Take Me On

Chapter 47

Haley

I fought in a competition where I was overmatched. The girl had more experience than me, more wins than me, was just more than me. After the first round, my mind was a mixture of confusion, chaos and despair. She knocked me from one end of the ring to another, all but picking me up and using me as a mop for the floor. Right now, I don’t feel much different.

My hand slips to my stomach as it churns. What makes this sickening isn’t that I’m training West; it’s because I’ve fallen for West. Blindly. Deeply. Hard. All the ways I’d sworn I’d never fall again. And I fell for the fighter. When will I ever learn?

“I can’t train you if you drink or smoke pot.” We’ll continue the training if he intends to proceed with the fight. “It’s not acceptable for an athlete. Plus I don’t like it.”

“I haven’t touched either one since Rachel’s accident.” He holds out his hands. “I’m plain-day sober and plan on staying that way.”

“We should have stuck with simple,” I whisper. I glance around the room. Flat-screen television. Stereo that costs more than two months’ deposit at the cheapest apartment complex in our school district. Everything that life could offer him right here at his fingertips.

“This isn’t news—that my family has money,” he mumbles.

“Yeah, well, being a Young is!” I snap. “You never thought that was important to tell?”

“I never hid the last name, either.”

“You lied! Even if you didn’t say the words, you lied!”

“You’re right, okay?” he shouts, then calms downs. “I lied. I liked that you didn’t see me as a Young. For the first time, someone judged me for me, for who I was alone and not who my parents were and what their money could do for them. Being with you...it was like being offered a second chance and I’m sorry if I fucked it up.”

For the first time since West broke down and showed me the truth behind the iron curtain, I look at him. Really look at him. West casts his gaze away, tucks his chin near his throat, then crosses his arms over his chest. Leaning against the door of his room, he’s closed off, shut down...his guard is up. West is expecting a beating.

It’s his birthday. I sweep my bangs out of my sight and straighten. It’s his birthday and not a soul here tried to celebrate it with him. Even his mother spent more time talking to me than she did him. West hovered, watching us, but never engaged.

My heart trips over itself—West never engaged.

A few weeks ago, his father kicked him out while his sister fought for her life in ICU. What does that say about his family? Even better, what does it say about West and his relationship with his father that West didn’t want to come back to live here? I scrub my fingers over my face. I’m doing what West says everybody does to him: I’m judging him. I’m judging him based on a last name, based on an assumption of money. I’m just judging.

Think, Haley. West Young. My West Young. The guy who fought for me when Conner and his friend tried to jump me. The guy who took on a fight to help save my family. The guy who held me while I mourned my own losses. That’s West Young. The man I’m falling for.

I don’t know who his family sees, but I see who West really is.

“They don’t know you, do they?” I move toward him as the confusion and chaos fades.

West glances up, startled. “Who?”

“Everyone.”

A grim smile pulls on his mouth. “They know me. They know me very well.”

“I don’t think they do.” I touch his biceps. I’ve trained with West for over a month. He was fit before but he’s leaner now, sculpted and shaped. West has made me laugh, he’s held me at my lowest and he’s stood by me when no one else has. Matt had words—plenty of useless words. West is all action.

The same fight from before barrels into the forefront of my brain. At the end of three rounds and the winner declared, I sat defeated on a stool. My grandfather squatted in front of me, gave me that rare smile and patted my knee. “You did good, kid.”

It almost killed me to meet John’s eyes. “I failed.”

He shook his head. “In my book, you won. You’ve got fight in you, girl. Three rounds of pounding to be exact. More importantly, you’ve got heart. I couldn’t be prouder.”

Who West was before he slammed the brakes of his car inches from me isn’t my concern because the man in front of me...he has heart.

“Matt offered to end all of this,” I say. “He’ll put an end to the fight in a few weeks. He’ll prevent any retaliation on my family that I’ve feared from him or the Black Fire boys...He’ll make everything go away if I broke up with you and returned to him.”

He grinds his teeth. “Over my dead body. If you even think of returning to him—”

“I’m not accepting,” I cut him off. “I’ve chosen you. I’m ready, West. I’m ready to be with you.”

His eyes widen. “Why?”

“Because...” I inhale deeply. “Because you have heart.”