9. SAN JUAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, PUERTO RICO // THE REED LAND, NORTH CAROLINA #3
I navigated the SUV down the narrow path until the headlights illuminated the corrugated metal building sitting isolated in the woods.
From the outside, no one would ever guess it was a fully functioning, professional wrestling facility, complete with a regulation-sized ring, a gym, and medical tables.
His father and uncle had built it decades ago to be able to train while at home.
The second I put the car in park, Silas was out the door, practically sprinting to the back. “Silas, what are you doing?” I yelled before popping my door open to follow him.
He was at the trunk, throwing it open and digging frantically into the side pocket of his bag. “What is in your bag that’s so important?” I questioned, reaching out to see what he was doing.
“Nothing! Absolutely not, you stay back,” Silas barked, slamming the trunk shut right in front of my face.
I blinked. “Are you manic right now? Did you hit your head on the flight? What is wrong with you?”
“Just come inside.” He jogged up to the heavy metal side door and punched the code into the keypad.
I sighed, shaking my head, but moved to follow him inside. The building was cavernous, smelling strongly of canvas, gym equipment, and cold metal. It was also pitch black, save for a single, low-wattage industrial light that hummed directly over the center of the ring.
“This is how horror movies start, Silas,” I deadpanned, looking around the shadowy room. Where are the rest of the lights? “It’s creepy in here. I feel like your dad is going to pop out from under the ring with a steel chair.”
“He’s asleep.” Silas laughed, but it sounded slightly nervous.
Walking quickly down the aisle, he shedded his jacket, dropping it onto the concrete floor.
He grabbed the top rope and vaulted himself into the ring, the canvas giving a familiar, hollow thud under his boots.
He walked to the center, standing directly under the pool of dim light, and turned back to look at me. “Come up here.”
I stood at the barricade, crossing my arms over my chest, my expression a mix of bone-deep exhaustion and exasperated fondness.
“Silas,” I sighed, rubbing my tired eyes. “I see a goddamn ring like this every single day of my fucking life. We bleed in them, sweat in them. Do we seriously have to stand in one when we are exhausted and officially off the clock?”
“Yes. Yes, we do,” he said, but there was a definitive waver to his tone.
My grumbling stopped instantly, and I looked at him, like, really looked at him. He stood under that single light, looking at me with an intensity that could level a city, and I realized something major was happening. The determination and slight fear on his face made me move.
I walked over to the apron, grabbed the ropes, and pulled my bruised body up, stepping through and joining him in the center of the ring.
He looked worn-down and sleep deprived standing before me in his baggy sweatpants and plain shirt.
But he was, without a shadow of a doubt, the most breathtaking thing I had ever seen.
There was a fire lit within him that completely consumed me whenever we were together.
I loved this man so much, it felt like a physical thrumming in my chest.
Silas stepped into my space, his cool hands cupping my jaw, and leaned in to press his lips against mine. There was no hesitation, my body melted into him, my arms wrapped around his waist and pulled him flush against me. The kiss was soft and tired, but overwhelmingly sweet.
When we pulled apart, Silas kept his hands on my jaw, his thumbs lightly tracing my cheekbones.
“Do you remember the first time we ever trained together?” he asked, his voice a soft, echoing whisper in the massive building.
I groaned, letting my forehead rest against his. “Yes. You were an arrogant, high-flying brat who thought he was invincible, and I wanted to murder you.”
Silas laughed softly, the sound vibrating between us. “And do you remember the first time we kissed in a ring?”
I closed my eyes as the memory rushed back.
Orlando, the Performance Center. It was after hours, and we had been running spots.
Breathless and sweaty, the tension between us had finally snapped.
We kissed, dead center of the ring, desperately starving for each other, and had been caught by a security camera.
“I remember. It terrified me.”
“It terrified me, too,” Si said gently, pulling his head back just enough to look into my eyes. His expression shifted, the playful light fading into something overwhelmingly deep, strong, and profound. “Callum.”
A jolt of electricity shot straight down my spine. He never called me Callum. That name was reserved for legal documents or for when I had overly annoyed him. Hearing it fall from his lips now, coated in his soft drawl, made my knees feel weak.
Fuck, when did I piss him off?
“The entire time we’ve known each other,” Silas began, “a ring has always been at the center of who we are. As individuals, it’s our job, our battlefield.
But as a couple…it’s become our sanctuary.
Even when we got caught in Orlando, it was because we chose to stand in a ring together.
We fought in them, we bled in them, and eventually, we found our way back to each other in one. ”
Tears instantly pricked the back of my eyes, and my throat tightened, nearly choking me. I stared into his chocolate brown orbs, completely paralyzed by the overwhelming love that radiated from him.
“I never thought we would get this chance again.” A single tear slipped down Silas’s cheek.
“There were so many years where no piece of me ever expected we’d be standing here, together and happy.
We lost so much time. Seven years of hiding, of pretending.
Seven years of hurting.” He took a shaky breath, his hands dropping from my face to hold mine against his chest. “I don’t want to lose any more. ”
Before my brain could even process what was happening, Silas took a step back, let go of my right hand, and dropped to one knee on the canvas.
“Silas!” I gasped, a half-sob, half-laugh tearing its way out of my throat. “You can’t just spring it on me!”
Silas laughed through his own tears, looking up at me from the mat. “You sprung your proposal on me in San Juan!”
I laughed, the sound wet and entirely undignified. “Was this your plan from the beginning?”
“Yes.” Silas smiled brilliantly as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, dark velvet box.
Inside sat a simple, elegant, and perfectly understated silver band.
It wasn’t new. It had some years on it. Microscopic scratches of a life well-lived, and a dull patina that only comes from decades of wear.
“So,” Silas started, his voice dropping into a breathless, reverent whisper. “Callum Ian Kincaid. Will you marry me?”
I dropped to my knees right in front of him on the canvas, grabbing his face and kissing him with everything I had.
“Yes,” I breathed against his lips. “Fuck, yes.”
He pulled back with shaking hands as he took the silver band from the box. My left hand in his, with his thumb stroking over my knuckles, he slid the ring onto my finger. It glided seamlessly over the joint to settle perfectly into its new home.
“Now you’ve got one to wear, too,” he whispered, a tear dropping from his chin onto our joined hands as he looked at it. “Does it fit okay?”
I spread my fingers, admiring the way the aged silver looked against my tattooed skin. It didn’t just fit; it felt like it had been made specially for me.
“It’s perfect, Si.” I looked up at him. “It’s beautiful.”
Silas let out a massive, full-body sigh of relief, dropping his forehead to my shoulder. “Thank God.”
“Where did you find this?”
Silas pulled back, sniffling, a watery smile on his face. “I searched for weeks trying to find a ring for you, but nothing felt right. Everything was too shiny, or too bulky. But while I was looking, I remembered something. Your ring size… it’s the exact same as my grandfather’s was.”
My breath hitched.
“When he passed,” Silas continued softly, “he left his wedding band to me. He intended for me to wear it whenever I got married, but the ring never fit, and it got shoved in a drawer and forgotten about. It fits you, though. Perfectly,” he whispered as his thumb aimlessly traced the silver.
“I feel like…maybe that’s his way of letting me know he supported us.
That he loved you, too, and you belong in this family. ”
A sob ripped its way out of my chest that I couldn’t stop.
The sheer weight of what he was giving me, a piece of his history.
I lunged forward, grabbing him by the waist, and kissed him with a desperate, frantic hunger.
The momentum carried us backward, and we tumbled onto the mat with my heavy frame pressing him into the canvas.
Tears mixed with our kiss, turning the moment into a glassy, heated blur.
Exhaustion vanished, replaced entirely by adrenaline and raw, unfiltered need.
My hands pulled desperately at the hems of his clothing, tearing them off and tossing them around the ring.
Silas was just as crazed, his hands fighting with the zipper of my hoodie, before his nails scraped hot lines down my chest. Within minutes he had me stripped bare in the freezing air of the metal building.
“I need you,” I growled against his neck where I bit the soft skin., His pulse raced under my teeth. “Right now. Right fucking here.”
“Take me,” Silas moaned, his hips grinding into mine.
I paused, hovering over him, my chest heaving as I looked at his beautiful, flushed face. His chest rose and fell, each breath as labored as mine, while the silver ring glinted on my hand resting next to his head.
“No,” I murmured, my voice a dark, rough rasp as I inched closer. Enough that I could feel the heat of his breath against my skin. “I need you.”