KNOCK OUT [LH]

Chapter 5: Push It To The Limit

"YOU'RE GOING BACK?!"

"Mr. Hood!" Our English teacher, Mrs. Smith shouts, lowering her cat-eye spectacles to glare at Calum from her desk, as she captures the attention of the rest of the class. "Please hold your disruptive outbursts until the end of class."

A few snickers are heard from around the room and Calum's cheeks flush in embarrassment before he lifts the copy of Romeo and Juliet we were supposed to be reading silently, over his face.

"Sorry." He apologizes, hidden behind the cover.

"And feet off of the desk Ms. Turner, this is a classroom not your living room." Mrs. Smith scolds, and I scramble to straighten out before she goes back to grading papers, and our classmates return to reading.

It's been exactly one week and three days since Luke Hemmings' nose busting match, and now that I've finally met the boxer, I'm itching to launch into the second part of the plan--the trust and relationship building phase, which requires "running into" him again.

In the boxer fanfics I've read, after the main character and the boxer meet at the match, they happen to run into each other a few days later--by accident. Obviously it would be ideal to actually run into Luke Hemmings somewhere in town, but this isn't an actual FanFiction, so I can't bank on that happening. This means organizing the run-in is up to me.

"Why are you going back?!" Calum whispers from behind his book as I pretend to read my own. "He literally tried to pull you out of his car."

"Key word, tried." I emphasize, but still cringe at the terrifying memory of the angry boxer yanking on my leg. I do have to take some of the blame though, I was the one to provoke him.

So no hard feelings, I'd say.

"I'm not going to The Rumble for a fight, I'm going to use the gym." I explain, licking the pad of my thumb to turn a page, but Calum drops his book a few inches to give me a look.

"You hate exercise, Win." He points out, and I scoff at his comment.

"I do not hate exercise." I argue, but Calum tilts his head, doubtfully raising a brow at me, and I instantly cave. "Okay, maybe I hate exercise, but I need to initiate my second encounter with Luke, and he's training today so..."

"And you know this because?" Calum asks, going back to aimlessly scanning the pages of Romeo and Juliet.

"I may have taken a peek at the training schedule posted in the back when we split up after his match." I rush out, watching Calum's eyes freeze in place before they roll.

"Of course you did."

Since running from the police, Calum has become more convinced that our new project is a bad idea; telling him how my ride home with the short-tempered boxer went didn't seem to help either. But lucky for us, I wasn't planning to attend another match anytime soon, and that seemed to ease Calum's concerns a bit.

"You're hanging out with Michael today, right?" I ask Calum, flipping another page of my book.

"Yep." He nods, and I can see a flicker of excitement in his eyes. "Turns out he plays guitar, so I'm bringing my bass over to his for a jam sesh."

"Sounds dope, Cal." I smile, nudging his arm. "See this plan isn't that bad, you finally have a musically gifted person to hangout with."

Using Michael Clifford as our insider has turned out way better than I thought it would. Not only was he friends with two of The Rumble's best boxers, Luke Hemmings and Ashton Irwin, but he and Calum also seemed to get along quite well; which is great for Calum, since he's always looking for someone to jam with.