“Agreed,” Dean says, eyeing me. “Absolutely no reason.”
Both of them look at Jaxon, who shrugs characteristically. “I think it’s cool that she wants to fight, actually.” He glances at me. “I think we should let her practice. Hell, let her go put her name on a card if she wants to. What the hell can it hurt?”
“Her,” Dean says incredulously. “It could hurt her. Are you fucking crazy? Look at yourself!”
“I’m a damn good fighter,” Jaxon says offhandedly. “So I’ll train with her. I’ll make sure nothing happens to her, that she doesn’t get hurt, or at least not more than a little banged up.” He grins at me. “Nothing wrong with a girl who knows how to throw a few punches.”
“Unless those punches are aimed at us,” Cayde mutters.
Sure. It doesn’t matter how good I am; there’s no chance I could ever beat Cayde in a fight. He probably weighs twice what I do—I’m a lightweight at best—but I appreciate the compliment.
“Hang out or don’t,” Jaxon says, reaching for the hem of his shirt and stripping it off. “But I’ll get in the ring with you, Athena.”
I stare at him, but not because of his naked chest, although it’s impressive. He’s lean but completely shredded, his chest and abdomen all muscle and no fat, his arms tight and corded. He looks dangerous, with his hair tied back and those two piercings in his lower lip, his dark eyes fixed on me as he jerks his head towards the ring. “Ladies first.”
I’m staring at him because of the bruise on his side, spreading across his lower ribs, all black and purple. The rest of him is banged up, but that particular spot looks brutal. “Are you sure you should be doing that today, after—” I gesture at his side helplessly, not knowing what to say he did, really. “You look like you need to go to a doctor, not train with me.”
“I’m fine,” Jaxon says sharply. “And don’t go easy on me, Athena, I’ll know. And I won’t go easy back.”
“Alright.” I take a deep breath. I don’t want to hurt him more than he already is, but if he’s going to insist on being stupid, I can’t stop him. “Are we going to have an audience?”
“Fuck no.” Dean rolls his eyes. “I have better things to do than watch Jaxon throw punches and you try to dodge them. See you guys back at the house.”
Cayde hesitates, his eyes fixed on Jaxon with a sort of burning jealousy in them, as if he wishes now he’d volunteered. “I’m out too,” he says finally. “Don’t hurt yourself, Athena. I’ll punish both of you fucks if anything happens to her face.”
I laugh. “It’s my face, Cayde. I decide what happens to it.”
His gaze darkens. “Like hell.”
I hadn’t thought about what it would be like to be alone with Jaxon in the ring. The gym is eerily quiet as he wraps his hands, tossing me a roll of bandages. “There are gloves,” he adds. “You should probably train with more than just wraps.
“Do you fight with gloves?” I nod towards his knuckles as he starts to wind the boxing wraps around his hands. “Doesn’t look like it to me.”
“Doesn’t matter what I do. Use gloves, Athena.” Jaxon’s voice is firm. “At least until you get some practice in.”
That’s fair.As much as I want to be tough, I also don’t want to argue so much that he doesn’t want to train with me. Practicing on the bag is one thing, but there’s a real difference between that and having a real person to spar with. So I go for the gloves.
“Did you get into a fight?” I ask as I slide my hand into one. “Or did you go and fight? There’s a difference.”
“I know the difference,” Jaxon says shortly. “Why should I tell you?” He grabs a pair of focus mitts and takes a spot in the center, watching me. “It’s not any of your business.”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Making small talk, I guess.”
“You know I don’t like small talk.”
“Fine. Don’t tell me.” I follow him to the center of the ring, taking up a boxing stance. “You’re right; it doesn’t matter.”
“I was in a fight,” Jaxon finally relents. “On purpose.” He holds up the mitts. “Come on, start your drills. You know what you’re supposed to do.”
I do, and I can feel myself falling back into the habit of it almost immediately, that old muscle memory taking over. I can’t even count how many hours I used to spend on focus mitts with my trainer back in the day, a grizzled old boxer who was one of the enforcers in the Devil’s Sons and a friend of my father’s.
Not his friend anymore.Not a single man had my father’s back after what he did. It could have been a friend or a brother, or a lover. No one would have stood by my father. Only my mother did, and she and I are as good as on the run from his former “brothers.”
It feels good to stretch those muscles, to fall back into the rhythm, all of my thoughts focused on the centers of those mitts, on anticipating which hit Jaxon will call out next, left right left, uppercut, strike, left again, now the mitt is moving down, then up again, and I can feel my body weaving in that old familiar dance, my muscles responding gladly to the commands that my brain is giving them.
It makes me feel like maybe I could hold my own if anything happened, that if I was attacked, I wouldn’t just get bowled over. I’d be able to fight back, at least.
“Ready for some real sparring?” Jaxon asks, setting down the mitts when I’m finally panting, my arms screaming from the constant jabs and uppercuts and strikes.
“Sure,” I tell him, though privately, I wish I could sit down, even for just a second. I settle for grabbing some water instead, refusing to let him see any weakness. If he can spar with split knuckles and a bruised rib or worse, I can keep up when I’m tired.
I stride back to the center of the ring, wipe the sweat from my face, and flash him a cocky grin to match any of his.
“Let’s fucking go.”