Her eyes went from Elijah to me, her expression saying,Then what do you call this?
“Family friend,” he said. “Onetime thing.”
“I’m Sutton,” I said, because it was obvious he was too nervous to introduce me.
“Hi,” she said, smiling, which made her even more beautiful. “Nice to meet you.”
“I’m going to get a drink,” I said, pointing my gloved hand toward the drinking fountain on the far wall. Giving them a few minutes alone might help. Nobody wanted to flirt with an audience.
When I reached the fountain, I tried to take off one glove, but it was tied on tight. I could pull on the end of the bow with my teeth, but that seemed unsanitary for a public glove. I didn’t need that communal string in my mouth. This was obviously a team activity—putting on and taking off boxing gloves. I gave up in my attempt and pushed the long bar of the drinking fountain with the glove. It worked. As I bent over to get a drink, I wondered how often this thing was cleaned. It had been a while since I’d used a public drinking fountain. But I was thirsty. Next time, I’d bring my reusable water bottle. No, not next time. There wasn’t going to be a next time. Like he’d said to Mercedes, this was a onetime thing.
I took a drink and turned to see how Elijah was faring and if I needed to give him more time, but he wasn’t where I’d left him. My eyes scanned the room and found Mercedes setting up at a punching bag alone, pulling gloves she obviously brought from home out of a bag. They seemed to Velcro on, not tie. I kept looking and finally found Elijah at the wall of cubbies where we had started earlier. Maybe he was ready to take my gloves and call it a day.
I approached him, stopping in front of him and holding out my hands so he could untie the bow.
“What?” he asked. He held two square pads.
“Are we not done?” I asked.
“We can be. I thought I’d do one more exercise with you, but if you need to leave, that’s fine.”
“No, I just thought… One more exercise would be good.”
“Okay, good.” We walked to an open area of the gym.
“Why don’t you do lessons? You’re obviously good at teaching,” I said.
“If I told you, you might know too much about me. And that would be dangerous, right? Now that you’re back in the game.”
“True,” I said. “Never mind.”
He laughed, then slid his hands into the straps at the back of the square pads he held.
“What are those?” I asked.
“These are for you to punch.”
“I’m punching something you’re holding? That seems dangerous.”
“It’s not,” he said. “I’m going to call out punches and combos, and you do them. We can go as fast or as slow as you need.”
“Slow,” I said. “We need to go slow.”
He met my eyes. “Whatever you need.”
My stomach clenched and I nodded.
And that’s how it went for the next five minutes. He called a punch, I executed, and then he called another. Our speed slowly increased until it was a steady rhythm in a predictable pattern.
“Does Mercedes make you nervous?” I asked as I kept punching.
“What?”
“Mercedes? You have a crush on her?”
“No, I don’t,” he said.
I wanted to say,Yeah, right, but I sensed that would make him defensive.Jab, cross, hook. Double jab, cross. Jab, cross, hook.That was our pattern. His hands seemed to meet me halfwayto each punch and absorb some of the power. I wondered if his hands hurt, I was hitting as hard as I could.
