“You four! Private dressing area, right now!” she ordered, pointing a manicured finger down the hall before turning on her heel. We only managed to share a single look before she threw another scary sentence over hershoulder. “No arguments! I’ve been sewing for forty-eight hours straight, and if your gear doesn’t fit perfectly, I’m going to use your leather jackets for scraps.”
Silas and I gawked at each other before quickly falling into step behind her. We had given Rosa complete creative freedom for this weekend’s attire. Between Ewan’s death, David’s legal paperwork, and the constant threat of corporate fines, our plates had been too full to think about our gear. Plus, we trusted her, and the second we walked into the wardrobe room, she proved exactly why.
“Behold.” She smiled, pulling back a velvet curtain to reveal two matching mannequins.
They were the most intricate looks she had ever constructed for us. Crisp, white trunks and tights, both accented with thick, jagged lines of black and gold. It was the perfect visual representation of royalty and grit.
She’d made a white leather entrance jacket for me, with the words No One Like Us embroidered across the back in gold script while Silas got his signature, floor-length sleeveless robe in the same brilliant white.
But the microscopic details were what made my heart do a violent flip against my ribs.
On the back of my trunks, directly above the block lettering of my stage name, Rosa had meticulously embroidered a small, gold crown. It was exactly the same as the crown logo Silas had been using on his merchandise since the beginning. And on the side pocket of Silas’s tights, stitched in heavy black thread, was my signature padlock design.
We matched. Entirely and undeniably. It was a declaration of our partnership stitched right into the fabric of our gear.
“Oh my God, Rosa,” Silas whispered. His fingers gently traced the padlock as his eyes shimmered with warmth. “They’re perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
“I know they are, mijo.” Rosa smiled proudly, clapping her hands together. “Now, get into the changing stalls. I need to pin the waistlines before the agents come looking for you.”
Once dressed, we stepped back into the main space and stood in front of the mirrors. Evan and Lena came around the heavy curtain a second later, both of them stopping dead before breaking into a chorus of relentless heckling.
“Oh, God. Look at you two!” Evan laughed, leaning against a garment rack. “The Wrestling Husbands have arrived in all their matching glory! You look like a couple of expensive wedding cakes.”
I adjusted the collar of the white leather jacket and shot back, “You’re just jealous because your gear is the color of a neon dildo, Wilder.”
We spent the next four hours locked inside the arena bowl, training until our bones ached and our muscles screamed for oxygen.
It was us, Evan, the three rookies assigned to our team, and the Demolition team. They were a massive, six-man powerhouse of a crew, and we were scheduled to face them inside the War Zone. Jim sat at the timekeeper’s table, clipboard in hand, carefully detailing the play-by-play of the match. He made sure to check the timing of every single sequence down to the millisecond.
We ran our spots over and over again, the loud boom of our bodies hitting the canvas echoing throughout the empty arena. Silas moved like a man possessed. His athleticism was flawless as he practiced his high-flying spots, launching himself off the middle rope with a grace that didn’t belong to a man his size.
Unfortunately for me, however, Jim and the creative board had decided to throw a giant curveball into the match architecture.
They wrote me in for a high-flying sequence.
I was considered a powerhouse. My entire career had been built on clotheslines, powerbombs, and grinding defense. I didn’t fly or do springboards. The last timemy feet left the ground for a diving move, I was still a tattoo virgin. Yet here I was, standing on the apron and staring at the high-tension cables with a cold, paralyzing dread taking over my chest.
“Come on, Cal!” Jim yelled from the floor with a smirk on his face. “It’s a simple springboard crossbody out to the floor mats. It’s a good thing your husband is the best we’ve got at these moves and can teach you, because you look like a stone statue up there.”
Silas chuckled from the center of the ring, leaning against the turnbuckle with his arms crossed. “Don’t listen to him, babe. It’s easy. Just track my weight. When I hit the ropes, use the momentum to launch your feet off the second cable. I’ll catch most of your weight, anyway.”
It was another hour of what I would consider the most clumsy and frustrating practice of my life. For a 250-pound guy with zero natural flexibility, trying to coordinate a springboard move like this felt like trying to teach a cement truck to do a ballet routine. I slipped twice from my boot, losing its footing on the vinyl rope, which caused me to crash awkwardly onto the canvas in a heap of tangled limbs.
But, as promised, Silas was right there every single time.
He’d run over, his face full of soft amusement, and haul me back to my feet by my waist with a kiss to my sweaty shoulder when the others weren’t looking. We practiced it over and over again, Evan stepping in occasionally to help guide my positioning or show me how to tuck my chin so I wouldn’t snap my neck on the landing.
Sure, Evan and the rookies also had high-flying spots of their own, but none of them felt as daunting as mine. Although everyone knew I was physically capable of hitting the move, the fear ran rampant through my veins. It wasn’t about missing the spot or making a fool of myself in front of the crowd.
I was afraid of getting hurt.
The memory of Silas’s panic attack from last night was still fresh in my mind. He was already terrified of this match; his mind hyper-focusing on the memoryof his own career-ending injury. And I knew with absolute certainty that if I slipped, crashed onto the hard concrete floor, or by chance tweaked my knee in the middle of the ring, the visual of me being hurt would trigger Si’s trauma. He would implode right there in the middle of a live broadcast. The weight of that responsibility caused a crushing pressure on my skull and had my hands shaking as I hit the ropes for the twentieth time.
After every single person had packed up and left the building last night, Silas and I stayed in the empty arena. We worked until midnight, running the sequences in the dark until our gear was soaked, and our bodies were bruised. This had always been our way when it came to competing with or against one another. Two stubborn, relentless alpha-males, who refused to let the other see them get tired. But today, with the pay-per-view only hours away, we were paying the physical price. The exhaustion settled deep into our marrow. Every muscle in my back was tight, and my split knuckles were a throbbing, angry red.
We were currently inside our designated changing area. The private green room Presley had forced on us to keep us away from the main lockers. Ever since his separate locker room rule had been put into play, it had done nothing but piss both of us off. A constant corporate reminder of how we were being singled out. Isolated.
But tonight… Tonight, the space felt different.
