Raw Deal (Larson Brothers #1)(71)
“And this decided you.”
“Well, it’s a pretty damn big incentive. It was something I never expected to come along, especially now.”
“It’s up to you, though, right? You don’t have to take it.”
“No, I don’t have to.”
“Please don’t.”
“Savannah,” he began patiently—at least, she forced herself to think he was being patient, because she wouldn’t be able to handle him being patronizing—“this is what I do. It’s the path I chose, and I have to think long term. It will be a damn good payday, and I have to plan for the rest of my life here, you know? I’m not like you or your brother, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and I won’t be able to climb in the cage and throw hands when I’m sixty. You see fighters years after their careers are over, washed up, broke . . . that can’t be me. I won’t let it be. I have to be smart and take any opportunities that come my way, because they won’t always be there.”
“But if you get hurt or worse, what about the rest of your life then? I hear what you’re saying, Michael, I even realize that I’m probably being irrational, but . . . this scares me so much. And you know it does, and you don’t care. That’s what I can’t wrap my mind around right now. I know we haven’t been together for very long, but I thought what was happening here meant something.”
“It does. It means so much, Savannah, you mean so much.”
But this means more, she thought. It was a cruel truth she would have to live with if she wanted a life with him. It would be unreasonable to expect him to throw an entire career away over a woman he’d only known a couple of months.
“When we were in your kitchen that night,” she said, tracing the iron patterns of her bistro table, “you told me we have to seek solace wherever we can find it. I had the thought that my solace was you. If you do this . . . you can’t be my solace anymore. There’s too much hurt, too much grief, tied up in what you do. I can’t see through it. I would live in constant fear for you.”
“But you shouldn’t, baby.” He reached across the table to put a hand over hers.
“I know I shouldn’t,” she snapped, “but I would all the same.”
Maybe this was the sign she’d needed. How f*cking tragic that it had come just when she thought things might be smoothing out somewhat with her parents and Rowan. Like fate had stepped in and kicked her in the head while she was struggling to get to her feet. Boom! Ha-ha, got you, you dumbass. You were thinking you could have him after all, but you still can’t.
“It’s a chance I’ll just have to take,” he said at last, glaring out at the street again. The clouds above were breaking into a clear blue, the wet street and sidewalks glistening in the golden light of early evening. “The risk has always been there, the same way it’s there for everybody. I know you had a bad experience, but it’s so rare, darlin’. I’m good, and I’m careful.”
“And Tommy wasn’t?”
That made him shift his glare from the street to her face. “That isn’t what I meant, and you know it. But if you want to go there, no, he wasn’t. Not if he got in the cage knowing he might have a head injury he didn’t get checked out or either didn’t f*cking tell anyone about. He set himself up, he set me up, for some bad shit to happen to him, and it did.”
She sucked in a breath and shot out of the chair, but going back inside meant squeezing by him. For a second she hoped he would grab her and take those awful words back, but he didn’t. He let her go, and he didn’t follow. Savannah fled to her bedroom, slammed the door, and burst into sobs so violent they gagged her.
Well, he’d made a royal f*ckery out of that. A mere few hours after vowing to her brother that she was taken care of, he’d said something that cut her to the heart.
Maybe it was for the best. This coming month was going to be hell on him; the last thing she needed was to suffer through it with him. The press, the speculation, some lauding him for coming back so soon, some saying he was a piece of shit, and of course, Tommy’s name being revived in countless articles and sportscasts. She wouldn’t be able to handle it. He hoped he would.
Sighing, heartsick, he pushed to his feet and gripped the iron railing around her charming little balcony, watching the people stroll by. They’d planned to scarf down their sandwiches and go out again, so they should be among them right now, walking hand in hand, contemplating their plans for the evening and anticipating the night ahead. All he had to do was say the word and it could be reality—if he hadn’t already f*cked everything up beyond all repair with careless words.
Careless, he realized, but true, one of those many instances when he hadn’t admitted his real feelings about a subject until they flew unbidden from his mouth. That habit had served him well in his fighting career, but would eventually wreck every relationship he ever tried to have.
True or not, she hadn’t deserved to hear it.
He left the balcony and went to her closed bedroom door, hearing her sobs beyond it as easily as she must have heard him talking to Brad and Jon. Pressing a hand to it when he wanted to rip it from its f*cking hinges to get to her, he uttered a prayer. As if that would help. “Savannah, baby, can I come in?”
Her answer was immediate. “No. Please don’t.”