Page 17 of The Last Love Story

The door opens to the right of us, and Hux slips inside, keeping to the wall so he avoids Alba’s motion detectors and getting docked for being late. I wonder if he was getting into another fight, or waiting for me outside the classroom door?

But why would he do that? It’s not like we’refriends.

A rush of annoyance under my collarbone ratchets up to rage.

“First, we will have...” Alba’s voice halts as her system draws a name. “Ripley Hart.” The girls clap, and Nef lets out a littlewhoopto cheer me on.

I stand, and the sad, gross shin guard slips down my leg. Great. That bodes well.

“And Huxley Finn.”

The guys let out an encouraging cheer, and Hux rolls his shoulders, grinning as he stares across the mat at me.

“Well, shit,” I whisper as I walk out. I yank the sad shin guard off one leg, and then the other. They were useless before, and they are especially useless now.

Hux saunters toward me.

He’s got thirty pounds of muscle and a foot of height on me, but that doesn’t matter when we’re training. We learn a mixture of martial arts that are designed to teach us how to get the advantage overanyopponent, not just ones with whom we’re equally matched. After all, we won’t have weight classes in war.

When we meet, he holds his hand up as though measuring my height, and brings his hand to the center of his chest.

“Knives,” I say, and Hux cocks an eyebrow.

“Knives it is,” he says. I spin on my heel, and he takes several steps back, keeping me in his sight until finally turning to make his way to the rack of weapons that sit just off the edge of the mat.

I grab two small blades, testing their weight in my hands. They’ll do.

“Are the contestants ready?” Alba asks, and I make my way back to the center to face Hux.

I answer for us both: “They are.”

Hux only stares down at me. In the full light of the gym, I can really see the bruise on his face. It spreads up past his hairline, where a small scab is still healing. Whatever happened, it had to hurt.

But not as much as this will.

“Begin,” Alba says.

I spin my blade in my palm and swipe it wide, just missingHux’s chest as he jumps backward, letting out a small laugh at the close call.

My blood boils. He’s always laughing at me.

I advance, ducking to try and knock him off his feet with a kick, but he jumps back. With a scowl, he throws the knife down into the thick mat and finally lunges at me. I roll, swiping again at his boot but missing as he flips me, landing hard chest to chest, pinning my hands—and the knives they hold—at my side. He’s heavy against me, but I know he’s still holding himself up at least a little, because I’m not suffocating.

He’s going easy on me.

“Did bad sleep have anything to do with being out past curfew?” he whispers, breath hot in my ear. When he pulls back to look me in the eye, with that same superior smirk, I feel the anger surge through my chest.

I take a breath, letting him think I’m preparing to answer him before bucking my hips up as hard as I can, knocking him off-balance. My motion rolls both of us to the side and I scrabble for the advantage, throwing myself atop him. My knees hit the mat as I straddle him, pressing the points of my hips to hold him down.

When his eyes widen, something in me crows. I reach forward, sinking my blade into the mat right next to his ear. The crowd watching us yells, the guys trying to coach Hux and the girls cheering me on. Normally, it’s distracting. Now, it’s good. No one can hear what we’re really saying.

I post forward, my lips coming close to his jaw as I pretend to push the blade farther into the mat. “The last time I tried to be nice to you, you bit my head off,” I snap. “So where the hell do you get off asking me questions?”

This time, he’s the one to surge his hips forward, sending me flying over his head. I direct the momentum into a forward roll, yanking my blade out of the mat as I go. I take my feet, only to find Hux towering over me, leveling that same smirk down at me.

“You want to know where I get off?” he teases, beckoning me forward with a crook of his finger. I straighten, not taking the bait as the crowd gets louder. I cock my hip and cross my arms, irritation flooding my senses.

“You were a dick, Huxley Finn. You think I’m weak? Pathetic? I guess you were right.”