Page 29 of When Love Takes Root

And I wanted someone to come home to who believed that about me too.

Onyx sent back a thumbs up, followed by one more message.

Twenty minutes.

That gave me enough time to put my hands on something that could take the weight.

I slid my phone into my pocket, grabbed the service ticket from the printer, and walked into the bay where the men had gone back to work. Darnell had finally figured out how to stack conduit without threatening my blood pressure, Marcus was labeling breaker panels for the afternoon jobs, and Juice had found his way back to Miss Claudette’s foil plate like the pork chop had been calling his government name.

I gave instructions as I passed, not loud, not long, just enough for everybody to know where their hands needed to be. Hayes estimated clean up before two. Material list double-checked before it went out. North van loaded with the panel strapped on the left side instead of shoved behind the ladder like common sense was on backorder.

Juice watched me from beside the workbench with gravy on his thumb and amusement in his eyes. “You ’bout to go fight that bag, ain’t you?”

“You ’bout to finish eating on company time, ain’t you?” I asked, not slowing down.

“This is a working lunch,” Juice said.

“It’s ten-thirty.”

“Working brunch,” Juice said.

Behind the main bay, past the storage shelves and the locked cage where we kept copper because thieves knew the price of everything and the value of nothing, we had a smaller room most clients never saw. Half training space, half overflow storage. A heavy bag hung from a reinforced beam in the middle, black leather worn smooth from years of my fists finding it before my mouth said something it couldn’t take back. A speed bag sat near the far wall. Gloves lined a shelf beneath old photographs. Pops in one frame with his arm around my shoulder. Juice beside us, cheesing like he’d invented joy, both of us young, lean, and still smelling like summer sweat and outside.

I shut the door, but it didn’t latch before Juice caught it with his boot.

“Nah,” Juice said, slipping inside with the foil plate still in his hand. “Somebody gotta supervise Superman before he turn into Clark Kent with anger issues.”

“I don’t have anger issues,” I said, reaching for my wraps.

“You got anger with manners,” Juice said.

“That’s called discipline.”

“That’s called a well-dressed threat.”

I pulled the first wrap tight across my palm. The cotton dragged over my knuckles, familiar as scripture, and the motion settled something in me. Around the wrist. Across the palm. Between the fingers. Back over the knuckles. Pops had taught me that before he ever let me throw a real punch. He said a man who didn’t protect his own hands had no business trying to defend anything else. A foolish man damaged the tools God gave him, then called it sacrifice. Pops didn’t raise me for foolishness, even though I’d wandered close enough to it to smell smoke on my clothes.

Juice leaned against the storage shelf and watched me wrap the second hand. “You been thinking about Kacey since we passed the rec.”

“You been thinking for me again?” I asked.

“Somebody has to check the equipment,” Juice said.

“My mind ain’t equipment.”

“Could’ve fooled me. You maintain everything else but act like your head don’t need no service call,” Juice said.

I looked at him.

He lifted both hands, the foil plate balanced in one. “I’m just saying.”

“You’re always just saying.”

“And you’re always just avoiding,” Juice said.

I slid my hands into my gloves and tightened the straps with my teeth. The leather creaked. The bag hung still in front of me, patient and honest. It didn’t lie. Didn’t flatter. Didn’t betray. It gave back exactly what you put into it. I tapped it once with my left hand, then twice. Light. Testing. Pops never let us start swinging wild. He’d stand in the driveway after work with his tie loosened and his shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, looking like a deacon who could still put somebody on the pavement if Heaven permitted. He’d hold up those mitts and make me and Juice move our feet before we moved our hands.

“Your first fight ain’t with the man in front of you, Son,” Pops would say. “It’s with the fool inside you who wants to prove something.”