CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
"You look terrible." Andrew commented as Victor stepped into their makeshift boxing ring. "And you smell like a cellar. Have you been drinking?"
When hadn’t he?
He had found it hard to sleep since he’d left Alice two days prior and had hoped the drink would rid him of the memories of the hurt look he’d put on her face, but he was only left feeling worse with each glass he took.
You’re a coward, Victor.
Her words had stung, but he couldn’t deny the truth of them. He was afraid of the feelings for his wife that had rapidly taken root in his heart, which had previously housed the darkness of his past. Knowing she was quick to trust, he didn’t want to give any more fuel to the flame that had begun to spark between them.
He wasn’t selfish to resign her to that fate. Placing his things down at the edge, he turned to his friend.
"I still look better than you." He tried for humor to mask his pain, but his friend, damn him, saw right through it.
"You look like you haven’t slept for days." Andrew scoffed. "What happened?"
"I didn’t come here to talk," he answered, rolling his neck and shoulders.
His friend scoffed, shaking his head and taking on a stubborn stance.
"As much as I enjoy senseless violence and beating you to a pulp, it wouldn’t be fair to do so now," he retorted. "Talk."
"Andrew."
"Victor."
"Don’t be a cad. I need this."
Why, of all times, the man would decide he would rather talk than fight, would the man choose now?
They had decided many years prior that boxing would be the outlet by which they communicated when they had issues theywould rather not discuss. It was a much better outlet and more respectable than starting brawls in inns of low repute and had worked just as well for years. He could barely understand the man’s insistence on talking now.
"You’re drunk and you have a crazed look in your eye," Andrew explained, stepping closer with cautious steps the way one would when approaching a frantic horse. "You need a warm bed and some sleep from where I’m standing."
"I can get some sleep after I beat you," he bragged, but seeing the stubborn look in his friend’s eye, he sighed. "Please, Andrew."
He sighed and shook his head, muttering under his breath.
"I’ll humor you, but I warn you, I won’t be merciful."
"I have never needed you to be."
The words were barely out of his mouth when a blow struck him square across the jaw. His head whipped to the side from the force. If he had used a little more force, Victor was sure his neck would have snapped.
"Damn you," he cursed, spitting out the blood that had pooled in his mouth.
He was lucky the blow had taken none of his teeth.
"You didn’t come here to talk, did you?" the bastard quipped, looking smug.
He returned the favor with a blow his friend dodged easily. He grinned broadly, a wolf excited by the prospect of the kill, and squared up. Now, they were both ready for an actual fight.
Andrew struck out again, and perhaps it was due to the whiskey in his blood, he was too slow to dodge, and this one met him in his abdomen, winding him.
"Shite," he spat.
He tried, blow after blow, to land one on his friend, but the man moved fast, not wasting a single movement and returning blows with rapid succession. Victor would have given in and called the match off, but pride held him in the ring. The pain was excruciating but at least distracted him from the memory of Alice’s hurt eyes.
