Chapter 32
Kas
The last thing I wanted to do after breakfast is force myself to piss into a sample cup. Standing here with my cock in my hand, willing my bladder to muster up some urine is frustrating and extremely humbling.It’s also dampening any remaining joy I had after Mari had me inside of her mouth last night, even if the entire reason was—apparently—to get each other out of our systems.
After a lot of deliberation, I’ve realized that Mari is a fucking liar.
I’ve gotten to know her well throughout this trip. So well that I know giving me a blowjob to “get me out of her system” is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. This is the same woman that pretended the kiss didn’t affect her and then burst out with an admission about how she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Based on her reaction at breakfast, I don’t think I could be more in her system.
We were hiding our smiles through large mouthfuls of food and sneaking glances at each other across the table when the rest of the team was arguing over some meaningless bullshit about what brand of hot sauce goes best with egg. The debate continued at the gym with Bill’s insistence on “brown sauce” being the best condiment—I was a tiny bit grateful when the drug testers turned up and ended that conversation.
The restroom I’m being tested in is just off the gym floor instead of the ones in the changing rooms. Mari’s light, airy laugh filters through the door, followed by the cackles of the rest of the team.
“It’s like Kas was defrosted and experiencing the modern world for the first time,” she says.
My cheeks ache as I smile at Mari’s world-class storytelling of the livestream.
“Dehydrated?” the drug tester behind me jokes, nodding toward the toilet.
My body grows rigid and obscures his view of my dick. “Don’t say shit like that,” I warn.
His face drops into a scowl. Out of all the random drug checks I’ve had, this association member is my least favorite. He made some snide remarks about being a Ward fan and is getting off on being the one to babysit me while I provide a sample.
After way too long, I manage to get the sample and hand it to the unprofessional association member who checks it and seals it into a plastic bag.
I reenter the gym to find Davina rocking on a gym ball she managed to locate on the first day training here. Mari and Dash are on the edge of the ring; Mari is swinging her feet over the side and Dash is hanging upside down with his head next to her sneakers and blond hair brushing the floor. I step past Bill who is walking up and down the length of the gym while windmilling his arms.
“You know what to do,” the other drug tester says. She slides the clipboard to me and hands me a pen.
“Thanks,” I say, finishing my signature on the paperwork with a sweeping flourish.
The drug tester zips up her satchel and her colleague continues glowering at me, still disgruntled about my disapproval of his joke. “Right, we’re all done. Sorry for interrupting the start of your day.”
“What are your names again?” Davina asks.
She ends up chatting with the testers as I search through my bag next to the ring for Muay Thai shorts I swore I packed this morning. Last night threw me out of whack and I almost forgot my bag completely.
“You good?” Mari asks, watching me dig around. She looks warily at the testers. I know they make her nervous, even if she doesn’t say it.
“Yeah, I think I forgot to pack shorts.”
She nods and points to a set of lockers at the edge of the room. “The spare duffel I took from the home gym has a bunch of extra clothes inside.”
I discreetly squeeze her thigh as I pass, the rough denim of her shorts and the softness of her flesh beneath feels good under my palm.
I insert the locker code and locate the beat-up bag. As Mari said, there are extra clothes, including a pair of shorts I haven’t seen for at least a year. Yanking them out results in a faint clinking noise—glass against glass. It’s loud and has the attention of everyone in the gym. Maybe some cologne, or—
My hands fist around a vial smaller than my palm. It’s a vial I recognize from when I used to inject myself with Tren. I withdraw my hand and in my fist is exactly that: an empty steroid bottle. On the label adhered to the side are the words Trenbolone Acetate .
I look between the bag and the bottle. It’s not mine. It can’t be mine. I haven’t done steroids in years, let alone dispose of the empty vials in my own fucking bag. I squint at the bottle and try to disregard the blood rushing to my cheeks.
“What the fuck is that?” Bill shouts.
I explore the bag again, pulling out another vial, and another, and another. There are four vials in total, none of them mine.
I turn them in my hands, and as if in slow motion, my eyes land on every single person in the gym. The association members are walking toward me, their arms outstretched as they near. A small grin grows on the asshole tester’s face.
“You better be having a fucking laugh!” Bill yells again.
Dash stands and immediately jumps to my defense. “Lower your motherfucking tone, Bill.”
“It’s not mine,” I answer. Bill’s eyes narrow and he starts toward me. “I said it’s not fucking mine, Bill.” I stand, prepared to defend myself from his outrage.
Mari watches me through the frantic arguing of Bill and Dash, their arms flailing as they try to make sense of the situation. My jaw flexes under the pressure of my molars rubbing against each other. Mari is the only person with immediate access to that bag, but I don’t think she would’ve done this.
Her eyebrows knit together, and she points at me with a lecturing finger. “Don’t look at me like that, Kas,” she warns, hopping off the side of the ring.
“I’m not looking at you like anything,” I argue. I’m looking at her to make sure she doesn’t think these vials are mine.
“You think I did that?” Mari asks.
I shake my head. “Of course I don’t think you did that.”
Dash glances between us both, his arms outstretched. “Woah,” he says, now withdrawn from his argument with Bill to intercept us.
“We’re fine,” I say to Dash.
“It could’ve been anyone. Can we get the facts before we start going at each other’s necks?” Davina says, though I think it’s directed more at the testers who are already taking the vials from me and placing them into plastic bags. “Claire, Blake, can we take a step back for a moment?” Davina explains some contractual terms to the drug testers to intimidate them into silence.
Claire shakes her head. “Sorry, ma’am, we need to take these. We’re going to do a blood test while we’re here. Blake, can you phone the office?”
Blake, the asshole tester, nods to his superior and mumbles something only I can hear as he bypasses me, “Your team is dysfunctional as fuck.”
“They’re empty. We don’t know if they’re Kas’s,” Mari says.
“He wouldn’t take that shit,” Dash hisses at Bill; both of them are back to shouting at each other.
“Wouldn’t he?” Bill argues back.
Dash is unbelievably loyal to me, and for a brief moment I see that loyalty waver when he looks at me with doubtful eyes.
“I need the cleaners investigated. I need every single person who has been around this bag questioned,” Davina says with frightening calmness. “None of this makes any sense.”
“A full investigation will be made,” Claire says, setting up to collect a blood sample. “We’ll be able to get results back in the next few days to see if Kacper is clean.”
Davina shakes her head. “A few days is too long.”
“What the SFL chooses to do is out of my power, ma’am. We’re just third-party testers.”
“With all due respect, I need to be in communication with whoever will be in charge ...” Davina rambles on, collecting names and numbers.
Mari jots down all of them on her phone and avoids my eyes as I have my blood collected. I can’t even feel the prick of the needle in my skin.
“The steroids will be confiscated, and any action we take will be done after we test the samples. Regardless, we will have to monitor Kacper meticulously before the fight,” Claire explains. She zips up her satchel for the second time this morning. “Expect to see us regularly.”
With that, Blake and Claire exit the gym, leaving the rest of us to marinate in our varying states of emotion. Bill looks at me with an unflinching stare, trying to get an explanation from me.
“The fight was on short notice. Even if Kas was on them, he wouldn’t have time to cycle off,” Dash says.
Bill scoffs at Dash. “Don’t give me that shit.”
“Why would he take Tren, Bill? It’s the worst PED for a fighter, his cardio would be at an all-time low, and he’d be massive. He’s not a goddamn idiot. Right, Kas?”
I’m not taking them, but for some reason, there’s absolutely no fight in me to defend my innocence. The worst-case scenario is that I don’t do this fight, and honestly? That doesn’t sound too bad. My mom isn’t around to see this achievement, and the gym is already gaining more members than ever thanks to my ever-growing social media following—I don’t need to do the fight.
“Kas, you’d be doing us a favor if you advocated for yourself just a little bit,” Davina demands.
“They’re not mine, I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Listen, get on your phone and record a video being like, ‘hey, if you hear anything about steroids, it’s not true,’” Dash says with a hand on my shoulder.
“Hell no,” Mari says firmly. “Kas, do not lay a finger on your phone.”
Dash shakes his head. “I don’t see you coming up with a solution, Miss Social Media Manager. Didn’t you put the bag in the locker? How do we know you didn’t put that shit in it?”
“What the hell are you insinuating?” Mari says through gritted teeth. She storms up to Dash and he shrinks back a little.
“You’re the only person here that’s recently joined the team,” he mutters.
“Dash, stop blaming Mari,” I warn.
“This is insane! I would never do something like that! Do you genuinely think that?” Her voice cracks to reveal a layer of rawness, and she alternates her attention between Dash and me.
“I’m sorry, Mari, I’m just ... I don’t know,” Dash interrupts and pats his cheek like he’s trying to smack some sense into himself.
“Think before you speak, Dash, okay?” she chides.
Bill’s gaze is withdrawn, and he anxiously takes a puff from his vape. “I’m too old for this shit.” He takes his keys and walks out of the gym.
“Bill!” I shout.
“Bill, come back,” Davina says with a sigh.
“Let him go,” Dash says. “Don’t let the door hit your old, saggy ass on the way out!”
Dash exhales irritably and starts pacing the room the second the gym door slams shut.
Davina seats herself back on the gym ball. “Let’s not worry too much. The drug team is already doing an investigation—”
“Fuck that. This all reeks of Ward. I wouldn’t be surprised if he paid someone to plant that shit, he’s probably slid over a couple of stacks for the drug team to fuck up the investigation too,” Dash cuts in.
Mari stalks toward me and takes the bag from my grip to search through it herself. “See how you don’t think, Dash? Constantly jumping to accuse someone else instead of stopping and thinking,” she grumbles.
Davina’s lip quirks at Mari’s response.
Dash itches the new tattoo on his chest. “Oh, c’mon, Mari. I can guarantee that Devon would agree with me, and he’s known Kacper for years. He wouldn’t do that! It has to be someone else.”
“Kids, be quiet and let me think,” Davina says, rubbing her stomach.
Dash looks like he wants to say more and settles on dragging his hands down his face.
Mari peers up at me from her crouched position beside the bag. “This cannot get out. Kas, I’m going to create a brief statement just in case things get released. I wanna be preventive. I won’t even log my hours ... you don’t have to pay me, at this point, I just want to do what I can to help.”
I’m shaking my head in disagreement before she can even finish. “No, Mari, I don’t need you to do anything, I don’t need anyone to do shit,” I snap.
Hurt glasses over Mari’s eyes, and she pushes the duffel away from her, watching it flop on its side. “Okay, fine.”
“Mari . . .” I start.
“I’m just trying to help,” she says with eyes devoid of her usual spark. “This isn’t just a job to me anymore.”
She walks to the back of the gym and through the doors leading to the changing rooms. I stare at her with fidgeting hands and guilt clinging to me like a second skin.
Mari is desperate for this fight to work out by putting in extra work to make me successful, and it’s working. The steroid thing happens, and how do I repay her? I tell her I don’t want her to do shit when she’s begging to help.
“She’s right,” Davina says. “It could be worth trying to prevent online speculation, I’ve seen careers ruined by people jumping to conclusions.”
I nod at Davina, regret ballooning inside of me as I struggle to regulate my emotions.I think I care about Mari more than the fight. I know I care more about Mari than the fight.
It was easy to control at the beginning, but now? Now, for both of us, it’s starting to show.