Page 24 of Fighting Jacob

When he shadows me into our house, his stomps overtake the ringing of my pulse in my ears. He bands his arms around my waist to yank me back. His cock is thick and braced against my ass, but he’s not cuddling up to me for that. He’s mad.

“I can’t even take you out for pizza without you flirting with another man.”

I ram my elbow into his ribs when his hand slithers under my shirt to grope my breast. When he stumbles back, I pivot around. I’m prepared to protect myself, but nothing could prepare me for what happens next.

The man standing before me isn’t the man I fell in love with. He’s a monster.

“What happened to you?”

“Me?!” He storms toward me with his fists raised and his eyes black. “What the fuck happened to you?!”

I wake up screaming. Sweat is coating every inch of me, and I'm on the verge of crying. It takes several scans of my room to remember I'm safe and alone, and even then, I still shake without control. That night was over twelve months ago, yet it still haunts my dreams.

That was the first and only time Callum laid his hands on me. When he fell asleep, I fled his house and never returned. My friend Natalie took me in until my bruises faded enough I could hide them with a good concealer, then I scampered home with my tail between my legs.

To this very day, my family is none the wiser as to what happened to me. They’d support me, but I’m too embarrassed to admit someone like Callum got the better of me. I’m stronger than that, and I refuse to be made a victim. That’s why I'll never change who I am for anyone. I don’t want approval on what I can or cannot wear any more than I want to update someone on what I’m doing and whom I’m doing it with. If that means I'm portrayed as the predator instead of the prey, so be it. I’m not out to impress anyone. I just want to live my life how I want to live it. Is that asking too much?

My chances of doing that are less likely when I check the time on my phone. It’s a little after two in the morning, and I have twelve unread messages from Jacob. They all follow a similar tune: he’s sorry if he scared me, and he promises not to do it again.

I like Jacob, but his messages prove we need distance. He’s becoming attached, which will only end badly. I could continue our friendship if denying him wasn’t above my skillset. Just the way I fell for his trick last night proves this without a doubt. One swipe of his tongue and I was incapable of denying the pleas of my body for a second longer. I've done it the previous four weeks. It was pure hell. I don't have the strength to continue doing it, so it leaves me only one choice. I have to cut contact with him.

He’ll hate me for it, but over time, he’ll realize it’s the nicest thing I ever did for him.

Chapter Twelve

Jacob

Noah stops strumming his guitar when he notices me standing outside his bedroom door. This isn’t his room at my home; it’s the place responsible for his backside having an indent in a chair around my family’s dining room table the past four years.

“Is it safe to come in?”

When he gestures that I can enter, I take two steps into his room before stopping. There’s nowhere else for me to go. Noah's childhood bedroom is as sparse as they come. His mattress doesn’t have a frame; his clothes don’t have any drawers, and the only other décor he has is a bunch of magazines stacked in the corner. Other than that, his room is empty.

Feeling my hesitation, Noah jumps up from the mattress to offer me his hand to shake. It's been two weeks since I last saw him. That’s the longest we've gone without speaking. When Patrick said to give him some time, I expected it to be a few hours, maybe a day or two, so I was surprised when weeks passed without word from him.

The first few days, I was pissed he didn’t man up and talk to me, but since Lola was also skirting my calls and texts, I let it slip by without too much notice. By the second week, I was furious. I didn’t understand why he was shunning me from his life as Lola had. We’ve always been there for one another. We’re brothers from different mothers. As thick as thieves. We never let anything come between us.

It was only after talking to my dad did I realize I wasn’t the only one deserving of an apology. I asked Noah to participate in the prank that night. I forgot he was there waiting for me. So technically, I’m to blame for our fight. So, with my tail between my legs, I’ll apologize and hope he'll forgive me.

I use his offer of a shake to drag him in for a man hug. He hates any mollycoddling, but I'm not stirring him today. I've genuinely missed him. "You know you don't have to stay here, man; my house is your house."

“Yeah, I know. I just had to sort my shit out.”

Hating the worry in his voice, I bump him with my shoulder. “This is the longest you’ve been away. Dad keeps asking why the fridge is full.”

He throws a couple of jabs into my mid-section. “Maybe if you switched your steroid-loaded shakes for real food, your dad wouldn’t have noticed I was gone.”

I arch my brow, hiding the fact a few of his hits connect with bruises I collected last night. I had another fight last night, my sixth professional one. Since everyone lost contact with me at the same time, I threw myself headfirst into my fighting goals. Did it make the sting of their rejection any easier to swallow? No, it didn't. But it did increase my love for the sport.

I’ve won every bout, and although last night’s fight went a few rounds longer than I would have liked, at the end of the day, a win is a win. The prize money has grown more impressive with each fight too. Last night, I pocketed nearly a thousand dollars for my efforts.

Unsure why I’ve gone off-script, Noah brings me back to earth. “I’ll pop over and see the old man this week.”

I don’t know why he’s pretending to visit my dad. My home is his home. I was hoping he would have realized that by now.

After we go a couple of rounds of impromptu boxing in his room, my thirst gets the better of me. “Wanna grab a beer?”

Noah looks up at me with wide, dilated eyes. “Sure.”

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