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30
Izzy
Back In The Cage
Afew days later, Kit and I are back on the mats, sparring and trading jabs. I feel good. So damn good.
My body sings with pleasure, and my muscles move like I never left. I’ve been training for so long, I could fight with my eyes closed. I could fight while asleep. I don’t have to think anymore, because my muscles remember what to do.
Tired, hands down – especially her left – I find the wide opening and bring my elbow down over the bridge of Kit’s nose in warning. “Hands up, babe. Don’t get knocked out for being dumb.”
“Shit. Fuck. Okay.” Frustrated, she shakes her shoulders and bounces on her toes to reset.
I train her, I warn her, but she’s her own worst critic. She expects perfection from a shoulder that was useless not so long ago.
“Again.”
We tap gloves and start again, and within a second, she forces me to go all matrix and bend backwards when her foot comes whistling past my face. She can barely defend her head if her life depended on it, but she hardly needs to. Her legs are miles long and fast as hell.
“Good job. Do it again, but keep your hands up.”
We continue circling and trading jabs, and each time we land one, instead of the bitching and swearing the guys do, we smile.
It’s fun to land a hit.
It’s fun tobehit, and know you’re a badass for being able to accept it and still march on.
As soon as we stepped up to each other with gloves on and music loud, the guys pulled up chairs to watch. Literally. And by watch, I mean critique. Each time I landed a hit on Kit, Bobby cried like an idiot. Each time Kit landed a kick on me, Jim called foul.
Each time we went for the takedown and slammed to the mats, Aiden claimed we were doing it wrong.
Banned! Banished and told to get the hell out, the chairs were thrown out behind them and they were told to never return.
But maybe now, had they not been banished, they would’ve noticed the woman standing at the door. Maybe they’d have alerted Kit, and maybe she would have stopped fighting mid-strike, too, instead of kicking me in the head.
“Holy shit, Iz!” She laughs and pulls me in for a boob-crushing hug. “I got you good. I’m sorry. Where were your hands, dummy?”
Finally following my gaze, she turns as the woman and two small children shyly walk into the training room. For a moment, I smile and prepare the ‘welcome to our gym’ speech. I prepare to point her toward the front desk for application forms. I prepare to break the news that we don’t have a daycare, though of course, Bean’s always here.
Maybe Jack can earn pocket money and become the gymnanny.
All of these thoughts ping around in my brain in under a second.
Then her raven hair slides over her shoulder. Her electric blue eyes bore into mine. Her baby girl ga-gas, and my heart trips and splats against an oncoming bus. “Fuck.”
Kit’s eyes shoot from me to the woman. From smiling and preparing her own ‘welcome to the gym’ speech, to literally stepping in front of me as protection, Kit’s eyes turn dangerous in a second.
I tap her hip and step forward. “It’s okay. Stand down, mama.”
“Isabelle?” Lindsi’s hesitant voice shakes with nerves.
Sighing, I step closer and face the fire. “Yeah, I’m Isabelle. I remember you.”
“I bet you do,” she spits. She places the small toddler on her feet, winds her arm back in the world’s most telegraphed move, and swings forward until the cracking sound her palm makes on my face can be heard in the next town over.
“Hey!” Kit snaps her hand out and grabs Lindsi’s wrist as she winds up for a second shot. “What the fuck, lady?!”
I grab my face and watch the woman and both her children tear up. Heat radiates from my cheek. Tears sting my eyes. Punch me in the face, I don’t care. But the day the woman married to your ex-lover comes in and slaps the shit out of you, you’re probably going to tear up.
