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I shoved him off the step and kicked him while he was down. “Fuck you.”

Maddox groaned on the lawn, not moving. “Get me a beer.”

Funny how there was always money for beer, but he bitched about paying insurance. To be fair, Maddox got a raise at the farm. He earned just as much, if not more, than I did, and his job came with a lot of nice perks. Pete had cattle, so we got beef every time he sent them to the butcher. We got canned goods, vegetables and produce that didn’t make the cut to go to the farmer’s markets, fresh eggs, and even a lot of tools and shit to help out around here. Every time Maddox came home from work, it was like he’d been to the store. I’d forever be grateful to Pete for that.

“Wait.” I stopped myself from getting him another beer. “Tomorrow night? You’re fighting tomorrow night?”

“Yeah.”

“No. We have plans.” It was our first wedding anniversary. “I thought we were doing something together.”

“Yeah, fighting,” he laughed. “Full circle, right? We’ll win a BBQ as an anniversary gift and get to bloody each other up in the process. Win, win.”

I shook my head at him and went inside to tackle the sink. I mean, it wasn’t the worst plan; a BBQ would be nice. But I’d been hoping for something a little moremoving forwardthanstuck in the pastwhen it came to our anniversary. I wasn’t going to fight him.

I didn’t get him another beer. I left him on the lawn and crawled under the sink, ready to make it my bitch.

-MADDOX-

Devon needed to get over his mood and cheer up. I took him to the track this morning and we competed in the enduro race. He won second place and I only finished fourth, so I didn’t know why he was being all moody when he should have been happy. Well, I knew exactly why. It was our one year, and he thought I actually wanted to fight him.

I did want to fight him, but not on the beach. A new kind of fight.

Xavi ran out of the store with a bottle of wine in one hand and an empty box in the other. He climbed in the passenger seat of my new-but-old truck, grinning at me like a dipshit.

“I said no booze,” I complained. “It’s Devon.”

“The wine is for me.” He unscrewed the top and took a swig. “The empty box is for you. I’m celebrating today too, you know.”

“Celebrating what?” Had something progressed with this new girl Nate and Xavi were both sort of seeing? Again. She was the third one.

“Your life,” Xavi laughed. “A whole year married to Devon and you’re still alive, Madd. That’s a cause for celebration. Plus, Nate owes me a hundred bucks.”

I didn’t even want to ask, but I did. “For?”

“Just a bet.”

Yeah, a bet that probably had something to do with my marriage. If he didn’t tell me soon, I’d beat the answer out of him. I put the truck in drive and pulled onto the main road of Garron, heading to my next stop.

We weren’t floating in money, but we actually had some now. Enough not to stress about it all the time, anyway. Yes, those insurance payments pissed me off because they were basically criminal and I didn’t understand why we had to pay that much for something we’d probably never even have to use. Maybe I’d throw a tree branch through some windows to take advantage of it. We needed new windows. Despite that, there was one thing we both wanted to do but could never afford before now. It just so happened that I could tie it in with our anniversary.

I parked on the street, told Xavi not to touch anything, and picked up the rest of my gift. When I got back, Xavi had drunk half the bottle, but he helped me put all my shit in the empty box.

“You sure he’s going to like this?” he asked.

He’d probably hate me for it, tell me it wasn’t in our budget, and then hit me, but fuck it. We deserved it. “Nope. I’m just guessing.” Devon knew I was up to something, but I hadn’t breathed a word of it to anyone but Nate and Xavi.

“Nate bet that Devon would tie you up after the track so you couldn’t leave the house and go to fight night,” Xavi said, telling me about the hundred bucks he won. “And I bet that you’d sneak out like a little bitch and avoid all his calls.” He nodded to my phone going off every minute,Dipshit Devonflashing across the screen. “I won.”

Assholes. Both of them.

“Whatthefuck,Madd?”Devon came up to me as soon as I parked the truck in front of our house. “You really did win a BBQ?” He looked in the back, took in my bloody eyebrow, and then shook his head at me. “It better be a good one.”

“We’ll need it for the anniversary dinner I’m throwing.”

“It’s ten.”

“Tomorrow.” I pulled on the front of his shirt and kissed him. “I love you. Aren’t you going to thank me?”

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