A Fighting Chance Read Free Page A

hookups. Then she and I became really good friends during junior year last year when she needed help in math, and the way I like to tell it, I seduced her over hours of trig homework.
    Grabbing her hips, I pulled her against me and wrapped my arms around her middle. She sighed and her shoulders eased when my lips brushed her ear. “You think I’d give up a girl who loves the fight for some groupie?”
    Pulling away, s he shook her head, eyebrows drawn together. “I don’t love anything about this, and I hate it when you say that. I’m only here because you are, and you shouldn’t even be here. Your mom—”
    “Tell me about Edwards.” I clenched my jaw, attempting to soothe the familiar squeezing in my chest that came with the mention of Ma. I didn’t want to talk about her right now, and I didn’t want to think about her, either. I had been lying to her about why some Tuesdays I stayed out so late, but I think Ma knew I didn’t really work a night job helping Perry around his farm. She had seen the cuts and bruises before, too; she just never asked. She didn’t want this for me, but she probably figured she had made a deal with the devil all those times she’d accepted money from me.
    “Kerr any good?”
    I could see in Drew’s eyes that she was resisting her urge to argue with me, but she only fingered the tips of her black ponytail and sighed. “He’s itching to fight you. People are still talking about your win in San Antonio last month, and he hates it. Word is, he’s been talking shit all week,” she whispered as she massaged one of my shoulders. I didn’t buy the calm look on her face with all that concern in her voice. “He’s good. He’s won, maybe, three fewer fights than you. He’ll give it his all at the beginning and try to take you out right away. But I don’t think he can beat you. He gets out of breath pretty fast.”
    T o people here in Glory, Drew and I probably didn’t seem to fit together. The Hallisays moved here four years ago when Doctor Hallisay, her father, took over Herman Daniels’s medical practice after he passed away. Because nothing big ever happens in this place, town gossip was rampant about the doctor and his bank teller wife, who were leaving life in Houston to move into Daniels’s massive house in our small town. Even the guys at my middle school had lined up across the street to see the doctor’s hot teenage daughter, and everyone got the surprise of their lives when the family with the Irish last name turned out to be black. At the time, they were the fifth black family in Glory. Once the fascination wore off, though, people realized that Doctor Hallisay was someone who had come to do a lot of good here. His practice was just as successful as Daniels’s, and he never turned anyone away.
    Drew also looked like she shouldn’t have been in a place like this, with her made-up face and pink manicure. But no matter how brutal things got, I never ever saw my girl cringe or hide her face at the sight of blood or the crack of a bone. She didn’t get scared unless I was in trouble in the ring. She spent her time studying the fighters, learning their weaknesses and habits, and she even kept a journal of their stats. The few times I coaxed her into betting, she walked out of here with more money than anyone else, including me. The guys at the edge of the ring always tried to make her feel like she didn’t belong up here with them, but Drew didn’t back down to anybody. Not in Perry’s barn, and not even her parents or her friends when they warned her about dating me. Not anybody. The day someone spray-painted a racial slur on her car, I was ready to dislocate some fucking shoulders, but she only flipped them off as they drove away, looked at the smear with her hands on her hips, and said, “Well, I guess I’ll have to get that paint job earlier than I hoped.”
    We who did this—these fights—we knew why we really signed up for the carnage. Yeah, it was a fun