“Pro or amateur? Because a monkey can judge a pro boxing match. Just count up how many shits he threw at each opponent and belt your winner. Or slap a mood ring on the corpse of Julia Childs if you want more accuracy, it really doesn’t matter. I prefer amateur. The rules are more clear, more straightforward. You land a hit, you get a point. You take a hit, you’re on the run, so if you boys don’t mind we’ll go amateur rules.”

  Mason shook his head at me, growling, “You lucky focker.”

  I grinned proudly. “I know.”

  Owen and I came to face each other, both of us dancing on our feet, readying for the fight. The other men created a makeshift ring around us, making the wall of a shed one side of the square and each of them a point opposite it. They told us our boundaries but no one specified our limits. As I looked at my uncle standing over half a foot shorter, easily thirty pounds lighter, and as many years older than me, I wondered how hard I should go at him. This was family and I’d never boxed with family. I sparred with other guys at the gym but they were opponents too. I could end up facing any of them in a competition. I didn’t show them everything I had but I didn’t go easy on them either.

  I decided the best way was to feel him out. See how hard he came at me and go a shade farther. Just enough to win, because make no mistake, family or no, I never stepped into any ring without the intention of winning.

  “Are you ready with the timer?” I asked Jenna.

  “In a way.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She smiled in the glow of her phone. “You’ll see. Are you both ready?”

  We bumped gloves at the center of the makeshift ring before retreating to opposite corners.

  “Ready,” Owen called.

  “Ready.”

  “Go!”

  Just as we both took a step toward each other music broke out over the quiet patio. It was a steady beat, a rousing drinking song but it wasn’t from Ireland. It was the American Authors Go Big or Go Home.

  I laughed, looking over at Jenna holding up her phone for us to hear. “What are you doing?”

  “This is your timer!” she shouted. “And it’s running so you better get to business! Like right now!”

  Her last words were hurried, her eyes widening as she looked to my left. I understood Owen was coming so I feinted back, slipped to the side on my right foot and was standing on the other side of him before he could get his bearings. I didn’t swing at him, though. I waited, watching him move. Gauging his reaction time, his alacrity.

  He was accurate but he was slow. An easy mark. But I didn’t know yet how hard we were running so I slowed down and let him catch up. I let him land the first hit.

  It was hard, harder than I expected. Dude was not playing around and that shit was good to know.

  I sped up, going into sparring mode and dodging him until he was tired. I landed a hit, let him have one, kept it tight, but I kept a tally in my mind and when the song was reaching the end I made sure I had two more points than he did.

  “Kellen’s the winner,” Sorcha announced, wincing at Owen. “Sorry.”

  “Whatcha sorry for?” he asked on a breathless laugh. “Have ya seen the size of the boy? I’m pleased I’m still standing.” He surprised me when he pulled me into a half hug. “Good foit, lad. Good foit.”

  “You too, Owen.”

  He laughed with incredulity as he walked away, pulling his gloves off and tossing them at Sean. “Yer turn. Good focking luck to ya! He’s faster than he let on. Stronger too.”

  Mason helped Sean lace up the same way he helped his dad. I watched him with interest as he walked back to his corner. I was gauging his stride, logging his dominant hand. He was a southpaw. I’d need to remember that when his turn came around.

  “Ready?” Jenna called.

  Together we replied, “Ready.”

  The same song cued up, sending us into the dance. Sean was faster, I saw that right away. Lighter on his feet. He used his smaller stature to move around the space in quick steps that made me buckle down and pay attention. He got the first two hits on me and I didn’t let him have them. He was that kind of quick.

  I wasn’t new to fast fighters, though, and Owen was right. I was faster than I’d let on. I drew him out, pulling him from the center of the ring where he could run circles around me and make me dizzy if I wasn’t careful. I pulled him to the edges, to the invisible ropes. He came after me quick, but the shortest distance between two points is a straight line and that’s exactly how he advanced. No more fancy footwork to leave me guessing. I got a hit on him as he approached, startling him. Throwing him off. I dodged a throw, sending him off balance outside the ring and bringing shouts of protest from the crowd.

  Sean immediately stepped back in the bounds of the space and came at me, another straight line right into my range. I kept this up with him for the last minute of the song, opening the gap between us by four hits. I was harder on him and I wasn’t quite sure why. He was all smiles when his defeat was announced, though. Sorcha on the other hand booed me.

  I laughed, throwing my hands in the air. “Judges are supposed to be impartial!”

  “Boo!” she repeated, her smile unrepentant.

  Sean threw his gloves to Mason and went to Sorcha, kissing her soundly on the mouth. She giggled against his lips.

  “You’re a fine woman, Sorcha Coulter,” he told her admiringly. “Loyal to the bone.”

  “To the bitter end,” she confirmed, pulling his mouth down for another kiss.

  Owen was already lacing Mason up, the final fight coming on fast. Mason was ready. Eager. I could see it in the way he carried himself. I recognized it because there were days when I lived it and there was a part of me, a snarling, gnashing part of me that felt it then. That banged against its bars, begging to be let out.

  “No need for the song, love,” Mason told Jenna with a smirk. “I’ll take him up on his original offer.”

  She shook her head. “What offer?”

  “We go ‘till one of us gives.”

  “Ah, come on now,” Owen said with disdain, dropping his hands away from Mason’s. “Ya don’t wanna do that.”

  “I do. Don’t you, Kellen?”

  I tried to read his face but I got nothing from him. Whatever his reasons, whatever his motivation, he was keeping it hidden. I could respect that. I could also guess at it and if I were to put money on it, I’d say Mason was a boxer like his grandfather. Like me. He was better than the other men, that much was clear. I was walking into the real deal when I stepped into the ring with him and I had no idea what his fight looked like while he had about a million clues as to what he was getting into with me. I was the underdog here. At a disadvantage. It would be wise not to take the bait.

  “Let’s do it,” I agreed.

  Of course, the animal had never been especially wise.

  That’s where I went when I circled the space slowly. I paced until my steps matched the beast inside me as he prowled the dark edges of my mind. He was waking up, coming alive, and when I let him have the driver’s seat he growled long and low in exuberance.

  I wouldn’t pull any punches with Mason because I could see it in his eyes that he wasn’t going to pull any with me. And it wasn’t malicious. It wasn’t vengeful in some way, it wasn’t a pissing contest or a drunken brawl. It was the sport. It was one fighter facing another and it was more insulting to hit him softly than it was to not hit him at all.

  “Kellen,” Jenna started, her eyes darting between Mason and me.

  I nodded curtly. “I know.”

  She nodded as well, settling back into her seat.

  “Ready?” Sorcha asked.

  Mason and I touched gloves and retreated to our corners. “Ready.”

  “Foit!”

  I went slow and easy. A Sunday stroll through the park as I went toward the center of that ring. I watched his footing and it was weird the way he stepped. It was wrong for a lefty. He started in on his right foot, not his left. It threw me for a loop. It left me wondering why and while I was pondering the oddities of fucking nothing, he landed a hit to my jaw that snapped my head back like a rubber band.

  I didn’t stumble. I held my ground and I recovered quickly, eying the smirk on his face. He didn’t say a word, though. He switched his footing, rotated his hands, and took a new stance. A right handed stance, and what do you know, his next punch came from his right hand instead of his left.

  I wasn’t about to find out if it was equally strong. I was done being amazed and distracted. He was ambidextrous. It was a pain but it wasn’t impossible to prepare for. I knew that better than most.

  I dodged his hit and landed one of my own on his cheek. He startled, surprised because guess what, asshole – I could fight both left and right handed too. One of the only perks of going into a coma and waking up with a shattered fighting hand - you found a new way to win.

  We slowly circled each other looking for a weakness, an opening, and I settled deeper inside myself. Deeper into the beast in my blood.

  Going into the dark when I had sex - that was like blacking out. I was all primal, pure motor function and feeling. No heart. No head. Just a body with base instincts that begged to be met. The animal was different. He was cunning. He was powerful and pensive. I knew where I was, what I was doing, and how it should be done. While the dark was empty, the animal was full. Full of fight, full of hate, of anger, of strength. Of all the things I was afraid to feel when I was myself because if I did, if I let them out, I’d blow apart. I would have beat my foster father blind for the abuse he gave me. I would have hunted down Sophia and left her as carrion for the way she made me suffer.

  I would have cried myself sick from the anguish in those years I was sure I’d lost Jenna forever.

  And tonight as I was surrounded by a family that was taking me in as though I were already their own, laughing with me, accepting me, loving me without question, I felt something building inside that was almost too much to bear. A strange mix of sorrow, hope, and relief that threatened to pull me under, to send me running, so I fed it to the animal. I gave it to the fight.

  I let the animal run, I let him feast, and he ate like a king.

  Mason took advantage of a stutter in my step, one I put there to draw him in, and he lunged at me. I was ready and waiting, blocking the punch easily and taking the opening in his side. I hit him hard, knocking the air out of his lungs, but he bounced back quickly. He put distance between us as he recovered and then he was back in my space, coming at me with a left foot and a left hand that made no sense. It took me completely by surprise.

  I nearly fell out of the ring. A cry of protest rose from the crowd, Jenna’s voice inside it like a bell sounding strong and clear through a storm. She was there in my peripheral – on her feet with her hands on her hips in a stance she picked up from my coach, Tim. It was impatient and intense. The one that said they knew I could do better so why hell wasn’t I?

  I dodged around Mason, putting him off balance, and I got him in the back. Kidney shot. It snapped his head back and pulled an angry grunt from his gut.

  “Come on, Mason!” Owen yelled. “Keep on your toes!”

  “He’s roit handed but he hits from his left!” Mason shouted back.

  “So do you!”

  “I do, but it’s focking annoying to fight against.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” I told him grimly.

  He turned to me, eying me shrewdly. “Did ya teach yourself that?”

  “I had to.”

  “Why?”

  I smiled in response. I wasn’t about to tell him I had to do it because my right hand screamed like a devil on fire whenever I used it. That every bone had been fractured, shattered, and had to be painstakingly rebuilt. That it never healed right and it never would.

  “Right then,” he growled in response to my silence.

  Mason came at me and I didn’t bother reading his footing. It didn’t matter. There was nothing to read meaning I had nothing to go on. He’d mix it up and throw me off all night, just like I could do to him. So instead of reading him I wrote the story for him. I met him halfway, rushing him, and I hit him in the jaw with my left hand. Then again. He got me in the side, again on the cheek, and just as he was raising his hand to deflect another blow from my left hand, I threw my right.

  It was white hot agony.

  I didn’t pull the punch. I came at him full force like I’d never been hurt before because that was what the animal did – he lived every moment, every fight, like it was his first and his last. He wasn’t afraid of shit and when the pain came I howled on the inside and burned even deeper. I threw another punch and another. Another. All from my bad hand that had a cannon behind it, and as tears sprang to my eyes I saw Mason go down on one knee, his arms raising up.

  I backed off immediately, reining it in just as Sorcha called the end of the match.

  “Kellen wins,” she said quietly from beside Jenna.

  My chest heaved as I filled my lungs with cold air. It burned the back of my throat like fire and I turned my eyes to the sky, trying to calm myself. Trying to stop the tears the way Jenna did.

  I hadn’t gone off with my right hand like that since the accident. I’d used it but never like that. Never full force, never more than once or twice. My gut clenched against the sick that threatened to rise up my throat. My right arm shook with the pain and exertion, but I took a shuddering breath, pushed through the agony, and offered my left hand to Mason.

  He looked up at me with sweat on his face, blood in the corner of his mouth, and he bumped my glove with his before standing up. “Why ya don’t lead with that hand is beyond me,” he grumbled roughly. “It’s focking evil.”

  Jenna crossed the yard to me, gingerly taking my hand up in hers and pulling at the laces. “It’s broken.”

  “What do you mean it’s broken?”

  “He fractured it in a car accident last year. It’s never been the same. It hurts like a son of a bitch when he hits with it.”

  “I know.”

  She shook her head, her mouth a thin line. “No, not for you. For him.”

  “Jesus, man,” Sean breathed. “Ya shoulda said somethin’. We wouldn’a asked ya to foit.”

  “I like to fight,” I told them roughly, watching Jenna’s hands and trying to hide the tears that still threatened my eyes. “I need to fight.”

  Mason stood behind Jenna, pulling off his own gloves. “You’re good. Busted my lip on my tooth with that last one.”

  “I’m sorry. We should have had mouth guards.”

  He laughed. “What else? Armor as well? It was a foit, mate. How would I know I’d been in one if I wasn’t bleedin’ in the mornin’?”

  “Are you okay?” Jenna asked, not looking up into my face. Giving me my privacy there in the darkened corner of the yard out of the reach of lights and eyes.

  “I will be.”

  “We’ll get this glove off and I’ll ice it. I’ll see if Sorcha has something for the swelling.”

  “It’s not swollen.”

  “No, but it will be.” She pulled off the glove slowly. I hissed tightly in the back of my throat, making her wince sympathetically. “You didn’t have to use it, Kel. It was a friendly fight.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why?”

  “It’s the animal,” I grunted.

  She held my hand lightly in hers, her face a persistent questioning shadow filling my vision.

  “When I’m in the ring,” I explained, “any ring, I’m all in it. I go to the animal, to the anger, and I put everything out there. You know it’s how I get right in my head when I’m all fucked up.”

  “What did you need to work out today?”

  I wanted to pull away. To avoid this conversation, this feeling in my heart, but I didn’t want to run from her either. I was torn, tormented and lost, pulled apart inside my own skin, so instead of running and instead of answering I put my left hand behind her head, pulled her in close, and I held onto her.

  We stood there together like that for what felt like hours. In and out, slow and even. Jenna and I. Breathing.

  Eventually she pulled back and lowered my hand slowly. “I’ll get you that ice,” she whispered.

  “Thanks.”

  She disappeared with Sorcha into the house, leaving me alone with the men. All of them were drinking again. Smiling.

  “Sorry ‘bout yer hand, boy, but it was a good match. Good foit,” Owen told me heartily.

  Sean saluted me with his cup, agreeing silently.

  “I’ll get ya next time, ya bastard,” Mason told me with a wry grin and a slap on the shoulder.

  I laughed shakily, still feeling raw from the pain in my hand and the warmth in my heart. “Yeah, you’re welcome to try.”

  Mason laughed before he sauntered into the house, shouting something about needing a hot meal and a hot girl. Jenna and Sorcha laughed at him, the sound disappearing as the door shut behind him. Even then I could hear his responding chuckle, deep and full.

  It made me ache inside in every empty corner I possessed.

  “Ya alright, lad?” Sean asked me casually. He nodded to my hand. “Is it giving ya trouble?”

  I looked down at it without interest. On the outside it was normal, the pain hidden down deep where only I knew about it, and the glaring metaphor that it was for my life was not lost on me. I understood it very well. It didn’t mean it made it easy to manage.

  “It’s fine. I’m used to it,” I promised him.

  “Does Jenna know how to mend it?”

  “Jenna knows how to mend everything.”

  A silence fell between us as the other men drank their whiskey and I carefully massaged my injured hand. It wasn’t awkward or strange. No one felt a need to fill it with anything but our breath on the air and the sound of laughter coming from the kitchen. It was peaceful. Comfortable.

  It set me on edge.

  “Well, I’m knackered,” Sean announced, tossing the dregs of his drink into the bushes behind him. “I’m off to find my wife and my bed. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, Sean.”

  “’Night,” Owen answered.

  Sean walked toward me to go into the house, pausing as he passed.