Taking Chances

“How was the rest of your vacation?” I asked Brandon who was sitting with his back against the headboard, while I leaned against the side wall with my legs crossed onto his lap.

“Good, I really wish you would have stayed, but it was good to catch up with friends.”

“I'm glad you got to. Thanks for taking me, I loved meeting your mom.” I smiled to myself, remembering her bubbly personality, “She's great.”

He nodded and swallowed some food, “She loves you already.” He took the bite of chicken off my fork and pointed at my hand. “Where'd you get that?”

I looked at the ring and itched to hide it, not that it would do much good now. I shrugged as nonchalantly as possible and answered around a bite of food. “Chase.”

His face fell and it took a few seconds before he continued chewing. “Chase gave you a ring?”

“It's not a big deal.”

“A ring.” He raised an eyebrow at me.

“Everyone in the family gave me a few things Brandon.”

“A few? What else did he give you?”

Crap. I took my time chewing and swallowing that next bite, but forced my eyes to stay glued to his. “My tattoo.”

“Chase did your tattoo? You didn't think that was something I'd want to know?”

No, I just knew you'd be mad. “I didn't know it mattered that much to you. Would you have rather me gone to someone you didn't know?”

“At least that guy wouldn't have a history of trying to take you from me.”

“Babe, that never happened, and even if it had, he didn’t succeed. You need to get over it.”

“Not li–”

“Can we not do this please? I just got you back and I want to enjoy my night with you.”

“Fine. But next time, I would really appreciate if you didn't let him touch you for four hours.”

My cheeks flushed thinking about Chase's touch. Think about something else, think about something else, think about something else. “Brandon you're not – are you jealous?”

“Extremely.”

“Well take it down a notch Hulk.” I giggled and rubbed his arm, “Whose bed am I in?”

He continued to glower at the ring, “Mine.”

I crawled off the bed and gathered up the empty Chinese boxes, hating the fact that I had just turned that around to his jealousy issues with Chase. Leaning over to press my forehead to his, I held his gaze and spoke slowly before heading to the kitchen, “Then you have nothing to worry about.” I lightly brushed my lips against his, “I love you Brandon.” I vowed right then to spend forever making up for the biggest mistake of my life. But how do you make up for something, when the other person doesn't know about the mistake in the first place?

***

Life went back to normal as school started again and Brandon and I continued our relationship. It had been almost two weeks since he had come home from Arizona, and we were doing better than we ever had. Chase had begun avoiding me at all costs, and though it made me sad, I was extremely happy I didn't have to see him all the time. I don't know how I would have dealt with seeing his miserable face when Brandon and I were together, which was most the time.

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 pla

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.