But it suited her.

Fuuuck, it really suited her.

She had her long elbow length hair up in a tight ponytail, and it seemed to really open her face up. Allie was beautiful, and it pissed me off that she’d been bullied as a kid. I’d have gladly fucked up every single kid that uttered the word “spider” to her. Fuck heads. Her words had got to me today. I kept trying to remember where I was when it was all happening and why the fuck it was Ryker that had to notice her before me. How different would things have been if it was me instead?

Shit, not a good thing to think about.

As we neared the place, I grabbed her arm and pulled her close to my side. “Like that. Pretend you’re with me, alright?”

Her eyes stayed drawn to the pavement as she nodded. “Okay, Heath. You don’t need to explain. I’m from around here too, you know.”

Yeah, but she hadn’t really witnessed the drinking culture. For a second, I wondered why in the fuck I was taking her here in the first place. But she’d seemed intrigued, maybe wondering where Ryker had disappeared to every time we had a boys’ night out. He’d always been protective of her, making sure she was somewhere tucked away. But if I had a girl like Allie and I was smitten to bits by her, I’d never have sheltered her. I’d be on the rooftops, showing her off for the world to see.

As I stepped inside, I greeted my fellow fighters. This bar was practically ours, a place we reminisced our stories and talked about our opponents. They asked me how I was going, where I’d disappeared to, and it was then I realized how long it’d been since I was here. Since I’d even drank. Shit, it’d been forever.

Still close to me, I led Allie to the back as she gawked around the room with eyes as wide as saucers. The bar wasn’t anything spectacular whatsoever – actually, it was a fucking dump, really. But it was the outgoing atmosphere that drew the crowd in. I found my guys, Matt and Jorge, sitting around our usual table, and they hooted at the sight of me. I took a seat around the table with Allie.

“Who’s this?” asked Jorge, eyeballing Allie with a grin on his face.

“Ryker’s girlfriend, Allie,” Matt said before I could. He looked at Allie and gave her a warm smile, and something about it didn’t sit well with me. This was Matt, pretty boy extraordinaire, working his charm.

Allie waved at him. “Hey, Matt.”

“How are you doing, beautiful? Been talking to Ryker?”

She hid her discomfort well, but I could pick that shit up from a mile away. “Yeah, good,” she answered.

“Started school yet?”

“Next week.”

“Cool. What’re you going into?”

“I’m sticking to English. Only thing I’ve ever been good at.”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Nice, hon.”

I frowned at the next smile he gave her, wanting to wipe it off his face with the back of my hand. The fuck was he doing giving Ryker’s girl flirty smiles? Zero respect, these guys. He caught my scathing glare and shrugged. Yeah, he knew exactly what I wasn’t saying out loud.

I handed Allie a menu and she looked through it while the boys talked about some of the fights they’d been to. I was regularly invited out to see what my competitors had in store, but I never bothered to. I didn’t watch fights. I strictly went to fight – and win. I liked facing the unexpected. Learning about my competition tamed the thrill of it for me.

“You want something to drink?” Matt then asked Allie as he signalled a waitress over. “It’ll be on me.”

“No,” I butt in before she could answer. The girl was pregnant… and underage, not that the latter even mattered in a place like this. Everyone drank; the young and the old. That was Hedley for you. “We’re not here to get wasted, Matt.”

“Well, al-fucking-right then,” he said to me, annoyed. “She’s got a mouth, Heath, how about letting her use it?”

I ground my teeth at him. “Not the night to be a dickhead,” I warned him.

He returned the icy glare but didn’t respond.

Eventually, he backed off and got up to play pool. I chatted with Jorge for a while before he, too, joined him. Allie ate her plate of burger and fries, and I tipped half of my food next to hers, knowing she would probably still be hungry after. She smiled at the act, her blue eyes glowing. My chest tightened, and I had the sudden urge to wrap an arm around her and pretend that she really was mine. Too many guys were noticing her, and tonight there were at least three times more men than there were women, and to my frustration, those girls seemed to gravitate toward me.

“Hey, Lawson,” they cooed, one at a time. I managed a nod in their direction, hoping that would be the end of it. I didn’t like the way Allie watched them watch me. For the first time, it made me uncomfortable. Her impression of me was important. I didn’t want her to think I was some sleazebag, but I didn’t blame her if she did. I had a long history of women, and even though I was careful to make sure they were clean and I was completely protected every time, it still didn’t impress my image.

I glanced around the room, making sure there was no tension anywhere. The slightest ruffling of someone’s feathers and the bar was likely to descend into chaos.

“Oh, my God,” said Allie in horror. “There’s that guy you fought when I went to you for help that night.”

I followed her direct line of sight to Tank. The guy was a hot mess, sitting at a table with a huge mug of beer and a barely legal, half-naked girl on his lap. He was all smiles, laughing it up as another man began setting up a game of cards.

“I thought enemy fighters were meant to keep away from each other in social places,” she continued, looking at me for an explanation.

I couldn’t help the laugh that came out of me. “Fuck, Allie, you’ve watched too many movies. It’s not like that here. You keep your personal baggage out of a fight. You never want to make it more than business between two fighters.”

“So you guys are like… okay?”

Jesus, how sheltered was she? “Haven’t you been to a lot of the fights?”

“Yeah, but Ryker used to take me straight home after.”

“He really suffocated you, didn’t he?”

She shrugged and looked away. “I didn’t feel that way at the time.”

Not wanting to make her feel uncomfortable, I looked at Tank and whistled loudly. “Hey, Tank! How’s it going tonight?!”