The Boxer (editing)

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

Sadie's POV

Ever since I yelled out that I loved Charlie he wouldn't let me live it down.
"Never thought you'd be this mushy, Charles." I squirmed when he snuck up on me when I was training one day.

Ray was cool with me bringing him as long as Charlie helped me or didn't distract me too much. Of course, everyone at the gym instantly fell in love with Charlie, he made it too easy.

He shrugged with a proud grin before tossing me my water bottle. I took a quick look around, Ray was busy with another fighter on our gym's competitive team and my other coaches looked busy with various other duties. Most of the other fighters were so focused on their workouts that no one noticed me sneak away to the stereo and change the playlist to the one I made.

I was very selective about my hip hop favorites and with nineties, you really couldn't go wrong. I chose my favorite song, "I Wish" and jogged back to the bags. I couldn't help but smile as everyone groaned at my choice.

One of the rings were empty and I jumped in to shadowbox by myself and work on footwork in the ring space. I started with warming up to shuffle in circles in the ring, randomly switching direction to practice my foot speed. My shoulders bounced to the music and I huffed out the lyrics as I kept up with the cardio.

"I don't care if you like the song," Ray snapped at me, his eyes narrowed harshly, "Don't bounce your shoulders, I don't want you getting back in the habit."

Charlie was staring at me like I was crazy, when my playlist was on, I could never be too serious.

By the time "Let Me Clear My Throat On" I was sweating and the balls of my feet filled with that warmth that came from the soreness of bouncing on them for so long with no break. One of my coaches, Elliot, hopped in the ring with mitts on and had me practice combos with him. His blue eyes were hard with impatience as I bobbed more to the music than the pattern. After I became annoying, singing full volume to the songs while panting from working straight no break through each song, Elliot began throwing hands at me so I could work at defense.

"You're going to get a black eye, Sadie," Elliot threatened me as I could see I was growing more and more unbearable to him.

"Wanna bet?" I grinned feeling a new power running through my body. My life was so normal at that moment, I was in a good place with people and my records were better than ever, something about that was making me feel unstoppable.

Elliott raised his voice for Charlie to hear, "I blame you, kid! We prefer the grumpy Sadie, much quieter." He tried to hide his smile but we both know that moods like this were ones where I could function at my best. When I was fighting or practicing in a good mood, I was more likely to adventure in my attacks. Half the time, it ended with my getting my ass handed with me and sporting a nice dark bruise somewhere on my body. The other I completely wrecked my sparring partner and risked a success with a ridiculous attack. I was known for thinking through my combinations and hits with great detail and weighing of my options but sometimes I let the momentum take me.

As Elliott and I circled each other, I scanned him for vulnerabilities. He was more secure than I was, he had mitts which evened to my gloves but he also had the chest plate on. For sparring practice, we had these padding plates. They sort of looked like armor, you strapped them on from behind and in front you had a large pad covering your chest and stomach and two more smaller ones covering your sides. It was like half a hexagon of padding, it allowed you to practice hits on a bag but it was on a person so you could feel movement in real time.

I noticed Elliot's right mitt wasn't too secured and based on crazy boxing and other martial arts videos I watched in my free time, I had just in mind what I wanted to try as my crazy move for the day.