Chapter 29
Keaton
I threw my phone onto the bed hard enough that it bounced twice before landing on my pillow.
An hour ago, I was sitting in Devon’s office, looking at what should’ve been the biggest opportunity of my career. Everything about the offer was exactly what I’d hoped for since signing with Marcos. Until I looked down and saw Rowan’s name.
What pissed me off most wasn’t even that Rowan hated the idea of the fight.
I understood why he wouldn’t want to go up against me.
Hell, I hated the idea too. No part of me had looked at Rowan’s name and thought, Perfect.
This is exactly what I want. But somewhere during the conversation, he’d decided I wasn’t struggling with it the same way he was.
As if I’d looked at his name, considered the pros and cons, and immediately started planning the next phase of my career.
“I think you saw my name and started weighing the upsides.”
The accusation felt like shit because it didn’t reflect what had actually happened. I hadn’t spent the last hour thinking about money. I hadn’t spent it thinking about rankings or exposure or what the fight might do for my career. I’d spent it thinking about him.
I’d thought about our breakup. About everything we’d gone through after high school to find our way back to each other.
About all the nights we’d spent convincing ourselves we could somehow make the distance work if we just tried hard enough.
Every time I looked at the contract, I saw all of that before anything else.
Yet, somehow, he’d turned me into the guy who chose a fight over a relationship.
That part really got to me because he kept acting like he’d been the only one hurt when everything fell apart.
As if I’d walked away from Miami and just moved on with my life.
As if ending the relationship somehow meant I hadn’t been devastated too.
I knew I was the one who’d initiated the breakup. I’d never pretended otherwise. I’d made the decision, and I’d have to live with it for the rest of my life. But that didn’t mean it’d been easy. It didn’t mean I’d walked away from him feeling relieved or convinced I’d done the right thing.
The distance had been killing us. Every goodbye we said was harder than the last. We spent months pretending that loving each other was enough to overcome everything else, and eventually I reached the point where I couldn’t keep lying to either of us.
Choosing to end the long-distance misery didn’t mean I stopped loving him.
It didn’t mean I stopped missing him. And it definitely didn’t mean the past six months had been easy.
I pushed away from the window and started pacing.
The more I thought about the conversation, the angrier I got.
It was as if he’d wanted me to immediately reject the fight because of what we used to be.
He wanted me to prove he still mattered by turning down the opportunity before I’d even had time to process it.
Then, when I didn’t give him the answer he wanted, he acted as if that meant I didn’t care.
The entire situation would’ve been easier if he didn’t matter to me anymore.
I could’ve looked at the contract and signed it without hesitation.
But I couldn’t. I cared enough that hearing his voice after six months knocked every coherent thought out of my head for a few seconds.
I cared enough that the idea of standing across from him in a cage made me feel sick.
I cared enough that I was still standing in my bedroom, replaying every word of our phone call instead of moving on with my day.
My gaze drifted toward the phone on the bed, and I thought of the worst part of the entire conversation.
“There is no us.”
The words hit differently now than when I said them.
Maybe that’d been the wrong thing to say.
Maybe the words came out harsher than I’d intended, but the truth was, there wasn’t an us anymore.
We hadn’t been an us for months. We were two people living on opposite sides of the country, each trying to figure out what came next for the individual.
But Rowan kept talking like I was supposed to prove something to him.
As if turning down the fight would somehow rewrite what’d happened between us.
But no matter how angry he got, it didn’t change the reality we’d been living with for months.
I dragged a hand across the back of my neck and let out a slow breath. The only thing that pulled my attention away from Rowan was something else he’d mentioned.
Devon.
I’d been too irritated by everything else Rowan and I were arguing about to really consider that Devon had been using both of us. But now that the conversation was over, the accusations kept creeping back into my head.
Why had Devon asked about his weight class? Why was Rowan so sure that question meant something? And why couldn’t I stop thinking about it?
My phone buzzed against the pillow before I could spend any more time considering questions I couldn’t answer. Marcos’s name appeared on the screen.
“Hey,” I answered.
“I managed to sneak away from baseball meetings for a couple of minutes and got some good news,” he said immediately. “Cross signed.”
I knew from our conversation that Rowan was going to, but for some stupid reason, it bothered me that he’d done it so quickly.
“You still there?” Marcos asked when I didn’t respond right away.
“Yeah.”
“Are you ready to make this official?”
I closed my eyes for a moment. This was no longer just a possibility or a discussion; it was actually happening. I thought about what Rowan had said during the call, trying to make me feel as though everything was my fault, and I could feel anger simmering just below the surface.
At Rowan.
At the situation.
At the fact that the biggest opportunity either of us had ever received happened to involve the one person we couldn’t seem to let go of.
“Yeah,” I said finally. “I’m ready.”
“Good.”
Before he could continue, I sat on the edge of the bed and said, “There’s just one thing.”
“What’s up?”
I stared at the wall across from me. “Before we make this official, can you look into something for me?”
It took a few hours, but I finally had answers and, more importantly, a plan.
Walking into Titan, I headed straight for Devon’s office.
He looked up from his desk as I pushed his door open and shut it behind me.
I expected him to greet me the way he always did, but something in my expression must’ve given me away because he leaned back in his chair and waited for me to speak.
“You pitched the fight,” I growled.
He didn’t pretend not to understand what I was talking about. “I suggested it.”
A short laugh escaped me, even though I found nothing funny about the situation. “You suggested it?”
“Keaton—”
“No.” I shook my head. “Don’t Keaton me.”
“It wasn’t some conspiracy.”
“Really?” I asked. “Because it feels a lot like one.”
“It was a fight suggestion.”
“Based on the fact that you knew about my relationship with Rowan.” At that moment, another thought hit me hard, and I felt the anger building as I spoke. “Did you tell the promoters about us?”
“No. I did tell them you used to train together, and they liked that angle. Apparently, Marcos did too, since he brought it to you.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Grant Bishop liked it too. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have considered it for Rowan either.”
I stared at Devon. The fact that others agreed with him didn’t help his argument since they didn’t know the full story about my history with Rowan. “Did you ever think about talking to me first?”
“I knew what you’d say. You would’ve shut it down before you even considered it.”
I barked out another humorless laugh. “So instead, you decided to go around me.”
“I decided to create an opportunity for you.”
“No.” I pointed at him. “You put together a fight that will bring your gym some good publicity using a situation you had no business trying to exploit.”
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk. “You really think that’s why?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Why else would you do it?”
“I watched you spend months fighting your way back from that shoulder injury. I watched you wonder whether you’d ever get back to where you were.
I watched you work your ass off to get back to your pre-injury self, while other fighters kept moving forward.
I watched you drag yourself through rehab and training sessions when most people would’ve quit. ”
My jaw tightened. “So what? That doesn’t give you the right—”
“I’m not saying it does.” His voice stayed calm, which somehow made it worse.
“I’m saying I’ve been watching you. After you went to Miami, you were here every day.
You trained. You fought. You did everything you were supposed to do, but there were times when it was clear your head was somewhere else. ”
I immediately looked away. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I do.”
“No.”
“Yeah, Keaton, I do.”
The certainty in his voice made my chest twist. For months, I’d convinced myself nobody noticed. Hell, I’d tried to convince myself I’d moved past my heartbreak. Sitting there, listening to him talk, I knew my efforts hadn’t worked.
“Obviously, the breakup didn’t affect my fighting. I won in Vegas,” I argued.
“A win doesn’t prove you weren’t distracted at times.” He leaned back. “Besides, in Vegas, I talked to Rowan.”
“So, I heard.”
His eyes widened a fraction at that, but he went on. “He asked about you, and it was clear he hadn’t moved on either.”
I felt my shoulders stiffen. “You don’t get to analyze how either of us handled our breakup.”
“I’m not.”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“No.” Devon’s gaze never left mine. “I’m telling you what I saw. You two may have thought you were both hiding it, but you weren’t. You guys are stuck.”
“I’m not stuck,” I countered, but my words didn’t carry much weight.
“No?”
“No.”
He studied me for a second. Then he said the thing that finally pushed me over the edge. “I thought maybe this matchup would force it.”
The room fell completely still. “What?”
“I thought that working through your shit in a cage would finally get both of you to move on.”
I glared at him. “You thought us fighting would make me get over him?”
“I thought it might make you stop living in the middle.”
There it was. The thing that had nothing to do with rankings or opportunities with promotion companies. Devon wasn’t talking about my career anymore. He was talking about Rowan and me as a couple, not as former training partners. He was talking about decisions that weren’t his to make.
I shook my head slowly. “You had no right.”
“I was trying to help.”
“No.” My voice came out quieter this time, which somehow felt worse. “You were trying to force something that wasn’t yours to fix.”
Devon’s expression softened. “I care about you.”
“Sure.” I shrugged. “You brought me into Titan. You helped me become a better fighter. You got me my first fight. But somewhere along the way, you started thinking that gave you a say in everything else.”
“That’s not—”
I held up my hand because I was done listening to his excuses. “Marcos already made arrangements.”
The surprise on his face was instant. “What arrangements?”
“Phil’s going to run my camp at another location.”
He narrowed his gaze. “You’re leaving Titan?”
I looked around the office. In the room where I’d always trusted him to have my best interests in mind. “No. I’m leaving you.”