“This is probably the weirdest date suggestion ever, but hey, want to go to Battle Sports with me?”

I braced myself for Cin’s response, already regretting launching right into inviting her out without any semblance of polite small talk first. After two days of zero contact, this was how I planned on getting her to come out and see me?

Truthfully, it was probably that I didn’t really expect her to agree to come out with me at all. Not after what had happened with Jake.

“Battle Sports?” she was saying. Which was not an outright refusal or excuse, at least. “I’m picturing us wearing armor and jousting.”

“Close,” I said with a laugh. “Instead, we just bash TVs and chairs and stuff.”

“Really?”

“It’s supposedly cathartic and, I don’t know, lately I’ve had a lot of pent-up emotions and stuff.”

Silence. Yep, nice idea, Owen, invite a girl you really like to go bash TVs. Brilliant.

“Sorry, it is a weird thing to invite you to,” I said quickly. “After Battle Sports, I was planning on us going the beach, having some ice cream, but we could just do that instead?”

“Sure,” she said, and I almost dropped my phone when she added, “Bash TV’s, then beach time.”

--

An hour later, I was laughing as I picked her up.

“You’re really taking this Battle Sports thing seriously, eh?”

“Hell yeah.” She fingered one of the gaping rips on her shirt. “Figured my nice velvet dress wouldn’t exactly be the best attire for TV bashing.”

I couldn’t resist – I reached out and gave one of the holes a little tug, then grinned at her. “Looks sturdy enough.”

There was something catlike about her smile. “Hopefully the TVs aren’t.”

As I pulled away from her building, I tossed a glance her way. “I should warn you, I’m not 100% sure there’s TVs to bash.”

Her expression became one of mock horror. “I don’t know if I can go through with this now.”

“What if I bribe you with chocolate?” With my free hand, I lifted the bar I’d saved for later.

Cin took it in hand. “I never say no to chocolate.”

I had to swallow back my, ‘I’d never say no to you’ for fear of sounding incredibly cheesy and ruining the date before it truly started. Both hands gripped into the leather of my steering wheel. I needed to cool it about 50 degrees. I hadn’t even kissed Cin yet, let alone all the other stuff I ached to do.

No way was I going to make it through this date if I kept this up.

So, I kept conversation to a light and carefree minimum as I weaved past all the cars that were in the way of me getting us to Battle Sports as soon as possible. As much as this was a fun off-the-wall date for me and Cin to do together, part of me knew better. That this was as much for me as it was for her. After all the past few weeks’ craziness, work and Cin, I needed a good release. Boxing used to do it for me, but with my hand, Jake probably wouldn’t even agree to spar with me. So, breaking things it would have to do.

Inside the ruddy-bricked building, the ponytailed girl at the desk was overly enthused at our coming. Probably since there looked to be next to no one else in the place.

“So, you’d like the fifteen-minute option?”

I glanced at Cin and, simultaneously, we said, “Thirty minutes.”

“Alrighty then!” the girl declared, stabbing a neon nail onto a computer key. “That’ll be together or separately?”

“Together,” I said, at the same time that Cin said, “Separately.”

Catching each other’s eye again, we cracked up.

“It’s fine,” I said. “I got this.”

“You sure?” she said.

I frowned, tapping my Visa on the machine. Was she trying to make this not a date?

Making our way to our room after paying, I took Cin’s hand.

“I have something to tell you,” she blurted out.