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27
Bobby
Five Weeks To Go. Duck, Duck, G…
“Sprawl!” Aiden stands over me until his own sweat drips onto the mat beside my face. “Sprawl. Legs apart. Drop your weight, B.”
“I’m sprawling!”
“You’re sucking someone’s cock, but you ain’t sprawling. Five weeks to go. Thomlassen might like a tickle under the balls, but that won’t win you the belt. You want your girl to see you lose?”
“No.” Everyone’s so fucking tired. The heat is killing us. We’re all working triple time to keep the gym going at the same time we’re training two completely different weight divisions. I can’t even spar with Jimmy all day and call it good. He’s too small; it’d do him good to spar with me, but it’s no good for me.
I need heavier. I need Jon, since he’s closest to my weight. But I can’t keep Jon all day every day, because with Jimmy and me out, and Aiden spending the majority of his day working on our ground game, someone needs to run a damn class.
Even Jack is picking up classes; he went from the asshole kid last year, to a respected teacher this year. He’s only teaching the little kids, no senior classes, but still, he’s a fucking rock star for taking that on and helping the rest of us.
The kids listen to him. More than that, they think he’s badass, since he’s only sixteen and already‘commands his own classes.’The other kids want to be just like him.
I need to find a way to thank him.
Iz is past halfway with her pregnancy. She bops around the gym with her tiny soccer ball smuggled under Rollin tanks whenever she doesn’t have school, and just like Jack, she takes classes – though, she gets a lot of the senior classes.
She’s small, but she’s badass.
She’s been training for more than fifteen years. She has the credentials, and no one around here, even guys more than twice her size, question her authority. She’s put too many of them on their ass over the years.
When she’s not taking classes, she’s working with Kit. My girl is replacing weak arms with strength. Pain with muscle. Sore lungs with endurance. I might be tired and busy, but I’m never too tired or too busy to notice my wife as she walks around my gym like it were the kingdom we all knew she’d rule one day.
The reluctant woman I met in Club 188 is no more. Now she walks around with her crown and scepter; but here, those things are called gloves and a pink mouthguard.
“Bobby! Pay attention!” Aiden steps back and takes a gulp of water. “Jimmy, go again. Take him to the wall, then take him to the floor. Bobby, sprawl. Or don’t, I don’t fucking care anymore.”
“Asshole.” With a heaving chest and sweat running into my eyes, I prepare for the takedown. I’m sick to fucking death of being thrown to the floor and then having to get up again.
Thrown down. Drag my ass up again. Down. Up. It’s a long ass way when you’re tired to the bone.
I position my feet wide, and watch Jimmy wipe the sweat from his own eyes. He’s tired, too.
“Go.”
Around four that afternoon, the three of us stumble through my front door with plans to pass out on the couch with bags of ice resting on our backs, but with a frown, I look toward the kitchen. Toward a tinkling giggle and yelps of laughter.
“Oh no,” Jimmy whispers. I break out in a smile and practically jog into the kitchen. I stop at the entrance and watch Kit and Iz sitting on the floor with their backs pressed to the cabinets; Evie scrambles around them while she does their makeup and makes them look scarier than Stephen King’s Pennywise.
I look around in search of the beautiful blonde mama, but come up empty except for Jack, who’s battling the summer heat with his face in the fridge.
As though seeing a ghost, Evie stops giggling and locks eyes with us, and with a scared little squeak, bolts into Iz’s lap and burrows her face in the gap between neck and shoulder.
Kit frowns and pats the toddler’s back. “What’s the matter, Evie?” She looks over her shoulder and smiles when her eyes meet mine. “Oh, don’t be scared baby, those aren’t scary men. They’re big ol’ teddy bears.” Standing with a grunt, she takes a washcloth from the sink and runs it across her face to clear off the clown makeup. Passing it to Iz on her way past, she moves to our group and loops her arms around my waist.
Poking her head out with curiosity, Evie studies the three of us and the way Kit easily hugs me. “Hey.” Kit presses a kiss to my jaw. “Evie, do you remember Bobby?”
“Bobby… Wike Erik?”
I grab a handful of her ass and hold it tight. “Catherine Kincaid, you better tell me who Erik is, really –effing– fast.”
She smiles indulgently. “I’m the princess, so it only makes sense you’re the prince. She means Prince Erik, Ariel’s boyfriend.”
