Page 33 of Crazy In Love (Love & War #2)
CHRIS
“It’s dangerous to spar when you haven’t slept in nearly three days.
” And still, I swing out with a powerful right hook and slam Ollie’s jaw around.
The fact his neck cracks means his chiropractor will have their work cut out for them over the next little while.
“Rested-Ollie wouldn’t have let that through. ”
He circles, his hands set at chest height instead of up where they belong, and a long dribble of blood trickles onto his jaw. “The good news is I can’t feel the pain.” He steps in with what I think is a fast one-two jab.
Too bad he misses me… by about three feet.
“Shit,” he hisses. “Almost gotcha.”
“I’m calling it.” Laughing, Eliza Darling, Ollie’s baby sister, an entire decade younger than he is, drapes her fourteen-percent body fat across the ropes and grabs his shirt before he can come for me again. “Dude, sit down before you fall.”
“I’m fine!” He spins and stumbles, a goofy grin spread over his lips and blood coating his mouth guard. “He was gonna tap soon, Lize.”
“You’re delirious.” She tugs him backward and sighs when he trips, falling to his ass and rolling to his back. She shakes her head, firming plump bow lips. “You’re a mess. You know better than to go this long without sleep, so why the hell are you messing up now?”
“‘Cos Alana was having her baby.” He spits his mouth guard out, which mostly kind of flies up , then down again, smacking his chin and landing on the canvas by his ear. “I wasn’t leaving her alone when she needed me.”
“This is getting dangerous.” Frustrated, I stalk forward and stand over him. “She’s safe, dipshit. She’s fine. And you’re killing yourself over something you had no control over.”
“She sacrificed herself and accepted all that hate because of my stupid ass actions.”
“Because of the high school thing?” Growling, Eliza climbs over the ropes and stands on Ollie’s other side. “You were a kid! Kids do dumb shit.”
“Yeah, and my dumb shit led directly to Alana’s rape.” He sets his feet on the floor, bending at the knees. “My dumb shit changed everyone’s lives. That’s not regular dumb shit. That’s excessive dumb shit, and no one even wants to punish me for it.”
“So what do you want?” Eliza snarls. “You want Alana to hate you? You want Tommy to beat the crap out of you?”
He shrugs, extending his legs again and letting them flop to the canvas.
“If you accept this level of blame, all because you asked Tommy to come down to the station one time while Alana was asleep in his bed, then I suppose Tommy should probably feel just as guilty, huh?” I set my hands on my hips and wait for his eyes to roll across to mine. “Since he was the one who left her.”
“No, I?—”
“Or maybe I should feel guilty?” I do. Fuck, I do! “Because I was in the house. I stayed in my bed while Tommy came out to get you. So it’s worse, isn’t it? That I was there, and I did nothing.”
“You were asleep,” he slurs. “Not your fault.”
“You got arrested for something entirely unrelated! Not your fault.”
“Ya know,” Eliza sets her elbows on her knees, bending to get closer to her brother.
“Most doctors struggling with guilt and a troubled mind usually turn to drugs and alcohol. Claim a gym injury, prescribe a little oxy, and ride the wave into that happy little place where nothing hurts and memories blur.”
“Dude,” I scowl. “Don’t give him ideas.”
“But not you. You’d rather work yourself to the bone, then train with whatever energy you have left. And you don’t just work out—like, running on the machines or hitting a bag. You step into the ring with another fighter, so they can punish you, and you claim it’s sport.”
“You feel you owe her something? Fine. We all carry a little guilt from back then, and now that we know the truth, we have to deal with the fallout of our actions. But you just delivered her baby, Ollie. You held her and Tommy through some pretty scary shit, and you kept Alana and Hazel alive. So maybe you can stop with the bullshit now and consider your debt repaid.”
“Maybe she’ll have another baby,” he murmurs, half-asleep now that he’s horizontal. “Maybe she can have another nine. One for every year she was gone. Then I can feel better.”
“Fine.” Eliza snaps. “I’ll tell her to have nine more babies, just for you.
Maybe she and Tommy can light some candles and include a framed portrait of you, to really include you in the baby making.
Then you’re gonna chill the hell out and come back to us as a normal, functioning human being again? ”
“Yeah.” He smacks his lips, drifting toward unconsciousness. “I think that would make me feel better.”
“He’s out.” When a fresh set of fighters approaches the ring, gloves and mouthguards ready, I turn and shake my head. “This one’s closed until he’s done.”
“Sleeping, Coach?” One of them leans to the left and spies Ollie laid out on the canvas. “We allowed to do that now?”
“He is. Which means this ring is out of commission until he’s up again. If you intentionally wake him because you wanna train, you’re on bathroom duties till my mood stabilizes.” I pause, driving my point home. “You understand?”
He lifts his gloved hand and nods. “Understood, Coach.”
“Good.” I turn to Eliza. “You wanna be on babysitting duty to make sure he gets his rest?”
“I’ll sit here for a bit. Kids classes start in a little while, so?—”
“Gosh. Is this how fight gyms typically function?”
Her voice is like a sucker punch to my solar plexus. Her taunting smile, even before I see it, a jab to my throat.
I spin on fast feet and almost trample Ollie despite my orders to everyone else, and catching an eye full of Fox Tatum in a beautiful dress, the kind she might wear to the office, she becomes a feast for my senses, a feast I feel all the way to the base of my stomach.
“He’s asleep?” With a seductive sway of her hips, she wanders forward and sets her hands on the ropes. “Are you charging him for this? Because if I knew there was money to be made for a group sleeping situation, I might buy a warehouse in the village and set up a few bunks.”
“Fox.” Don’t you put your hand on your heart, stupid. Don’t you dare ! “What are you doing here?”
“Fox Tatum.” Eliza meanders closer and stops with her shoulder brushing my arm. She’s sweaty, with her hair tied in messy braids and washboard flat abs Fox’s eyes inevitably drop to. “Heard you were in town. Figured I’d see you at some point.”
She offers her fist and waits for Fox to return the gesture with a bump, and though I step forward to mediate, since that’s not really Fox’s thing , I snap my lips shut again when I’m proven wrong.
“Hey. It occurred to me today that I’ve only been in town for a weekend. Though I swear, it feels like it’s been an eternity already.”
“And, of course, I heard all about the baby.” Eliza jabs a thumb back toward Ollie. “He’s a very proud quasi-uncle, if not a little emotionally stunted and over-tired. You running the bookstore today?”
“Mmhm. Running it for the next six weeks. Do you have an outside job, or is this it?”
“Uh…”
“I only ask, because I realized today that not all fighters get paid for it. Some have regular jobs, and fighting is just a fun hobby on the side.”
“This is my job.” She slides her tongue over her lips, grinning. “Sponsorship deals pay my bills, and Chris and Tommy pay me a salary to run the kid classes five nights a week. You looking at joining up and hitting something?”
“I get to hit things?” She swings beautiful, bright eyes my way. “Do I get to choose who I hit? Because I have a list, and it only has two people on it so far. One of them is Chris, and the other is a little old lady. She’s small and kinda frail looking. So I bet I could really mess her up.”
Eliza laughs. “I get to hit Chris often. It’s fun. And I’ve wanted to smack little old ladies my whole life. Which one pissed you off?”
“I’m actually not sure…” She drags her bottom lip between her teeth. “They all look kinda the same. But let’s circle back to the hitting Chris thing?”
“Sounds to me like you got yourself a PT client.” Eliza slaps my back and turns to her brother. “I’ll keep an eye on this dipshit until classes begin.”
“Where’s Franky?” I climb through the ropes and move to the padded floors in bare feet. Bare chest, too, now that I look down and pay attention.
Fox’s glittering eyes do the same, her not-so-subtle body tilt, allowing her a better view.
“Fox?” I clear my throat. “You didn’t forget him at school, did you?”
“Oh shoot! Franky!” She claps a hand to her mouth. “I thought you were picking him up?”
“What?” My lungs squeeze flat, and my heart thunders, painfully bruising the inside of my chest. To be forgotten. Made to feel like he doesn’t matter. Jesus, I know what that’s like . “Are you serious? You were supposed to pick him up hours ago!”
She giggles. Belly rolling, chest bouncing, shoulder trembling laughter that travels all the way to her eyes. “I was kidding. Geez. He’s at the hospital with Alana and Tommy and the baby.”
“He is?”
“Yeah, I picked him up at three, exactly like I was supposed to. We had ice cream, discussed school politics, seeing as how he’s headed for middle school next year. Then I offered to bring him to the bookstore or the hospital before training.”
“He chose the hospital?”