But she wasn’t sure Kieran would choose to forgive her.
—
“What the hell, dude! Avoid the fucking face. This mug needs to be gorgeous for the prefight interviews on Friday.” Kane rubbed his palm over his cheek that Kieran’s fist had just grazed.
“Relax.” Kieran stepped around him, moving to jab him in the side. Kane blocked his fist this time, returning with an even harder knock to Kieran’s back. He groaned and fell forward as the strike radiated through his body; kidney shots were always the most painful.
“Tapping out?” Kane wiped his brow on his wrapped wrist, breathing heavily as he stepped back to get some distance.
“Fuck that.” Kieran pushed himself up and rushed his twin brother, catching him in a clinch as they both struggled to get the offensive position. They parted quickly, as neither could stick the hold, then Kane’s uppercut caught him under the chin, knocking his head back. He coughed and sputtered as he staggered backward.
“Nice, Killer!” Rory called out to Kane from the edge of the cage, where he was waiting with Ace. Kieran’s fire flamed at the reminder of what had once been his career, and the name that his brother had stolen. His mother had told him that he should be flattered, that Kane had looked up to him and wanted to be like him—but he didn’t believe that.
No one wanted to be like him.
No one wanted to be with him, either. Despite Fiona’s insistence that things between them were over, the look of desire in her eyes had been unmistakable the few times their paths had crossed this week. It was confusing as hell, but as long as he saw that, he couldn’t let go of the possibility that she might change her mind. That there was something between the two of them still, if only her mind would let her heart take charge for once in her life.
“Shit!” Kieran groaned as he was knocked backward, hitting the mat hard as Kane had leveled him with a punch he hadn’t seen coming.
Definitely should have been paying attention. He stared at the ceiling, trying to push air back into his lungs. Kane’s and Rory’s faces appeared above him, and Rory offered him a hand. Kieran took the help and pulled himself to his feet, stretching his side where a bruise was already forming.
“Well, I’d say you’re ready for Friday, Kane.” Rory patted him on the back. “You okay?” he asked, looking at Kieran.
“I’ll be fine,” Kieran replied, then turned to his twin. “You’ve definitely got the championship in the bag.”
“Hell, yes. I’m gonna make him my bitch,” Kane agreed, referring to his upcoming opponent in the state championship fight, for which he’d been training for several months. “Then I’m going to ask your woman’s friend out, K. Got tickets to the latest Logan Clay concert. Chicks go nuts for that dude. No way Nora’s turning me down.”
“I don’t have a woman anymore,” Kieran reminded him, “and there’s no way Nora’s going out with you, no matter what you try to bribe her with.”
“You’ll see!” Kane responded, still as cheery as ever as he walked out of the cage to go shower.
Rory and Ace walked with Kieran over to the water station, and they both had their fill as the silence grew between them. Kieran watched his older brother crush a water bottle and toss it in a perfect arc into the recyclables container. Kieran had spent his entire childhood looking up to this man, wanting to do what Rory did; wanting Rory to like him, to be proud of him.
He wasn’t sure how they’d gotten so off course from that.
“Remember that time when we were kids and we made our own bowling alley outta these?” Kieran held up a water bottle as Rory eyed him sternly for a moment before his face split into a softer smile. It’d been a while since he’d looked at Kieran like that; the only happiness he’d seen on Rory’s face lately had been reserved for Clare.
Rory knocked the water bottle out of his hand with a chuckle. “I refused to drink water for, like, a month after that.”
“I think we drank at least thirty bottles that day so we’d have enough empties that we could use them as pins for a whole slew of lanes.” Kieran chuckled. “Why did we even do that? Why didn’t we just dump out the water, or use them when they were full?”
“Fuck if I know.” Rory shrugged. “We were stupid kids.”
“We’re still stupid kids,” Kieran said, looking at him more seriously this time.
“No argument here,” Rory agreed.
Kieran exhaled slowly, knowing this was the time he needed to talk to his brother. They’d been putting off this conversation ever since he got out of prison the first time. “I’m sorry, man. I shouldn’t have blamed you for everything back then. It wasn’t your fault I was mixed up in some stupid-ass shit.” Kieran rubbed the back of his neck. “I know you were just looking out for the gym.”