Page 152 of Filled

“Eight hours of lying,” Dakota says.

I clench my jaw. “Eight hours of surviving.”

Cruz laughs, and there’s no humor in it. “Can we actually do that? Long term? Because I’m being honest, the two weeks we tried being careful nearly killed me, and Dakota and I still ended up in the equipment closet.” Dakota winces. “Yeah, I’m saying it, because pretending we’re good at this is how we get caught. So somebody tell me. Can we live double lives forever? Hide what we are every day and just, what, hope the pressure never blows a seam?”

Nobody answers.

“I can’t give up fighting,” Dakota says finally. “It’s the only thing that’s ever been mine.”

“Nobody’s giving up anything,” Brady says. “That’s the whole problem. We can’t quit the sport and we can’t quit each other, so we’re stuck holding onto both and praying our grip is good.”

“Then we hold both.” I look at each of them in turn. “One day at a time. We knew this was complicated from the first night at Rocco’s. We tighten up, we protect what Victor built, and we protect this. It’s possible.”

“You believe that?” Dante asks.

“I need to.”

He holds my eyes for a long moment, then nods, and one by one the others do too. But the worry stays on every face, and no amount of nodding removes it.

Dante walks each of them out. Dakota hugs me at the door, quick and fierce, her face pressed to my chest for two seconds before she steps back into the person she has to be in parking lots.

“Goodnight, Coach,” she says, loud enough for the hallway.

“Goodnight, Fisher.”

Brady goes last before me, and at the threshold he stops.

“Eli. If it ever does come down to the choice. I already know what I’d pick.” He doesn’t say which. He doesn’t have to. The look on his face says it, and it terrifies me, because it’s the same answer sitting in my own chest. I’ll choose them over everything else.

34

BRADY

The chicken breasts are still steaming when my phone rings.

I wipe my hands on a dish towel and glance at the screen, expecting Cruz or maybe Dakota asking about weekend plans. Instead, Emily’s name glows against the counter, and my stomach drops through the floor.

Four months since her last text. A generichappy birthdaywith a period at the end, no follow-up, no question about my life. Before that, almost a year of nothing. My sister doesn’t call to chat. My sister calls when the family has decided I need to hear from them.

I answer anyway. Because I’m an idiot. Because some stubborn kid inside me still remembers her letting me tag along to her basketball games, sneaking me candy when Dad said sugar was for children who behaved.

“Emily. Hey.”

“Brady.” Her voice is flat and tight, wound like a spring. “I need to talk to you about the gym.”

Nothow are you. NotI miss you. Straight to business, the way Dad taught her.

“The gym,” I repeat.

“Deb Hutchins’s son found articles about you online. About where you’re training. That place in Virginia.” She pauses, and I can hear her choosing words like she’s picking up broken glass. “The one with the mission statement. About inclusivity. About welcoming people who—about that community.”

The meal prep containers sit open on my counter, lined up in neat rows. Six days of chicken and rice and roasted broccoli. My knife is still on the cutting board. I focus on these things because my chest has started to cave in.

“It’s an MMA gym, Emily. One of the best in the country.”

“It’s a gym for those people, Brady. It says it right on their website. Dad saw the screenshots. He saw the pictures of the owner and his—his fiancé.” The word comes out like it costs her. “You chose that place. Out of every gym in America, you chose to surround yourself with that.”

“Plenty of straight fighters train here. It’s inclusive, that’s all. It means nobody gets run out for being who they are. That’s the whole point.”