The glove plowed into his face, and this time Beckett tasted blood.

“It’s no fun if he doesn’t fight back,” Jax complained to Carter.

Carter hung over the ropes in the corner. “Beckett, put up your gloves and punch your brother in the fucking face.”

“Maybe I want to punch your fucking face,” Beckett said, his tone surly.

“I’m getting married in six days. Summer said if I came home with a broken nose in time for wedding pictures she’d shave my beard.”

“All the more reason for you to get in the ring.”

“Ah, there’s a sad little joke out of the sad little clown,” Jax said, jabbing him in the ribs. His younger brother, stripped to the waist, ducked and weaved, trying to draw an attack.

“You look like you’re on a damn pogo stick,” Beckett carped.

“A damn pogo stick that you can’t hit,” Jax retorted.

“If I make him bleed, can I go home?” Beckett asked Carter.

“We’ll see.”

Beckett growled in frustration. “I don’t have fucking issues to work out by pounding on my brother.”

Jax shuffled around the ring throwing shadow punches. “This is boring!” he whined. “Carter, this was a stupid idea. He probably doesn’t even miss Gia. He’s probably happy she’s back with Pau —”

Beckett’s right cross caught him off guard enough to knock him back a few steps.

“Oh, so that’s the trigger,” Jax said, his grin cocky now. “Don’t you think it’s weird how the whole town just loves this guy?”

He blocked Beckett’s next shot and gave him a one-two combination to the ribs.

“I mean, Mom even said he’s like this musical genius.” Jax wasn’t lucky enough to block Beckett’s jab. But he countered with a solid shot to the low gut.

“If you punch me in the balls I swear to God I’ll —” Beckett’s threat vanished in the heat of the exchange. Punches were thrown fast and hard until sweat and blood began to cloud his vision.

Distantly he heard the ringing of the bell and then realized it was Carter in the corner. “Hey, take a break before someone gets brain damage.” He tossed Beckett a towel and Jax a water.

“Can we be done now?” Beckett grumbled, testing out the swelling flesh under his left eye.

“That depends,” Carter said conversationally. “Do you feel better?”

“No, I don’t fucking feel better. This was your thing, not mine. I’m not fighting some inner demons. Taking swings at someone isn’t going to make me feel better.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Carter said, slipping on gloves. “I’m tapping in, Jax.”

“Summer’s gonna kiiiiill you,” Jax sang as he hobbled out of the ring.

“Break my nose and my wife-to-be will murder you. Got it?” Carter said to Beckett.

Beckett answered with a jab to the chin.

“You fucker.”

It was like the old days. Only Carter wasn’t handicapped by bullet wounds anymore and Beckett hadn’t slept in three days.

“You’re such an idiot,” Carter said conversationally as they sparred back and forth. “You’re in love with this girl and you put her on a god damn platter for someone else.”

“I thought it was for the best,” Beckett grunted, driving his fist into Carter’s face.

Carter shook off the blow. “Like I said. An idiot.”

They sweated out another fast exchange of fists with Carter finally dancing out of his reach.

“It’s my business,” Beckett wheezed. It was his business that he’d colossally fucked up and now it was up to him to fix it.

“So what are you going to do?” Carter’s fist flew into his line of vision, glancing off his jaw.

Beckett stumbled back a step. “I’m gonna fight.”

He didn’t go down in a blaze of glory. It was more like a soupy splatter on the mat. But damned if he didn’t go down swinging. And smiling.

Jax crawled back in with water and more towels and the three men lay on their backs staring up at the fluorescent lights.

“Feel better?” Carter asked, his breath coming fast and shallow.

Beckett swiped blood off his forehead with the towel. He did. He really did.

A good fight was exactly the primer he needed for an even bigger fight. Gianna didn’t belong with Paul, she belonged with him. She deserved more than what that skinny “hey man” musician could give and he was going to see that she got it.

“Ever think about patenting this as some kind of therapy?” he asked.

* * *

If one more stupid person mentioned Beckett Pierce’s name to her without attaching the words “is an asshole” she was going to give up on her heavy bag and just start decking people in town, Gia decided.

Blue Moon was obviously Team Beckett.

Ever since the breakup she’d heard nothing but “I’m so sorry to hear about you and Beckett. He’s such an amazing blah blah blah.”

After some kind of login glitch with the gossip group, she was granted access again only to read the brief, terse post on Facebook about their breakup. It was the only mention of them before the group had started singing Beckett’s praises.

She thought this town had been rooting for them. But she’d been wrong.

For Throwback Thursday, someone had posted a picture of Beckett rescuing a kitten from a porch roof. Another Mooner had posted video of Beckett’s speech at the women in enterprise luncheon.

Oh, and she didn’t want to forget to talk about how “great” it was to see Beckett treating Paul and Aurora to dinner at Peace of Pizza. Gia didn’t even want to know how that came about. Beckett was probably offering to officiate their second wedding.

She knew he was Blue Moon’s fearless leader and all, but didn’t anyone care that the man had just given up and walked away from their relationship on a stupid misunderstanding?

Team Gia was feeling very lonely. And excessively angry. Between the “yay Beckett” from the entire town and the fact that Paul was driving her insane at home, she was afraid she was going to develop a rage problem. Especially since she wasn’t about to give Beckett the satisfaction of seeing her head to the shed to beat out some problems.

Not that he was looking in the backyard. He’d made it clear he was done. Done with her and done with them. Just making way for Paul.

The thought that she would take Paul back was laughable. To both her and Paul. The entire reason for his visit was to sign the guardianship papers, which they had done with Ellery in Gia’s kitchen two days ago. Beckett clearly had no interest in helping with the process anymore. And now Paul was just killing time before his new gig started in Brooklyn.

Every time his phone rang, Gia prayed it was the band telling him the timeline moved up. She didn’t want to cheat the kids out of time with their father, but she also didn’t want to murder him in front of them. She was spending every spare moment of the day with Summer on the magazine just to avoid being around Paul or in Beckett’s backyard.

As Thrive took shape online, Gia felt like everything else was spinning out of control. Her only safe place was the desk in Summer’s office.

Things with Paul were exactly the same as when they split up. Gia cooked, cleaned, and worked. He brokered deals and played video games and told everyone exciting stories about life on the road.

Between her rage at Beckett and Paul’s all-night first person shooter video game marathons on the couch outside her bedroom, she wasn’t sleeping well. And an unrested Gia was an even more distracted one.

Evan went to school with no socks today because she hadn’t switched the laundry over to the dryer. The glue sticks she’d promised Aurora’s art teacher were still at the store because she forgot to buy them. Again.

And at this exact moment she was standing outside her studio staring at the locked front door.

Gia knew what she had to do. But she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to hear that voice or ask him for anything. Unfortunately, she had a class starting in fifteen minutes and it was going to happen on the cold November sidewalk if she didn’t get into the studio.

She took a deep breath and dialed. Gia closed her eyes. “Please be Ellery. Please be Ellery,” she chanted.

“Pierce Law,” Ellery’s chipper voice rang out.

“Oh thank God,” Gia said in a rush. “Ellery, it’s Gia.”

“Hey, Gia! It’s so good to hear from you! How’s it going?” Ellery’s voice was unusually loud in her ear.

“Uh, it’s fine. I’m locked out of my studio and I can’t find my keys. I think Beckett said he hid a spare somewhere. Can you —”

“Gia?”

She inhaled sharply at the sound of his voice. Deep, smooth, with a warm liquid pull, like bourbon.

She closed her eyes. “Hi,” she said, going for brisk.

“Ellery said you had an emergency.”

Gia added Ellery to her growing list of people to kill.

“Is everything okay?” Beckett asked. “The kids?”

“Everyone’s fine. I just need you — I mean …” she was getting flustered now.

“You were saying you need me?”

Was that hope she heard in his voice?

She shook her head. It didn’t matter. “I need you to tell me where the spare key for the studio is. Please,” she added hastily.

He was silent for a beat. “Sure. It’s around back. Just stay on the phone so I know you found it.”

“Uh …” She didn’t care for that idea.

“Are you walking around the building?”

Gia sprang into action and jogged around the side of the building toward the alley. “Yes, I’m almost to the alley.”

“So how are the kids?”

“You should know since you just had dinner with Aurora,” Gia grumbled.

“She said you were at the school with Evan?”

Gia hurried into the alley. “Uh, yeah. It was an art exhibit night for the middle school. They’d done some pottery stuff and I was afraid Aurora would go Tasmanian devil on the displays. I’m in the alley now.”

She thought she heard him bite back a sigh. “There’s a loose brick just above ground level under the first window by the door. Do you see it?”

She spotted it, wiggled it with her foot. “I got it.”

“It’s tucked in behind it —”

“Thank you. I’ve got to run,” Gia said, interrupting him.

“Gianna, wait. I wanted to apolo —”

“I’ve got to go. Thank you,” she said flatly before disconnecting the call and wondering how hard it would be to break a lease.