Chapter 19 House Rules #5
I looked at her. “Mara, that's—”
“What? You need someone who'll push you. He looks like he can push.” She gestured toward the ring with the easy authority she used when she'd already decided. “Besides, I want to see what you've got.”
Troy stood and pulled his shirt off without asking if I was okay with this.
He climbed through the ropes and stood across from me with a smile that was all challenge.
“You sure about this?” I asked.
“Are you?”
Mara brought gloves. Troy let her help him without taking his eyes off me the whole time.
We met in the center and touched gloves.
Troy exploded forward.
No testing jabs, no cautious circling. He came at me with a combination so fast I barely got my guard up in time, each punch flowing into the next without a break in the rhythm, jab-jab-cross-hook-uppercut. Two shots slipped through and tagged my ribs. I backed up and reset.
He pressed forward and threw a low kick that buckled my lead leg, then shifted before I could answer and sent a spinning back fist at my head that I ducked under. His knee came up immediately after and caught me in the midsection hard enough to empty my lungs.
I stumbled back and he followed, moving like water, fluid and relentless, every strike flowing into the next and every feint setting up real attacks. He didn't fight like gym fighters. He fought like a man who'd needed it to work in rooms where losing wasn't an option.
I caught my breath, planted my feet, and started fighting back properly.
I slipped his jab and drove a cross into his guard, followed with a body shot that made him grunt and a low kick to his lead leg that he didn't fully check. He smiled at that, the way he smiled when something was going the way he wanted, and then changed levels and went low.
He swept my legs out from under me.
I hit the mat hard and rolled, came up in guard position. Troy was already moving, stepping over my guard and postulating up, throwing a punch at my face that I blocked before his other hand went for an armbar. I rolled out and got back to my feet.
“You're good,” I said.
“So are you.” He wiped sweat from his face with his glove. “But you're holding back.”
“My ribs—”
“Fuck your ribs. Fight me properly.”
The challenge in his voice shifted something in my chest. I stopped thinking about the injuries and stopped calculating, and I just moved.
I pressed forward with a combination I'd drilled ten thousand times, jab-cross-hook-cross, each punch thrown with full power and full intention, and felt the impact travel up my arms each time it landed on his guard.
Troy gave ground, but only to create space and angles.
His counter came fast, a question mark kick starting low and swinging high, and I got my guard up a half-second before it arrived.
His follow-up was immediate, a flying knee that would have ended the round if it had landed clean. I twisted and caught it on my shoulder instead of my face.
We broke apart, both of us breathing hard now, both of us reading the other.
Troy circled left. I matched him.
He feinted high and went low with a leg kick I didn't see coming. My knee buckled and he was on me before I'd recovered, throwing combinations to the body with precision, each punch finding gaps in my guard and landing with weight behind it.
I absorbed it and waited. I saw my opening when he overextended slightly on his fourth punch, slipped inside his guard, and drove an uppercut into his midsection with everything I had. I felt it sink deep and his guard dropped for a split second.
I threw a hook that caught him clean on the jaw and snapped his head to the side.
Troy staggered. He blinked. He smiled wider than before.
“There you are,” he said.
Then he came at me like I'd just unlocked something he'd been sitting on since we started.
His style shifted, grew more unpredictable, strikes flowing from kickboxing to grappling and back without a seam between them, spinning attacks coming from angles I hadn't prepared for, every combination setting up the next one.
He moved like gravity was a guideline rather than a rule, and watching him while simultaneously trying to survive him was a genuinely strange experience.
I matched him the only way I knew how, with power and with intent, throwing shots hard enough to change the conversation every time he got comfortable.
I caught him with a body shot that doubled him over and followed with a knee he barely blocked, then swung an elbow toward his head that he rolled away from. He came up behind me and locked his arms around my waist, and before I'd fully registered what was happening he lifted me off my feet.
We hit the mat together in a tangle of limbs and neither of us gave the other an inch.
I got my guard up and he tried to pass it.
I shoved him back and he came from a different angle.
We rolled across the canvas fighting for position, each of us taking ground and losing it again, both of us too stubborn to do anything else.
Finally we broke apart, both breathing hard, both drenched, and grinning at each other like idiots on the mat.
Mara called time.
We lay there for a moment, not moving, not needing to.
“That was incredible,” Troy said finally.
“You're incredible.” I sat up slowly. My ribs were going to make me pay for this for days. “Where the hell did you learn to move like that?”
“Adrian and Luka have very high standards.” He stood and offered his hand. “And I've had a lot of practice staying alive.”
I took his hand and let him pull me up. We stood in the center of the ring while the gym held a beat of quiet around us, everyone having just watched something they probably couldn't fully categorize.
Mara climbed through the ropes and started pulling off our gloves. “Well. That was interesting.”
“Interesting?” I looked at her.
“You two fight like you're trying to kill each other and fuck each other at the same time.” She grinned at her own assessment. “Very entertaining. Also not subtle at all.”
“Mara—”
“Everyone already knows. You're really not subtle, Declan.” She finished with my gloves and turned to Troy. “You're good. Really good. You ever think about competing?”
“Not my thing,” Troy said. “I prefer fights that don't have rules.”
“Fair enough.” She stepped back and looked at us both with the expression she wore when she'd gotten exactly what she came for. “Shower. Both of you. You're disgusting.”
We climbed out of the ring. The gym had gone back to its normal noise, everyone finding somewhere else to look.
Dmitri appeared at my elbow. “Very impressive. Both of you.”
“Thanks.” I grabbed my water bottle and finished half of it.
In the locker room, Troy grabbed my arm and pulled me aside while Dmitri made a point of being busy elsewhere.
“That was the hottest thing I've ever experienced,” Troy said, low enough that it was just for me.
“Sparring?”
“Fighting you. Seeing what you can actually do. Feeling you push back.” His eyes were dark and focused in the way they got when he'd made a decision. “I want to do that again.”
“Yeah.” I pulled him in and kissed him despite the fact that we were both sweat-soaked and probably disgusting. “Me too.”
When we pulled apart, Dmitri was watching us from across the room with undisguised amusement and not even pretending he hadn't been.