36. Sparring.

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"Zim! Can we please stop." Fatima let out an exasperated breath as she ducked to dodge my latest advance.

"Come on, you need to know how to defend yourself." I jabbed my gloved fist at her.

"But we've been at this for hours." She groaned.

"Square up." I said through gritted teeth.

The timer was set to go off in less than thirty minutes. This was the last sparring match for the day and I went easy on her yesterday. She was the one who saw me and Richard sparring and decided that she wanted to learn so here we were in my home gym with her busted lip and dried blood on her chin.

She sent a right hook but I was quicker than her and stepped aside to throw a soft blow to her stomach. She groaned as she stepped aside with her fist raised to her face just like Richard had taught her.

"Was Carter a good fighter?" She asked.

"Can we talk about this after?" I sighed inwardly.

"Or, you can just answer now." She smirked.

She knew she could question me and distract me and then the final minutes would tick by for the buzzer to sound and she would throw a victorious fist in the air for successfully evading the last few minutes of sparring. I was tired anyways so I gave in.

"She was better than the average fighter." I answered truthfully.

"But... she couldn't beat me." I smiled.

"Have you guys ever fought before? Like a real fight fight." She unstrapped her boxing gloves.

"Uhh..." my eyebrows knitted together as I thought about our encounter at her house.

"Damn.." Fatima laughed.

"See the thing is, things weren't so peaceful between Carter and I before she died." I admitted.

"I might've broke her door down one night from drunken rage and beat the shit out of her and the girl she was there with." I pushed my lips together.

"Jealousy?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Pft.. hardly." I rolled my eyes.

"Then?" she pressed.

"The girl was just caught in the crossfire, honestly." I laughed.

"At first, I thought she was just your best friend but then the more you talked about her the more I realized that you guys were together. Didn't want to assume you were into studs, plus I thought that was kind of weird." She nervously spilled the words.

"How?"

"It was only weird because I've never seen two studs together before so I didn't really understand but I've also realized that I don't care, to each his own." She smiled.

"You're a bright one, bud and again I'm queer." I threw my gloves at her chest.

She hung them on the hooks over the dumbbells and walked towards the door with me in tow. I saw our new helper, Charmaine, and smiled at her. I had asked her to make us sandwiches for after the workout session and even though Richard explained a few things to her she still did more than required so there she stood with a tray that held our homemade subs and two bottles of blue Gatorade.

"Charmaine, I told you that you could've left them in the kitchen." I took the tray from her.

"But Miss Zidania, it's my job." She pleaded.

"It's not, you'll get used to it." I softly shook my head not in the mood to explain.

I watched her scurry away and decided to go to my room to eat. I knew Fatima had walked away and was probably getting ready for a shower right now. I rested the tray on my bed and stripped kicking the clothes to the foot of my hamper. I preferred cold showers these days, they kept me alive and alert. I stood under the cascading water and willed my mind to not drift too far. The wedding was this weekend and I haven't seen nor heard from Kwashie since she stepped foot outside of the bar room last month. The days were flying by faster than I had hoped and I knew five years from now I will argue that this year was the fastest to blow over.

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