I’m lethal. I’m a killer.
The crowd roars when I step into the ring. I throw a few showy punches and glance across the platform at my opponent. He’s big. Bigger than I was expecting. We touch our gloves together and step back, ready for the first round to begin.
I know the moves. I know how to win. I’ve got this.
But when my eyes snag on a head full of brown curls in the front row, my heart skips a beat, and everything else around me disappears. Sydney?
Is that her?
Did she really come to see me?
I don’t hear the bell.
And I don’t see the fist coming, not until it connects hard with my jaw.
It’s a bloodbath.
After the first hit, I can’t get my footing. I’m on the ropes the whole first round, and it only gets worse in the second.
I barely get a chance to hit the guy, but he sure as fuck manages to hit me.
“What the hell happened out there?” Zach asks one humiliating loss later, holding a bag of ice to my swollen eye in the locker room. I don’t have an answer for him. I stare up at the gray stucco ceiling, my back flat against the wooden bench, asking myself the same thing.
What happened?
She never came. That’s what happened.
She doesn’t want me anymore. That’s what happened.
My eye is so swollen, I don’t see the door open. I only hear it shut, and only realize Doc is there when he says, “Leave us.”
Shaking his head, Zach sets the ice down on the bench next to my face. “He’s all yours, man. Just go easy on him, okay?”
Yeah, right, I think, as the door closes behind him.Fat chance of that.
“I don’t need your help,” I grumble, as Sebastian sets his med bag down next to me and starts pulling out supplies.
“Too fucking bad,” he says in an annoyingly even tone, snapping on a pair of blue gloves. “Hire another personal physician then.”
We’re quiet as he pulls out a square of gauze and applies a nauseatingly bright orange antiseptic to the cut above my eye. The smell is so strong it burns my sinuses.
“She didn’t come,” I murmur, voice low.
My brother’s hand stills, and his eyes flick to mine. “Who?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
“You fucking know who,” I answer. I swallow hard. “I thought after she learned the truth about Annika that she’d come back.”
Sebastian swears under his breath, tossing the gauze into the trash. “It’s not that simple. Do you want to know whyshe didn’t come?”
I want you to jump off a cliff,I think.I want to drag you into the ring and beat the shit out of you.
“Because I don’t give her space? I text too much?” I glare at him, as best as I’m able. “You sound like a broken record. I get it, okay?”
“You don’t get it, though. You think you can just re-insert yourself back into her life whenever you want? Without her asking for it?” He lets out a frustrated breath. “This isn’t about Annika. This is about you not giving a shit about her boundaries.”
“Whoa!” I sit up so fast that I almost black out, white dots forming in front of my eyes. The moment the room stops spinning long enough for me to focus, I shove a finger into Doc’s chest. “Fuck you! I don’t give a shit about her boundaries? That’s a fucking joke coming from you, asshole!” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “I can promise you right now, no woman has evercriedafter I finished with her.”
“Boundaries don’t just exist in the bedroom. You get that, right?” Sebastian says, glaring at me. “That’s your problem, Ashton. You hear ‘consent’ and you pat yourself on the back for understanding safe words.”
