Page 48 of Pulse
Chapter 16
Ren
My entire body still seared with the memory of my kiss with Ash.
He tasted like I remembered, he tasted like something wild...
I hadn’t seen anyone at Beat for at least two weeks while I was off trying to find myself again, but I’d walked in last night with my head full of Ash and Josie had been waiting for me. She was keen on a status update, and she chewed me out for not telling her that I’d dropped out of the AUFC. I hadn’t told anyone but Dad and the league, I hadn’t even told Ash. That was another conversation that was still on the horizon.
The Twins were disappointed that I wasn’t going to Sydney with them, but they had their hands full with their own training and promo. Josie, too. I hadn’t thought once about what I’d left behind while spending time with Ash. And Monica…I especially hadn’t thought about her.
Yesterday when Ash told me about that night…it had been a revelation, but it had also shifted something inside him. The floodgates were open and he was talking with me, something he found incredibly hard to do, but now he seemed to want to tell me everything.
The trust that had ignited between us since I came to see him that first day made my heart swell. There was a lot of hope for a future where we were together.
We were back in the gym, back in the place that we were most comfortable, going for what felt like round two. I wondered what we’d talk about today and a small, selfish part of me wondered if we would kiss again. I really liked kissing him...
“We’ll work on your sparring today,” Ash said and I tried not to flinch. I had to tell him that I wasn’t going to Sydney. He pulled a pair of focus pads onto his hands and clapped them together. “Assume the position.” He smiled at me and I couldn’t do it. He hadn’t smiled a lot since I came back and I found myself wanting to keep it there for a long as I could.
I flexed my fingers in my gloves and put up my guard. I went through a few repetitions to warm up and he caught all my punches with ease.
“Is it my turn to tell you a story?” I asked before punching again.
“If you want.”
“I don’t know what else I can tell you about,” I replied. “I was pretty boring as a kid.”
“Not boring,” Ash said as he caught another flurry of punches. “Just responsible.”
“And that’s not boring?” I asked with a laugh.
“Maybe to a kid it is.”
“How about you tell me something?” I punched again, trying not to lose my momentum.
“Like what?”
I thought for a moment, dropping my fists. “How did you find Beat?”
Ash smiled again and gestured for me to put my fists back up. “I’ll tell you while you beat the shit out of me.”
“Sounds good to me.”
I resumed sparring, focusing on my body positions as Ash started his story. I couldn’t say that I hadn’t wondered what he was like back then. He and my dad had been pretty close for a while there. Ash respected him a great deal and I hadn’t really understood where it’d come from. It was a different respect than I had for the man.
“Well,” Ash began, “I was fifteen and on my third school for the year. I’d been kicked out of the last one for fighting and I was being hounded by the tough kids about it, so that day I decided to wag.” He raised his hand as I punched, the slap echoing through the gym. “It was a crappy public high school in Coburg, the only one that would take me, so I could sneak out and onto the train no problems. They didn’t give a shit 'cosmost of the kids that went there were bad news. I reckon the teachers had a gutful of dealing with a bunch of shitheads, so they turned a blind eye to a lot of stuff.”
I went through another repetition before saying, “Sounds like the school I went to out west.”
“That school is another story entirely,” he said, grimacing. “I was wandering Sydney Road when I went down a random side street. I remember seeing Beat and wondering what it was. The roller door was open and all I could hear was a bunch of dudes punching the shit outta each other.”
I smiled, remembering the first day I’d turned up to Beat. It’d been much the same.
