Fight Dirty
Автор
Evelyn Miller
Прочтений
1,1M
Глав
38
Kenzie Scott’s world is already falling apart—her parents are divorcing, and nothing feels steady anymore. The last thing she expects is to get tangled up with Clay Helms, the school’s most notorious bad boy. He’s an underground fighter with a bruised soul and a short fuse. When Kenzie stands up to him, something shifts. And when she shows up at one of his fights, everything changes. As their bond deepens, both are forced to face the pain they’ve buried. But love doesn’t fix everything. Sometimes, it just gives you a reason to fight harder.
Chapter 1
KENZIE
I hate Wednesdays. They’re like everyone else’s Monday to me. Wednesdays suck. It’s the day I wake up at Mom’s but go to sleep at Dad’s, or vice versa. They couldn’t be normal parents and let me do a normal week at one place. I swear they love making me and my younger brother, Logan, suffer.
I’m sulking as I walk to my locker when I see someone hunched over it, clearly messing with the lock.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I yell, stomping right up to them.
The culprit turns slowly and glares at me. I take a step back when I see who it is. Clay Helms. The school’s notorious bad boy. Known for ditching classes, arguing with teachers, and getting into fights.
He has his black hoodie pulled over his dark hair. His eyes are a beautiful shade of green, one of them sporting a fading black eye, but somehow he still looks good.
“What?” he spits out at me.
“Why are you breaking into my locker?” I fire back, remembering why I’m pissed at him.
“This is my locker,” he answers, opening the door in my face.
I slam it shut, nearly jamming his hand in the process.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he yells at me.
“Fuck you! Stop going through my locker!” I yell back.
“Look. This is my locker. Fuck off,” he spits out, opening my locker again.
“Why are you being such a fucking assho—”
“Kenzie. That’s not your locker,” my best friend June whispers as she slides up to me.
“What?” I snap, turning to look at her.
“Yours is next to his,” she whispers, pointing to the locker next to where Clay stands.
“Oh,” I say, looking at my actual locker and quickly opening it.
I look over at his locker one more time to confirm and catch a glimpse of the contents—rolled up athletic tape, what looks like pain medication, and a black mouth guard shoved in the back corner. Strange things for someone to keep in their school locker.
Heat floods my cheeks, but I’m still too pissed to apologize.
“Aren’t you going to say sorry?” June whispers, eyeing Clay.
“No,” I answer, shoving my books into the locker before slamming it.
Any other day, I probably would’ve apologized, but I’m still pissed, so fuck him.
Clay just shakes his head and walks away, but not before I catch him wincing slightly as he adjusts his backpack over his shoulder.
At lunch, I can barely focus on June and Brad’s conversation. My mind keeps drifting back to those strange items in Clay’s locker and the way he moved like he was sore. What kind of trouble is he really getting into?
When the bell rings, I drag my feet to chemistry class. Clay is in this class. Not that he shows up often. But since I know he’s in school, I’m worried for some reason.
I glance around the room and breathe a sigh of relief when I don’t see him. I make my way to my normal seat, second row from the back.
The middle-aged teacher, Mr. Karlson, has just begun the lesson when Clay strolls in without a care in the world.
“Why are you late, Clay?” Mr. Karlson sighs.
Clay doesn’t answer and makes his way to the lab table behind me.
“Detention after school,” he barks out, making me snicker a little. Serves him right.
“Have something to add, Kenzie?” he snaps at me.
“What?” I spit out. I didn’t do anything wrong.
“Drop your attitude.”
“I don’t have an attitude,” I argue back.
“You can go to detention too,” he says before turning back to the board.
Now my bad mood is worse, which I didn’t think was possible. Fuck this teacher.
Before I can grab my phone, Clay kicks my stool. I grit my teeth and look back at my phone, but he does it again.
“What?” I say through my teeth, glancing over my shoulder at him.
He simply nods toward the front of the room where Mr. Karlson is giving me the evils. I slide my phone back into my pocket and pretend to write down the notes. In reality, I’m just doodling.
When the bell finally rings, I grab my stuff and quickly make my way to the art building. My last class of the day and my favorite.
“Yo,” I say to Miss Wilson, the young teacher who is actually really cool.
“What up?” she says, leaning back in her seat.
I slam my bag on the floor and take my seat.
“What are we doing today?”
“Painting,” she says with a smirk, earning a groan from Erica who hates painting days.
I smile. I love painting. It’s probably my favorite art form.
“I want you to paint someone who intrigues you,” Miss Wilson says, putting her feet on her desk.
I grab everything I need and start. Without really thinking about it, I find myself painting dark hair and striking green eyes with just a hint of bruising around one of them. My brush moves almost on its own, capturing the sharp jawline and that infuriating smirk that somehow manages to be attractive.
I’m so lost in the painting that I jump when the bell rings.
“You can stay and finish if you want,” Miss Wilson says to me when I realize everyone is almost finished packing up.
“Can’t. Have detention,” I groan as I quickly pack my stuff up.
“Ooh, badass. What’d you do?” she teases, grabbing my paintbrushes for me.
“Mr. Karlson said I have an attitude,” I say.
She snorts. She can’t stand him either.
“Good luck!”
I burst through the door for detention and see the only other person in here is Clay. He’s slouched in a seat near the back, and I deliberately choose one several rows away from him.
“Take a seat anywhere,” Mrs. Holmes says distractedly as she shuffles papers at her desk. “I’ll be right back—I need to take this call.”
She heads into the adjoining office, leaving the door cracked. The room falls into an awkward silence.
“You have paint in your hair,” Clay’s voice breaks the quiet as he moves to the seat next to me.
I glance over, annoyed that my pulse quickens slightly.
“Shut up.”
“Someone’s touchy.” He leans back in his chair, studying me. “It’s actually kind of cute. What were you painting anyway?”
“Why do you care?”
“I’m curious.” He shrugs, and I notice again how he seems to favor his left side.
“Well, you know what they say. Curiosity killed the cat,” I sass back.
“But satisfaction brought it back,” he counters smoothly.
Despite myself, I find my lips twitching toward a smile.
“Shouldn’t you be ditching detention or something? Isn’t that your thing?”
“My thing?”
“You know. Bad boy. Rule breaker. Generally making teachers’ lives miserable.”
“Maybe I wanted to see if you’d actually apologize for earlier.” His green eyes meet mine, and I feel my stomach do something weird.
“I’m not apologizing.”
“Didn’t think so.” He grins, and it transforms his whole face. “You’re stubborn.”
“I’m not stubborn. I’m right.”
“About what?”
“Everything.” I’m surprised to find myself almost smiling.
“Must be nice, being perfect all the time.”
“It is, actually.”
We fall into a comfortable silence, and I find myself stealing glances at him. There’s definitely something different about Clay up close. Less intimidating, more... real.
“So what’s the deal with Wednesday?” he asks suddenly.
“What do you mean?”
“You seemed pretty pissed this morning, heard you ranting something about Wednesdays.”
I shouldn’t tell him. I barely know him, and he’s exactly the kind of trouble I don’t need. But something about the way he’s looking at me, actually listening, makes the words spill out.
“Custody schedule,” I say quietly. “My parents got divorced a few months ago. Wednesdays I switch houses, and everyone acts like it’s no big deal, but...”
“But it sucks,” he finishes.
“Yeah.” I’m surprised by how understanding his voice sounds. “It sucks.”
He reaches over and gently brushes his fingers against my hair, just behind my ear.
“There,” he says softly. “Got the paint.”
His touch sends an electric shock through me, and for a moment, we just stare at each other. His fingers are still tangled in my hair, and I can see flecks of gold in his green eyes. My heart is beating so fast I’m sure he can hear it.
He shifts closer and I can actually feel his breath warm against my cheek. He looks like he’s going to say something, but he stops. I realize he’s not going to say something, but he might DO something. He might kiss me.
Normally, I’d swat away a guy’s hand and shove him backward in this scenario, but I don’t move, frozen by the hope that he’ll lean in another few inches and kiss me.
