“About fucking time.” He held his fist out and I bumped it. “You deserve good things, Nix. If you stay in The Row”—something dark edged into his expression—“it’ll bleed you dry.”
“Again,” I said to Max as he stayed light on his feet, jabbing the air. One two. One one two. He had good technique. Natural technique. And for as much as I hated to admit it, I was starting to see what Bryson had seen in him that first time I’d brought him here.
“Breather, I need a breather.” His body slumped and he inhaled a ragged breath.
“Not getting tired on me already, are you?” I smirked, grabbing a bottle of water and throwing it at him. He caught it and chugged half the thing down in one.
“Ready to tell me yet why you’re really here?”
He cut me with a cold look.
“Fine.” I shrugged. “But sometimes it’s good to talk.”
“I didn’t come here to bond,” he hissed.
“Good, let’s go again then.”
“How much does it pay?” I cocked a brow and he added, “Fighting for Bryson?”
“Depends on how good you are and whether or not you win. But that’s not something you need to worry about anytime soon.”
“You fought for him before you were a senior.”
“Because I’m special.”
“More like an arrogant asshole,” he muttered under his breath.
“Trust me when I say, you don’t want to get tangled up in that side of things. I only did it because I needed to. Something tells me you’re not hard up for some cash.”
“Yeah, I guess you would think that.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Forget it.” He flexed his hands, shaking off our conversation. But it lingered in my mind as we went again. Max was… a strange one. He gave off that cocky rich kid vibe, but when he was here, hitting the bag or pads, he was someone else entirely.
“Have you talked to Harleigh?”
His question caught me off guard. “Yeah, we’ve talked.” I’d texted her every chance I had.
“Did she say anything about the other morning?”
“No.” My spine stiffened. “Why?”
“My mom was asking questions about where she was all night. She’s like a dog with a bone when she gets something into her head. So, I uh… I…”
“What did you do, Max?”
“I nudged her into thinking Harleigh was with Nate.”
Okay. That didn’t sound so scandalous. They’d been hanging out before things with me and her—
“Wait a minute, when you say with Nate, what exactly do you mean?”
“I figured it’s the perfect cover. If they think she’s dating him, they won’t be asking questions all the time.”
Dating him.
Dating him?