TWENTY-TWO

“What kind of sloppy offence is this, Killer?” Julian spits out as he lands a solid kick to Kayden’s arm, weakening it. As Julian reels back, exposing his midsection, Kayden dives in but not before Julian slams a Muay Thai clinch into place, locking his arms around Kayden’s neck. Kayden struggles to get free as Julian slams his knee repeatedly into his torso, eliciting an agonizing groan from him.

Just as Julian is about to kick in for the fourth time, Kayden launches a straight punch at him, trying to catch him off guard, but Julian easily dodges. Retaliating, Julian launches a vicious low kick at Kayden’s knee, but at the last second, Kayden reels his leg back and goes for a front push kick, throwing Julian back. I smile to myself, pride bursting from within me at that good footwork. They scramble into position again, a thick sheen of sweat already covering their ripped bodies.

I’m watching from the sidelines, shoving a torn piece of doughnut into my mouth and chewing with delight. If I’m waking up at six in the morning at least it’ll be to see two half-naked dudes going at it with each other in a cage.

Kayden’s eyes flicker briefly toward me. I raise him a thumbs-up and he smiles briefly through the sweat. A tired but rugged smile pops one of his dimples.

Ah fuck.

Sadly, the smile is short lived when he spots Julian barreling toward him.

“Focus!” Julian yells, snapping Kayden’s attention back.

They trade blows a few times, both expertly dodging and landing hits in the right places. Kayden anticipates a blow to the head, defenses going up quickly, but— too late! Julian feints and takes Kayden down, scrambling into position.

Immediately, Kayden covers his face with his arms as Julian pounds on him from above.

“What are you doing?” Julian yells. “You’re not getting out of this position by doing this kinda bullshit.”

Kayden grits his teeth in pain, his arms absorbing the blows as he struggles against Julian. He’s reaching and grabbing for anything of Julian’s but is unable to find the opening. Eventually, after making way too many hits to the head, Julian pries himself off of him.

Kayden drops his head to the ground in defeat.

I scramble toward him, snatching a towel and a bottle of water from the benches before climbing into the cage.

“Here,” I say, passing him the items. Kayden sprays half the bottle of water over his face and sloppily cleans it up with a towel.

“What the hell have you been teaching him?” Julian cuts a glare at me. “He barely lasted a couple of minutes in that cage.”

“I taught him all that I know from you.”

“Which is surprisingly little for someone who’s been working here for years now,” he mutters, throwing his gloves to the ground. He turns toward Kayden. “You have potential, kid. I see it in you. But it’s like you’re not completely in it.

You’re distracted. Stop fighting with your heart and start thinking with your goddamned mind instead.”

Kayden merely groans, pulling his arms over his eyes.

I squat on the ground so I’m eye level with him. “Kayden, you need to listen to him.”

“I’m trying,” he says sharply.

“Not nearly enough,” Julian says, wiping sweat off his brow. “Getting out of that mount was difficult, yes, but not impossible. You just have to retain your focus and find the weakness. Lesson number one: you always have more control of the situation than you think. Get into position again. I’ll show you.”

Kayden throws the towel and bottle to the side and lies on the ground. Julian straps his MMA gloves on and climbs into position, hovering over Kayden.

“Your first instinct should be to get some kind of upper body control. Use your legs to bump me and make me base out. Your opponent—me—will be off balance now.” Kayden does what Julian says then locks his ankles together around Julian’s legs. “Good. You come at me from an angle, not straight on. I’ll be resisting, which means you have to switch to either side of my body to gain the upper hand. Disengage. Use your hips to escape to the other side and re-entangle. Now you’ve got a good opening to attack.”

He struggles against Julian, jerking his body side to side while retaining a firm defense. As Julian predicted, he has the upper hand now. If Kayden can keep his opponent busy enough, he might just be able to get out of that grapple.

Julian pushes off of Kayden. “See? You can fucking do it.

So why don’t you?”

Kayden pulls himself into a sitting position, resting his arms over his bent knees. His gaze slides toward me briefly before falling back to the ground again. If you weren’t paying attention, you’d hardly notice it. But Julian does.

Julian trudges over toward me and pulls me to the other side.

Tags: Claudia Tan Perfect Romance
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