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“Mm.” She rolls her head sideways. Looks at me from under her lashes. “You were quiet today.”

“Was thinking.”

“About what.”

I let the silence sit.

Cruz, from the cage wall, interjects lazily, “About me, probably.”

Brady snorts.

Dakota’s mouth twitches. “He’s got a point, Dante. We were all kind of thinking about him.”

I look up at the ceiling. The fluorescents hum. Somewhere downstairs a door slams and I think for a second it might be Coach coming back, but it isn’t. It’s just the building.

“Y’all look good together,” Dakota says. Quiet. Almost to herself.

Brady goes very still beside me.

Cruz, just as quiet: “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Nobody says anything for a long moment. The fans turn overhead. My pulse is doing something that has nothing to do with the round I just finished.

Brady’s knee shifts and bumps mine. He doesn’t apologize.

“We should clean up,” I say.

“Yeah,” Dakota says.

Nobody moves.

Cruz pushes off the cage wall finally and walks over and offers Dakota his hand. She takes it. He pulls her to standing and she ends up too close to him by a fraction, hip almost brushing his thigh, and she doesn’t step back.

“Same time tomorrow,” Cruz says, looking between Brady and me.

“Same time tomorrow,” Brady echoes.

Dakota nods, eyes on Cruz’s mouth, then on Brady’s. Then on mine.

She holds my eye a beat longer than the others.

Then she slips out through the gate and heads for the showers. “For the record Cruz, You’re a dick.” she states flatly. “And that’s not a compliment.” she tosses over her shoulder at him without missing a beat, leaving the three of us in the cage trying very hard not to look at each other and failing.

“Fuck,” Brady says, finally. To the ceiling.

Cruz laughs. “Yeah, brother. Fuck.”

I stand up. My knees crack. I pick up the discarded pads and stack them and try to remember what my life looked like before a blonde fighter walked in off the street with a chip on her shoulder.

I can’t remember, and I don’t think I want to.

10

BRADY

The club is already half ours by the time I push through the door. Eclipse on a Tuesday isn’t usually a fighter’s scene, but Theo shut down the back lounge for Victor’s birthday and stocked it with enough top-shelf to bankrupt a small country. Theo doesn’t do anything by halves. Not the man’s clothes, not his music, not his love for Victor.