Page 124 of Filled

Dakota hoists her bag onto her shoulder, keys already in hand. She doesn’t look at any of us directly.

“See y’all tomorrow,” she says, loud enough to carry.

Ordinary words, except for the question lingering just beneath the surface of them, and every one of us hears it.

Dante lifts a hand in a goodbye. Cruz follows a minute later, stretching his arms overhead with a groan about needing food before he eats a heavy bag. Eli has already vanished back into his office.

I finish my wraps slowly.

The parking lot is glowing with late afternoon sun, and I lean against my truck and watch the parking lot as if it owes me money.

Dante drives out first. Then Cruz. Then Dakota. Then Eli.

And one by one, every single one of them rolls past my truck.

And one by one, every single one of them turns right out of the lot.

Right goes to Dante’s place.

I sit in the cab with my hand on the keys and give being a responsible adult its full thirty seconds. We have rules. And every rule exists because our careers are hanging by a thread. A thread that the commission would love any excuse to cut.

I start the engine.

I turn right.

Because eight hours today was already unbearable, and I spent twenty-five years being good at denying myself. I know exactly what that costs. I paid it in silence and shame, and a father’s belt that never missed its mark. I am done paying and hiding.

The drive takes twelve minutes, and my heart hammers through every one of them. When I pull into Dante’s lot, four familiar vehicles sit in a row like a confession waiting to be photographed. If anybody from Oath drives past, it’s just a group of fighters hanging out. Sure it is.

We lock our cars and walk toward the building in loose formation, spaced out just enough to pretend.

I’m the last one through the door.

It closes behind me. The deadbolt clicks.

And Dakota is there before I finish exhaling, rising onto her toes, her mouth finding mine, and the relief of it hits harder than anything anyone threw at me today. Hours of not touching her collapse into nothing. Her fingers curl into my shirt, and I hear myself make a sound against her lips that I would be embarrassed about if I had any shame left. That ship has sailed; the days of being ashamed of who I am have left the building.

“Hi,” she whispers.

“Hi, angel.”

Cruz’s hands find my hips from behind, his chest solid against my back, his laugh low in my ear. “Told y’all he’d turn right.”

“Nobody bet against you,” Dante says, already pulling his shirt over his head as he disappears down the hall.

“Bedroom.” Eli’s voice cuts through the apartment, and it is no longer his coaching voice. “All of you. Now.”

This is going to be a problem. I know it with total clarity even as Dakota tugs me forward by the shirt, even as Cruz’s mouth grazes the back of my neck right where his thumb touched me on the gym floor.

We can’t keep our hands off each other. Not for eight hours. Not with our careers on the line, not with Victor’s eyes sweeping the floor, not with everything we could lose stacked up like weights on a bar.

And I don’t know how we survive this without getting caught.

26

DANTE

The lock clicks behind Brady, and the whole day unravels.