Fight For You

Chapter 20

It had been a few days since we'd destroyed El Lobo's gym and I hadn't even seen it in the papers. No one gave a rat's ass about some gym in the ghetto and even though I lost to El Lobo, Malfoy had already scheduled me for another fight. I didn't care about getting back in the cage but I needed something to blow off some steam, to take care of the rage that I couldn't keep taking out on my apartment.

Coach stood in the ring with me, his mitts on, while I bounced around him and listened to his instructions. "Glad you're finally listening to me, Nicky, instead of being a stubborn ass."

I landed a swift kick to his right hand. "Yeah, yeah. Give me some time and I'll go back to my old ways."

He shook his head and kept his hands up while I took a few jabs. "Shame about Martinez's gym though, ain't it? His coach called and asked if he could practice here. I said it shouldn't be a problem."

I stopped mid-punch, my breath catching in my throat. "What?"

Coach raised his eyebrows. "Is that a problem?"

Of course it was a fucking problem. I'd burned his place down so I wouldn't have to deal with the fucker, not have him invading on my home turf. I swallowed hard, trying to think of the right thing to say. But I didn't have anything to say at all. I was completely at a loss for words.

"Look, the kid has no place to go. He just wants to be able to fight. We can go anywhere else in this town and practice. Hell, you have a gym in your own freaking condo that we can work at if we really wanted to. You don't need this place."

"That's not the point! This is my gym. It always has been. He can go somewhere else. This is just his way of trying to take what's mine and act like he's won." I slammed my hand into his mitt and Coach stumbled back, his eyes wide.

He lurched forward, throwing the mitts down on the ground and stopped when his forehead was barely an inch from mine. His brow was furrowed and his lips were sneered. "You want to show him who has the bigger set of balls or show him that you have some dominance over this piece of shit little gym? Get off your fucking high horse for once and thinking about somebody other than yourself."

I blinked hard and swallowed. How the fuck could he say that? I had been thinking about everyone but me. My famiglia and what was best for them. I needed to show El Lobo who was boss and letting him shit on me was not the best way to do it. "That's not it. You're acting like I'm being a fucking pansy about this. It's about me versus him. He's just doing this to try and get to us."

"I know that loss was hard on you, Nick, but you can't let it get you down forever. Man up for once."

The anger surged in me. I wanted to hit something. "I've had a lot of shit going on these past few weeks, you know that, and this is just the fucking icing on the cake."

"You know, Nick, there was a saying that my old boxing coach used to say to me about fighting. 'The world is a war and this is just another battle.'" He stared off toward the brick wall behind me.

"Are you trying to tell me that we're at war with the other fighters like El Lobo?" I raised an eyebrow because that was exactly what was going through my mind.

He shook his head and sighed. "Life is one giant war, Nicky. We're all fighters in it. And once a fighter understands that he's not out there fighting the other guy, but actually fighting himself, that's when a fighter becomes unstoppable."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I was done with his metaphorical bullshit. I needed answers before destroyed something.

Coach stepped back and grabbed the mitts off the floor. Then he stepped out of the ring. "I'm going home. Call me when you're ready to stop acting like a spoiled little shit and actually practice."