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Noah chuckles. “You’re in a good mood.”
“I am.” I pull my hoodie off and grab my shorts from my bag. “You guys are here early. Usually I’m all by my lonesome this early in the afternoon.”
Adão nods, downing the last of his pre-workout shake. “I had some flex time, figured I’d use it to get some extra time in on the bags today.”
“I finished up work early today too,” Noah says as he closes his locker door. “This close to fight time, I figured I’d get another workout in.”
“Good plan.” I nod, dropping my pants and pulling my shorts on. “Not long now, time to ramp it up.”
“Hell yeah. Looks like you and Ty have been working hard,” Adão says. “He’s doing alright?”
“Yeah, he’s great.” I smile, sitting on the bench and pulling my running shoes on. “Full body sparring and taking light hits to the side of the head in controlled drills.”
“That’s awesome.” Adão smiles. “Man, I couldn’t imagine coming back and getting ready for such an important fight so soon after a hit like that… That’s a lot of pressure. It would for sure get to me.”
“Really though,” Noah agrees. “He hasn’t had much time to recover from everything. He’s killing it.”
I nod, as he has been killing it. But that also gets me thinking about his mood last night and this morning. He stayed at the gym late last night, not getting to my place until almost an hour after I got home from hockey. He was quiet and withdrawn, which isn’t unusual, so I didn’t think anything of it. But actually, he almost seemed… sad. Maybe the pressure is getting to him more than he’s been letting on. He’s moving in the right direction, but knowing Ty, it’s never enough.
“It is a lot of pressure,” I say, standing up and slapping on a smile. “But we’re all going to kick ass.”
“Damn right,” Noah says and holds out a fist to bump.
We head out into the gym, and I push all the worrisome thoughts aside as I pull up an epic playlist and get lost to the music in my earbuds as I jog the track to warm up. But those thoughts return as Ty enters the gym while I’m stretching at the end of my run. He keeps his head down as he makes his way to the locker room, not lifting his eyes at all to look at anyone or anything. Not even me.
And when he exits the locker room in his black fight shorts and gray rash guard, he heads straight for the boxing ring, wrapping his hands as he goes. His eyes briefly find mine, then immediately fall back to his hands.
Oh great. This is going to be fun.
I grab my wraps from the bench and head over to join him at the side of the ring as he pulls his gloves on.
“Oh, hey there.” I smile at him tauntingly.
His eyes flick up to me, and he gives me a brief nod.
I huff out a breath of amusement. “And how was work today?”
“Good,” he mutters as he fastens the strap on his glove.
“Hm, informative.”
“Not today, Luca,” he sighs as he slides between the ropes.
Well, damn. All that work we’ve done to loosen him up, and we’re right back to tight-ass city.
“Alright…” I enter the ring after him, and I eye him as he moves to the middle of the ring.
He keeps his eyes cast down, and there’s a heavy presence about him. More than usual.
“Dude, what’s up?” I ask.
He shakes his head and takes a breath in. “Let’s start with jab-body kick-jab-cross.”
My brows lift in surprise. Any combos we’ve done so far have been isolated so that he can keep his guard tight. This is going to require him to shift his guard to block the kick and then lift it again, and honestly… I think he’s still too hesitant for it. “We’ve only done–”
“I know what we’ve only done,” he snaps. “Let’s do it.”
I bite my tongue so I don’t snap back at him. “You’re sure you can handle–”
