Page 92 of Fighting for You
What if she’d told someone about Julian sooner?
What if she’d never gone to her dad’s that day?
What if she’d reported Julian back in Charleston?
What if? What if? What if?
None of it is helpful. Things happened the way they were going to happen. But the sentiment is lost when you’re the one those things happen to. I know how unfair it feels. I know how debilitating it is to lose a parent. I may not have broken down the same way about mine as Margot has, but it fucked me up. I’m still fucked up.
Hayes walks in from Margot’s kitchen, and I tense up. We never got to talk about my relationship with her. It was clouded by more important things. But now her head is in my lap, and I haven’t stopped touching her since we got here. He’s unreadable; I can’t tell if he’s willing to be cool about it or if he’s two seconds away from murdering me.
Sitting down on the chair across from the sofa, he leans back into the recliner then gestures toward us as he says, “I think you have some explaining to do.”
His voice is low, an obvious attempt to not wake his sister. The same sister he warned me to stay away from. The sister he’s so protective over, he wouldn’t tell anyone her actual name for years.
Oh yeah, I’m fucked.
Despite my actual terror of the man sitting in front of me, my hand never stops rubbing soothingly over Margot’s arm. I listen to her slow breathing for a moment, making sure she’s still sleeping before I plead for my life.
“I—uh, fuck. Would you believe me if I said I didn’t know she was your sister when we met?”
His eyes narrow at me, but in true Hayes fashion, he doesn’tsayanything, he just continues to glare until I continue on.
“Back in November, she cleaned me up after a fight at The Pit. The day Colton got his first hit on me and split my cheek.” He nods his head letting me know he knows the day I’m referring to. I was so pissed. Then so fucking late for the Gala. I’d asked Hayes to make sure I was the first fight of the afternoon because the Gala was happening just a few hours later, never expecting to have my ass handed to me.
“The second Thea saw me, she lost her goddamn mind, called Margot in as a favor. I had no idea she was your sister, dude. I swear it. I only knew her as Lydia’s nurse.”
He stares me down, but I don’t break this time, I need him to say something.
“And then what?” he asks, his eyes never leaving me. I’m not sure he’s so much as blinked in the last five minutes.
“Then you sent me to her house to fix her fucking pipes.” I pause, realizing a very important detail. “So really… if you think about it, this is allyourfault. I can’t even be blamed.”
I laugh. He does not. So I clear my throat and continue before he decides to rip my head off in response. “I’d love to tell you I swept her off her feet after that, made her fall madly in love with me and shit, but it would be a damn lie. She made me work for it. Then I fucked it up. We’d gotten in a huge fight, and it wasn’t until the day before your dad—” Fuck. “I mean, we’d just gotten back together. And I was coming to talk to you about it that day. I’d tried before and chickened out.”
His brows rise at the confession, the look on his face leaning more toward amused than murderous. Basically a fucking smile in my book when it comes to Hayes. “Yeah, I’m a coward. Believe me, I know. No need to give me whatever look that is,” I say as I gesture to his face.
The silence settles between us, but after a few moments, we both start speaking at the same time.
“Do you—” Hayes starts.
“I’m in love with her,” I say with all the bravado I can muster. I don’t want him to think for one second I’m not serious about her, about us. I keep going before he can say anything else and I lose whatever confidence I’ve found. “And I know, Hayes, I know I’m no good for her. I know she deserves better than me and anything I can give her, but I’ve never loved someone the way I love her. She’s… fuck. She’s everything to me. And I swear, I’ll do everything I can to keep her happy.”
My hands have gone clammy, but they still caress her arm. Hayes watches as my fingers dance over her skin, maybe noticing how content she looks in my arms, I hope at least. Then his eyes shoot back up to mine.
“You know what will happen if you hurt her.”
“I sure the fuck do. I don’t plan on it though. I almost lost her once, it won’t happen again,” I assure him, leaving out the details abouthowI almost lost her. “She’ll have to leave me to get rid of me this time, and she very well could when she realizes she can do way better. But I’ll never regret having the opportunity to love her and be loved by her.”
He leans forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands interlocked as he stares at the two of us. “Despite everything, she looks happy. I have to assume you have something to do with that.”
A nervous laugh falls from my lips. “For once in my life, I’m not cocky enough to think I’m the cause, but I sure as hell hope so.”
“She’s special,” he says with so much conviction in his voice.
“I know.” And I do. She’s my light in a world of darkness. She’s the bright swatch of color in my palette of dull grays. She’s everything I don’t deserve and everything I crave.
I clear my throat before dropping the next bomb. “I uh… I promised her I’d stop fighting.”
