Free Punching and Kissing by Helena Newbury

back. It’s cute.” She smiled for a moment and then it crumbled. She must have remembered where her brother was. Ah, hell.
    “Does that happen a lot, recently?” The words were out before I could snap my mouth shut. Shit! Had I just sort-of-kind-of asked if she was single?
    She looked up at me. "No. Not recently."
    I could almost feel it throb in the air between us, like a heat haze. It wasn't just my imagination. She did like me. Which was bad, because I liked her even more.
    She poked at her steak. "Paying for my meals is nice. Thank you."
    "You're welcome."
    But she wasn't finished. "I didn't know stevedores made that much money, though."
    We didn't. I shrugged.
    "And you don't fight anymore, right? So you're not making it that way. So what is it?" She leaned forward. "Are you smuggling stuff into the country? Like in The Wire?"
    I stiffened. "Not all dock workers are on the take." I knew it was a shitty job, but it was my shitty job.
    "Okay, sorry. So what is it? You're a secret millionaire?"
    "It's only steak and eggs."
    "Yeah, but you didn't even think about it. You just paid for it, and said you'd pay for my meals while we trained, which by the way I'm not even sure I'm totally comfortable with. I agonize for an hour over whether I can afford laundry detergent."
    I leaned forward, putting my forearms on the table. It creaked. "You’re annoyingly sharp."
    "Why, thank you. So what's the secret income? Drugs? Are you a part-time gigolo?"
    I sighed. "I don't earn any extra money. I just don't spend it."
    She seemed taken aback. "Oh." Then, "Really?"
    "Really."
    "You mean you don't get out much?"
    " Look—" And then I didn't know what to say. It had all been going so well, back at the gym. Slow progress, true, but she'd been trying really hard. And now suddenly, as soon as we'd got to the diner, everything had changed. I felt antsy and off-balance.
    And then I realized what it was: I wasn't in control anymore. Fighting—that was my world. I understood that. I was good at it. In here, talking to her...that was the life I'd left behind when I'd retreated to my apartment.
    Since that night I’d quit fighting, the closest I'd gotten to small talk was a few minutes of muttering in some woman's ear, just before I grabbed her hand and dragged her off to a cab so we could go to her place and have sex. Suddenly, I was back out here, talking to a woman, actually having a conversation, and it was jarring and weird and annoying as hell and...wonderful. It was bloody wonderful. I hated to admit it, but I was enjoying myself more than I had in a long time.
    I looked at Sylvie across the table. She'd thrown on a loose t-shirt the same bright blue as the sky outside and her usual tight jeans. There wasn't anything inherently sexy about the t-shirt—it didn't even have a low neck. But every time she leaned forward or twisted, there was just a hint of the warm pressure of her breasts, pushing out the front of it. Even when her body was hidden, it was sexy as hell because then I could imagine it.
    I am out of control with this woman.
    "What about you?" I said gruffly, trying to get things back onto safer ground.
    "Hotel maid," she said simply. "Picking up sheets and trash and sometimes dildos."
    "Dil—"
    "Don't worry, they give us gloves. You wouldn't believe some of the things people leave in their beds. The pay's shitty and the guests are always trying to get into your pants, but it's work." She finished her food and put down her fork. "I was in college, for a while. Dropped out when my dad died. Couldn't afford it."
    I nodded sadly. Inside, though, what I felt was anger. Anger at fate for loading the dice when it came to her life. One crappy roll after another. No one did that to my angel. It wasn’t fair. There were people who deserved that sort of luck, people like—
    People like me?
    I stood up. “I gotta go,” I said. “I got a shift.” I did, but it didn’t start for another couple of hours. But I had to get out of