Free Always Yours by Kari March Page B

signaling the start of the fight, I wasn't in the correct state of mind to be fighting. She was all I could see, all I could think about, and I messed up. The last thing I saw was a fist heading straight for me. All it took was one hard hit to the head and my whole world came crashing down on top of me, crushing my dreams and my reality with a single blow."
    My chest tightened around my lungs as memories of that night raced through my mind. The two most important things in my life were taken from me, and the pain from the loss was just as strong as it was that night. I had spent years trying to get over what happened but I couldn't. As much as I hated Amber for what she did, I wasn't mad at her. She was chasing her castle in the sky, but what killed me the most was that in the flight for her dream, she crashed mine.
    That was my past; a big train wreck of events that made me who I was today—an untrusting disaster of a man that barely had his shit together. Slowly, I was trying to rebuild the broken pieces of my life one step at a time. I quit fighting people and decided to start fighting fires instead. As much as I loved MMA, the memories it brought to the surface were too much for me to handle. Firefighting was becoming a passion I never knew I had, until I started training and most importantly, it kept my mind off Amber.
    Much like MMA you had to be disciplined, physically fit, and good under pressure to be a firefighter, all of which I was. The only difference was, with firefighting you worked as a team. A team of brothers that would lift you up and carry you to safety in the event of disaster, they would put their lives on the line to save yours and while this was all still new to me, I would willingly return the favor to each and every one of them if the time came.
    Cracking my knuckles I avoided all eye contact with Cara. She hadn't said a word since my long winded story and even though the silence between the two of us was becoming awkward, there was no way I was going to look at her and let her see how much talking about my past upset me.
    Turning my attention to the darkness outside, I stared out my window. The sun was completely gone now and the moon and stars were high in the sky. I thought about starting up the truck and heading home until I felt the warmth of Cara's body touching mine.
    Her hand ran across my chest slowly, then up my neck to my face and every muscle in my body became alert—especially one. She gave my face a little nudge and I turned and looked at her. She was kneeling next to me in the center of the bench seat, her eyes fixed on mine with looks of empathy, as if she knew how it felt to have everything you ever wanted slip through your fingertips. The light from the moon was illuminating her face, and I noticed the sad glossiness in her eyes.
    Was she crying?
    As I opened my mouth to ask her what was wrong and finally break the silence between us, she leaned in and kissed me. I was a little surprised by her, seeing as how she hadn't responded or said a word to me since I dumped my past in her lap, but as the kiss grew deeper with sentiment my worries slowly dissolved.
    I didn’t know why but that kiss seemed different from the others. It wasn't just a kiss; it was a kiss that bonded us together through our pasts. I could see it in her eyes. I didn't know her whole story but I could tell that not only was she left by her father, she was also abandoned by someone else and just like me her dreams were gone as well.
    We spent the next hour sitting in the truck, talking about the future and munching on the snacks we had bought earlier. I found out about her addiction to cinnamon bears when I tried to take one from her and she slapped my hand away so hard it smashed into the dashboard. We listened to the radio and tried to 'name that tune' and she was kicking my ass at it, like she was a human radio.
    "I work in a bar surrounded by music every night, what did you expect?" she said as she shrugged