Brawler (28 page)

One Month Later

Callum sat on my feet, staring anxiously at the stopwatch in his hand. “Ten seconds, man! Push it!”

I let loose a low growl as I slammed through the sit-ups.

“Five… four… three… two… done!”

I collapsed on my back, breathing heavily as my abdomen burned. “How’d I do?”

“Was I supposed to be counting?” Callum asked in amazement. “I thought I was just the timer.”

I glared up at him. “You better be kidding.”

“I am,” he laughed. “You killed it.”

“How many?”

“Forty-six in one minute.”

I let my head drop back on the mat and tossed my arms up over my head to stretch. “Yes,” I hissed.

“So far your sit-ups are good,” he said, checking items off the list on the floor next to us. “Both your run times were insane. Your pushups are okay and your pull up score just barely clears the minimum.”

“I gotta work on that,” I groaned, sitting up and pulling my feet out from under him. “My scores have to be better if I’m going to get through the Testing Phase. I failed it last time by a hair.”

“Dude, if you can’t get into the Fire Academy, who are they accepting? Look at you. You have negative body fat.” He reached out to pinch the skin on my stomach.

I slapped his hand away. “Guys who are stronger than me, that’s who’s getting in. I lost a lot of strength being bed ridden.”

“You mean comatose.”

“Both. What’s next? Bench press?”

“Yep, last thing.”

“Good. I’m starving.”

We headed over to the weight machines in the corner of the gym. Passing the bags, I reflexively shook out my right hand.

“How is that, by the way?” Callum asked quietly.

“Shitty,” I admitted. “I’m not looking forward to my bout tomorrow.”

“First one since the accident?”

“Yeah. Once I throw that first punch with my right hand, everyone is going to see how much it hurts. They’ll go for that weakness.”

Callum situated himself at the head of the bench as I laid down on it. “You doin’ anything about it?”

“I’ve been trying to go Southpaw, but it’s not easy. My gut says use the right hand, but my head freaks out because it knows it’ll hurt. It’s making me slow. It sucks.”

“Better than not doing it all,” he said, making his daily reference to the joys of my break up with Laney.

I reached up with my weak hand and bumped knuckles with him. “Amen to that.”

***

“Come on, Kellen!”

“Keep moving! On your toes!”

“Wear him down! You got this!”

I heard them. All of them. I’d never been able to hear them before.

The animal was still a no show. I couldn’t go into auto-pilot the way I always had, and I worried about what was happening to me. Was it good I couldn’t find the blind rage? Or was it a part of me I’d lost forever in the accident, like the strength of my right hand? With my instinct and strength gone, was it even worth being a boxer anymore?

I dodged around the ring, trying to wear the guy down a little. I’d faced him before and he shouldn’t have been a problem, but sitting in the driver’s seat like I was, everything felt like it was happening faster. I was having trouble keeping up and I felt almost dizzy as we swung around and around.

Out of nowhere he threw a punch at me.

I lurched back from the hit. I ran from him.

“No!” Tim shouted, angrily. “Dammit, no! Get—“

The guy hit me hard in the face, my hands coming up to block too late. He immediately followed with an uppercut to my stomach that took the wind out of my lungs and made me wince, nearly cowering.

“Hit! Him!” Tim shouted.

I couldn’t. I was already heading for the ropes, somewhere I never should have been. I should have had this guy running from me by now. Last year when we’d faced off I had taken it easy on him. Now he was working me like a red headed stepchild.

I took another hit to the face and my right hand itched violently inside my glove.

“Fucking fight, Kellen!!!” Jenna screamed.

My eyes darted to the floor where I caught a glimpse of her. She was a blur, just a flash of color, but her words hit me like a gunshot in my gut. The animal was gone or dead or asleep – I didn’t know. I couldn’t be the boxer I used to be. I had to get over it. I had to quit on the restrictions and rules and structure, the expectations that held me in place. That held me back.

I had to cut loose.

I had to fight.

I shoved the guy off me, sending him stumbling back, then roamed around him. I made him turn and spin to find me, his footing going frantic underneath him. Finally he came at me again, off balance and angry. And open.

I threw a right hook. I used my busted up hand, and it hurt just as much as I knew it would, but it also took the wind out of his sails. As he stumbled again, I shook my hand out, growling against the pain, then I launched myself at him. I landed three quick blows with my left hand and I felt the energy in my muscles when I did it. I remembered my speed. I reminded everyone in the room as well.

I raced through the ring, moving as quickly as I could, dodging and ducking, throwing that left hand whenever there was an opening. I couldn’t find my place in the ring, not yet, but I did find my pace, and today that was enough.

“Coulter, get your ass down here!” Tim shouted right as the final bell rang. “What the hell was that?”

I didn’t answer, not because I was shutting down, but because I knew from experience that the question was rhetorical. It was time for me to listen, not talk.

“You froze up out there. I know you were in that damn accident and I’m sorry, kid, but I swear to God I never thought I’d see something like this from you. You’re tougher than that. Is it the girl? Is she the one that told you to quit before?”

“No.”

“Good. If this one ever gets in your business like that, you drop her like a bad habit, you hear me? I don’t want to see another day like today again. This was years of training forgotten and wasted in one afternoon! Every guy here thinks you’re finished. They’re gonna start talking and do you know what they’ll be saying? Coulter’s lost it. He doesn’t have it anymore. Ding dong, the king is dead! Is that what you want them saying?”

“No.”

“No. No, it’s not, ‘cause you’re not done. You’re a natural. You’re born for this. Whatever’s gotten in your head and got you hesitating, get it out. Do you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Alright,” he said, his tone quieting. “Tomorrow we start again and you’re going lefty. I don’t want to hear anything else about it. Your right hand is a bust and we all know it. No use hiding it and dancing around it. Now we adapt. We lost one strength, but you got ‘em in spades. We’ll find another one.” He ran his hand over his head, turning his back on me. “Now go save your girl from Nunez.”

I looked for Jenna, immediately finding her on the other side of the gym standing next to another fighter with short dark hair and olive skin. I knew him from years ago, back when I was tearing through my fan girl phase here at the gym. As far as I knew, he was still making the rounds.

“Hey!” I called gruffly. “Back away, David.”

He raised his hands innocently, backing up. “We’re just talking, man.”

“Right.”

“What? She said she’s not your girl.”

“Doesn’t mean she’s looking to get syphilis,” I told him, coming to stand next to Jenna. “Get away.”

He laughed as he left and when I looked at Jenna, she was smiling. Laughing.

“Can’t leave you alone for two seconds,” I grumbled, pulling off my gloves and tossing them onto a nearby table.

She shrugged. “It’s the tattoos. You boxer types love them.”

I stepped in close to her, my body nearly touching hers. Her face immediately fell serious. “It’s your eyes,” I told her softly. “They’re trouble.”

“They’re gray. They’re boring.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, her cheeks flushing pink.

How a girl as gorgeous as Jenna could be flattered and embarrassed by a simple compliment was beyond me. She should have been used to them by now. Bored with them. Instead, she blushed with every single one, and I loved it.

Put Jenna and Laney side by side and ask anyone off the street who was more attractive, and I guarantee you that most would pick Laney. She was traditional. Safe. She was the embodiment of an ideal that had been fed to all of us guys for our entire lives, but Jenna was something different. Her beauty wasn’t as obvious. It wasn’t in the immediate sum of her parts. It was deeper than that. You didn’t see it right away, you had to spend time with her. You had to hear her laugh, get her jokes, make her smile, and then it’d come on you slowly, like the sun rising in the east. It was natural and powerful, a combination of a hundred different things that came together in a slow symphony you heard with your heart.

Or maybe that was just me. Maybe that’s how I saw her because I loved her, but did it make it any less real? I didn’t think so.

“So you’re not my girl, huh?” I asked, surprising her.

“I thought that’s what we agreed on,” she replied quietly. “No labels or expectations. Just us being us.”

“That is us. I’ve always thought of you as mine.”

Her chest rose and fell rapidly. “Me too,” she whispered.

“You always thought of yourself as mine or the other way around?”

“Both?”

“Good.” I slung my arm around her shoulders, pulling her to me and holding her there firmly. It was mean to do it. I was slick with sweat, I’m sure I stank of it, but instead of slapping at me and running away, she wrapped her arms around my waist and hugged me back.

“Careful,” she teased, nodding to a familiar group of girls standing by the door. “Your groupies will be mad.”

“Screw ‘em.”

“Isn’t that the idea?” she asked dryly.

“Not anymore,” I laughed, squeezing her tighter before letting her go. “Hey, I gotta take a shower and then I’m taking you to dinner. We’ll celebrate.”

“Where are we going?”

I started backing away toward the locker room. “I’m thinking somewhere fancy.”

“So Denny’s then?”

“You know it,” I grinned. “I’ll have to wear a shirt
and
shoes.”

“You take me to the nicest places.”

“I’m a baller!”

“But what are you going to order when we get there?”

“An omelet.”

“Oh, Kellen,” she mourned dramatically.

“Moon Over My Hammy!” I shouted, throwing my arms up into the air triumphantly. Because, yeah, I remembered my order from Denny’s and that was a friggin’ win for me. Even before the accident, that would have been a milestone.

“I’m so proud!” Jenna beamed.

I hurried through my shower, throwing my clothes on and running my finger through my wet hair carelessly. I took a quick look in the mirror before I headed out and I couldn’t stop smiling, but it wasn’t about the fight. It didn’t take a lot of soul searching to figure out who it was about.

I’d won the bout despite my injuries, but it had been ugly. It should have been a simple win but I felt like I’d had to really scrap for it, and maybe that wasn’t so bad. A new challenge could be good for me. Being forced to take a new perspective was kind of the order of my life right then, so going Southpaw didn’t sound as daunting as it would have six months ago. Now it felt like a punch I could roll with.

I had my footing back. It was time to move forward.

When I stepped out of the locker room, I was immediately hit with a wall of groupies. My stomach lurched when I recognize one in particular.

“Great fight, Kellen,” Laura purred, running her fingertip down my arm.

I kept walking, my eyes straight ahead on Jenna. “Thanks.”

“We’re having some people over tonight,” Chelsea told me, trying to step in my path. The sight of her gave me chills. “You should come by. You remember my address, right?”

I quickly stepped around her. “Yeah, I’m busy tonight. Thanks though.”

“That’s okay,” she persisted, falling in step next me. “We’ll be up late. At least I will be. You should come by whenever.”

“Can’t make it. You guys have fun.” I locked onto Jenna, hurrying my pace to get to her. To get away from the girls. “Are you ready to get out of here?”

She smirked at me, her face amused. “Are you sure you don’t want get her number? Go to that party?”

“You’re funny,” I answered drolly as I opened the door for her.

“You already have her number, don’t you?”

“Had. Past tense.”

“What? Had her number or her?”

I cast her a sideways glance, telling her I wasn’t playing this game.