“When you’ve got your hands on your fucking ex like you want to swing, it is my goddamn business, you dumb fuck,” Evan snarled.
Cal froze. The shock of Evan knowing. The realization of what just happened. Everything. His eyes locked with me, a ping of pain. This was almost a decade swirling around us, and Jesus fuck, it felt like we were dying in it.
“I’d never hit him outside of a match,” Cal said through gritted teeth, his words sincere, pained.
I guess I was off limits.
“You two! Now!” Presley’s voice screamed over the sea of people.
He was absolutely furious with us, we knew that much.
We didn’t speak. We both just put our heads down and cut through the crowd of wide-eyed staff and wrestlers, like two kids that just got in trouble at school. Callum’s limp wasn’t getting any better, if anything, the adrenaline dump was making it worse, and I couldn’t help but want to ask him if he was okay.
I bit my tongue.
The second we reached Presley, he led us into some random office around the corner, slamming the door behind us. Clearly, he wanted to scream at us both in private.
“In all the years I have known you two, that my father knew you two… not once, even as kids in this business, did you two ever cause shit in backstage,” Presley snapped, pacing the small room.
We stood silently next to each other, staring at the wall or Presley’s shoes, not daring to look at one another.
“Cal, I expect far more from you,” Presley pointed a finger at his chest. “You’re our Champ. You’re the face of everything we do. Fucking behave like it. I shouldn’t be having to scold two grown ass men for cat fights at work.”
“I apologize,” Cal said flatly. He halfheartedly meant it, mostly just wanting this to be over.
“I’m sorry, Presley. Truly,” I said, my voice low. “My intention wasn’t to come back here and cause trouble.”
Presley stopped pacing and looked between Cal and me, studying us both with a critical eye.
“Look, I understand there’s probably a lot of feelings about this, Kincaid,” Presley said, his tone shifting from anger to something more pragmatic. “You guys had a hell of a last match together. A match that went wrong on many technical levels. Things could have been prevented, and they weren’t. You were both young, and needed far more training than you guys were given back then. I can assure you, and the rest of the locker room, my father would have never agreed to sign Reed again if he felt we could possibly have a repeat performance like that.”
Cal scoffed, a sharp, bitter sound. I felt like I wasn’t even here in this moment; I was just a ghost in the room while they discussed my failures.
“You think you can convince this entire locker room that going against him won’t end in flames?” Cal challenged.
“Let me ask you this,” Presley countered, stepping closer to him. “You trained with Silas. You guys were travel partners. Do you think what happened is because he was a sloppy in ring guy?”
Callum’s jaw clenched so tightly I swear I heard his teeth crack from the force. Clearly, Presley didn’t know the weight of everything that led up to that night. Nobody did. But I felt it, the shrapnel hitting Cal and me both in a deadly blow. It wasn’t about skill. It was about the breakdown.
“No,” Cal finally gritted out.
“Exactly,” Presley began. “I know I’m going to catch shit from others about him, probably even when it comes to training. I don’t need you fighting against me on it too.”
Cal let out an annoyed, snark fueled laugh, rolling his eyes. “So what? You want me to fucking babysit him?”
That only annoyed Presley more. And it made me wish I could dissolve into the floorboards and disappear entirely.
“You know what, Callum? That’sexactlywhat I expect now,” Presley said, his voice dropping to a dangerous calm. “Thank yourself for it. Starting immediately, you’ll be training together. You two are neither slated for a match for a while, just appearing onShowdown.So, if you’re so concerned with Silas and his technical abilities, then you can help him fix them.”
I finally chimed in, panic rising in my chest. “I don’t think that’s going to really solve anything—”
Presley shot me a look that withered me instantly. I knew I’d just fucked up even more.
“Oh, look.” Presley pulled out his phone, tapping the screen for dramatic effect. He glanced at it, then back at us with a sharklike grin. “Looks like Silas wasn’t assigned a rental car tonight. Guess he’s riding with you, Kincaid.”
“Are you fucking serious right now?” Callum snapped, his composure finally breaking. I wasn’t sure if he was yelling at me, or at Presley.
“Both of you get the fuck out of my face,” Presley ordered, pointing to the door. “And so help me, if you two aren’t in a somewhat civil working manner next week… I can assure you both, there’s going to be far worse hell to pay than a fucking car ride and trainings.”
