AllFreeNovel
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He sees something no one else does.
“This way, Oliver.” Evie grabs my arm and pulls me into the next ‘section,’ through a short hall and into another room to escape Aiden Kincaid’s beady stare, only to stop in front of a competition-sized octagon.
Two men grapple, while two more stand on the outside and coach them on.
“This is our octagon. No one dated in there as far as I know.” She turns to me. “Don’t be that guy. Come here to train, not to scam on women. The tall one in the red shorts, that’s Sasquatch, and the–”
“Sasquatch?”
She turns to me. “Oh. Ha. Yeah, his name is actually Ben. But we try to disrespect him as often as possible. It’s like a sport in itself. The other one, that’s Oz, and they have beef. This is where they come to settle their disputes.”
It seems I’m at an odd age in my life, because these kids – Evie, Lucy, Ben – appear grown at first glance. They’re all in their teens, but they look older, until I compare them to the grown Oz.
Local deputy, close to forty, he’s the actual grown man in this room. But his opponent, Ben, isn’t backing down. They roll hard, and when Ben gets on top, he swings out and slams a gloved fist to Oz’s jaw so hard, his head snaps around.
“You little fucker.” Oz literally lifts the teen and tosses him a few feet away, only to give chase and jump on top. He rains fists down on the boy’s face, but they’re not as hard as Ben was going, and Ben has his arms up in guard.
“Anyway. They’re always fighting, so we let them do what they’ve gotta do. The guys on the outside; the one on the left is Bry. He’s my cousin, and he’s a prick.”
“Watch yourself, Smalls.” Bry turns with smiling chocolate eyes and a wicked grin that looks just like Bobby Kincaid’s. “I can hear you, and in this gym, we don’t discriminate against the girls. I’ll knock you out.”
“Oh please.” Evie flashes two middle fingers and turns away. “The one sitting is Mac. He died recently, so he’s not allowed to roll.”
“He died?” I grab her arm and swing her back. “What?”
She taps her chest, but despite her easy words, her eyes show grief. “Faulty ticker. He’s okay now, but he’s gotta rest.” Pushing away from me, she walks up behind the boy who still carries a slight gray tinge to his skin, drops a motherly kiss on the top of his shaggy hair that makes the boy in the ring snap his head up to watch, then she passes her water to Mac in a kind of peace offering.
He’s the first person she’s been nice to since I walked in. She’s either into him, or she loves him like family.
“We’re working on it.” She taps the boy’s shoulder and squeezes. “Get better first.”
Turning back to me, she continues the quasi-tour, minus her bottle of water. “Hallway. Girl’s locker room.” She points to her left. “Boy’s on the right.” Then she continues on until we stop at a doorway that leads into another large training room. “This is where we have some classes; yoga and self-defense. And sometimes, a local dancer brings her kids in here because they wanna dance, but they also wanna beat shit up. So she lets them do both.” She pulls away from the door, only to pass another that I hurry past. “Weights room. We don’t really run classes in here. People who wanna do weights already know what they want to do, and they like to do it in private. So you can do your own sets. If you need help, you can ask any of us, but if you’re a total newb, maybe start back at the first room and tell them you wanna lift. They’ll work you up to it.”
“I already lift.”
She checks my shoulders. Nods. “Yeah, you kinda look competent already. What do you bench?”
“More than your body weight.”
She scoffs. “I can bench more than my body weight too.” She pulls away from the door I’ve already passed.
I glance back and catch a fast glimpse of Libby Tate as she works on her sets with headphones pressed into her ears. She looks at Evie’s back for just a beat, but dismisses us when I angle my body and don’t show her my face.
“Alright. That’s pretty much it. We have classes for everything. We have a physical therapist, so if you’ve got injuries, you can book in with her. We have a girl’s self-defense class, so if you ever feel like you wanna get beat up, we have a sign-up sheet for volunteers.”
“Volunteers?”
“Yeah, they need to practice tossing men. We don’t allow men to sign-up until you become somewhat of a regular and we trust you not to be scamming on those vulnerable women. So become part of the family, and then we’ll send you in.”
“Become part of the family?” I lift a brow and study that platinum blonde hair of hers. “Okay.”
“Any questions?”
“Yeah. Do you have parking out back? The lot out front was pretty full just now, so…”
“Yeah.” She pushes away and walks to the end of the hall. Slamming her hands against the security bar and opening the heavy door to reveal the late afternoon sun, she walks out onto gravel and waits for me to pass through. “There’s an alleyway at the back of all these businesses, and enough parking for another twenty or so cars. Here, hold this.” She lets the door swing far enough closed for me to catch it. “If you let that go, it’ll lock and then we’ll have to walk around the block.” She walks across the lot and opens a heavy gate to reveal the alleyway at the back of the lot. “You can park anywhere out here, just don’t park anyone in. If you don’t wanna walk around, press the button there at your back. It’s a doorbell, and the door will be opened, but people will get pissy about it, because it messes with their workout.”
“Okay…”
