Chapter Twenty-Three

West

The night before.

“Holy shit, dude. You’re forty minutes late!” Max greeted me by throwing his arms around me, like we were a couple or some shit. I pushed him out of my vision, making him stumble back and fall flat on his ass. I zigzagged my way into Sheridan Plaza, the sound of my Ducati collapsing sideways behind me thudding in my ears.

I forgot to park it properly. My bad.

There goes my precious fucking paint. Sorry, Christina.

I stumbled over my own feet, soldiering forth. The faster I could get it over with, the better. Max regained his footing and managed to catch me—barely—groaning for help. East, Reign, and Tess appeared by his side.

“Oh, wow. Finally found a West nuttier than Kanye,” Reign deadpanned. Tess cupped her mouth, shaking her head as she judged me hard.

“Ohmigod, Westie.”

“Dude. He’s trashed.” East hoisted one of my arms over his shoulder. Reign took the other side. Tess scurried behind us, a curious little mouse I wanted to throw to the lions.

“You need to cancel the fight, Max,” East pressed. “It can’t happen. He can’t even stand straight.”

“Yerrucan,” I slurred, pushing them away as I tried to make my point. East and Reign let go of me, and sure enough, I managed to stand upright.

See? No problem. Perfectly capable of …

Thwack!

It took me long seconds to realize the heat spreading across my cheek wasn’t me pissing on myself.

“I fell on maface, didn’t I?” My voice was muffled by the gravel sticking to my tongue. Since when did concrete feel so nice and cozy? It was outrageously nappable.

“Is nappable a word?” I inquired.

I heard East groan.

Max sighed. “I’m gonna go talk to Shaun. See if we can postpone it by a few hours. But we can’t cancel. They made that pretty clear, and I want both my balls intact.”

“The fight is happening,” I heard myself say as I dusted myself off, rising up to my feet slowly. I felt seasick. A reasonable side effect to polishing off an entire bottle of the cheapest whiskey I could find at the grocery store. “I’m getting into that ring and finishing this thing.”

“Are you crazy?” Tess thundered behind me.

I turned around to face her. I had a bone to pick with Miss Davis. Not only as she appeared in front of me, but I saw multiple images of her. They blurred into one another, like an accordion of cut out Tesses.

“What kind of heinous crimes have I committed in a previous life to deserve seeing six Tesses?” I pondered aloud. The need to barf in my mouth punched me in the stomach. “And to think all it took was one fucking Tess to screw things up between me and my girlfriend.” I leaned forward, tapping her nose. I missed by a few inches and poked her eye. My bad, take two.

Reign stepped between us, swatting my hand away and furrowing his brows.

“Ex-girlfriend now, and don’t dump this on Tess. It’s not her fault you kept this from Grace. Did you really think no one was going to tell her?”

“I was hoping to tell her closer to the fight. You told Tess I was holding back on Grace, and she told her because she missed my dick too much.”

My snarl came out with a burp. Extra classy.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Tess winced. “Really sorry. I never thought it would be this bad. I didn’t want to ruin things for you. Just make them … difficult.”

My phone rang in my pocket. Ignoring Tess’ apology, I fumbled to take it out. Max was pacing back and forth, talking on his phone, explaining shit to Appleton and his crew, probably.

I checked my screen.

Mother.

How drunk was I to think it might actually be Grace?

I had my chance. A few of them, if I was being honest with myself. And I blew ’em all to hell. Good news was I was finally thinking clearly. I knew what I had to do to make sure Grace would be saved.

“He looks like he’s planning something, which cannot be good, considering his current state.” Easton’s voice stabbed through Reign and Tess’ simultaneous groveling. They said they were going to get me water and something to eat. It took me a few minutes to gather myself before someone propped me against the wall, like I was a piece of furniture. Upstairs, I could hear the crowd roaring and cheering.

Full venue. Sold out tickets. The whole enchilada.

And I was unfashionably late.

A few minutes later, Max killed the call. A senior lab nerd jogged toward us with a wrapped sandwich and a bottle of water.

“Here.” He passed it on to Easton, who shoved the food and the drink in my face. “Chug it down. All of it.”

“Want me to piss myself by round two?” I murmured around a stale bite. Who’d made this sandwich? It was next level bad. The bread was sour, the cheese too soft, and the ham was probably my age.

Fuck, I missed That Taco Truck’s food.

“I’m not against you soiling yourself if it means it’d stop the fight,” East gritted.

“Nothing will stop this fight,” I said flatly. “And don’t you fucking try.”

“Why is it so important to you?” Reign crouched beside me. “I don’t know how to break it to you, but you ain’t gonna win this, not in your sorry ass state. Damn, I could put you against a cheerleader right now and you’d still lose.”

“A dead cheerleader,” Max pointed out helpfully.

“I don’t lay a hand on chicks,” I murmured. Unlike that idiot Appleton.

“It’d never come to that. You’d confuse her for a cardboard box before she throws the first punch.” Reign clapped my shoulder reassuringly.

Sometime later—an hour, a week, a freaking minute, I wasn’t sure—Max clapped his hands together and announced, “Okay, the moment of truth has arrived. I can’t postpone this any longer. I’m an event organizer, not a magician.”

“You’re a class-A cunt, and you’ll be paying for tricking him into a fight he can’t back out of.” Easton bared his teeth, offering me a hand. Max visibly winced. Reluctantly, I let Easton hoist me up to my feet. I glanced at the stairway leading up to the ring, as footfalls pounded on the concrete.

“Hey.” Tess put her hand on my chest. I slapped it away. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to the person who’d made this shit snowball into a fucking storm.

“Hands off, Tess.”

“I’m sorry, okay? Look at me.” She bracketed my cheeks.

Even through my state of drunkenness—which was a goddamn lot—I could still see the regret swimming in her eyes.

“I never thought it would go down this way. I was bitter and jealous and couldn’t understand why Grace was getting every single thing I’d wished for myself. I wanted a little crisis, not a full-blown catastrophe.”

I grabbed her wrists, shoving her hands away. “Sorry my tragedy is not tailor-made for your ass.”

I turned around, about to go upstairs and get the fight over with, when my pecs collided with someone else’s.

I looked down.

Appleton.

He was sweaty and bare-chested, his face smeared with enough Vaseline to lather the Statue of Liberty.

“St. Claire. Heard you have a girlfriend and that she is into … toast.”

He oinked out a rancid laugh, showing off his crooked teeth as he pushed me. Shaun and another clown from his team stood on either side of him, cackling evilly.

Not that I expected anything better from three people with the combined IQ of twelve, but I found myself unable to resist throwing a punch square to his nose, making him tumble backwards as blood shot out of his nostrils in two thick streams.

“Dafuq!” Appleton whined, pinching the bridge of his nose. He waved a hand in my face. “He is doing it again. Getting a few punches in before the bell rings.”

“You sent people to my workplace, asshole.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“I can prove that I can kill you.” I bared my teeth.

“All because of a chick.” He tsked, blood dribbling down his chin. “Talk about pussy-whipped.”

I was about to correct him in saying that Grace wasn’t my girl—not anymore, anyway—but held back. It was part of the reason why Grace had always had her doubts. I never owned up to our relationship. Never held her hand in public. Kissed her when everyone was watching. Showed the world how I felt about this girl.

I also knew that Kade Appleton wasn’t going to leave Grace alone. That sooner or later, he was going to get to her, because she was linked to me, and I was a sore subject for him.

Unless …

Unless I lost. Monumentally. Unless I had my ass handed to me in the ring. Unless I threw the fight. It was all clear now.

Everyone had a phoenix moment.

This one was mine.

I started for the stairs, breezing past Appleton.

“C’mon. Let’s get this shit show over with.”

He chased me, leaving a trail of scarlet drops in his wake. I stormed into the makeshift ring, pushing through the dense, rabid crowd. Appleton followed closely. Behind us, Shaun, Max, East, Reign, and Tess were trying to keep up with our pace.

I turned around to face him. “Come at me.”

I knew I wasn’t going to win.

Wasn’t going to let myself win.

I’d never thrown a fight in my life, but for Grace Shaw, I was willing to bite the bullet.

Max looked between us, uncertain. I was still far from the realm of sober, but dangerous nonetheless.

“Ready?” Max asked.

“Hell yeah.”

I zeroed in on Appleton, pretending to give a shit about what was going to happen next.

It was showtime.

I only remembered fragments of the fight.

Appleton throwing a sucker punch to my jaw, sending me flying and crashing over a pile of wooden boxes.

Pretending to try to dodge him as he directed a roundhouse kick straight to my abs.

Appleton elbowing my side. The sudden gush of pain when I realized he’d managed to fracture a rib or two.

Me, twisting on the floor, gargling on my own blood like it was mouthwash.

I kept telling myself that if I lost, I wouldn’t have to go to bed every night worrying about what Kade Appleton and his asshole friends may or may not do to Grace. She was my Achilles’ heel. No matter how I turned it around, Kade needed his pride restored, and me? My ego wasn’t worth half as much as Grace meant to me.

Everything had moved in slow motion. The excited chants around us had dissolved to panicky cries for Max to end the fight. But no matter how much I prayed to a god I wasn’t sure was even up there for Kade to throw a knockout and put me out of my misery, the final blow never came.

At some point, I considered manufacturing a KO, but I didn’t trust my own abilities to look passed out. Still, I didn’t fight back. Didn’t pretend to try. It wasn’t a fight. It was me letting Appleton have his way, my punishment for defeating him.

Kade shoved me to the mat and wrestled me, trying some Jiu-Jitsu move that made it look like he wanted to eat my ass. There, when we were flush against each other, I finally grated through a bloody mouth.

“Just finish the job. You know I threw this shit before I walked in the ring, why are you dragging it?”

“I’m well aware of that, St. Claire.” He threw me back a partly toothless grin. “But winning is not enough, see. First, I’m going to humiliate you.”

I woke up in the ICU the following day.

I glanced around, gradually coming to, and found that I’d been hooked up to an IV drip, with my pulse monitored, and was wrapped in bandages with a casted hand …

My eyes shifted downwards. I was wearing a hospital gown. I’d never worn one before. Let’s just say I didn’t think powder blue was my fucking color.

“Good mornin’, sunshine!” Easton’s voice sounded way too loud and cheerful for the occasion. The door flapped open, and he sauntered in. I closed my eyes, refusing to deal with his bullshit before I had a strong cup of Joe.

“Fancy seeing you awake. You gave us quite the scare last night.”

“Why are you talking like you’re eighty?” I croaked, trying to swallow some of my saliva. Bad idea. I had no saliva whatsoever. My throat was drier than Max’s hookups. I grunted.

East sat beside me on a nearby stool, and I heard more shuffling around the room. He wasn’t the only one here, but opening my eyes to see who entered the room wasn’t on my agenda.

“You almost died last night,” East pointed out.

“Thanks, Captain Obvious. Don’t you have any other places to be? Maybe stand next to the Hudson and let tourists know that it’s wet, or go to Alaska and point out the chilly weather?”

“Oh my God, he didn’t only lose a tooth. His sense of humor got whacked, too.” Reign exhaled dramatically from the other side of the room.

My heart sank at his voice. Who the hell was I expecting to be here?

Grace. I’d been expecting Grace.

“Your parents are on their way, and I don’t want any goddamn lip about it,” East warned. “They dropped a kebab when they heard what happened to you.”

My first instinct was to bite his head off for telling them. Then again, he didn’t have much choice. How else would he explain my taking a lengthy trip to the hospital?

Which brought me to my next question.

“What did you tell the hospital staff?”

“Bike stunt.” Reign plopped on the bed beside me. “Which was easy to believe, seeing as poor Christina was trashed by Kade and his minions shortly after the fight.” He tsked. “Hope you weren’t counting on a joyride, because your bike ain’t feeling very joyful right now.”

I grumbled, my eyes still closed.

“According to Max, Appleton is a happy camper now, so at least we know he’s not out and about trying to cause more shit,” East offered me the glass-half-full. Of piss.

“Hunky-dory.”

“Who is being eighty now, eh?” East cracked a can of Coke and brought it to my lips, not bothering with a straw. Asshole. I took a slow sip, letting the liquid burn a path down my throat. It felt good.

“What’s the verdict?” I finally opened my eyes and motioned to my face.

“Broken nose, three broken fingers from before the fight, two cracked ribs, and an indefinite amount of bruises.” East counted with his fingers.

“Isn’t that against the HIPAA rules to give non-family members personal info?” I frowned.

“Oh, the medical staff didn’t volunteer this information. I just have two working eyes,” Easton deadpanned.

“Even that wasn’t enough to make us drag your ass to the ER,” Reign confessed from my other side. “But then you decided to take a long-ass nap on the ground after the fight, and we couldn’t wake you up for ten minutes. Easton insisted it was a concussion. Finally, Tess, AKA my girlfriend, to whom you were a jerk, made the executive decision to call an ambulance. Good thing she did, because apparently some of your inner organs got hella swollen. Still hatin’ on my girl?”

“Always,” I managed to rasp. He laughed, flicking my ribs. I let out a curse.

“Where are your boundaries? I just broke the bastards.”

“That’s for sleeping with my girl.”

“In that case.” I swiveled toward him, grabbed his wrist and twisted it until it almost broke. Reign let out a cry. “That’s for calling my girl names.”

We were acting like twelve-year-olds, but if there was a time to act this way—it was now, when I could blame the painkillers.

“For the last time, St. Claire, she is not your girl anymore.”

“We’ll see about that.”

My eyes drifted to Easton. I didn’t have to spill it for him. He knew damn well what I was asking.

Where is she?

Was she coming for me?

Did she know what I’d done?

Why I’d done it?

East’s throat bobbed. He looked away, busying himself by removing snacks he brought for me from a plastic bag and putting them on my nightstand.

“We’re trying to reach her. I’m sure she’ll pick up soon.”

“Yeah,” Reign added in a cheerful tone. “It’s the weekend. People are not exactly sitting around staring at their phones.”

“She’s going to come.” Easton patted my hand.

“On your face. Many times. You’ll see. Chicks love it when you take a punch for them. You almost died for her,” Reign pointed out. “That’s worth at least a couple blowjobs, right?”

I closed my eyes, falling asleep, wishing I’d never wake up.