Definitely Not

Chapter 1

Theo

It’s not that I hate people. I just prefer it when they’re not all packed into one room screaming for someone to bleed.

The warehouse is hot enough that my shirt sticks to my spine, and every time the crowd surges, I end up elbow-to-elbow with a stranger who could use a lot more deodorant. Thanks to my height, I'm usually too close to someone's armpit. Five-ten isn't exactly the tallest for a guy.

Elias stands beside me with his arms folded, calm as ever, as if we’re at a farmer’s market and not in a place where two people are about to punch each other for money.

He’s taller than Jax and I, always has been.

Six-three with broad shoulders that make him look like he could bench press half this crowd.

His brown hair is cut short enough to stay out of his sharp hazel eyes, with features that look carved instead of grown in his mother's womb.

“Breathe, Theo,” he tells me without looking down. His voice is steady as always, like he’s monitoring vitals on a patient and not my rising anxiety. Perks of being an EMT, I guess. “You look like you’re ready to shit bricks.”

Elias has the kind of face that dares you to test him, but he’s stoic enough that people rarely do. He was the one who kept us from being idiots when we were teenagers, and he’s still the one keeping us—mostly Jax—from turning our fun into death.

“I do not. I'm just questioning my life choices right now.”

Jax laughs from his perch on the edge of a stacked pallet, bumping my shoulder with his knee. "Live a little, Professor. You're gonna die from anxiety before anyone throws a punch."

He's in his element, sitting there like it's his throne. His dirty blond hair falls just so into his icy blue eyes as he watches with fascination. He’s got that easy grin people trust too fast, soaking in the noise. He’s always been this way—magnetic, the guy people notice first without even trying.

Back in high school, talking us past the door like we were actually invited when we weren’t.

Eight years later and he still carries himself like that, like he’s the center of gravity.

He definitely hasn't matured, which makes it even more obvious that he's a year younger than me and Elias.

“I don’t have anxiety,” I argue, but it's an obvious lie since they know me so well.

“You carry a multi-tool in your pocket for emergencies.”

“So do you,” I shoot back.

“Yeah, but mine’s in case I gotta get stabby. Yours is because you believe in worst-case scenarios.”

He’s not wrong.

The three of us have been friends since we were sixteen, but you wouldn't be able to tell from looks alone. I was the loner, always tuning my bike in my garage. Jax was the popular kid who had a new girl on his shoulder every week. And Elias, well, he was the all-star athlete.

I don’t respond to Jax, instead turning my attention to the yellow tape they've laid down, already peeling at the corner on the concrete.

I keep my dark eyes fixed there, shaking my black hair out of my vision line where it likes to rest. Inside the makeshift ring are stains I swear once belonged inside a person, and I wonder why I ever agreed to come.

I stupidly let Jax convince me this would be fun. This is not fun. I like bikes, and organized spaces, things I can calculate. I don’t like watching people take hits they’ll feel for days.

A bell clangs and the first fighter storms into the ring, a big guy in a sleeveless shirt with his hands taped, since he’s clearly been doing this since middle school detention. The second fighter, though, doesn’t show.

Yeah. I wouldn't enter that ring either.

Murmurs ripple through the crowd as everyone waits, wondering.

The guy in the ring paces impatiently, snorts like a bull, and points at random people to get them riled, almost like he's challenging them. Jax whistles, sharp and low, and someone throws him a look that would’ve started a fight if Elias didn’t exist beside us like a human ‘no’ sign.

Then, to absolutely everyone’s surprise, a woman steps over the tape.

The crowd's collective inhale sucks half the oxygen from the room. She can’t be more than five feet tall.

Her combat boots barely make a sound against the concrete, like a child playing dress-up in her father's shoes.

The top of her head wouldn't reach my chin if she stood beside me.

Black joggers hang loose around her legs, and her faded tank reveals shoulder blades that shift like small wings beneath her skin.

A hoodie dangles from her waist, swinging as she moves.

When she rolls her shoulders, light catches on her skin—a mandala blooms across her bicep, petals unfurling with each movement.

Her hair is pulled into a tight knot, leaving two electric-blue streaks framing her face like warning signs.

She doesn't scan the crowd or acknowledge the whispers.

Her dark blue eyes are fixed on the man across from her the way someone might study an insect before deciding whether to let it live.

For a second, I think she’s just cutting through, but then she lifts her chin at the ref—if you can call a guy in a neon vest that—and says something I can’t hear.

He glances between her and the human bulldozer, then shrugs like he's approving a substitution in a pickup game.

The crowd erupts, and my stomach drops through the concrete floor.

"Jesus Christ, tell me she's not actually going to fight that guy," I hiss, my knuckles white as I grip the edge of the pallet. I can't tear my eyes away even as my brain screams that I'm about to witness a murder.

Elias' jaw tightens, a muscle jumping beneath his skin. “You know I don't like to lie to you.”

Jax lunges forward so suddenly he nearly topples off his perch, pupils blown wide with adrenaline. “I’m in love already.”

“You don’t even know her name,” I argue, but my heart slams against my ribs like it's trying to break free and crawl across the floor to her feet.

The big guy laughs. Of course he does. He makes a show of it, head thrown back, hands on hips, the world’s most predictable peacock. She, on the other hand, doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even blink. She just observes him with a face that’s… annoyed?

What am I watching right now?

It seems I'm not the only one questioning this as the crowd murmurs in disbelief.

A man in a Metallica shirt elbows his buddy. "There's no way."

"This has got to be a joke," says a woman with purple hair, her beer sloshing over the rim of her cup.

"Jesus, she's barely bigger than my kid sister," someone mutters behind me, voice cracking with concern.

The bell clangs, metal on metal, and the guy barrels at her like he’s got one brain cell left and it’s screaming, ‘attack.’ She pivots—a slight shift of weight from one foot to the other—and his knuckles whistle past her ear.

His second swing comes wild, and she ducks under, driving her elbow between his ribs with a sound like a baseball hitting a mitt.

He stumbles. Wheezes. She circles, feet never crossing, eyes fixed on his sternum.

This isn't a show for her. It's serious.

My fingernails dig into my palms as I watch at the edge of my metaphorical seat.

By the third round of him swinging like a wind-up toy, it’s obvious she’s got him.

She’s not just hitting back, she’s watching, waiting, learning, and I think I love her more for it.

My brain does the thing it always does and starts running simulations.

If he goes left again, she’s going to tag his jaw.

If he comes in high, she’ll flip him on his ass.

And then—yep, there he goes. When he charges again, head down, she sidesteps and sweeps his leg.

The concrete floor trembles as two hundred and fifty pounds of man crashes down, and the impact travels up through the soles of my shoes, rattling my teeth.

“Okay.”

Jax leans forward, reverence slipping into a grin that stretches too wide to be polite. The eyebrow ring catches the light when he lifts it, like even his body’s a little stunned. “Okay.”

“Her guard’s tight,” Elias comments, like he’s spectating a sport and giving his notes. “Chin’s tucked, too.”

Peacock gets pissed. You can see it the second his shoulders tense, frustration making him sloppy.

He starts swinging wider, heavier, throwing power where precision should be.

She takes one grazing shot to the cheekbone, barely enough to snap her head to the side, and answers with a combination so clean it feels surgical.

One, two, three. There’s no wasted movement, no mercy, as she drops him to a knee, breath already wrecked.

She doesn’t hesitate, stepping in and driving her knee straight into his chest.

The sound is ugly. A hollow thud that sucks the air right out of him as he folds forward, gagging, hands scrambling for something solid while the ref remembers he exists.

It ends so fast the crowd lags behind it.

There’s a half-second of silence, like everyone’s checking to make sure what they just saw actually happened. Then the noise hits, messy and delayed.

“No fucking way.”

“Holy shit.”

“Is he done? He’s done, right?”

Below my elbow, bills start changing hands in a hurry, fingers shaking as people count losses they didn’t see coming.

Someone actually bet on her?

She doesn’t lift her arms in victory, nor does she pose. She only shakes out her hands once and rolls her shoulders. There’s blood at the corner of her mouth that she wipes with the back of her wrist, looking almost bored.

I become abruptly aware that I’m staring too hard at her. That I haven’t blinked in a small eternity. That my palms are damp and my heart feels like it’s climbed into my throat to get a better view.

“I think I need a glass of water.” I wipe my palms on my jeans, like that might calm the static under my skin.