The Aftermath (The Hurricane, #2)(60)
“Happy to,” he answered, licking sauce from his fingers as the soggy meal started disintegrating into his hands.
“What about your shifts at Daisy’s?” I asked her.
“I’m going to ask Mike and Rhona to share my shifts between the other waitresses until the fight is over,” she answered.
“Honey, he wins this fight, you won’t ever need to waitress again. You could be a kept woman,” Earnshaw said. He grinned, oblivious to the slashing across the throat gestures Kieran and Tommy were making, telling him to quit it.
My little hellion turned to him, her hands on those cute-arse hips of hers and informed him, quite matter-of-factly, that she had no interest in being any such thing. “Besides, we don’t abandon out friends. Mike and Rhona have been good to me. I’ll keep waitressing as long as it takes them to find a replacement, even if we don’t need the money.”
“Em never thought too seriously about what I could potentially earn in the future. We never had anything, and we were doing just fine. If Earnshaw made a little money for us from sponsorship, so much the better. But it wouldn’t change who we were, and I f*cking loved that.
“What do we do about Frank?” Tommy asked. “He ain’t just gonna disappear ’cause Con gave him a scare.”
“Keep your eyes peeled,” Danny replied. “If you see him, take a picture on your phone, or make a note of the date and time. I called the copper this morning who helped us find Em. He’s one of the good guys and would love to nail Frank to the wall. Don’t think he’s a big lover of dirty coppers either. So as of now, he’s putting together a harassment case so we can try and get a restraining order. Everything goes to him.” We nodded in agreement, the boys too busy stuffing their faces to say much.
“Well if that’s decided, then you’d best get your lazy arses out into that gym and do some work. Con, you’re a feckin’ long way from where you need to be, and we’ve practically no time to get you there. So what are you waiting for, feckin’ Christmas? Get to work,” Danny barked. Leaning around him to give Em a quick kiss before he slapped me, I legged it to get changed. I was hungry like I’d never been hungry before, and today was a brand-new day.
Chapter 22
I was doing one-handed press-ups when the iconic trumpets sounded from the speakers of the gym. Some of the other kids had stopped at the music, but hearing what it was, they laughed and carried on training, only harder. I smiled at them. You couldn’t help it. “Flying High Now” was f*cking electric because it made you root for the underdog. Made you think you could do just about anything if you worked hard and were focused enough.
Danny rolled his eyes and took a deep drag on his cigarette before barking out my numbers, “Seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty.” When I got to one hundred, I switched arms. Danny was working me harder than I’d ever been worked in my entire life, and I loved it. My body loved it. My days ended with a sparring session with Earnshaw. Fucker was getting quicker, but honestly? He couldn’t touch me now. I was the wind. Faster than anyone would believe in a guy my size. I was Ali, I was Tyson, I was Foreman. I was all of the greats, and it made me invincible. There was no one who stood a chance in the ring with me, not even Kieran who was the best sparring partner I’d ever had.
Danny had taken training back to basics, and it was working. Balaam Leisure Center got wind of the fight, and they let me use the pool for an hour every day between their swimming classes. The only condition was that the local kids, although they weren’t allowed in the pool with me, got to watch me do laps. I f*cking loved that part of my day. I might have been Irish but I was local and doing something to better myself, and that made me their hero. Those kids worked me harder than Danny ever did. Eventually he gave up giving me orders and let the kids do it. They’d shout at me to go faster for just one more lap. Afterward I ran back to the gym through Canning Town Recreation Ground, and they almost always followed me. A few on the first day and more and more with each day that passed. The older ones ran but the younger ones came on their bikes. Rico Temple couldn’t possibly have anything near the f*ckin’ buzz those kids gave me. And people got behind it. The shopkeepers and street cleaners just opening up and doing their jobs knew me from my morning run. Commuters using the railway bridge began to say hello to me on their way home from work. Even the kids from the pool attracted other kids and they hung around outside the gym, often watching me run. Canning Town was a community, and I was their adopted son.
In the afternoons came more bag and leg work. Technique, core training, they were all things we worked on, but in very different ways. While Temple would have used complicated machines, I bench-pressed Em again, which the lads at the gym always seemed to enjoy, and when Danny was grilling me pretty hard about not lifting fast enough, I put her down and used Danny instead, which had the boys in hysterics.
“Put me down, you feckin’ eejit. Right Feckin now!” he screamed at me. After two presses, I did as he asked, then legged it around the gym as he chased me. For an old f*cker, he sure was fast. I felt powerful and motivated in the same way I had after I’d walked Em home that first night. Like I could take on the world. Knowing that she was in the office next to me was like always training with your talisman. She worked so f*cking hard. Harder than I ever could with all that book-learning stuff. Danny even let Nikki, Ryan, and Albie use the office to study instead of the library. Kieran lent her his laptop as well. Everything the guys could do to make her comfortable, they did. Mary even caught wind of what we were all doing and kept the baked goods in steady supply.