Page 39 of Bad Habit
“And your investment?”
My phone vibrates again. I pull my phone away from my ear to read the text that came though.
AJ
Get your ass out of that car.
My smile grows big. “I got to go, Gigi. I love you bunches.”
“Love you bunches, my sweet girl.” She hangs up.
Mia
Don’t yell at me.
AJ
You told me to yell at you if you didn’t go inside. Make up your mind.
Mia
You’re not wrong. Thank you.
I take a deep breath, readying myself. I can be in close quarters and not want to kiss him. Or think about the way his hands feel on my skin. How he manages to bruise without marks. How I feel it for days after. I can do this.
Making my way out of my car, I walk up the pathway to the front porch. No plants or decorations on the porch, but it is clean and open. I ignore his instructions of just walking in and knock instead. No answer, so I wait a few minutes and then knock again. Still no answer but I can hear faint music coming from inside. I knock again. I let out a frustrated sigh before turning the handle to open the door.
“Keeping your front door unlocked is very unbothered queen of you, Oliver!” I yell out across the open floors. The kitchen is to my right, I take a peek inside and see a pile of products and equipment for the work today. “Ol!” I yell out again.
I push my way past the kitchen and through a long hallway. I know if I take a left at the end, I will end up in his bedroom. That’s a hard no. I turn around to inspect the other part of the house when I notice a door I didn’t notice that night. And then the music reaches my ears again. I open it to be met with stairs. Curiosity never leads to boredom.
I hit the bottom of the staircase and I regret my decision to never want to be bored. Boring is safe. Walking in on Oliver shadowboxing in his basement shirtless and dripping sweat is not safe.
Heavy music is vibrating the walls and Oliver is too focused on his footwork to notice me in the corner of the room. He moves quickly. He has the entire downstairs transformed into a home gym with a garage door lifted and mats that match the ones at the gym placed on the floor. I watch his snake tattoo move as he dips his shoulder and works a combo that I’ve seen AJ work a hundred times. It’s not lost on me that he probably taught it to her. I think the entire gym forgets that Oliver is the starting point for most of the training.
Rory eclipses his talent. But watching Oliver, it is clear that he has a different drive than AJ or Rory. Rory is nearly perfect, he is steady and quick and calculated. He knows exactly what he wants to do before he steps foot in the ring. AJ is studious and resilient. She learns her opponent fast and then attacks hard. Oliver is methodical and hungry. He gets lost in the adrenaline of the pain and violence. I saw it when he fought with me in his corner at The Poolhouse.
A new song starts just as he pivots on his back foot, keeping his upper body in form. He spins and then nearly breaks his neck spinning back around. His eyes catch on me leaning against the wall and his hands drop. His hair is curling on the ends from being soaked with sweat and he has scruff covering the bottom half of his face. He takes full inventory of me before an excruciatingly slow grin graces his face. “Hi, pretty girl.” He’s not even fazed that I’m in his house right now.
He walks over to grab a towel laying over his weight rack and wipes off his face. He continues over to me, and I quickly realize I misjudged how sweaty he actually is. I follow the droplets as they fall down his waist line. He has a few other tattoos scattered about that I haven’t gotten to see up close like this before long enough to really take them in. A flock of birds are sprinkled over his ribs. There’s a traditional rose on his other hip and I know the butterfly on the back of his neck. And his recent addition of the viper on his back and peeking over his shoulder. He was adamant about that placement when Devyn was getting our tattoos laid out. When I reach his eyes, they are staring at my lips.
I cross my arms in a pathetic attempt to put some resemblance of space between us. “You smell.” I wrinkle my nose in fake disgust.
He doesn’t even respond, just smiles and continues to stare at me. His eyes catch on my nose ring. He leans against the wall, mimicking the way I’m leaning and tilts his head to rest on the wall. “You came.”
“Well I can’t resist an opportunity to be better at something than you.” I have no idea if he has ever remodeled anything, he could very wellbe spectacular at it. “Why are you working out here instead of the gym?” I wouldn’t have thought that any of them would workout anywhere else but the gym.
“I have a fight next Friday. AJ has me working drills three times a day.” His voice is missing the usual grit to it, like he is more at ease being in his home.
“Who are you fighting?”
“Want to come and see?” He offers and I feel my breath hiccup but I don’t think he notices. There is something real about him asking me to come to his fight.
“Are you going to act like a caveman and put me in your corner behind your brother again?” Am I entertaining this offer? Possibly. Watching him fight lit my entire body on fire.
“Are you going to bring a useless date this time?”
“Davey isn’t useless. He was very sweet and he made me laugh.” I lift my eyebrow waiting for him to argue.
