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“Fuck you—”

Prepared to snap his fucking arm, I push that wrist further up, toward the back of his neck.

I send the ref a sideways glance. Enough movement for you?

“Sorry! Sorry! Shit.”

Unfortunately for Buck, his apology isn’t accompanied by a tap, which means I’m gonna have to end this another way.

“You should’ve tapped.”

Releasing him, I wait until he’s turned around to deliver a couple leg kicks. On the third one, I don’t connect. Instead, I fake him out by bringing my leg all the way across in front of me and stepping my foot down, then quickly pivoting and using my full-body torque to throw out my fist, connecting with his jaw with a nasty spinning back fist and knocking his ass out cold.

Buck Norris kinda slumps against the cage, his legs and body folding into an embarrassing little pile of flesh as gravity takes over.

The crowd goes crazy, the cage fills with people around me, but I don’t dare take my eyes off Kota. Among the grit and grime, she’s a pristine angel, here to make everything better.

I beckon her with a single finger.

“In there?”

I nod.

Dex helps bring my girl to me, then I’m lifting her off her feet, gazing up at my prize, the best I’ve ever won.

I’m never giving her up.

“I love you, Kota Rhodes.”

“I love you, Khaos Pierson.”

Someone bumps into my shoulder from behind as I’m setting Kota back on the mat.

“Watch it, asshole,” I throw out to the side.

“My condolences.”

The accent is just strong enough to pull my attention away from Kota. With his slicked-back gray hair and two-sizes-too-big brown leather jacket, the guy lingering beside us doesn’t look familiar to me at all, yet I know exactly where he’s from.

“You mean apologies.”

“Apologies.” After a dip of his head, he turns to leave.

I watch his back until he disappears into the crowd.

“So about that celebration…” Kota says, making me forget all about the New Yorker.

While Kota’s busy doing the forty-five thousand activities cheerleaders have to do before a college football game, I invite Hollis Pritchard over for a quote on fixing the wall between my and Kota’s rooms.

After inspecting the cuts I made, he says, “You got lucky.”

I smile. Yeah, I did.

“No pipes, no wires. Nothing but drywall and studs all the way around.” He stands back to address me directly. “You said you used a chainsaw?”

“It’s all I could find.”

“You should’ve called me, dude. I could’ve loaned you the right tool, walked you through everything, whatever you needed.”