Knockout (3 page)

“Why wouldn’t I be? Kellen’s been in our house almost every day for the better part of a year. I trust him to take her out more than some boy from school I’ve never met.” She paused, turning to face him while she wiped her hands on a towel. “Are you not okay with it?”

Dad shrugged. “I don’t know. I think he’s a great kid, don’t get me wrong, but that’s just it. I don’t want them to date, break up and then we never see him again.”

Mom nodded thoughtfully. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“He’s heading off to college soon—“

Mom brightened. “Did he get an acceptance letter?”

Dad smiled. “Yeah, a few of them. He didn’t ask me permission to take out Laney until he had them. I think he was waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“Until he felt less like a thug.”

“Dan—“

“No, Karen, it’s true. And I know how he feels. When I was his age, coming from where I was from, I wouldn’t have felt right about walking into a house like this and asking out a girl like Laney. And it doesn’t matter that he’s been like a son to us this last year, there’s still a divide.”

“Not to me.”

“No, but there is to him. We don’t look down on him, he knows that, but it doesn’t change how he feels. No matter what we do or say, we’ll never change that. Only he can and he’s doing it by making something of himself.”

“So you think it’s a bad idea for them to date?”

Dad shrugged. “I think college is a big change for any kid and he doesn’t exactly have family to turn to if he gets into trouble.”

“No one but us.”

Dad nodded. “And I’d like him to always have us.”

Kellen was the only child of an only child.
When his grandpa’s boxing career hadn’t panned out, his mom ended up waiting tables at casinos her whole life. At first it was to keep her and her dad afloat but then it was to pay off the gambling debts he left behind for her when he died. Vegas was where she met Kellen’s dad, though if you asked Kellen who or where the guy was he’d simply shrug. I wasn’t sure he knew who his dad was but I knew for certain he didn’t like to talk about him. His mom raised him alone and when she started to get sick with lung cancer, a byproduct of her own father’s chain smoking and the exposure to cigarettes in the casinos she spent her life in, she moved the two of them out here to California. Kellen told me she wanted to be close to the ocean again. That it reminded her of her home back in Ireland.

When he found us, Kellen hadn’t had a true family in over eight years. When my parents took an interest in him and started inviting him to stay for dinner after meetings with my dad, he didn’t hesitate. He also started spending time at the house with me, tutoring me in French, math, science – you name it. He was a great teacher, making those tedious subjects relatable for me for the first time in my life. I know he did it because he wanted to help me out, but I think he also offered to tutor me as a way of paying dad back for what he’d done for him and his case. For trusting him and taking him into his home.

Even after his case closed and he was working on his community service, he was a constant presence in our home as he tutored me almost every night. Even on nights when he wasn’t helping me, he was often there purely on invitation or habit. He easily won my mom over with his consideration and good manners, my dad with his intelligence and drive, my sister with his body and bad boy reputation. And me? Well, I was sold by his smile. Kellen was a lot of great things, but the one that mattered to me most was that he made me laugh.

“We don’t know that they’ll break up,” mom argued, sounding like she was trying to convince herself.

Dad quirked a skeptical eyebrow at her.

“What?”

“Have you met Laney?” I asked, saying what we were all thinking. “She tears through guys.”

“She’s not exactly a one man kind of woman,” dad agreed.

Mom looked sharply at the two of us. “What exactly are you two saying?”

“We’re not calling her what you think we are, honey.”

“I am,” I said. “And it rhymes with door.”

“Jenna!” mom scolded.

“What? I didn’t say it.”

She pointed a warning finger at me. “Thin ice. Do your homework.”

“I don’t have any. Besides, it’s not only Laney. Kellen isn’t exactly big on dating either.”

“He’s never had a steady girlfriend,” mom said, thinking.

Dad shook his head. “He doesn’t like people getting too close. I think he’s embarrassed by his home life.”

“He’s not embarrassed,” I corrected him. “He doesn’t want people feeling sorry for him. He hates pity and girls hear about his life and suddenly they’re all like, ‘You poor thing. I’m so sorry.’ and he hates that.”

“How do you know that?”

“’Cause he told me.”

“He tells you a lot, doesn’t he?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Yeah. I guess. We’re friends.”

The room was quiet all of the sudden. When I looked up, I found mom watching me.

“So what do I tell him?” dad asked her.

She watched me for a second longer before she pinched her lips together in thought. Eventually she grinned affectionately. “I can’t believe he asked you permission.”

Dad grinned as well. “He’s a damn good kid.”

“Language,” she scolded halfheartedly. Then she shook her head. “If only he’d quit with the fighting.”

“It’s not fighting,” I corrected her. “It’s boxing. It’s a sport. And he’s damn good at it.”

“Grounded.”

Shit.

***

The first thing I noticed was that the place wreaked of sweat. It was a gym so, duh, but still. I wasn’t used to it. Even the locker rooms at school didn’t smell like this, but then again I’d never been in the boy’s locker room. Maybe this was what it smelled like. Maybe this gym was basically one huge boy’s locker room.

It definitely looked like it. There were banners hanging from the ceiling with logos for Everlast, USA Boxing and a bunch of different championships with years and winner’s names under them. Also hanging from the open rafters were punching bags. Tons of them all mismatched and spread across the room hovering over red, blue and black mats. The walls were covered in posters for fights from ten and twenty years ago peppered with newer names that rung a bell with me. Holyfield, Ali, Tyson. Foreman. That one made me smile.

“You can never tell your mom you were here,” dad reminded me for the millionth time.

“I know, I know. My lips are forever sealed.”

“Good.”

“Does Kellen know we’re here?”

“He knows I was goi
ng to try and bring you, yeah. I think he was more excited about you coming than about the match.”

I felt a glow in my cheeks. “Well, he already knows he’s going to win.”

“Tell that to his opponent.”

I looked where he was staring and I saw what he meant. The guy looked huge.

Kellen was a big guy himself, tall and pushing 175 pounds of muscle and lean meat. He was in the upper tiers of the Middleweights. He told me he was only three pounds away from landing in the Light heavyweights and he did not want that. If he went up to that class, he’d be the small guy going against the Goliaths. It’s not that he was scared of fighting them, it was just better strategically for him to be the Goliath if he could manage it. And he spent a lot of time and focus managing it.

I hadn’t understood how much training, time and thought actually went into hitting a guy for three rounds. Not until Kellen laid it all out for me one afternoon.

“I run five miles a day, five days a week,” he’d said, making my jaw drop. He grinned at my reaction. “I have to watch what I eat. I make sure I eat a lot of protein to build muscle from my workouts, but I have to be careful not to put on too much muscle weight. I’m toeing the line of my weight class as it is. After running, I jump rope for about forty-five minutes to keep my legs strong. Then I hit the heavy bag until my shoulders and arms are mush.”

“That’s insane.”

“That’s not all. After that warm-up—“

“Warm-up?!”

He laughed. “That’s to get me ready. At this point, I haven’t even entered the ring yet. Once I’m in, it’s sparring with my coach and one of the other guys he’s working with.”

“How do you have time for all of that on top of school and everything else?”

He shrugged. “I make it work. Being at the gym is better than being home. I’ve been slacking lately, though. I need to step it up.”

I felt sick in my stomach. Guilty. “You mean you’ve been tutoring me and that’s taking up your time.”

“No,” he said firmly, looking at me hard, “this is something I want to do. That’s why I make time for it, because I like it and I like you, Jen. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. “Good. ‘Cause I like having you here too.”

After that, Kellen stopped having dinner with us as often. He told my mom that it was because he had things to take care of at home, but I knew what it was. He was training at night after he tutored me instead of in the afternoon right after school. He started doing his schoolwork there at the house with me so he’d have more time at night and he told me he had moved his runs to early morning. I still felt guilty, but the fact that he gave up his very limited free time to stick around and help me meant the world to me. My grades were skyrocketing since he had started tutoring me and some of the tension that had been building between my mom and I over it disappeared. It was nice.

“Did you tell Kellen over and over not to let mom know I was here?” I asked dad, thinking of mom and tension and arguments.

He snorted. “No. Kellen can keep a secret.”

“So can I
.”

“Not like Kellen.”

“How do you know?”

My dad’s face fell
slightly. “Because no one keeps secrets like he does.”

I was about to ask what that meant when there was a shout from the ring in the center of the gym.

“Here we go,” dad said excitedly.

We moved closer so we could see Kellen enter into the red corner. There was a tall man with a gleaming bald head standing beside him talking in his ear. I assumed it was his coach because when I looked at the guy getting ready to fight Kellen, he had a man talking away in his ear too.

It felt like forever before anything really happened. A ref wandered around for a minute inside the ring before finally calling the guys up. He rambled on about sportsmanship and honor as the boys bounced back and forth on their toes. I knew from what he’d told me that Kellen was keeping his legs tensed and active, ready to drive him around the ring quick as lightening. I watched his leg muscles move under his skin as he bounced. I could almost see the energy coiling inside of them. Springs loading, waiting to be released.

Ding!

I snapped back to focus as the bell rang. The boys leapt into movement. The other guy wasted no time throwing a jab.

“He’s testing him,” my dad told me. “He wants to see how fast Kellen is.”

Kellen dodged the punch easily. He also seized the moment and threw an uppercut that landed right in the guy’s chin. His opponent stumbled back a step before regaining his footing and moving around the ring looking for an opening. Kellen didn’t give him one. Instead he lunged, finding his own opening and throwing a punch that gleaned off the guy’s headgear near his eye. Suddenly Kellen’s head whipped to the side. The other boxer hand thrown a punch I hadn’t even seen coming.

I gasped loudly, worried about what the hit meant for Kellen in this bout
.

“He’s okay. It’s going to happen,” dad warned me. “Taking a hit doesn’t mean he’s lost the match.”

“How do they decide who wins? They won’t go until one of them is knocked out, right?’

Dad laughed. “No, that’s not how these fights are done. They only go three rounds and each one is timed. Each hit earns them points that are tallied on a score card at the end of the match. It’s just like any other sport. The guy with the most points at the end wins.”

“Is Kellen winning?”

I took an unconscious step toward the ring. I was looking up through the ropes into the lights watching their bodies dance past me with incredible speed. They were both so big and yet so light on their feet. They moved without thinking. Without debate or hesitation. It was all instinct at that point. All muscle memory learned to avoid attack and gain the advantage. I wasn’t looking at their faces or their fists. I was watching them blur past the glare of the lights in my eyes, two brightly colored figures bouncing around that small ring. Chasing, hiding, attacking, dodging. It was so fluid. Even the hits. I should have been appalled or scared as mom would be, as she’d want me to be, but I wasn’t. I watched Kellen take those hits and keep on moving, keep on fighting and I was in awe.

He was so sure and calm, but all power and force as well. His skin moved smooth and tan over the rolling hills of the muscles in his arms, his shoulders, his chest, back and stomach. A sheen of sweat began to build. It highlighted the contours of his body that never stopped. It was always in motion, always darting and glancing.