Takedown Teague (Caged #1)(44)

“You can handle it,” she said. “You need to move up. You let that little shit get in too many hits Tuesday night. Need to pump you up a bit.”

I lost count of the sets as I closed my eyes and forced myself into that place in my brain that didn’t recognize pain. Before too long, the spotter was taking the bar from me and smiling a nearly toothless grin.

“You’re getting there!” he told me.

I rolled my eyes and sat up, rubbing at my shoulders.

“Let’s weigh you.” Yolanda led me over to the scales. I rolled my shoulders a couple of times as I stepped up on the scale and watched the digital display crawl up. “Two-oh-four-point-seven.”

“All good, despite breakfast,” I said with a grin.

“Breakfast?”

“Pancakes.”

“She cooks, huh?”

I nodded.

“You stay away from carbs on fight nights.” Yolanda scolded me, wagging a finger in my face. “Load up only the night before. Take it easy the rest of the day—protein and water only. I want you ready to kick ass come ten o’clock, not dragged down by pancakes.”

I ignored her and started to head for the showers in the lower part of the gym. She followed like the kinky f*ck she was. The room was totally concrete and used to be for fighters when the gym was dedicated to boxing matches. There wasn’t much to it, just a few shower spigots along one wall and some rusted lockers on the other. I looked over my head at the retro sign hanging on the post next to the wall. It read “Boxers and Mgrs only—All others keep out.”

“Are you my manager now?”

I took a big swig from my bottle of water, which dribbled down my chin and cooled my neck. I took a few deep breaths to relax myself and then began to pull the tape from my hands. Once that was done, I was ready for a shower. Yolanda stood there watching me while I dropped my clothes to the ground.

“Why don’t you just tell me you like her?” Yolanda asked. “Or are you refusing to tell yourself?”

I flipped the shower up to warm and stepped into the stream.

“I told you—it isn’t like that.”

“What is it like, then?”

I turned my face into the water, then stepped back and shook droplets from my hair. Ultimately, I didn’t want to talk about this, but I also knew my pit-bull-like trainer wasn’t going to loosen her grip. I ended up yelling over the noise from the water as I lathered up.

“She thinks of me like I’m her big brother, you know? I’m just trying to help her out. She’s never lived in a city before; she doesn’t know anyone, and she’s all on her own. She doesn’t need my shit complicating her life.”

“So you figure you’d invite her to live with you.”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” I admitted. I rinsed, shut the water off, and grabbed one of the towels in a stack next to the shower. “She was going to move back home—quit school and everything. I didn’t want her to have to do that.”

I rubbed a towel over my head and then shook out my hair again. Inside my gym bag were clean boxers and a T-shirt, which I pulled on quickly as the chilled air began to permeate my skin. I was going to have to turn the heat on this weekend; I was sure of it.

“Holy shit,” Yolanda muttered under her breath. She leaned heavily on the door frame and shook her head slowly. “You have no f*cking clue, do you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You want her.”

“It’s not like that,” I repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. I shook my head again. “I told you. She just needed a little help, and I—”

“Went all ‘big brother’ on her.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Except ‘big brother’ wants to f*ck ‘little sister.’”

“Nice,” I growled up at her. I yanked on my jeans and tennis shoes before I sat back down and started shoving stuff back into the bag at my feet. I moved my knees apart and leaned over so I could zip it all up.

“You won’t even admit it.” Yolanda continued to push.

I sighed and leaned back to look up at my trainer and friend.

“For the final f*cking time, Yolanda,” I said, “it is not like that with us. It shouldn’t be like that for her anyway.”

“Like what?” Yolanda asked. She tilted her head to one side and waited for me to give her a better answer. I thought it was f*cking obvious.

“What she needs is not what I have to offer,” I said. “Even if she were interested in me, she wouldn’t be interested in the dead-end life around here. She’s in school, trying to make something of herself. She’s a transient. She’s not looking for a f*ck buddy, and I’d never get involved with someone seriously, so what difference does it make?”

Yolanda seemed to think about that for a minute before she took a couple of swift steps closer to me, kicked the bag out of the way, and stood right between my legs. She shoved at my shoulder until I was sitting upright again. With her standing and me sitting, she was just slightly above my eye level.

“Look at me!” she said sharply. Like I usually did when it came to her barking, I obeyed immediately. “You look at me and tell me you aren’t into her. Tell me you don’t want to be f*cking her like a goddamn stud bull. Say if given the chance, you wouldn’t take her in a heartbeat. Tell me her cooking f*cking pancakes didn’t make you hard as hell. Go ahead. I dare you.”