Chapter 31. Liam #2
Griff appears. He doesn't speak. He just hands me an ice pack, and I press it to my swelling cheekbone, and the cold makes my eyes water.
He sits beside me.
The tournament continues.
I stay very still.
Across the gym, I find Ethan. He's in the warm-up area, wrapping his hands, focused. He can't come to me. His match is two fights away, and he can't leave the area where the athletes are supposed to stay.
But his eyes lift and find mine across the distance, and in that single look, there's an entire conversation: are you okay, I'm sorry I wasn't closer, I love you, I'll be there as soon as I can.
I look away first.
I always look away first when he does that, because if I hold his gaze too long, the thing in my chest gets too big for my ribs, and I'll do something fucking embarrassing, like cry in a gymnasium full of offenders.
And I've already been eaten alive once today.
Griff sits beside me on the bench. He's been there for a while. He watches the current match. He doesn't say anything for a long time, but the silence is comfortable, not awkward.
My cheekbone is numb now, the cold having done its work, but I keep the pack there.
I haven't cried, which I count as the biggest win of the day.
"You know," Griff says, his voice low, "my first professional match, I got knocked out cold in the second round."
I turn my head slowly because fast movements make my vision swim.
He's not looking at me. His eyes are fixed on the mat, on the two fighters circling each other, but I can tell his attention is somewhere else entirely, somewhere years ago, in a different gym, in a different body.
"I was twenty-two," he continues. "Thought I was invincible.
I'd won every amateur bout, beaten everyone in my gym, talked more shit than a man with my skill level had any right to talk.
The guy they put me against was a southpaw from Philly.
Built like a fire hydrant. I didn't respect him because he was shorter than me, which tells you everything you need to know about the idiot I was at twenty-two. "
He pauses.
On the mat, one fighter catches the other with a clean jab. The crowd reacts.
Griff doesn't.
"He caught me with a left hook in the second round. I don't remember going down. I remember the ceiling. It had water stains, these big brown shapes that looked like maps. I woke up looking at those stains and thinking, Oh. So this is what it feels like."
The ice pack drips condensation down my wrist.
"You know what I did?" he asks.
I shake my head, then regret the movement.
Griff turns to me, and his green eyes are softer, the lines around them deeper, and he looks, for the first time since I've known him, like someone who was once young and afraid and knocked flat on his back.
"I left the ring," he says. "Found a corner behind the bleachers. Pulled up my hoodie." He holds my gaze. "And cried my eyes out."
I raise my eyebrows, surprised.
Chris Griff, who runs Aspire very much like a drill sergeant, who stands in front of fifty boys every morning without flinching, many of whom have actually stabbed someone—this man sat behind the bleachers in a hoodie and cried.
"Getting knocked down isn't failure," he says, still being too soft, and if he keeps going, I'm going to absolutely cry.
He must stop, NOW.
"Giving up is. And you"—he points at me with one calloused finger—"you didn't give up. You got hit, you went down, and you got back up."
I swallow.
Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.
"I'm damn proud of you, son. Proud that you were brave enough to come," he says, and smiles. "Even though this is your first time. Even though you lost. Especially because you lost and you're still sitting here, watching the next fights instead of hiding in the van."
"Thank you, sir," I say, and I'm not even crying, even if my stomach twists.
Fucking hell, I'm actually proud of myself.
He nods.
Then his posture resets, and he's Griff again.
"We'll train more Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I think it'll make all the difference for you. Unless you want to quit."
"No, sir," I say.
Even if I wanted to, I'm pretty sure Ethan wouldn't let me. Besides, it's one hour a day I can be physical with him in front of everybody.
"But I don't know if I deserve it. I'm sorry I lost my match for Aspire. I'm not sure I'm good enough to be here."
"Don't be stupid, Marsal. If you're here, it's because I believe you're good enough. Competitions are hard, but you learn a lot from them. That's why I wanted you to come." He looks toward the mat. "Now pay attention. Ethan's up."
Fuck!
I feel almost embarrassed by what he said, but thankfully, I don't have time to think too much about it.
The announcer's voice cuts through: Ethan's name, his opponent's, the weight class and height.
I look up and watch Ethan walk onto the mat.
He looks so fucking hot, and not afraid at all. His shoulders are square, his spine straight, his hands loose, like he's not worried, even though the opponent is as tall as he is and even bigger.
I feel so fucking proud of him.
He's extraordinary.
Ethan touches gloves with his opponent, and the ref steps back, and the signal comes, and Ethan settles into his counter-fighting stance, guard up, footwork perfect.
His weight sits perfectly centered, something I used to think was a metaphor when coaches talked about it and now understand is literal and physical.
He could be a damn professional.
The Westlake fighter moves first, a long jab.
Ethan parries it.
Not blocks, parries.
His right hand redirects the jab. The fighter throws a follow-up cross, and Ethan isn't where the cross is going. He's already half a step to the left, the punch passing his cheek close enough to disturb the air but not close enough to matter.
The Westlake kid tries a combination, jab, jab, hook, and Ethan slips the first jab, blocks the second on his guard, and rolls under the hook. He comes up from the roll and fires a straight right that catches the kid on the chin through the gap his hook created.
The kid stumbles.
The Aspire section erupts with noise.
"Let's go!" Jack yells. "Let's fucking go!"
Ethan doesn't acknowledge it.
He resets, hands up, weight centered, his eyes tracking the opponent.
The Westlake fighter regroups, comes forward again, and this time he's faster, more aggressive, throwing combinations desperately.
The punches come in bunches, each one carrying genuine intention, and Ethan weathers them.
Some he slips, some he catches on his guard.
One body shot gets through and lands on his ribs, and I wince in sympathy because I know what that feels like now.
But Ethan doesn't fold.
He absorbs it, resets, and in the space between the kid's last punch and his next, Ethan fires a jab that snaps the kid's head back, followed by a cross.
The cross lands flush on the kid's guard, pushes through it, clips the side of his head, and the kid backs up, giving ground.
Ethan follows.
He corners the kid against the edge of the mat. The Westlake fighter tries to circle out, throws a wild hook, and Ethan ducks it, steps inside, and delivers a three-punch combination.
The kid hits the mat, and the referee is there before his back touches blue, counting.
The Westlake fighter is looking at the ceiling with the expression I know intimately now.
The count reaches eight.
The kid gets up, credit to him, but his legs are still filing complaints, and the referee steadies him, looks into his eyes, and waves it off.
Done.
Over.
Ethan wins.
Griff nods.
I start screaming, jumping up and down. Jack and Tyler are on their feet, and Santana is doing an interpretive dance, and even Cedric and Dan have paused their ongoing argument.
Reed is the only one silent, but he's smirking.
Ethan steps off the mat, pulls his mouthguard out, and his eyes find mine across the gym.
He's sweaty and flushed, his red-brown hair a mess.
He doesn't smile, but he winks at me.
I'm still screaming and jumping, and Griff doesn't stop me. I'm so fucking happy.
The look says everything his mouth won't say in public: that was for you. All of it. Every drill, every combination, every hour in that gym. It was always for you.
My heart.