Roman looks over at me through the cage, just for a second, and I give him a nod. Years of work, thousands of hours in the gym, everything we’ve built together comes down to this moment.
I turn and scan the press section looking for Brooke but it’s useless, just hundreds of bodies packed together, cameras flashing, everyone on their feet. I do spot Miguel and Rosa in the VIP section though, Miguel looking like he might pass out from excitement while Rosa waves a small Mexican flag over her head with their daughter filming on her phone.
I force myself to stop scanning the crowd for Brooke and turn my attention back to where it belongs, back to the cage where Roman is bouncing lightly on his feet and Volkov is rolling his shoulders and three years of work is about to be tested in front of the world.
The horn sounds and the crowd somehow gets even louder, Roman moves forward, and the fight begins.
The rounds blur together. My hands ache from gripping the chain-link and my jaw is clenched so tight my teeth hurt, and I watch Roman work through the game plan we’ve drilled for weeks. He’s faster than Volkov and he knows it, staying on the outside, peppering jabs, making the bigger man chase him. Volkov lands a hard right in the second that buckles Roman’s knees, and my stomach drops, but Roman recovers and makes it to the bell.
In the third round Roman starts finding his range, landing combinations that snap Volkov’s head back and open a cut above his eye. And in the fourth he hurts him with a body shot that folds the champion in half, and before Volkov can recover Roman steps in with an uppercut that lands flush on the chin.
Volkov drops like someone cut his strings.
The referee dives in waving his arms and the arena explodes, twenty thousand people screaming so loud I feel it in my chest,and then I’m through the cage door and Roman is grabbing me, pulling me into a hug hard enough to crack ribs. He’s shaking against me, and I just hold on and let him have this moment.
They wrap the belt around his waist and the cameras go crazy and Brett Barton announces the winner by knockout in the fourth round. When he says “and NEW UFC Heavyweight Champion” the roar is deafening.
Roman does his post-fight interview while I stand off to the side with my arms crossed, watching him talk about the journey and thank his team and say all the things fighters say after a win like this. I let the words wash over me without really hearing them.
We did it. We actually fucking did it.
The chaos keeps swirling with officials and cameras and reporters shouting questions, and I should be completely locked in on this moment. Biggest professional win of my life. My fighter holding a championship belt and everything I’ve been grinding toward.
But my mind keeps drifting to Brooke. She’s somewhere in this building right now, doing her job, and tomorrow we go back to our separate lives. Yet, standing here with confetti falling around me and my fighter’s name echoing off the walls, she’s the person I want next to me.\
The afterparty takes over the rooftop bar of our hotel, the Mexico City skyline glittering behind while champagne flows and music pounds through the speakers. Roman is in the center of the room with the belt draped over his shoulder like he was born to wear it, surrounded by his parents and his management teamand a rotating cast of well-wishers who want their moment with the new champion.
The energy is electric, everyone riding the high of the win, and I accept congratulations from promoters and managers and other coaches, shaking hands and smiling for photos and saying all the right things. Yes, Roman looked incredible tonight. Yes, the game plan worked exactly as designed. Yes, I’d be happy to discuss training opportunities, here’s my card, let’s talk next week.
It’s everything I’ve worked for. Roman happy and healthy and wearing championship gold. People approaching me wanting to know how I trained him, whether I’m taking on new fighters, if I’d consider expanding to other markets. The kind of attention I dreamed about fifteen years ago, before everything fell apart.
Normally I’d be soaking up every second of this, savoring the validation after all those years of rebuilding in obscurity. The supportive texts and calls from my family have been nonstop. This should be the best night of my life.
But my attention is fractured, split between the celebration around me and the woman across the room.
Brooke is here, and we’ve been orbiting around each other all night, trading glances across the crowd, drifting closer before something pulls one of us away again. A reporter wants a quote. A promoter needs a handshake. Every time I get within ten feet of Brooke, someone appears to drag me in another direction.
There’s a current running between us that everyone else seems oblivious to. This crackling awareness that makes the air feel charged every time our eyes meet. Like we both know exactly where this night is going to end. Like the decision was made somewhere on a mountain road in the rain and everything since then has just been waiting.
I lean back against the railing with the city lights spread out behind me and take a sip of my whiskey, watching her chat with one of the UFC’s PR reps near the bar. She’s dressed in all black tonight, a fitted blazer with one extra button undone, just enough that occasionally, when she moves a certain way or reaches for her drink, I catch a glimpse of red lace underneath.
Fuck me.I don’t think anyone has ever looked that good.
The bartender slides my second whiskey across the bar and I nod my thanks, wrapping my fingers around the cool glass. The crowd has thinned out at this end of the bar, most people gravitating toward Roman and the photographers and the endless stream of congratulations, which suits me fine.
I take a sip of my whiskey and let my gaze drift across the party, looking for Brooke without meaning to. I’d lost track of her somewhere in the last twenty minutes, pulled into a conversation with a manager from Vegas who wouldn’t stop talking about expansion opportunities and market demographics. By the time I extracted myself with something resembling politeness, she’d vanished into the crowd.
“You look like you’re plotting something.”
Her voice comes from my left, low and amused, and I turn to find her sliding onto the stool beside me. The grin spreads across my face before I can stop it, and I don’t bother trying.
“I was wondering where you disappeared to,” I say, shifting on my stool to face her. “Thought maybe you escaped out a side door.”
“Missing me already?” She signals the bartender with one hand while the other comes to rest on the bar, inches from mine.
I really fucking was. “Better to keep an eye on where the storm’s brewing.”
She swats my arm, and the contact sends heat spreading through my shoulder. “Oh, and here I thought we were actually getting along now. After everything we went through together.”
