The Grind

Chapter 18

The next specific Wednesday session seemed to be no different than the last, other than the building progress we were making. Tia and I had slowly, and very carefully started sparring a couple of weeks earlier, and my skill was greatly improving according to her, and the rest of the team. I had even very unintentionally paid Tia back for the purple shiner she gave me during the early stages of my training, by locking a very happen stance successful arm bar, making her tap. I'm still not sure between the two of us who was more baffled at the turn of events. The instant growl of defeat from her chest quickly erased when she'd squeezed my head in her hands and smashed a hard pressed kiss to my forehead saying, she had "created a fucking monster."

That evening I was huddled alone in the quiet corner of the gym, left to tend to the speed bag so Tia could focus on her own training with Willow. She had booked a match with a very talked about newcomer here in town, so she needed to buckle down, and plant more of her focus on her own drills. It only made sense that I slide to the backburner, this was her career after all. I was still the desk jockey turned wannabe martial artist, after all.

The glass, arched ceilings at the temple perfectly displayed the peach sky summer sunsets at night when I came in to work out after leaving the office, and tonight was exceptionally spellbinding. The mellow, fading clouds painted a haze amongst the hot pinks of the setting sun, tearing my focus from the current task at hand. I knelt to the floor grasping the already sweat damped towel, to dry the trickling perspiration from my weary eyes, when a distinctly gruff accent paralyzed my further movements.

"Liv?...." the man hesitated meekly. There could've been 3,000 people in one room calling my name out in harmony, and that particular voice would've rang out to me like church bells, silencing all the rest.

I dropped the ratty cloth from my white knuckles, my breaths hitched terrified as I rolled on my heels to face the approaching footsteps. That face, now more matured in all the best ways. Had it been that long? The very noticeable changes suited him in tremendous manner, paired with his still very exceptional fighters physique. Thick gray track shorts situated low on his hips, topped with a "Mac's Gym" t-shirt now turned tank top courtesy of his kitchen scissors. A frayed duffle slung easily over his shoulder, and a weathered Pirates hat laid rear facing on his head. I noticed the longer hair that now winged out beneath the confines of that ball cap, and a beard had sprouted around his pretty, pink lips.

There were a few new inky additions that I couldn't make out from the distance, but his skin was now slightly more drawn on than before. He was Webster's pictorial definition of female arousal. I'm not sure how many seconds, or maybe even minutes passed before I was able to piece together a choppy response, but before I could speak, he did again.

"Wha-what are you doing here?"

"I uh, I'm just here with a friend. She's in the ring there, the little brunette one." I gestured to Tia across the room, who was too preoccupied to notice who had joined us in the room. "She's just, um, getting me back into shape a little." I wasn't quite ready to explain fully to him what I was truthfully doing there. I wasn't even convinced yet I wanted to even speak period.

I tensely angled my head to the floor to escape his festering gazes, when I caught a horrified glimpse of the shirt over my torso. It was his. The shabby, heather gray Pitt t-shirt of his that I had never given back, now cut to graze just above my exposed, taut bellybutton. I screwed my eyes shut in ruthless mortification, knowing there was no way the cloth hadn't stuck out to him like a very familiar sore thumb.

Of all days to choose this shirt, Liv. OF ALL DAYS.

He began to saunter very gently closer to me, proceeding with necessary caution, his bottom lip bitten between his teeth, now hidden behind the lengthy whiskers.