Below the Belt(66)

“You said your mom, she took you to boxing. Did your dad not agree?”

“He was gone by then. My biological dad, I mean.” His hand stilled in her hair, but he forced himself to continue, clogged throat and all. “He was in the Marine Corps, too. Did the cross-country team thing. Was all set to compete in the All Military games, when . . .” His lips felt a little numb, like they had the day the CACO guys showed up. “He and the cross country team had been out on a run. Sideswiped by a car going too fast. Several other guys were hurt, mostly minor stuff. Dad was the only one who died.”

Her head dropped to his chest, and he felt her lips press a long kiss to his skin, just above his heart. “I’m sorry. That sounds so inadequate, but—”

“It’s not.” He smoothed a hand over her hair. He didn’t want her thinking it haunted him day after day. “It was awful, and I’ll never forget the sounds my mom made when they told her. The way she just sort of . . . crumbled, and those two Marines in their dress blues kept her from hitting the ground. You can’t forget stuff like that, even if you’re only eight.”

“Eight,” she breathed, and hugged him a little tighter.

“Almost eight,” he qualified. “God, my brother was a baby. He doesn’t even remember Dad. I still think about that day on the few times I’ve had to put my dress blues on. It hurts. I actually cried when I tried them on to make sure they fit for the first time.”

“Oh, baby.” She held him tight, rocked a little, and pressed her face to the crook of his neck.

“They don’t wear the blues anymore for notifying family. It’s service alphas.” He lifted a hand to rub at the hollow of his breastbone. “The ache eases each time I put them on, though.”

She just linked her fingers with his over his chest. That silent connection encouraged him more than she could know.

“So, I guess, knowing I wasn’t going to be a runner—because that was my dad’s thing, and I wasn’t touching that—I went with something that I was good at. I inherited his endurance, apparently, but not his speed. So I went with boxing, because hitting things felt good by the time I was a teen. I was a bit of an angry shit.”

“I can’t imagine why,” she said dryly.

“I think most people assumed I was fine. I got through the initial pain of losing Dad without too many problems. Life went on. Mom married Bob—my stepdad, Sarah’s dad—and he was great. No transition problems there. I think if my dad could have handpicked a husband for my mom, he wouldn’t have done a better job.”

“That’s good. Lucky.”

“Very,” he agreed. “But as hormones kicked in, so did the anger. Despite having a really good guy for a father figure, I guess residual pain started showing up. So I channeled it in boxing. I was able to wear my opponent down, thanks to that endurance. I rarely get a knockout, but I’m usually the last one standing anyway. It’s just they get taken out by their own lack of energy.”

“Did you go into the Marines because of him?”

“Not really. The military is a decent fit for me, though eventually I’ll get out and do other things. I wouldn’t have chosen an entire career path based on making my dad proud.” He hesitated continuing from there.

“But the boxing team is different.”

“It is,” he admitted. “It feels like, by getting to the All Military games, I’m somehow fulfilling his dream for him. It’s my dream, too. I want it. I need it. But for him, I might just want it a little more than someone else. Maybe that sounds creepy—”

“I understand.” She rubbed her hand up and down his arm, from shoulder to wrist. “I think it’s nice, not creepy. I feel like I understand your dedication more now.”

“I’m not just some crazy guy who loves boxing?”

“Oh, you’re that, too.” She laughed when he poked her ribs, then they subsided until their breathing evened out, mellowed, and eventually aligned so that when he breathed in, she was breathing out. The pattern was so relaxing, his eyes drifted closed without him even realizing it. And he was close to drifting under, his hand sliding from her back down to his side, when she whispered, “I love you.”

It was all he had in him to not react, and to keep his breathing even. Because what was he going to say—I’m lying to you?

He could be honest and say he loved her, because he did. But an admission of love might only hurt her more if she found out about his going behind her back later.

Oh, what a tangled web you’ve woven, Costa.


*

BRAD sat on the floor of his room, working on the thigh strengthening exercises the physical therapist had shown him during his lunch break. It had been touch and go on being able to get out to the therapist’s office, put in a good forty-five minutes and make it back for the second practice, but he’d done it. And now he was freaking exhausted. He’d even told Marianne he wasn’t coming over tonight.

And that, if nothing else, said volumes about how fatigued he was.

His phone rang, and he checked the readout. His mother. He silenced it and set the screen facedown. Just what he didn’t need when he was feeling his lowest . . . his mother’s worrying nature kicking in and beating him into a guilty pulp.

Right after another fifteen-second leg lift, he let his right leg fall to the carpeted floor with a soft bounce. He could bench nearly two hundred pounds, squat close to four hundred . . . but lifting his own leg six inches off the ground while sitting straight up was killing him.