Page 80 of My Family

Reed is still on the mat, rolling his shoulders, barely winded from the Tyler round. He turns to me as I stand, smiling like I'm prime prey, but he does that to everyone.

“Light sparring," Griff says again.

Reed comes at me faster than he did Tyler, testing my guard with a jab-jab-cross. I slip the first two and catch the third on my forearm. The impact rattles through my bones. He's pulling his power, I can tell, because if he wasn't, that cross would've put me on the mat.

I circle left, the way Ethan drilled into me. Stay mobile. Don't let him corner you. Reed follows, patient, cutting angles, and I realize he's not trying to hit me so much as herd me, moving me where he wants me.

I recognize the trap. Barely.

I change direction and throw a jab that catches nothing but air but resets the distance between us.

"Good," he says. "You've been working what Daddy taught you."

I blush for a second, but there's no time. He throws a body shot. It lands on my ribs, and my body wants to fold.

I don't let it.

I fire back, making him adjust his guard. Reed's eyebrows lift a fraction, and that's all I get before he closes the distance and ties me up in a clinch.

Then he shoves me back, not hard, just enough to create space, and Griff calls time.

I breathe hard, ribs aching. Reed walks past me toward the water, and as he does, he winks.

Ethan watches him, mouth in a line.

"Marsal. Perry. You're up."

Jack bounces onto the mat, his mouthguard already in, his brown eyes bright with the manic energy of someone who's been sitting still too long. He shakes out his hands, bounces on his toes, and grins at me around the rubber in his mouth.

"Don't hold back," he says, the words garbled but clear enough. "I want the full Liam experience."

"You're going to regret that."

We touch gloves.

Jack's style is the opposite of Reed's. Loose, improvised, full of weird angles and timing that shouldn't work but somehow does. He's watched too many YouTube compilations and absorbed a fighting philosophy that can only be described as pure chaos.

He comes at me with a looping overhand right. I duck it, step inside, and pop him with a clean jab to the chest.

He laughs and immediately comes back at me with a hook I genuinely don't see coming because it arrives from an angle that defies physics. It clips me on the ear.

"Ha!" Jack says. "Got you."

"Lucky."

His grin widens.

We trade for the rest of the round, sloppy, fun, competitive in the way only friends can be. Neither of us is trying to hurt the other, but we're not faking it either, and by the time Griff calls time, we're both sweating and grinning and slightly more bruised than when we started.

"You're getting scary," Jack says, pulling his mouthguard out. "Like, actually scary. When did that happen?"

"Somewhere between the third and fourth week of Ethan making me do fifty burpees."

"Ah. Love. It's a beautiful motivator."

I shove him. He shoves me back.

Griff clears his throat.