Free Punching and Kissing by Helena Newbury Page A

there. For a second, while I was getting all righteously annoyed on her behalf, I’d thought of myself as one of the good guys. Like I could be the one to save her.
    I could train her. Nothing more. The deeper I got into her life, the worse it would be for her. I wasn’t any sort of good luck charm.
    “What should we do about training?” she asked. “I’m kind of busy—I was thinking of taking on some extra shifts—”
    I shook my head. “Don’t. Cancel anything in the mornings.”
    “The whole morning? Every day?”
    “You’re in training, now.”
    “I need the money!”
    “Money’s no good to you if you’re dead. Win the fight and you can pay the bills with your winnings.”
    She considered. “Okay,” she said at last.
    “Get some rest. Meet me at the docks, tomorrow. Wear running shoes. We gotta work on your stamina.” I tossed some bills on the table to pay for lunch. “6:30.”
    I walked away before I got in any deeper. But I heard her call after me, “6:30 am?”

 

     

Sylvie
     
    Getting to the docks for 6:30am meant getting up not long after five. I couldn’t remember when I’d last been awake at five, but I was pretty sure that it had involved staying up late, not getting up early.
    When I reached the docks, I saw Aedan waiting for me outside the main gate. His face was upturned to the rising sun, as if he was bathing in pure morning. He hadn’t seen me, yet, and he had an expression of beatific joy on his face, as if he was doing something he loved, something he hadn’t done for a long time.
    Which seemed weird. I mean, he was free and single. If he wanted to get up at this ungodly hour, he could, every morning. So why was he only doing it now?
    Unless...he hadn’t had a reason to, before.
    “Hey,” I said, to get his attention.
    He looked around and, for just a second, I saw those big blue eyes shine as he looked at me. The way they lit up made my heart dance. A hot little thrill went through me, the sort I hadn’t felt in a hell of a long time.
    And then he seemed to catch himself and look away. I could almost see his defenses slamming back up. His shoulders tightened, his brow furrowed. “You’re late,” he muttered.
    It was 6:35. “There’s no way you can possibly call this late. It’s the middle of the night. We could go for a coffee and come back and it would still be too early.” I yawned and considered that. “Actually, could we just do that?”
    He ignored me and nodded at the road. “C’mon.”
    And he started to jog at an easy pace. Well, it was easy for the first hundred yards. Then I started to feel it.
    “Okay,” he said, not out of breath at all, “Now start punching. Jab, jab, jab, cross, like I showed you.”
    “While I’m running?”
    “You think that girl you’re fighting is going to stand still while you hit her?”
    I tried to punch and run at the same time. It wasn’t just doubly tiring, it was about ten times worse. Every punch threw off my stride. Every stagger threw off my punches.
    “Come on,” he told me. “Women are meant to be able to multi-task.”
    I huffed for air. “Traditionally,” I managed, “aren’t you meant to be riding a bike alongside me?”
    “When you’re running fast enough that I need a bike, I’ll let you know.”
    We ran, with me jab-jab-jab-cross ing and him snapping orders at me. The sun slowly rose behind the cranes and moored ships, turning the water to glittering gold. I had to admit that I’d been missing out, never seeing sunrises.
    We ran right down to the water, where there was an old, disused wooden pier. Some of it had collapsed and its stout wooden legs were all that were left on one side, stretching out into the water like stepping stones.
    He veered off from me and jumped onto the first of the wooden legs, then jumped onto the next and the next, using them like stepping stones. When he reached the end, he turned on the spot and jumped back along them. He was as steady-footed as a mountain