OWEN STANDS ON the opposite side of the ropes, his eyes still glued to the mat. He’s shirtless and barefoot, his body covered in a thin sheen of sweat. His black shorts hang low on his hips, and my gaze flickers to a set of perfect abs. He has the kind of body you see on twenty-five-year-old underwear models, not high school guys.
Heat spreads through my chest. Less than twenty minutes ago, I was in the pool drooling over his body.
Owen’s body.
He finally raises his head and our eyes lock. A crease forms between his brows and he looks miserable, like he’d rather scrub this place down with a toothbrush than spend three afternoons a week working with me.
I turn away first, which gives me a ridiculous amount of satisfaction. This whole situation feels like a giant bitch-slap from the universe. My hand tightens on the plastic water bottle I’m holding and I shake my head.
“What?” Owen leans on the ropes, his shoulders tense.
“You’re a fighter?” I spit out the word. Now I know where he got the bruises on his arms.
“Yeah.” He stands straighter. “But unlike your boyfriend, Titan, who starts fights with anybody who looks at him the wrong way, I try to keep my fights in the cage.”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” Without thinking, I chuck the plastic water bottle at him.
Owen’s eyes widen and he pivots out of the way, but the bottle pegs him in the side.
Lazarus winces and makes a hissing sound between his teeth. “Ouch.”
“That must’ve hurt,” Cutter says, smirking at Lazarus as he tries not to laugh. “I guess they already know each other.”
The boxers in the back corner of the gym take a break to watch us, too.
“There’s nothing wrong with her arm, that’s for sure,” Lazarus says.
Owen rubs the spot where the bottle hit him. “What’s your problem?”
“You first.”
He swipes a gray hoodie off the mat, shoves his arms in the sleeves, and yanks it over his head. Then he ducks between the ropes and jumps down from the ring. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
My pulse pounds and the air feels heavy as if the room is getting hotter. Why did I make a fool of myself and throw that stupid bottle at him? Who cares if Owen gave me crap about Titan?
I want to get out of here. I walk toward the glass door that leads out of the gym. Owen rushes ahead of me and plants himself in front of the door, blocking my path. I could probably squeeze by him, but that would involve touching him—something I’m not doing after I just spent thirty minutes gawking at his body from the pool.
“Please move.” I lower my voice. We’re far enough from the ring that no one can overhear our conversation unless we raise our voices.
Owen looks down at me. “You can’t leave. What about physical therapy?” He’s watching me and I look anywhere but at him.
“Not your problem.”
“It is if you walk out of here and Cutter gets pissed at me,” he says.
“And that’s not my problem.” I avoid his eyes.
“What did you mean by ‘you first’? I never said I had a problem with you.”
I snort. “You made it pretty clear in English.”
Owen clasps his hands behind his neck and stares up at the ceiling. “I just didn’t think you were the kind of girl who would get mixed up with Titan.”
“I’m not mixed up with anyone. You’re making lots of assumptions. Titan is friends with my cousins and he offered to help me find my classroom. I didn’t ask him to pick me up and make a big scene. But even if I did, that doesn’t make him my boyfriend.”
Owen looks a little embarrassed. “What if I apologize?” He sounds sincere, but he also already gave away that he doesn’t want to piss off Cutter.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to hang out with a fighter.”
“First off, I’m not a fighter. I’m a kickboxer. Second, we won’t be hanging out. Cutter will leave a long-ass list of exercises for you to do, and I’ll help you do them.”
I toy with Dad’s dog tags and weigh my options. I can’t afford to leave and risk offending Cutter. Not when she’s the only person in Black Water capable of helping me get back on the field.
I walk back to the ring. I hear Owen’s footsteps behind me. Cutter and Lazarus are exactly where we left them, except now they’re huddled around Cutter’s phone.
She taps on the screen. “That’s after he won the bronze for the one hundred meter, in the Summer Olympics. Fifteen years later and he still looks great.”
“If you say so,” Lazarus says.
Cutter sees us and pockets her phone. “Did you two lovebirds work things out?”
“No,” I say at the same time Owen says, “Yes.”
“And we aren’t lovebirds,” I say.
Cutter dismisses my comment with a wave. “People fight for three reasons—survival, aggression, and attraction. When I lived in China, I watched pandas do the same thing.”
Did she just compare me to a panda?
“The female pandas snapped and took swings at the males, and the males gave it right back. But they never hurt each other,” Cutter explains. “That’s how you know it wasn’t aggression. Eventually, they would stop fighting and pair up. That’s what happens when it’s attraction.”
“Then what?” I ask. “The pandas live happily ever after?”
Cutter smiles, as if she’s pleased with herself for giving me what has to be the worst analogy I’ve ever heard.
“What about praying mantises?” I ask. “After they mate, the female bites off the male’s head.”
Dead silence.
Maybe I went too far?
Cutter laughs. “You catch on fast, Peyton.”
“Actually, I do. That’s why I won’t need Owen’s help.” I feel Owen’s eyes burning a hole through me. “After you show me the exercises, I won’t have any trouble doing them on my own when you’re at the university.”
Lazarus rubs his head and eyes Owen. “She really doesn’t like you. This whole thing is looking more praying mantis than panda.”
Owen’s cheeks flush.
“What the hell did you do to make this girl so angry, Owen?” Cutter asks.
He glares at me. “Nothing.”
“We were partners in English class. We just don’t get along,” I say. “Oil and water. That kind of thing.”
“Then you’d better work it out,” Cutter says as she and Lazarus walk toward an office under the caged clock on the wall.
“Oil and water?” Owen sounds offended. “We’ve had a total of two real conversations.”
“Four, including this one.” I head for Cutter’s office and Owen follows me.
The office door is open, but I still knock.
“Come in,” she says.
The office walls are covered in posters of martial arts moves and photos of Cutter—at tournaments, hitting a tall piece of wood with wooden prongs sticking out of it, or bowing in front of an elderly Asian man. A bookshelf holds medical texts and journals, alongside titles like The Art of War, The Heart of the Warrior, and The Adversary Within. It’s all a little too Zen for me, and the atmosphere suggests a level of calm that I’m not feeling.
“That was fast,” Cutter says.
Owen clears his throat. “I think Peyton is right. The two of us working together is a bad idea.”
The words sting, something I didn’t expect.
Owen tugs on one of his hand wraps with his teeth. He unwinds the cloth in a long strip, tosses it on the floor, and starts on the other hand. “I’m not even your intern anymore.”
Lazarus shakes his head, as if something bigger is happening here and it has nothing to do with me.
Cutter crosses her arms and studies Owen. “You might not be my intern, but unless you want to start paying me to train you, you’ll help out when I ask.” She points at the cloth strips. “And don’t leave your wraps on my floor.”
Owen picks them up and shoves them into the pocket of his hoodie.
Cutter spins the seat of her chair toward me. “And you have two choices. Option A: Do physical therapy with Owen, or Option B: Find someone else to help you. There is no Option C.” She motions between us. “For either of you. Decide what you want to do and let me know,” she says, shooing us out of her office.
Owen follows me and closes the door behind us. I lean against the wall outside Cutter’s office and he walks over and stands beside me.
“I guess that means we have to work together.” He doesn’t sound any happier about the situation than I am, but it makes me feel like I’m the one forcing this on him.
Tension coils in my stomach. I want to let us both off the hook, but Cutter has me backed into a corner. “We’ll meet up to satisfy Cutter,” I say. “But you’ll do your thing and I’ll do mine. Minimal interaction.”
Owen sighs. “Okay.”
I turn to leave and I look back at him. “Don’t look so depressed, Owen. I’m only here for a few months.”