Page 17 of Craving the Edge

The tension in my shoulders gave way. I let out a breath, the air leaving my lungs in a hollow rush. It felt like defeat. It felt like relief.

“It’s busted,” I said, the words quiet but clear in the restaurant’s low hum. “Stress fracture. Fourth metacarpal.”

I finally looked up and met his gaze.

“Have you had it scanned?” he asked.

I shook my head.

He snorted. “Seriously? Mate, it could be anything,” he argued, leaning forward again. “A badly torn tendon. A sprain. Something they can fix. You don’t know it’s a fracture until you see the film.”

“I know what a break feels like,” I said, the words falling dead on the table. I’d had enough of them over the years. I knew the deep, grinding ache. The way it sent a shock up your arm when I made a fist.

Tomas rubbed at his jaw, his gaze unfocused. He was running the numbers “You have to tell Rhys. Now. Tonight. We can manage it, get ahead of the media. Postpone the Sydney fight, say it was a training injury.”

“No,” I cut in. “Not yet.”

“What do you mean, not yet? Declan, are you fucking mental? You can’t fight with a broken hand.”

“I’m fighting in Sydney,” I hissed. “I’m not saying a word to anyone until after.”

He stared at me, his disbelief clear. “Why? For what? Your hand will be cactus.”

“If I win this, I get a shot at the title in Tokyo,” I argued. The career path Rhys had mapped out on a whiteboard. Sydney was the final gate. A belt in Tokyo was everything I was supposed to want…but as I said it, a hollow space opened in my gut. What did a belt in Tokyo even matter?

Tomas shook his head in disbelief. “For a belt? Are you kidding me, Declan? You know how this ends. This is how fighters get put out to pasture. They fight through a structural injury, blow their whole arm out, and end up driving a fucking forklift for a living because they can’t make a fist anymore.”

I stared at my knuckles, at the slight puffiness I tried to ignore each morning. “I know.”

“You’re lucky you don’t have a proper trainer in your camp at the moment,” he continued. “If you did, they’d know. A decent coach would feel it in the pads after one punch. They’d know you’re in the shit.”

A hot stab of fury shot through me. I hated that he was right. I hated the truth of it. I clenched my good hand into a fist on my thigh.

He stared at me, daring me to deny it.

The distant clatter of plates from the kitchen and the low murmur of another table’s conversation felt a world away. It was just the two of us in this ruin, the entire ‘Declan Walsh’ world resting on the fractured bone in my hand.

Tomas ran a hand over his shaved head, then picked up his beer again. He took a slow swallow, then set the glass down. “So, what are you doing with Char? Is that what you were talking about today?”

I flinched.

“Oh, I now get it. Is she just some relief?” he asked. “Something to take the edge off while you’re slumming it? Or are you actually going to be a decent bloke for once?”

He wasn’t grinning. He knew my history. Over before the girl even knew my middle name. Relationships were disposable.

“Is it fair to drag her into this shit show?” he pressed, seeing the answer in my silence. “I’ve barely had to look at her and I even can see she’s a good one.”

I didn’t have a response for him. My thoughts went back to the office, her taste of her was better than I’d imagined. I’d been hard in a second, taken by a raw, physical need that’d sucker-punched me.

She was all I could think about. I had plenty of other things fucking up my life, but Char? She was the only thing that felt right and I barely knew her.

We’d said shit all, really. A few open quick questions with even shorter answers, but it was the easiest conversation I’d had in years. No performance required. No need to be the charming fighter or the untouchable champion. I was just a guy in a room with a woman who looked at me like I was made of the same skin and bone as everyone else.

And now she was in my head. When I showered. When I trained. When I was staring at the ceiling at three in the morning, the pulse in my broken hand counting down to catastrophic failure.

She didn’t want me. She’d shut me down cold, and her refusal was more compelling than any of the easy encounters I was used to. The ones that left me feeling hollowed out, my body used as a transaction for a bit of fame-by-association.

Char wasn’t like that. The chase was usually the game, but with her, there was no game.