Page 107 of Not Fooling Anyone

I took his advice, moving past my hesitancy, going straight for the jugular as I advance on him again, keeping him in the defensive position.

My mood tonight makes it easy, though, pouring all my frustration, my anger, my hurt over Lexie’s rejection into my fists. Aggression runs through my veins, a part of me fearing that if I hit Austin in this state, it might do actual damage, despite his quickness on his feet.

But the primal side of me? It wants to see what will happen.

“Whoa,” he mutters, moving out of the way in time to avoid my glove.

“Easy,” Lawrence calls from the sidelines. “Your fight’s in less than a week. You shouldn’t go so hard.”

Tonight wasn’t supposed to be an official training night, but I couldn’t sit at home and twiddle my thumbs. Not with that hollow pit still in my stomach.

In my heart.

I dial back my intensity, pushing the growing numbness out of my mind for the moment, focusing on training, on being the best I can be for Saturday’s tournament.

But when Lawrence calls us out of the ring twenty minutes later so the next pair of guys can use it, I can’t resist it any longer, immediately heading over to my gym bag to type out a text to Lexie.

Me:I’d like to talk tonight. You working?

I stare at my phone, not truly expecting an answer right away, but a guy can hope.

“You’re improving.”

I drop my phone back in my bag, glancing up at Austin. “You too.” Wait, that was a dumb answer. He’s always good. “Lawrence said earlier he added you to the roster for Saturday, too? I thought you were looking to turn pro.”

He nods. “I still need some amateur fights under my belt first.”

“How many have you been in?”

He scratches at his chin, looking up at the ceiling. “Close to twenty, I think?”

I blink at him. “How long have you been fighting?” Tournaments don’t come around all that often. Not unless you do some extensive traveling.

Shrugging, he answers, “Pretty much my whole life. It’s kind of a family tradition.” He points to Marty’s office. “You know Marty’s my uncle, right?”

No, I didn’t. No wonder he’s so knowledgeable about everything.

“So what would you say I still need to work on?” I’ve only got four days left to prepare for this bout.

He claps me on the back, hard enough to make me wince. “It’s too late to stress about that stuff now. I can tell you’ve taken Lawrence’s comments to heart. You’ve done as much as you can to prepare.”

Yeah, that’s not exactly what I want to hear. If I have nothing to improve on, that means my mind is free to ruminate on Lexie. Especially on that moment after class talking to her. How could she want to end things between us before they even really began? She never gave us a chance.

And if she thinks I’m going to roll over and accept her suggestion of only getting together on Wednesdays for the study, she must be out of her mind. After tomorrow, there’s only one week left. And then what? We never speak again?

That’s not happening.

If the thought of sex is what freaked her out so badly, we can dial back on that. I’m willing to wait her out as long as she needs. But what I’m not doing is having her keep avoiding me, giving me half-answers that only raise more questions.

I’m getting to the bottom of this.

Tonight.

“Thanks, man,” I tell him. “And good luck on Saturday.”

He nods, but for some reason, doesn’t seem too excited by the prospect. “You too.”

I clean up in the showers, putting on a fresh change of clothes after, and weigh my options. Texting and calling aren’t getting me anywhere. If I want to speak to her, I’ll have to force it. And the two most likely places she’d be are home or work. If I showed up at her workplace, where she can’t escape me… Yeah, that’d probably piss her off.

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