The Outlaw

16

SIXTEEEN

                  

"It's finally starting to feel real." Travis said with his gaze trained on the road. He reached for my hand, tangling our fingers together before giving it a good squeeze.

I'd accompanied him at Hank's gym again—thankfully it wasn't at the butt-crack of dawn like before—only this time I spotted rather than do anything else. No doubt I'd get a strenuous workout anyway—my favourite kind—since we were heading to his apartment.

With the tournament just four weeks' away, Benjamin had Travis training hard whenever he could. The workouts were taking its toll, I could see it, but nothing seemed to faze Travis in the least. But I knew that in the long run, he wasn't doing it for him at all.

"Good." I smiled, studying his profile as he drove. His easy grip on the wheel displayed the tautness of the biceps he'd been working on not too long ago. His hair, damp with sweat, was pushed back and bared those glistening green eyes that set me into a meltdown with one look.

A flare of gratitude hit me when I thought about how we were still solid... even as we both were acting oblivious and ignoring any proof to the contrary.

Travis took a cursory glance, then, his brow furrowing when he noticed my inscrutable gawking. I cleared my throat. "Had you always known you wanted to be a cage fighter?"

Travis weighed his response before answering, returning his attention to the road. "I hero-worshipped my father when I was younger... when things were good." His voice was low, his eyes clouded with the memory. "I'd admired his motivation, how he used to train hard. I liked the rush I felt when I watched his matches on TV. I felt proud seeing him come home with a smile on his face, another champion's belt over his shoulder."

His jaw worked back and forth as he shook his head dubiously. "I remember wanting to be just like him." The way he said that told me he couldn't believe that he did—couldn't believe how the father he once idolised had turned out.

I considered all that. Suddenly it all made sense why Travis was putting twice the effort in this tournament. It wasn't about winning, or being a step closer to a professional career, or even the money. It was about wanting to prove that he could be everything his father was just like he'd wanted—but in the right way.

"Then I got my wish." Travis exhaled roughly, sombre now. "When he started training me. Around the time of the end of his career. He got restless... needed something to do other than—" Drinking, he wanted to say but he didn't. "So I let him and that's how I got into fighting." He finished, lifting a shoulder in a careless shrug.

Something in his voice made me wonder if being a cage fighter was actually not Travis' dream at all... but instead what his father wanted for him. And Travis was just amusing him out of pity.

I was about to ask him more when he suddenly lifted our entwined hands and brushed his lips over my knuckles. When he rolled to a stop at an intersection, he turned his head, pinning me with intense reverence. "What about you, Maddie? What do you plan on doing with your law degree?"

And the answer tumbled out without any conscious will. "I want to help kids like me. Stand up for social injustice. I was taken advantage of by the people who were supposed to guide me in the right direction, help me to achieve my goals, and never neglect me. My childhood was taken away from me... and I just want to be able to help to see that happen less with other orphaned kids."

I shrugged lamely even as I couldn't hide the strong compassion I felt behind it. I could both sit and stew about the difficulties I'd faced in foster care, or I could use my own personal experience as a crux to go out there and turn it into a positive outcome.