Chapter 4
Chapter Four
It had been a long shift. The kind that sank into your bones instead of just your muscles. Calls stacked on calls. Smoke that clung to your gear no matter how many times you hosed it down. Noise, adrenaline, then nothing.
The quiet afterward was the worst part.
I’d called Chloe twice during breaks. Not desperate calls. Just… checking in. Making sure she was okay. Making sure we were okay. She’d answered both times and her voice had been warm. Steady. Almost… open.
It was what I had wanted, and yet for some reason that made me pull back.
Now I was sitting in my truck in the station parking lot longer than necessary, hands resting on the steering wheel, engine idling. The dash clock blinked at me like it was judging my life choices.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
I should stop at the grocery store. There was nothing in the house except condiments and protein powder.
I should call my mother back. She’d rung me four times in the last ten days.
From the last voicemail, I could tell she was getting worried.
I hated that. Mom and Dad had left Jasper Creek and retired to Florida years ago.
They came home for holidays, to see us and all their old friends, but mostly to see us.
Shit. What had Chloe been telling Mom?
I took a deep breath. She couldn’t have told her we weren’t living together, otherwise Mom would have been on the first flight to Jasper Creek. God knew I hadn’t told her. And there it was. I hated lying to my mother.
I couldn’t keep this up.
I really couldn’t.
So no grocery store, and no call. I put the truck in gear and drove straight home.
The house was silent when I walked in.
Not peaceful. Not calm. Just… empty.
The lights were off. The air felt stale, like it hadn’t been disturbed in days. I dropped my keys on the counter and stood there, listening, half-expecting to hear Chloe humming from the bedroom or banging around in the kitchen.
Nothing.
Her afghan was still draped over the back of the sofa—the one she’d bought at that antique store she dragged me into last year. I’d complained the whole time. Said it smelled like dust and old people.
She’d just laughed and said it had character.
I reached out and touched it without thinking. The yarn was soft. Familiar.
The pictures were still on the wall. Black frames. Matte-white borders. Chloe had insisted it was cleaner that way.
I hadn’t cared about the frames. I’d just liked seeing her face when I came home.
Now it felt like every photo was watching me fail in real time.
“Enough of this shit,” I muttered.
I headed for the laundry room, dug out clean workout clothes, and changed fast. No thinking. Just motion.
Cappy’s.
I needed sweat. Pain. Something solid.
Hell, maybe I needed someone to hit me back.
Cappy’s Gym hadn’t changed in thirty years.
The paint was a tired gray, scuffed and peeling in places where fists and shoulders had hit it too many times to count. The mirrors were old—warped just enough to distort reflections if you looked too hard. The kind of place where no one checked themselves out for selfies.
The air smelled like iron, leather, and old sweat. Chalk dust lingered in the corners.
Men nodded when I walked in. Some I knew. Some I didn’t. Different ages. Same look in their eyes. Everyone here was carrying some kind of burden.
Cappy spotted me immediately.
He ambled over, towel slung over his shoulder, thick arms crossed over his chest. “Rough day?”
“Rough year.”
He studied me for a second. “You wanna work it off or work it out?”
“Both.”
He grunted. “Warm up. Might be someone in your weight class coming in later who wouldn’t mind a challenge.”
That did it for me. I felt a small grin creep across my face and headed toward the heavy bag. At first I didn’t bother with any kind of hand protection, reveling in my fists slamming into the leather, the thuds giving me pleasure. Each hit was a thought I hadn’t said out loud.
“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.” I stopped at Cappy’s cranky voice. “You know better than that, Post. Wrap up.” He tossed me a roll of 180-inch cotton wraps, already sweat-stained from a hundred other bad days.
“Bag’s not a goddamn therapist,” he grumbled. “Grab your gloves after you’re done with the wraps.”
The man stomped away, and I did as I was told.
Each second I wasn’t hitting something felt like an eternity. I needed to hit, the way Chloe’s words had hit me. The way Michael’s had.
I wrapped my hands, slid into the worn gloves, and went back to it.
This time, I pretended it was Michael’s face as he’d spewed out words I damn well knew were true. Thud. Thud. Thud. Then it turned into my face. All the stupid stunts I’d pulled that almost got Michael injured. Not killed—at least I hadn’t been that far gone.
But the sharpest punch wasn’t for him. Or me.
It landed when my brain dragged up the image of Chloe holding baby Drake.
Her nephew. Our nephew. Named after their big brother. A baby who had nothing to do with any of this.
I should’ve been glad she could do it. Proud of her.
Instead, something tore inside my chest.
I drove my fists into the bag, harder, faster.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
It wasn’t jealousy. It wasn’t that she loved that baby more. It was that she got to feel that small, warm weight in her arms… and we had never had that. Not once.
No tiny casket. No service. Just hospital forms and a D&C and a nurse telling us gently that we could try again.
Like our entire future hadn’t just gone up in smoke.
My brain knew it wasn’t Chloe’s fault. The doctor had never blamed her. Never blamed me. Sometimes pregnancies failed. Sometimes bodies did things no one could control.
But my gut didn’t care about medical explanations.
All it knew was she could hold Drake.
We never got to hold either of ours.
I hit the bag until my shoulders burned, until my lungs clawed for air.
How was she the one strong enough to pick up a baby again?
How was I the one who couldn’t even hear about it without coming apart?
I stopped swinging and slumped, grabbing the bag like it was a lifeline.
My Chloe. The bravest woman I would ever know. I could never be like her. I was broken. Useless. A man who couldn’t protect his wife, couldn’t give her kids, couldn’t even pick up the damn phone without screwing it up.
Maybe Michael was right, but he was partly wrong.
You’re not protecting her. You’re hiding.
Pulling away felt like the only kindness I had left. If I let her go, really let her go, she could start over with someone whole. Someone who didn’t come apart at the thought of a baby in her arms.
I stepped away from the bag.
Sweat was pouring down my back, lungs burning, arms heavy, when Cappy tapped me on the shoulder.
“Zarek,” he said, steering a younger guy toward me. “This is JJ Baumgartner.”
The kid was lean, solid. Early twenties. Calm eyes.
I shot Cappy a look. “You sure?”
Cappy smiled. “He’ll be fine.”
We stepped into the ring.
The canvas was scuffed and stained, the ropes soft from years of bodies leaning into them. JJ bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, rolling his shoulders like he was warming up for a jog, not a fight.
I didn’t bounce. I rolled my neck once. Twice. Felt the tightness there. Felt the weight in my arms.
Three rounds. No headgear. Cappy watching us closely.
He gave us a short nod. “Keep it clean.”
Then he stepped back and waved us in.
Round one.
JJ came at me fast.
Not wild—confident. He snapped a quick jab that caught me off guard, my guard a little low. Then he circled left, light on his feet.
I tested him with a low kick, felt it land solid against his thigh. The kid absorbed it without a flinch.
Good.
I drove forward, using my size, forcing him toward the ropes, but he slipped away before I could trap him. He pivoted clean and landed a sharp punch to my ribs that had me grunting.
The kid had reach.
I answered with a hook that clipped his shoulder, then another that grazed his jaw. Not enough to drop him, but enough to make him blink. He shot in low, aiming for my legs.
We went down in a tangle, my forearm pressed into the back of his neck. He twisted, scrambled, and got free.
The bell rang.
I was breathing harder than I wanted to be.
JJ grinned—just a flash. Not cocky, just excited.
Round two.
This one hurt.
JJ switched tactics—less movement, more pressure. He crowded me and threw a short set of punches, forcing me to keep my hands up. I blocked most of them, but a knee slipped through and slammed into my thigh.
Pain bloomed, hot and immediate.
I grabbed him, wrapped an arm around his torso, and muscled him backward. We slammed into the ropes. For a second, I felt solid again. Grounded. I drove him down to the mat, my knee pinning his hip.
For a moment, I thought I had him.
He bucked hard and suddenly I was off balance, and he was the one on top. He scrambled, his forearm pressing across my chest. I shoved him off and rolled to my knees, and we both got up again.
Sweat dripped down our faces.
This was exactly what I needed, and I grinned.
His brow furrowed, just a little.
The bell saved him.
Round Three.
Everything was heavy now—my arms, my legs, my thoughts. Everything except my will to win. JJ looked tired too, but he was younger. His recovery time was faster.
He shot low again.
He took me down hard and the mat knocked the air from my lungs.
We grappled.
I tried to roll him. He countered.
I tried to stand. He dragged me back down.
Every one of my muscles screamed.
I thought of Chloe.
JJ shifted his weight, locked his legs, and suddenly I was trapped. My shoulder burned. My neck twisted wrong. Panic flared—not wild, just sharp and clear.
This wasn’t about winning anymore.
This was about knowing when I was done.
I tapped.
Once.
Twice.
Cappy’s hand was there instantly, pulling JJ back.
“Fight’s over.”
I lay there for a second, staring at the ceiling, chest rising and falling like I’d just run miles instead of minutes. I’d lost.
Not because I was weaker.
Because I was already empty.
JJ offered a hand. I took it. He nodded, respectful, breathing hard too.
“Good fight,” he said.
“Yeah,” I answered. “It was.”
It mirrored my life.
I’d lost.
Not because he was better.
But because, if I was honest, I’d been done before the bell ever rang.