Duke (The Henchmen MC 5)

Lo was a fair trainer.

She was hardass and no-nonsense, believing I owed it to myself to fight through it until I puked or passed out.

Which I did. The puking. Several times in fact.

But then that you had to get right back and get in it.

"Your body will get used to the pain and your threshold will increase. So stop pussy-ing out on me and fight."

But then she would hold my hair while I puked and make me a 'recovery' dinner with lots of protein and carbs and we would sit and talk and discuss what did and didn't work for us in training that day.

I got tougher.

A little harder.

And in watching some of my muscles grow, I realized not only was my body changing, but my mindset was as well.

I wasn't so scared, so inclined to cower and bite my tongue and try to shrink away and hide myself. I learned that not only was martial arts good because you could protect yourself, but it also brought with it a kind of confidence I didn't know I could possess.

"Watch out, Rambo coming through," Maze said when I came in from a three hour training session sometime around the end of my second week there. I was hot, my face so flushed it was beet red and my body so sweaty I was pretty sure there wasn't an inch of me that didn't have my clothes sticking to me. But I felt good. Alive. Alert. Strong. "God, I miss that," Maze said, shaking her head. She looked down at her belly. "You better not be a fussy baby, because Mommy is going right back to sparring practice once I push you out."

"I miss it too," Summer said, nodding. "Granted, I never got to the level you guys are at. But I always felt really confident after. And it's a great workout. And," she added, smile going a little wicked. "All those endorphins make you want to jump your man's bones."

I smiled, not knowing much about that seeing as I hadn't seen Duke. He texted here or there and, without fail, he always did so during training. At which time Lo would give me a second to shoot off a text and grab a drink before we got right back at it.

But he didn't visit.

He said he would, but he didn't.

And I was trying really hard to not be a sullen baby about that fact.

But it was hard when I had seen Reign and Repo visit.

To be fair, they came to see how their women were faring with their morning sickness and play with their kids and read them bedtime stories and tuck them in.

Still, I was envious.

I hated being envious.

"Alright, I am going to hit the shower. Guys," I called to the kids who gave me different amounts of undivided and divided attention. "Anyone have to pee because I would really prefer to shower alone for once."

Really, without fail, someone was knocking on the door at some point. It didn't matter if I asked them if they had to pee or not. I figured it was a good lesson in case I ever had my own children; there was no such thing as privacy.

"Seth..." I prompted, him being the youngest and the biggest offender. I had yet to have a shower that he didn't barge into the room during, do his thing, then slam down the toilet seat loudly, making me jump. But I couldn't complain because, hey, at least he put down the seat.

"No," he said, not bothering to look up from the puzzle he was working on, his bottom lip stuck in his teeth in concentration.

"I just peed," Summer said, but shook her head. "But I can't promise anything. This one thinks my bladder is a trampoline."

"Alright," I said, laughing, as I grabbed a pile of my clean clothes that Lo had been good enough to pick up during one of her visits to the compound under the guise of checking on things when, really, we all knew she was going to see her man. "I'll leave it unlocked," I said, going into the bathroom and closing the door.

I peeled off my clothes, oddly pleased with the sweat and dirt and the small stain of blood from the one time I bested Lo. It wasn't a feeling I would have thought myself capable of before.

But I was taking pride in my developing grit.

My grandmother even noticed it.

I felt like she was actually really proud of me too. For branching out and taking chances and coming out of my shell more.

She asked about Duke often and I simply said he was busy with work. It wasn't untrue. She, being of a generation that favored men who were dedicated breadwinners, liked him even more for it.

"You'll need that stability for when you start making me a great grandmother," she informed me.