Page 46 of Regards, Mia

I pick up my story where I left off. “I was pretty skinny. Then, I had a growth spurt, and I started fighting back.”

Just remembering my childhood is painful. There had never been enough to eat. But then my mom got a job as a night shift waitress, and she started coming home with food every morning. I got bigger and stronger, and pretty soon no one messed with me.

“I was fourteen the first time I had a street fight. Bare knuckles and no ref. We fought until one of us couldn't get up. I made sure I was the one getting up.”

“Fourteen? You were just a baby.”

My throat tightens as memories fill my mind. I shove them away. “I was already six-foot two.”

“So? You were still a kid.”

I shake my head. “I stopped being a kid a long time before that. I was only five years old the first time I saw a man hit a woman.”

Her eyes narrow shrewdly. “Your mom and your dad?”

Emotion swells in my chest as I remember the shouts, the silence, the bruises. “Yeah.”

“Okay, so you weren't a baby,” she concedes. “But you were still a kid.”

“Kids fight,” I say. “That's what Champion's Corner is all about. Giving them a safe space to do it.”

“I doubt you were fighting kids your age. It was grown men, wasn't it?”

I shrug. “I was big. Then I got this tattoo.” I lift my shirt and show the LOYALTY tattoo that stretches across my stomach. “I looked older.” I drag my gaze away from hers. I can't stand the way she's looking at me with pity. “Boxing saved me. It gave me an opportunity to be somebody. It gave me…”

“A way out,” Mia says, finishing my sentence for me.

“Exactly.”

Back then I’d fought more for money than pride. If I won, I made more money. So I won. I’d fought and won until I’d made enough to move out of the trailer park. We could afford gymnastics lessons for my sister, and my mom quit working the graveyard shift.

“I want to give kids a chance to experience the good side of boxing. The structure, the sense of accomplishment, the family.”

“You’re a good man.” Her hand covers mine. “Really decent.”

A smile tugs at my mouth. “You seem surprised.”

“Maybe.” She trails her hand up my forearm, her eyes following the path.

I shift closer to her, breaking every rule I’ve ever made regarding clients as I lower my mouth to hers.

Just before our lips touch, the doorbell rings. We jerk apart as if we’ve been shocked, and I jump up from the table.

“Stay there,” I say, moving quickly to the door. I look through the peephole, and wrench open the door.

No one is there, but a manilla envelope rests just outside the door frame. I snatch it off the doormat and step outside, telling Mia to lock the door behind me.

“What is it?” She’s on the other side of the door, trying desperately to see over my shoulder into the parking lot.

“Stay inside.” I slam the door shut between us. “Lock the deadbolt, Mia.”

When I hear the bolt click into place, I tuck the envelope into the waistband at the back of my pants and duck into the shadows.I track the perimeter of the building, but there is no one around. Nothing unusual catches my eye, and the only people are a young couple walking their dog.

“Excuse me, did you notice anyone over there?” I point to Mia’s unit.

“Just a delivery guy,” the man says.

“Did he get the right unit?” the woman asks. “People are always mixing the addresses up.”

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