I slam my fist into the bag, and Crow walks off.
“Would you like to have a go at me instead?”
I turn around and catch sight of what can only be considered the dumbest prick on the planet.
“Do ye have a death wish?” I ask him. “Coming in here?”
“No,” he answers. “But I do have another request. And it’s been a while since I’ve sparred with anyone.”
“This isn’t an open gym,” I tell him. “Piss off.”
“It’s about Scarlett.”
I ignore him and go about fixing the wraps on my hands, even though all I really want to do is thrash his face until he stops talking altogether.
The bloke takes his shirt off and makes himself at home, stepping up into the ring. My fucking ring in my fucking gym.
“I’m only looking for a fair fight,” he says. “So full disclosure.”
I glance up at him, and he rolls up his pant leg, revealing a prosthetic.
Again, the bloke is obviously short of a few brain cells.
“I know you’re a man of honor,” he tells me. “So how about it?”
“You don’t know jack shit about me.”
I’m in the ring with him now. I have no objections to loafing him in the head a few times before I send him on his way with his tail between his legs. He can run back to Scarlett and show her what a twat he is.
“I’m Booker,” he tells me.
“And I don’t give a fuck.”
I head straight at him, throwing out a lead hook, which I expect to smash his head halfway around his shoulder.
Instead, he dodges it, and socks me with an unexpected punch to the gut.
And well what do ye know. The fucker knows how to fight.
He shrugs, and then we go back to circling each other like sharks.
I am a man of honor, and I don’t need shady tactics to win, so we keep it strictly to punches. After a few minutes, I have it sorted that he’s not so comfortable with the uppercuts.
I smash him with a whole load of them from that point on.
But he gives as good as he gets.
Mostly with hooks, which has never been my weakness, but he’s fast. And well trained. He tells me that he was former military as if it wasn’t obvious already.
Eventually, we call it a draw. And I still don’t like the fucker, but at least I can respect him now.
He takes a seat on one of the benches and drinks the bottle of water I tossed him while I clean up with a towel.
I know what comes next.
He’s got something to say about Scarlett.
But I don’t want to hear it.
