Chapter 3
Dominic
The footage from Roman’s last sparring session has been playing on my laptop for the better part of an hour, and I’ve absorbed maybe half of it. The other half of my attention keeps drifting back to yesterday, running through every moment I let Brooke get under my skin.
I’m a grown man with a successful business. I have a fighter three weeks out from the biggest match of his career. And yesterday I stood in the middle of my own gym and argued about who started it like a teenager with a bruised ego while half my morning clients watched.
Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. And she has a lot of fucking nerve, acting like I’m the one who ruined her life when she’s the one who destroyed mine.
I rub my hands over my face and focus back to the screen, forcing myself to actually watch. There’s a pattern I’ve been tracking in Roman’s footwork, a slight drop on his left side when he gets winded.
It’s barely perceptible, the kind of thing most coaches would miss entirely, but his opponent in New York won’t miss it.
Victor Herrera has made a career out of exploiting exactly these kinds of micro-mistakes.
One dropped shoulder, one lazy guard, and Roman’s eating canvas while eighteen thousand people watch.
Not happening. Not on my watch.
A knock on my office door pulls me out of my head. Roman appears in the doorway, gym bag over his shoulder, looking rested and ready in a way that makes me acutely aware of how little sleep I got.
“Morning,” I say, setting down my pen. “Ready for training?”
“Yep, feeling good and ready to work.” Roman leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms, and the grin spreading across his face tells me exactly where this conversation is headed.
After yesterday’s disaster with Brooke, I’d kept things strictly professional for the rest of the session, focusing on technique and footwork and pretending the whole ugly scene hadn’t happened. But based on his mischievous expression, Roman has no intention of letting me maintain that fiction.
I shuffle some papers on my desk. “Something on your mind, Roman?”
“Just thinking about how interesting yesterday was,” he says, the grin widening.. “Educational, even. A masterclass in conflict resolution that I’ll treasure forever.”
“Well, I’m glad my professional meltdown was a learning opportunity for you,” I say dryly. “Always happy to provide teachable moments for the next generation.”
Roman laughs, shifting against the doorframe. “So, what’s the actual deal with you two? That seemed like more than the article thing you told me about. I’ve never seen you like that with anyone.”
“It’s a long story,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “We have history.”
History that goes back further and deeper than I’m going to get into with my twenty-three-year-old fighter.
The scholarship is the version I tell people when they ask, and it’s true enough.
It’s just not the whole truth. The whole truth involves parking lots and fogged-up windows and the worst mistake I ever made, which was letting Brooke Bennett close enough to actually hurt me.
“Was she your girlfriend or something?” He leans forward slightly, eyes bright with the unmistakable glee of someone who senses weakness and has every intention of exploiting it.
“No,” I say firmly, though it doesn’t sound that convincing.
Roman’s eyebrows shoot up, and that damn smile is back. “Hah, that’s so not convincing.”
“She wasn’t my girlfriend.” I sit up straighter and grab my clipboard from the desk, flipping through pages I’m definitely not reading.
“We knew each other in high school and competed for the same scholarship. Neither of us handled it with what you might call maturity or grace. It doesn’t matter anyway because today’s going to be different.
I’m not going to let myself lose my cool like that again. ”
“If you say so,” Roman says, pushing off the doorframe and grabbing his bag. “I’m just saying, it’s going to be a long couple of weeks if every time she walks in you two start circling each other like two people who desperately need to either fight or fu—“
“Finish that sentence and you’re running drills until you puke,” I tell him.
Roman laughs, throwing his head back, and raises his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. I’ll go and warm up.”
“Wise choice.” I’m going for stern but I can feel the corner of my mouth twitching, and from the look on Roman’s face, he catches it.
We head out to the main floor together. The gym is quiet at this hour, just a handful of the early morning regulars scattered across the equipment.
Roman and I start with footwork drills near the ring, working through fundamentals before building up to combinations.
I call out instructions, make corrections, adjust his stance when he drops that left shoulder.
For almost an hour I manage to stay focused on what’s in front of me, my attention narrowed down to Roman’s timing and technique and the fight that’s three weeks away. But part of me keeps drifting toward the door, like I’m waiting for a hurricane to make landfall.
And then she walks in.
I lose my train of thought entirely when I catch sight of Brooke pushing through the front entrance. She’s got coffee in one hand and her bag in the other, and she catches my eye across the gym and lifts her coffee cup in a little wave before heading toward the sitting area to observe.
I try to drag my attention back to Roman, but unfortunately for me she’s wearing jeans that let me know she’s managed to stay in very good shape over the years, and more than a few heads turn as she walks past.
She’s always had that effect on people. Between her looks and her confident, I’d-love-to-see-you-try attitude, it used to drive guys crazy trying to prove they were good enough for her. Not that I was any better when it came to Brooke Bennett.
I swallow against my suddenly dry throat and force my attention back to Roman, who is watching me with an expression that says he’s filing this away for future mockery.
“Focus,” I tell him.
“I am focused,” he says innocently. “Are you?”
“Drills. Puking. I mean it.”
We work for another two hours, and the whole time I’m aware of Brooke watching from her spot against the wall. When Roman finally heads to the recovery room, I grab my notes from the edge of the ring and make for my office, but Brooke falls into step beside me before I’m even close to the door.
“That was impressive,” she says, matching my pace. “The pattern in his guard, those small corrections. It was so subtle that I didn’t catch it until you pointed it out, and I don’t consider myself a slouch when it comes to this stuff.”
She’s definitely not a slouch. Brooke’s always been the sharpest person in whatever room she walked into and the hardest working, too. Not that I’d ever give her the satisfaction of knowing I respect that about her.
“That’s why he pays me,” I say, not slowing down.
“I’d love to talk more about your coaching approach,” she continues, completely undeterred by my lack of enthusiasm. “The technical side of what you do, how you personally prepare a fighter for a match like this.”
“I thought this was supposed to be a profile on Roman,” I say, finally stopping and turning to face her.
“It’s a profile on both of you,” she says.
“The fighter and the coach. You can’t understand one without understanding the other.
” She tilts her head, studying me in that way she has, like she’s cataloging every micro-expression for future reference.
“What made you decide to train him when you hadn’t trained competitive fighters in years? ”
I meet her eyes and hold them. “You of all people know why I stopped coaching competitive fighters.”
She breathes out through her nose, a sharp exhale that I remember from approximately ten thousand arguments we had in high school. “Come on, Dom. Let’s not do this. It’s a fair question for the piece and you know it.”
I clench my jaw, fighting the urge to snap back at her. She’s right, which is incredibly annoying. It is a question that any journalist would ask.
“Well?” She arches an eyebrow at me, tapping her heel against the floor in a rhythm that’s probably designed to be maximally irritating. “Are you going to stand there with that constipated look on your face or are you going to answer my question?”
“Listen, I—“ I stop myself before I say something I’ll regret. She makes it really hard to be the bigger person.
She grins, clearly enjoying watching me struggle. Insufferable. She’s absolutely insufferable.
I take a deep breath. “After everything that happened with my career, I stepped back from competitive coaching and focused on building the gym. Training people, running classes, that kind of thing. I love that work too, but… then Roman walked in about three years ago and I saw real talent. The kind you don’t see very often, but no one out here in Dark River to train him properly. So I took him on.”
“Just like that?” she asks.
“Just like that.” I shrug. “There’s nothing I love more than coaching, and Roman reminded me of that. He deserved a shot, and I could give him one, so I did.”
Brooke is quiet for a moment, and I brace myself for another question or snarky comment. With Brooke it’s always one or the other, and sometimes both at the same time.
“Dom!”
I turn to see two of my brothers. Great. Because what I need right now is a bigger audience for whatever disaster is about to unfold.
Alex is wearing the expression of delight reserved for younger siblings who have just stumbled onto premium blackmail material, while Theo shoots me a what-the-hell-is-going-on-here look.
My younger brothers never knew much about most of the mess between me and Brooke when we were in high school, but the article that tanked my career has been Midnight family lore for years.