“Is the setup the part where I see it coming from a mile away, or the part where it doesn’t land?”
Ryder feinted low and came over the top with a hook. Isaac rolled under it and popped back up with a straight right that stopped an inch from Ryder’s jaw.
“Point,” Isaac said.
“That was a love tap.”
“It was a love tap that would have put you on the mat if we were full contact.”
“Would have. Didn’t.” Ryder reset his stance. “Big difference between almost and actually.”
The phone buzzed from the bench.
Isaac heard it. His focus cracked for a fraction of a second, just long enough for his guard to drop an inch, and Ryder’s left hook caught him clean on the jaw.
Not hard enough to do damage, but hard enough to matter.
Isaac’s head snapped right. He stepped back, reset, and touched his jaw with the back of his glove. Ryder stood there with a grin wide enough to land a plane on.
“And there it is.”
“Lucky shot.”
“Lucky? You dropped your focus because your phone buzzed. That’s not luck, Baxter. That’s you being somewhere else mentally.”
Isaac rolled his jaw. It was fine. The shot had been clean but controlled, Ryder pulling his power the way they always did in sparring. The sting was more to his pride than his face.
“Again,” Isaac said.
They went two more rounds. Isaac kept his focus where it belonged, on Ryder’s hands, his hips, the micro-movements that preceded every combination. The phone stayed quiet, or if it did buzz again, he didn’t hear it over the sound of leather on leather and Ryder’s steady trash talk.
When they broke, both of them breathing hard, Ryder grabbed his water bottle and dropped onto one of the folding chairs along the far wall. Isaac toweled off and crossed to the bench where his gear was.
Who was he kidding? He didn’t give a shit about his gear. Where thephonewas.
He picked up the phone.
So, on a scale of one to wish-you-had-another-job, how’s training going?
He wiped his face with the towel and typed back.
I just took a punch I shouldn’t have because someone was texting me.
That sounds like a personal problem.
He huffed a breath through his nose.
You’re dangerous from any distance, aren’t you.
You have no idea.
He set the phone down. When he looked up, Ryder was watching him over the top of his water bottle. His eyes moved from Isaac’s face to the phone and back. The look held a beat longer than casual before Ryder glanced away. He didn’t push. Didn’t comment. Just tossed his towel into his bag and stood.
“I’m going to hit the heavy bag for a few rounds.”
Isaac nodded. Ryder crossed the gym, and a few seconds later the steady thud of gloves on canvas filled the space.
Isaac put the phone away and went to join him. He couldn’t spend his life like some pathetic asshole waiting for a text from the girl he had a crush on.
