Page 12 of 4th Degree

I should be double-checking contracts. Organizing my business. Not staring at this girl who's so interested by an old fight of mine that she's silently mouthing the combos that my corner is calling for.

She hears something that makes her brow furrow. When she looks up at me again, she looks confused.

“What were you trying to do with the leg kicks?” she asks. “He's not really throwing punches, so I'm assuming the leg kicks weren't to stop his striking. Were you setting something up?”

I try to think back to my game plan for that fight, and how it ended up, but I can't for the life of me remember what my thought process was. “Start the round over,” I instruct in a gruff voice as I settle on the couch beside her, a safe distance between us. She looks surprised, but does as I ask.

We watch the fight in silence for a few moments. “I was focusing on leg kicks because I wanted to throw him off of his takedown game,” I explain eventually. I point at my opponent's stance on the screen. “He was going for double legs the entire first round, so all of his weight kept shifting forward onto his front leg. Every leg kick made him second guess another takedown, or even punches to set up a takedown.”

Skylar nods in understanding, never taking her eyes off the action. “And what was your game plan going into the fight?” she asks.

“Tire him out. Wear him down. I knew I would be in better shape than him.” She snorts at my answer.

“Look. See that?” I lean forward in anticipation of what's coming next. “He's reached the point where he's starting to get pissed. He can't get to his takedowns without getting hit, so he's trying to figure out what he'll need to sacrifice to get me to the ground.”

“Holy shit,” she breathes after a moment.

My grin breaks through as we watch one of my inside leg kicks force a stumble, enough to make Jamal trip forward so I can wrap an arm around his neck in a choke.

“That looks tight,” she murmurs under her breath, leaning closer to the screen. She cocks her head and asks, “Wasn't Jamal known for his submissions, and for never getting submitted himself?”

Amused, I quirk an eyebrow. “Did you look me up for that information or him?”

Her cheeks pinken as she shrugs. “I wanted to know who I was learning from,” she admits.

I chuckle, but decide not to tease her anymore. Instead, I wait for the inevitable end of the fight.

My choke tightens, until my corner starts yelling and Jamal squeaks in my hold. I think Skylar and I are both holding our breaths as we wait for Jamal's hand to twitch on my thigh. For him to tap.

And he does.

“Damn,” Skylar says with a laugh. “You beat him with his own move.”

“After he kept taking me down in the first, I told my corner between rounds that I was going to submit him with a guillotine if he kept doing it. My coach laughed in my face and told me to be serious, but I knew I could get it. I could feel it.”

When she turns to finally look at me, I'm grinning from ear to ear. “You like talking about your fights, don't you?” she asks as her eyes search mine.

I shrug, trying to tamp down my rush of confidence from her curiosity. “The ones I won, sure.”

“What about training?”

“To an extent,” I admit. “Why, you have questions?”

“Always,” she quips with a light laugh, almost to herself.

I debate going back to my office. I don’t mind answering student questions about techniques, but I usually try to keep a solid line between coach and athlete in the gym. I don’t want to invite friendship.

But then I think about how excited she looked watching my fight. And that eagerness is one of the best qualities any coach could ask for, which means I can't bring myself to move from this spot.

“Fine. Shoot.”

“How was training different in your first few years?” she asks, the question bursting out of her like it’s been waiting at the tip of her tongue. “What do you do differently now that you didn't do forty years ago?”

“Watch it,” I growl. Her smile only grows.

I settle back against the couch, draping my arm along the back of it to get comfortable as I mull over her question.

“It's more brain, less brawn nowadays,” I answer after a moment. “We used to spar three times a week back when I was fighting—if you could even call it that. It was more like a fight to the death. I'm surprised we didn't have more concussions and injuries than we did.”

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