CHAPTER SIX MILWAUKEE MADE
Milwaukee decided its captains should pull a truck for charity.
The idea came from a local brewery, a sports network, and someone in the Frost marketing department who had studied Tyler’s engagement numbers whenever he appeared without a shirt.
By the time the proposal reached the players, banners had been printed, tickets had sold out, and five other teams of Wisconsin athletes had agreed to compete.
“Absolutely not,” Tyler said in the kitchen.
Brock looked up from the event packet. “Youth hockey gets the money.”
“I support youth hockey. I do not support televised tire abuse.”
“You afraid of losing?”
Tyler took the packet.
MILWAUKEE MADE: A STRONGMAN CHALLENGE, the cover announced above a photograph of the captains facing each other.
Events included tire flips, rope climbs, weighted carries, a truck pull, and a final partner relay. The captain team would compete against firefighters, football players, Olympic rowers, professional wrestlers, and two brothers who held a state record for carrying refrigerators.
Tyler turned the page. “What is a refrigerator-carrying record?”
“Wisconsin culture.”
“This state needs supervision.”
Brock pointed to the projected donation. The amount could renovate six community rinks and fund equipment for hundreds of children.
Tyler sighed. “We’re winning.”
“Naturally.”
The ledger appeared from beneath the copper bar.
They agreed that individual event victories would earn requests. Winning the overall competition would grant each man one command. If they tied, control would be settled privately through one final contest.
“Clothed?” Tyler asked.
Brock looked at him.
Tyler wrote NAKED WRESTLING beneath the terms.
“You’re very confident for a man about to lose on television,” Brock said.
“You’re very confident for a man who climbs rope like construction equipment.”
Training became a spectacle even before the event.
Brock had grown up working in his father’s machine shop and seemed personally acquainted with every heavy object.
He taught Tyler how to position his hips behind a tire, how to wrap a pulling rope without destroying his hands, and how to breathe beneath a weighted yoke.
Tyler taught Brock to climb efficiently, drive through short sprints, and stop trying to overpower equipment that could not feel intimidated.
Their private gym filled with new implements. A tractor tire occupied half the floor. Sandbags lined the brick wall. A heavy rope hung from the beam above the mats.
Every lesson involved contact.
Brock stood behind Tyler during carries, both hands at his waist to correct alignment. Tyler climbed the rope while Brock watched from below. Tyler straddled the tire to demonstrate foot placement. Brock lifted him off it when he refused to move.
Two days before the fundraiser, Brock drove Tyler south without explaining where they were going. The truck left the renovated warehouses behind and entered a neighborhood of duplexes, corner markets, and narrow streets glazed with early snow.
They stopped beside a concrete recreation center.
Inside, the community rink smelled of cold metal and ancient rubber. Water stains crossed the ceiling. Half the lights above the ice were dark. Children in mismatched equipment skated around orange cones while three volunteers collected loose pucks.
“This is one of the rinks?” Tyler asked.
Brock nodded. “Learned to stop here. Mostly by hitting that wall.”
An older woman in a red parka recognized him and crossed the lobby at surprising speed.
“Brock Lawson,” she said, catching his face between both mittened hands. “You finally came home.”
Brock submitted to the inspection with unusual humility. “Tyler, this is Miss Alvarez. She ran the first team I played on.”
“Ran?” she said. “I prevented twelve boys from killing one another while their fathers shouted bad advice.”
Her gaze moved to Tyler. “And you’re the fast one.”
“That is the nicest thing anyone in Milwaukee has called me.”
She hugged him before he could prepare.
The children abandoned the cones when they noticed the captains. For an hour, Tyler and Brock stayed on the ice in street shoes, passing pucks back, tightening helmet straps, and answering questions.
One boy asked Tyler whether famous players ever got afraid before games.
“Every time,” Tyler said.
The boy looked skeptical. “You don’t look afraid.”
“That’s because looking ready and feeling ready aren’t the same thing. You do the first until the second catches up.”
Across the rink, Brock heard. His eyes held Tyler’s for one quiet beat.
A girl with purple laces asked Brock why the ceiling leaked.
“Because people forgot this place matters,” he answered. “We’re going to remind them Saturday.”
Before leaving, Miss Alvarez showed them the equipment room. Sticks with cracked blades stood in a barrel. Skates were organized by size but not by matching pairs. A rusted dehumidifier rattled near the door.
“The fundraiser isn’t only cameras,” Brock said when they returned to the truck.
Tyler looked through the windshield at children carrying borrowed gear into the cold. “I know.”
“Marketing talks about six rinks. This one comes first.”
“You already decided.”
“I promised.”
Tyler watched him start the engine. Brock had returned to Milwaukee carrying the weight of every frozen lot, volunteer coach, and donated pair of skates that had built him. He treated hometown affection like a debt he could repay through force.
“Then we win,” Tyler said.
Brock looked over. “You hate the event.”
“I hate losing more.” Tyler rested one hand on the back of Brock’s neck and drew him close enough for a brief kiss. “And apparently I like your third-grade infrastructure projects.”
“Miss Alvarez coached me when I was eight.”
“Ancient history either way.”
Brock caught Tyler’s wrist before he could retreat. “You know what I like?”
“My charitable spirit?”
“That you didn’t give the kid a polished answer.”
Tyler’s smile faded.
“Famous part and tired part,” Brock said. “Both were there.”
He released Tyler’s hand and pulled into traffic.
The visit changed the fundraiser. Cameras could sell strength. Tyler would use his because children were waiting beneath a leaking roof.
The challenge was scheduled for a Saturday afternoon at the old Menomonee Valley rail yards.
November wind crossed the open grounds with nothing to slow it.
Temporary stands surrounded a competition floor of black rubber and steel.
Food trucks lined one side. A giant Frost flag snapped above the main stage.
Ten thousand people attended.
Tyler stepped from the team SUV wearing black warm-up pants and a sleeveless Frost hoodie. The crowd noise increased immediately. Cameras followed him down the barricade as he signed jerseys and posed with children in team hats.
Brock emerged behind him.
The hometown response shook the metal stands.
He wore a gray hoodie with the sleeves cut away, exposing the tattooed arm and thick forearms. Tyler watched him kneel to speak with a boy holding an old Lawson junior jersey. Brock signed the faded number twenty-seven, then removed the black knit cap from his own head and placed it on the boy.
Tyler looked away before the tenderness affected him visibly.
The competitors gathered beneath heat lamps for rules. Firefighters wore red. Football players wore green. The refrigerator brothers wore matching flannel shirts with the sleeves removed. Tyler and Brock wore Frost black.
“Shirts come off after introductions,” the producer said. “Sponsor request.”
Tyler looked at Brock. “Marketing engagement.”
“Youth hockey,” Brock reminded him.
“Those children owe me.”
The broadcast began at noon.
One by one, teams entered through smoke and cold sparks. When the announcer introduced the Frost captains, Tyler and Brock walked onto the platform from opposite sides. They met at center, removed their hoodies, and dropped them simultaneously.
The audience roared.
Cold air moved over Tyler’s bare chest. He had trained for cameras since his first endorsement contract. His body was lean, defined, and built for explosive speed. He knew how to turn beneath light, where to place his hands, and which expression would fill tomorrow’s promotional clips.
Brock knew none of those things.
He simply stood there.
His heavier body looked designed for labor rather than display. Dark hair covered his chest and narrowed along his abdomen. Scars crossed his ribs. The tattoo sleeve turned under shifting muscle. He appeared less polished than every athlete beside him and more powerful than all of them.
Tyler’s body reacted.
His loose competition shorts concealed most of it. Not enough from Brock.
Brock looked down briefly, then raised one eyebrow.
The front of his own shorts had tightened.
“Professional,” Tyler said without moving his smile.
“Youth hockey,” Brock answered.
The first event was the tire flip.
Each athlete had to turn a six-hundred-pound tire five times across a twenty-meter lane. Tyler went against the Olympic rower. Brock faced one of the refrigerator brothers.
Tyler crouched, drove both hands beneath the tread, and remembered Brock’s instructions.
Hips close. Chest high. Push through the ground.
The horn sounded.
The tire rose.
Tyler shifted one knee beneath it, changed grips, and shoved. Rubber struck the floor. He attacked again before it settled. The rower gained half a turn on the second flip. Tyler erased it on the fourth and drove the final edge across the line first.
He straightened, breathing hard, and looked toward Brock.
Brock had already finished.
He stood with one foot on the tire while the refrigerator brother completed his final turn.
“Show-off,” Tyler called.
Brock tapped one finger toward Tyler’s lane. “Request each.”
Sweat moved through the hair on his chest despite the cold.
Tyler’s arousal returned with irritating speed.
The rope climb favored Tyler.