Page 20 of 4th Degree

Tristan rolls his eyes and gestures for the other fighters to follow him. “We're waiting outside. Quit messing with your hair and get out here.”

I can't make out Aiden's grumbled response, but Max's laugh is loud.

And then I'm left alone with Skylar.

She’s staring so intently at the gym door that it allows me to study her for a moment. Her entire demeanor has changed in the past few minutes. Normally, she’s lit up and excited when she’s in here. But for whatever reason, now her posture has become tense and exhausted.

She doesn’t want to leave.And I don't want her to.

I stride over to the couch and take a seat, then reach for the remote to turn on some fights.

I make sure I pick an exciting, technical fight from the UFC library. It's not a wild guess that something like that will pique Skylar's curiosity.

Sure enough, one minute into the fight, Skylar’s craning her neck to see the TV screen.

“Is that the Chimera fight?” she finally asks.

“It is,” I confirm. “My favorite one to watch.”

She takes a step closer to the couch. “This was the one that set him up for the title fight, right?”

I wipe my hand over my mouth to smother my grin. That's not amateur knowledge—Skylar clearly knows her stuff.

“Yup. He fought for the title two months later.”

Skylar mouths “wow” as the fighter in question moves through a series of advanced transitions on the screen. I don't think I've ever seen anyone as riveted by a fight as she is.

But she's still straddling the invisible line of stay or go. Even though she's moved over enough to be standing beside the couch, close enough that she's absentmindedly petting Brutus’s big bulldog head where he's taken over the arm of the couch.

I open my mouth to say something that might make her sit down. I have no idea what that might be; I just know I want her to stay. But before I can voice anything, a door slams.

Two seconds later, Aiden zips by in a cloud of blonde hair and some kind of exotic cologne.

“Bye, Coach,” he calls as he reaches the front door. “Bye, new girl, whose name I don't remember!”

And then he's gone, and Skylar is left blinking after him.

After a moment, she asks, “Is he always…?”

“Yup.”

The corner of her lip tugs up in a smile. “A class clown probably isn't a bad thing to have in a gym.”

“Unless you're cutting weight and don't have the energy to tell him to shut up,” I comment dryly.

She lets out a laugh, the sound light and airy, and my desire for her to stay intensifies.

I turn back to the fight, making it a point to put my legs up on the coffee table and settling more comfortably into my seat.

“You're not leaving?” she asks.

I shake my head. “Nah, sometimes I like to watch the fights here.”

She hesitates, and I turn my attention back to her.

“Do you want me to go?” Her brow furrows as she looks down at me.

I simply shake my head again.

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