by Tracey Ward
When the cast came off, the doctors had told me that was it. It was healed. If it hurt to fight with it, that’s just how it was going to be. I could have surgeries to re-break it and try to get it to heal better, but the odds of it doing anything other than slowing me down even more were slim to none. It was what it was, and it was all but busted.
"You’re hesitating.”
At the sound of her voice I grabbed the bag, halting it in its swing.
“You saw it?” I asked, not turning around.
“The entire gym can see it,” Jenna answered matter-of-factly. “Your right hand still hurts, doesn’t it?”
I opened and closed my aching hand slowly, surveying the room as I turned to face her.
It had always amazed me how much Jenna looked like she belonged there in that gym miles and millions of dollars from her home. Her long hair was swept up in a ponytail to expose her shoulders and long neck. Her tattoos were open and out to the air, her skin a beautiful cream canvas for the work she loved so much. She was wearing simple clothing; dark jeans and a white tank top. Worn out purple Converse. Smoky shadow and thick black eyeliner traced the contours of her round, gray eyes.
My blood flew through my veins at the sight and sound of her. It wasn’t until then when she surprised me with just her voice that I realized that the way she used it had changed since she was a kid. She spoke a little lower. A little rougher. Almost husky, like her laugh. It was such a natural kind of sexy, one I wasn’t accustomed to. One that burned me from head to toe, inside and out.
People were watching her. Watching us. Listening. Guys with their eyes on her body and other competitors who were wondering if I still had it after the accident. “It’s healing,” I told her loud and clear.
She stepped in close. “Is that true?”
“No,” I answered softly. “It’s as healed as it’s ever going to be.”
“How bad does it hurt?”
“Enough.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not going to quit,” I told her solidly.
She smirked. “No joke. I meant how are you going to adjust? Can you go Southpaw?”
“I don’t know. It’d be tough.”
“Tougher than fighting through the pain? One bout and everyone will know your right hand is weaksauce. You gotta flip a bitch, go left handed. Anyone who knows you will be thrown by it.”
“Are you my coach now?” I asked with a grin.
“I’ll gladly start charging.”
“I think you make plenty.” My trip to the tattoo parlor had shown me just how lucrative being a good artist could be. The girl was pulling down easily a hundred dollars an hour.
“Not half as much as you.”
I tugged at the tape on my hands roughly. “Twice as much as me now.”
“I heard you quit.”
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to do instead?”
I snorted. “Laney didn’t tell you?”
“No, because you didn’t tell Laney. She said you wouldn’t answer her.”
I nodded, avoiding her eyes and the question.
“What then?” she insisted, unflinching.
I groaned, putting distance between us. I’d recently poured my soul out to Ben, then Dan, and I’d had to break up with Laney twice. My ability to share my thoughts and feelings had never been strong, and it was tapped as shit now, but I owed her better than this. Better than me at my worst.
“I’m not sure yet,” I said finally.
“You have no idea?”
“I have some,” I answered vaguely. “I’m working on them. Feeling them out.”
“Okay,” she said amiably, letting it go. She bent down and picked up a pair of punch mitts off a nearby bench.
I cringed as eyes all around the room watched her move. With her tattoos and the streak of blue in her dark hair, they probably thought she was a gym whore. Just one of the girls looking to score with an alpha. It made me hate every guy in that room.
She put the mitts on, then lifted her hands. “Let’s go.”
“What are you doing?”
“This is next right? After the bag?”
“How do you remember that?” I asked, amazed by her memory of my workout.
She laughed at me. “I was only here for every bout, Kel. I watched your warm-ups. I’ve watched you work out a couple times. It’s called paying attention.”
“I don’t know if I pay attention to anyone that closely.”
“What’s my favorite color?” she asked, shaking her hands to encourage me to get going.
I settled into my stance, imagining her bedroom. “Purple.”
“Favorite band?”
I threw a hit at one of her mitts.
Punch.
“Sublime.”
“Favorite food?”
Punch.
“Chinese.”
Punch.
“Noodles and teriyaki chicken,” I clarified, picturing her with the meal in front of her the way I’d seen countless times over the years, sauce painting a thin stripe down her chin.
Punch.
“How do I like my popcorn?”
Jenna on the couch next to me watching a movie, wearing her favorite fleece pants with the hole in the left pocket. “Dry and salty.”
Punch, Punch.
“What’s—“
“You giggle in your sleep sometimes,” I interrupted, spinning us around.
She followed me, moving her feet in time with my turn. Like dancing.
Punch.
“You drive with your hands at 3 and 11 instead of 10 and 2.” Punch. “You only turn the volume to odd numbers.” Punch. “When you draw or paint, you stick the tip of your tongue out the corner of your mouth.” Punch. Punch. “But when you tattoo you chew on your bottom lip.” Punch. “Your sister drives you crazy but you love her.” Punch. “You’d give up anything to see her happy.” I stopped, standing up straight and dropping my hands to look at her evenly. “Even something you want.”
“See,” she said quietly, her eyes openly admitting everything I’d said. Everything I feared. “You pay very close attention.”
“Are you still mad at me?” I asked bluntly.
She lowered the mitts, shaking her head. “I wasn’t mad at you, I’m disappointed. In both of us.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I didn’t plan that.”
“I was in that room too. You weren’t alone in what happened.”
I stared at her standing there in my Zen and I thought of all the times I’d seen her there before. Of the times she’d been there when she was a kid and things had been easier. Clearer. Of the times when she got older and she was so beautiful I worried I’d have to beat asses for the looks she was getting. Of the times when I’d looked down at her from inside the ring and I’d let myself imagine, just for one sliver of a second, that she was mine.
Now here she stood, both of us free and clear of restrictions, and I felt less sure of us than I’d ever felt before.
“Jen, I don’t know where we go from here,” I admitted, my voice low and deep.
She sighed sadly. “Me either.”
“I know what I want.”
“Me too.”
“I also don’t know how to be what I want.”
“Same shit, different day,” she whispered.
I nodded, my eyes intent on hers. I was worried she would think I was running again and I couldn’t do that. That wasn’t my intention. I was trying so hard to make the right decisions, but my session with Ben had opened my eyes to a glaring weakness in me. I craved Dan’s approval and opinion, valuing it above my own and that was no way to live my life. I needed more time with Ben to get my head straight and get on my own course before I committed to anything else. I hated to admit it, but I needed my friend more than I needed anything else from her right then.
“It still seems like a big risk to me,” I told her reluctantly, terrified of how she’d take it. “An
d maybe it’s selfish, but I need you right now. I can’t afford to fuck this up any more than I already have.”
She forced a small smile. “We’re good, Kellen. You’ve got a lot on your plate. You have physical therapy, boxing, you need to get a job, you just came out of an engagement. I’m not looking to jump into anything with you right now. I’ll be here for you while you work on all of that, though. Just like I’ve always been.”
“Is that a dick thing for me to ask, though? Am I asking you to wait?”
“I don’t know, are you?”
I sighed, rubbing my hands over my face and trying to erase the annoyance that was building. I wanted to bail. I wanted to hide. I wanted to slip into the darkness and hit autopilot until all of this was resolved for me, but it’s what I’d done before and look how well that’d turned out. What would the world look like when I surfaced this time? I doubted Jenna would still be there. No one deserved that kind of devotion, certainly not me.
I dropped my hands and looked at her, feeling a little helpless. And scared. “Yeah. I think I am. Is that something you can do?”
She snorted lightly. “Like I haven’t been doing it for years already.”
I groaned inwardly. “See, now that makes me feel like shit. I never meant to do that to you.”
“But you didn’t like me with Alexander.”
That douchebag.
“No.”
“Okay, well, honesty time. I didn’t like you with Laney. So we’re even.”
“Was it a competition?”
“I wouldn’t count it as one until I’m in the lead,” she said slyly. “Let’s just do what we do and we’ll see where it goes. No Laneys, no Alexanders, no age restrictions, no expectations. Just you and me being you and me.”
I grinned at the idea, at the freedom of the thought. “I can handle that.”
“Good. Now get back to work. We have to figure out how to hide your right hand.”
Jenna watched silently from beside Tim as I ran through my workout. The hardest part was being in the ring. I felt it the second I stepped inside – I was off. It wasn’t the strength I was missing, because I was quick to find out I wasn’t missing that much. It was the strike. The animal who had stayed so quiet lately. He wasn’t coming out and taking control, and without him the instinct was gone. I was overthinking and generally cocking everything up. The worst, though, was the pain. It hurt like hell to hit with my right hand and I felt the hesitation every time I went to use it.
And everyone in that gym saw it happen.
Afterward, I walked Jenna out to her car, trying not to let the workout haunt me. I was coming back from a horrible accident. There was going to be recovery. I knew I wouldn’t be perfect right off the bat, but I hadn’t realized I’d be this far gone. I didn’t know where the animal had gone, and the scary thing was that I was trying to figure out how to bring him back.
“Practice tomorrow?” Jenna asked when we got to her car. She’d parked next to my bike. “Same time?”
I grinned faintly. “Same Bat channel, yeah. That’s a long drive for you.”
“Two and a half hours,” she shrugged. “I can handle it.”
“Do you like Bakersfield?” I asked suddenly, a wild idea forming in my mind.
“It’s where work is.”
I sat down sideways on my bike, settling in. “That’s not what I asked.”
“I don’t know. It’s alright. I miss being right next to the ocean, but like I said, it’s where work is.”
“What about opening your own shop?”
She laughed loudly, covering her mouth with her hand as her keys dangled down from her palm.
“Why is that funny?” I asked seriously, not laughing with her. “I thought that’s something you wanted to do.”
“It is,” she agreed heartily, “of course it is, but really that’s a huge undertaking. Finding the money to rent or buy the shop space, buying all the equipment, getting licenses, branding, hiring and paying employees, the list goes on and on. I don’t have the money for that.”
“You know people who do.”
You’re talking to one right now.
She groaned unhappily. “Dad, yeah, he has money and I know he’d give it to me but… I don’t know.” She worried her keys in her hands, avoiding my eyes. “What if it fails and I can never pay him back? What if it fails and that means I failed and my dreams go swirling down the toilet right in front of me.”
“That’s stupid. You have the talent to make it happen.”
“A lot of people have talent, it doesn’t mean they open their own shop.” She pointed to the dilapidated brick of Tim’s Gym behind me. “You have talent but you’ve never tried to go pro. I couldn’t even convince you to try out for the Olympic Team, something you could have done, by the way.”
“I know” I agreed solemnly, feeling uneasy with the confession on my tongue, “and I should have listened to you. I should have gone, but that wasn’t what I was doing with my life then and I regret it now. I don’t want you to regret anything.”
“I won’t,” she replied weakly.
“If you don’t give this a shot, you will,” I insisted. “I know you. You’ll always wonder. You have the talent and resources to break out and make it big on your own, things that not everyone has, Jen. It’s a waste. It’s a slap in the face to life if you don’t use all of it to its full potential. Take everything you can from life and put out everything you’ve got. Otherwise what’s the point?”
She smiled. “Are you telling me YOLO?”
“Don’t be a jerk,” I laughed. “I’m being brilliant here.”
“I know, sorry. And you’re right. I’ll think about it.”
Not good enough. I wasn’t buying it.
“Don’t think about it,” I told her. “You’ve obviously already done that. Now it’s time to do it.”
“Actually,” she countered, glancing down at her watch, “now it’s time to get on the road and get to work or I won’t have a job to fund this big dream of yours.”
“Ours,” I corrected her. “Do you work tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I stood up, feeling my body move before I could stop it. I touched her bare arm with my hand to ground myself, then I kissed her lightly on the cheek. When I pulled away we both looked surprised, but she didn’t slap me. That was something.
“We’ll look at shop spaces tomorrow,” I told her.
“Wait, what?” she chuckled nervously.
“I’ll find some online today and we’ll check them out tomorrow.”
“Kellen, slow down. I’m still in college. Don’t you think I should finish that first?”
“You can do both.”
“You could do both. I can’t manage all that alone.”
“You’re never alone,” I told her, settling onto my bike. I felt wild the way I had the afternoon in the park when she’d been looking at me, really looking at me, for the first time in years. I felt that thrill of being with her. The best part of me rising to the surface to see her. To bask in the glow of her eyes. “I’ll help you.”
“I don’t know my budget,” she persisted. “I haven’t even talked to my dad.”
“It’s a business proposal. We’ll come to him with the budget.” I grinned at her, revving my bike. “You better get moving! You’re gonna be late!”
I drove away, leaving her standing there with a shocked look on her face and a smile plastered on mine.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Did you see Magic Mike?” Callum asked.
I scowled at him. “No, because I’m a heterosexual male. Why? Did you see Magic Mike?”
“Homework, dude,” he told me, passing me a tray of silverware on to be wrapped in thick linen napkins. “It’s research into what ladies want, and what they want is hot bodies. You’ve got a hot body and the face to go with it. Girls go insane over you.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Two of my waitresses
have asked me if you’re single,” Brett informed me from across the restaurant. “One of my waiters too. They’ve all asked me to hire you.”
It amazed me every time I saw him just how much Callum looked like his dad. Brett was Callum twenty years from now, down to the color of his eyes and the well-trimmed beard that gave him a button down look, completely belying his staunch ability to drink like a freaking fish.
“Are you hiring?” I asked with a grin.
He laughed. “No way. Dan would never forgive me. Don’t be a lawyer if you don’t want to, but a waiter in a floundering dream is not your next step.”
“I need to do something.”
“And I’m trying to tell you what that is!” Callum insisted.
“So far you’ve told me to be a gigolo, and I’m guessing from the Channing Tatum tangent you’re taking off on, you want me to be a male stripper too?”
“I don’t want you to be, but the ladies do. Answer the call, fool. They want you,” he said, pointing at me in the Uncle Sam pose.
I shook my head. “Answer it for me. I’m not taking that call.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“I’m not a beggar. I’m looking for something that I’ll actually like doing.”
“What was it about being a lawyer you didn’t like?” Brett asked.
“Everything,” I answered immediately. “The suites. The office. Being inactive.”
“He’s a gym rat,” Callum supplied.
Brett nodded slowly. “What did you like about it?”
I shrugged, not really sure. “The reason I wanted to do it in the first place was because of what Dan did for me. He didn’t have to go to bat for me like that, but he did. He saved my life and I thought that’s something I wanted to do for someone else. But then I really wanted to do it for the money.”
