I’m not sure I can move, or even walk, but the next thing I know, I’m headed toward him, the tears in my eyes making it a little difficult. I reach him and he cups my face, and brushes the tears away with his thumbs.
“I know this is fast, but…” He drops to one knee and pulls out a ring. I gasp and there’s a hush over those watching and now I’m glad I’m not in yoga pants. It’s better that I’m nicely dressed for retelling this story to our kids. I turn and catch Kaitlyn’s eye, knowing she was behind some of this. She smiles at me and gives me her nod of approval.
“We don’t have to call it an engagement ring if you don’t want to, if you’re not ready for that. We can call it a promise ring. I want you to know that I don’t want to be with anyone else but you. I want you to know I am committed to you.”
“Christian,” I whisper quietly as the tears fall harder.
“These last few months together have been the best of my life.”
“I don’t know if I’d say that,” I tease.
He blinks, hurt registering in his eyes. “Aw, come on Maize. It wasn’t so bad, was it?”
I laugh, and throw my arms around him, my insides soaring with the love I feel for him. “Not so bad, Christian. Not so bad at all.”
I back up an inch and hold my hand out to him. Cheers erupt as he slides the ring on. He stands and I cup his cheeks, and go up on my toes to brush my lips over his. “These last few months weren’t the best of your life, Christian.” His brow furrows, and I laugh with all the joy inside me. “The best is yet to come.”
* * * * *
Thank you so much for reading Enemy Down, book two in my End Zone series. I hope you enjoyed the story as much as I loved writing it. Please read on for an excerpt of Keeping Score
My boyfriend has a debt to pay, and no money to pay it. Desperate for a way out, he begs me to help.
Little did I expect for him to hand me over to the man he hated.
Rocco Gianni isn’t just a scholarship student at Kingston. He’s a tough kid from the streets of Detroit—the scariest baller on campus. And now he owns me.
Everything about him frightens me. Intrigues me. Makes me breathless.
But Rocco has a score to settle, and promises to get his money’s worth.
From me.
Any way he desires.
Want to know what scares me the most?
That I’m going to let him.
Keeping Score
Excerpt:
Hate is a pretty strong word.
It’s not one I use frequently, or even flippantly. I use it only when I mean it. When it’s justly deserved, and when no other expression fits. Like that time when I was sixteen, and one of my foster parents dragged the new kid into the bathroom and flushed his head in the toilet because he didn’t eat the broccoli on his plate—because getting a serving of fresh greens once a week was a privilege, not a right.
Hate.
That’s the only word to describe what I felt for that cruel bastard. He deserved the ass kicking I gave him for hurting a fellow foster kid, but I didn’t take joy in hurting him, or in all the hating—and there was a lot of hating. That stunt landed me in a new foster home, with a whole new set of problems.
But that’s not what I’m thinking about at the moment. I’m thinking about the only other person I can truly say I hate, and I’m currently sitting across the table from him, my legs relaxed, my feet kicked out in front of me, as beads of sweat trickle down Cochrane Montgomery’s too perfect face as he stares at the cards in his hands.
I don’t hate rich folks as a rule. Hey, whatever hand we’re dealt is the hand we have to play, right? I learned to deal with poverty and violence early on, but Cochrane here, he’s had it good up until now, which is why he’s having a hell of a time dealing—or rather laying his cards down.
Am I taking enjoyment in his misery? Would it be awful if I said yes? Horrible if there’s this satisfying pleasure washing over me as he squirms? I might have grown up on the mean streets of Chicago, and learned to use my fists for survival, but I like to think I’m a civilized human being—thanks to my sophomore year gym coach. He saw potential in me, and taught me to use my hands for something other than crime. He even gave me his old 1969 Honda CB 750 motorcycle.
No one has ever given me anything before, other than an ass kicking that I probably deserved. That bike has been with me since I graduated high school, when Coach handed her down to me—a ride for college, he’d said with pride, knowing he was a big part in shaping my future. I didn’t want to take her, but he insisted. In return, I promised I’d take good care of her and now she’s my pride and joy and I wouldn’t trade her for the world. Sometimes I think it’s the bike—Coach’s belief in me—that gave me the motivation to make something more of myself and make him proud of me. That’s why I’m here at Kingston College on a football scholarship, staring at the rich fuck who made my freshman year miserable by making sure I, as well as everyone else in our house and on campus, knew I was trash from the
