Chapter Seven

Grace

“Dear Lord, just because I’m clumsy, that don’t mean I have the Alzheimer’s.” Grams dangled her feet in the air, perched on the hospital bed. She moped like a punished child, glowering at the doctor like she was the one who needed to get her head checked.

The doctor who saw her, a middle-aged woman with cropped chestnut hair and a nose stud, scribbled something on her clipboard, frowning at the chart in front of her.

“No one is trying to suggest that, Mrs. Shaw. But since you’re already here, and your granddaughter indicated you’ve missed your last two appointments, I think a quick CT scan can’t hurt. We’ll be able to get the results faster than if you book them later on.”

“You’re hollering down the well, Doc.” Grams shook her head, her sweet Southern drawl taking a sharp edge. She glared between the two of us, narrowing her eyes with open suspicion. “I ain’t doin’ it. I burned my hand on the stove. It’s a common mistake anyone could make. Y’all can treat me like an invalid, but that plan ain’t gonna work. There’s nothing wrong with my head. Nothing!” She knocked on her temple with her fist, as if this was solid proof she was in the clear.

The doctor and I exchanged looks. There was so much I wanted to say to Dr. Diffie. Things that would prove Grams exhibited advanced signs of Alzheimer’s. But Grandma Savvy didn’t allow for a CT, and I couldn’t force her.

It didn’t matter that Grams had burned her hand touching the hot stove—not for a fraction of a second, but for at least half a minute—until I burst into the kitchen, smelling the all-too familiar scent of burnt skin, realized what she was doing, and pulled her out of there, kicking and screaming.

It also didn’t matter that her palm was now charred, red, and swollen, her skin peeling and blistering under the bandages.

And it definitely didn’t matter that Grams blanked out on the night with West at the diner, and when I brought it up the next morning, she thought I was making up an imaginary boyfriend.

“You are a fine, smart girl, Gracie-Mae,”she’d told me, giving my cheek a pinch and a shake. “You ought to find a boy eventually. You don’t have to make one up.”

Marla told me she’d been hearing Grams crying in her room when I wasn’t home. That things were getting unbearably bad. I felt so out of my depth, I wished I could tell Dr. Diffie the entire story and beg her to tell me what to do.

Instead, I checked the time on my phone. It was close to nine. I was going to be late for my shift on farmers’ market day. Crap. I’d texted Marla, asking her to take over in the ER, but also called Karlie and requested West’s number.

Grace: It’s Grace. I’ll probably be twenty minutes late and won’t make it to prep. I’ll make it up to you. Sorry.

He didn’t answer.

But of course he didn’t.

He was a crass, rude son of a gun.

Although, you did ask him to treat you as horribly as everyone else, after he helped you out and even called you his friend repeatedly.

Never mind that. I knew I’d done the right thing. West and I weren’t friends. He pitied me, and getting close to him was a terrible idea. This was for the best.

The only thing was, I wished he hadn’t known how crappy my family life was, on top of having seen that ugly scar.

Marla rushed into the hospital room ten minutes later. Tufts of her bottle-blonde hair were still in rollers, hanging on her head like window washers on skyscrapers. She looked exhausted. I couldn’t blame her. Grams had been deteriorating throughout Marla’s two-year employment at a rapid speed. Marla was approaching her mid-sixties herself and hadn’t signed up to assist women with special needs.

I jumped up from the bed opposite Grams and threw myself at the caregiver.

“Thank God you’re here.”

“Came as soon as I could, honey pie. What’d the old bat do now?”

“I can hear you!” Grandma Savvy shook her fist at Marla.

“I found her pressin’ her hand to the blazing hot stove this morning. I had to pry her out of the kitchen kickin’ and screamin’. She won’t agree to a CT now.” I dropped my voice to a whisper, staring at the floor, “What do I do, Marl?”

“Why, I think we both know the answer to that question,” Marla said softly, squeezing my arm. She and Karlie had been trying to hammer it into my brain that Grams needed to go to a home. I’d thought if I made an effort, I’d be able to maintain her quality of life without sending her away.

She deserved to spend the remainder of her life in the house she’d built with Grandpa Freddie, where she’d raised Courtney and me. In the town she grew up in.

“I’ll take over from here. You go work.” Marla slid a Styrofoam coffee cup into my hand.

I nodded, taking a sip and saluting the cup in her direction. “Thanks. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Prolly the same thing you’re doing now, but much less efficiently. Now go.”

Twenty-five minutes later, I parked the pickup by my house and sprinted down the road toward the food truck.

By the time I got to work, a film of sweat made my clothes cling to my skin. West was operating both our stations when I stumbled inside. There was a fifteen-person line by the window and two customers shuffling on the sidelines, complaining about an order West had gotten wrong.

Delirious from heat and panic, I peeled my hoodie from my body and threw it to the front seat of the truck, relishing the air on my damp skin in my white, short-sleeved V-neck. I shoved West out of the way from the window with my butt, taking over.

“I owe you one,” I dropped my voice to a whisper.

“Two.”

“What?”

“Twice I’ve saved your ass, and it hasn’t even been a month. Your favors are piling up real quick, Texas, and I’m going to cash in on them. Soon.” He flipped fish on the grill, rolling a green apple candy stick in his mouth. It always made him smell delicious. Like Granny Smith and winter.

“Any chance you can stop bein’ a prick today?” I growled, hiking the plastic gloves up my fingers.

“Not even the slightest,” he said nonchalantly, but I thought I detected something else underneath his relaxed stance. An underlying exhaustion. The same boy I saw in the parking lot, staring at nothing, waiting for the day to end.

“Good talk.”

“Communication is key, baby.”

“I’m not your baby.”

“That’s a relief. You’d make me a no-show dad, despite my good principles.”

Principles? Ha.

Luckily, we didn’t have time to bicker for the next four hours. We worked nonstop before we sold out of everything. West St. Claire may have been a bad boy, but he was dang good for business.

When the endless line of customers was finally served, I took a deep breath, turning around and grabbing the edge of the counter behind me.

As soon as I looked at him—really looked at him—the air left my lungs.

“Holy crap. What happened to your face?”

His entire face was slashed up, like someone had put scissors to it and tried to cut him into ribbons. The scratches under his eyes implied that same someone had also attempted to gouge them out. He had nasty red, purple, and yellow bruises all over his neck, like he’d been choked, and his lower lip was double its usual size.

My guess was he bled buckets last night. He belonged in the ER no less than Grams did.

“Fell down the stairs,” he said grimly. Sarcastically. Why did I think I was going to get a straight answer out of this guy?

“What’s your excuse?” His hooded eyes drifted to my injured arm. I tilted my head sideways, not sure what he meant, before realizing I was standing there with a short-sleeved shirt and that he could see my entire purple arm.

I let out a frantic yelp, bolting to the passenger seat to grab my hoodie. I knocked a few pans and spatulas on my way and tripped over an empty case of soda. I fumbled with the hoodie, trying to get it on me as soon as humanly possible, but the more I tried to figure out if it was upside down or not, the more flustered I got.

Finally, West plucked the hoodie from between my hands, turned it inside out, and pulled it over my head, his movement flippant, almost lazy.

“There.” He yanked my hoodie down, giving it a final tug, like he was dressing up a kid. “Nothing like a nice parka in the middle of a fucking Texan summer.”

“It’s not a parka.” I wrapped my hands around my waist, shaking all over.

I couldn’t breathe.

He saw my scars.

He saw my scars.

He saw my ugly, stupid scars.

Jarring, red, and bumpy, they were hard to miss, and I wondered if any of our customers had lost their appetite as I’d served them.

I was surprised I didn’t throw up in West’s lap as soon as he brought it to my attention. Maybe because he seemed so unfazed about it, and already knew so much about me, it wasn’t totally shocking.

“Texas.” His tone was low. Unruffled.

“I … I … I have to go,” I mumbled, turning around, getting ready to bolt out of the truck. He snatched me by the arm, pulling me back in effortlessly. I jerked and cried, desperate to leave, to never face him again, but his clutch on my arm tightened, almost to a bruising point.

He backed me into the trailer, until I had no choice but to accept that I wasn’t getting out of there before we talked it out.

Again, I found myself trying to kick and punch him.

Again, I failed.

He was now crowding me so close, his breath fanned my face as he spoke. I started screaming from the top of my lungs. Like he’d raped me. Like he was hurting me back.

“Calm the fuck down.” He bracketed me with his arms, my back against the fridge. He didn’t sound any less composed. “Or you’ll leave me no choice but to slap the hysteria out of you.”

I shut up immediately. I didn’t think he would lay a hand on me—I already gathered he wasn’t that type of guy—but I didn’t put it past him to punish me in some other way.

I pretended to breathe in and out. The sooner we got this out of the way, the sooner I could leave.

“You done freaking out?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Sure. Totally Zen,” I bit out, gulping greedy breaths. “May I have some of my personal space back now?”

West took a step back, allowing a sliver of space between us. He leaned against the counter, folding his arms. “So.”

“So?” I huffed.

“You’ve got yourself a nice, angry scar.”

He said it. He actually went out and uttered it aloud. Nobody had pointed out the existence of my scars before. Not to me, anyway. People usually ignored it. Pretending they hadn’t noticed. Which was somehow even more uncomfortable for me.

“What’s the deal with covering it up? We all have scars. Yours is just visible.”

“It’s gross.” I swung my gaze to the ceiling, avoiding his stare. I refused to cry for the second time in a week, and I was definitely not going to let him see it.

“Says who?” he pressed.

“Says everybody. Especially when people around me used to know me as someone else.”

As someone pretty.

“Sounds like a pity party to me. Should I bring anything? Snacks? Beer? Inflatable sex dolls?”

“Who said you were invited?” I was still focusing on the trailer’s ceiling.

He snorted out a laugh, slapping a rag over his knee in my periphery.

I noticed West laughed a lot when we were around each other, but never at school.

I also noticed he was apparently insane, because he didn’t seem bothered at all by his own dire state.

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing. It’s just scar tissue.”

“It ain’t attractive.”

“It ain’t unattractive enough to prevent me from wanting to tap your ass.”

My mouth dropped, and I blinked rapidly, trying to figure out how, exactly, I was going to answer him.

He’d been throwing around the idea that he found me appealing every now and then.

I still thought he either said that sarcastically or because he wanted poor Toastie to feel better about herself. At least I’d stopped thinking it was De La Salle who sent him to breathe unfounded hope in me. West didn’t seem like the type to answer to anyone, much less take direction and orders from others.

“Was that your idea of a compliment?” I hissed.

“No,” he drawled, dead serious. “It’s my idea of the goddamn truth. What is wrong with you?”

Something euphoric and warm clawed at my chest. It was the first time I’d toyed with the idea that he was telling the truth. We stared at each other wordlessly. I waited for him to explain why he looked like he’d been attacked by a pack of wolves. When he didn’t, I arched an eyebrow.

“Speaking of not looking too hot …”

He clutched his heart, mockingly mourning my low opinion of his looks today. “You wound me.”

“Apparently, I’m not the only one. Did you fight yesterday?”

West flipped two empty crates, one on my side of the trailer and one on his, and sank down. I followed suit. In a lot of ways, the food truck felt like our bubble. A snug confession booth.

The rules were different in the truck. Like we shed our primary skin, of our stigma and reputation and social status. Here we were simply … us.

“I fight every Friday.” He popped his knuckles. His biceps flexed under his short Henley.

I looked away, clearing my throat. “No offense, but you can’t tell me people come to see you on Fridays during football season.”

“People go straight from the football field to the Plaza, get trashed, then wake up for college football. You Texans realize there are other sports other than football, yeah?”

“We try not to encourage other sports, as they tend to butt into the sports channels and water down the football. Do you always fight? Even when school’s out?”

“Even if I have pneumonia and a broken rib.”

That didn’t sound like a figure of speech. It sounded like something that had actually happened in the past. He must have really needed the money. Or maybe he didn’t care about dropping dead. I had a dreadful feeling it was a combination of the two.

“You normally don’t look too worse for wear.” I nibbled on my lower lip, my heart rate slowing down as the minutes ticked away.

So he saw my scars and knew about Grams. Big freaking deal.

“I normally fight with sane people. This time, my opponent was a bitch-ass coward who did everything short of pulling out a gun. Kade Appleton, man.” He shook his head. “A dick from hell.”

“You fought Kade Appleton?” My breath hitched.

Everybody knew Kade Appleton around Sheridan. I’d never met him, but I’d heard countless stories. He was a bully all throughout school, dropped out at sixteen, packed his stuff and moved to Vegas to fight. Word was he’d joined a gang while he was there. “What the hell is wrong with you? He’s dubbed Appleton the Bad Apple in this neck of the woods. Do you want to die?”

“Not actively, but surely it won’t be the worst thing in the world. All the cool kids are doing it. Kurt Cobain, Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Seuss …”

“West!” I hollered, slapping my thigh.

“Fine. I’m changing Dr. Seuss to Buddy Holly, but only because you’re twisting my arm here.”

When I shot him a sharp look that showed him I didn’t find any of this funny, he jerked his chin toward me.

“Why were you late today?”

“Grams,” I croaked, surprised with how naturally the truth jumped out of my mouth. It was liberating to talk to someone about her openly.

“She burned herself on the stove this morning. It was bad. I was with her in the ER until Marla, her caregiver, took over.”

“Has she been diagnosed?”

I shook my head. “Not the last time I took her to get checked, but that was a couple years ago. She refuses to get another CT, and things have been gettin’ pretty bad.”

“She should be medicated.”

“I know.”

Not only that, but she should get more exercise and sunshine and scheduled activities. Marla could only do so much for her, and by the time I got home every night after school and work, I was too exhausted to give Grams everything she deserved.

West got up and made both of us margarita slushies. He dropped extra gummy bears into each of them and handed me one. We saluted at the same time, oddly in sync, taking greedy slurps from our drinks as he sat back down.

“Back to the scar thing.” He motioned to his own face with his hand. “Is that why you don’t go onstage? Because you don’t like the way you look?”

He was referring to that time he saw me at rehearsal, mouthing all the words but staying far away from the limelight.

I felt the tips of my ears pinking. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“I’m a smart guy. Lay it on me.”

“I haven’t always been like this. I was kind of Miss Popular. I fought really hard to get where I was. My mom was a junkie who died when I was a toddler, and my father … Well, I don’t even know who he is. The one thing I always had goin’ for me was my looks, as shallow as it sounds.” I laughed nervously. “I was in cheer. I was in drama. I was that girl, you know. With the pretty Sunday church dress and dimpled smile, always camera-ready. I learned early on how to play the cards I’d been dealt. I thought I had the game figured out. But then …”

“Someone flipped the table upside down mid-round and all the rules changed.” West chewed on his straw, contemplating. “Same happened to me, so I know firsthand how bad it sucks.”

“Oh, yeah?” I grinned, feeling dangerously comfortable around him. It was stupid. Like a kitten thinking it could befriend a tiger because they were vaguely from the same family. “You discarded your lifelong dream to become an actor because you experienced a traumatic childhood tragedy that has caused you to look disfigured beyond repair?”

He used the tip of his boot to shove my crate back. He scratched his temple with his middle finger. I laughed.

“What I mean is, the rules changed on me, too, mid-game,” he clarified.

“I don’t see how. You’re still popular.”

“I was Easton Braun-popular. Linebacker. Homecoming king. The obnoxious, wholesome, perfect, Tom Brady-type guy people low-key suspect is secretly a serial killer.”

I ran my eyes over his injured frame. I never would have guessed West played ball. That he had a sweet, straitlaced side.

“What made you switch to the dark side?”

“I became the sole provider in my family. Well, my parents work now, but they’re mainly chasing bills.”

“Oh.”

Did I just say oh? Out of all the words in the English language, I chose this one? Really? Do better!“That’s … rough.”

He shrugged. “It is what it is.”

“Do you have any siblings?”

He shook his head. “Just me, my parents, and a mountain of unpaid loans that keeps on getting higher. You?”

“Just me, Grams, and my in-the-gutter self-esteem.” I smiled tiredly. “Yay us.”

We clinked our drinks together.

Silence stretched between us like bubble gum, extending, on the verge of snapping. West was the first to put a needle in it. He slapped his rock-hard thigh.

“Now that we’re even, let’s clean up and get the fuck out of here. I’ve got shit to do.” He stood, dumping his slushie in the trash.

He turned off the grill, getting ready to scrub it. I glared up at him, dumbfounded.

“What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

“You couldn’t look me in the eye since I saw your arm, and I needed to counter-embarrass myself for you to feel equal again. So I indulged you. Shared a secret with you no one but East knows. But East doesn’t count; we grew up in the same town and were born two days apart. He is practically my twin brother. My family is broke as hell, and I fight not because of the perks or the pussy. I need to keep a roof over my parents’ heads. My mom needs her antidepressant meds, and, as you must know, healthcare is goddamn expensive.”

I swallowed and looked down. I felt so pathetic in front of him, with the dementia-stricken grandmother and big-ass scar. But now that I knew his family was poor and his mother was battling depression, his life didn’t seem like something to envy anymore. He wasn’t untouchable, unreachable, or protected by an invisible glow.

“Your parents must be so proud of you,” I grumbled.

“Not even a little.” He let out a humorless laugh, dumping a rag into my hands, signaling for me to get off my butt and help. “But that’s another story, and you’ll have to show a lot more than scar tissue for me to trade that secret, Tex.”

By the time I got back home, Marla had put Grams to bed. She was drained from today’s trip to the emergency room. She wasn’t used to spending so much time out of the house anymore.

I took a quick shower while Marla tidied up. Then I hugged her at the door, clutching her extra hard. “Thanks, Marl. You’re a trooper.”

“Don’t mention it. Now tell me, whatcha gonna do, honey pie?”

“Probably watch Netflix and chill.”

“Don’t play dumb with me, sweets. I mean about the old bat. In the long run. This is not sustainable, sweetie. You must know that. You can no longer take care of her. I appreciate you did it through high school, but your grandmomma needs constant care. She is a danger to herself. And to others,” Marla said pointedly, raising one eyebrow as her gaze drifted to the left side of my face.

I ducked my head down, rubbing the back of my neck.

“I’ll think about it,” I lied.

I wasn’t going to think about it. There was nothing to think about. Grandma Savvy had raised me. She’d tucked me into bed every night, and kissed my boo-boos better. Sewn a replica of the prom dress I wanted because the original cost too much. She’d dedicated her entire life to me, and I wasn’t going to bail on her when things got tough.

I just had to step up my game. Spend more time with her, shower her with more attention.

I was closing the door after Marla when a foot was shoved between the gap. The person on the other side let out a pained grunt but didn’t remove their foot from between the door and the frame. My heart leaped in my chest.

The first thing I worried about was not having makeup on.

As opposed to, you know, having an axe murderer barge into my house un-freaking-announced.

“Who is it?” I demanded. The gap was too narrow for me to see them.

“Karlie. Secret code: Ryan Phillippe. Open up.”

We didn’t have a secret code, but this sounded like what we’d have if we chose one. My nineties-themed heart stuttered. I snorted, swinging the door open. My best friend wiggled her eyebrows with a sultry smile, a dripping bag full of takeout in her raised hand. Since our town only offered a diner, the food truck, and a pizza parlor, my guess was we were in for Italian.

Karlie knew I’d had a rough morning from our text exchange when I’d asked for West’s number, so she’d shown up.

I yanked her inside, smothering her with a hug. She patted my back awkwardly.

“Anyone ever told you you’re an amazing friend?” I ruffled her thick, dark curls with my breath.

“Everyone, and frequently. I come bearing offerings. Pasta, cheap wine, and gossip. We’ll start with the food. Sound good?”

“Sounds perfect.”

An hour later, we were lying on my living room couch in an advanced state of food coma, the TV flickering in the background.

I patted my stomach, staring at its hard roundness. I was svelte and small, and sometimes when I had a case of food baby, and my stomach would get all curved, I’d cradle it in front of the mirror and imagine myself as Demi Moore on Vanity Fair’s cover (another favorite nineties nugget). Normally, it made me laugh. But tonight, a little buzzed from the wine, and a lot worried about my grandmomma, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d ever be pregnant. If I’d meet someone and make a life with him.

Typically, I shoved this kind of stuff to the back drawer in my mind. But ever since West stormed into my life with his battered body and broken soul, he’d jimmied that drawer open and flung out all its contents.

Lust.

Romance.

Longing.

And most dangerous of all—hope.

I wasn’t sure if what he stirred in me was good and hopeful, or disastrous and shattering. Either way, putting my faith in someone who absolutely didn’t want any type of relationship, and didn’t exhibit much interest in staying alive, was both stupid and risky.

“What was that piece of gossip you wanted to tell me?” I nudged Karlie’s shoulder with my foot, suddenly remembering.

Karlie shook her head from the other side of the sofa, her dark hair bouncing around her heart-shaped face. “Okay, so you know Melanie Bush? Small? Blonde? Blue eyes?”

“You’ve literally described sixty percent of Sheridan’s student body.” I laughed. “What about her?”

“So, my friend Michelle ditched our study group this Friday to go to West’s fight against Kade Appleton. Apparently, it was brutal. The mats were so soaked with blood, they had to burn them in the junkyard afterwards. Anyway, so a fight almost broke out after the fight. Some of Appleton’s people came at West, and he basically walked out on them, not giving two craps. But guess what he did on his way out?”

“What?” I tried to keep my tone light, but my spine stiffened, and I felt the food I’d just consumed making its way up my throat. It didn’t take a genius to know what direction this story was taking.

“He basically dragged Mel up the stairs, blood dribbling down his chin, slammed her against the empty elevator bank, and screwed her senseless. He was so out of it, Michelle said Mel wasn’t even sure he was, like, conscious. Mel told her it was insane and carnal and hot as Hades. But that he didn’t even look at her face as he gave her two orgasms.”

“Wow.”

I had to say something, so I went for a word that meant absolutely everything and nothing at all. Wow could be either bad or good. Shocked or sarcastic. Wow was also how I felt when my heart was crushed into miniscule dusty flakes.

“Get this—apparently, he’s a weird lay. Mel said he kept touching her hair while pounding into her, and that he kept talking about Texas.” Karlie screwed her nose. “What do you think our boy has against the Lone Star State? We invented Dr. Pepper, corn dogs, and silicone breast implants. That makes us undoubtedly the best state in the country.”

“Right. So weird,” I mumbled.

That was all I was capable of. Anything else, and my voice would have broken.

Texas.

He’d talked about Texas.

But it wasn’t the state he was referring to, I knew, and a nauseating mixture of white-hot jealousy and euphoria washed over my body.

“Hey, you don’t happen to have ice cream, do you?”

“Let me check,” I offered, relieved to have an excuse to go to the kitchen and regulate my heartbeat.

I knew I was jealous, but I also knew I had no business being jealous.

West wasn’t my boyfriend. Nothing in his behavior, banter, or personality made me believe he’d ever ask me out. If anything, he’d told me flat-out he’d never as much as flirt with me, even if he had found me attractive.

The only thing this story had proven was that he wanted in my pants—not heart—and I’d be wise to remember which part of me he was interested in.

Lord, I needed to get over this stupid crush. Fast.

I took a bucket of ice cream out of the freezer, plucking two spoons from the utensil cabinet. I stabbed the ice cream with one spoon, feeling a scream clogging up my throat.

My own foolishness infuriated me. So what if West wasn’t an asshole to me? It didn’t mean he wasn’t an asshole period. He was to Melanie. I just needed to remind myself to stay away from him and take a step back.

Texas.

The man had some nerve saying my nickname while he was inside someone else.

I wanted to kill him. To throttle him. To …

“Shaw! Whaddup? Did you go make the ice cream from scratch?” Karlie hollered from the living room. I looked down and realized the ice cream wasn’t so white anymore. It was flecked with scarlet drops of blood. My blood.

It was turning pink, sliding down the slopes of snowy vanilla mountains. I glanced at my hand. My mouth slacked. I hadn’t used a spoon. I’d taken a dang knife from the drawer.

Quickly, I scooped all the tainted ice cream, threw it in the trash, and took out clean spoons.

“Comin’ right up.”

Crap. Crap. Crap.

I strode back to the couch with a Band-Aid Karlie didn’t notice. She shoved a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth, closing her eyes and moaning.

“You know what we should do?”

Make a voodoo doll of West and stab it to death?

“Another this or that nineties quiz?” I asked in fake eagerness. She popped her eyes open, shooting me a skeptical look. I wasn’t known for my enthusiasm.

“Duh, but we always do that. We should go to one of West’s fights. Next Friday. It’s Mom and Victor’s shift, anyway. It would be nice to hang out. We never do that anymore.”

We didn’t. Karlie was wrapped up in her schoolwork and internships, and I was either working or spending time with Grams. But going to see West in action was the worst possible thing we could do together.

“Hard pass.” I shoved ice cream into my mouth without tasting it. The whole night was tarnished by images of West screwing Melanie Bush against an elevator bank, and I didn’t even know what she looked like. “Fight clubs aren’t really my scene.”

“Hot shirtless men thrashing each other is, though, right? Unless you’re asexual. Or a lesbian.”

“Guess I’m asexual.”

Women really didn’t do it for me.

“Come on. I knew you prior to you-know-what, and you were boy crazy just like the rest of us. Tucker, anyone?”

Eh, yes. Tucker. One of the very reasons I’d sworn off men in the first place. The way he’d discarded me the minute I’d lost my beauty still burned long after the fire wounds had healed.

Karlie and I established I would use a hammer as a Q-tip to clean my earwax before attending an underground fight. My friend went back home, which was right across the street from me.

I slipped under the covers, shoving the house keys beneath the mattress—like stupid West had suggested the night at the diner—so Grams couldn’t wander off while I slept. So far, it had worked.

The last thing I thought about when my head hit the pillow was a fighter who had given up on himself.