Page 27 of Love Punch

I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t stop thinking about how perilously close we’d come to something, something I desperately wanted—and sensed Bradley did too. I shoved the covers off and crept through my room, through the en-suite, and tested the door. It wasn’t locked.

I nudged the door open, peering into the room. Bradley lied in bed shirtless, staring up at the ceiling with his arms behind his head. As soon as he noticed the widening door, he looked at me. He looked almost pained.

“I want to talk,” I said gently.

“Why?”

“Because I think we left things in an awkward place, and I don’t want to. I’d rather you reject me outright.”

“I…I couldn’t reject you,” Bradley whispered. He looked so vulnerable. So much smaller than I’d ever known him to be.

“Can I join you?”

Bradley hesitated, but then moved his hands from behind his head and scooted over to one side of the bed. I closed the door behind me and felt my way through the darkness to the bed. I crawled in, feeling one of Bradley’s big arms loop around me to pull me closer. I kept my hips away from him. No way was an awkward boner going to ruin our heart-to-heart. Not yet anyway.

There was a long, painful silence before either of us spoke. With my head on his chest, I could feel the gentlethump-thump-thumpof his heart. “Why?” I asked him.

“Why what?” The thumping of his heart grew slightly louder, more frantic, like he was afraid of being questioned. I laid still until it calmed again.

“Why is now not the time? I don’t think I’m imagining things, Bradley. I think there’s something here between us, something that’s been growing for a long time. And I don’t know when our walls will have broken down enough to explore it. What do we have to do? Do I have to give up my job? Or do I have to give you time to settle into your retirement? Or would you rather that door remain closed.”

Bradley’s mouth was quiet, but his heart wasn’t. “You know I don’t find it easy to open up, right? Most of the time I’d rather hit something until I feel better. I understand the physical side of getting my aggression out. But I don’t know how the hell people talk about their feelings so much.”

“I’m always here to listen,” I implored. “Not everything can be solved with a broken punchbag.”

Bradley choked out a laugh, but it was humourless.. “That’s exactly it. I feel like a broken punchbag, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

I rested one hand on his chiselled stomach and waited for him to continue. I could recognise when to push him, and in that moment I just needed to wait.

“I went down,” he finally said. “Like a sack of shit. In my last fight, I went down to the canvas for the first time in my professional career.”

“Hecheated.You would’ve had him down in seconds if you wanted to.”

“Exactly. I was showing off, playing the crowd for my last fight. I wanted the attention, the praise. That’s not like me at all. I played up to the crowd and lost the fight because of it. He should’ve gone down in the first round.”

“I have to ask…what does this have to do with me? Withus?”

“Do you know what I was going to do after that fight?” Bradley asked me.

“Fly to the Maldives like I said you should?”

“I was going to tell you how I felt about you.” Bradley let the sentence hang in the air.

“What?” My voice was barely more than a whisper.

“You’ve been my assistant for the last three years. I’ve probably had feelings for you since your first month working for me. And losing made me…makesme feel like I’m not enough for you. I shouldn’t have lost. And because of that, I’ve lost you too.”

“You’ve not lost me, you silly prune.” I gave him a sad smile, even if he couldn’t see me. His hand came up to stroke the back of my head anyway. “So…you have feelings for me?”

“Don’t laugh. I know it sounds stupid,” he said. “Such a stereotype, falling for my assistant. Doesn’t matter now. I fucked up.”

“I’m really failing to see your logic here,” I tried. “I don’t see what the problem is.”

“It’s notthe plan!” said Bradley, voice raising more than I cared for. “I wanted to win. I wanted to show you that I could be there and be strong, go out on a high. Instead, I failed. And now…”

“Have you ever seenRocky?” I asked.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

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