Taking Chances
Page 54

It had been one of those days where Brandon and I couldn't keep our hands off each other, and it had been absolute torture waiting for his last two classes of the day to finish. As soon as they were done, he picked me up from the dorm and drove me to Chase's house. Our lips hadn't left each other as we made our way from his Jeep to his room, and his shirt, followed closely by mine, was on the floor before his door was shut and locked. Desire for him shot through my body as he lowered me to the bed and pulled my pants off before climbing on top of me. I reached down for the button on his pants as he pushed a bra strap off my shoulder and kissed where it had just been. I slid the zipper down and he put a hand behind my back, lifting my body off the bed. Planting his knees on either side of me, his other hand went to unhook my bra. He laid me back down on the bed and slowly started pulling it away when his phone rang.
“Every freaking time.” He growled and snatched up his phone, “What?” After a few seconds he sat up quickly and smiled, “No way! Where? Yeah I'll be there.” He jumped off the bed, pulling me with him, “Come on baby get ready, there's a fight.”
“Are you kidding me?!” I hooked the bra back together and planted my hands on my hips, “You're going to stop in the middle of that to go to a fight? Tell Scarecrow to find somebody else!”
“Don't be like that Harper, this fight could easily win me three grand.”
My hands paused with my shirt halfway over my head. Holy hell. “Three grand?!” I still had never heard an amount until now. The wads of cash were usually pretty big, but they could have been ones for all I knew.
“Yeah, I haven't had that high of a night in almost a month.”
“In a month? How much do you normally make?”
“I don't know it changes every time.” He shrugged as he pulled me out of the house, “Average is usually sixteen or seventeen hundred.”
I was so shocked I stopped walking. Brandon fought anywhere from one to three times a week, and his average was that? “What do you do with all that money?”
He sighed and picked me up as he continued outside since I wasn’t moving, “Other than some bills and buying my Jeep, I've saved all of it.”
Crap. I seriously would have never known. Brandon wasn't one to talk about his money, and he didn't come across as someone that had a lot of it either. He didn't appear poor, just seemed like your normal college student, so this was blowing my mind. “Well regardless,” I said with a huff and crossed my arms after we were on our way, “I can't believe you stopped that just for a fight.”
When we came up to a red light he looked to me and ran his fingers over my jaw, “I'm sorry sweetheart, I didn't mean to offend you like that. I promise after this fight we can go back and not leave the room until Monday.” He started driving again and reached for my hand to kiss my palm, “Besides the call came at a good time, I had been trying to force myself to stop. I would've had to soon.”
I frowned and looked out the window, I was glad he kept the top up during the winter so it wasn’t too cold, but I kind of wished it was down so we couldn't talk right now. “I hadn't been planning to let you stop this time.”
Brandon's hand tightened around mine and he cursed, “Harper I didn't know, I'm sorry. I swear if I had I wouldn't have taken that call.” He cursed again, “I shouldn't have taken that call even if we were about to stop. That was our time together.”
“I get you to myself all the time, it's fine.”
“No it's not. I really am sorry, please don't be mad at me.”
I smiled but it felt wrong, “I'm not. Let's just finish this and go back to the room like you said.” Honestly, I wasn't trying to be rude, but I had finally decided tonight was the night. I know he hadn't been aware of that yet, but the fact that I was ready to go there with Brandon and it got interrupted set me on edge. Like maybe I still shouldn't have sex with him. I wish I'd kept my mouth shut and not told him that I had been wanting to. How did we go back to stopping ourselves after I just said that? Even though I knew I was, I wasn't trying to make him feel bad, I was just mad at myself.
He was quiet the rest of the drive, instead of his happy energetic self before a match. He held my hand and silently walked with me through the labyrinth of halls in this place. When we got to the doors that would put me in the room he kissed me softly and walked away to meet with Crow. I felt awful, he'd been so excited about this fight, and I'd put him in this sullen mood. Walking into the basement with the loud music and crazed atmosphere felt wrong after the last forty minutes, but I stood next to the box Scarecrow would be on, like I did every other fight so Brandon would know where I was.
Scarecrow gave me a big hug and started the fight, he noticed Brandon wasn't his usual carefree self but soon forgot when a seriously pissed off Brandon went to town on whoever this other guy was. I hadn't been paying close enough attention before they started. It looked like this was an oddly matched fight since the other guy wasn't doing much, and I didn't understand how it could bring in so much money. All of a sudden the guy grabbed Brandon's left hand and twisted it behind him, fully outstretched and planted a hard kick in the middle of Brandon's back. I screamed when his hand was dropped and his arm was left hanging out of socket. He slammed Brandon to the ground, his head bouncing off the extremely thin mat covering the concrete and Scarecrow had to hold me back from running to him. The last thing Brandon needed was me running out there, but it was instinctive to go to him.