Chapter 26
APRIL - ORLANDO, FLORIDA
Now playing: THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND - Bad Omens
We had been at the Performance Center all day working with Lena, helping her with her technique and trying our hardest to get anything done with her level of ADHD. Keeping her on focus was like asking a small child to sit still at a jungle gym, never going to happen.
But when she stopped talking about something random long enough to focus, she was damn near perfecting moves in ways I’ve never seen a man or woman do.
She was gifted, gifted in a way only some of the greats dream of, and it wasn’t always highlighted in the women’s division of this industry.
She was so much more than a beautiful young woman.
She was talented, technically sound, and a hell of a fight in the ring.
She even gave Cal a run for his money when he told her to do a quick improv grapple session.
Her speed was something I don’t think I ever possessed, her flexibility made her lethal, and the height she would get on her aerials was borderline scary.
We probably could have helped her out and trained ourselves while the PC was open.
Honestly, there was no doubt in my mind that we could have done both.
But we didn’t want to. Neither of us did.
We both wanted time alone in this place.
Time alone in the place we found each other nearly a decade ago, where I found my soulmate, even if he is fucking annoying sometimes.
Lena left about twenty minutes ago. Tate gave us the okay to stay, and now, here we were. The gym lights were mostly off, except for a few. The ring was illuminated by a single spotlight over the center.
Cal and I were outside of the ring right now, lacing up our boots and taping our wrists, getting ready to finally train on our own together in the ring that inevitably brought us together.
“You know,” Cal started with a smirk as he watched me lace my boot. “Back then, before I knew that you were into guys, I used to think to myself, ‘What would he do if I just kissed him?’ while we were rolling around in that ring.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “I would have punched you, probably.”
“And then you would have wanted me to fuck you, probably,” he scoffed.
I rolled my eyes. Was he wrong? Probably not.
“I wasn’t into guys either,” I said snidely.
Cal raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you weren’t? What do you call it then?” he asked as he stepped closer to me.
“I was into you. Just one guy, thank you very much,” I said with a small smile.
Cal let out a satisfied noise of amusement. “So it’s just a me thing, huh?”
I nodded. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m gay, but given as you love to remind me, you’re the only man I’ve been with, so, yeah. It is a you thing, you fucking problem,” I said with a laugh as I stood.
“Let’s go train,” Cal said with a grin. He put his hands on my shoulders, spun me around, and smacked my ass, hard. It felt even more intense somehow since I was just in a pair of my tights to train in.
We climbed into the ring and started running a few drills, talking about spots for our Wrestle Empire match, what the match producers wanted us to do, moves of our own we wanted to throw in to make it better, and how we were going to battle it out in a sold-out football stadium for an hour.
The thought was horrifying, yet exhilarating all at once.
We still hadn’t trained with Evan yet to work out what his take was on the match, but in a way, this felt better.
Cal’s and my in ring chemistry and the way we were able to communicate in the ring was unmatched.
If we had our shit together first, it would be even easier to make Evan flow in the mix after.
We ran through the big sequences. Moving with a synergy that felt less like wrestling and more like dancing.
Cal caught me out of midair effortlessly.
I flung myself into hurricanrana, making sure my high flying was perfect.
There was even a spot where I had to actually pick Cal up and drop him, a move back seven years ago they wouldn’t have had me do because I was so much smaller. But now? Now I could handle his weight.
“Fuck, you look good like that,” Cal groaned as he locked me in a hold.
“Bet I look better on my knees,” I panted back, countering him.
“Keep talking like that and you won’t make it out of this ring walking straight,” Cal growled.
There was no touching beyond the wrestling moves, but we were feeling it so fucking intensely. The closeness, the sweat, the physical exertion, it was some sick new version of foreplay for us, and we were living for it.
“Whoever does the best gets head first,” I teased, breathless.
“Then get ready to have a sore jaw, Prince,” Cal shot back, lifting me for a slam.
After the final spot was done, we stepped back from one another, breathless, sweaty, and overly fucking horny. I couldn’t help but notice the fact that Cal was hard in his tights. Leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination.
“Little excited there, Champ?” I cracked, noticing the tent in his fabric as I stepped into his space.
“Hard not to be when you’re bending over in front of me for an hour,” Cal retorted, closing the gap. “Besides, you aren’t exactly subtle either.”
He stepped closer, his chest heaving, his eyes dark.
“I fantasize about getting to kiss you in the middle of the ring sometimes,” I admitted, my voice dropping.
Cal smirked, his mind taking a far dirtier turn than my genuinely innocent confession.
“Why stop there? Why not think of me fucking you in the middle of it instead?”
My cheeks flushed at the image. Cal was doing exactly what he wanted to, which was to get me riled up as much as humanly possible before we got to the hotel, so we could fuck until neither one of us could stay awake anymore.
And honestly, I wanted that. God, I wanted that.
Because being back here, in this place, this city, with him, going into what would be the biggest moments of both our careers, made me feel like a fucking King too.
“You know… there’s nobody here,” I teased with a smirk as Cal’s hands fell to my waist, and mine landed on his shoulders.
Cal let out a faint groan. “As tempting as it sounds, baby, I would much rather get you back to that hotel and fuck you in front of that giant bathroom mirror,” he countered with a devious look in his eye.
He didn’t give me a moment to respond before he was pulling me in and kissing me.
I reveled in the feeling, the pure thought.
Doing this, doing it in this ring, felt forbidden, because in a way, it was.
We were quite literally standing in the most sacred spot in our business, and we were practically sucking each other’s faces off.
We very quickly gathered our things and left the Performance Center after that, both of us far too eager to be getting back to that hotel.
It was going to be after midnight when we finally got there, and we had media tomorrow afternoon, but neither one of us really gave a damn.
The rush was too heavy, the desire was damn near suffocating, and we both knew exactly what we wanted.
The sound of my phone ringing next to my head woke me the next morning, but I simply ignored it. I was too comfortable to bother with it. And I also wasn’t waking up before my alarm on a day where I didn’t have to be up before six in the morning for any kind of flight, car ride, training, or media.
Cal and I inevitably stumbled into the hotel room last night and went at it for much longer than we needed to.
It was easily four in the morning by the time we finally decided we needed to rest. We didn’t bother getting up, putting clothes on, or even showering by that point.
We were exhausted. When the adrenaline of the training, weird wrestling foreplay, and the rush of making out in the middle of the ring finally faded, we were past the point of functioning enough to really clean up.
Evidence shown by our current state. Cal was facing the wall, and I was spooned up right behind him, stealing his warmth, reveling in the feeling of security I got from holding him like this.
He made me feel safe. Like I was wanted.
I wanted to live in this moment forever, even if I was barely awake again.
But then, I was pulled back to reality when Cal’s phone started to ring on the nightstand too, and mine populated a notification, showing I had four missed calls.
Cal shot up in the bed when he heard the phone, a groan of annoyance escaping his lips. I knew who he thought it was, probably expecting it to be Lena.
Cal’s face instantly turned serious when he clicked accept call.
“Hello?” Cal said in his professional, work voice.
I raised a brow as anxiety sent a jolt through my body. Who the fuck was calling us right now?
I reached over Cal and grabbed my own phone, turning the lock screen on to see the notifications that were flooding my screen.
They were missed calls and texts from Tate Martin.
And they had started at five this morning, when Cal and I were dead to the fucking world with exhaustion from a full-on fuck fest like we were in our early twenties again.
“Uh—No, he isn’t with me?” Cal said with confusion, turning to look at me as if asking what the fuck was happening.
I shrugged at him with the same look as his own on my face. I was confused as fuck. Tate never called us. He had no reason to.
“You want us to come right now?” Cal said to the person on the other end. “Yeah, yeah sure, I’ll see if I can get ahold of him. Text me the address.” Cal said, his voice becoming even more unreadable.
He clicked hang up and took a sharp inhale.
“Was that Tate?” I asked, my mind spinning in a million different directions.