Chapter 19 House Rules #4
“I am getting stir-crazy.” Troy leaned back in his chair. “But are you sure you want me there? That's your space.”
“Yeah. I'm sure.” I looked at Dmitri. “You're coming too, right?”
“Da. For security.” Dmitri stood and started clearing plates. “Is not safe for either of you to be out without watching. I follow. Keep eye out for trouble.”
“Great.” I finished my coffee. “We leave in an hour. That give you both enough time to get ready?”
“Yeah.” Troy stood and stretched. The apron rode up showing off the lace still clinging to his hips. “I need a shower first though.”
The shower was already running when I walked into the bathroom. Steam filled the space, turning everything soft and hazy. Troy was under the spray with his head tipped back and water running over his face and down his chest in rivulets that caught the light.
I stripped off my sweatpants and stepped in behind him. The water was hot enough to sting my bruised ribs but I didn't adjust it. I just moved closer until my chest pressed against his back.
Troy leaned into me without saying anything and let his weight settle against mine. His skin was warm and slick under my hands.
I wrapped my arms around him carefully, avoiding the worst of the bruising on his ribs that mirrored my own, and just held him while water poured down over both of us.
“You okay?” I asked quietly.
“Yeah.” His voice was rough. “Just tired.”
“We don't have to go to the facility if you're not up for it.”
“I want to go.” He turned in my arms and looked up at me with dark eyes that were too serious. “I want to see you in your element. Want to understand that part of your life.”
I kissed him slow and deep, tasting water and him and the lingering evidence of what we'd done downstairs.
When I pulled back, his hands were fisted in my hair and his breathing had gone uneven.
“We keep doing this and we're never leaving this shower,” he said.
“Would that be so bad?”
“Dmitri's waiting. And you said you needed to train.” Troy stepped back slightly and grabbed the soap. “Turn around.”
I did and felt his hands on my shoulders, working the soap across my skin with careful attention to every bruise and scrape. He washed my back, my sides, down to my hips with focus that felt like devotion.
“Your ribs look worse,” he said.
“They're healing. Just takes time.”
“You should ice them after training.”
“I will.”
His hands moved lower and slid over my ass. He squeezed once before moving down my thighs. He washed every inch of me like he was memorizing the shape of my body through touch.
When he finished, I returned the favor. I turned him around and worked soap across his shoulders, down his spine, over the tattoos I'd spent hours studying in bed, and across his ribs that were finally starting to fade from purple to yellow-green.
He had scars I hadn't noticed before, small ones that came from violence that wasn't recreational. I traced each one with my fingers, cataloging them and wanting to know the story behind every mark.
“You ever going to tell me about all of these?” I asked.
“Maybe.” He looked back over his shoulder. “When we have time. When everything isn't trying to kill us.”
“Fair enough.”
We finished washing and rinsed off. We stood under the spray for another minute just holding each other while water ran over us.
Finally Troy turned off the water. We dried off and got dressed in the bedroom. Troy pulled on dark jeans and a black t-shirt that showed off his arms. I grabbed training clothes with shorts and a compression shirt that would keep my ribs supported during movement.
Dmitri was waiting downstairs when we came down. He'd showered and changed too.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I grabbed my gym bag from the closet. “Let's go.”
The training facility was exactly as I'd left it. Mara was at the front desk when we walked in. She looked up, clocked me, then clocked Troy and Dmitri behind me, and raised an eyebrow.
“You're expanding the operation,” she said.
“Dmitri's with us for a while.” I set my bag down. “You remember Troy.”
“Hard to forget.” She looked at Troy with the dry fondness she'd developed for people she'd decided were worth the trouble. “Didn't think we'd see you on this side of things.”
“Declan didn't give me much choice,” Troy said.
“He never does.” She turned her attention to Dmitri. “And you I haven't met.”
“Dmitri Volkov.” He offered his hand. “Security.”
She shook it and glanced at me. “Should I be worried?”
“Probably not.”
“Probably.” She let go of Dmitri's hand and turned back to Troy with the look she used when she'd already decided what she thought and was just confirming it. “I can see why he's been distracted lately.”
“Mara,” I said.
“What? It's an observation.” She gestured toward the back. “Ring two is open. Your sparring partner is already warming up. Try not to kill him this time.”
I grabbed my bag and headed for the locker room with Troy and Dmitri following.
The place was busy for a weekday morning. Fighters were working bags, a few pairs were on the mats doing groundwork, and a handful of clients from the rehab center were doing recovery work under Sarah's supervision near the far wall.
I changed quickly and wrapped my hands, the tape going on the same way it always did, the ritual familiar enough that my brain could go somewhere else while my hands worked.
Troy sat on the bench and watched. Dmitri had already disappeared, doing a sweep of the building the way he did everywhere we went.
“You nervous?” Troy asked.
“About sparring? No.”
“About me watching?”
I paused and looked at him. “Little different when you're ringside.” “I've seen you fight.”
“You've seen me in a match. This is where the work actually happens.” I finished the right hand and flexed it. “It's less clean.”
“Good.” He held my gaze. “Stop worrying about what I think and just go.”
I grabbed my mouthguard and headed out to the main floor.
Ring two sat in the back corner, an elevated platform with ropes and worn padding that had absorbed a few thousand rounds over the years.
My sparring partner was already inside. Marcus, twenty-four or twenty-five, technically solid but still green in the ways that mattered, still learning how to read an opponent before they hit him with the thing they'd been setting up for two minutes.
I climbed through the ropes and started moving, getting the blood going, letting my body remember what it was built for.
Troy and Dmitri settled into seats ringside. Dmitri pulled out his phone and started working through his messages. Troy just watched, with that focused attention he brought to everything, the kind that felt like being studied.
Mara appeared with gloves and helped me get them on, tightening the straps without being asked.
“Go easy on him,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
“And you're recovering from approximately seven different injuries, so maybe you both go easy.”
“We'll be fine.”
She stepped back and called time.
Marcus and I met in the center and touched gloves. We started moving.
He came forward cautiously and threw a testing jab that I slipped, followed it with a cross that I blocked, and settled into a rhythm that was technically correct and completely toothless.
His footwork was good and his hands were fast, but he was treating me like I was made of glass, like the injuries had changed what I was, and that wasn't something I was going to let stand.
I countered with a jab, felt it land clean on his guard, and followed with a low kick that he checked. We circled. He threw a combination, jab-cross-hook, and I slipped the first two and caught the hook on my shoulder.
I pressed forward and threw a combination that forced him to cover up. Body shot, head shot, another body shot. He took them all on his gloves but stumbled back.
“Come on, Marcus,” I said. “Stop being polite.”
He reset and came again, more committed this time, and threw a straight right that I barely slipped. His follow-up kick caught me on the thigh hard enough to sting.
Better.
We traded for another minute, him gradually opening up, starting to trust that I wasn't going to shatter.
But he was still telegraphing his combinations, still giving me a half-second of warning before each sequence, and that was a habit that was going to cost him against anyone who knew how to read it.
I caught him with a body shot that made him grunt and followed with a head kick that he ducked under. His counter caught me on the ribs and pain flared hot and sharp.
I backed off and breathed through it.
Mara called time.
Marcus was at my side before the sound finished. “You okay? I didn't mean to catch the ribs like that.”
“You're supposed to hit me. That's the point.”
“Yeah, but you're hurt. I should've been more careful.”
“If you're careful, I don't get better.” I looked at Mara. “He's holding back. I need someone who's going to push me.”
“You need someone who isn't going to put you in the hospital.” She pulled off my gloves and turned to Marcus. “Good work. Hit the showers.”
He climbed out looking relieved.
I stood there with my ribs screaming and my brain wanting more, needing to prove to myself that the damage hadn't changed anything fundamental. Mara started unwrapping my hands like the conversation was already over.
“You're not ready for a full session. Give it another week.”
“The fight is in ten days.”
“Then heal fast.” She finished unwrapping and stepped back. “Or pull out and reschedule.”
“I'm not pulling out.”
“Then stop being stupid about your training. You'll just make it worse.” She was right and I knew it and admitting it felt like failure. I looked over at Troy.
He was watching me with an expression I couldn't fully read, cataloging details and processing what he'd seen with that unhurried focus of his.
Then Mara turned to him. “You know how to fight?”
Troy's attention shifted to her. “Yeah.”
“Want to give him a round? Might be better than Marcus. At least you won't hold back.”