Page 48 of Ruthless Edge

We end up in the foam tunnel. I don't know how exactly, just that one of us goes into it and the other follows and suddenly we're in the remaining foam up to our shins, both of us going at it properly, and the foam makes every movement slower and more ridiculous and neither of us cares. He gets a grip on my shirt. I get one on his. We're shoving and grabbing and neither of us is landing anything clean because the foam is eating our footing.

I hear voices. Volunteer staff, a couple of SAB committee members, someone yelling that we need to stop.

I’m not stopping.

Owen doesn't stop either.

We're chest to chest and I've got the better position and I'm about to do something I'll probably have to apologize for later when I hear it.

"Knox!"

Emma's voice. Clear and sharp.

I turn my head.

That's all Owen needs. His fist catches me square in the mouth, and I taste blood before I've finished processing what happened. My head snaps to the side and I take two steps back into the foam and stand there.

The volunteers have reached us. Someone has Owen by the arm. I put my hand to my mouth and it comes away red.

"Owen." Emma's voice is different now. Cold. "What is wrong with you?"

"He started it⁠—"

"I don't care who started it." She's already crossing the space between us, and she genuinely looks angry on my behalf. She gets to me and takes my chin in her hand and turns my face to check the damage, and I let her, because Emma Lawson has her hand on my face and I'm not going to do anything to interrupt that.

"Can you walk?" she says.

"Emma, it's a split lip⁠—"

"Come with me." She doesn't wait. She takes my arm and steers me toward the first aid station at the edge of the event field, and I go, because there are worse things in the world than Emma Lawson dragging you somewhere by the arm while she's furious at someone who isn't you.

The first aid area is a folding table with a volunteer coordinator and a kit. Emma gets an ice pack from the cooler and wraps it herself and puts it directly in my hand and points at my mouth. I press it there. She grabs a small towel and starts wiping at the rest of my face. I’m not sure why, but I don’t mind it one bit.

"What happened?" she says.

"Competition got heated."

She's watching me. I can see her trying to decide how much of that she believes. "What set it off?"

"Competition," I say again. Same word. I mean something completely different by it.

Emma's eyes narrow slightly. "You mean the race."

"Sure," I say.

She drops the towel and pulls a second folding chair over and sits across from me, close enough that our knees are almost touching, and takes the ice pack from my hand to check the damage herself. Her fingers are careful and warm, she's close enough that I can see the blue still in her eyelashes, the mud that dried along her jaw, and the small crease between her brows when she's concentrating.

"You're going to have a fat lip tomorrow," she says.

"Worth it."

"Knox."

"He said something he shouldn't have said."

She looks up at me. We're very close. She has the ice pack in her hand and she brings it back up to press it gently against my bottom lip, and her eyes are right there, and I bring my hands up and set them on her hips, lightly, and she goes still.

She doesn't pull back.