I pick up where Oliver left off. “Put it all together and you have one hell of a package to start with. How did Reece get to be so well trained? We’ve had military pass through Razor before; it doesn’t always garner your attention.” In order for me to be able to spend time working with both the professional-level athletes and the kids, I cultivated a team of scouts to travel around the world based on query letters and word of mouth to seek out new talent. And Oliver Torrence is the best there is.
“In this case it’s personal,” he admits. “We knew each other growing up in Hawaii.”
“Ah.” I press Play as I watch Oliver spar with the larger man on video. It doesn’t take but a few minutes for Oliver to wind up on his ass. I grin as Oliver rolls to his feet, only to be thrown back down like an annoying gnat. Reece balances before sweeping out, and the two begin to grapple. They roll over and over. I wince as Oliver takes an elbow to the eye socket. “How’s your eye?” My eyes narrow as Oliver mounts him and gets a few hard hits in.
“Bled like a bitch, but his ribs will hurt more.”
“Hmm. And you think I should take him on because?”
“Reece is already a champ.”
Startled, I hit Pause, just as the champ takes a fist to his face. “What makes you say that?” I demand. My eyes drift over to where my prize belt sits protected.
As many times as people refer to that night, I refuse to let my mind go there willingly. Not when I had the chance to have it all and I ruined it.
Again.
“Because his work ethic rivals ours, he trains in every moment of his spare time, and there’s no one from his past holding him back,” Oliver concludes.
The laugh I let out is a rough, bitter sound. “There’s always someone, Ollie. He just may not realize it. Get me more film and I’ll consider it.”
“On it, boss.” Oliver disconnects the call.
Leaning back in my chair, I stare up at my title belt, which winks smugly down at me. What I said was no less than the truth. I made a promise a long time ago, and I’ve kept my end of it.
No matter how much it hurts every time I hear her voice.
Letting myself into my adobe oasis I purchased years ago, I relish the security my home gives to me. I spent too many years being shuttled from house to house by my birth parents before they decided I was too much of a burden. A quiver ripples through my stomach as I slam the heavy door behind me.
No, I left those burdens back in Alaska. I refuse to bring them here.
“What I need is a good workout. Oliver prattling about took up my sparring time,” I decide aloud. Not caring my voice echoes off the travertine, I wander into the workout room and drop my clothes into a pile in the small locker room I had built. Pulling on a pair of workout shorts, I grab my cell and a towel before heading out into the fully equipped workout room that’s bigger than a three-car garage. Picking up a jump rope, I set a timer on my phone and begin to lose myself to the routine that’s as second nature to me as breathing after so many years.
After I finish jumping rope, I do reps of heel-to-butt kicks, walkouts, and lunges—front and back, side to side. Muscles comfortably warm, I stretch lightly, beginning with my neck, moving down to my shoulders and arms, before I stretch my quads and hips. Then I pad barefoot over to my workout chart. Hmm, arms. And here I was in the mood to kick a little ass.
But like Oliver said earlier, you don’t get to be the champion without a work ethic and without training. And for years I’ve done little but both. Especially since Jed died.
The racks of free weights are neatly organized. I reach over and pick up a forty-pound dumbbell. Bracing my arm, I begin doing curls when my cell rings. Lowering the weight, I press a button on my watch and then hit Speaker. “What do you want?” I growl at John Jennings jokingly. At least, I hope after close to twenty years of friendship he knows I’m joking.
“I didn’t interrupt anything, did I?” he worries.
I roll my eyes. Despite the fact in my younger days I was a complete douchebag to women, I can’t remember the last time I had one in my bed. “I was working out, asshole.”
“You do realize you’re getting old. Eventually you’re going to have to turn over training the new guys you’re picking up to the younger guys who work for you,” Jennings comments mildly.
“Fuck you, Jennings. Just remember, I’ll always be better-looking than you,” I counter, unperturbed. “Now, why did you call?”
“Let me get Brad and Kody on the line so I can tell everyone at once.”
Before he can add them, I rush out with, “Is everything okay? What’s wrong?”
Kody’s face appears in the corner of my screen, his blondish-red hair practically glowing in the Montana sunset. “Hey, Jenn— Hey, Nick! What’s the occasion?” Kody’s framed by the back of his new house in Montana. He’s covered in sawdust, not an unusual occurrence for the acclaimed builder.
Before I can speak—or Jennings can—Brad’s face also appears. It’s a few hours behind in Juneau, so chaos is reigning as usual at the Meyers household. Rainey—Brad’s wife of close to twenty years—is bellowing at their two kids to wash up and get ready for dinner. Finally, an almost eerie silence rains down on us.
“Well, now that everyone’s here, I can share the news. Kara and I wanted to wait until...” Jennings’s hand is shaking, and he’s crying.
“What is it?” Kody demands.
“Is someone sick? Is it Kevin?” Brad demands.
But they’re not studying his face. There isn’t agony on it; there’s joy. “Kara’s pregnant?” I take a wild guess.
And Jennings lets out a wobbly laugh. “Damn straight she is. So, you might always be better-looking than me, Nick, but I still have enough power to—”
“Jennings!” We all scold him before we’re offering congratulations on top of one another. But my hand reaches up and clenches around the gold cross Jed left me when he died. His grandfather’s cross.
“He should be here for this, damnit.” I can’t prevent the bitterness that laces my voice. But for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he would be. So would his husband. “Jed and Dean would be fantastic uncles.”
“Yeah, they would. So, Kara and I expect the three of you to make up for them and to get your asses to Florida as soon as you can after this baby is born.” Jennings’s words are nothing more than one friend should expect from another after a half a lifetime of friendship, but for a man who has held himself a step back from emotional entanglements of any kind since he was shoved into the Alaskan foster system at fourteen, it’s a huge leap of faith for him to expect this from me.
Then again, it’s doing what Jed would want me to do when he gave me this cross, damnit. Squeezing it so tightly, I wonder absently if I’m crushing it. I’m the first to respond, “Okay.”
“Just that quick?” Jennings wonders aloud. “Just that simple?”
“It’s what Jed would have done.” And after the other assurances that Kody and Brad will be in Florida as soon as they can make it after the birth of Kara and Jennings’s second child and more congratulations, I disconnect the call.