Page 78 of My Family

"Good job, baby!" he says. For one awful second, I wonder if he asked Griff to put my name there. But Griff wouldn't do that. My heart's hammering against my ribs. Ethan's eyes say everything: I knew you could. I knew you would.

Harry adjusts his glasses. "Well," he says, "at least when you get your ass handed to you, your friends will be there to collect the pieces."

I made the team. I can't even believe it.

Griff dismisses us with a reminder to be good. As the crowd disperses, I stay where I am, still shocked, until Jack forces me to move, and Ethan is looking at me, waiting.

I've never been prouder of anything in my life.

Later, after art class, I'm waiting for Jack in the hallway because we have carpentry next and I cannot face that alone. Ethan is already gone with Miles to their nursing program.

Jack doesn't come out with everyone else.

I watch the door. Santana shoulders past me. Two other guys I don't know well. Then nobody. The hallway empties in that fast institutional way, bodies moving to the next place they're supposed to be, and the door stays open, and Jack isn't walking through it.

I lean against the wall. I've got maybe two minutes before the next bell and a legitimate reason to be annoyed.

Then I hear him laugh. From inside the classroom, his real laugh, not the performing one, the one that makes him sound like a crazy macaw. I haven't heard it in a while, actually. Since his sister's news he's been doing the loud version mostly, the one that's a little too fast.

I don't go in. I just stand there for a second listening to it, that laugh, and thinking about nothing in particular, just that it's good to hear.

Then Vikki says something I can't make out and Jack laughs again.

I push off the wall and head to carpentry alone. Jack shows up four minutes late, slightly flushed, the reference book Vikki gave him tucked under his arm even though we're not going to art again until Thursday.

"You're late," I tell him.

"I know," he says, grinning, and doesn't explain.

Chapter 28. Liam

The blue mats smell like bleach, testosterone, and sweat. I kinda like it, not gonna lie.

Three weeks of intense MMA training. The eight of us who were selected are now spending rec time training on top of the mandatory hour before dinner. And before that, after snack, Ethan makes me work out with him and lift weights.

"If you don't do strength training, you'll get hurt," he says. I roll my eyes, but I don't complain. I know he's right, and I like when he spots me, and his dick is incredibly close to my face in those shorts.

"Again," Griff says, and again means again, not a suggestion, even if we're fucking dying. We run the drill again: two-minute rounds on the heavy bags, thirty seconds rest, rotate. My hands are wrapped so tight the tape digs grooves into my knuckles, and each impact sends a shockwave up my forearms that I feel in my teeth. Jab. Cross. Hook. Uppercut. The sequence lives in my muscles now. My shoulders burn. My lungs burn. Everything burns, and I keep hitting because stopping is not on the menu Griff has prepared for us.

We all spar together, rotating. I spar with Ethan, Jack, Tyler, Reed, Cedric, Dan, Santana, repeat.

"Tighter guard," Ethan says, tapping Tyler's left hand up with the mitt. "You drop it after the cross. Every time." Tyler adjusts, throws the combination again. This time the guard holds.

Cedric catches me with a body shot on day four that folds me in half. I hit the mat, taste copper, and lie there for exactly two seconds before I'm up again, hands raised. I can't stay down for more than two seconds, or Griff will yell.

My body changes, not dramatically, but I'm definitely getting more defined, and I'm starting to understand why people are obsessed with looking like this. Also, I've been eating so much I don't have time to think about anything else.

Reed is so good he basically trains with us for our benefit, because he gets nothing from it. But Griff spars with him all the time and makes us watch. Griff is ridiculously good, with forty years of training behind him, even though he's so much older than us. Reed holds his own, though. He gives Griff a run for his money.

But the real show is when Griff pairs Reed and Tyler.

They have something going on. I don't know if Reed is still angry that Tyler took Mason's place or if it's because Tyler is Ethan's brother, or something else entirely. All I know is that there are sparks flying. Mostly angry sparks.

"Hoffman. Tyler. You're up."

Tyler steps onto the mat first, rolling his shoulders, his face blank in that careful way the Farley brothers both do when they're trying not to show something. Tyler's been here six weeks and he already moves like someone who's been on these mats for years. It's infuriating and also, I have to admit, kind of incredible to watch. Reed follows, and the difference between them is almost comical. Reed's got thirty pounds of muscle on Tyler easy, his shoulders twice as wide. He cracks his neck, slow, and smiles, predatory.

"Light sparring," Griff says. "I want to see technique, not a murder scene."