Below the Belt(7)

And where his dumbass mind would stop, Brad didn’t know. Jesus. Daydreaming about a woman when he should have been giving every brain cell to the task at hand, no matter how mindless.

He blanked her out—blanked it all out—and put his energy into completing the sprint drill in the fastest time he could. His best hope now was to wow the coaches with his speed and commitment so they would forget about his momentary lapse.

He hit the ninth lap strong, pleased with his time, barely winded, when, on the seventh stair up, it happened in slow motion. His brain registered the sickening sound of pops from his right knee, followed by a grinding sensation from under the kneecap that instantly made him nauseous. Brad grabbed for the railing before he pitched face-first into the concrete step and busted something.

Easing his butt to the step below, he stretched his right leg out fully. It clicked. Fucking clicked. He bent it to ninety degrees. A dull sort of pain radiated out from his knee, sharpening like ripping teeth when he straightened it again.

The hiss of breath he sucked in echoed in the steel-and-concrete staircase. He was alone, so at least that cut out the embarrassment of looking like a weakling.

Come on, work, dammit.

He bent the knee, straightened it out, bent it again. Then he slowly stood and tested the supporting weight.

No collapsing, no absolute brain-numbing pain. Just a dull ache. So, maybe he twisted it. Easy enough to push through. He walked up two steps and sucked in a breath again as the sharp pain hit. Okay. That wasn’t going to cut it.

But what the hell else was he going to do? Move into the stairwell like a hobo? Screwing his eyes closed, he evaluated the two possibilities. Quit, or push on.

No contest.

He swallowed the nausea as he half walked, half jogged up the stairs to finish out the ninth lap. He’d lost almost all his edge in time, but as he jogged across the top of the catwalk, nobody seemed to notice he’d been missing from sight longer than normal. He kicked up the speed a little when he caught Higgs glancing upward, and gritted his teeth against the grinding feeling.

That couldn’t be good. But damn if he’d let any of his teammates see his weakness. Not yet. They weren’t a fully formed team, which made them opponents as much as a team. Boxing was tricky that way.

Sweat dripped from the back of his neck as he finished out his final lap, the pain causing every step to feel like twenty. So great, now he looked like an out-of-shape *. But probably better that than to get cut immediately with an injury.

Not that it was that bad. As he walked across the hardwood floor toward the large orange jug, he shook out the leg a little, making it seem like a normal stretch in case anyone walked back into the gym. There was no grinding pain now. Just a dull throb, like a toothache, and completely manageable. If this was how it would feel most of the time, it would be no issue.

Still, he’d use ice and heat after practice to be safe. He wasn’t a complete moron.

“Costa!”

His hand crunched around the paper cup he’d glugged water from. “Coach Cartwright.”

The wiry man who looked like a stiff breeze would send him out to sea paced up. He had a wispy-thin voice to match. “Finished with your punishment?”

“Yes, Coach.”

“Good. Go hit the weight room. Coach Ace is in there getting measurements and sizing up weight classes.”

“Yes, Coach,” he repeated, tossing the cup into the trash before jogging lightly across the gym toward the interior weight room.

As he pushed open the door, he found a long line of Marines ahead of him, with Coach Ace standing in the corner by a scale. He stepped up behind his roommate and another Marine, who were chatting.

Higgs turned and gave him a funny look. “Where’ve you been?”

“Conditioning,” he said easily. No need to mention it was a punishment.

Higgs just shrugged, then tilted his head to the left. His blond hair was soaking with sweat, darkening it to a golden brown. “Have you met Graham Sweeney?”

Of course he hadn’t. It wasn’t social hour at the O Club, for criss sake. But he held out a hand to the man standing beside Higgs. “Hey, man.”

Sweeney smiled easily. His darker, olive complexion and thick black hair made Brad think of Tuscan landscapes rather than a smelly, sweat-soaked gym room. “Hey. I was just telling Higgs here, I’m at my home base, so I’ve got a house out the back gate in Hubert. If you guys ever get sick of the BOQ or base food, come on by. We’ll toss a few steaks on the grill and relax a little.”

“Yeah, thanks, man. Sounds good.” The offer was decent, but he wouldn’t be taking him up on it anytime soon. He had enough to think about without adding budding bro-ships to it.

“We were just saying, too bad about Ramsey,” Higgs said with a shake of his head. “Disgusting luck. I thought he looked good in warm-ups.”

Brad thought hard and came up with a foggy impression of a built guy with gym-rat muscles and a semipermanent mean sneer. “What happened?” How much had he missed in ten dang minutes?

“Dislocated his shoulder using the bag.” Sweeney grimaced. “Showing off, looked like to me. He’s done. Went out fighting, though.”

“It wasn’t pretty,” Higgs agreed. “I could hear him in the training room, even through the door. He was screaming at the hot trainer like she was ruining his life. Though I think it was the coach’s final word, not hers, that put the fork in him.”