She frowned, confused...and then it turned to anger. She ducked back into the bathroom and slammed the door.
She put on the fresh clothes faster than I would have thought possible. When she came out, the t-shirt hanging almost to her knees and the shorts in severe danger of falling down, it should have been funny. It would have been, if it hadn’t been for her expression. “Do you have a bag?” she snapped.
I found a plastic grocery bag and passed it to her. She went back into the bathroom and started squeezing the water out of her wet clothes. The door was open and I watched as she twisted her sweatpants into a rope. It looked a lot like she was wringing someone’s neck. Then she shook them out, as loudly and violently as possible. Every time she moved, the shorts threatened to fall down and she had to stop and grab at them, and that only seemed to make her madder.
Maybe I messed that up.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said stiffly. “At the gym. Okay? Eight?” She crammed her clothes into the bag so hard it nearly ripped.
I definitely messed that up.“Um. Yeah. Eight.”
She stalked out of the bathroom and over to the door. I spoke up just as she turned the handle. “Sylvie?”
She looked over her shoulder, eyebrows raised. I felt myself falling into those gorgeous, liquid eyes.Say something, you idiot! Make it right! Tell her—
What? That I really liked her? That I wanted more than just sex? That I’d never met anyone like her before?
“Will you be okay, walking in wet shoes?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I’ll be just fucking fine walking in wet fucking shoes.”
And she slammed the door.
There are some times when banging your head against a wall isn’t sufficient. As soon as my shift was done, I resolved to get very, very drunk instead. Drunk enough that I could forget all about Sylvie and her wet running top and her unseen, naked breasts in my bathroom. Drunk enough that I could resolve to stop all this, all the little moments and glances and nearly-kisses. Stop them before they drove us both crazy. Before she got close enough to see me for what I really was and fled, leaving her without any preparation at all for the fight.
From now on, it had to be all business.
20
SYLVIE
Why didn’the kiss me?
I’d asked myself the same question several hundred different ways, but I wasn’t any closer to an answer. For days, I’d been sure that he liked me. I’d been one hundred percent sure that he’d been about to kiss me, when I’d been poking my head out of the bathroom. And then, just as everything should have come together, he’d backed off.
I told myself that it didn’t matter. That I’d just focus on what mattered—the fight. I told myself that it had been stupid of me to act like some lovesick teenager when things were so serious.
But it wasn’t as simple as that. As soon as I stopped thinking about him in that way, I realized what I was missing. My feelings for him had been the only thing holding back the fear of what was going to happen in less than a month. Without that one positive thing in my life, the fear took over.
Besides, it wasn’t just about me. I knew something was wrong. I knew he was hurting inside because of something in his past. I owed him. Every day, he was helping me—saving me. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to help him, if he wouldn’t open up and let me in.
I had no choice. I locked my feelings down tight, and only let them creep out when I was on my own in the apartment, in my bed, my fingers stealing down between my thighs and under my panties. And when I visited Alec in hospital, I’d perch on the edge of his bed, put my head close to his and whisper in his ear about the gorgeous man I couldn’t have.
And we trained.
We trained for two weeks, five hours a day, six days a week. I’d never worked so hard in my life. Every day started with a run and then a long session in the gym, with just a quick break for lunch. In the afternoons, Aedan would go to the docks to work while I’d retreat to my apartment and sleep, curled up like a cat on top of the covers. It was my only chance to catch up on rest before my evening shift at the hotel. I’d cancelled my morning shifts to train so the evening shifts were vital to keep some money coming in. Without Alec’s income, the bills were piling up rapidly. Aedan was right, though: the money wouldn’t be any use to me if I was dead. Winning the fight was everything.
He worked on my core with endless rounds of crunches and medicine ball twists. He built up my strength by getting me to pump iron, whispering encouragement in my ear when my arms trembled and I thought I was going to drop the weight on myself. He got me to hit punch bags, pads and, eventually, him.
My body started to change—and fast. It wasn’t magic; it was the sheer brute force of the training. My midsection lost its pudginess and became taut and toned. My arms started to develop shape. My legs became leaner, from the endless squats and footwork.
I wasn’t ready for a fight, yet, but Aedan had me try light sparring, both of us in gloves and head protectors. He let me go at him again and again: he fended off my attacks with casual ease, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to find my style.
“You’re an out-boxer,” he told me. “Fast. Good on your feet. Youhit from a distance. You don’t have much power, but you can wear the other girl down, wait until she makes a mistake.”
I thought about that for a second. I quite liked the idea of not having to get too close. Hopefully, that meant I’d get hit less. “What are you?”
“A brawler.” He smiled. He did that more often, these days, and when he did all that darkness just dropped away. “Slow and stupid. I just hit them—hard.” He crossed his arms and regarded me. “It’s like rock-paper-scissors. Each style’s got an advantage over another, and each one’s beaten by another.”
