Chapter 13
AUGUST - SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
Now playing: Daddy Issues - The Neighbourhood
“I think I’m dying,” Evan moaned from under a mountain of hotel duvets. “I think I ate a radioactive clam.”
I stood at the foot of his bed, arms crossed, trying not to laugh. “It’s food poisoning, Ev. You insisted on eating ‘street chowder’ from a cart in the rain.”
“It smelled authentic!” Evan wheezed, clutching his stomach. “Go on without me. Save yourselves. Tell my mother I died a champion.”
“We’ll bring you back some crackers,” Cal said, patting Evan’s foot through the blanket. “And maybe a bucket.”
“Get out,” Evan groaned, throwing a pillow feebly in our direction.
We escaped into the hallway, the heavy door clicking shut behind us. The silence was sudden and thrilling.
For the first time in three months, it was just us. No Evan. No Creative. No producers. Just a rainy Tuesday in Seattle and twelve hours to kill before call time tomorrow.
Cal turned to me, a grin spreading across his face.
“So,” Cal said, nudging my shoulder. “You, me, and the rain city. I hear they have coffee here. You like coffee, right, grandpa?”
I rolled my eyes, fighting a smile. Even at twenty-two, I felt decades older than him sometimes. “I like coffee. I don’t like the sugar milkshakes you drink.”
“Hey, whipped cream is a food group,” Cal argued, grabbing my arm and steering me toward the elevator. “Come on. Let’s go get lost.”
We managed to blend in.
Cal pulled a beanie low over his messy dark hair and wore a pair of thick rimmed glasses that he didn’t need but somehow made him look even more attractive. I wore a hoodie and kept my head down.
Seattle was gray, wet, and perfect.
We wandered through Pike Place Market, dodging the tourists and the flying fish. We didn’t talk about wrestling. We didn’t talk about the ratings or the storylines. We were just two guys in their twenties, hiding in plain sight.
We ended up in a small, cramped coffee shop tucked away in an alley that smelled like roasted beans and old books.
We sat in a booth by the window, watching the rain streak the glass. Cal had a mocha with an embarrassing amount of foam. I had a black drip coffee.
“You’re such a snob,” Cal teased, licking a bit of foam from his lip. “Look at you. Drinking bean water.”
“It’s called coffee, Cal. It’s supposed to taste like caffeine, not a candy bar.”
“You’re boring,” Cal laughed. He reached across the small table, his foot bumping mine under the table. He didn’t pull it back. He just let his leg rest against mine, a warm, steady pressure that sent a quiet thrill up my spine.
“I like boring,” I murmured, taking a sip.
“I know,” Cal said softer. His eyes crinkled at the corners. “It suits you. Keeps me grounded.”
He reached out, stealing a blueberry muffin from my plate. He broke off a piece, looking thoughtful.
“Tell me about home again,” Cal said suddenly.
I blinked. “Home? You mean the apartment in Orlando?”
“No,” Cal shook his head. “I mean home. The woods. North Carolina. Where you grew up.”
I frowned, tracing the rim of my cup. “Why do you want to know about that? It’s the middle of nowhere. It’s wetlands and oak trees and mosquitos the size of birds.”
“Just tell me,” Cal pressed, leaning forward, his knee pressing harder against mine. “Is it quiet?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “It’s quiet. It’s down a dirt road. You can’t hear the highway. At night, all you hear is the wind in the trees and the river in the distance. It’s… solitary.”
Cal smiled. It wasn’t his stage smile. It was soft, almost yearning.
“That sounds nice,” Cal murmured. “Ideally, I’d want a place like that. No neighbors. Just trees and water.”
My heart did a traitorous flip in my chest.
“You’d hate it,” I said, forcing my voice to stay casual, terrified of the hope blooming in my chest. “You’re a city kid. You’re from Philly. You’d get bored in a week without the noise.”
“Maybe,” Cal shrugged, his eyes locking onto mine. “Or maybe I just haven’t found the right person to be quiet with yet.”
He let that hang in the air between us. He was planting a seed. He was telling me, without saying the words, that he could picture himself there. With me.
I opened my mouth to say something, something stupid and reckless about how I could be quiet for him forever, when his phone buzzed on the table.
Cal glanced down.
The smile vanished instantly. It didn’t fade; it was wiped clean, replaced by a pale, frozen mask of horror.
“Cal?” I asked, leaning forward.
He didn’t answer. He stared at the screen like it was a bomb.
I looked down. A number. No name. (215) Area Code. Philadelphia.
The phone stopped buzzing. Then the voicemail icon popped up.
Cal stood up so fast his knee hit the table, rattling the cups.
“We have to go,” he said, his voice tight and unrecognizable.
“What? We just got here. Who was that?”
“Nobody,” Cal snapped. He grabbed his jacket, not even waiting for me. “I said we have to go, Silas.”
He turned and walked out into the rain without looking back.
The mood shift was catastrophic.
Cal didn’t speak on the cab ride back. He sat staring out the window, his jaw clenched so hard I could see the muscle jumping. When we got to the arena, the change was even worse. He wasn’t just quiet; he was vibrating with a toxic, frantic energy.
We were in a six-man tag. Cal wasn’t selling. He was shooting. He hit a clothesline on a jobber that looked like it practically took the guy’s head off. He was moving too fast, working too stiff, reckless with his own body and everyone else’s.
But the real explosion happened after the bell rang.
We were walking through the Gorilla position, adrenaline still high. Marcus Dane, a fifteen-year veteran and the locker room enforcer, was standing by the monitor. He was a massive man, six-foot five and built like a brick wall.
“Hey, kid,” Marcus barked, stepping in Cal’s path. “Slow it down out there. You almost broke that kid’s nose with that clothesline. Respect the work.”
On any other day, Cal would have nodded and apologized.
Today, Cal stopped. He looked Marcus up and down with a sneer of pure disdain.
“Maybe if he learned how to take a bump, I wouldn’t have to carry him,” Cal spat. “Move.”
The entire backstage area went silent.
Marcus’s face turned purple. In a second, he had Cal pinned against the concrete wall, his massive forearm crushing Cal’s throat.
“You listen to me, you little punk,” Marcus growled, his fist cocked back. “I will beat the respect into you right here. You think because you sell T shirts you’re untouchable?”
Cal didn’t flinch. He didn’t fight back. He just stared at Marcus with dead, empty eyes, almost daring him to do it.
Do it, his eyes said. Hurt me. I’m used to it.
“Marcus! Don’t!” I shouted, rushing forward, grabbing Marcus’s arm. “Let him go! He’s off. He’s sick. Let him go!”
Other wrestlers jumped in, pulling the big man back. Marcus released Cal with a shove.
“Keep your boy on a leash, Reed,” Marcus warned, pointing a finger at me. “Or he won’t make it to Scotland.”
Cal didn’t say a word. He walked away, completely unbothered by the fact that he had almost been destroyed.
Evan was waiting further down the hall. He looked terrified.
“Jesus Christ,” Evan whispered, pulling me aside as Cal disappeared into the locker room. “He has a death wish, Si. Marcus Dane eats people like us for breakfast.”
“I know,” I said, my heart hammering.
“What is going on with him?” Evan asked, his voice low and serious. “I know we joke around, and I know Cal is… Cal. But this isn’t him being a Rockstar. This is him self-destructing. He’s looking for a fight he can’t win.”
Evan gripped my shoulder.
“You have to talk to him,” Evan urged. “He thinks I’m an idiot. He thinks everyone else is a mark. But he listens to you.”
I nodded, watching the door Cal had vanished through. “I’ll handle it.”
The hotel room felt like a cage. Cal was pacing.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
He had showered, but he looked unclean. He was wearing gray sweatpants, his chest bare, his hair wet and messy. He kept looking at his phone on the nightstand, then turning his back on it, shoulders hunched.
“Just tell me,” I said quietly from the edge of the bed.
Cal stopped. He didn’t turn around. He stood facing the wall, his head bowed.
“He left a voicemail,” Cal whispered.
“Who?”
“My dad.”
The air left the room. I knew Cal’s dad was the monster of his life, the alcoholic, the abuser, but he was a ghost. He hadn’t been real since Cal ran away as a teenager.
“He sounded… old,” Cal said, his voice trembling. “He said he saw the match in Puerto Rico. Said I looked ‘strong’. Like he didn’t spend years beating the strength out of me.”
Cal walked to the window, pressing his forehead against the cold glass. I saw his reflection. He was fighting it. His jaw was set tight, his eyes blinking rapidly, trying to hold back the tide.
“Delete it, he’s just trying to get in your head.”
“I know,” Cal laughed, a jagged, wet sound. “I know that. But it made me think about her.”
“Who?”
Cal shuddered against the glass. A single tear tracked down his cheek. He turned his head away sharply, ashamed, trying to hide it.
“My mom. I ever tell you what happened with her?” he asked softly.
“No. You just said she left.”
“I found her,” Cal admitted, the words spilling out like black tar. “When I was twenty. Before the UWF. I spent weeks online, digging through public records, scrolling through Facebook profiles until my eyes bled.”
He took a shaky breath, his shoulders heaving.
“I found an address in Virginia. Nice neighborhood. So I drove down there. I slept in my car for two nights just watching the house.”
He finally turned to look at me. The devastation on his face broke my heart. There were tears tracking silently down his cheeks, but he wasn’t making a sound. He was trying so hard to be stone.
“She has a family . A husband. Another kid. A dog. She has a whole life.”
I stepped closer, my chest aching for him.
“Cal…”