Page 16 of Forever my Love

“A match?” She frowned.

“Boxing. I’m fighting Robert Carrigan Jr,” he said. She waited, unsure of what to say. “He’s the current champion in the next class.” He added. “If I beat him, I’ll step up a class. It’s a big deal.”

“How wonderful. Do you get hurt fighting?” she asked, worried.

He smiled and shook his head. “Not usually. I mean, I could. I’ve broken my nose twice.” He shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal. She cringed, remembering the one time she’d broken her nose. Her mother had thrown a beer bottle at her head, and she hadn’t been fast enough to duck.

“I broke my nose once. It’s not fun.” She tied her hair up and got into position.

“Have you ever been to Vegas?” he asked as he reached for her and she dodged him.

“Yes, we stayed there for a short time.” She tried to focus on dodging his attacks.

“You should come with me,” he said, getting his hands on her upper arms.

She swung out and almost escaped his hold, only to be turned around and fully engulfed in his arms.

“Do you know where you messed up?” he asked, his mouth right next to her ear. She felt a shiver of heat race through her entire body as she shook her head from side to side.

“You dodged instead of ducked.” He released her and they went through the motions again, only this time he stopped right before he spun her around. “Here, tuck your chin in to your chest, and roll.” He took his free hand, placed it on top of her head, and nudged her downward. “Go to your knees and roll,” he said, and she followed along, completely escaping his hold. “Good, now try it again.”

By the third try, she was fully escaping his hold without him pulling back.

“Good. Now that you have that down, how about we try from behind?” He turned her away from him.

It took more than a dozen tries for her to halfway escape his hold from behind. The entire time, she tried to not focus on how wonderful it was to have Reece’s arms around her.

“Let’s move on,” Reece said after her last attempt ended with her on the ground and him hovering above her, smiling down at her.

“This wouldn’t be so hard if you weren’t so big,” she pointed out as he helped her up from the mat.

“My sister learned how to escape me, and she’s shorter than you are. It’s all about training,” he said. “You’ll get it. Eventually.”

She shook her head. “I’m not a big fighter.”

He was silent for a moment. “No one wants to be. But circumstances can force us to stand up for ourselves and the ones we love.”

The sincerity in his tone made her eyes burn as memories flooded her mind. Before she knew what she was doing, she rushed from the room. She only stopped when the cold air hit her. Gulping it in, she counted her heartbeats until her body was back under control.

“Are you okay?” Reece asked from directly behind her.

He’d been standing inches away from her, waiting until she had herself back under control. She’d felt his presence, but he’d held off from touching her.

She nodded her head without looking at him and took one last deep breath.

“Harper thinks it’s her responsibility to protect me.” She wrapped her arms around herself. Now that she was calm, the chill in the air washed through her.

“Big sisters are like that,” he said. “Hannah still thinks she has to watch out for me.”

Hailey glanced at him and almost laughed. “You’re much bigger than she is.”

He shrugged. “Not in her mind. To her, I’m still the skinny kid that followed her around and skinned my knees when she wasn’t there to catch me.”

She smiled for a moment, then turned to him. “I need to prove to her that I can protect myself. That she doesn’t have to put her life on hold any longer because of me.”

He was quiet for a moment, then said, “From what I’ve seen, she hasn’t put her life on hold. It seems that she and Nick are getting pretty serious.”

She turned around. “If he asked her to move in with him, she’d say no.”

Reece nodded. “I can see that. She wants to make sure you’re safe. With this stalker the two of you are worried about…” He dropped off. “I wish Harper would let me teach her too.”

“She says that she’s learning from Nick and that he’s teaching her to shoot too.” She sighed. “I didn’t even know that she liked guns.”

“Don’t you?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, they scare me just as much as…” She closed her eyes. “No.”

“How about we grab some dinner at the Golden Oar?” he suggested. “I think we’ve had enough for today.”

She thought about going home to an empty house. Harper had texted her that she was going to Nick’s to use his shower.

“Sure,” she agreed eagerly.