“Help me kick my own ass, and we’ll call it even,” I suddenly suggest.
He shakes his head with playful stubbornness. “We’re not even. I still owe you.” His eyes grow thoughtful, and he reaches into his pocket and extracts something. “Open your palm.”
He looks so intense that I open my palm and watch him drop something in it. “What’s this?”
“My IOU.”
I stare at the penny in my palm, then look up at him in confusion.
His voice sounds a little more harsh and textured all of a sudden. “I don’t have a lot right now, but I got this.”
“For a rainy day?” I ask.
“For any day.”
He sounds somber and he looks even more somber, if that’s even possible. His eyes are gloriously intense, and I am utterly dazzled and confused by this feeling of being utterly dazzled.
I don’t understand why he’s giving me this. My ears hot, I look down at the penny, then up at him. What I did for him was nothing, really. It looked like he really enjoyed working out, and I could tell he had talent.
But his eyes are roiling with something forbidden and almost pleading. . . .
He needs me to take this penny.
He needs to know he can pay me back in some way.
I realize he’s got a pride as big as he is.
My chest aches a little. Nodding, I curl my fingers around the penny because something tells me Maverick “the Avenger” Cage never takes back what he gives. He looks like a guy who doesn’t budge, who doesn’t give in easy.
“I can get in after hours to the gym with my membership,” I hear myself say, surprised by how impulsive he makes me. “Do you want to come? When I go back home, I want to buy a new dress, one size smaller than what I wear.”
He looks at me, stays silent, and tightens his jaw, then stares out at the water. “I’m game.”
And we sit there, watching Racer giggle and try to pet the ducks as he feeds them.
And I like being here.
I really like being here.
? ? ?
WE MEET AT the gym at 9:00 p.m. I had dinner with Racer, left him with his parents, and told Brooke I’d be back by eleven.
That night, the gym is completely empty. An odd something is in the air. It crackles between us. Around us. The silence only seems to magnify it.
Maverick unzips his hoodie and then, unexpectedly, takes off his shirt. He waits a moment, then walks to set his T-shirt aside. I stare at the body art on his back, transfixed by it. The lights are dim, but I can make out the shape of an open-winged bird. A bird with another symbol or letter or number I can’t make out on its back.
There’s something about tattoos, body art, that’s magical and intimate. A piece of art on your body that identifies who you are, what you believe in, even what you mock.
He turns and looks at me.
He seems to be waiting for me to say something.
But I can’t.
He’s beautiful in a way beautiful had never had a visible image for me except for things that felt surreal and perfect. He is perfection in an all-male way. He is surreal, like from a different species, exuding an air of a rebel and of someone implacable who will not be stopped.
He lifts his brows, as if he’s genuinely surprised I didn’t say anything at all.
“That’s beautiful body art.”
He frowns a little, thoughtfully. Then he smiles to himself and turns around.
What? Am I missing something here?
He throws me a set of gloves. I put one on, and then struggle with the other one. “Here. I’ll do yours,” he says.
I’m nervous when we stand so close. I could touch him from here. His hands wrap the glove around my wrist, and I’m vulnerable and feel like rambling, even though I don’t like to talk a lot.
He’s watching me.
He turns away, exhales softly, then stalks to the bags. I see his tattoo again, amazed by how much of his back it covers. A massive bird with its wings outstretched spreads out toward his shoulder blades, the tail trailing down Maverick’s spine. Some sort of ominous black shape sits on the bird’s back, while fire consumes the tips of the bird’s feathers.
I feel as if he’s giving me something. A glimpse of something no one in the gym has ever seen. I stare at it, thirsty for it, my eyes taking in every inch of that tattoo while the muscles of Maverick’s back work beneath it.
He’s punching.
He seethes with energy, mounting with every hit.
It’s just me in the gym.
And Maverick.
And my dirty thoughts about Maverick.
I hate the thought and scowl at myself.
But there is no extra space in the whole gym. It seems like he takes up more than his body occupies—a world more.
When he shifts to hit the bag on the other side, the bird’s wings flare with every ripple of his back muscles as he slams the punching bag. Pow, wham, pow.
I decide to test myself against a speed bag, all the while wondering where he gets the force that drives him.