We worked together for another hour, the five of us maneuvering the heavy wood until the chains finally clicked into place. It was perfect, a solid, permanent piece of our home.
As the brothers and the dads headed back toward Maverick’s house for lunch, Silas and I stayed behind on the porch. We sat down on the new swing, the wood cool against our skin. Silas leaned his head on my shoulder, and I kicked my feet off the ground, starting a slow, gentle rhythm.
“We did it,” Silas whispered.
“Yeah,” I said, looking out over the yard. “We did.”
14
THE REED LAND, NORTH CAROLINA
Now playing: Somewhere Only We Know - Keane
ThesilenceontheReed land had become fragile, a glass-walled type of thing over the previous two weeks. Every morning, I woke up expecting our dome of peace to shatter, and at 7:00 AM on a Tuesday, the hammer finally fell.
The vibration didn’t just wake us; it felt like a seismic shift. Both of us shot up out of a dead sleep, our hearts hammering. The noise was coming from Silas’s nightstand, the graveyard where his phone had lived since the bar fight. I saw the name on the screen through the gloom of the early morning light, and my stomach did a slow, nauseated roll.
Presley Murran.
Silas looked at the phone as if it were an unpinned grenade, his hand shaking as he reached for it. With white knuckles clutching the rattling device, he turned and looked at me, his eyes wide. I gave him a slow, grim nod, reaching out and tangling my fingers with his. Squeezing hard, he took a shaky breath and swiped the screen, clicking the speaker icon.
“Hello?” Silas rasped, voice still thick with sleep.
“Listen to me.” Presley’s voice came through the line, sharp, clinical, and devoid of the fake corporate solidarity he usually peddled. “I’ve spent way too many days cleaning up your mess. There’s been more meetings with legal and PRthan hours of sleep. So, here’s how this is going to go if you two want to keep your paychecks.”
Feeling Silas stiffen beside me, I pulled him closer until his shoulder pressed into mine.
“The spectacle stops now,” Presley continued, his voice echoing off the bedroom walls. “The viral frenzy is dying down, and I intend to keep it that way. You will maintain a completely professional image in its entirety. I don’t want to see a single post on social media about the two of you. No statements, no coming-out stories, no cryptic photos. In the locker room and backstage, you are coworkers. You are professionals. This is not to be discussed, not with the crew, not with the other talent, and certainly not with the fans. You play your parts, or you don’t play at all.”
He was lying through his teeth. I knew it, and Silas knew it. The fans weren’t upset; the ratings for the clips the company had been forced to post were through the roof. The world was devouring us, obsessed with the timeline of Deadlock and his biggest rival turning into something real. But Presley didn’t want a reality he couldn’t script.
Silas fired off immediately, the Timeless polish finally cracking under the weight of the restriction. “A professional image? Presley, how many times have we had to watch straight couples on the roster make their entire careers out of their relationships? You’ve got people getting engaged in the middle of the ring, you’ve got husbands and wives main-eventing together, and you don’t tellthemto be coworkers. Why are we the only ones who have to be ghosts?”
Presley didn’t even hesitate, he deflected with the cold precision of a man who viewed his employees as dollar signs. “That is a completely different demographic and marketing strategy. This conversation is over, Silas. You have your instructions, so, I best see you in Minneapolis for the next show. Don’t make me regret keeping you on payroll.”
When the line went dead, Silas stared at the phone for what felt like an agonizing millennium before he let out a guttural sound. He threw the device across the room, watching as it bounced off the armchair.
“He wants us to hide,” he hissed as he stood up with a heaving chest. His hair was a messy mixture of bedhead and frustrated pulling, but his eyes burned like a pot on the stove ready to bubble over. “He wants to shove us back into the closet and pretend like the last two weeks didn’t happen. As if I’m going to walk into that locker room and act like I don’t belong to you.”
“We aren’t doing it,” I said, my voice low and dangerous. I was up pacing, too, as ice settled into my bones. “He thinks he can buy our silence. He’s wrong.”
We stormed out of the house in a blur of motion. I didn’t even bother with socks. I shoved my feet into my boots, grabbed my keys just in case, and followed Silas as he marched toward Maverick's. He wasted no time either, already on the phone, barking at Scott to meet us there.
By the time we burst into Maverick’s living room, Scott was already there. He leaned against the counter with a cup of coffee in hand, looking like the immovable mountain he’d always been. Maverick however, was pacing the rug, his arms crossed over his chest.
Silas didn’t even say hello. He launched into a heated tirade, detailing every word of Presley’s call. He was nearly vibrating with a sort of kinetic energy, all while his hands gestured wildly as he drifted around the small space.
“He demanded we be coworkers! Backstage, out and about, while training! Like we’re strangers!” he roared, glaring at his father. “Are you hearing this? He wants to kill the truth! To make us hide!”
I watched Maverick and Scott carefully. The way they looked at each other with an old-school glint in their eyes. They weren’t outraged.
They were resigned.
“Silas, son, sit down,” Scott said, his voice quiet. “Look, we know it’s shitty. We do. But Presley is right about the business side. You’re the face of the company. Cal is the best of the best, and if you turn this into a love story right now, you’llkill the feud, which kills the money. In our day, you did as you were told. You protected the business first, your life second.”
“Protect the business?” I spoke up, my voice cutting through the room like a blade. “Wearethe business. We’ve given our bodies to that company and bled for that ring. Now you’re telling us to lie to everyone and ourselves so Presley doesn’t have a PR headache?”
Maverick let out a heavy, tired sigh. “It’s about longevity, Cal. If you fight the office on this, they’ll bury you. They’ll throw you in three-minute matches against rookies until the fans forget your names. Just…play the part. Stay out of the public eye until this dies down. It’s the smart move.”
