Page 101 of The Boyfriend Experience

And I don’t blame her.

“Come on,” I say, pulling back. “Let’s just go upstairs and relax.”

“Don’t you have work?” she asks.

“Fuck work. I called my office and cancelled my day after Hanna’s thugs tried to kick my ass.”

“I’m sorry about the TV show, Law.”

“Forget about it. Things happen for a reason. I truly believe that. So… fuck them. Maybe you should take them up on their offer?”

She huffs. “No, thank you. I never wanted a TV show. It was only going to be fun because we’d have been partners.”

I squeeze her hand as we get into the elevator. “We’re still partners, Oaks.”

She looks at me and gives me a half-hearted nod, trying to smile through her tears.

“We’re still partners and we’re gonna get that bitch, OK? Because if all that shit she said last night was a lie—”

“It was! My father wasn’t that kind of man. He was honest, and good, and even when he made mistakes he owned them. He took responsibility. And she is not my fucking sister!”

“Then Hanna Harlow is a psychopath.”

“Yes,” Oaklee says. “She is. But you know who else is kinda crazy?”

“You?”

This makes her laugh. Which makes me feel a little better about being such a raging dick this morning.

We get out of the elevator and walk to my apartment door. I open it, wave her in, and then she turns. “Me,” she says. “Yes. But not just me. Now she’s fucking with Vivi Vaughn. And there’s not a sane person alive who would do that. So that just proves she’s not only insane, she’s stupid too.”

Then she walks over to my kitchen, opens up the freezer, looks around for a moment, and withdraws a bag of frozen vegetables. “Your eye is swelling,” she says, walking towards me and taking my hand. She leads me over to the couch, points to it, and says, “Sit. I’m giving you a complimentary deluxe girlfriend experience.”

God. I think… I think… “I think I love you, Oaklee Ryan.”

That makes her smile, but she pushes me backward with a palm to my chest. I sit and she climbs into my lap, pressing the frozen bag of broccoli against my brow.

It stings. But it’s not the worst sting I’ve ever felt. And anyway, having her in my lap is worth the sting.

Our eyes meet. Both sets sad. Because we lost things today. We’re still losing things in this moment.

But then she kinda grins at me. And I kinda grin back, because how could I not? And she says, “You’re worth fighting for.”

“No,” I say, reaching up to place my hands on either side of her face. “Not me, us. We’re worth fighting for.”

“She stole my beer, she stole my label, she stole my name… and she stole your TV show. What else could she possibly want?”

“Forget her,” I say. “Just for a little bit. Just… just be with me right now.”

Her shoulders slump and her lips pout in the most adorable way.

But I know she’s not trying to be adorable, she’s very sad right now. And none of this is her fault. So I say, “Ya know, a long time ago, back when I was this guy”—I motion to the tattoo on my arm—“I had lost everything. My parents were gone, I was living on the street, doing drugs. I had no life, no future to look forward to. I was smart, but didn’t think it was gonna get me anywhere. So I wasted it. I wasted years just… pretending none of it mattered. That I was strong enough to handle the world alone.

“But then Bric came along and he told me something one day. Something I’d never forget. He said, ‘A fighter never quits and a quitter never fights. You were born a fighter, so act like it.’

“And at the time I blew him off.” I laugh. “I literally gave him the finger and told him to fuck off. But a few weeks later I was in juvie again. And Bric came to bail me out. He sponsored me. Gave me a scholarship to a very nice private school here in Denver, and convinced the judge I was ready to change, even though I wasn’t. And when we got in his car that day, as we were leaving the courthouse, he said, ‘That’s how you quit, Lawton. That’s how you let everyone else win.’”

Oaklee screws up her face. “What did he mean?”