“That went well,” Edward says, leaning back in his chair, the usual squeal of protest coming from somewhere underneath and lacing over his words. I almost speak up, telling him I’ll bring a can of oil to grease the damned thing, but I decide against it. Edward and I are in a good place and on occasion, we even joke, When he’s in the right mood. But more importantly, I need him so the last thing I want to do is piss him off.

“I think it went better than well. Chance, you’ll have to take Friday off from training to fly out, but it all sounds pretty amazing.” Vic says through the speakerphone.

We just concluded a teleconference with the organizers of the endorsement campaign. Because it’s late in the day, Vic decided to join by telephone rather than drive back across town during rush hour.

“I’m not sure my hard-ass trainer will allow it,” I tease back and we all laugh.

“All right young men, this old hard-ass trainer has some work to do. Edward, it was a pleasure. Chance, I’ll see you in the morning. Five sharp,” he reminds me, just as he has every day for the three weeks since I was late and showed up with the boys.

“Got it, old man.” I hear the subtle click when he hangs up. Edward reaches forward and lifts the receiver before putting it back down in its cradle.

“That’s going to be a great gig, Chance. You really nailed it. If you win this next fight, they’ll consider expanding your contract. That’s nearly unheard of,” Edward says jovially.

“It’s not if Edward, it’s when I win.” I smirk.

He raises his palms. “I stand corrected,” he says, chuckling.

“How are things on the home front?”

“Great!” I smile, thinking of Mia. I leave earlier than she does each morning, but since she returned to the ballet studio, we’ve found our groove, getting up each morning to have breakfast together before I go to the gym, and meeting back home each night.

“I enclosed two separate contracts for your review. Did you have time to review those?”

“I won’t be needing them,” I say, knowing he’s not going to sit well with that. He added them to the package when he returned the endorsement contract, but I quickly tossed them aside, not sparing a second of my time on either of them.

“Chance, I would recommend your consideration of using them. I had to get a little creative with the language on the marriage agreement, but the other is a fairly straight forward non-disclosure agreement.”

I shake my head. “I don’t need them, Edward. Mia and I are doing just fine without them.”

“As your attorney, I’d advise you to rethink that.”

I hold up my palms. “I know Edward, as my attorney you must advise me. Consider me advised and let’s move on because I’m not using them. What I feel for Mia is genuine. I don’t need a disclosure to keep her there. She’s invested for the same reasons I am.”

He leans back in his chair, his brows nit tightly. “Chance, I’m confused. Is she living in your house with you?”

“Yes, she’s living with me, but what happened between us happened organically. There’s never been any mention of agreements or exchange of money. We have a traditional relationship.”

“Does she know?”

“That we’re in a relationship and that she lives with me? Yeah, she finds her way home each night.” I grin and he shakes his head.

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

“Edward, Mia is my girlfriend. That happened without the need for any agreements. I feel like this is that start of something great. Could be love.”

“Love! What in the hell are you talking about Chance? You were standing in here last month saying you were going to offer her money to marry you and now you’re saying you love her.”

I shrug. “When you know, you know.” I’m shocked by my own words. I’ve heard that term used before, but never knew it would flow my own lips so easily. Do I love her?

His chubby fingers move to his forehead, kneading at the skin above his eyes as he sighs. “I sure hope you know what in the hell you’re doing.”

“Edward, that’s the one part of my life where I do know what I’m doing. I really like being with Mia and from all I can tell, she likes being with me.” I waggle me eyebrows and he scoffs. “Now I want to talk about custody. Any progress?”

He sighs, obviously still stuck on my relationship, but then clears his throat. “I talked to Judge Barrett on Monday afternoon before I left the courthouse. He sympathizes with where we’re at and asked that I forward the details of the case to his clerk. Elena was working on the file today. He’s willing to review it sooner than scheduled, but that doesn’t guarantee he’ll overturn it. I’d like to recommend we have the boys talk to him — if you’ll allow it. Otherwise, I think we should wait it out and wait for Michelle to do something stupid.”

My mind drifts back to all the things Matt and Brandon had to say at dinner and it’s been nothing but silence from Michelle ever since. She wouldn’t return my calls to schedule my next visit, so I feel like I was forced to give up and let it play out with the courts. I didn’t want to drag them through that, but Michelle is not leaving us any choice.

“I don’t like waiting, Edward. Brandon is doing poorly in school, he’s had an asthma attack, she’s smoking right in front of him, and she’s not taking them to counseling. If the boys need to talk to him, I’m fine with it.”

“Chance, are you prepared to take these boys because of that woman in your life or because you are ready for the obligation? I told you to have a plan, but have you talked to the association? You’re slated for world champion fight later this year. You win that, you’re their biggest ticket prized fighter. That will skyrocket the demands for your time. And then there are your endorsers. You just signed a contract for another and have to leave town this coming weekend to do a three-day photo shoot. If you had custody of Matthew and Brandon, what would you do?”

“I’ll figure it out, Edward. That’s what I’ll do. If you’re insinuating I’m only prepared to have them under my roof because of Mia, you’re forgetting they were there the week after our parents’ death.”

“What I’m saying Chance is, Mia is a young girl. I’d imagine several years younger than you. If she left you tomorrow, saying it was too much for her, would you still be able to pick up the pieces for Matthew and Brandon?”

Edward stares at me and I want to answer him, but to be honest, I haven’t envisioned myself without Mia. She came into my life and I’ve kept her close since day one. Have I somehow weaved her into the fabric of my family, without even asking her if that’s what she wants…or can handle?

“That look tells me you have very much included her in on this plan. Which is fine, but you have to know, two rambunctious boys are a lot to handle. I’ve raised a couple myself and I don’t know how I would’ve done it without Mary.” He sits back and watches me.

“Edward, there’s no doubt since I’ve met her; I’m a better man and striving every day to be an even better one…all because of her. So, I won’t sit here and pretend it wouldn’t crush me if she left, but I’d figure it out. I always found a way. I can’t have them with Michelle. It’s clear she doesn’t have their best interests at heart and if the judge talks to them, he’d know that within minutes. They belong with me,” I insist and he smiles slowly, seemingly pleased with my answer.

* * *

The sun is long past set and I’m sitting on the back porch, waiting for Mia to get home. Edward’s words are on constant repeat in my mind and with each replay, my bravado from earlier loses its traction, making me restless. I need something to take the edge off their residual effect and for the first time while training, I’m considering breaking the no alcohol rule.

Mia’s only twenty-two. What if she realizes she doesn’t want me? I come with baggage; not just emotional, but the kind that walks and talks…with attitude. I sigh and lie back on the lounger, my eyes scanning the stars in the dark sky.

My gaze lands on one particular star. I don’t know shit about astrology, but it’s the brightest star up there and for some fucking reason, it reminds me of Mia. In a dark sky full of other stars, it burns the brightest. Could someone as bright as Mia love someone like me? And without an ulterior motive? I rub my hands over my face, aggravated that I’m letting my fucking mother get in my head again. Mia is nothing like my mother.

For the first time in my life, I believe real love exists. Not the kind that comes in sloppy words after cleaning up someone’s vomit because they were too high to remember they’d made the mess, not the kind where you take a beating from one of their John’s, or even worse your own father as they stood by idly, watching with that vacant look and certainly not the kind that comes with a price tag. Up until Mia, that’s the only kind of love a woman has shown me—a conditional one.

“Hey,” Mia’s sweet voice interrupts my thoughts as she steps onto the back porch.

I crane my neck to see where she stands in the doorway. She looks so young and pure dressed in all pink, her face free of makeup and her long blonde hair pulled back into a bun. “Come here, I need to hold you.” I lift my arms and she easily slides onto the chaise. I pull her close and she rests her face in the crook of my neck.

“You okay, Chance?” she asks. I hear the nervousness in her voice and I hate that’s she’s feeding off my insecurity.

“As long as you’re here with me, everything is great.”

“You sure?” she probes further, trying to push away and sit up, but I gently wrap my arms tighter and she settles back, giving me what I need. I can’t look her in the eyes for wanting to come clean. To tell her everything Edward said and face the problem head on. I want her to promise me she’ll stay. Promise me that it won’t be more than she can handle, but fear that she’ll say it is too much and that she can’t stay has me swallowing back the questions.

“I’m fine,” I lie, the idea of picking the boys over her sickening me. The idea of her picking someone over me, even worse. Can’t I, for once in my life, have it all? Maybe a weekend away will be good for us. I can convince her that she wants me enough that she’ll accept any amount of baggage. “I’m looking forward to getting away this weekend. Are you?”

She pushes away and I let her this time. “I am.” She smiles, but it’s hesitant. “How’d your meeting go with Edward?”

“It’s fine. We’re flying out the day after tomorrow.”

She shakes her head, her eyes trying to read mine. “I already knew that. What about the boys? I can see something is going on.”

I take a deep breath and wrap my arms around her. “Do you want kids, Mia?”

“Where is this coming from Chance?” she asks, evading my question.

“Will you promise not to judge me?”

“I’ll never judge you,” she says swiftly and I find some confidence in her tone and take a deep steadying breath.

“I blame myself they’re in this position.”

“Chance,” she says, rolling over and straddling my lap.

“I could have fought for them when my parents were still alive, but I didn’t.”

“I may not know much about who they were, but I know you, Chance. That couldn’t have been an easy decision to make. You can’t blame yourself. Those were their parents…your parents.”

“Exactly. That’s why I should have fought for them. I was nine years old the first time I punched a grown man.” She grabs my hand and slowly rubs her thumb across my knuckles.

I watch the gentle slide of her thumb over my rough skin. Minutes stretch by, neither of us speaking. I look up, meeting her eyes and take another deep breath, before pulling her down on top of me, needing her close.

“He was one of my mother’s Johns.” Her grip tightens as her head rests into the crook of my neck. At any point, I could lower my gaze and I know it would find hers, but I can’t look at her. I don’t want to see the pity or the rejection that may follow in those honey-colored orbs.

“I didn’t know what a John was at the time. On the few occasions she brought someone home, she’d always called them friends. That night I’d heard his angry voice, muffled through the wall. He called my mom a dirty whore,” I say pausing for her reaction, but she lies easily in my arms. “I didn’t know what a whore was either, but his tone told me it was something ugly so I went to tell him to leave. When I ran into the doorway of her room, her dress had been ripped, her red bra on show. Both her wrists were clenched in one of his big hands. They were struggling, but she was no match for him. He was massive—at least to a nine-year-old. I yelled and they both looked at me. She sank to the edge of the mattress, her hands still bound in his. He yelled for me to get out and she just sat there on the edge of her bed, hands clenched tightly within his, staring at me. Her dark eyes were vacant. It was like she was looking at me without seeing me.”

Mia’s hand finds mine and she’s bringing it to her lips before I even realize the fist I’d made. She holds my hand to her mouth. “What happened?” she asks, her heavy breath warming the calloused skin of my knuckles.

“I ran over to him, wedging my little body between them, and put my hands on his fat waistline. I pushed with all my might to get him away from her. He laughed and it was the first time I could remember rage. I’d felt plenty of fear, sadness, even loneliness, but rage was new. He let my mom go, but she didn’t move away. She just sat there. I shoved him again, determined I’d have to get him to go if she was too hurt to move and he laughed some more.

“The more he laughed, the more my rage consumed me. I stood on the edge of the bed, balled my fist and punched him in the jaw. It hurt. I know it did, but I was no match for this guy. He had to be four times my size. He shoved me onto the floor before starting to yell at my mom. When she sat there, unmoving, not saying a word, I went after him again. I was still convinced she was good and pure, all the things a mother should be.” A dry laugh comes from my mouth at the innocence of that time. “I really think up until that night, she tried to protect me from it all. If someone could have saved her then, maybe she could have rebound from it.”

“Chance…” Mia breathes, wrapping herself tighter around me.

“But no one saved her and no one saved me. It just got worse from there. The visitors, the loud arguing, the beatings.”

“I’m so sorry, Chance.” She lifts my hand again, my tense fist unrolling easily under her gentle touch as she kisses my palm.

“I need to save them,” I plead quietly, looking for her eyes.

She looks up, her eyes misty with tears, but there’s not one ounce of pity, only tenderness. The same tenderness that she shows time and time again, the kind I never felt growing up, but have learned to expect from Mia. “We’ll save them,” she promises and I fall. If I doubted my love for her before, I was a fool. I wrap her in my arms, knowing she is going to hurt the fuck out of me one day and I’m not even strong enough to care at this point.