“Seriously?” I glared at him. Was he doing this on purpose? Was this a test? Was he trying to see if I would mentionOrbit?
“Mmh.”
“Fine. He said it’s not as bad as we all think.”
He nodded, his gaze shifting to me.
And then it lingered.
Just a beat too long.
His eyes traced the line of my jaw, dropped to my throat, then back up to my eyes. It wasn’t the way a friend looks at a friend. It wasn’t the way a rival looks at an opponent. It was heavy. Dark. Calculating.
And this time, I knew it wasn’t in my head.
It was just enough to haunt me.
I didn’t move. I forgot to breathe, unable to trust my own damn pulse. My hands gripped the fabric of my jeans until my knuckles turned white.
Orbit. The icon flashed in my mind again. The lingering look. The “boyfriend” comment.
The pieces were all there, staring me in the face. But I shoved them down. I barricaded the door. Because if I acknowledged what I think is happening, if I acknowledged that he was looking, and worse, that I liked it…
What in the actual fuck was happening?
4
WINTER - NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
Now playing: Anxiety - G - Eazy
CalandIwereabsolutely exhausted. We had been busting our asses nonstop since our initial meeting with Rob Harlow several weeks back. We barely had time to sleep in between shows, let alone process the reality that our careers were moving faster than we could keep up with. My body felt like it was vibrating on a frequency of pure caffeine and anxiety, a constant hum that never quite settled.
We hadn’t even set our bags down when the trajectory of our lives changed yet again.
The second we walked through the backstage doors of theAftershockvenue in New York, a production assistant with a headset and a clipboard intercepted us. She looked frantic, tapping her pen against the paper.
“Reed. Deadlock,” she said, not even looking up. “Don’t go to the locker room. Drop your bags in the hall. Management needs you in Conference Room B. Now.”
Cal and I exchanged a look. His eyes were bloodshot from the drive, shadowed by exhaustion, but they sharpened instantly.
“Did we fuck up?” he muttered, low enough that only I could hear.
“I don’t think so,” I whispered back, my stomach tightening. “But that doesn’t sound like a ‘good job’ meeting.”
We left our gear against the concrete wall and headed down the hallway. The air backstage usually smelled like Icy Hot and stale coffee, but today it felt heavy. Charged.
When we pushed open the doors to Conference Room B, the tension hit us like a physical wave.
We weren’t alone. Sitting around the long table were Andre Waters, an all-around nearly perfected in ring technician who wrestled with a grappling style so smooth it looked like water flowing over rock, and Julian Martinez, a luchador from Mexico who could defy gravity in ways that made physics look like a suggestion rather than a law. They looked just as confused as we felt.
And at the front of the room, projected on a massive screen, was the entire upper echelon of the UWF.
Evan flashed on the monitor first, looking tired but alert, his blond hair messy. Beside his feed wereShowdown’sGM Rob Harlow,Demolition’sGM Kayden Michaels, and the owner and Chairman of the UWF himself, Mark Murran.
Cal stiffened immediately beside me. It wasn’t a noticeable response to the room, he didn’t flinch or shift, but to me, the guy who had spent the last few months breathing his air and learning his tells, it was loud and clear. His jaw set. His shoulders locked. He hated the suits. He hated the politics.
“Thank you all for getting together on such short notice,” Mr. Murran started, his voice gravelly through the speakers, sounding like a man who smoked cigars for breakfast. “We’ve called a meeting here to discuss a potential change in theMan Overboardcard.”
