Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 149510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 748(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 748(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
You know, the opposite of my family.
I think about how I still haven’t managed to find a steady job that fits into my class schedule and how Travis and Jack will need new basketball shoes and the fees that go along with their playing high school ball.
I think about how Willow wants to go to homecoming and probably has a dress in mind she knows she won’t be able to afford.
I think about how our dick of a father spends all his money on booze and our mom’s paycheck barely covers food and rent.
By the time I add my student loans into the poor-people-problems equation, I realize the decision is already made.
“I’ll do it!” I call out over the crowd and lift an arm so Lex can see me.
“What?” Scottie damn near shouts, and she reaches her hand out to grab mine and pull it down from its raised position. “You’re going to fight him for money?”
“Not all of us have life handed to us, princess.” Deep down, I know she’s trying to stop me because she cares, but she has no idea what it’s like to walk a day in my shoes. I don’t need her judging the choices I make in order to survive.
She stares at me, her eyes widening with both anger and fear. “Finn, this is crazy. Don’t do this.”
“Finn Hayes, right?” Lexi questions through the mic.
“That’s right,” I confirm loudly, which leads to Scottie letting go of my hand entirely.
“All right,” Lexi says with a nod. “Come on up and show Donnie what you’ve got.”
“Holy shit!” Ace whisper-yells, shoving me in the chest as his excitement gets the best of him. Blake claps me on the shoulder encouragingly, but Scottie, unable to stop herself, grabs my hand again and squeezes tightly.
“Finn,” she pleads when I look down to meet her eyes. “Please don’t do this.”
What she doesn’t understand is that I’ve spent most of my life…fighting for my fucking life. And for my mom’s. And my siblings’.
When you have an abusive drunk for a father, you go through so much shit in your childhood that there isn’t much that scares you anymore by the time you become an adult.
You learn to fight. You learn to take punches. You learn to survive.
Scottie’s green eyes are imploring, and the desperation inside them breaks into my carefully crafted wall. I lean down to whisper into her ear. “I’ll be fine.” My voice is gentle in a way I know no part of me will be soon.
“Finn.”
My name is anguish, her voice a plea. Everything in me is drawn to her need for comfort—to her level of care for a fuckup like me.
Digging my hands into the taut sides of her ponytail, I press my lips to hers and kiss her. It’s a short kiss, but I make the most of it, savoring the soft plushness of her lips and the way her tongue tastes like the strawberry-flavored gum I always see her chewing in class.
“Just in case,” I say on a whisper when I pull away. Her eyes shine with both surprise and fear as I turn for the ring and don’t look back.
The guy she knows now won’t exist anymore when I’m done with Donnie Marks anyway.
Scottie
My lips tingle as my fingertips glide over the sensitized skin left behind by Finn’s bewildering kiss.
After weeks of avoiding me and warning me away and acting like I couldn’t even begin to know what I’m getting myself involved in with him, Finn Hayes kissed me. Out of nowhere and without forewarning and with all the passion I dreamed could be between us.
Out of my head and heart, I’ve shoved him away, just as he suggested I should, and stood on my own two feet. I’ve socialized and studied and thrown myself into my life at Dickson University. It’s been almost amazingly difficult to move on from him—to coach myself into letting him go without ever having had him in the first place.
But with one kiss, all that progress is so done and gone, I’d swear it never even existed.
And now, he’s going to do the stupidest thing I can imagine—fight a guy who apparently fought in the UFC.
I watch Finn climb into the ring with the pounding sense of impending danger clogging my chest. My hands are clammy and shaking, and I can feel the rattle of my fear in the chatter of my teeth.
“This feels like a bad idea,” Blake comments, and Ace nods, agreeing.
“No shit. I’m nervous as fuck for him.”
“Me too,” Julia whispers as she grabs Ace’s hand and rests her face on his bicep.
Convenient how none of them mentioned this shit before Finn took off to fight a guy who literally fought for a living not long ago. I’d love to tell my friends that, but a knot has lodged itself in my throat and words feel impossible under these circumstances.