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“Tell him I love him,” Jonah calls back.
“Tell him yourself, Jonah,” Victor snaps back, that possessive undertone in his voice.
“I will. With feeling.”
Dakota’s smiling, that soft, genuine smile she gets when she’s watching everyone banter. Dante drops down on Dakota’s other side and bumps his shoulder against hers. “You good, baby?”
“I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“Dante.”
“Just checking.”
He kisses the top of her head. Just like that. In the middle of the gym, with Victor and Ray and Jonah and Micah all right there.
My stomach drops through the floor because I want to be the one kissing her.
Dakota’s cheeks go pink under her freckles. She glances at me, then at Cruz.
“Last round,” Victor calls. “Brady. Up.”
I climb back in. Dante follows, rolling his shoulders. We touch gloves a third time.
“Head in it,” he says.
“Head’s in it.”
“Liar.”
“Maybe.”
He grins around his mouthguard. The buzzer goes.
This time I’m sharper. I don’t know if it’s because I’m tired enough that my brain has finally shut up, or because Victor’s words are sitting in my chest like a weight pressed against my sternum—we don’t break each other—but my feet move right, and my hands move right, and Dante has to work for every inch he gets.
I catch him with a hook he doesn’t see coming. He grunts.
“There you go,” Cruz says.
“That’s it, Brady,” Victor encourages.
I keep my eyes on Dante. Just Dante. The slope of his shoulders, the shift of his hips, the way his weight loads onto his back foot before a kick. I tag him with a teep, follow with a cross, slip his counter, and clinch up against the cage. We trade knees that don’t quite land flush, and then he reverses me, and I’m theone with my back against the mesh, and his forehead is pressed to mine again.
“Better,” he murmurs.
“Get off me.”
“Make me.”
I sweep his leg, and we both go down, scrambling for position, and the bell saves us both. He laughs into my shoulder before he gets up, hauls me up with him.
“Good work, baby.”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“And yet.”
