19. Boxing Glove
BOXING GLOVE
Oliver
Hands settled on my knees as I tried to inhale slowly, calming my heart rate in a way it simply would not.
“Oh, come on. Don’t be an old man,” Damien called from behind me. “Do I need to have you air-lifted outta here?”
I pulled the boxing glove from my hand and threw it over my shoulder at him, probably not coming even close to hitting him, based on his distant chuckle.
“Fucker,” I mumbled under my breath. “Just leave me here to die. Take care of my son for me.”
I finally stood back to my full height and turning towards him. He smirked. “All those siblings and I get stuck with him?”
“Yes.”
Damien chuckled once more and tossed my glove back to me. “Put that back on. You’ve got time for one more round.”
Sliding my hand back in and tightening the Velcro, I stared at him, my heart rate finally returning to a normal resting rate.
“You’ve had a lot more time to be doing this shit lately. Maybe take some pity on me and my out-of-shape ass.”
“Don’t make me laugh. From what I’ve heard, you’ve been busy following a certain blonde around, and that is why you’re more worried about what’s going on around that ranch than you are being in here. Now, let’s throw some punches and work on your shitty footwork.”
A frown graced my face as I glared at him.
“I’m not following her around. Technically, she works for me.”
“Tomato, potato, or whatever the fuck y’all say. Just telling you what the gossip behind the bar is,” he replied with a shrug as he held up his punching mitts and gestured another round for me.
We started back up slow. Damien called out different hit sequences I had to attempt to follow or get smacked with a mitt. This used to be a three-times-a-week occurrence with my best friend. Mornings after Hudson was at school, I’d meet him here when he didn’t have any deliveries for the bar.
Damien and I were both twenty-two when we left the army. Best friends the moment we’d met at bootcamp and managed to stay together the entire time we were enlisted.
The plan was to travel, become career military men, but life had other plans for me. I expected him to leave, but instead he packed up what little he had in his hometown in Florida and came to Raven Creek with me. He’d been here ever since.
Bought The Raven first. Fixed it up into the perfect spot to hang out, have a beer, and dance.
Invested in a couple buildings and made them into apartments, which ended up being perfect for some of the younger crowd to stay in town but not immediately buy a house if they didn’t want to live with their parents.
The boxing gym was the most recent investment. He didn’t own it, but he did invest in it when the owner, Enzo, needed an investor to open the doors.
So here we were.
Damien, an Army veteran, bar owner, investor, and weekend boxer where he competed for fun at different local gyms. Then me. The rancher who showed up and let his friend hand him his ass in order to get out his head for a few hours.
“One. One. One,” he called out. “Four!” A shot to the side of the head had me glaring at him as he smiled.
“I said four, cowboy, not three. Other hand.”
“Getting water,” I grumbled as he waved me off and I pulled a glove off, walking to the side of the gym where our bags sat. My ass plopped on the bench along the cool cinderblock wall.
“Are you coming out tonight?” he asked casually, pulling his water from the bag. “I hear she’ll be there, so you know, plenty of reasons to come out and see what sort of outfit she’ll drive you insane with.”
Ripping the Velcro open and pulling the gloves from my hands, I stared up at him. “Don’t you have anyone else’s love life to meddle in? You’re as bad as Payton.”
A look crossed his face at the mention of my sister, and I saved myself the eye roll I wanted to give him. Payton was an unspoken topic we didn’t touch.
When Damien and I had come home, he stayed away from the ranch for a long time.
A great deal of family trauma in his own life had him weary of becoming close to my family.
I understood on some level. He met all of my siblings as they turned twenty-one and came out to The Raven to celebrate, and that included Payton.
When he realized who she was, he promised to stay away from her, but I told him I wasn’t worried about it. My sister could handle herself just fine, and I wasn’t her father—nor did I have the desire to act as such.
But still, he seemed to have built a wall around himself, convinced she was some prize he could stare at across the bar, and that was it. So for almost two years, that was how it’d been.
Maybe the two of us had more in common than I wanted to admit.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I just haven’t seen you look at anyone this way since Emily. I want you happy, and her piece of shit is just…Fuck, I hate when that boy walks into my bar.” He shook his head, the disgust clear on his face.
“She works for me, dude. She helps with Hudson. And do I like her? Yes. I think she’s gorgeous, sweet, smart as hell. My kid loves her more than he loves me some days. But she’s what? Twenty-two?” I shook my head. “She’s twenty-two and she has a boyfriend. All that needs to be said.”
“Almost twenty-three,” Damien responded with a smirk.
“What?”
“She’ll be twenty-three at the end of the month. Aspen and Ember are planning a surprise party for her at the bar. They’re sending out invites next week for it.”
Nodding, I let that information set. “Noted. But still, twenty-two, twenty-three. Makes no difference when she’s not on the market.”
Damien nodded once more. “Absolutely, my guy. Because everything we’ve done in this life has been moral and sane.
” His gaze turned to me, serious now. “You work hard, Oliver. You’re a good man.
Don’t let something stupid like a piece-of-shit boyfriend keep you from making that woman happy.
Trust me when I say, don’t build up walls where there shouldn’t be any. ”
I cleared my throat, unsure of what else to say, so instead, I changed the subject.
“I think I have one more round in me.”
Sliding on my boots, my hat on my head, I grabbed my truck keys. My muscles ached from my boxing workout with Damien. After our talk, we ended up going another two rounds as I tried to bury the racing thoughts that were repeating within my mind. I was only somewhat successful.
“Hudson! Ready, bud?”
He raced down the steps, his backpack thrown over his shoulder, his dark curls hanging over his brows. “Ready!”
Five minutes later we were driving to Mom’s house. Hudson was helping her make cookies tonight for a local spring festival in town, while I hung out with everyone at The Raven.
“Dad, you seem different,” Hudson said from the backseat.
“What do you mean? Different good or bad?”
He hummed for a moment, his eyes out the window as he looked over the glowing Colorado mountains. “Good. You just seem excited about things other than me and work. It’s cool. I like when you smile.”
My throat tightened, and I felt myself nod. “Me too, bud. Me too.”
Thirty minutes later, Hudson was with Mom, and I pulled up to The Raven.
My mind raced a million miles an hour as I thought over what my son had pointed out mixed with the conversation from this morning.
He wasn’t wrong, but fuck, I wish he was.
Not because I didn’t want to be happy, but because I knew what had changed in my life.
What small slice of blonde sunshine had brought on this newfound happiness, and I didn’t want to believe it was that noticeable.
Yet two of the most important people in my life had noticed within weeks.
Ivy had been a blessing since the moment she agreed to help me with Hudson.
I texted her at the beginning of the week to let her know what nights I needed her help—so, any I could have her, if I was being honest with myself.
I was insatiable and needed even a small glimpse of her before she bolted for the front door as if the house was on fire.
Part of me worried she was uncomfortable around me, but when I grabbed her wrist two nights ago and felt her pulse skyrocket? Her pupils dilate? Her breath hitch? I knew it wasn’t just me.
She was in a relationship, yet I found I didn’t fucking care about it.
Even before Damien pointed out how much he sucked.
He was a minor obstacle at best. I’d never been afraid of a little hard work, and nothing about Ivy Tinsley felt like hard work to me.
She felt like sunshine and sin wrapped up in a pink bow with a great deal of sparkles.
Deceiving to the eye, but I knew better. She left her mark wherever she went, and even more so on me. I’d tried to escape her. I’d tried to ignore her.
But I was wondering what would happen if I decided to be done with that course of action.
What would happen if I took the chance? If I pushed that wall I’d crafted myself?
I climbed out of my truck, heading to the front door, when I saw her outside talking to another woman.
Wearing a short pink sundress with her white cowgirl boots, the thin pink straps against her soft, freckle-dusted skin, she looked like a picture-perfect version of a spring goddess, and I wanted to strip her of it all, lay her in the middle of my bed, and call it a night if the outside world came knocking.
Fucking sundress.
Her gaze turned towards me, and a small smile curved along her lips as she gave me a little wave.
Tipping my chin at her, I forced my feet inside the bar.
It was clear she was having a serious conversation with whomever she was with, and I didn’t want to be that asshole that interrupted whatever it may have been.
Somehow, I’d beaten most of my family here. Theo was already on the dance floor with a girl I didn’t know, and Damien was behind the bar. I pulled out a stool, sliding onto it as he handed me a beer, a knowing look in his eyes.
“See her out there?”
I nodded, taking a swig from my beer. “Sure did. Change the topic. Nosy people around.”
Talking about this at a mostly empty boxing gym was one thing—The Raven was something else. I wasn’t going to be the town’s gossip. Especially not at Ivy’s expense.
He laughed and nodded. “Solid point, dude. Solid point.”
“Who’s she out there with? Seemed serious.”
Both hands on the bar, he stared at me for a moment. “Thought we weren’t talking about her.”
“Don’t be a dick.”
“Her sister. She lives out of town. Couple years older. She’s some kinda big-shot lawyer on the east coast or something.”
I nodded. Given the ten years between Ivy and I, it would make sense that I didn’t recognize her sister. She was probably around Wyatt and Rowan’s age, maybe a bit older if she was already a lawyer.
His eyes darted towards the door, and he smiled.
“Go find a table. Your brothers are here, and your slice of trouble just walked back in. Make a move.”
I looked over my shoulder and watched them all walk in together. She was smiling, Aspen beside her. I had no idea what my plan was, but looking at her wasn’t a crime, at the end of the day.