Page 113 of Embriagado

“Why’re you here, Gabriel?” I asked before going back to hitting the bag.

“My uncle told me you’ve been coming here for the last two weeks, so I had to come and see it for myself.”

I forgot he was Carlos’s nephew.

“Well, here I am.” I gave the bag one last punch, then grabbed my water bottle from the floor. “And now that you’ve seen me, you’re free to go.”

He chuckled while I emptied half the bottle.

“It’s been a while since we last met.”

Clearly, not long enough.

“Now that my dad’s home, I’m back at my place.”

I had seen him less in the last few weeks, which explained it.

He then let out a deep sigh while looking around the empty gym.

“Remember the hours we used to spend here as teens? We were here more than we were home.”

Remembering those days, a slight smile pulled on my lips. “Yeah, we were.”

“Even though you were younger then, and a lot smaller, we still sparred together all the time.”

“Among other things.” I snorted, thinking of the number of times we fucked in here.

We used to fuck in every corner of this place back when we were together. Boxing and sex, a badass combo that was probably why I sometimes confused what we had for love.

Gabriel’s cheeks reddened, and he cleared his throat. “Well, that, too… Remember that time your dad nearly caught us?”

Of course I fucking did. It was maybe the third time we’d hooked up? Back when all I wanted was to have sex, so much so that I didn’t care about doing it in the supply room with the gym being full. Thinking about it, not much had changed, considering the hand job Ariyan had given me on the storage room floor.

Shit. He was so hot that night, enough to make me crawl back to him, ready for more.

“I remember how you screamed at me for that,” I finally said, then tossed the water bottle into my gym bag. As fun as it was going down memory lane with Gabe, I’d better not. “Anyway, I’m done here, and your uncle told me to lock up, so⁠—”

“Don’t you want to spar for a bit?” he offered, pointing his thumb at the ring behind him. “You know, like in the good old days.”

I really shouldn’t, but Gabe was a great boxer, and even though Carlos allowed me to spar with some of his guys, I shouldn’t miss the opportunity. Especially when my match was tomorrow, and I hadn’t had a proper sparring buddy in a while.

* * *

“Holy shit,” Gabriel panted, his back shoved against the turnbuckle. “The hell are you on, fiera?”

Choosing to be careless, we’d skipped the headgear and the sparring gloves with extra padding and instead went for simple training gloves, which, in my case, was good, considering that tomorrow I’d fight bare-handed.

“Just been practicing a lot lately,” I said, watching him as he pushed back from the ropes.

Still panting, he ran his fingers through his sweaty hair, trying to catch his breath. Poor guy had a nasty bruise on his cheek from my left hook. He should be grateful I hadn’t used my right one, or he would have been unconscious now.

“Are you planning a comeback and I don’t know about it?” he joked, his lips forming a smile that showed off his dimples.

“Fuck off, asshole.” I shoved his chest, and he reached and grabbed my wrist, keeping me close.

“I mean it.” He softly caressed my skin with his thumb. “If you do, I’ll come to every fight.”

“You know I’m not planning any comebacks,” I muttered when he finally stopped caressing me.