Chapter 29 – Ashton
ASHTON
I’m not in my right mind going into this fight tonight.
Everything is fucked. I’m trying to suck it up, trying to paint a happy-go-lucky smile on my face, but nothing can distract me from how pissed off I am at Alec right now. I can’t even stand being in the same room as him, can’t look at him without wanting to kill him.
This morning, I caved and sent Sydney a text asking if I could see her, just to talk. I invited her to my fight again, hoping it would be low-stakes enough that maybe she’d agree to come and watch, and maybe we could chat after. My texts have all gone unanswered.
Still, there’s a chance she’ll show, right?
I scan the arena on my way to the locker room, looking for her, my eyes landing on every head of curly brown hair in the place. But I don’t see her. Even worse, I don’t see any of them.
No one is here to watch me tonight.
I’ve never had a fight where none of my brothers showed up to support me, but I get it.
We’re not exactly chummy right now. It still hurts.
Their not being here reminds me of how it felt every time I was sent to live with a new foster family.
It never mattered if the family was kind, or rich, or loving, or anything.
It was the loneliest fucking thing in the world to be taken away from them.
I hated it, hated leaving my brothers behind.
For me, it was always all four of us together, or nothing. And I guess tonight, it’s nothing.
“Two-minute warning, champ,” my trainer, Zach, says, snapping me out of my reverie. He takes my hands to adjust my wraps, checking the tightness. “You good?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” I murmur. I sure as fuck don’t mean it.
“Get your head together. This guy is undefeated this season.”
I scowl, shaking out my limbs and stretching my muscles. “He’s only had five fights. That’s not exactly an impressive record. Trust me, I’ll be fine.”
He gives me a skeptical look, but you know what? Fuck him.
I can do this. I will do this. I always do.
“Okay. Let’s get out there then.” Zach grabs my sweat towel and water bottle, leading me up to the arena.
The announcer’s voice booms, filling the building.
The crowd is wild tonight. I haven’t fought in a while, and there’s a palpable excitement from the spectators at seeing me back in the ring.
That’s what the crowd wants. They’re here to see me, to see what I can do.
To see me win. That’s the reputation I built for myself over the years, even back in my days of underground fighting, before Dante.
In my best years, no one could put up a real fight against me.
And when I retired, I retired on top. That’s the way to do it, the only way to go out.
But every few months, I still like to jump back into the ring to remind them I’m not just a pretty face.
I’m lethal. I’m a killer.
The crowd roars when I step into the ring. I throw a few showy punches and glance across the platform at my opponent. He’s big. Bigger than I was expecting. We touch our gloves together and step back, ready for the first round to begin.
I know the moves. I know how to win. I’ve got this.
But when my eyes snag on a head full of brown curls in the front row, my heart skips a beat, and everything else around me disappears. Sydney?
Is that her?
Did she really come to see me?
I don’t hear the bell.
And I don’t see the fist coming, not until it connects hard with my jaw.
It’s a bloodbath.
After the first hit, I can’t get my footing. I’m on the ropes the whole first round, and it only gets worse in the second.
I barely get a chance to hit the guy, but he sure as fuck manages to hit me.
“What the hell happened out there?” Zach asks one humiliating loss later, holding a bag of ice to my swollen eye in the locker room. I don’t have an answer for him. I stare up at the gray stucco ceiling, my back flat against the wooden bench, asking myself the same thing.
What happened?
She never came. That’s what happened.
She doesn’t want me anymore. That’s what happened.
My eye is so swollen, I don’t see the door open. I only hear it shut, and only realize Doc is there when he says, “Leave us.”
Shaking his head, Zach sets the ice down on the bench next to my face. “He’s all yours, man. Just go easy on him, okay?”
Yeah, right, I think, as the door closes behind him. Fat chance of that.
“I don’t need your help,” I grumble, as Sebastian sets his med bag down next to me and starts pulling out supplies.
“Too fucking bad,” he says in an annoyingly even tone, snapping on a pair of blue gloves. “Hire another personal physician then.”
We’re quiet as he pulls out a square of gauze and applies a nauseatingly bright orange antiseptic to the cut above my eye. The smell is so strong it burns my sinuses.
“She didn’t come,” I murmur, voice low.
My brother’s hand stills, and his eyes flick to mine. “Who?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
“You fucking know who,” I answer. I swallow hard. “I thought after she learned the truth about Annika that she’d come back.”
Sebastian swears under his breath, tossing the gauze into the trash. “It’s not that simple. Do you want to know why she didn’t come?”
I want you to jump off a cliff, I think. I want to drag you into the ring and beat the shit out of you.
“Because I don’t give her space? I text too much?” I glare at him, as best as I’m able. “You sound like a broken record. I get it, okay?”
“You don’t get it, though. You think you can just re-insert yourself back into her life whenever you want? Without her asking for it?” He lets out a frustrated breath. “This isn’t about Annika. This is about you not giving a shit about her boundaries.”
“Whoa!” I sit up so fast that I almost black out, white dots forming in front of my eyes.
The moment the room stops spinning long enough for me to focus, I shove a finger into Doc’s chest. “Fuck you! I don’t give a shit about her boundaries?
That’s a fucking joke coming from you, asshole!
” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “I can promise you right now, no woman has ever cried after I finished with her.”
“Boundaries don’t just exist in the bedroom. You get that, right?” Sebastian says, glaring at me. “That’s your problem, Ashton. You hear ‘consent’ and you pat yourself on the back for understanding safe words.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I wave my hands around. “I am the consent king. I have never, ever pushed a woman too far. I’ve always stopped when asked. And I’ve always listened to those fucking safe words.”
He levels an irritated look at me. “What did Sydney first tell you? When you spoke to her that night on the phone?”
I scramble to remember, the pain in my face making it difficult. “That she was drunk,” I say.
“You fucking idiot.” Sebastian rolls his eyes so hard it’s a struggle for me not to slap the glasses off his face. “She told you she wanted space. Maybe it was for something we didn’t understand, but that shouldn’t matter. She told you what she needed from you.”
Right. Yeah, she did.
“And what did you do after she told you that?” he pesters.
“You’re going to need to get to your point real fast, asshole, because your face is looking more and more punchable by the second.”
“You texted her. Nonstop.” Sebastian stares at me, over the rim of his glasses. “And what did you do when she didn’t answer those text messages?”
“So fucking punchable right now,” I remind him.
“You went over there. To her place of work. Uninvited, unwanted, and unasked.” His eyes narrow at me. “Sydney put up a boundary and told you not to cross it. And you crossed it. Over and over again.”
I blink. Or, I try to. I wink, I guess, my right eye too swollen to cooperate.
“Boundaries don’t just exist in the bedroom, Ash,” Sebastian tells me. He sounds a little sad when he says it. “She told you to stop. And you didn’t listen.”
The breath comes out of me so fast it hurts. It feels like I got punched in the chest. “No. That’s… That’s not…” I think I might pass out. “That’s not true. I wouldn’t, I didn’t…”
Oh God.
I did.
The room tilts to the side, and Sebastian swears, reaching out to grab my shoulder. “You’re hyperventilating. Put your feet on the ground, head between your knees.”
I barely pay attention as he hauls me into position. There’s a sharp ringing in my ears.
“Take a deep breath,” Sebastian instructs me. His voice is almost soothing. He puts a hand on my back, rubbing a slow line up and down my spine.
I ignore him. “Holy shit,” I mutter, staring down at the space between my feet. “I’m an asshole.”
“Yeah,” Sebastian agrees. But his touch is light and calming. “You really are.”
I listen to him this time and take a deep breath. Then another. Slowly, the ringing in my ears starts to fade. My vision returns, and I watch a drop of crimson blood fall from my face and splatter on the floor, splashing my shoes.
“There you go. Sit back up. I need to stitch your face.”
This time, I don’t complain. I don’t call him names or imagine punching him. I sit up and hold still while my little brother does what he does best. Patching me back up after I break.
“What am I supposed to do?” I ask him.
Sebastian’s hands are steady as he breaks open a foil packet and pulls a needle attached to a long black suture out.
“Listen to her,” he says. “Give her time to process. If she comes back, don’t you want it to be on her terms? Not because you had to convince her?”
“Yeah.” I swallow. “You’re right.”
He doesn’t use a local anesthetic. We never have, not after my fights. When we first started out, just the four of us trying to make a living doing underground fights here in the city, we didn’t have access to anything like that. By the time Doc had his license, it had become almost routine for us.
A punishment I let him inflict.
He doesn’t say anything until the final stitch.
“I think she’ll be back,” he says softly. “When she’s ready.”
Fuck, I hope he’s right.