A Fighting Chance (2 page)

Lydia nods. “It’s red, lacy…and it’ll be on your floor later…or in the next ten minutes if we leave
right now
….” After a look around, she cups my groin.

“What kind of guy
leaves his own party?”

“The tab’s paid and closed out
, so the
kind
who’ll get to see me in his favorite position”—with a devilish smile, Lydia leans in and bites my lip—“
in the next ten minutes if we leave right now.”

“Done.”
We head back into the private room for her purse.

From where he’s standing, Duke gestures at us to come over.
“Kickback at the House?” he asks. I knew he was going to try to pull the party thing anyway. But birthday sex with my girl versus having beer spilled on me in a loud house with a bunch of other dudes, and chicks I’m not sleeping with? Yeah, no fuckin’ competition there. “Wait…are y’all leaving?”

Trying not to laugh, I say,
“Netflix.”

“
Long queue. Sorry, bro,” Lydia adds.

“Fine. Catch you
suckas
later…” Duke says, leaving us with a jerk-off motion, which in
Duke Speak
can mean any number of things, like a simple good-bye. Lydia shoves his shoulder and we bolt for the exit before anyone else notices. When we’re away from the lights out front, I pull her close and steer her backward toward my car.

“I forgot to tell you. My mom got you a book about Spain! She’s so excited about our trip.” Lydia links our fingers and I kiss the back of her hand.
“She even left Post-its in the architecture section for you. Places we must see and buildings you’ll love. Madrid is where my dad proposed, you know. Maybe it’ll become a special place for us, too…”

“I hope so.” Not in a marriage way
because we’re way too young for that shit, but our summer trip through Europe is the first big step in the direction we’re headed as a couple. We’ve been together on and off for two years, but we’ll be living together in Huntsville, Alabama, where I finally landed part-time work as an assistant at a small architecture firm. For some reason, though, the thought of our future, which should feel right, especially as things fall into place, only pushes a burning ache through my stomach. And the closer we get to graduation, the stronger the feeling. My “real world” choices seem daunting and final, but it’s nothing Lydia’s doing. All the anxiety and uncertainty is coming from
me.

I lean in to kiss her and my eye catches movement near my car. There’s a shadow
y figure peering into the driver’s side window. Like before in the restaurant, I wonder if it’s really there or if it’s another episode of my apparent birthday psychosis. But as Lydia’s nails press into my skin, I know she sees him, too.

“Someone’s breaking into my goddamn car
,” I whisper, and I push her behind me. “Unless…is this a prank, Lyds? Part of my birthday?” When we got here, I parallel-parked on a dark side street because Lydia wanted me to. I didn’t think anything of it at the time when she pressured me into taking the spot—she’s notorious for backseat driving—but now I know she probably didn’t want me to see Duke’s monstrous red Hummer. So, this street is a great place to put a car to keep a birthday surprise ruse going
and
the perfect spot to enable thieves, too, apparently.

She gasps, nails going in a little deeper. “No,
only dinner. I swear.” Her voice is wavering and my instincts also tell me she didn’t set this up. What’s strange is that the person’s mannerisms are actually familiar to me.
Like I know whoever it is. Suddenly the voicemail is on my mind, and I can’t help drawing a connection between the two. It’s way too coincidental.

“
Go back to the restaurant, Lydia.” I take careful steps toward my car, hoping the person won’t see me until I want him to.

Lydia cuffs my wrist. “Jess
e, are you crazy? He might have a knife…or
gun
.” There’s palpable fear in her tone. “You know, the thing that puts new but unwanted holes in your body?”

“That’s why you need to go.” I move away from her and creep to the bumper of a parked car before she can protest further. The man, who is wearing a battered leather jacket and scuffed dress shoes, continues inspecting my car, taking a slow, relaxed walk around the front. He’s smoking and he even gives one of my tires a light kick. He doesn’t look around and he isn’t jumpy, so
either he’s the world’s shittiest robber…

Or
he’s just killing time.

Because h
e’s
waiting
for me.

I sneak to another car, the one directly behind mine.
The man is whistling a tune I know, one I’ve only ever heard from one person, and frigid dread snakes through my core.
No fucking way. No
. My anger fuels an impulse and I pounce on him, slamming him facedown onto my hood and twisting his arm against his back.

He yells out in pain and struggles to break
away from me, swinging his free arm. “I just want to talk! Just
talk
, Jesse!” He turns his head, trying to look at me, and the moonlight illuminates his entire face, his eyes in particular. Those same fucking dark brown, close-set ones I have, too. The same ones I saw in the window tonight. It’s my ghost. My worst fear is confirmed. My father is here. The motherfucker found me. And with him comes the life I left behind but apparently can’t outrun.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” I whisper as I back away from him like he’s on fire,
colliding with Lydia. Henry pushes himself upright off the hood and winces as he flexes his arm. He’s haggard, his hair is a wash of gray, and he has aged beyond the four years since we last saw each other.

“Wow, okay, guess I don’t need the
Mace after all.” Lydia steps in front of me for a better look at Henry, and I pull her away because he’s poison, like an airborne toxin that you don’t even realize you’re breathing in until death is already imminent.

“
We need to go. Now,” I say to her.

“Jesse...” Henry says. “Hear me out. Please.”

My anger is a hot, churning pain in my chest, and I point at him, shouting, “Don’t follow us. I’ll call the cops. I’m sure there’s probably a warrant or two out for your arrest somewhere. Just leave. Just…fucking…go back to Glory.” I take Lydia’s hand but she doesn’t budge.

“You know him,” she manages to say with both certainty and confusion in her voice. “And he definitely said your name.”

“Yup. I do. And he did. Unfortunately. If you come with me, I’ll explain everything,” I say, almost pleading. I just want to keep everything I cherish away from him. My girl. My friends.
My life.
“Can we go, please?”

She shakes her head.
“Wait, you
look
like him. In the eyes. Who—”

“Doesn’t matter
,” I say. Henry is walking toward us, looking distraught, and a compassionate expression settles on Lydia’s face. We aren’t going back to Zoya’s.

“Let’s just hear what he has to say, okay? Maybe someone from home died
,” she offers, and I shake my head, though, in resignation. A fiery tickle erupts in my throat, threatening of a panic attack, which I haven’t had in years. I feel like a cornered animal. With every step Henry takes, my skin crawls, my displeasure grows, and I fight my overwhelming need to leave, without Lydia.

Throwing my hands up, I yell,
“What, Henry? What is it? Why the fuck are you here?”

“Jess!” Lydia says in a harsh tone to admonish me.

“I need your help…” When Henry reaches out to me, I see the space on his right hand, where two of his fingers used to be—the ring and the pinkie are gone. They were clearly sliced off, in a clean line, and then cauterized at the knuckles. What. In. The. Entire. Fuck? “I’m in trouble. A lot of trouble. I think you have to come home.”

Five
years ago…

Steven Ramboldt’s face
scrunched in pain right before his entire body landed with a heavy thud at my feet. “And that’s a knockout!” the ref shouted as he yanked my arm up, and the crowd exploded into cheers.

On nights like these,
I felt like God here. Anyone from Glory, Texas, chanting my name like it was a hymn, would have gotten on their knees right now to worship at my feet. At least for a little while.

I was the reason Perry Webber could charge double the normal amount for admission to his sweltering barn on a fight night
: thirty dollars a head to watch me paint the floor with someone’s insides. I would also get twenty percent of whatever Perry took in when
I won tonight’s main match. Knowing that was the only thing that made being the good-for-nothing son of good-for-nothing Henry Chance mean something. I had inherited two things from the man who was no more than a glorified sperm donor: a weakness for long-legged women and a talent for the fights.

I stepped out of the ring, not sweating or winded at all. Steven was my warm-up, light entertainment for the
impatient spectators, and my real competition, Kerr Edwards, climbed in as Steven’s limp body was dragged out. Inside the mass of people, I watched Edwards bounce around, goading the folks on my side, until a glass bottle shattered at his feet. The thrower also tossed a few fuck you’s at Kerr, and next to him, a girl from school, Cynthia Mitchell, flashed her tits at me. My smile was polite, maybe vaguely inviting, but it was all for show. Their open loyalty came from my victories alone; fight nights in Glory were the only times I could count on people here supporting me. The other days, they said the same shitty things the ones from Renshaw, Kerr’s town, did: I was just the bastard kid the longtime married Henry Chance’d had with Carla Jones, the black secretary he used to work with at a car dealership a few cities over.

He
wanted no part of me, either. I could only give him credit for not denying I was his kid, even though he would’ve had a hard time doing that when the main difference between us was my darker skin. I looked just like him. People always noticed it first in our close-set, dark brown eyes, but I also shared his strong, narrow jawline, and slightly pointed chin. I had his black hair, his slim build that never changed no matter how much I ate, and when I was younger, I had grown much faster than kids my age, just like my younger half brother Henry Junior.

“
Seriously?” my girlfriend, Drew Hallisay, asked with a snap of her head in my direction, her dark brown eyes glowing with jealousy. Call me crazy, but Drew jealous was kinda sexy, especially when she bit her lip and scowled. She aimed a spiteful glare at Cynthia. “Put them away, bitch!” she shouted, her tone husky and possessive.

B
efore Drew, I had plowed through the girls in my grade in a lot of secret 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.