My first swing is downright embarrassing. I aim for her shoulder, but she sidesteps me easily and swats my hand to the side. I expect her to counter, but the hit doesn’t come. Instead, she circles around and squares off again, waiting for my next move.

When I catch her gaze again, her smile is utterly teasing. There’s heat rushing through me now, and it’s not just the industrial lights above. My whole body is coming alive, and as I raise my fists again, I let my own grin curl across my lips.

I can play at being part of this.

I can have fun with this.

At my back, the noise of the crew has grown louder. And it’s not just cheers for Swift. Cries of “Get ’er, shoregirl” rise from the shadows, and when my eyes once again turn upward, Santa Elena passes me an encouraging nod.

I take another swing. And another. Swift slaps them away, but I keep a rhythm going. She favors her right hand, and so I try coming from the left. Her reaction is slower—I almost make it through. Our eyes meet.

She winks.

Swift steps around me, and I nearly trip over my own feet trying to reorient myself. Chuck cackles from somewhere in the crowd, but I let it blend with the rest of the noise. Everything else falls away until it’s just me and Swift and the steady, predictable rhythm of trying to break her defenses. Every time I swing, she’s there to meet me, catching or deflecting each punch I throw.

I catch the shift in her smile before the shift in her strategy, but it’s too late. She aims a kick at my knee that takes my feet out from under me, and I crumple onto the mat. A flush of humiliation rushes through me. I shouldn’t have fooled myself into thinking she’d stick to pure defense, not with the captain and most of the crew watching.

Swift grins out at the crowd as if sharing a joke with them. Grins for a moment too long.

I push off the mat with every ounce of energy left in me and lash out at the leg she’s leaning on. My heel strikes true, and Swift collapses on all fours.

The Slew goes wild. But over the noise of the jeering pirates, I hear the soft words that mean the most. “That’ll do,” Santa Elena says.

I roll my head and once again find Swift’s eyes. I expect her to be furious, embarrassed, or somewhere in between, but as she pushes herself to her knees, there’s nothing but pride in her smile. “You might just fit in here after all,” she says.

Three months ago, I would have hated those words. But today, under the bright lights with a crowd cheering at my back, I’m starting to like them.

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