“Keep your boy on a leash, Reed,” Marcus warned, pointing a finger at me. “Or he won’t make it to Scotland.”
Cal didn’t say a word. He walked away, completely unbothered by the fact that he had almost been destroyed.
Evan was waiting further down the hall. He looked terrified.
“Jesus Christ,” Evan whispered, pulling me aside as Cal disappeared into the locker room. “He has a death wish, Si. Marcus Dane eats people like us for breakfast.”
“I know,” I said, my heart hammering.
“What is going on with him?” Evan asked, his voice low and serious. “I know we joke around, and I know Cal is… Cal. But this isn’t him being a Rockstar. This is him self-destructing. He’s looking for a fight he can’t win.”
Evan gripped my shoulder.
“You have to talk to him,” Evan urged. “He thinks I’m an idiot. He thinks everyone else is a mark. But he listens to you.”
I nodded, watching the door Cal had vanished through. “I’ll handle it.”
The hotel room felt like a cage. Cal was pacing.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
He had showered, but he looked unclean. He was wearing gray sweatpants, his chest bare, his hair wet and messy. He kept looking at his phone on the nightstand, then turning his back on it, shoulders hunched.
“Just tell me,” I said quietly from the edge of the bed.
Cal stopped. He didn’t turn around. He stood facing the wall, his head bowed.
“He left a voicemail,” Cal whispered.
“Who?”
“My dad.”
The air left the room. I knew Cal’s dad was the monster of his life, the alcoholic, the abuser, but he was a ghost. He hadn’t been real since Cal ran away as a teenager.
“He sounded… old,” Cal said, his voice trembling. “He said he saw the match in Puerto Rico. Said I looked ‘strong’. Like he didn’t spend years beating the strength out of me.”
Cal walked to the window, pressing his forehead against the cold glass. I saw his reflection. He was fighting it. His jaw was set tight, his eyes blinking rapidly, trying to hold back the tide.
“Delete it, he’s just trying to get in your head.”
“I know,” Cal laughed, a jagged, wet sound. “I know that. But it made me think about her.”
“Who?”
Cal shuddered against the glass. A single tear tracked down his cheek. He turned his head away sharply, ashamed, trying to hide it.
“My mom. I ever tell you what happened with her?” he asked softly.
“No. You just said she left.”
“I found her,” Cal admitted, the words spilling out like black tar. “When I was twenty. Before the UWF. I spent weeks online, digging through public records, scrolling through Facebook profiles until my eyes bled.”
He took a shaky breath, his shoulders heaving.
“I found an address in Virginia. Nice neighborhood. So I drove down there. I slept in my car for two nights just watching the house.”
He finally turned to look at me. The devastation on his face broke my heart. There were tears tracking silently down his cheeks, but he wasn’t making a sound. He was trying so hard to be stone.
