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I pulled the phone away from my ear as she bellowed a series of commands heavily laced with expletives like you silly fuckflap and you scrawny ballsucker.
She came back to the phone. “These people don’t want to work.” She sighed. “I don’t put up with laziness on my watch.”
“You’re not at the gym?”
“No. I’m at Misty’s House of Beauty. Some of us have to work for a living, Foxy.”
I tried to imagine Kizzy in anyone’s house of beauty and gave it up as hopeless. Not that she wasn’t attractive, but her hair needed its own zip code.
“Uh yeah. I’ll let you get back to it. Can you just tell me—”
“She’s working today until six. Then she’ll be at Mark’s. She has a fight in two weeks so we’ll be training hard. Which means if you swagger in there and try to distract her, I’ll pop out your other eye and use it to play pool. Capiche?”
“How about if I walk in and observe quietly?”
“That is acceptable.”
I grinned and hung up then called Carmine. I’d been out of work over a week already and I needed to get back to it. He put me on the schedule for Sunday and I settled on the couch for some one-eyed web surfing. After an hour, my good eye was blurry and I’d found another school with a combination online/residency program in sports medicine that sounded promising. I emailed to get more information then fed my dog and rolled over to take a nap.
Getting hit in the head taxed a man.
By the time I woke up, darkness had fallen and the dog was whining to go outside. Out we trudged into the cold. I had trouble getting my bearings thanks to being half blind, so instead of hauling ass all over the neighborhood, Vey got to pee on the garbage cans three houses down and I got to come back inside and take a shower.
The shower didn’t relate to my eye. That had to do with me visiting Mia. Though the whole double vision thing added an extra element of fun in the shower, I hav
e to admit.
I walked into Mark’s at eight. The stupid eye mask had itched the entire train ride over. Normally I would’ve walked, but I still wasn’t used to dealing with my new vision issues and the dark made them worse. The glare of the gym lights wasn’t much better.
I didn’t see Mia or Kizzy and had to suffer through even more stares than before. This time they were even above the neck. Happily, I ran into that hard-edged chick who’d called me a dumbass about five times in a five minute period. She was riding an exercise bike while flipping through some girly mag, though when she caught sight of me she had some choice words. Most of them were in Spanish.
Two loops of the workout rooms later, I was ready to call Kizzy and ask her if Mia had cut out early. I could’ve called Mia herself, but I preferred the middlewoman.
Maybe the knock on the head had harmed me more than I thought.
Then I saw someone kicking the holy hell out of the heavy bag, jerking it on its chain, and I grabbed a seat a few feet away to watch.
Mia made a complete circuit of the bag, kicking her way around its circumference. She wore black shorts and a white tank, and she’d braided her hair. Sweat ran off her pale skin in rivulets. When she tired of kicking, she started punching, coming in high before jabbing low, her back muscles flexing with each strike.
What seemed like hours later, she stopped to guzzle a bottle of water. She drank half then dumped the rest over her head. The water soaked the front of her shirt. And when I say soaked, I mean her freckles showed beneath the thin fabric.
I swallowed, hard. Up until that point I’d done my best to view her coolly, as one might survey a competitor. Judging strengths, identifying weaknesses. But with that one action, my mind took a one-way trip to dirty town.
She went back to kicks. Her enthusiasm had clearly waned and her movements slowed, exhaustion taking over.
Time for me to step in.
I rose and leaned against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest. “You call those kicks?” She didn’t react to my voice at first. So I tried again. “You aren’t kicking from your hips. There’s way too much force coming from your calves.”
She propped her hands on her thighs and bent at the waist. “You’re out of the hospital.”
Kizzy had sounded happier to hear from me. “I am. Miss me?” I’d meant the question to sound teasing and instead it came out as a rasp.
Mia rose and tugged off her gloves, tossing them on a nearby mat. Water still dripped from her hair and starred her lashes. I didn’t look any lower. I couldn’t take seeing the wet outline of her nipples. I knew my weaknesses.
She strode toward me and I didn’t move, every muscle going tense at her approach. Then she folded herself into my arms, hugging me so tightly that my body went numb with relief. I couldn’t speak. All I could do was hug her back.
“You smell the same.” The choked sob in her voice had me tightening my hold.
