"She's running from something—that one. She didn't tell me much, but I've been around enough kids in bad situations to know when they need help."
“What would Little Burgundy do without you, Lou?”
“I don’t know, maybe start a teen shelter?”
“Good point. I hope she’s okay.”
“I just hope she stays.”
“What’s her sport? Or does she not have one?”
“The kid boxes, believe it or not.” Lou crushed fresh chalk into the chalk box in the corner.
“No shit, Lou? First girl you ever trained?”
I stared at the door she’d walked through and thought about tunneling. I wondered if some part of her, Celia, could hear us now and knew that we were discussing her. Lou attracted the weak, weary and wounded. Celia seemed like she had a long way to fall if she wasn’t careful, but if she climbed straight up, her potential might be limitless. I’d stay out of her way and leave Lou, the trusted standard, to coaching her to stability.
Chapter 2
CELIA
"Could you watch where you're going?" someone said sternly. I was walking through a crowded hall trying to read the lecture room numbers which were nearly invisible on the left side of every door. I should have done the tour. I knew it was a mistake to skip the goddamned tour. Someone smashed into me from behind, an arm or a backpack, I wasn’t sure. I stumbled, fumbled with my newly purchased textbooks, which flew out of my hands and spread across the shiny floor. I watched in dismay as feet stepped on the spine of the most expensive book I’d ever owned
“Watch it! Stampede the books. Brilliant! Jerks,” he mumbled as he rescued my newly acquired treasures.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," I said as I bent down on the ground to pick up the binder that collapsed on the floor. “Thanks so much for helping,” I gushed as I collected the papers that scattered through the hall. The feet were thinning out now, presumably because lectures were beginning. I’d be late on my first day.
Fuck a duck. Next time I’d do the damn tour.
"Just be careful. People are oblivious here. Let me guess, Freshman?"
"I usually am, very careful that is. It's just that this place is a little overwhelming, and I declined to do the optional tour last week, like an idiot." I got up and stared directly into the face of the fighter from the gym last night.
“Oh, hello. It’s you!” I said somewhat startled to see him in the halls.
This time he wasn't wearing boxing shorts and wife beater. Instead he was dressed in a tan tailored suit with a crisp white shirt and a navy blue tie. His hair was perfectly slicked back in this iteration of himself, not a messy mop falling onto his forehead.
“Is this like The Parent Trap? Are you one half of a set of twins?” I joked. He flashed a smile and I noticed that just one of his canine teeth was a little crooked, endearing an otherwise Hollywood-perfect smile.
The only clue that in fact gave away he was indeed the same man from the ring, were the scrapes and bruises scattered along his aquiline face. He had a bit of five-o-clock shadow, the cuts probably hampered his morning shave.
He held my gaze for a moment, and we both stood there in the rapidly emptying hallway looking at each other before he finally broke the silence. "The first few weeks can be like that, but then you get used to it."
Life? School? Boxing? Tell me more Mr. sweats by day, suits by night.
"Thanks," I said and noticed his smile again. He had a friendly smile, perfectly white teeth, and that one restless tooth that struck me as incredibly sexy. However, Mr. Perfect wasn't perfect because his eyes still looked sad, or maybe a little guarded. I knew eyes like that, been around them my whole life. In fact, my own eyes were like that, and so was my heart.
Men with eyes like his also harbored secrets that could be dangerous. No one looked guarded by choice, it was trauma and experience that whittled that insecurity and apprehension into one's psyche. When you wore it in your look, that meant you’d been through it.
"You're the fighter, right? From last night?"
His smile instantly vanished. He put a finger to his lips.
“Fighter? Louie’s gym?” I whispered instead.
"Listen, you've got to keep your mouth shut about that. No one here knows I do that in my spare time."
"What do you do here?" I asked. Was he a teacher or some important faculty? If he was an academic superstar, didn’t he need his face to look presentable to the trustees or something? The man was gorgeous, but that nose had seen better days, crooked and swollen, it had obviously been broken one too many times. It was probably broken right now.