Below the Belt

by Skye Warren

  He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t heard the words come out of his mouth, but he’d almost offered to start his school in her city. And she’d refused. She’d been right when she’d said this was too soon to be making permanent decision for each other. But still, it had stung. Badly.

  He wasn’t used to rejection, and he found he particularly despised it coming from Paris.

  So, he was not thinking about her. Not at all. And if fucking was out of the question, then a fight would have to do.

  Abe followed Rafael to his court and helped him prep, then sat back on the sidelines to watch. Rafael was a dark horse, not expected to go far due to his relative inexperience, but with the potential to take it all the way. If the cards lined up, or rather, if the punches lined up the right way, then Abe knew Rafael could score a medal.

  Abe’s body clenched when he recognized Rafael’s opponent—Nicholas, the asshole guy who’d fought with Blake. Abe didn’t think Rafael knew who it was, but even so, it was a tense match.

  Abe felt a movement at his side and looked over to see Blake. Abe had known Blake for years, but he couldn’t really place his expression now, something he chalked up to competition nerves.

  Blake glanced at the fight and then back, but didn’t look Abe in the eye. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Sure.” Abe nodded toward the match. “Can it wait until after?”

  Blake looked at the match, his eyes clouded. “I have mine pretty soon.”

  “Okay. I can talk now.” Abe nodded toward the small alley between the bleachers and the concrete wall.

  “No,” Blake said. “Some place more private.”

  Damn. What now? Abe felt like an ass for thinking it, but he was tired of Blake’s shit. Abe would deal with it, for their past friendship and for the sake of the school, but he didn’t have to be happy about it.

  Blake led them into the hall and down into an alcove with a statue. It wasn’t exactly private, but no one was near them and they had full view of the hallway to confirm that.

  Abe thought of small talk, as he always did with Blake, to try to ease the tension. But he decided against it, opting to hear what bad news Blake had to break to him this time.

  “I just wanted you to be the first to know,” Blake said. “I accepted a teaching position at an academy in Korea.”

  “What?”

  “Grandmaster Hyung Sook. He knows Sa Bum Nim. That’s how I met him.”

  “I’ve heard of him.” Abe knew his voice sounded too sharp, exposing too much, but he couldn’t hold it in. How could Blake be making such a big decision? More importantly, how had he made such a big decision without ever mentioning it to Abe?

  “When did this happen?”

  Blake shrugged, and Abe had to hold himself back from slamming him into the wall as Blake had done to him just days earlier. “I had to go somewhere, and Sa Bum Nim hooked me up.”

  “So Sa Bum Nim knows about this? You said I was the first?”

  “The first one of the guys. Sa Bum Nim knows everything.”

  Well, Abe wasn’t going to dispute that. Sa Bum Nim did have an uncanny knack for knowing things he shouldn’t. The accusation shot from Abe before he could check it. “You never told me you were looking for a job.”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything. But of course I was looking for a job. I can’t stay at Sa Bum Nim’s forever. Even you aren’t doing that.”

  “Exactly. You know I’m planning on opening a school. We used to talk about it. I always thought you’d come with me.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s been a while since we talked about it. And you never really asked me.”

  “You’re moving to Korea because I never asked you,” Abe said, the words bitter in his mouth. “So, I’m asking you now. Come with me. I’ve got the sponsors all lined up. All I have to do is medal and I’m in. Even without that, we could make it happen.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. You’re going to sulk at home because no one asked you to the prom? You know I wanted you to come, and you made these plans without even talking to me. You know what, Blake? Fuck you. Fine. You told me. Courtesy accomplished.”

  Abe stalked off, breathing hard, his pulse racing. Suddenly, he was beyond eager for his next round. He needed to kick the living shit out of something.

  Abe leaned against the wall in the back of the atrium while Rafael’s round continued. Rafael pulled his punch back to block a kick to his side. That left his head exposed and a well-aimed roundhouse kick landed with a thump. In a blur, Rafael’s opponent spun around. His kick hit the back of Rafael’s head, the force knocking his helmet up and off his head. The chin strap held tight and the helmet snapped back onto Rafael’s head just before he tumbled to the ground.

  Abe pushed forward to get to Rafael through the officials and medics.

  Rafael blinked up at him from the mats. Thank God. He could still be injured but conscious was good.

  “Hey, buddy. You’re going to be okay, you hear me?”

  “Yeah,” Rafael whispered. Okay, so he had the wind knocked out of him. He’d be okay. He had to be.

  Abe allowed himself to be pushed aside by the medics. He stumbled back, right into Sa Bum Nim.

  “Go to your next round. Rafael will be fine. There is nothing more you can do for him.”

  Abe clenched his jaw. He knew Sa Bum Nim was right. Hell, Rafael would kill him if he did anything other than go straight to his next match. Still, he couldn’t like it.

  Pissed at the asshole who’d hit Rafael, pissed at Blake, pissed at the situation with Paris, Abe was seriously charged. He busted through his next few rounds with no finesse or style, but a maximum of force and speed.

  Larger crowds packed the stands with each of his matches. The audience didn’t mean anything to Abe, except that they were more people watching for him to fail. Just more people to prove wrong.

  Abe blew through his last matches of the day, the pain in his knee like a victory punch. Back in Rafael’s suite, Abe learned that the guy who had knocked Rafael down had only received a warning and continued on. Rafael had a minor concussion. Neither Sa Bum Nim nor the officials would allow Rafael to compete the next day.

  While Abe agreed with their reasoning, he also felt sympathy for Rafael, who’d come all this way only to be knocked out with a cheap shot. And guilt that Abe would get to continue. Another thing to fight for the next day—Rafael’s shitty deal.

  If he could win this, it would be for more than just him. Well, it would be for him and his school. It would be for Rafael and his loss. For Blake and their past. And maybe it would also be for Paris and their future together.

  The second day, Abe won every round, even beating out the second top contender for gold in the bronze match. He was guaranteed a gold or silver medal, but he wanted gold. And his determination to get it only multiplied when Abe learned who his competitor was. Nicholas, the one who’d knocked Rafael out.

  The cool rubber swished beneath Abe’s feet as he stepped inside the court. His opponent was wearing red this time, and Abe, blue. Curly blond hair spilled out from beneath the headgear onto a tanned forehead. He looked just like every other surfer dude Abe saw on the beaches, but that’s not what he was. He was a competitor, and a mean one.

  There was no need to pump himself up—Abe was revved, charged. He didn’t even need to focus his mind, because all this energy was completely concentrated on his senses. The sound of the crowd faded to a low roar. The voice of the referee calling out their bows loud and clear in his mind. His own breathing was deep and steady, but his opponent’s was ragged. Abe could use that.

  And then start was called. Abe didn’t wait this time. No bouncing around on the balls of his feet. No empty parries. Instead, he lunged for his opponent in a quick strike: punch to the side, aborted side kick, turn back fist to the head followed by a round kick to the head. He barely even registered whether his hits were landing on blocks or their target, but when he heard the referee call poi
nt, he yanked himself back.

  Only when his knee buckled on the step back did he even notice there was a problem. But he caught himself and shook his head when the referee asked if he needed to stop. Hell, no. Abe wasn’t going to stop.

  And again, Abe attacked. He’d always been aggressive, but never vicious. He was today. This guy had fucked with Abe’s friends, so now Abe would fuck him up. At least within the bounds of the tournament’s official rules.

  Kick to the chest, then side. Blake thought he could just walk away with not so much as an explanation. Punch, fake jab, then jab to the head. Paris with her sad eyes. Roundhouse kick.

  Then the inevitable happened. Abe had been favoring his right leg for his kicks. It hurt like hell to snap his injured knee this way and that, but at least he always had the stability of a strong knee for balance and recovery. But this didn’t go unnoticed by his opponent. He consistently turned to the right, blocking Abe’s kicks with his body.

  Forced to adjust, Abe hopped onto his right leg and lifted his left for a high kick. And before he knew it, he was pushed onto the ground, his knee crumpled in a screaming mass of pain. The referee called a break, but it wasn’t undue force. They’d just slammed into each other, as competitors did. It was Abe’s weak knee that had landed him on the ground. Only Abe knew that the guy had done it on purpose. Well, he and Sa Bum Nim.

  Sa Bum Nim came up to him on the side, presumably to check whether he could continue the match. But that’s not what he asked.

  “You are fighting well.”

  Abe smiled, though it probably came more like a grimace.

  “What were you fighting for?” He sounded like he was inquiring whether Abe had cleaned the windows in the dojang. But what could Abe say?

  In the end, Abe said nothing, but Sa Bum Nim must have heard him anyway. “You’ve always done better under pressure, Abe. Even when you were younger, you would make conflict, just to have something to fight for. But it is good now that you are older. When things get difficult, you are right to fight for what you care for.”

  It was true, all of it.

  Sa Bum Nim said nothing for a minute, but it wasn’t like his usual silences, the ones where Abe felt he should be processing or coming up with the right answers. Instead, it felt like Sa Bum Nim was the one in turmoil.

  “I am going to ask you to do something. I want you to win this fight for me. It is…it is not…you are my student. You have made me proud by your actions, and soon I know you will leave my school. I would like for you to win this fight, for the people that you care about, and for me.”

  Shit, shit, shit. The word bounced through his mind like a pinball.

  Do it for himself. Do it for Rafael, Blake, and Paris.

  Do it for Sa Bum Nim.

  It shouldn’t have been possible for Abe to feel stronger, more intense, but he did.

  This must be what the bulls felt like, taunted and stabbed and seeing red. His body was his weapon, and his hope.

  As he started the match, he charged forward, only to get blocked and twisted onto the mat. No points awarded. Another charge, this time faster and more deliberate, but again, pushed away and a restart called.

  His mind slowed. Drip, the sweat from his hair. Soft, the feel of his mouth guard as he bit into it. Crisp, the cool stadium air as he sucked it in. Win. That’s what he’d do. Steady, steady.

  A punch, a jab, and a quick kick to the side. One point to Abe.

  Just that one point.

  Gold.

  He’d won the gold medal.

  Abe felt like a robot as he finished the bows. He walked woodenly off to Sa Bum Nim, who only patted his back and sent him to the showers. He fielded handshakes and congratulations from friends, competitors, and coaches, feeling only emptiness.

  Because he’d won, but he hadn’t. In the most spectacular anticlimactic moment, Abe had won everything he’d fought for, but nothing he really wanted. Maybe in some small way, he’d avenged Rafael. But Blake was still a mystery, and Paris was still out of his reach.

  He stalked directly into one of the showers, letting the spray turn to scalding before stripping and stepping under it. The water burned his skin and woke his mind. His eyes snapped open, unfocused on the beige tile only inches away.

  Abe knew what he had to do. He’d spent his entire life holding back except during physical fights. That was the one place he could go all out. But this wasn’t a physical fight. It was a fight of an entirely different kind, and it was time for Abe to stop pulling his punches.

  Eight

  Paris’s shoulders ached from holding herself so straight in her chair. But she couldn’t slump. She couldn’t let the inside out, not here at this damn fancy dinner. And that was another thing she didn’t want to think about. They were back in the ballroom. Back where it all started.

  She honestly tried not to look around the room. But her furtive glances couldn’t find Abe. He had to be here. He’d won the freaking gold medal after all. They expected him to give a speech. She knew he wouldn’t want to, but he’d do it. Not that he’d discussed any of this with her. He hadn’t even spoken to her. Not really.

  She’d tried to be understanding. After all, he was busy competing in a national competition. And oh, only his entire future was at stake, his dream of opening a school. Surely that entitled a man to some space. So he hadn’t contacted her the first night, or the second. Then he’d called, but Addie’s competition had started and Paris had been too busy to meet.

  He’d finally called last night to make sure she’d be here, he’d said. One last hookup? The bitter turn of her mind wouldn’t stop her from agreeing to it. It would have been nice if they’d had more time together, but they both had jobs to do. This wasn’t a vacation, and Paris knew she should be grateful she’d gotten to have a fling at all.

  Then she saw him, standing near the front. Who the hell was he talking to? She shouldn’t care, but she did. Of course. The man knew she was here but couldn’t be bothered to come and say hello? This was what she got for hooking up with a guy like that, the little voice inside her head taunted. All they want is sex, it scolded, hadn’t she learned that already? Apparently not.

  She should stay with her sister and celebrate her high, if not medal-worthy marks. She really should stay with her mother and solidify their tenuous truce. Instead, she marched right up to Abe, cutting off the girl he was talking to.

  “Hi, Abe.”

  He only looked surprised, not guilty. Maybe he didn’t feel guilty. Maybe he’d taken her at her word when she said they didn’t have a future. “Paris. I need to talk to you.”

  “I bet you do.”

  “Come on.” He excused himself from the woman he was speaking with and steered Paris by her arm. She did not yank her arm away, but only out of courtesy, not because she was just that desperate for his touch. They stopped in the corner of the ballroom. Not public, but not private, either.

  “I have to go up in a minute.” Abe nodded toward the stage. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

  “You want to break it off before you hook up with some girl?”

  “What are you talking about? No. It’s not like that.”

  “Then, what? Because it’s not like you’ve been trying to see me.” Hell. She should just get “that girl” tattooed on her forehead.

  “Things have been crazy. You know that. I’m doing this for us, so we can be together.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  A stone faced Blake came up to them. “They’re calling for you.”

  “I’ve got to go,” Abe said. “Just listen, okay?”

  “Okay.” She felt a shiver of excitement slide through her as she watched him hurry up to the stage. Even worse, she felt hope. If she didn’t believe in it, then it wouldn’t be such a let-down if she were wrong. She was already lost, though. Too late.

  Abe opened his speech by thanking his master and mentor, Sa Bum Nim. He talked about the school and his schoolmates. All the while he looked out a
t the crowd, his blue eyes clear and proud.

  Then he looked at her.

  “I was going to announce my plans to open a school today. I was going to tell you where it would be located and what it would be called. But the truth is, I don’t know those things. I don’t know them because there’s something I need to do before I can open my school. It probably doesn’t come as any big surprise that a martial artist has been a little too focused. We’ve been taught from day one, when we first put on our white belts, about focus. We get so focused on driving forward that we forget to live.

  “I need to explore the world. The good news is that I have something that I can share as I do it. So I’ve decided to set up a series of workshops on Taekwondo. Some of my schoolmates will be joining me, as well as other experts in the sport local to the area. We’ll hit the major cities, of course, but I can already tell you that the first stop will be in a little place called Paris, Texas, in honor of a friend of mine, a very dear friend.”

  Abe finished the speech and left the podium, but Paris couldn’t really see him through her stinging eyes. Then he was in front of her, solid and real and with her. He pulled her out into the hallway.

  “I can live without you,” he said.

  Well, damn.

  “I know I can, but I don’t want to. I want to see you every day. I want to talk to you all the time. When something funny or great or sad happens, the first thing I think is to tell you about it. When I’m having a rough time, just being with you makes it better. I know I’m an arrogant jerk. You’ve seen that firsthand. I already know you can do better. You can find someone who’ll sweep you off your feet. Fuck, this isn’t helping.”

  Abe took a deep breath. “What I mean is, I can’t offer you a fairy tale. I just know that I’ll try to make you happy if you’ll let me. I’m bound to screw up, honestly, but you have my blessing to kick my ass when I do. I know you can.”

  He pulled something out of his pocket. She blinked twice before she could focus. A medal. Gold, of course. “This was only ever a means to an end for me. So that I could start my own school and have the funds and the name to make it successful. And maybe to prove something to myself. But all of a sudden, that’s not enough for me. I want you, too. In fact, I’ll trade you.” He opened her hand and put the medal inside, then closed her fingers around it.