Free Fighting to Stay (Fighting Madly Book 2) by S.L. Ziegler

trying to get in her pants, shit would have been settled when he went down there.”
    “James isn’t a douche. He’s a pretty cool guy. Straightlaced but a good person, and he doesn’t want in her damn pants. How many times do I have to tell you that? He had a nurse down there in Columbia after his girl kicked him to the curb, anyway. But I don’t think it would have been settled even if Rike actually talked to her. She seemed locked on her plan.”
    I stand dead motionless, the words echoing throughout me as the world spins full force around me.
    Hadley—they are talking about my girl. I know this. And I’m going to find out why. I jump in before they even notice me. “What the fuck are you saying?”
    Lance gives a shrug—a shrug. Like I didn’t catch him with his hand in the damn cookie jar, like he didn’t stand here gossiping about my fucking love life, like it belongs on a fucking magazine on newsstands. “Rike, you ass-jumped to conclusions when you saw them together. I tried to tell you when you got off the plane.”
    “When did you try?” My teeth clench as I have to physically stop myself from killing the guy that is like a brother to me.
    “We all tried, Rike. You told us you didn’t want to hear anything and got to the point where you just stopped talking to us altogether when we tried. So easy. We stopped trying. ”
    I turn to Gus. “How the fuck do you know her?”
    “How do you think you found her, huh? We saw your fight on TV, and that’s the night she told me, for sure it was you. I called Bash, the rest is history.”
    “Fuck,” I mutter to myself, my hands automatically in my hair. “I know what I fucking saw, what I fucking felt when she smiled.” I say it to no one but myself, because if I didn’t see it, if I let her go and walked away from her again, from my damn girl, then I fucked up. Because once again, I thought I was doing the best thing for Hads, but not stepping up was for nothing. I can’t handle that.
    “I think you saw Hadley happy. These guys were just making it out like she was some kind of weak bitch, but the girl I’ve became friends with, isn’t that,” Gus says.
    Courtney comes waddling out on the patio halting any more talk. But it doesn’t stop my brain from working overtime on this information. If Hadley isn’t with him then she’s fair fucking game, and all my thoughts of the shit that tormented me for the past month are thrown out the damn window. I swear the sky just got fucking brighter.
    Lance steps to my side and a hit from him jolts my center to return to normal. “Told you to listen, but your ass wouldn’t. Now, what are you going to do?”
    “She’s going to be mine, once and for all.” My mind’s set like a damn mountain, she is my damn girl again. No more of this being a better person. This is crazy shit, but I always did like to play with fire. And give me the match because I’m ready.
     
    Damn, my girl steps through the glass doors with James nowhere to be seen, spares a look over at me, and waves—fucking waves at me. She moves over to the bar, my eyes glued to her ass as she bends down to the cooler and grabs a Coke, no beer, not a margarita, not wine—a Coke. My girl doesn’t drink Coke when they serve alcohol at parties. Makes me wonder if…that’s changed, what else has?
    My body moves over to her, but when Gus hustles over to her, I give Hads space. She turns around and takes a spilt second before she leaps into his arms and squeals—ear-piercing, loud squeals. It causes every head at the party to turn in their direction, but she doesn’t care. She’s too concerned with being in Gus’s arms. I got one out of the way, only to have another one move into James’s spot. Never knew Bash’s partner would want a piece of her, too.
    Hell mother fucking no!
    I rush over and fucking eye Gus up and down. He may be bigger, may have more muscle and, no doubt, the giant thinks he can take me, and he might actually be able to do