Fighting to Stay (Fighting Madly Book 2) (17 page)

Graham pats my shoulder. “Well, I think that’s a good stopping point for all of us. When Hadley leaves here next week, I would like to have more family group time. I think it will be best for everyone.”

Everyone agrees before Matt comes over and gives me a big hug. This time I return it. “Come on, some people are here for you.” He leads me out of the room.

“What? Oh, gosh.” My hands rush over my mouth.

Court comes over to me and wraps me in her arms. “Did you think I wouldn’t come? Shush all that mess now.”

James, Lance, Gus, and even Bash are all here and that astonishes me the most. Reed’s fight is tonight and they came here instead of going to see him.

“I’m in shock! You guys.”

“Shut up, little Hads. Show me around this place,” Gus interjects, pulling me from Courtney and wrapping me in a huge bear hug.

I show them around for a couple of hours from the pool, to the tennis courts, to the lake, to the trails I run on daily. And I introduce them to all the friends I’ve made here.

We end up at the dock laughing about nothing, anything, and everything. After my time spent with Mark and my dad, I need this day to end like this. I need their friendly smiles, the jokes, the familiarity of them, but not with the heaviness I had lingering over the past few weeks.

I’m laughing so hard at Bash’s imitation of Gus when he wakes up that I don’t notice everyone is silent, until Gus hits my arm and lifts his head to the beginning of a trail. The feeling, my Reed feeling, hits me down to the bone.

“No way,” I whisper to myself. He is here, in the flesh. He should be in Jersey ready to fight in a few hours. But he’s not. Because Reed is here.

Holy shitballs, Reed is here!

All my friends blur around me as I take off running down the dock. Each time my feet hit the wood, it creaks from the pressure. I jump on him, wrapping my arms tightly around his neck.

“Reed… What…? I mean, the fight… No.”

He presses his finger to my mouth, shushing me. “Let’s go down here a little bit, get away from the prying eyes.” Reed nods to all our friends as he sets me down and laces his fingers through mine. But I don’t look behind me, afraid if I turn, Reed will disappear in a cloud of smoke. I still can’t comprehend that I’m touching Reed, that I’m breathing him in.

“Why didn’t you come with the group?”

“You needed time with them.”

He knew I wouldn’t spend time with them if he was here, because he knows it all. Damn Reed, he’s making my heart grow even more for him.

Hand in hand we walk the only wooded trail that I haven’t explored before. We both slow down when a glass building comes into view. I let go of his hand. My pace quickens when I see what’s inside. I turn the knob and the handle moves, I push hard and the door slings open. I stand in shock at what beautiful work this is. What kind of memories have been made in this chapel must be amazing. Floor-to-ceiling glass provides me several angles and views of the outside. I can see the sun setting through a back window. It glows in the distance just at the tip of an old cross at the very end. I walk down the aisle and trail my fingers along each and every one of the dark, oak pews.

“Reed, did you know this was here?”

“Graham told me I should take you down this way when I showed up, but no, I didn’t know this was the reason. But I must fu—shi— you were right all those times. I do cuss a lot if I can’t seem to not do it in a church.” Reed laughs lightly, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s perfect for what I want to tell you.”

He takes my hand once again and puts me in the center of the building. His gaze never leaves mine, like he could care less that we are in the most beautiful church ever created because I’m his center. “Babe, I never put you first. I said I would before and I still didn’t. So now I am.”

I take a deep breath and all my thoughts, all the deep, stirring doubts of doing this by myself, disappear because even with him not with me physically, he’s been there for me when it really truly counts. He always answers his phone when I need him, listens to my doubts, pushes me when I don’t want to go any longer, and isn’t that part of a how a relationship works, a part of what love is really about? To have someone catch you when you fall, to be able to lean on someone when you don’t want to move yourself?

Life moves on, it pushes us forward. I can’t keep loving him with one foot out the door anymore. I can’t keep running in circles only to end up in the same spot. It’s not fair to him or to me. Because the past—it’s just that, the
past
, and Reed giving the fight up for me is part of the future. Ours.

“You didn’t have to miss it. The fight you know. I would have understood.”

“I know, babe, you would have, and that’s why I love you, but I did have to. You needed me here. I needed to be here. For you.”

“You’re in it for good. I mean for us, aren’t you?” My eyes search his for one speck of doubt.

“Yep, all in. You saw my cards and I’m taking my bet on us.” He’s standing here, arms wide open, waiting for me to make my move.

I take the first step to close the physical and emotional distance between us, and his face lights up. Those damn hazel eyes shine only for me. Shot through the heart, I’m a total goner. I was always a goner when it came to him.

“I’m not all the way better yet.”

“I know.”

“I may not ever be. You have to accept this mess I’m in.”

“I do.”

“I love you.”

“Love you too, babe. Madly. I know you’re scared to fall back in and I get it now. We’ll go slow, dates and sh…stuff. Till you are ready. Now usually I wouldn’t ask you, but being in a church and all, feels like I should. Can I fu—freaking kiss you now?”

And before I get the chance to answer him, Reed’s lips are latched onto mine, giving God a totally inappropriate show of our affection. And l don’t have one ounce of guilt over it.

I know this isn’t the end of the troubles I’m fighting, and it’s not the last of our problems together, but it’s the beginning of my new chapter, and I’m going to write every last word in it. And it’s not always going to be smooth, or happy, or effortless. I’m sure more tears will be shed, and it will be more complicated than ever before. But isn’t that life?

It’s one big, beautiful mess.

Really, we all are just
fighting to survive
it.

One way or another.

This thing called life.

I’ll ride our ride until the end. No matter what.

Gus did his job and Bennett and Krystal are both long gone. I don’t know how or what he did, but Bennett is no longer breathing, and after that, Krystal started confessing other things she did, which added another twenty years on top of her twelve-year sentence for what she did to Hadley. When we told Hadley, she said one word. “Good.” And that was the last time we talked about it. I know she talked it out with Graham, but she wouldn’t tell me anything else. I did notice the last time I picked her up that her sleeping pill bottle hadn’t been refilled since she found out.

My hand moves up to knock on her door for yet another date. There has been bowling, movies, coffee, the normal things new couples do. Hads even set a rule to only see each other three to four times a week and not one day more. She said it’s so she doesn’t lean on me only while she’s getting better. Whatever she fucking says, because every damn day I’m with her I will take. We aren’t back to where we were, but only because she’s stronger. And I fucking love that shit, but it’s killing me to hold back on our fucking kisses when I drop her off at her door. I want to push her in through the damn thing and go insane. But it needs to be done. We need to get to know each other not as friends, not as lovers, just as boyfriend and girlfriend. Doesn’t mean my balls don’t ache the whole time I’m fucking near her. Who the fuck am I kidding—whenever I think about her.

Hads opens the door in nothing but a fucking towel, her hair soaking wet, and not one ounce of makeup on. And I can’t fucking speak. My eyes trail over her body, her fucking body I haven’t seen naked, touched, or kissed in ages.

“Didn’t you get my message?”

She’s talking, but I just can’t seem to actually comprehend any of her words. Jesus Christ, my girl is naked…one swift pull of the towel and it will be on the floor.

We
will be on the floor.

“Reed, the text?”

“Nope.” Who gives two shits about a damn text message or a fucking phone call when the damn beads of water start dribbling down her legs? Not me, that’s for sure. I would kill to be that water right now—I would gut a bitch to be that damn towel.

Lucy busts through Hads’s legs to attack me, but in the process, Hads loses hold of her towel and it drops to the ground. Fucking too fast for her to grab it but it falls in slow motion for me. My fucking wet dream, legit, every dream of Hads’s is standing right in front of me now.
Fuck my life.

Hadley speaks more and I spare a couple of looks at her mouth, but I’m still not hearing a damn thing she’s saying. She’s not making a move to pick up her damn towel, either, from the floor. Her fucking huge-ass tits on display for me. My dick goes rock hard in my pants, straining against the zipper. It’s like it knows where it belongs. Whose gate it should be in, and where is all my blood rushing to? Because there is certainly none in my brain. It must be the reason why my feet are going toward Hads now. Because there is no other reason why I’m only a few steps away from her now.

No other reason why my arms gather her naked body against mine.

No other reason why my lips are devouring hers.

But this is all happening and Hads isn’t pushing me away. In fact, she is opening herself to me. I grasp her ass and pick her up, her legs wrapping around mine, our lips never losing contact. I push her into the wall, her fingers itching to pull my shirt off. And like that my mind rights itself. I break my lips away. “Babe, sorry, but if you don’t stop I won’t be able to stop. My resolve left out that damn door when you opened it in that fucking towel. If you want this, I’m game, if not, we have to stop.”

One would think she would talk to me. She had so many words only minutes ago, but the only thing she does is take the edges of my shirt and pulls it over my head.

“Hads, I need words. I need to hear you say it.”

“Lord, help me, Reed, if you don’t take me to my bed and lay me down on my sheets and fuck me till I can’t feel my legs, I’m going to find someone who can.”

I growl, fucking growl at the thought of another fucker. “Babe, don’t even say that shit to me.”

“Well, take me to bed then,
babe
.”

“With fucking pleasure.”

I partially sprint to her room. I drop her down on the bed, her damn tits bounce, calling me to take them. “One more time, Hads, you sure?”

“Reed, shut up, yes I’m sure. This is what I want.”

My mouth attaches to her nipple. I swirl my tongue around it. Hads moans, filling my ears, and our hips buck against each other. The urge to fill her consumes me. I don’t even give her the option to take my pants off because I’m stripping already.

My body on top of hers, skin on skin now. My lips trailing down her neck, her legs wide for me, waiting for me. I look up to her face and see something I haven’t seen in so long. Desire. Our kisses at the end of our dates were getting heavy but nothing like this.

She’s wide open for me, and it’s not just her damn legs, but her damn heart, her mind, her fucking soul because her doing this now means she trusts me.

Trusts me completely.

Again. And that’s a gift I won’t ever take for granted.

I thrust in her, quick, fast, and so fucking hard. My body’s on fire, and if God strikes me dead, I would die one fucking happy man.

Her hips meet mine, her nails scratching down my back. “Shit, Hads, I swear this is my fucking home. You are my fucking home.”

Her legs wrap around my back and I go deeper than I ever thought I could. A tear falls off the side of Hads’s face and we slow our movements, taking in the last few moments before we explode together.

I swat at my nose, only for another tickle coming. I swat again, this time I catch a finger.