sweating and breathing hard until the throbbing pain in my balls dissipates.
“You should be more careful with something you might want to use again . . .” I grumble toward the closed door of Cat’s class.
Straightening up, I give my head a shake.
I should be angry with her. But I’m well aware of Cat’s claustrophobia. There’s a fine line between restraining her and trapping her.
Besides . . . I always enjoy a glimpse of Cat’s ruthless side. Even when it’s directed at me.
The bigger issue is how I’m going to make her talk to me.
I ponder this conundrum during boxing.
I pair up with Kade Petrov intentionally to annoy Vanya and Bodashka. Sure enough, they glower and mutter to each other as they watch us spar.
“I can never tell if they’re mad at me or you,” Kade says, sending a rapid combination my way.
“Both,” I say, blocking each punch in turn. “And they’re not mad. They’re just . . . malevolent.”
Kade laughs. “I’m glad I can always get a vocabulary lesson along with my boxing instruction.”
“Maybe you should be an English teacher, ‘cause you ain’t never gonna be a boxer,” I tease him, sending a combination back at him.
Kade slips the punches with promising speed.
“There you go!” I say. “Not too shabby.”
He fires back at me and I bat his fist aside.
“Not too great, either,” I snort.
I don’t know why I’m laughing. I’ve got a hundred different problems plaguing me, and I’m still fucked in the head from seeing that picture of my mother. But Kade is so easy-going that it lightens my mood to spar with him, even on the worst days.
He refuses to quail under the obvious antagonism of the older students. And he never shirks from practicing with me, even when he can’t land a single hit. His persistence is infectious.
Kade attacks again, even faster. This time he manages to get a rapid jab inside my right glove, and it grazes my chin.
“Oh, you felt that one!” Kade chortles, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Not as much as you will,” I growl.
After class, I help Snow pick up the discarded sparring pads.
He sprays them with sanitizer and wipes them down with a towel.
“Well,” he grunts, throwing another pad on the pile of those that have been cleaned. “What is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know you’re not helping me tidy up out of the goodness of your heart.”
“I could be.”
“You’re not.”
I pick up a sweaty towel and chuck it in the laundry bin, irritated by how easily he sees through me.
“I got in a fight with Cat the other night,” I say.
“What happened?”
“She found my mother. Living in Chicago, under her sister’s name.”
Snow is silent a minute, digesting this.
“Why did that occasion a fight?” he says, at last.
“Cat tracked her down without even asking me. She shoved a picture in my face.”
Snow cocks an eyebrow at me. “And that made you angry?”
“She had no right.”
He makes a dismissive sound. “She has every right.”
I wring the next towel in my hands, glaring at Snow. It’s just like him to take her side for no fucking reason.
“How do you figure that?” I demand.
“It’s called intimacy, Dean. You let someone in your life, and they’re in your life. She’s not a doll you can put on a shelf until you want to play with her again. She’s gonna have her own ideas of how to do things.”
“It’s my fucking mother! It’s my choice if I want to find her or not.”
“Cat didn’t fly her to the island. It’s still your choice if you want to see her, isn’t it?”
My blood pressure is rising, thudding in my temples and behind my eyes. I don’t know why the fuck I come to Snow for advice when he’s just as infuriating as Cat. Maybe even more so.
“She had the balls to try to break up with me!” I say.
Snow chuckles, and I’d like to chuck this towel right in his face.
“Sounds like she did break up with you,” he says.
I fling the towel into the hamper, biting back the torrent of angry words that want to spill out of me. I regret how I spoke to Cat. I don’t need to set another relationship on fire—even if Snow is seriously pissing me off.
“Well?” I demand.
“Well what?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Have you considered apologizing?”
“Why the fuck should I apologize? She’s the one who should beg me for forgiveness.”
Snow sighs, picking up the last of the pads and carrying them over to the storage cabinet.