Screw it. I’m going in.
I need a drink more than I need to avoid potential awkwardness, and if anyone wants to ask nosy questions, they can buy me a shot first.
CHAPTER 5
Dominic
The gym hums through my closed office door, the muffled thud of someone hitting a heavy bag, the distant clang of weights being racked. Most days it settles something in me, reminds me that I built something real here, but today it’s just noise.
We’re getting closer to the New York City fight, and everything hinges on it. The training schedule is spread out in front of me, half the entries crossed out and rewritten. I should be thinking about Roman’s conditioning blocks, the sparring rotation, the footage Victor Herrera’s camp just released showing takedown defense that looks significantly better than anything we’ve seen on film.
Instead I can’t stop thinking about Brooke.
I’ve spent over a decade successfully filing her away in the part of my brain marked “ancient history, do not open, seriously don’t fucking touch it.” She was a closed chapter, a cautionary tale. And now she’s here, talking to me like I’m the unreasonable one, like she didn’t blow up my career and disappear to New York without a backward glance.
I drag my attention back to the schedule. Roman. The thing that actually matters.
A win over Herrera puts Roman in the top five rankings and could fast-track him to the title fight in Mexico City in the fall. Champion of the world at twenty-four. But this fight could change things for me too. If he takes that belt, I’m the coach who got him there, and that dream I had in my twenties, the one that went up in smoke thanks to an article with Brooke’s name on the byline, might finally mean something again.
I rub a hand across my jaw and realize I’ve been doing that a lot lately. My dad used to do the same thing, pace and scrub at his stubble like he could sand the problems away. I’m turning into him more every year, which is either comforting or terrifying depending on the day.
A knock on the door jolts me out of it. My first thought is her, and I hate that it is.
“Come in,” I say, leaning back.
Frankie pushes the door open and pokes his head around the frame. “Hey, Dominic? There’s a guy out front. Says his name is Mateo? He says you pulled him out of a car wreck the other day and he wanted to come say thanks.”
I blink. That’s the last thing I expected, and I’m not sure if what I feel is relief or disappointment that it’s not Brooke. The fact that I can’t tell the difference pisses me off more than either option would on its own.
“Yeah,” I say, pushing back from the desk. “Send him in. Thanks, Frankie.”
“No problem, boss.” He disappears back around the corner, and I hear his sneakers squeak against the floor as he jogs back to the front desk.
Mateo appears in the doorway, and he looks better than the last time I saw him, which isn’t saying much given that the lasttime I saw him he was unconscious and bleeding in the back of an ambulance.
And while I’d told myself that the resemblance to Calvin was just my brain playing tricks in the chaos of the moment, adrenaline and smoke making me see things that weren’t there, standing here now in the plain light of my office, it’s undeniable.
He looks like someone took Calvin and redrew him with a heavier hand. The features are sharper, his coloring deeper, and there’s an edge to him that Calvin buries under books and quiet, but looking at him is like looking at a stranger wearing my brother’s face.
He offers a small smile in greeting, though it looks painful given that his face is bruised along the left side and there’s a cut above his eyebrow, and his left arm is in a sling.
“Hey,” he says from the doorway, his voice deep. “The hospital told me the gym owner at Midnight Boxing was the one who pulled me out, so I wanted to come find you and say thank you in person. I’m Mateo.”
I come around the desk to shake his good hand. Solid grip. “Dominic. Not necessary, but I appreciate the gesture. Glad you’re on your feet.” I nod toward the sling. “You’re looking better than the last time I saw you.”
I wave him toward the chair across from my desk and he lowers himself into it carefully, favoring his left side, dropping his duffel bag down beside him with a soft thud.
“All thanks to you, from what I hear,” he says. “The paramedics told me the fire was about two minutes from the cabin when you got me out.”
“Right place, right time.” I wave it off and settle back into my chair. “You just get discharged?”
“A few hours ago. I went to see my car first, which was depressing.” He gives me a half smile. “Funny thing is, I actually do fire and rescue for a living. Also search and rescue, disasterresponse. I’ve spent the last few years running into situations like that, never been on the wrong end of one before.”
“That must have been a shock,” I say. “And I saw that actually. The fire and rescue, I mean. I was looking for an emergency contact in your wallet while I waited for the ambulance.”
Something flickers behind his eyes at the words emergency contact. It disappears almost before I can clock it, but it was there. I definitely hit a nerve.
“Yeah, well.” His fingers tap against the arm of the chair, a quick three-beat rhythm. “I’m not from here anyway. No one to call.”
