Take Me On

She continues her wrapping, creating a cross, padding the knuckles, then brings it back to my wrist. “You can use the excess material however you want. I choose to use it to wrap my wrists again.”


At the end of the strip is Velcro. She pats it into place and a shadow of lust darkens her eyes. Haley quickly withdraws her hands and puts space between us.

I stretch my fingers and admire her handiwork, but what I’m really doing is buying time. There’s more to Matt and Haley than a steady relationship that ran its course. There’s more to all of it—her, Jax and Kaden. “I meant what I said earlier—this isn’t all on you.”

“It is. No one else is going to watch Kaden and Jax’s back but me.”

“I don’t get it,” I admit. “From what I understand your family and Matt and Conner go at it all the time at sanctioned fights. Why the cloak-and-dagger? You and I know what really happened that night. What harm would it have done to let Kaden and Jax take the fall? They’re going to fight anyhow.”

“Because.” Haley’s chest moves as she inhales. My gut twists at seeing her so sad. “Because Matt would have taken it outside the cage. He would have fought them on the street with no ref and there is so much bad blood between them because of me that Jax and Kaden would have accepted the fights.”

“And the problem is?” A member of their family got jumped; retribution and justice were theirs to take.

“West...” Her gaze moves beyond my shoulder to the caged-in Octagon behind me. “Every time you walk into that cage, you’re saying you’re okay with dying, but at least you have some rules, a referee and a coach who can stop the fight if you don’t tap out. Can you imagine the bloodshed without rules, without a referee? And who says if Jax or Kaden try to tap out that Conner or Matt would let them walk away?”

I feel sucker punched. “The reason they want me in the sanctioned fight is because everyone thinks I’ll be crushed and it’ll be fun as hell to do it in public.”

Haley won’t meet my eyes and she shifts.

“Do you think they’ll crush me?” A heaviness bears down on my stomach. Haley returned for me that night and this fight is the only way I can repay that gift.

“I don’t know,” she says quietly. “This isn’t a movie or a TV show where the guy practices a few times, then takes on the world champ and wins. Matt and Conner and Jax and Kaden...they’ve trained for years and they still aren’t good enough to go pro. I’m hoping I have enough time to teach you how to defend yourself.”

An edginess claws its way into my muscles. “If you have no faith in me, then why the fuck are we here?”

Her head jerks up. “I feel awful you’re standing here in Jax and Kaden’s place. Every second of my day, I think about how to shove you out.”

“If you did figure out a way to shove me out, you’d be on your own to deal with Matt and Conner. When you’re busy taking care of and protecting everyone else, who’s protecting you?”

“I can take care of myself.”

I laugh and Haley straightens: a pissed-off, sexy warrior. Give me all you’ve got, Haley, because right now, I’m handing it back. “Every time you think you have everything under control you don’t.”

“Says Mr. Disaster. You never think anything through and end up in messes like this and the guilt is on me if anything happens to you. Tap out of this right now, West. Walk away.”

“Do you always roll over and die? Since I’ve met you, you’re either running or scheming. The one thing you never do is fight.”

“I fought for you!” she shouts. “I fought for you and it cost me. It cost my whole family!”

“You’re not fighting for me now! You admitted you’re trying to shove me away!”

“Sometimes walking away is fighting!”

“Walking away is abandonment and I don’t abandon!”

I’m breathing hard and Haley’s eyes become glassy. “I...I...don’t abandon. I don’t.”

Her lower lip trembles and I’m so pissed at myself that I ram my wrapped fist into the bag. The bag swings and, when it returns, I smack it again. The strike feels clean and it feels powerful and I crave to do it again and again.

Haley blows out a shaky stream of air and I catch the bag. Our backs are turned toward each other, but I can see her in the mirror. It would be easier on me if she cried. Tears, for some reason, cause me to tune people out, but Haley doesn’t cry. Doesn’t even blink or wipe at her eyes. She wears the look of a person who continues to breathe though their soul is dead. It’s the same expression my mother wears when she sits in the room of her deceased daughter.

My insides ache as if salt is being poured into a million internal paper cuts. Haley never asked for any of this. “I’m sorry.”

It took me years to say that statement to Dad, yet only days to say it to Haley. I wish she understood how difficult those words are for me.