Page 84 of Until We're More
“I’ll think about it,” I said, since it might give me five minutes off from her talking about Chelsea. I ached all the time, no matter what I did, an internal ache that had nothing to do with my gruesome workouts. And gruesome had taken on a new extreme meaning this past week—again and again, I pushed my body to the brink, where survival instincts took over and my brain didn’t have the option of thinking about anything but how to keep myself alive.
Even though I’d promised as asked, Brooklyn’s shoulders deflated, so apparently my poker face was as shit as the rest of my life. “I give up,” she said. “The reports are in Dad’s office. I was going to have Chelsea help me with advertising for the new class, but now I feel like I can’t do that. Actually, I feel like I can’t even talk to her at all now, which sucks. Do you know how many girlfriends I have?” My sister showed more emotion than the rest of our family, but she was still on the stoic side, so when her eyes went glossy and her voice cracked, I realized how invested she’d become. “You’re not the only one who’s losing her.”
That hit harder than her fists ever could. “You can still call her—I’m sure she’ll talk to you. If you see her before she leaves…” My throat tightened. “Just tell her good luck on her new job.”
Brooklyn threw up her hands in exasperation and stormed out of the cage, slamming the door behind her.
I lifted my fists under my eyes, beyond ready to get on with my workout, only Finn didn’t lift his arms.
“Sometimes girls are a distraction, but when the right one comes along, it’s more of a distraction to not be with her. Just look at Tautolo and how hard a time we’ve had getting him to focus since he arrived—all he keeps talking about is his girlfriend in L.A. Shane was the same way when he and Brooklyn were apart. And even you, the immovable Liam Roth, have a weakness. Her name is Chelsea, and without her, you’re all bark, no heart. And you need heart to be the best fighter. To win a belt.”
I clenched my jaw against the flow of overwhelming emotions that rushed through me at her name. “Like I said before, it’s not about me and what I want.”
The door to the cage opened with a squeal, and Dad stepped inside. “How about I take over striking drills for a bit?”
Finn handed him the gloves, and I was glad. At least Dad would focus on my training, and that alone.
By the time he and I finished an hour-long training session, the gym had mostly cleared out. Instead of retreating to his office, Dad sat on one of the chairs along the wall and patted the seat next to him. “Confession time. I heard your brother and sister talking to you about Chelsea. What happened?”
“She got a job offer—a big promotion back in Colorado. You know how it is. Being a fighter is a time-consuming, selfish job, and when it comes down to it, I can’t give her what she wants—what she needs. You said yourself that you hung on to Mom when you should’ve let go. How you tried to have the best of both worlds, and it didn’t work.”
“I made a lot of mistakes. Not giving more of myself to my family definitely tops the list, and to be honest, it was more like trying to have the best of three or four worlds at once. But you’re not like me, Liam.”
For a long time I’d tried to convince myself I could be different, but there’d been a lot of evenings lately when I’d sat in the chair Dad used to occupy, mumbling about facts and figures and the exact same things he always did. I thought about the night I’d missed Chelsea’s celebration for the gym, and how I always managed to say the wrong things. “I am.”
“In some ways. Fighting style. Ridiculously good looks”—he gave a self-deprecating laugh, and then his expression sobered—“stubbornness. Perhaps not the greatest with expressing the way we feel. But you’ve never gotten caught up in the fame. You kill yourself taking care of everyone and everything, sometimes to the detriment of yourself.”
“No, that’s what Chelsea does.” Saying her name aloud stung, but it also brought a smile to my face. “She’s got the biggest heart, and she thinks about other people before she thinks about herself.”
“Then you two have that in common.”
Hardly, I automatically thought, but maybe in some ways we both occasionally forgot ourselves in the flurry of what everyone else needed. That was why it was so nice when I was with her. She replenished me with her words, smiles, and that amazing laugh of hers, and it made me want to ensure she was taken care of the same way she took care of everyone else. Only she was always trying to take care of me. By bringing me food when I worked late and trying to wait up for me, no matter how exhausted she was. Sending me those weird-ass pictures to cheer me up. By asking me about things at the gym and forcing me to take a break when I hit my limit.
Like a scab that’d been ripped off, the wound bled again, and once it started, it was nearly impossible to stop.
“Now you’re throwing it away,” Dad said.
It took me a couple seconds to shove aside my emotions enough to talk evenly. “You always say girls come and go but belts are forever.” I didn’t believe it, but I’d been doing my damnedest to convince myself of it. “The gym needs me to win, too, Dad. All those times you worried she was a distraction, and occasionally, she was. Especially once we crossed into more. My focus shifted, and then when I tried to shift back, I was neglecting her. She deserves more than sitting on the sidelines. This is a rough world to be part of. I don’t want it to beat her up, the way it did Mom.”
“Ah.” Dad sighed. “Your mom had no idea what she was in for. We were young and naive, and as much as I loved her, I didn’t have a clue how much effort it took to make a relationship work. She needed a lot of reassurance and attention and affection or she completely fell apart, and I hadn’t a clue on how to handle it, so I just…didn’t. Not only does Chelsea realize what being part of this world entails, she’s strong. That girl can hold her own.”
“I know. Of course I know.”
“And girls like her don’t come and go. They come along maybe once in a lifetime.”
“I know that, too.”
Dad furrowed his brow, and in all my years of making plenty of mistakes, he’d never looked at me like I was so clueless and beyond help before. “Then why the hell did you let her go?”
I rubbed my fingers to my forehead, pressing against the oncoming headache. “I didn’t want her to give up her dream.”
“Fine. So figure out how to fight for herandher dream.”
I slowly lifted my eyes to his. “What if that means I have to move halfway across the country?”
“Then you move.”
If I hadn’t been sitting down, that would’ve knocked me on my ass. “But the gym? Everything you’ve built? I’m working to carry on your legacy, and we’re just starting to make progress. I know you can’t afford for me to leave right now.”
