Knockout Read Online Free Page B

for a minute inside the ring before finally calling the guys up. He rambled on about sportsmanship and honor as the boys bounced back and forth on their toes. I knew from what he’d told me that Kellen was keeping his legs tensed and active, ready to drive him around the ring quick as lightening. I watched his leg muscles move under his skin as he bounced. I could almost see the energy coiling inside of them. Springs loading, waiting to be released.
    Ding!
    I snapped back to focus as the bell rang. The boys leapt into movement. The other guy wasted no time throwing a jab.
    “He’s testing him,” my dad told me. “He wants to see how fast Kellen is.”
    Kellen dodged the punch easily. He also seized the moment and threw an uppercut that landed right in the guy’s chin. His opponent stumbled back a step before regaining his footing and moving around the ring looking for an opening. Kellen didn’t give him one. Instead he lunged, finding his own opening and throwing a punch that gleaned off the guy’s headgear near his eye. Suddenly Kellen’s head whipped to the side. The other boxer hand thrown a punch I hadn’t even seen coming.
    I gasped loudly, worried about what the hit meant for Kellen in this bout .
    “He’s okay. It’s going to happen,” dad warned me. “Taking a hit doesn’t mean he’s lost the match.”
    “How do they decide who wins? They won’t go until one of them is knocked out, right?’
    Dad laughed. “No, that’s not how these fights are done. They only go three rounds and each one is timed. Each hit earns them points that are tallied on a score card at the end of the match. It’s just like any other sport. The guy with the most points at the end wins.”
    “Is Kellen winning?”
    I took an unconscious step toward the ring. I was looking up through the ropes into the lights watching their bodies dance past me with incredible speed. They were both so big and yet so light on their feet. They moved without thinking. Without debate or hesitation. It was all instinct at that point. All muscle memory learned to avoid attack and gain the advantage. I wasn’t looking at their faces or their fists. I was watching them blur past the glare of the lights in my eyes, two brightly colored figures bouncing around that small ring. Chasing, hiding, attacking, dodging. It was so fluid. Even the hits. I should have been appalled or scared as mom would be, as she’d want me to be, but I wasn’t. I watched Kellen take those hits and keep on moving, keep on fighting and I was in awe.
    He was so sure and calm, but all power and force as well. His skin moved smooth and tan over the rolling hills of the muscles in his arms, his shoulders, his chest, back and stomach. A sheen of sweat began to build. It highlighted the contours of his body that never stopped. It was always in motion, always darting and glancing.
    I had seen Kellen in swim trunks beside our pool. I had seen him covered in sweat in just shorts while helping my dad in the backyard. It was not news to me that he was beautiful. That he was a chiseled work of human art. But this, seeing him moving like a viper around the ring, his face focused and in that removed space where we all find peace from ourselves and our lives – that was breathtaking.
    “Jenna,” dad said. It didn’t sound like it was the first time.
    “Huh?” I blinked, surprised.
    “Let’s pull you back a bit. You’re going to get hit with flying spit or sweat standing that close to the ring.”
    He pulled me back beside him but it didn’t do anything to distance me from the inside of that ring. I was still entranced. Still completely and utterly mesmerized.
    Kellen darted away under the other boxer’s arm then snapped back in front of him quick as anything. He landed a blow square against the guy’s cheek.
    “Yes!” I cried, excitedly bouncing on my toes and clenching my hands into fists.
    “Oh, this is going to bite me in the ass.”
    I frowned up at my dad. “What