Learn to flirt.
Get a tattoo.
Have a one-night stand.
ORGASM! (with a man)
Take a self-defense class.
Sleep in the dark without being scared.
Wear a bold lipstick.
Eat alone in public.
Do something spontaneous.
Buy more lingerie (and wear it daily).
Cut my hair.
Learn to be okay if others are disappointed (even if it’s in me).
The cursor blinks beneath the last bullet point, waiting for me to add to the collection. Instead, I sip my coffee and go over the list of things for the millionth time.
I’ve tinkered with this over and over, adding, deleting, and clarifying. There’s a red lipstick in my cosmetics bag and a tab open at the top of the screen for lingerie. But I’ve been too hesitant—too scared—to really act … until now.
I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t know what the future holds, but I know it’s time. I feel it in my bones.
It’s time to find the real Audrey Van.
CHAPTER
FOUR
Brooks
“How does that feel?” Achilles asks as I set the foam roller against the wall. “Any pain? Burning? Tightness?”
I grip my left shoulder with my right hand and work it into slow, small circles to cool down from our session.I’m so over this shit.
Rock music pulses through the back wall of Alfie’s Gym, the dank space that Alfie lets me use as a rehab room while I’m in town. When we made the agreement over a couple of beers and cheeseburgers last spring, we both thought it would be just a few months. After all, it was just a torn rotator cuff.
Two surgeries later, I’m still here because it wouldn’t be my life if it weren’t complicated. It’s been almost a year, and it'll likelybea full year before I’m cleared to go back to Vegas and train normally—ifI’m allowed back in the sport at all. It turns out that defending yourself at practice from some asshole motherfucker trying to hurt you brings the sport into disrepute. And when an anonymous source accuses you of fixing fights at the same time? Your license gets suspended until they sort it out.
And if I can’t fight anymore—can’t provide for my mother anymore—over shit I didn’t do? Someone’s gonna fucking pay.
“Feels fine,” I say, swiping a towel off a weight bench. “It’s exhausted, but nothing hurts.”
“That’s normal, and a good sign. The repair is holding, and your muscles are working again. Let’s keep focusing on core work and full-body endurance. Your strength is getting there. We’ll start drills for power and stability as we go to get you back in the ring.”
“You say that every damn week.”
He chuckles. “So youarelistening.”
I roll my eyes and wipe the beads of sweat off my face.
Achilles has been a godsend during the rehabilitation process following my injury last March. For the past ten months post-surgery, he’s flown to Nashville and driven down to Sugar Creek twice a month to oversee my progress along with online check-ins. He costs a small fortune, but it was either fork over the cash or do the rehab in Vegas—a city I have a love-hate relationship with at the moment. Besides, there are only a handful of things I can think of that would be worse than sitting around my condo with absolutely nothing to do but therapy. At least here I can see my family and friends and help some on the ranch.
