Punching and Kissing

by Helena Newbury

  “Just do your best,” I said. I was trying to be more patient, now, cursing myself for getting frustrated before. It wasn’t her fault she was starting from scratch. Hell, she was doing a lot better than me, the first time I ever walked into a gym.

  She set her jaw and lifted the barbell out of the supports, then lowered it down to her chest. She lifted it back up and racked it again—easily, because I’d started her out super-light. I figured she needed a win. “Good!” I said, with maybe a little too much enthusiasm.

  She gave me a look. “What was that—five pounds? Don’t patronize me.”

  I nodded, chastened. This teaching stuff was hard. I added another ten pounds. “Try that.”

  She lifted and lowered, steely-eyed. I added more weight. Christ, she might be little but she was determined. As I watched her grunt and push, I started to see beyond the obvious. I was in the perfect position, standing there, to stare right down her top at those gorgeous breasts. But I found myself looking at...her. The whole her. Looking at her and thinking how bloody unfair it was that she’d wound up here. I didn’t know what had happened to get her into such a shitty situation. No one fights at The Pit unless they’re desperate for money.

  Well, not unless they’re me.

  Something must have gone really wrong in her life. She seemed smart and organized and she was driven as hell. She should have been studying to be a lawyer or something and instead she was preparing to fight for her life. It wasn’t right.

  She inhaled, then blew it out and pushed the bar up again. It was heavily loaded now, a real struggle for someone her size. Teeth gritted, forearms shaking, she heaved it up towards the top of its path. I put my hands gently under the bar in case her arms gave way.

  “Don’t...fucking...help me!” she managed.

  “I’m not,” I said. And I wasn’t—my fingers were just barely brushing the underside of the bar. “It’s all you.”

  She pushed...and pushed and got it back up onto the supports. She lay there panting and grinning in satisfaction. It was the first time I’d really seen her smile and damn, the sight of it hit me right in the chest. Then she caught my eye and I found myself grinning, too.

  Smiling wasn’t something I did often. I’d forgotten how good it felt.

  Sylvie

  Aedan told me to grab a shower, because he was taking me to lunch. This being a man’s gym, the women’s changing room was kind of an afterthought, grudgingly added in what might well have been a former broom closet. The sign on the door said WOMAN and I wasn’t sure if that was because they’d misspelled it or because they really didn’t want to encourage women to show up in numbers and dilute the testosterone.

  The shower worked, though, and soon I was in the street clothes I’d brought with me, hurrying along the street beside Aedan. “When you say lunch,” I said, “you mean, like...a coffee, right?” I was watching him carefully, alert for any sign of that smile coming back. When he’d grinned down at me by the weights bench, it had felt like my whole world had brightened. The memory was burned into my mind—the white teeth, that full lower lip, the way his cheeks dimpled...when he smiled, he went from broodingly handsome to drop-dead gorgeous. I wanted—needed—to see that smile again, because it was proof that I was right—that there was something gentler hiding underneath the muscles and scars.

  “I mean lunch.”

  “But it’s only just noon! I’m not hungry yet.” I normally didn’t eat lunch for another hour or two, maybe grabbing a sandwich if I remembered.

  “You’re in training, now. You need protein.” He turned to look at me. “We need to get some meat on those”—he stared at my arms, then at my legs, which took longer—”bones.”

  He showed me into a diner that was practically next door to the gym. The walls were covered in photos, many of them black and white. Every one of them showed a boxer.

  “Aedan?” A waitress in her fifties bustled over to us. “Aedan, my sweet Irish boy.” She gave him a hug. “We don’t see you in here enough. And who’s this?” She gave me an appraising look, which was roughly comparable to being inside an MRI scanner for an hour.

  “Just someone I’m helping,” Aedan told her. “Could you do us a couple of your boxer’s breakfasts?”

  She showed us over to a booth, grinning the whole time. When she’d left, I asked, “Your mother?”

  “No. She just thinks she is.”

  “What’s a boxer’s breakfast?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  I looked at him across the blue and white tablecloth. “Where is your mom?” Then I paused. “I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”

  He looked at me. “I do.”

  “You do mind me asking?”

  He nodded.

  I felt crushed. “Oh. Sorry.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry. It’s just something I don’t talk about.” He looked at me and then around at the room. “And I’m not good at...this.”

  “Lunch?”

  “Talking.” He rubbed his face and then gave a wry smile. “I’ve got a brother, Carrick. He’s the talker. He’d talk your knickers right off.”

  “He wouldn’t,” I said quickly. Because, weirdly, just the idea of it felt like cheating.

  “He would.” And then he looked uncomfortable, as if he’d said too much. We descended into an uneasy silence. Great, now I’ve pissed him off. He hates me.

  Aedan

  Great, now I’ve pissed her off. She hates me. I hadn’t meant to shut down the conversation. But my family was one thing I couldn’t talk about. I should never have mentioned my brother.

  And then it got worse.

  A hand slapped down on my shoulder. There’s a certain way that cops do that, to let you know who’s boss. And there was only one cop who’d have the guts to walk up and do it to me.

  “Hi, Charlie,” I said tiredly.

  He stepped around to the side so that I could see him. He was barely taller than Sylvie—barely taller than me, sitting down. I’d never understood how he got past the academy’s height requirements. Maybe he’d stood on a box the entire time. “How you doing?” he asked, which is cop-speak for are you keeping your nose clean?

  “Good,” I said. “Sylvie, Charlie. Charlie, Sylvie.”

  Charlie eyed our clothes. “You training again?” His jaw tightened. “Back at The Pit?”

  “No. Teaching.” I looked at Sylvie.

  “Yeah,” she said, picking up on my look. “Like a personal trainer. Boxercise.”

  Charlie stared at us just long enough to let us know that he didn’t buy it for a second. Then he nodded. “Stay out of trouble.” And, with another pat on the shoulder, he walked off.

  Sylvie waited until he’d gone. “Who’s that guy?”

  “Someone I did a favor for, once.”

  “He doesn’t seem all that grateful.”

  I winced. “He kind of repaid that debt, already.”

  To my relief, the food arrived. A generous steak and two eggs, sunny-side up.

  Her eyes bulged. “Are you kidding me? You eat that for lunch?”

  “No,” I said seriously. “This is breakfast. We’re catching up.”

  “I don’t eat that much meat in a week!” she squeaked.

  I furrowed my brow. “What do you eat?”

  She shrugged. “Noodles. And a lot of breakfast cereal.”

  I sighed. “You’re in training now. We need to build up your body. Real food.”

  She eyed her steak. “I can’t afford this much real food.”

  “I’m paying.” And then, because she still looked doubtful, I blurted, “I’ll pay for your meals.”

  She stared at me as if I’d offered her a ruby necklace. “Thank you,” she said at last. She looked down at her food as she started to eat, but she kept glancing up at me as if I was the second coming.

  Jesus, no one’s ever given her a present before? No one’s ever done anything nice for this girl? What the feck were all those other guys th
inking? She should be getting real presents—dresses and jewelry and a feckin’ Mercedes with a bow tied round it on her birthday. And all that romantic stuff—chocolates and flowers and those stupid scented soaps and candles that women like so much. She shouldn’t be getting excited about some free meals.

  “I don’t get you,” she said, frowning. When she frowned, she wrinkled her nose like a rabbit and I wanted to pull her out of her seat and snog her so bad. “One minute you’re riding me about how badly I’m doing. The next you’re being nice to me.”

  I looked down at my plate. “Just trying to do the right thing,” I mumbled.

  I could feel her eyes burning into me. “So, do you have many brothers?” she asked.

  “Lots,” I said. I thought of the tattoo on my back, as if it was glowing through my t-shirt.

  “Where are they?”

  “Around.”

  “Around New York?”

  “Around America.” I knew I was being cagey so I tried to turn it back to her. “It must be weird, living with your brother.”

  She nodded, her mouth full. Given that she’d said she wasn’t hungry, she was wolfing down the steak and eggs. I wondered how long it was since someone had given her a decent meal.

  When she eventually swallowed, she said, “He can get a little overprotective, if I bring a guy back. It’s cute.” She smiled for a moment and then it crumbled. She must have remembered where her brother was. Ah, hell.

  “Does that happen a lot, recently?” The words were out before I could snap my mouth shut. Shit! Had I just sort-of-kind-of asked if she was single?

  She looked up at me. "No. Not recently."

  I could almost feel it throb in the air between us, like a heat haze. It wasn't just my imagination. She did like me. Which was bad, because I liked her even more.

  She poked at her steak. "Paying for my meals is nice. Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  But she wasn't finished. "I didn't know stevedores made that much money, though."

  We didn't. I shrugged.

  "And you don't fight anymore, right? So you're not making it that way. So what is it?" She leaned forward. "Are you smuggling stuff into the country? Like in The Wire?"

  I stiffened. "Not all dock workers are on the take." I knew it was a shitty job, but it was my shitty job.

  "Okay, sorry. So what is it? You're a secret millionaire?"

  "It's only steak and eggs."

  "Yeah, but you didn't even think about it. You just paid for it, and said you'd pay for my meals while we trained, which by the way I'm not even sure I'm totally comfortable with. I agonize for an hour over whether I can afford laundry detergent."

  I leaned forward, putting my forearms on the table. It creaked. "You’re annoyingly sharp."

  "Why, thank you. So what's the secret income? Drugs? Are you a part-time gigolo?"

  I sighed. "I don't earn any extra money. I just don't spend it."

  She seemed taken aback. "Oh." Then, "Really?"

  "Really."

  "You mean you don't get out much?"

  "Look—" And then I didn't know what to say. It had all been going so well, back at the gym. Slow progress, true, but she'd been trying really hard. And now suddenly, as soon as we'd got to the diner, everything had changed. I felt antsy and off-balance.

  And then I realized what it was: I wasn't in control anymore. Fighting—that was my world. I understood that. I was good at it. In here, talking to her...that was the life I'd left behind when I'd retreated to my apartment.

  Since that night I’d quit fighting, the closest I'd gotten to small talk was a few minutes of muttering in some woman's ear, just before I grabbed her hand and dragged her off to a cab so we could go to her place and have sex. Suddenly, I was back out here, talking to a woman, actually having a conversation, and it was jarring and weird and annoying as hell and...wonderful. It was bloody wonderful. I hated to admit it, but I was enjoying myself more than I had in a long time.

  I looked at Sylvie across the table. She'd thrown on a loose t-shirt the same bright blue as the sky outside and her usual tight jeans. There wasn't anything inherently sexy about the t-shirt—it didn't even have a low neck. But every time she leaned forward or twisted, there was just a hint of the warm pressure of her breasts, pushing out the front of it. Even when her body was hidden, it was sexy as hell because then I could imagine it.

  I am out of control with this woman.

  "What about you?" I said gruffly, trying to get things back onto safer ground.

  "Hotel maid," she said simply. "Picking up sheets and trash and sometimes dildos."

  "Dil—"

  "Don't worry, they give us gloves. You wouldn't believe some of the things people leave in their beds. The pay's shitty and the guests are always trying to get into your pants, but it's work." She finished her food and put down her fork. "I was in college, for a while. Dropped out when my dad died. Couldn't afford it."

  I nodded sadly. Inside, though, what I felt was anger. Anger at fate for loading the dice when it came to her life. One crappy roll after another. No one did that to my angel. It wasn’t fair. There were people who deserved that sort of luck, people like—

  People like me?

  I stood up. “I gotta go,” I said. “I got a shift.” I did, but it didn’t start for another couple of hours. But I had to get out of there. For a second, while I was getting all righteously annoyed on her behalf, I’d thought of myself as one of the good guys. Like I could be the one to save her.

  I could train her. Nothing more. The deeper I got into her life, the worse it would be for her. I wasn’t any sort of good luck charm.

  “What should we do about training?” she asked. “I’m kind of busy—I was thinking of taking on some extra shifts—”

  I shook my head. “Don’t. Cancel anything in the mornings.”

  “The whole morning? Every day?”

  “You’re in training, now.”

  “I need the money!”

  “Money’s no good to you if you’re dead. Win the fight and you can pay the bills with your winnings.”

  She considered. “Okay,” she said at last.

  “Get some rest. Meet me at the docks, tomorrow. Wear running shoes. We gotta work on your stamina.” I tossed some bills on the table to pay for lunch. “6:30.”

  I walked away before I got in any deeper. But I heard her call after me, “6:30 am?”

  Sylvie

  Getting to the docks for 6:30am meant getting up not long after five. I couldn’t remember when I’d last been awake at five, but I was pretty sure that it had involved staying up late, not getting up early.

  When I reached the docks, I saw Aedan waiting for me outside the main gate. His face was upturned to the rising sun, as if he was bathing in pure morning. He hadn’t seen me, yet, and he had an expression of beatific joy on his face, as if he was doing something he loved, something he hadn’t done for a long time.

  Which seemed weird. I mean, he was free and single. If he wanted to get up at this ungodly hour, he could, every morning. So why was he only doing it now?

  Unless...he hadn’t had a reason to, before.

  “Hey,” I said, to get his attention.

  He looked around and, for just a second, I saw those big blue eyes shine as he looked at me. The way they lit up made my heart dance. A hot little thrill went through me, the sort I hadn’t felt in a hell of a long time.

  And then he seemed to catch himself and look away. I could almost see his defenses slamming back up. His shoulders tightened, his brow furrowed. “You’re late,” he muttered.

  It was 6:35. “There’s no way you can possibly call this late. It’s the middle of the night. We could go for a coffee and come back and it would still be too early.” I yawned and considered that. “Actually, could we just do that?”

  He ignored me and nodded at the road. “C’mon.”

  And he started to jog at an easy pace. Well, it was easy for the first hundred yards. Then I st
arted to feel it.

  “Okay,” he said, not out of breath at all, “Now start punching. Jab, jab, jab, cross, like I showed you.”

  “While I’m running?”

  “You think that girl you’re fighting is going to stand still while you hit her?”

  I tried to punch and run at the same time. It wasn’t just doubly tiring, it was about ten times worse. Every punch threw off my stride. Every stagger threw off my punches.

  “Come on,” he told me. “Women are meant to be able to multi-task.”

  I huffed for air. “Traditionally,” I managed, “aren’t you meant to be riding a bike alongside me?”

  “When you’re running fast enough that I need a bike, I’ll let you know.”

  We ran, with me jab-jab-jab-crossing and him snapping orders at me. The sun slowly rose behind the cranes and moored ships, turning the water to glittering gold. I had to admit that I’d been missing out, never seeing sunrises.

  We ran right down to the water, where there was an old, disused wooden pier. Some of it had collapsed and its stout wooden legs were all that were left on one side, stretching out into the water like stepping stones.

  He veered off from me and jumped onto the first of the wooden legs, then jumped onto the next and the next, using them like stepping stones. When he reached the end, he turned on the spot and jumped back along them. He was as steady-footed as a mountain goat.

  “I want you to try that, eventually,” he said. “To work on your balance...and get you out of your head.”

  “Out of my head?”

  “You’re too much in your head. Not enough in your body.” Was it just me, or had he hesitated before he’d said body? As if thinking of my body tripped him up. “You think too much. You need to feel it more.”

  I was still jab-jab-jab-crossing, panting, now. “You’ve—lost—me,” I managed.

  He thought about how to explain it. He still wasn’t out of breath. “Your body’s just a vehicle, to you. Something to carry your brain. You’ve got to start feeling it. Feel the road under your feet. Feel each punch. Be in your body, not in your head.”