Page 1 of Keep Your Guard Up
Chapter 1
Mari
“We don’t need another coach though, Nan,” I whined. “We go through this every year, and we always end up getting rid of them anyways.”
I set the cuppa in front of Nan and shook her sugar packet. I’d brought in her favourite mug from home the minute we moved in closer to the gym. She never took it back with her, only drank out of it here when she came to visit each morning.
“Thank you, dear,” she said, stirring the sugar I’d poured. “Al wants to retire, Mari.”
I fought the urge to scoff and roll my eyes, as it would definitely not impress present company.
“Al says that every year. And as soon as we get someone in, he’s all, ‘No one can do it right like me,yada, yada, yada’.” My voice lowered a few octaves, and I poured some cold water into my black coffee before switching the kettle off at the wall. It was here when Al had arrived in Soggla, according to him, and liked to steam itself four to five times a day. But Al had an odd sentimental tie to it, so no one was allowed to get rid of it.
Even when it had rattled itself so hard it tipped over, spilling scalding hot watereverywhere.
Nonetheless, Allen Burke was one of Australia’s best mixed martial arts coaches. With a professional record completely clean of defeats, Al had brought MMA to Soggla. He’s the sole reason why our tin-shed gym, in a small,smalltown, had a name for itself. There hadn’t been, and still wasn’t, much here in Soggla—justThe Allen Burke.
He had been my father’s first coach, mine, andhundredsof other successful fighters’. Al and my dad had opened Knock’s Mixed Martial Arts five years after my mother passed, taking over the financially failing gym they had both been spending their days at. My dad, the famous Elijah Trevino, had been at the peak of his career, meaning I spent a lot of time with my grandmother. His reign as champion in the light heavyweight division of the Ultimate Fight League was second to none. Though there were rumours if he hadn’t retired when he did, he would have soon been inducted into the UFL Hall of Fame.
Elijah Trevino, the champion fighter, lives on in this gym. Who my father was to the people watching the big screen; the kids with his poster in their room; the screaming fans in the stadium—his legacy remained in Knock’s. But that was what lasted. Elijah Trevino the fighter, not Elijah Trevino the single father to a young girl.
“I know he does; he cares about this place too damn much to hand the ropes over to some stranger,” Nan replied. “I told him if he wanted to retire, he had to find his own replacement.”
This time I couldn’t help but chuckle. “So, in other words, Al’ll be here until the day he dies, and then some.”
Nan pursed her lips and smirked as she lifted her mug to her red-stained lips.
“He’s comin’ in on Monday.”
~
It took a solid five minutes for me to pick my jaw up off the floor. Al retiring was a conversation we’d had many times over the last few years, sure.
But now?
He had a replacementalready?
“Who is it?” I asked, taking a long sip of my coffee.
Soggla was a small town, four hours inland from the Harbour and with a declining population of around four hundred people, so I didn’t really need to question whether I knew the person or not.
“Some young fella JJ’s mates with; both think he’s real talented,” she replied.
I narrowed my eyes; that was a tough combination. If it was someone my goofy, extroverted, shaved-bear-looking best friend suggested, it could literally be a circus monkey walking through the front door. But Al? If it was someone with his approval? They had to be good,betterthan good. Al didn’t make mistakes like that, not when it came to Knock’s.
“What do you think?” I asked warily. Nan was very intuitive. It was unusual for her not to throw her opinion—which usually turned out to be right—into the mix.
“Why, I haven’t met the lad yet, have I?” She wiped the lipstick off of her empty mug. “He’s very polite and professional on thephone though, and anyone who Al speaks highly of can’t be all that bad.”
I sighed. Getting Al’s approval was never an easy feat. Lord knows my shockingly low number of boyfriends over the years had always tried … and failed. “Why would someone young want to move out here?” I asked, taking our mugs to the sink for rinsing.
“JJ seems to think he wants to take a break from the fighting scene for a minute or two, regain his ‘soul in the sport’ or so he says,” she replied, pushing her chair in and packing up the obnoxiously floral handbag JJ had bought her for Christmas last year. “You’ll be able to ask him yourself next Monday.”
I huffed and folded my arms across my chest as I leaned on the faded grey countertop.
Nan came over and pressed a red-lipstick-coated kiss to my cheek as she hugged me. “I know you and Al have a special bond, dear. I wish he could stay too. But the man has dedicated his whole life to this sport—it’s time for him to start living again,” she said, patting my cheek as if I was still just her little granddaughter.
~
