Fierce Page 10

  I grabbed behind his shoulders, and pulled him forward and down. Knee up, hip out. He blocked. Our eyes made contact—my arms still pulling him down and his blocking my knee—and I forgot what I was doing.

  "Thirty seconds. What the hell are you two doing? Thirty seconds to go. Go!"

  I broke the hold first and threw a rear knee. I hit him; he still stared at me. The hit seemed to wake him up, and we sprinted through the last twenty seconds doing easy shots.

  "Time!"

  We stopped hitting but we didn't move. Sweat, light compared to mine, trickled down his forehead, and I couldn't stop the smile. Endorphins and adrenaline still surged through my blood stream.

  It had happened again.

  I had fallen in love. With boxing. Again.

  "That's it for boxing this morning," Jeff said. Max's eyes didn't leave mine. And, strangely, I didn't want them to. "Hello? You two there? Go rest, eat, and be back by two. This afternoon is jiu-jitsu."

  "Come on, man. Let's go get food," Shane said.

  Max pulled his shirt over his head and wiped his face. I couldn't help it. I studied the damp black ink running across the right side of his chest, shooting up over his shoulder and ending at the base of his neck. He rubbed his neck with his shirt, popped out his mouthguard, and asked, "You want to go get food?"

  I tried to say 'yeah,' but my mouthguard made me almost slime Max. Awesome. So, I tried to play it cool (how the hell does one play salivating cool?) and nodded. Heat burned through my cheeks as I studied the bottom of my toes, freshly raw from the mats. I definitely hadn't been as light on my feet as I should have been.

  The group went into the locker room, and I went to the bathroom near the front of the gym to wash my hands after putting my stuff away.

  Mick and Miguel huddled near the door when I stepped out. Max gestured toward me and said, "There's a place a block down. It's pretty good."

  "Works for me," I said as I followed him and the group out of the gym.

  Shane and Max managed to flank me, and I didn't feel like my giant self. Max smelled cleaned, and as weird as it was, it threw me off. He kind of smelled the same but without the sweat. His damp dark hair clicked a minute later, and I realized he had showered. The other three had most definitely not, as evidenced by being downwind of Mick.

  "Don't you go back to the gym after we eat to train more?" I asked him.

  "Yeah. Why?"

  I shrugged.

  "She's observant," Shane said, and bumped my shoulder.

  Oh, God. Observant about Max's smell? Again? I think he and I had already established that.

  "I have no idea what the hell you're talking about, man," Max relied.

  "Sure you don't." Shane winked. Max reached his arm around behind me and smacked Shane in the back of the head.

  We reached the restaurant, and settled into a table. We ordered and our food came quickly. Almost no one said anything while we ate.

  "We need to go soon," Miguel mumbled to Mick after he had demolished his food. Max and Shane both ordered seconds.

  "Can't you just get it over and take a shit here?" Mick groaned.

  "No, I can't."

  "There's a bathroom that way." I pointed. Miguel sighed.

  "Miguel has STS," Mick replied.

  "STS?" I asked.

  "Safe-Toilet Syndrome. He can only take a dump at home." Mick was equal parts annoyed and equal parts amused about what he said.

  "Oh."

  "Keep it down, man. The ladies..." Miguel grumbled.

  "What ladies?" Mick asked.

  "The waitress. I've been working on picking her up for weeks. Don't ruin it now."

  "She's not even over here," Mick said after twisting in his chair and scanning for, well, I assumed the waitress.

  "Am I not a lady?" I asked, and took a sip of my water.

  "That's funny, Tori," Mick answered. "Fine, I won't tell the waitress about your bathroom phobia. But can you wait, like, five more minutes before we go?"

  "Does no one notice that I have boobs?" I said, still stuck on their obvious Tori-might-as-well-be-a-boy decision. It almost felt like old times.

  "A boy with boobs," Mick said. "Not that we really see them. They are always tucked away."

  Without realizing it, I had crossed my arms over my chest.

  "Mick," Max warned.

  "Or maybe since you've been boxing forever you don't have boobs? That happens with a lot of female body builders."

  "Mick!" Max snapped.

  Mick shrugged. "These are just facts, bro."

  "Back to the even more disturbing conversation at large, is this why you always run home around nine?" I asked. Miguel's going back home thirty minutes after he got to the gym almost every morning started to make sense.

  "I drink my coffee on the way to the gym," Miguel said, and I guessed I had my answer.

  Shane added to the conversation. Max, though, looked horrified.

  "Maybe you two should go so we can stop talking about your bowels," Max said.

  "You never have a problem talking about your bowels," Mick replied. "You got a thing for the waitress too?"

  "Why would Max have a thing for the waitress?" Miguel interjected. "First, she's mine. Second, Max can score chicks like Cheyenne. He gets the tens; he leaves the rest for us."

  "Do I not get tens?" Shane asked, sounding butthurt.

  "Who's Cheyenne?" I asked. I shoved my straw at some fractured ice cubes, trying not to look like I gave a crap.

  "She's a ring girl," Miguel answered.

  Ring girl. Figures.

  "Nah, Shane. You get elevens," Miguel said.

  "More like eleven-year-olds," Mick jabbed.

  "She was eighteen, ass," Shane snapped.

  "Eighteen minus five maybe," Mick replied.

  "Dude, that doesn't even equal eleven. I see now what those head kicks did to you."

  The waitress came by to fill out waters.

  "Yeah, well, I totally am going to win the next fight," Miguel said. His eyes flashed to the waitress.

  "What fight?" I asked. As far as I knew, Miguel didn't fight.

  Miguel's eyes darted to the waitress and back to me. "You know, that fight."

  "That fight, huh? The one with your toilet?"

  The waitress walked away and Miguel frowned. "Thanks, bro," he grumbled in my direction.

  I shrugged.

  "Well, time for my date with my toilet. Later, guys," Miguel said.

  "That's the only thing you'll ever have a date with," Mick quipped.

  "Someday, I'm going to beat the crap out of you, and no one will recognize you. Just like now," Miguel bit back.

  "Oh yeah, just jab my amateur status. Get it? Jab? I crack myself up," Mick said, standing.

  Miguel and Mick leaned over the table, fist-bumped each of us, and left.

  Max looked at his phone as he leaned back in his chair. He tipped the chair back, let it rest on the two back pegs, and stretched. "We still have an hour."

  "Nap time?" I asked.

  "Usually. But I don't exactly want to. How's your shoulder, Shane?"

  "It'll be 'aight." Shane cupped his shoulder and moved it in a circle. It popped.

  "Don't push it. We've got to get you back in the ring."

  "You just don't want me kicking your ass again in jits this afternoon. You want to join us, Tori?" Shane asked.

  "No, but thanks."

  There was a good chance I would definitely freeze during jits, and I liked these two too much to embarrass myself like that.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rocks rattled and the earth quivered beneath my shoes. Shane ran in front of me, each of his steps sending a mini-avalanche of pebbles and broken rock over my toes.

  The mountain still hid the sun, and the cool air left over from the night made my moves jerky. The elevation continued to change, my lungs feeling the altitude. My breathing hastened, and the dry air leeched the sweat and moisture out of my body. I wavered, the land below ready to shift
and reform under each step. My stomach tightened as a rock fell away from my foot and I slipped. I slid a few inches back before I caught myself. Once steadied, I looked below me and at the long slope down.

  As beautiful as it was, unease settled in my stomach and my nerves flared. Max and Shane were getting too far ahead; my shoes were no longer getting pelted by pebbles sent out from Shane's steps. I started running again.

  I had never been up here. Apparently, Jeff had found this place after I quit. We reached the crest of the Sandia Mountains as the sun barely graced us. An old building—Jeff had said it was a ranger post built sometime in the 1930s—jutted out over the mountainside.

  Piles of the rock bricks huddled along the base of the building, but it still stood. I moved to the edge, where the earth fell away, sloping thousands of feet below. Low clouds had infiltrated the thin air, and wisps of mist trailed through the trees and fogged the rocks.

  Jeff called me. I looked around for him.

  Max grinned and pointed. I followed his finger to Jeff, who stood on the roof of the old post. He already had mitts on. I climbed up the old post house, stepping gingerly on the rocks, to the flat top of it—the roof that provided our mitt area. I listened to the silence, to the still air, and breathed in and out.

  Jeff held the mitts and nodded when I didn't do anything.

  It was quiet, peaceful. I couldn't get myself to move, to disrupt the serenity.

  "I know," Jeff said. "The first time up here is always the hardest. But, I promise, this is a great place for this."

  I looked at my surroundings again, and inhaled the air of pine and rock.

  In the midst of the calm, my gloves made impact with the mitts. The silent air fractured, moaned, leather compressed, and my breathing hissed.

  I stopped right away after the first combo. Nothing had changed.

  And it made sense. What we were doing was as natural as my surroundings. The sounds had changed, but it wasn't out of place. Somehow, fighting in this beautiful, serene silence fit. Jeff held up the mitts again, and this time, I didn't hesitate. The crisp air calmed my body with every breath in, recharging my muscles and my mind.

  We worked for I don't know how long, the sun getting higher and the air warmer. Eventually, Jeff called quits so that Max could work. After removing my gloves, I climbed off the post. While Max and Jeff worked, and Shane wondered off somewhere, I found a spot on a rock along the face of the mountain, which cradled my back perfectly.

  I settled in and thought. I thought about the silence while I had worked mitts. I thought about the isolation here, and how, in this isolation, all my other fears seemed so far away.

  Even so, the realization that I had opened a can of worms was apparent even up here. True, I wasn't sucked back in completely. However, it was a slippery slope down if I wasn't careful. One wrong move, and much like the upcoming hike down the mountain, I would fall.

  I was still there when Jeff finished working with Max and Shane, and Shane came to get me.

  "Tori, hang on," Jeff said as I started down the mountain.

  "What's up?" I asked, and stopped walking.

  "I have a question for you."

  "I don't like your questions."

  Jeff smiled.

  Great, I was doomed.

  "I could really use another training partner for the guys."

  "I'm not a fighter, Jeff."

  "Maybe not officially, but you're always going to be a fighter. It would just be training and sparring. Max and Shane are pretty much on the same level when it comes to training, but Shane's injury still sets him back a bit, and I could really use a third person to help further both of their training."

  "So, you want me to be a punching bag." I kicked at a piece of rock. It shot down the slope down, dragging more pebbles with it.

  I didn't think about my words until they were out, hanging on the thin air instead of fading away.

  "That'll never happen again, Tori."

  The rock had disappeared, tumbling down the mountainside. I peered over to the edge, to the mist that clung to the tips of the pine trees below us, to Max and Shane who were already running down the trail.

  "You don't have to, kiddo, but I wanted to ask. You're a great partner to work with. You push your partner and yourself, and you aren't afraid to correct."

  "Why not ask Mick? Isn't he trying to start amateur?" I peeled my gaze from the mountain and stared at Jeff.

  " Mick isn't going to slap them upside the head when they do something stupid."

  "Is that a nice way of saying you need my bitchiness?"

  Jeff laughed. "Do I ever say anything in a nice way?"

  He had a point.

  "I won't leave you alone, if that's what you're worried about."

  I took a drink from my water bottle to get rid of the cottonmouth that had taken over. Nerves knotted my stomach into a tight ball. I shoved the water bottle back into my bag.

  "Neither of them is like Will," Jeff said.

  "How can you be so sure?"

  I hadn't thought Will was like that in any way, before.

  "Neither of these two gives a shit if they get dominated in practice."

  He was right about that.

  "What if I freeze while I work with them?" I asked.

  "Don't freeze."

  He said it as if it was so simple.

  Maybe it was.

  Maybe I could find a balance. Not get in too deep, yet still find some kind of relief for the need that had been growing. Be a tiny bit like my old self, but not enough to stop being the girl I needed to be for my plans.

  I wouldn't fight. I would never fight. I couldn't. But maybe this would be enough.

  The idea of working again.... The sweat. The soreness. Moving. It all coming together. Even if I couldn't have my dream, helping someone with his was a good option.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Up here, it all felt so far away. My shoulders had relaxed, so much that Jeff had commented on it during the mitt session. My anxiety had faded away. It made me realize how much Will was still there, back at the base of the mountain, invading my life.

  I was so tired of having someone, who wasn't even here, make decisions for me.

  "Okay," I said. "I'll do it."

  Chapter Thirteen

  After the session with Max, things changed. Even more so when I started working with Max and Shane on a regular basis. The guys acknowledged me differently when they entered the gym (the one that periodically checked me out stopped doing so, and instead moved on to fist-bumps), and no one gave me dirty looks if I made suggestions.

  No one stared at my boobs either, so that was a perk.

  I still wasn't sure how much Jeff had wanted me involved until I was knee-deep in it.

  And in Texas.

  Three weeks after I agreed to Jeff's idea, we were one day away from Max's fight. It had been a total of three months fight training for Max, and he had actually known his opponent within the first month of training, allowing him to focus entirely.

  Unfortunately, Max had to become a skeleton to make weigh-ins.

  He was fighting in the middleweight division—meaning he had to go from normally being around 215 pounds of muscle to weighing under 185 pounds.

  And that thirty pounds was kicking Max's ass.

  He had been on a strict diet the past few weeks and an even stricter one the past few days, if you could call a potato a meal a diet. It also meant no joining the others and myself for food after sessions, and the others had decided I apparently had balls because nothing in conversation was off limits unless the waitress was around.

  The last stretch of weight cutting had officially started. Yesterday, Max had been bitchier than any case of PMS that I had seen. So far today, he passed the angry-hungry, and reached the too-unable-to-think hungry.

  He stood between Shane and me, in the middle of the pool part of a fitness gym, dressed in layers of sweats from his hood to his wool socks. He had cut the majority of the weig
ht needed, but now he had to get the rest off before weigh-in this afternoon. Shane called a few combo's; Max did them. Then he would switch to me, and I'd hold and he'd hit. Then back to Shane.

  I hated how drawn Max's cheeks were, the cloudiness in his eyes, the flat lips, the slow movements. But I understood.

  The circuit started. Ten minutes of Max on the treadmill, still donned in sweats, followed by fifteen minutes in the sauna, a three-minute break, and back to the treadmill. After four rounds, Max still had pounds to lose, and only four hours to do it before the weigh-in.

  "Just remember, man, you're that much closer to getting to challenge the title," Shane said.

  Max grunted.

  I switched off with Shane in escorting Max in the sauna. Five minutes in the sauna and I stripped my shirt off. Good thing I only owned sportsbras. Max slumped against me. The sleeve of his shirt smashed against my arm and water poured down my skin.

  Max's weight grew heavier against my arm.

  "Max?"

  He made a noise I took to mean what.

  "You still awake?"

  He nodded before leaning forward and groaning into his hands. He rubbed at his face and tightened his fingers around the edge of his hood, as though he wanted to rip it apart.

  He swayed.

  "Come on. Lie down."

  I meant to angle him so he leaned against me again, but somehow his head ended up on my lap. His eyes were closed. The steam helped to soften the harsh lines the weight cut and dehydration had caused, and for a moment, he looked almost peaceful, instead of looking like a murderous skeleton.

  I pushed a piece of his hair off his forehead, and my fingers trailed through his hair before my mind caught up with my sabotaging hands.

  My muscles tensed, but before I could yank my hand away, Max said, "That feels good."

  Torn between smacking him and being nice, I decided to let my fingers stay in his hair.

  "Wow, I must look like crap," he said.

  "Why do you say that?"

  "You didn't give me any shit for what I just said."

  "Well, yeah, you look like crap." And I'm enjoying my hands in your hair. Jeez, Tori, get yourself under control.

  This was becoming the hottest sauna ever.

  There was no way to undo the friendships I had made with Max and Shane, but I had managed to keep those pesky thoughts about Max relatively controlled, so long as I didn’t do anything stupid like touch his freaking hair. Or look at him, like really look at him. Or talk to him, like really talk to him.