Page 31 of Tell Me You Love Me

He scours my face with narrowed eyes and brows that pinch close together. Then he casts his ire toward Chris and does the same. “You made her feel big feelings.”

Chris chuckles, because hell, what else can a person do in these situations? “Unintentionally, I guess. I wasn’t trying to.” He takes a step back and dips his chin in farewell. “I’ll see you at class, alright?” But then he looks my way. “You remember Eliza Darling?”

“Little Eliza? Ollie’s sister?”

“Yeah, her.” He brings his hat up and sets it on his head. “She’s all grown now. Twenty-two and a killer fighter that’s already made a name for herself on the pro circuit.”

“Seriously?” She was a child the last time I saw her. With pigtails in herhair and stars in her eyes every time she looked at the Watkins boys. “She’s a fighter now? She, uh…” I clear my throat. “She spends a lot of time at the gym?”

Don’t say it, Alana. Don’t even fucking think it.

You lost that right a long time ago.

So I stare down at my shoes instead, shame washing through my veins. “Cool.”

“She runs most of the summer program with the kids. Tommy’s got his next big fight coming up at Christmas, which means we’ll be busy prepping him for that. So if you’re worried about coming to the gym to watch Franky train or whatever… if you think you’ll run into people you don’t wanna…”

“He means Tommy will be busy and not there, Mom.” So helpful. So logical. Franklin twines our fingers together and smiles up at me. “You can come watch me.”

“Okay…” Nerves are like ferocious wings beating in my stomach, pushing nausea up and common sense down. “Thanks.” I bring my eyes back to Chris. “I appreciate you letting me know.”

“And since noteverythinghas changed in the last decade—” He grabs the door handle and yanks it open, sending the bells into a frantic jingle that fills the shop. “I’ll have you know I saw that jealousy in your eyes, Alana Bette.” Finally, his lips curl into a playful grin. “Sure is interesting to me.”

“You’re not even gonna put me out of my misery, are you? Tell me what I want to know?”

“Nope. Besides, you’re a married woman.” He steps through the door, his chuckle rolling back on the breeze. “That kind of information isn’t really relevant anymore. Plus, you left me, too. And I’m not ready to forgive yet.”

“Bye, Chris.” Franky releases my hand and meanders toward the door. “See you at the gym.”

“Bye, Franklin Page. See you when I see you.”

ROUND TEN

TOMMY

“Circle and dip.” I swing out with my padded hand and skim the top of Eliza’s ponytail. And because she ducks—barely in the nick of time—I follow her around and drive my foot into her gut. Hard enough to steal the air from her lungs and push her back a half-dozen steps, but not so hard that either of us would consider it anything but training.

“You’re gassing out.” I swing again, but this time, I stop before wiping her out and knocking her head off her shoulders. “You wanna beat Chavez next month, but you’re slow as fuck and puffing like a fat sixty-year-old couch warrior.”

“It’s a hundred degrees in here.” She drops and swoops forward for the takedown, wrapping her arms around my torso and slamming her shoulder into my stomach. And because she’s quick with her foot, she sweeps it behind mine and uses our momentum to drive me into the mats. Fast as a viper, she scrambles over top of me and rains fists over my face.

Though I have my training pads to block every single strike.

“Not so slow now, am I?” She sets her hands on my chest and uses me to lift herself up, then slams down again and digs her knee into my ribs. “Not gassed. You’re just fresh, and I’m sparring after six hours in this oven.”

“You’d win more if you talked less.” I trap her hooked leg with mine and throw her to the side, crushing her to the mat and crowding her soshe has nowhere to go. No escape. No fucking chance. Not even a kid who spent her life inside a fight gym will beat a guy twice her size.

Not when he’s spent his life in the gym, too.

“You think Chavez is gonna gossip with you in the cage, Lizey-Lou?” I toss my pads and smack her ribs, bare-knuckle and just hard enough to elicit a grunt from the depths of her chest. “You think she won’t consider it her honor to shut your mouth with her foot?” I hit her again and hold on. She’s a bucking bull, trying to toss more than two hundred pounds off while frantically searching for fresh air. But we’re both sweaty and every time she tries, her grip slips. “You don’t turn up to that fight with your war face on, she’s gonna mop the floor with your pretty hair.”

“Aww. You think I’m pretty?” She twists and slams her elbow into the side of my neck, buying back a little of her defensive positioning and pulling her legs from mine. She circles my hips instead, locking her feet in and digging her heels into my back. “I just had it done at the salon.” She whacks me again, stabbing me in the throat with that bony elbow. “Spent six hours in the chair to look like this.”

“That doesn’t look appropriate.”

Stunned, I wrench my head up and lock eyes with a little boy whose smudged glasses can’t hide the way his pupils grow wide and his cheeks glow red. But it gets worse. So much fucking worse when I peek to his left and find his mother, her hand clamped over her mouth and her body already half turned back the other way.

Then I look down at a smiling Eliza, her chest heaving, her tits straining her sports bra, and her legs draped around my body in ways that can’t possibly look good.

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