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“You know, you’re really pretty,” I stated, not even bothering to look in her direction.
It wasn’t like I needed to check.
“Am I?” I could hear a hint of amusement in her voice and I only let out a hum in agreement.
The desire to close my eyes for just a moment was too strong for me to fight off, and the next time I opened them, I saw King looming over me.
“Good morning, sleeping beauty.”
A sharp pain pulsed through my brain at the sound of his voice. I groaned, pressing my hand against my forehead. I struggled to turn my head to the side, only to find that Blondie wasn’t where I saw her last anymore.
King must have noticed me looking for someone because he knowingly said, “You know she stole the keys out of your pocket last night, right?”
“What?” I asked, struggling to understand what he was talking about.
The fucking light was making me go deaf — actually, no, that didn’t make any sense.
“The girl stole your keys and snooped all around the house,” Jack clarified, coming into view behind Kind’s shoulder.
Huh.
Blondie had great alcohol tolerance if she was still conscious and able to snoop around after how much we drank last night. Color me impressed.
“How do you even know?” I tried not to wince at how gravelly my voice came out, my mouth dry like the Sahara desert.
“There are cameras around the house, remember?”
Thedumbasshad been left implied because it was King that was speaking. “She even waved at one, at one point.”
Jack let out a scoff as he crossed his arms. “Do you know how lucky you are that she didn’t decide to slit your throat while you were sleeping or something?”
I closed my eyes and made a dismissive gesture with my hand. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic.”
The chances of that happening were… well, they weren’t exactly zero, but it was still very unlikely. If she had done that, the only thing it would have gotten her was a bullet in the head, and I had a feeling she was a little smarter than that.
Jack sighed. “Don’t go to sleep yet. Drink this first.”
I felt the cold surface of a glass grazing my palm, and I quickly grabbed it and chugged the water down in one go. I laid back down on the couch and wrapped the blanket tighter around me. The appearance of the wool blanket left me momentarily puzzled. I couldn’t recall seeing it last night, but by the time the thought even appeared, sleep had already overtaken me once more.
Six
Marcello
Apunch to my solar plexus had me staggering several steps back, and before I could catch my breath, another fist was flying at my face. I raised my arms and my forearms took the hit instead. Before Jack had the chance to strike again, I went for his left side, which he had always favored. He grunted when I landed a solid hit, and I quickly got my footing back.
It had been Ace and I who were supposed to train today, but as he was still busy sleeping off his hungover, Jack took his place. Ace would just have to make up for missing today’s training session tomorrow with Jack.
I narrowly avoided taking another hit as I stepped to the side just in time.
It would be impossible not to see the stark difference in the way Jack and Ace fought.
Jack was a meticulous fighter, with an impeccable technique. He’d train a certain move thousands of times over until he could land it perfectly, but he also often got too much into his head,overthinking the next perfect move when he should have just reacted.
On the other hand, Ace was inconsistent and unpredictable, fighting dirty more often than not. While that was his biggest strength, it was also one of his biggest weaknesses, as he often didn’t think things through enough.
What one missed the other one had in spades, but I suppose that was what made the two of them work together so well, no matter how often they butted heads because of it.
I caught Jack’s elbow before it could make contact with my ribs, and hooked my foot around the back of his calf, sweeping his legs right out from underneath him. Jack went down, hitting the mat with a thud and a soft wheeze, the breath knocked from his lungs.
