“Good intense?”
“Not sure yet.”
“Fair enough.” Erin stood back up. “Take a few minutes to get yourself together. That’s more than enough for one day. Next week we’ll talk about today and talk about whether you want to do that again.”
“Again?” I said. “Are you nuts?”
“You don’t think that was the end of it, do you?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“One step at a time,” Erin said. “You did really well. I’m proud of you.”
She smiled at me and nodded her head. I gave her a bit of a smile back, sat there for a few minutes while she wrote in her notebook and then headed out to the lobby.
“How are you, Liam?” Damon asked as we walked down the stairs.
I wondered if he had ever asked me that before and couldn’t really come up with an answer.
“I’m…okay,” I replied. “Tired.”
“I think that’s to be expected,” he said with a nod. “Home, I assume?”
“No,” I said. “I want to go to the gym and beat the shit out of something.”
“Then the gym it is.”
The trainer wasn’t ready to defend himself against me, and I was okay with that. I slapped him around the mat for a while, and it definitely made me feel better. Even with the gloves. By the time I was done, I was sweating and exhausted.
Damon stayed on the side of the ring and watched with a half grin on his face.
“What?” I asked as I flipped over the ropes.
“You did well,” Damon said.
“I kick ass,” I told him. I offered up my own lopsided grin.
“You do,” he agreed. “Feel better?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Home?” he asked.
“To Tria,” I replied.
“To Tria,” he agreed.
*****
The next day was the long-awaited sentencing hearing for one Keith Harrison, assaulter and batterer.
The fucker plea bargained his way down from attempted murder, for Christ’s sake. No one asked for my opinion. I didn’t have any doubt he was trying to kill me, not that it mattered now. I got the girl. He was going to get a prison sentence.
Tria tightened her grip on my hand as we walked into the courtroom and sat down. Keith was in one of those prison-orange jumpsuits and sat with a court appointed attorney near the front. He looked back at us as we walked in, and his eyes narrowed at me.
I glared back, and just for good measure, I reached over and rubbed at the center of Tria’s abdomen. Tria covered my hand with hers and turned her head into my chest. She didn’t want to see him—I knew that much. I only hoped he’d be going away for a long time.
Keith’s eyes widened, and I knew he got the message. A moment later he slumped slightly in his seat and shook his head.