That alone should’ve told me something. Most guys would’ve gone for the advantage.
Callum never did.
“You don’t wrestle like them,” he said eventually, leaning against the ropes, breathless and covered in sweat.
I looked up slowly, flopping down onto the mat, trying my hardest to catch my breath. “Like who?”
“Your family.”
My breathing stopped.
“Your uncle was my favorite as a kid,” he added. “You’re better.”
It wasn’t praise.
It was a verdict.
“They taught me what not to be,” I said, with snark I didn’t mean to have.
Callum studied me for longer than necessary. There was something different in his eyes now, not softer, exactly, but more deliberate. Like he’d just confirmed something he’d suspected.
“Good,” he said.
Silence stretched between us, comfortable and charged all at once. The hum of the lights filled the space where words didn’t belong.
“Philadelphia really that bad?” I asked.
He shrugged, rolling his shoulders. “Depends what you call bad.”
“Hard,” I said.
“Honest,” he corrected.
I nodded.
We went again. Drills turned heavier. Slower. More intentional. Callum adjusted pressure mid-move, testing my balance, my reactions. I countered, not aggressively, but seamlessly. Conserving motion. Keeping things clean.
I didn’t notice the way his focus sharpened.
I didn’t notice how he tracked my breathing.
I didn’t notice the way his gaze lingered when I climbed the ropes, how his jaw set just slightly every time I landed clean.
Callum noticed everything.
He noticed the scar on my ribcage, faint, old.
He noticed how my hands flexed between sequences like I was grounding myself.
He noticed the discipline in my movements. The absence of panic. The way I never rushed, even when the pace increased.
It wasn’t admiration.
It was recognition, in a way I’d never been given.
I knew Callum had been around wrestlers who burned hot and fast, men who treated their bodies like collateral damage, who chased moments instead of careers. He’d learned early that talent meant nothing without control.
And Callum noticing these pieces of myself, pieces I had carefully curated, unsettled me more than the arrogance ever could.
