Chapter 6 #2
“I’ll tell you on the way to Walgreens.”
—
We hit the Walgreens on MLK and I walked straight to the pharmacy section while Gutta moved through the store behind me looking like a man trying to figure his whole life out.
I found the DNA test kits on the third aisle. Grabbed two of them.
Gutta looked at the boxes when I held them out. “Two?”
“One in case you mess up the first one. You only got one shot at this today and I need you to do it right.” I read the back of the instructions, then I put them both in his hand.
“You swab the inside of her cheek. Simple. She’s three, she’ll let you do it if you make it seem like a game. Kids don’t know what that is.”
He nodded and looked at the boxes and I could see him processing it. This shit was really real and at this point, I wasn’t sure what I wanted the outcome to be. I knew that someone was going to get hurt if this proved to be Gutta’s child.
We went to the register and I paid before he could say anything about it and he didn’t argue which told me how much was sitting on him right now.
Walking back to the car I looked at him sideways.
“You straight?”
“I’m good. Just a lot on my mind.”
“You sure that’s all it is? I feel like it’s more shit going on the just this baby. What’s up?”
He looked over at me and something moved behind his eyes that he pulled back before it fully showed.
There was more. I knew it the same way I always knew when Gutta was holding something back.
There had always been a thing that he did with his jaw when he was deciding how much to give and how much to keep.
I wasn’t going to push it.
He had something he wasn’t ready to say and when he was ready he was going to say it. That was always how we worked and today wasn’t the day to change that.
He had a meeting in less than two hours that was already going to be the hardest thing he’d done in a long time.
“Go handle your business,” I said when we got to his car. “Call me when it’s done.”
He dapped me up and got in, he pulled off and I stood by my car and watched him go. I made a mental note to circle back to whatever he wasn’t telling me because it was going to matter eventually. Things Gutta kept to himself always came back hard as hell.
I got in my car and headed to the gym.
—
Coach Ray had me going hard for two hours and he didn’t take it easy on me.
That was the thing about Coach. He understood that a world title eliminator wasn’t something you prepared for halfway. Every session since the fight got announced had been harder than the one before it and today was no different.
Footwork drills, combinations, sparring with the big heavyweight he had brought in specifically to prepare me for the kind of size and power I was going to be standing across from on fight night.
My body was responding the way it always did when I was locked in — everything else fell away and there was nothing left but the work.
Two hours in I was soaked and breathing hard, feeling exactly the way I was supposed to feel at this point in camp.
I was wrapping up a combination on the heavy bag when movement near the gym entrance caught my eye.
I looked up.
Kyla was walking through the door.
She had on a baby pink suit that fit her like it was made specifically for her body and heels that had absolutely no business being on a gym floor.
She looked around at the space with this expression that said she was taking everything in while also being slightly amused by where she had ended up and when her eyes found mine across the gym she smiled and held up a bag.
Coach Ray looked over at her and then looked at me.
“Take your break Hendrix.”
I pulled my gloves off and walked toward her and she met me halfway. When I got close I stopped because I was dripping sweat and she was standing there in a pink suit looking like she just stepped out of a magazine or something. She leaned in for a hug.
“Don’t.” I held my hands up. “I’ll mess up your whole outfit.”
She looked at me and then looked at the sweat situation, then stepped forward and hugged me anyway. Both arms around me, suit and all, like it was the most natural thing in the world and she ain’t mind getting dirty.
I felt it again when she did it. That thing that always showed up when she got too close to me.
That specific warmth that she brought every time she was in my space.
I was starting to stop trying to explain it because I knew that I couldn’t.
I liked her, but it wasn’t on the level of what I was used to feeling.
She stepped back and looked down at her suit and laughed.
“Worth it,” she said.
“You’re wild.” I shook my head but I was smiling and I couldn’t stop it. “What are you doing here?”
She held the bag up again. “You left before I could feed you this morning. Your chef was amazing by the way. But I wanted to do something for you myself. I loved the roses and the gesture of having breakfast brought to me. I’ve never had nothing like that.
And I’m the kind of woman that if I’m spoiled, I’m gonna spoil back.
She looked around the gym. “You haven’t eaten yet have you? ”
“Not since this morning.”
“Good. Because I’m right on time then.” She patted the bag. “Come on. Show me where you eat in this place.”
—
The lunch area in the back of the gym was nothing special.
A table, some chairs, a refrigerator that Coach kept stocked with water and Gatorade.
Kyla set the bag down on the table and started pulling containers out and the second the lids came off I could smell it and whatever it was smelled like somebody actually knew what they were doing in a kitchen.
“What is that,” I said.
“Salmon. Wild rice. Broccoli.” She set each container down as she named it.
“And mixed fruit.” She looked up at me. “I did my research on what fighters eat during training. I wasn’t about to bring you something heavy that was going to mess up your workout.”
I looked at the food and then looked at her.
“You cooked this.”
“I cooked all of it. Before I got dressed and headed up here.” She sat down across from me and folded her hands on the table.
I sat down and opened the salmon container and took a bite before I could say anything else and my eyes went straight to her.
“Kyla.”
“Yeah.”
“This is good as hell.”
She laughed and it was genuine. “Thank you.”
“No for real. You seasoned this just right. This doesn’t taste like a healthy meal either.”
“Because I made it with love, so it’s gone have that extra umph to it,” She reached across and opened the fruit container for me. “Eat, I know you been going hard today.”
I ate while she sat across from me and we fell into a conversation that had been happening every time we were together.
It was easy, real, no performance behind it.
She told me about her upcoming meetings, I told her about where I was in training.
She asked real questions about boxing that showed she had actually been paying attention and not just nodding along.
I answered them and found myself going deeper into it than I usually did with people who weren’t in the sport because she was actually listening.
Everything felt natural in a way that I was scared of. Women weren’t made like her. Especially powerful women who had all of that going for themselves.
After a while she leaned her elbow on the table and looked at me with a small smile.
“Can I ask you something without it being weird.”
“Go ahead.” I responded, still eating the good ass meal that I didn’t even know that I needed.
“Would it be completely inappropriate if I asked for us to stay together again tonight?”
I looked at her across the table.
She held my gaze and something in her eyes was doing that thing where she was being completely serious while also leaving room for me to laugh it off if I needed to.
I didn’t need to.
“My place or yours,” I said, while still chewing and keeping eye contact. I needed her to know that it wasn’t weird at all. I wanted that too.
Her whole face changed. That smile got bigger and she looked down at the table for just a second.
“Yours,” she said. “I want to see how you live, and be all up in your personal space.”
“I’ll send my driver to pick you up at eight. Have yo spend da night back.”
“Eight is perfect and it’s already packed.”She nodded like she was confirming it to herself. I had to laugh.
We finished eating and I walked her back through the gym toward the entrance.
A few of the guys looked over as we passed and I didn’t miss the looks they exchanged with each other but I kept moving.
I’m sure they recognized Kyla from the billboards and news.
At the door I pulled her in and hugged her properly this time, the way I had wanted to when she first walked in before I was worried about the suit.
She hugged back and it lasted longer than a regular goodbye hug and neither one of us rushed it.
When she pulled back she looked up at me and said something about seeing me tonight and turned to walk away toward the parking lot.
I watched her for a second and then I heard my name.
“Xavier.”
I turned.
Brielle was walking up from the direction of the parking lot.
She had on something simple the way, like she’d been working out today or something.
Her eyes were moving between me and Kyla’s back as Kyla walked away and I could read everything on her face before she even got to me.
The question. The hurt. The expression of a woman who had just watched something she didn’t want to see and was trying to decide how to handle it.
She stopped in front of me.
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
I looked at her. Then I looked back at Kyla who had stopped walking toward her car and was looking between me and Bri. I could tell by her expression that she knew this was the woman that I had mentioned. I raised my voice just enough to carry across the lot.
“Kyla. Be ready at eight.”
Kyla looked back over her shoulder and smiled and kept walking.
I looked back at Brielle.
Her jaw was tight. Eyes doing that thing where she was holding something together that wanted to come apart. She wanted to cry and the tears were threatening to fall. Now she sees how she always left me feeling.
“What is it you want Brielle,” I said.