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I lowered my face to her hair. “So do you.”
“Yeah, like sweat.” She gave a little hitching laugh and gripped a handful of my hoodie as she peered up at my face. “Your jacket…”
“Slater told me it got bloody. It doesn’t matter,” I said gruffly, giving in to the urge to rub my thumb over her cheekbone. She looked so fragile and so strong at the same time. I didn’t know how both could exist in her simultaneously, but they did.
“He took it somewhere and they tried to get it clean. They didn’t do a great job, so I went to another place. Then another.” Another hitching laugh, softer now. “Finally the third guy tried this experimental spray and it’s almost like new.” She shocked the hell out of me by stepping back and offering me her hand. “Want to see?”
Don’t fuck this up. Be cool. “Sure.”
She led me down the hall to the locker room and bit her lip. “Wait here.”
I propped my foot against the wall and waited until she came back out, coat and backpack in hand. She handed over my jacket without a word.
I checked it over, surprised to see only faint questionable smudges on the front of the jacket. I didn’t know how bad it had been, but this just looked a little more weathered than when I’d given it to Mia. “Seems like they did a good job.”
“Yeah. They really did.” She fiddled with her wet braid. “I want you to take it back. It’s yours.”
“It’s not mine anymore.”
“Tray—”
I laid my finger over her lips. “You didn’t call me Fox.”
Rather than toss back some retort, she kissed the tip of my finger. The jolt reverberated through my entire body.
“Your name is Tray.” She swallowed hard. “Just like mine is Amelia.”
My standard response nearly sprang to my lips. No, it isn’t. You remade yourself into Mia. She’s who you are now. But unless I was prepared to tell her what I knew, I had no right to do anything other than listen. And since this was the first time we’d had anything remotely close to a breakthrough, you can bet your sweet ass I wasn’t saying jack shit. Maybe that made me a coward.
Fine. I’d admit it. It definitely made me a coward.
“I like Mia,” I said instead of everything else I should.
She gave me a hesitant smile. “You never knew Amelia. She was a cheerleader.”
I gasped. “No.”
“Yeah. Even worse, she was co-captain her freshman year. My school had the middle school and the high school in one building so I got on varsity early.”
I caressed her cheek with my thumb. “This entirely changes my opinion about you.” Words poured from me, ones I couldn’t stop. “I don’t want you to fight Costas.”
Her smile faded, blinking out like a light. “It’s not your call.”
I disagreed with that with every fiber of my being, but I’d tried insisting before. Tried demanding. In the end, the only way I’d find a place in her life was by letting her live it, her way. No matter how much I hated imagining her in the ring with that asshole, it was her choice to make.
Swallowing hard, I circled my thumb over her velvety skin once more. “I could argue the point up and down, but I’m not going to change your mind, am I?”
“No. You’re not.”
“Then I guess I’m going to have to live with it.”
She gazed down at the jacket she clutched to her chest. She’d gone from holding it carefully to fisting the material. I doubt she even realized. “Can we go somewhere private?”
I’d come down to the gym partially to light into her for fighting Costas. Now that was the least of my concerns. If she insisted on fighting him, I’d make sure she was ready. I’d will her to beat him if I had to. But this…this was so much more important right now.
“Anywhere.” I covered her hands with mine.
“There’s something…” She blew out a breath. Took another. Shut her eyes. “I need to tell someone. I need to tell you.”
