“Silas, I’m gonna get murdered,” he muttered, his goofy confidence replaced by a rare flicker of fear. He stopped packing, his hands hovering over his bag. “I haven’t even mastered my promo voice yet. I’m gonna walk in there and some seven footer is going to snap me like a literal twig.”
I laughed, shoving his shoulder to break the spiral. “Shut up. Evan. You were literally prepping for theOlympicsbefore you signed here. You can out wrestle ninety percent of that roster. Just don’t let them see you cry when they make you do a segment with a mascot.”
Evan cracked a grin, the spark returning to his eyes. “If I embarrass myself, I’m retiring and coming back here to be your valet. I’ll carry your bags. I don’t care.”
I hugged him harder than I intended to. I held on for a second longer than normal, grounding myself. I watched him drive away, the taillights blurring in the heat haze. I knew that when I eventually made a main roster, seeing Evan again would be a rare and inconsistent occurrence. He would stay here in Orlando, and I would be heading back home to the Reed Family Land. It wasn’t on a map, just a turn off a dirt road buried deep in the swampy woods of North Carolina. I’d live in my grandfather’s house, on a patch of unnamed earth away from the noise, just like I’d always planned. It was a solitary plan for a solitary life.
Except, I wasn’t alone, and I knew when my inevitable call up came, it would likely be accompanied by Cal’s as well.
Across the lot, a black engine roared to life with a mechanical growl. Cal had started parking next to me instead of across the lot. He didn’t say a word, just sat there, the glow of his dashboard illuminating his sharp jawline and the shadowed intent in his eyes. The empty space Evan left behind suddenly felt a little less cavernous.
The firstAftershockroad show was in Greenville, South Carolina. We were assigned the same rental car, a silver sedan that smelled faintly of stale air freshener.
I took the keys.
“I’m driving. I don’t trust your up north driving in these hills.”
Cal didn’t argue. He climbed into the passenger seat and immediately took control of the Bluetooth.Asking Alexandriafilled the cabin in a low growl, the heavy bass vibrating against the doors.
“You listen to anything upbeat?” I asked. I listened to the same shit, mostly to drown out the noise in my own head, but giving Cal hell for it seemed like a decent icebreaker for the long ass drive ahead of us.
“Only when I’m trying to lie to myself,” he shrugged, staring out the window.
He queued “Follow You” byBring Me The Horizon. It was low, slower, and strangely, it fit him perfectly. It was a song about devotion and destruction, and as the miles rolled by, the “work talk” dissolved.
“My uncle Scott used to drive a route like this,” I said, staring out at the passing pines that reminded me all too much of a childhood I would rather not think about unless absolutely necessary. “High on pills half the time. My dad would be in the passenger seat nursing a thermos of whiskey. They were such fucking disasters.”
I waited for the judgment, for the awkwardness of randomly trauma dumping out of nowhere. Cal and I knew each other as coworkers and opponents, sure, but discussing our lives outside of wrestling wasn’t even a thought.
Cal just gripped the door handle, his knuckles white.
“My old man was a cop in North Philly,” he said quietly, staring out into the darkness. “It’s rough up there. Lots of poverty, lots of drugs, lots of people that definitely would never make it out alive. He couldn’t handle what he saw, I guess. He stayed home and drank enough to keep the local liquor store in business. He had a specific kind of rage.”
I looked at him, seeing the way his jaw set. “Is that where the name came from? Deadlock?”
Cal let out a short, dry laugh, devoid of humor. “He used to get me in these holds. Drunken wrestling, he called it. But he wouldn’t let go. I’d be pinnedagainst the floor or the wall, completely immobilized. I felt… locked. Like there was no move I could make to get out of my own life. Deadlocked.”
“I get that,” I murmured, the weight of his confession hanging in the small space between us. “Different monsters, same basement.”
He nodded, and that was enough of an answer.
The hotel in Greenville was a standard mid-range chain. It had two beds, but we didn’t even bother asking for separate rooms. We were too floored by the fact we were in a hotel that looked like it had been cleaned regularly to really give a damn about sharing a room for a night.
After the show, I stayed up late replaying our match footage on my phone, my eyes burning from the screen brightness. Cal was leaning against the headboard of his bed, arms crossed, quietly pointing out my tells.
“You dip your shoulder before that springboard,” he muttered, his voice rough with exhaustion.
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do.”
He reached out, tapping my shoulder lightly. I froze, not because it startled me, but because I hadn’t expected the contact. His hand lingered half a second longer than it needed to. His skin was hot, calloused from the ropes, and the sensation felt like a brand burning through my T shirt. My breath hitched in my throat, just for a second, before he pulled his hand away.
Traveling together quickly became routine for us. Same car. Same rooms. Same late nights.
He learned I liked black coffee, bitter and iced.
I learned he liked vanilla creamer, an embarrassing amount of it, and preferred his scorching hot.
