Fighting Fate (Fighting Series) (Fighting #6)(5)

She flashes a grateful, but strained, smile. “Thanks, but I don’t have—”

I push my water bottle into her hand.

She sighs and thanks me again before tossing the pills back. Her lips wrap around the bottle’s mouthpiece, and I have to look away. A sick part of me revels in the fact that I’ll be able to have her mouth on mine, even if only through the connection of the water bottle. Yeah, I’m fucking pathetic. Four years of this shit and I still haven’t grown a pair big enough to confess my feelings for her.

“How do you always seem to know what I need before I need it?”

“I pay attention.” Because I’m in love with you.

She hands me the bottle back. “You’re too good to me.”

Aw, baby, I could be so much better if you’d let me.

Again, my chest cramps. If she only knew how much I hold back to keep our friendship from being awkward… I’d give her everything she ever wanted, satisfy her every whim, work my ass off to make enough money to provide for her, and die trying to give her the beautiful life she deserves.

Ever since Axelle came into my life back in high school, I knew she’d own me. She claimed my heart the day I found her in the parking lot: the new kid, kicking and screaming every profanity in the book at her Bronco. As much as I tried to hint to something more than a friendship back then, nothing beyond it ever developed. I knew it was because she was way too good for me, so I spent the next few years bettering myself: got a job and contact lenses and started training with the world’s best MMA fighting league. But even bulked up at just under 200 pounds, a good half foot taller than I was when we met, she still sees me as scrawny Killian McCreery.

Someday soon I’ll win her over. There’s no other option because, no matter what life brings, she’ll always own me. So unless I plan on continuing what I’ve been doing—standing on the sideline while she gives the biggest douchebags on the planet what was solely made for me—I need to work less on my BFF skills and more on my seduction skills. Right, the guy with zero experience is going to win over the most desirable woman in existence. It’s fucking laughable.

I run a hand through my hair, pushing back my love-sick thoughts. “Come on; let’s get your crampy-ass home.” I grab my backpack and pull it over one shoulder to the sound of her giggles.

“It’s not my ass, Kill. It’s my uterus.”

“Ick.” I cringe, wrap my hand around the back of her neck, and guide her through the breezeway. “If you’re trying to get me to squirm, you win.”

“What is it with you big bad fighters, huh?” She peeks up at me with a sly grin. “All that muscle and you can’t handle a little talk of the female anatomy?”

“Oh, I can handle the female anatomy.” I’m such a liar.

She rocks her hip into me and laughs. “Suuuure, dude.”

We get to the parking lot, and I walk Axelle to the little white Ford SUV her mom and Blake got her for graduation. She tosses her backpack into the backseat and sits in the front with her legs out and feet propped on the running board. She manages to make even the most casual things look hot. I lean my forearm against the top of the open door, thinking if she stood up her lips would line up with mine perfectly.

“Listen. So you know it’s Clifford’s birthday, right?”

Buzz-fucking-kill.

I nod and push past the jealousy roaring in my chest.

“Well, I know what I want to get him for his birthday.” She tilts her head as if she’s waiting for me to ask.

I don’t because I could give a flying fuck about Clifford, her current piece of shit.

“But the thing is I’m kinda nervous, so”—she shrugs one shoulder in that adorable way she does and my resolve caves—“will you come with me?”

I fist the strap of my backpack and force a calm into my voice I’m far from feeling. “I planned on going straight to the training center.”

“Pleeeaaase?” She puffs out the full lower lip that has starred in more fantasies than I’d ever be willing to admit.

I clench my fist and try to relax my jaw enough to get a damn word out. “You know I can’t miss training.”

“Oh come on!” She slaps my stomach, and fuck, I love her touching me. “Why not?”

Still working on becoming good enough for you, baby.

“I mean, really, you’re running out of places to store muscle.” She playfully pulls up my shirt, and I don’t fight her. I know what’s underneath, and for now, until I get my first official UFL fight and get my degree, it’s my best asset. She motions to my abdomen. “You’re already at full capacity.”

“Nah… I’ll find room.”

She points to my bicep on display with my arm propped on her door. “Um…you look like Popeye.”

“Do not.”

She laughs and the sound shoots straight between my legs. “Do too! I think you even have an anchor tattoo under here somewhere.” She pulls at my shirt again, and I flinch as her fingers brush my ribs. Her eyes flare. “You’re so ticklish!”

I drop my arm, back up a step, and point at her. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Ryder, a friend of ours, and the son of the UFL’s owner Cameron Kyle, saunters up wearing a Bad Religion shirt and a frown.