Wicked Restless (Harper Boys #2)(28)
My other gig is…different. But the pay is awesome—when it comes. I’m a fall guy. Basically, I spar with wannabe fighters for this dude Harley who manages up-and-coming boxers. He pays me ten bucks an hour to throw a few punches, but take way more than I throw. It builds up confidence in the guys he wants to move up and it keeps me aggressive on the ice. When he thinks his guys are almost ready, he sets up small fights at a few of the gyms in the city, and my job is to always go down, but not until we’ve gone at least three or four rounds.
This is where I make my tuition money.
Harley takes bets on the side—rolling money into the thousands with a network of bookies he knows. I get a cut—because I’m the one who gives him the lock. He’s careful about running me too often, switching me up with two or three other guys who have the same deal, and he always loses a bet when he needs to make it look legit.
The fights are only on Sundays, so it never runs into practice or games. And it’s rarely more than one a month. But one fight can land me a few grand in a night. It’s money I need, and the first time I did it, I couldn’t believe how many of my financial problems it helped make go away. But that’s not what made me come back.
That feeling—the one of knowing my arms aren’t going to move fast enough, that my instincts are going to be purposely numbed, is a rush. To know the hit is coming, and that I’m going to deny myself protection. When I get hit—gloves to the temple, chest, chin, ribs—it’s like getting high. Everything that hurts gets centered on the pain, and my runaway thoughts and fears come to a grinding halt. Regret fades. The only thing that exists is getting my ass kicked, feeling my flesh sting and my body hum with pain.
Sometimes, I think that if I didn’t do this—if I hadn’t stumbled into Harley’s gym one day and found my way into a ring with a boxer twice my size—that I would have turned to something else. My body can take the abuse, and my mind…it craves the distraction. It’s the same way on the ice.
“All right, Harper. Who’s the target tonight?” Trent leans over me, startling me out of my trance, grabbing my next beer and taking it for his own.
“Hey, dickhead,” I say. He holds up a hand and orders another one, sliding it to me. “I’m pretty sure it’s your turn this time.”
His face falls and his complexion turns green. Trent and I have this game we play with one another. It started as a drunken dare a few months ago, when he goaded me into taking a girl home from Majerle’s Pub. I’m not suave; I don’t have great pick-up lines. I usually wait for girls to hit on me. I wait for easy. When Trent dared me, I came up with my own set-up—I stole a girl’s wallet. I returned it to her later, pretending I’d found it. She was so grateful she spent the rest of the night sitting on my lap, her arms looped around my neck, her lips sucking on my skin, her hands soon finding their way in my pants.
That first girl taught me never to bring any of them to our apartment. I go to theirs now. It’s easier to leave than it is to kick someone out.
“Fine, I’ll go. But next time, I get to pick your girl,” I say, tipping my beer back to drink what’s left before leaving the bottle on the bar behind me and pointing at my friend.
“Dude, whatever. You know it’s your turn anyway,” he says.
“My choice next time,” I remind him as I walk backward. I know it’s his turn, and I also know he doesn’t really like taking the dare. Trent’s too nice, and he usually ends up dating the girl for weeks after. He doesn’t like to be an *. Or maybe he just doesn’t like people to say bad things about him. Maybe there’s no difference between the two.
I couldn’t give a shit what people say about me. Let ’em talk.
I make one pass through the crowded bar, letting my eyes roam over the dance floor and the tables that line the back wall on the way to the bathrooms. It’s a Friday night, so there are lots of girls here. It’s the middle of the semester, too, so they’re all ready to party—no finals to worry about. There’s one group that seems like an easy target, a blonde on the end who keeps trying to talk the others into dancing. I hover around the restrooms waiting for my shot, and when she finally drags the group of girls with her out to the dance floor, I walk back through the crowd, passing their table.
So easy.
Their wallets and purses are all piled in the center of the table except for a red bag looped over the back of a chair, the ID sticking out of the top. I drag my hand along the bottom of the table, and as I pass the red handbag I grab the small plastic card poking from it, tucking it into the sleeve around my palm. I glance up to make eye contact with Trent, and raise the corner of my mouth in a smirk.
“Dude, you are so slick at this. Seriously, if you flunk out of the engineering program you should just turn to a life of crime.”
I slide into my stool and look away from him. I know he was just saying words, but the joke doesn’t sit well with me. I have a chip on my shoulder. It’s my f*cking chip, and I earned it by giving up a year of my life for a series of bad decisions and shitty circumstances. Trent knows my story—mostly. He knows there was a girl, and he knows I got screwed over by both the girl and the law. But I’m not sure he knows exactly how f*cked up it all left me. And he also doesn’t know how many nights I walk that line with Harley, fixing bets that are illegal in the first place. Trent just thinks I like the workout boxing gives me.