Page 4 of Loved By The Bad Boy

That catches his interest. He arches a brow, and I ball my hands.

“I have to pay you back for it,” I continue.

And the only way I can get enough money to pay him back is by fighting in the ring.

“Why?” he asks.

I don’t know anymore. It feels like I am fighting this battle alone. I’ve trained myself to hate him so much that doing the opposite feels like a crime. Maybe I am stuck in the past, and it’s affecting my present and future. I can’t be like other teens. I don’t like San Francisco as much as Gracie thinks. I want to be here to protect Asher from her. If I’m here, she can’t get to him.

New York is not so bad. Google says it’s okay. Maybe I will get into NYU next year and grow to love the city like Gracie does. It’s a cool place to start afresh. But I can’t protect Asher from there.

I hide my hands inside my shirt. The nerves slowly creep up on me.

“I was mad at you.” Because he fathered the child who ruined my childhood, the girl who stole my innocence. Josef frowns, and his arm drops from my shoulders. I try to smile. “I didn’t want to have anything to do with you or your money or Mom’s either. I don’t really know, Josef.”

I kick one foot out, staring at my boots like it’s the most interesting thing in the room. Gracie returned the combat boots, too, and our memories bracelet. It feels like she returned my heart to me. It was hers to keep. I want to be mad at her, but I can’t. I walked out on us first. I broke us.

“Why are you so mad at me, Ben? What did I do besides getting married to your mother?” Hurt laces his words. He grimaces at the prolonged silence that follows. “I make your mom happy.”

Josef also makes Asher happy. He has been a good father to him and a great husband to Mom. Though I hate the football team he supports, we could be cool if I gave our relationship a chance.

“You do,” I finally say.

Josef scoffs. “There’s something you are not saying. What’s wrong with my money?” I keep mute. He runs his hands over his face. Another hopeless glance at the bag, and he sighs again. “So, the money is legal? It’s yours? You fight, and some kind man gives you fifty thousand?”

“It’s from an illegal source, but it’s legal.” I laugh at his confused expression. Maybe I am too tired of holding it in because I explain the rules of the All-Rounder. Josef’s eyes widen with each word. We shouldn’t be fighting there, but we make a clean profit from it. “It’s how it came to be.”

“You fight,” Josef says like he’s hearing it for the first time. He sizes me up, then nods. At first, fighting was about protecting myself from her, so she would never have her way with me again. But I have grown to love it. “I used to box, too,” he says with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Oh, yeah?”

Josef nods. “Yeah.” I know he wants us to talk about the source of my dislike for him, but he doesn’t know how to broach the topic. “Was quite okay at it, too. What was your motivation?”

“Her. Protection from her.”

My words carry weight. There’s a shift in the air. His eyes meet mine. We both know our lives will never be the same if he asks the next question, and I don’t want to be the one who bites the bullet. He flexes his hands. It takes ten seconds for him to open his mouth and another two to speak.

“Theresa? My Theresa?” he asks. I nod. “What did Theresa do?”

Her name is like a rope that tightens around my neck. My chest constricts, and my hand jerks.

“Does it matter?” I whisper.

It is like those memories never fully go away. I don’t want to cry, but tears roll down my cheeks. The memories unleash themselves from my mind’s archive. I close my eyes, but the images flash behind my closed eyelids. If this were Olivia asking, I would simply tell her I didn’t want to talk about it, and she would understand. But Josef looks interested. I didn’t tell him then. I told Mom.

We were no longer the three musketeers after her marriage, and I was partly to blame. But I expected her to take my side, not look at me like it was another stunt to get us out of her new husband’s house.

“It matters, Ben.” His voice is soothing, like warm water running over me after an intense match in the ring. I uncurl my fists. “What did she do? Talk to me. Why do you hate her so much?”

A sob tunnels out of my throat. I prop my elbows on my knees and clasp my hands behind my head. For a moment, I’m back in that room. And I’m that kid forced to do things against his will.

“Hey. Hey.” He snaps his fingers in front of my face, and I shake out of it. “Benjamin. Look at me.”

Why is he squatting in front of me? Josef stands but doesn’t sit. I open up my palms and say it. I spit it out. The exact words I told Mom all those years ago. He doesn’t say a word. He stares at me like I have grown a horn in the middle of my forehead. I should have kept my mouth shut.

“Josef…”

The remaining words die on the tip of my tongue as he walks out. I wait. I wait for him to come back and say something, but the door remains wide open. Why do parents have to be this way?

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