Her rival

“Not gonna let you get in any extra training to try and sneak ahead of me.”

“Oh my gods,” Ashley said, turning to me, “You’re not my fucking rival, you’re just an asshole.”

I smirked, and flicked my gloves through the air with a few quick jabs, “I can be both.” Next, I started with some stretches, which happened to give Ashley something to ogle for a bit. “Besides, if I’m the asshole rival, that means you’re the beautiful heroine. Honestly, you should be thankful for me.”

Ashley turned her fake frustration back on the punching bag. After a few blows, she turned back to me, “Whatever. Hitting you will be more satisfying than hitting this thing.”

“That’s the spirit, Ash. I knew you couldn’t resist an opportunity to get your hands on me.”

Ashley cursed under her breath as we both approached the ring. “If you spent half as much time training as you did coming up with shitty one-liners, you might actually be a worthwhile rival.”

Ducking my way between the ropes, we squared up on opposite sides of the ring and made a show of stretching, flexing, and loosening up for each other. “If you say so, Ash. Queensberry rules? Or do you want to make this more interesting?”