Taking Chances (Taking Chances 1)

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 planning to let you stop this time.”

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.

Scarecrow gave me a big hug and started the fight, he noticed Brandon wasn't his usual carefree self but soon forgot when a seriously pissed off Brandon went to town on whoever this other guy was. I hadn't been paying close enough attention before they started. It looked like this was an oddly matched fight since the other guy wasn't doing much, and I didn't understand how it could bring in so much money. All of a sudden the guy grabbed Brandon's left hand and twisted it behind him, fully outstretched and planted a hard kick in the middle of Brandon's back. I screamed when his hand was dropped and his arm was left hanging out of socket. He slammed Brandon to the ground, his head bouncing off the extremely thin mat covering the concrete and Scarecrow had to hold me back from running to him. The last thing Brandon needed was me running out there, but it was instinctive to go to him.

Brandon's leg came up around the other guy’s chest and he slammed him down to the ground as well. Using both legs now, Brandon was choking the guy and I knew he would pass out soon. After a few tense moments the other guy tapped out and Brandon released his hold on him, slowly bringing himself to his feet. Without acknowledging the crowd screaming and cheering, he shuffled to me and Crow, grabbed my hand and pulled me to the room he'd waited in before the fight. When we got in there, he fell into a chair and gasped in pain as he unsuccessfully tried to put his shoulder back in place, I sat there covering my mouth in shock as I watched him.

“I need you.” He gritted his teeth and huffed, “To take me.” He huffed again twice.

“Stop talking baby, I know, I'll take you to the hospital.” I grabbed his shirt and sat on the floor against his legs, “Do you want to put this on at least one arm, or leave it completely off?”

“Try to get it on.”

I pulled the shirt over his head and got his right arm through the hole, I pulled it around his left arm so at least it wouldn't swing everywhere and kissed his forehead, “Is your head okay?”

“I'll be fine, I can't believe that even happened, I was just too distracted.”

“Oh my God Brandon, I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have talked to you about that before a fight. I wasn't upset with you, I promise. I was just mad at the whole situation.”

“It's fine sweetheart, this isn't your fault.”

“Brandon,” I gently kissed his cheek, “I love you, I'm sorry.”

“I love you too, come here.” He kissed my lips hard and I helped him out of the chair.

We started walking out when Scarecrow came running in, “Hey man, are you okay? That looked rough, you need to get checked out.”

“She's taking me, I'll let you know how it goes.” Brandon handed me the wad of cash he'd just received and shook Scarecrow's hand.

Five and a half hours later, we were finally getting back to Chase's house. Brandon had a slight concussion and had torn some ligaments when his shoulder dislocated, he was supposed to be wearing a sling, but he'd taken it and the wrap off as soon as we'd gotten back in his Jeep. I'd had a mental freak-out when they showed us the X-Rays of his shoulder and explained he'd eventually need to have surgery on it, but kept my mouth shut. Which probably was just as bad as vocalizing my rant, because Brandon took one look at my wide eyes and clenched jaw and knew I was flipping out.

“Sweetheart, tell me what you're thinking.” Brandon pleaded while I nuzzled his neck.

I sighed and rolled onto my back, “I'm just worried about you.”

“I told you, I'm fine. I don't want you to worry about this, it's nothing.”

“Brandon, please don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think I can watch you fight anymore. I just –” I fumbled for a few seconds trying to put my thoughts into words, “seeing that happen to you, I freaked and Scarecrow had to stop me from running out there. I can't watch something like that happen to you again. Would you hate me if I didn't go to them anymore? I'll wait for you in your bed for when you get back, but I can't watch them.”