Part of a Crew

CHAPTER 10

"What?! You don't even know where a gym is?!" I respond.

"Nope. It's not that big a deal anyway. We'll just go for a big of a run, then ho back and take over one of our rooms. We can work out and spar in there."

"Okay."

We head out, and start running at a moderate pace around the outskirts of the town. The city Juarez is a pretty dangerous place because of all the cartel and drug violence around here. Luckily, we are in a smaller town outside of Ciudad Juarez. We are not actually in Juarez. Regardless, we still have to be careful about the cartels.

We rum for a while, both of us working up a good sweat. My breathing is a bit labored, since running has never really been one of my strong suits. Eliot gives a me a look as we run along, obviously listening to my breathing.

Finally he asks, " Are you okay?" He's barely even huffing. I reply, "I'm fine. Running's just never been a strong suit of mine."

"I thought you said you were in the army?"

"Shut up." Then I take off in a dead sprint.  I hear his shout of surprise, then i hear his footsteps spped up as he chased after me.  We are in the home stretch, and I can see the hotel a couple blocks away. I keep sprinting, keep pushing myself to stay in front of him.

He is fast, but with the head start I had on him, I manage to finish a step ahead if him. I've never been really fast, partly due to my height, the other part due to my build.

I hit the hotel wall, and a second later, he hits it. We walk slowly, both catching our breath after the long run and sprint.

"I disnt thibk you had that last sprint in you." Eliot says to me after we both have caught our breath. I laugh, "Neither did I."

"But you did."

"That's how I roll."

We talk as we walk inside and up the stairs to our rooms. When we reach my room, I say, "Let's use my room." He nods, and I knock on the door. A few seconds later, Parker opens the door up. She let's us in, and I see Sophie is gone. Probably with Nate.

Eliot tells Parker, "We are commandeering your room to use as a gym."

She shrugs, "OK." We walk into the middle of the room, and between the three of us, we able to move the furniture around so that there is an open space for us to work out.

We have pushed the beds towards the outside of the room, leaving us avout a ten foot square space for us to use. Parker sits on one of the beds and watches while we do push-ups, sit-ups, and other basic exercises.

We finish that, my arms and abs burning appropriately, then move on to sparring. When I was taking martial arts, I learned mostly kempo karate, and also know the basic Army fighting techniques, so now Eliot is teaching me other forms of fighting, most recently focusing on more advanced Jiu Jitsu.

We begin sparring, Parker watching on happily. Occasionally, she'll ask to join in, and we'll let her.

Eliot and I begin a practice match, and as we fight, he asks "What made you want to join us? Our life is not one most people choose."

"I chose to join because this life was better than the one I had. Ever since I got kicked out of the Army, my life has been shit. I wanted a way to go back to a more interesting life. This was my opportunity."

"You still haven't done anything illegal. You can still walk away. We won't think anything less of you. You're a good person, and I think of you as a friend. If you decide not to join our life, I won't think anything differently of you. In fact, I'll probably think you're smarter than I was."

"I'm not a pussy. I'm not going to run away. I like you guys. I don't consider many people friends, but I feel that way about you guys. I got leave you now."

He nods at this, and then we continue sparring. A few minutes later, he asks, "Did your decision to join have anything to do with the fact you thought I was hot?" He tries to sound dead serious, but his laughing blue eyes give him away.

I mutter, "You give yourself too much credit." He says, "Oh really? Then how come I manage to get all the ladies?"

"Which ladies? The only ones I've seen you with are the lesbians and the blind. Or were you talking about them?"

Parker laughs out loud at this, and Eliot's face goes red. He stammers, "N..no..no...." This makes us laugh even harder.

While we are laughing, Eliot tries to catch me off guard. and be almost does. At the last second, I deflect the punch aimed at my side.

"Good try." Then we launch into a new round of sparring. It is a ferverous frenzy of trading strikes. Neither of us want to hurt each other, we are just in it for the exercise. Even the few strikes that land are soft taps.

We finish our rounds of sparring a while later, both of us drenched in sweat and smiling.  Parker is smiling from watching us.

He says, "Nice workout."

"Thanks. It was fun." He walks through the door connecting our rooms, and I wipe the sweat off my face with a towel from the bathroom. I tell Parker, "I'm gonna go take a shower."

She nods, and I head into the bathroom after grabbing a change of clothes from my bag. As I close the door, I hear Sophie walk in the room. She exclaims, "Ew! It stinks in here! And what happened to the room?" I laugh, and hear Parker laughing from the other room. 

I turn the shower on, and strip down. As is my custom, I leave my dog tags on while I take my shower. As i shower, I smile, remembering at the airport, when both Eliot and I pulled our tags off before we had to go through the metal detectors. We had dropped them in the same bucket as we went through. I saw his tags, one with his name, the other with another name, but I  can't remember it. I know I have both my own tags, and the tags of one of my best friends from the service.

I get out of the shower, and change into a pair of cargo pants and a tee shirt. I walk out of the bathroom, and the first thing I see is Sophie scowling at me. "Put these beds back!" She orders. I mockingly bow, and mutter, "Your wish is my command."

Parker giggles, and I walk to the door. I throw open the connecting door, and look into the boy's room. Everyone looks up at me. Hardison is sitting on the couch,  laptop in front of him. Nate is at the desk, writing something. Eliot walks out of the bathroom, hair dripping wet and a towel around his waist.

"Yo. Eliot. Sophie wants us to put the beds back."

"Okay. Give me a second." I close the door and go back into my room. The sight of him fresh out of the shower is burning into my eyes. He was strong, I already knew, but seeing him without a shirt just emphasizes that fact. He doesn't quite have washboard abs, which only makes him seem more human.

A few seconds later, Eliot walks in wearing jeans and a white undershirt tank. Between him, Parker, and I, we are able to move the beds back into place. When we finish our chore, Eliot walks out of our room.

We hang around for a while, just watching TV. Finally I ask Sophie adn Parker, "What is the Big Store Con Nate was talking about. You explained the gist of it, but where to I fit in."

Sophie responds, "Well......"