Page 58 of Filled

Cruz presses his mouth to the crown of my head and holds there, one big palm rubbing slow circles on my back, and I think—dazed, wrecked, with two men who might just burn the world for me—that this might be what safety feels like.

13

ELI

The gym smells like blood, sweat and the chemical bite of the spray used to wipe down the cage. Most of the lights are off now, just the overhead bank above the octagon still hums, casting that fluorescent glow that makes everything feel like a held breath.

She’s sitting on the bench by the lockers. Tape still wrapped around her knuckles, blood crusted at the corner of her mouth, the skin around her left eye already turning the color of a bruised plum. Hands resting palm-up on her thighs like she forgot they belonged to her.

I should have left an hour ago. Should have driven home, poured a finger of bourbon, and pretended my chest wasn’t caving in with every blow she absorbed..

Instead, I’m watching her through the glass of my office, and I can’t move.

She won tonight. Three rounds. The middle one almost killed me. I stood outside that cage with my fingers woven through the chain link so tight the metal cut into my palms, and I watched a woman with longer reach and dirty hooks rip through my fighter’s defenses.

My fighter. That’s what I told myself when I took her on.Mine to coach. Nothing else.

Lie of the fucking century. I felt every blow that landed as if it was me in that cage.

I push out of the chair before my brain catches up to my body. The office door clicks shut behind me. The sound travels.

She lifts her head.

“Thought you left,” she says.

“I told you. I don’t leave until everyone’s out.”

“Then I’ll go.”

She doesn’t move.

I cross the floor slowly, the rubber mats soft under my shoes, and when I reach the bench I don’t sit. I stand in front of her, close enough to see the way her pulse is still hammering in her throat, close enough to count the freckles on the bridge of her nose under the smear of dried blood.

“You should go home, princess.” The word slips out before I can catch it.

Her eyes lift to mine. “So should you,” she says. Soft. Knowing.

The silence stretches. I should walk away. I should turn around right now, lock up and drive home. Tomorrow I’ll just be Coach again. Whistle around my neck. Clipboard in my hand. Nothing else.

“I’m going to ask you something that may be none of my business.”

She meets my eyes, and holds the contact. Her chin lifts slightly as she simply says, “Okay.”

Her chin comes up. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blush. Just looks at me with those hazel eyes still glazed from the adrenaline and the post-fight crash and says, “Okay.”

“In the locker room. After I sent you to the showers.”

“Yes.”

“Just him?” I ask.

A beat. She holds my gaze.

“No.”

My jaw works. I taste copper at the back of my throat, the way you do before a fight when your body’s already deciding things your head hasn’t caught up to.

“Dante.”