Chapter Twenty-Two
Drew
When Slater showed up in my bedroom doorway, sometime after lunch, holding up two pairs of boxing gloves while I struggled to lift my head and find a way to open my eyes, I was more than really fucking grateful.
I’d fallen asleep the night before at some early hour in the morning.
It had taken me a while to find a way to distract myself from the urge I felt to go to Sutton’s house and drag him out onto his front lawn by the scruff of his neck.
I could take anything from any man, except one thing: I hated being patronized. The fact that he tried to belittle me in front of Ayda wound me up tight more than I wanted to admit, but by some miracle, sleep claimed me, whether I’d been ready for it or not.
“Time is it?” I groaned, squinting and propping myself up on the mattress. Squeezing my eyes shut tight, I let my head roll back and yawned, dragging the noise out so it sounded like the cry of a dog.
“Time you got your ass out of your pit, got your sweats on and headed out into the training room with me.”
I shuffled up to more of a sitting position, my knees falling farther apart while I stared up at him blankly. “You’re taking me to the training room?”
“If you’re ready?” He smirked at me with a challenge in his eyes.
I wanted to ask him what had taken him so long, but I knew that Slater, more than anyone, would probably give it to me straight, and quite frankly, I wasn’t sure I was in the mood for so much talking today.
Our sergeant at arms suffered no fools, especially not me.
“I’m always fucking ready,” I growled through a smile.
“Good. Get dressed and meet me there in fifteen.”
“I’ll meet you there in five.”
The door slammed shut, but not before I saw the creasing of his eyes as he turned away.
I jumped out of bed, not even bothering to head to the shower as I hopped into my sweat pants commando style and pulled the drawstring tight around my waist. I was more ready for this than any other thing, besides riding my bike, even if my last time in the ring resulted in the night that changed all our lives.
I’d spent too long avoiding getting back on the horse and now was the time. Now. Was. The. Time.
Shoving my feet into my sneakers, I pulled open the door, walked through the bar and started to cross the yard, bare-chested. There was no need for me to wear anything more than I had to. I intended on making my body work hard, making it sweat. I needed to see if I could survive this.
The smell of the old training room hit me smack in the face the moment I walked into the warehouse.
While my eyes scanned all around and tried to find a way to commit it all to memory again, my skin prickled as the ghost of Pete started to hang over me like an invisible blanket of both comfort and distress.
“Not now, bud. Not now,” I whispered to myself, my lips barely moving as I spoke. “Let me do this.”
Slater was in the far corner, rolling his neck from side to side as he picked up all the equipment around him and started to put things in order. As soon as I started to walk over to him, I caught his attention and he turned around to face me with a grin on his face.
“No women in here, you know. Put a shirt on.”
“It’s been a while since I let you check out your biggest competition, buddy.” The smirk on my own face grew bigger as I approached him.
“Please. I’ve seen more meat on Kenny.”
“Why’s everyone got to talk about Kenny all the fucking time these days? He the golden boy now?” I came to a stop in front of him, my eyes looking up to scan the punch bag by our side like it was my very own version of Mount Everest.
He tossed me my gloves and I turned back just in time to catch them as they hit my chest.
“You got a problem with Kenny now?”
“Only his eyebrows,” I grumbled back, smiling as I looked up at him and started to slide my gloves on like I’d not had a five-year break from them. “He’s like a skinny, white Fresh Prince of Bel Air. All he needs now is a tie dye T-shirt, a backwards cap and he’s all set.”
“Says the guy who waltzed in here like Swayze from Roadhouse.”
“I’ll take that!” I laughed roughly, the excitement of being back in this kind of environment making my arms flex as I began to bounce on my toes.
We bantered back and forth for a while until Slater took his position around the bag and began to throw out some old commands and routines we used to do together.
His role in the club demanded that he knew how to fight and to lead, to be at the front when those battles started.
I’d always respected him, but something about being back in our natural environment and seeing the determination of his body had me respecting him even more.
He started out light at first, and I knew a lot of that was to do with him seeing how I fared being back in the middle of all these old memories of sweat and tears.
It was the tactical man in him. He needed to know where my mind was.
I also knew deep down that I should have been filled with tension, and that even the thought of going up against something like this should have made me back away, but that just wasn’t who I was.
Not around boxing. It was what had led me to making all those wrong decisions, all those years ago.
It was like breathing to me, and Pete had been responsible for making that a part of my life.
I’d be insulting his memory if I threw it away.
Even if I was finding joy in something that brought about his death.
Slater continued to hold the bag, shouting out different sequences in quick succession for hours on end.
Left, right, left. Right, left, right, left, right, right, jab, jab, right cross, fake an uppercut, right hook.
Whatever he told me to do, whatever insults he shouted my way, I answered him with the power of my arms and the drive through my legs.
I respected him. I wanted this. I craved it.
Only he could give me it. This was where I got high.
It wasn’t long before Slater’s voice turned to that of Pete’s, and even though that just made my jaw tense harder and my frown crease deeper, I kept on keeping on.
The low groans in the back of my throat turned to grunts.
The air coming out of my nose mimicked that of a fucking bull.
I was on fire and my muscles were aching for me to stop.
“You fading on me, Tucker?” Slater wheezed out after my footwork took a stumble to the side and I was forced to correct myself, my forearm reaching up to wipe the sweat from my top lip while I tried to find my balance.
“Tucker don’t fade, Slater. Never has…” I threw a hard hit right, smashing my arm into the side and growling through the release of air in my throat. “Never will.”
His laughter got caught as his own feet slipped sideways and he raised his brows back up at me. “That’s fighting talk, right there.”
“You bet it is.”
“You’ll be bigger than Kenny by the end of the week if you keep this up.”
“Fuck Kenny,” I answered, doing a quick three-jab sequence before bringing my arms up to my chest and bouncing on my toes. “Fuck. Kenny.”
“Never gonna happen. I don’t think he swings that way, brother. Not if the looks he’s been giving that girl of yours are anything to go by.”
I knew for a fact that he’d said what he’d said just to throw me off course and hit a nerve, but I wasn’t going to bite.
Ayda wasn’t mine and they could all go to shit if that’s what they thought was happening.
“Good luck to him,” I snapped back, pushing forward to go for another round, stopping short as the door behind us swung open suddenly and I heard the sound of a familiar voice cry out.
“Drew?” he yelled from across the room before his feet started to scurry across the hard floor.
The fact that it was Deeks’ voice that was doing the shouting was what made me stop more than anything else.
After last night outside Ayda’s house, I’d put him on watch out duties for the day.
He wasn’t much use around this place for anything else, and for my own sanity, I’d grabbed him before I went to my room last night and told him what I wanted him to do.
Sutton could pour his harassment shit on me all he wanted, but no one else.
Not even Ayda. Turning my body, I frowned over at him when I saw the panic on his face.
“Deeks, calm the fuck down. You’ll give yourself a hernia.” Slater laughed breathlessly behind me. He hadn’t known of the undercover mission I’d put Deeks on. Nobody had.
“We got a problem.” Deeks marched towards us both quickly, the worry on his face only forcing my frown to sink even deeper.
“What?” I snapped back.
“It’s Ayda…”
My chest heaved up and down like a fucking animal as the sweat from the workout trickled down my spine. “What about her?”
He looked from me to Slater and back again before he scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Uh, Maisey Sutton got to her.”
I had no fucking idea what he was talking about, but the second I heard that two-dollar whore’s name fall from his lips, I had a pretty good idea. “Got to her how?”
“It was at the diner. Maisey just strolled inside and started shouting shit. Even managed to fit in a little slap across the face.”
“Maisey slapped Ayda?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought I told you to keep your fucking eye on her, Deeks.” I took a step closer to stand over him. Why I was getting angry over two bitches throwing claws all over the place, I had no idea. But I was, and I was blaming the man who was standing in front of me.
“That’s not the worst part…”
“You put Deeks on bodyguard duty over a chick?” Slater laughed behind me, the disbelief in his voice pretty damn obvious.
Ignoring him as much as I could, I growled down at the man beneath me and held his gaze. “What’s the worst part?”
“Umm. She knows I was sent to watch her, and she… She ain’t too happy about that, Drew, I gotta tell you.”
My hands fell to my waist as I let my head roll back and groaned in frustration. Great. Just what I needed. Another person pissed at me. And they said prison life was tough.
“Thanks a lot, Deeks. Thanks a fucking lot, brother.”