I stood on the apron, gripping the tag rope, watching Cal work.
He moved with that violent grace of his, hitting the ropes, leveling one of the vets with a clothesline that echoed through the arena. He was sweating, his chest heaving, his hair wild.
And every time I looked at him, I didn’t see Deadlock. I saw that little blue icon.
Orbit. Orbit. Orbit.
It flashed in my mind like a glitch in the matrix.
Cal reached out for the tag. I slapped his hand, hard, professional, and vaulted over the top rope. I went into autopilot. Dropkick. Kipup. Arm drag. “Timeless” Silas Reed was in control of his body, but his mind was somewhere else entirely.
I tagged Cal back in. I watched him hit the LockOut spear for the win. The crowd popped, a decent reaction for two guys they didn’t know.
We had our hands raised. We did what we knew we both were capable of. But my breathing and mind never quite went back to normal.
Cal drove us to our hotel that night. Which meant I was in the passenger seat, and god, I was thankful for it, because I’m not sure I could manage another glance at Orbit on his screen and in the confines of a fucking car with no way out.
Being in the passenger seat had its perks sometimes, like right now.
I started rummaging through my bag in the backseat. It held napkins, wet wipes, gum, and ibuprofen, my survival kit.
The backseat was loaded up when we hit a gas station as soon as we left the arena. I had bought extra water bottles, Cal’s specific protein bars (the chocolate peanut butter ones he pretended not to like but always ate), electrolyte packets, and the most important thing that I brought along from home: a blanket, folded carefully in the backseat.
“You running a minimart back there?” Cal asked, glancing in the rearview mirror.
“I plan for hunger and emotional collapse at all times,” I muttered, tossing a wrapper into a trash bag I’d also brought. “Plus, you get hangry.”
He snorted as I handed him a protein bar. I knew he would ask for one within the next ten minutes anyway.
“You’re turning me into you,” he muttered as he pulled his gas station iced coffee from the cup holder.
“You’re drinking cold coffee now,” I teased, trying to force normalcy back into the air.
He groaned. “Don’t.”
“You used to mock me for it.”
“I still mock you.”
“You’re literally drinking the same thing as me.”
“…It’s growing on me.”
The city lights blurred past us in a late-night haze. It always felt like living in another world when we left the venues at night. Everything felt silent, sometimes even my mind did. The hum of the tires on the pavement was usually soothing, but tonight, the silence felt heavy. Loaded with things we weren’t saying.
I pulled out my phone to text Evan again.
First dark match down. We didn’t die. The crowd was loud.
It was a lifeline to the world I understood, the world before blue icons and confusing heat.
“So, how’s the boyfriend doing?”
My spine locked and my jaw tensed so hard my teeth clicked. The phone nearly slipped from my hand.
“What?”
“Relax,” Cal smirked, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. “Conversation. How’s Evan likingDemolition?”
