

  “Hey, Dad!” Axelle hops to her feet and throws her arms around my waist. I kiss her head while eyeing her husband, Killian, making sure he keeps his eyes on his two kids who are both swimming in Jonah’s heated pool. “When did you get here?”

  I release her and take the seat next to her poolside. “Not too long ago. I was helping Jonah in the kitchen.”

  “Uncle Brae and AJ are spending Christmas with her family?”

  “Yeah, but they’ll be here to celebrate New Years with us,” I say wishing my brother and his wife and kids were here too.

  “Yo, Gramps!” Dare, the oldest of the two boys, calls out to me from the far side of the pool. “Watch us!”

  “Yeah, Grampy, watch us,” parrots his younger brother, Scout.

  A stupid grin pulls my mouth as I watch my two grandsons do cannonballs into the pool. “The boys burning off some steam before we eat?”

  Axelle sighs, but her smile takes up her whole face. “Yes. If they’re tired enough we might actually get out of here without having to replace drywall.”

  Killian snorts, earning him a death glare from his wife. He beats on his chest and clears his throat with a muttered apology.

  “I just want one relaxing Christm—” She tilts her head and glares at my stomach. “What is that?” She motions with a chin dip to my shirt that has come untucked in the front.

  I quickly stuff my shirt back into my pants. “Nothing.”

  “Oh God, Dad…” She grips her forehead and rubs at her temples. “You’re doing it again.”

  I sip my beer while Dare and Scout race from one end of the pool to the other. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You do this every year.” She shoves an accusing hand at my midsection. “That’s mistletoe printed on the hem of your shirt, isn’t it?”

  Killian laughs out loud and smiles in approval. “Classic Blake Daniels Christmas.”

  My jaw falls open at the audacity. “Does no one in this house have a sense of humor?”

  “It was funny the first time, you know, when you changed the lyrics from Deck the Halls to Dick and Balls? But every single year? Really?”

  “Don’t be so hard on him, babe,” Killian reaches over and squeezes her thigh before gently rubbing it. “If it wasn’t for your dad, we never would’ve gotten the dick knit sweater in the shape of a reindeer, remember?”

  My hand tightens on my beer bottle so much I swear I hear it crack.

  His voice lowers. “You love it when Comet comes to town—”

  “I will drown you in this pool in front of your sons if you finish that sentence,” I growl.

  Killian winks at his wife who is now blushing.

  Fucking great.

  Is there no safe space at this party? Shit!

  I stand and make sure the front of my shirt is tucked in. “Get the kids dried and dressed. Food is ready.”

  When I step back inside I find Layla holding a near-sleeping Poppy. The corner of my mouth ticks up into a goofy grin as the image of my Mouse rocking slowly from side to side with a baby cheek pressed against her shoulder brings back memories. Our granddaughter’s eyelids are heavy as she fights to keep them open. I run my fingers through her hair remembering the feel of Jack’s hair when he was this age. “She looks so much like him,” I whisper.

  Layla grins and her gaze slides past me. “Identical.”

  I look over my shoulder to see Jack, his big body stuffed into a preschool sized chair, arms crossed at his chest, ankles crossed, leaning back against the wall with his head forward and his eyes closed. “Asleep before a meal? He must really be tired.”

  “He’s been getting up with Poppy so Sadie can get as much sleep as possible before the baby comes.”

  My goofy smile deepens as I look at my boy who is now a grown ass man. “He’s a good man.”

  Layla leans in and I meet her halfway to press a soft kiss to her lips. “He learned from the best,” she whispers.

&nb
sp; Hot damn if that doesn’t bring a rush of heat to my cheeks and to what’s hiding behind my mistletoe.

  “I love you, Mouse.”

  Her expression softens. “I love you too.”

  I take a look around, feeling a little insecure about the rush of gooshy emotions I feel welling up inside me. “It’s moments like this, seeing you and the baby, our boy, our daughter, and I don’t know…” I shrug and lock my arms in front of my chest. “I can’t believe I’m the lucky asshole that gets all this. You, our kids, their kids.” Fuck me, my eyes flash with heat and my throat gets tight. I clear it. Twice.

  “Hiding behind all the dick jokes is my big, soft Snake.”

  I recoil. “Big works, but let’s drop the soft.”

  “You are soft, on the inside, you’re all mushy love songs and romance and I love that about you. That's why I tolerate all the jokes.” She winks.

  One last throat clear and a manly sniff later and I’ve got my emotions under control. “She’s asleep.” Poppy’s bow shaped mouth is parted and a little drop of drool forms at the edge.

  “I’ll put her down.” Layla slowly lowers her into the bassinet and covers her with a blanket. We both eye Jack and decide to let him sleep. Sadie covers him with a throw blanket from the couch and I escort two of my favorite females to the Christmas table feeling like the luckiest son of a bitch alive.

  Rex

  “What the hell has you so happy?” I say to Blake as he sets his overflowing plate of food next to mine. The guy hasn’t taken his eyes off his wife or Layla stopped grinning since he walked in. “Aren’t you and Layla getting a little too old for bathroom bloweys?”

  Finally, the fucker loses his grin and frowns. “Like it’s possible to be too old for bathroom bloweys?”

  He’s got a point.

  “Bro,” Blake says while forking a bite of roast. “Henry’s looking more and more like you every day.”

  I spot my son at the end of the table, his grin wide as he talks and laughs with Axelle and Carey. On the outside he does look a lot like I did at his age—same dark hair, colorful ink on his skin that toughens up his pretty face. And his eyes, the same shade of blue, but somehow lighter because he doesn’t carry the shadows that are born from living years in an endless hell with no escape.