10. Brady
brADY
The club is already half ours by the time I push through the door.
Eclipse on a Tuesday isn’t usually a fighter’s scene, but Theo shut down the back lounge for Victor’s birthday and stocked it with enough top-shelf to bankrupt a small country.
Theo doesn’t do anything by halves. Not the man’s clothes, not his music, not his love for Victor.
The bass thuds low through my chest, something deep and slow that Theo probably mixed himself.
Purple lights wash across the leather booths.
I spot Cruz immediately because Cruz is impossible to miss.
He’s six-two of grinning chaos with his arm slung around Dante’s shoulders like it’s the most casual thing in the world.
“There he is.” Cruz spots me and waves me over; his grin makes me feel like I’m walking into a joke or that I’m the joke. “Thought you got lost, pretty boy.”
“Traffic,” I supply.
“On a Tuesday night?” he asks.
“Shut up, Bennett.” I slide into the booth beside Dante, who passes me a beer.
“Coach here yet?” I ask.
Dante tips his bottle toward the far end of the lounge. “Corner booth. Brooding.”
I follow his gaze. Eli’s hunched over a glass of something amber, looking like he’d rather be doing literally anything else. Marco’s sitting opposite him, talking with that hand-on-the-table gesture he uses when he’s making someone see reason. Good luck with that one, Marco.
“And Dakota?” I ask.
Both of them go quiet. Cruz takes a long pull of his beer.
“Not here yet,” Dante says.
“She’s coming though, right?”
“She said she was.” Cruz shrugs, but I can see him scanning the door over my shoulder. He’s not subtle. Cruz has never been subtle about anything in his life. “Relax, Williams. Drink your beer.”
Instead of arguing, I drink my beer.
Across the lounge, Victor’s got Theo tucked against his side, one massive arm wrapped around Theo’s waist, and Theo’s laughing at something Sloane just said.
Theo throws his head back when he laughs, all that curly black hair catching the light.
He’s wearing some kind of mesh shirt under a leather jacket that probably cost more than my rent, and Victor is looking at him like the rest of the room doesn’t exist.
At first it kind of weirded me out. Watching Victor with him.
Not because they’re gay, but because Victor before Theo was a different man.
Harder. Sharper at the edges. Now he looks at his fiancé and his whole face softens, and it makes me think about things I’ve been trying not to think about for months.
“Brady.” Cruz is watching me watch them. His eyes do that crinkle thing. “You good?”
“I’m great.”
“You’re staring,” he pushes.
“I’m observing.”
“Mhm.”
Dante snorts into his beer.
Before Cruz can dig any deeper, Jonah materializes out of nowhere with Micah in tow. Jonah’s already a couple of drinks in. I can tell by the flush across his freckles and the brightness in his green eyes.
“Move over, you lazy bastards.” Jonah slides in next to me, herding Micah into the booth like he’s afraid the kid will bolt. “We’ve been talking to Theo’s friend Sloane for forty-five minutes, and I need a fighter to remind me I’m still in the right industry.”
“She’s terrifying,” Micah deadpans. “She knows the entire fight card for next month. Names, weights, records, sponsors. I think she’s going to put us all out of a job.”
“She runs Eclipse,” Dante says. “She runs Theo. Theo runs Victor. Victor runs us. Pretty sure she’s already got our jobs.”
“Cheers to that.” Cruz lifts his bottle.
We clink glasses.
“So.” Jonah props his chin on his hand. “Where’s the new girl?”
“Said she was coming,” I say.
“Heard she dropped Cruz on his ass in sparring,” Jonah teases.
“Eat shit, Carson.” Cruz flips him off.
“She did, though, right?” he asks.
“She caught me with a switch kick. Once. I’m letting her get comfortable,” Cruz replies.
“You’re letting her.” Dante’s voice is flat. “That’s what we’re going with.”
“That’s what we’re going with,” he replies.
Micah’s laughing into his beer. He’s quieter than usual tonight. He gets that way in crowds, but there’s a lightness to him I haven’t seen in a while. Ever since David, the ex who knocked him sideways for months, dumped him. It’s good to see him surface again.
The door opens, and Finn and Kai come in together, peeling off coats.
Finn’s got that loud-mouth Boston grin that fills any room he walks into, and Kai’s two steps behind him, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else and yet somehow can’t be more than a few feet from Finn’s side.
The new guys. They’ve been at Oath for three weeks now, and they already feel like family.
“Look at these handsome bastards.” Finn drops into the booth and immediately steals my beer. “Tell me there are shots. Tell me Theo has shots.”
“Theo has shots,” I say. “Theo has whatever you want. Give me back my beer.”
“Finders keepers, man,” he states.
Kai slides in beside Finn, fingers brushing his knee under the table. Subtle. I catch Cruz’s eye and he gives me the slightest smirk.
“How’s the new gym treating you?” Dante asks.
“Like a fucking miracle.” Finn’s grin softens around the edges. “I keep waiting for someone to say something. Make a comment. Three weeks and nobody’s said shit.”
“Nobody’s gonna say shit,” Cruz says. “Victor would feed them their own teeth.”
“I noticed.” Kai’s voice is quiet, careful, but there’s warmth underneath. “Coach Marco actually pulled me aside on my second day and told me if anyone gave me trouble, to come straight to him.”
“He does that with everyone,” Micah says. “He did it with me when I first came out. Cornered me by the speed bags and basically said, anyone gives you shit, hermano, I’ll handle it. Then handed me an energy bar like it was nothing.”
“That tracks.” Finn laughs.
Across the lounge, Marco’s still trying to talk Eli down from whatever ledge he’s perched on. Eli hasn’t touched his drink in five minutes. He keeps glancing at the door.
Don’t, I tell myself. Don’t think about it.
My brain doesn’t listen. I think about Dakota’s body close to mine while we drilled clinch work yesterday. The way her hair smelled when she ducked under my arm. The way she looked at me, holding my gaze for one beat too long before she walked away.
I think about Cruz pinned to the cage wall with blood on his lip, laughing. About Eli’s hand fisted in his shirt. About Dakota gripping the cage from outside, watching it all like it was something she’d made happen.
I drink half my beer in one go.
“Easy, killer.” Jonah nudges my shoulder. “Long night ahead.”
The door opens again and Remy and Hunter come in together.
Remy nods once at our booth, which is Remy’s version of a warm greeting.
Hunter raises a hand. They make their way to the bar, where Remy stands with his back perfectly straight and orders a drink.
Hunter is new here, only been at the gym for a few weeks.
Remy is an original member; he’s been here since before the rebrand, apparently before even Cruz.
“How’s Hunter doing?” I ask.
“Slept three nights through. Said it’s the longest stretch he’s had in months.”
“That’s huge,” I reply.
Jonah nods. “Yeah, it is.”
We sit with that for a second. The thing about this group—it’s all the small stuff.
Who slept. Who ate. Who’s struggling. Who’s not.
We notice each other in ways my last gym never did.
I came up at a place where the head coach didn’t know my middle name after two years.
Here, Marco knows my coffee order, and Cruz knows when I’m pretending I’m fine and Eli knows…
Eli knows too much.
The bar gets louder. More fighters trickle in.
Two of the women’s team join us; Lisa, with her tattooed knuckles and her sharp laugh, and Reese, who could break me in half.
Reese slides in next to Cruz and immediately starts giving him shit about his last sparring session.
Cruz takes it the way he takes everything, grinning, agreeable, hand around his beer.
Theo appears at our booth like a vision, balancing a tray of shot glasses he definitely should have made a server carry.
“Brady, darling.” He kisses the top of my head as he sets the tray down. He smells like cologne and cigarettes and something sweet underneath. “You look devastating tonight. Are we okay?”
“We’re great, Theo,” I reply.
“You’re frowning,” he jests.
“I’m thinking.”
“Dangerous.” He winks at me. “Don’t do it for too long. Shots are on the house. Victor says, and I quote, if my fighters aren’t drunk by midnight I’m cutting all your fucking salaries. Charming, isn’t he?”
“He really is,” Cruz says, making Theo laugh.
We take the shots. Whatever it is burns down my throat like jet fuel and tastes like cinnamon. Jonah immediately wants another. Micah refuses politely. Cruz throws his back like water and slaps the empty glass down on the table.
“Right.” He stands. “I’m getting Coach away from Marco before Marco talks him into early retirement. Watch my beer.”
He weaves through the crowd toward Eli’s corner.
I watch him go. He claps a massive hand on Eli’s shoulder and says something that makes Marco laugh and Eli’s mouth twitch in spite of itself.
It’s a gift, what Cruz does. Pulling people out of themselves, even the man who tried to put him through a cage yesterday.
He hauls Eli up out of the booth like he weighs nothing, and Eli lets him, and they’re halfway back to us when the door opens one more time.
Dakota.
She’s wearing jeans and a black tank top, and her hair is down, falling past her shoulders. There’s still something wary in the way she scans the room before she steps in. I notice because I notice every fucking single thing about her.
Cruz sees her before Eli does. He doesn’t react, but his hand stays where it is on Eli’s back, steering. Eli sees her about half a second later and goes very, very still.
Dakota spots us. Her eyes skip across Cruz, across Eli, across Dante. They land on me last and stay there.
“There you are,” I say when she reaches the booth. “Thought you bailed.”
“Got lost.” She slides in across from me. Right next to Jonah, who shifts to make room with easy charm.
“Dakota, this is Jonah. Micah. Finn, Kai. Reese, Lisa. Everyone, Dakota.”
“The famous Dakota.” Jonah’s grin is wicked. “I’ve heard exactly nothing about you, which means these assholes are obsessed.”
“Christ, Carson.” Dante drags a hand down his face.
“What? I’m being friendly,” Jonah defends.
“You’re being you,” Dante replies.
“Same thing.”
Dakota laughs. It’s a real laugh, surprised out of her, and my chest tightens. I haven’t heard her laugh like that. Not once. Not in two weeks of training, not in any of the moments we’ve been close enough to count breaths.
Cruz arrives behind her with Eli in tow. Eli doesn’t sit. He stands at the end of the booth with his drink in his hand, looking at Dakota like he’s trying to memorize her and pretend he isn’t doing it.
“Glad you came,” Eli says.
“Wouldn’t miss it, Coach,” she replies, her cheeks pink.
“Eli.”
“Eli.” She tries it out, looking up at him through her lashes. “Sit down. You’re making me nervous.”
He sits across from her. Beside Cruz, who’s grinning like Christmas came early.
Marco arrives a beat later, claps me on the shoulder. “Williams. You’re up. Victor wants the speech crew.”
“What speech crew?”
“The one I just made up. Come on.”
I groan but let him drag me out of the booth. As I stand I catch Dakota’s eye one more time. There’s a flicker of something in her eyes—amusement, recognition, maybe a question I’m not ready to answer.
Across the lounge, Victor is climbing up onto one of the leather banquettes with his beer raised, Theo tucked against his hip and grinning up at him like a man who can’t believe his luck. The whole gym. Every fighter, every coach, every loud-mouth and quiet one turns toward him.
“You miserable bastards.” Victor’s voice carries. “Get over here. I’m doing the thing.”
“He’s doing the thing!” Cruz roars from the booth, and the whole room laughs.
We all get up. We all move toward him. Even Eli, even Remy, even Kai who looks shy about it. We crowd around the banquette like kids at an assembly.
Victor looks down at us. At all of us. The gym he built. The fighters he kept. The new ones he gathered after the fallout. His face does that thing where the hardness drops away and there’s just him. Just the man.
“This is family,” he says. Simple. Quiet. “All of you. This is what we built. Theo and me and every one of you. So. Drink. Eat. Don’t break Theo’s fucking club.” He grins. “Happy birthday to me. I love you assholes.”
Cruz starts the applause. The rest of us follow. Theo’s laughing and pulling Victor down to kiss him and someone wolf-whistles, and Victor flips us off without breaking the kiss and the whole lounge erupts.
I find myself standing next to Dakota in the crush. Her shoulder presses against my arm. She doesn’t pull away.
“Is it always like this?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “Pretty much.”
She’s quiet for a second. Then, softly: “I’ve never had this.”
I don’t know what to say to that. So I do the only thing I can think of. I bump my shoulder against hers, gentle, and I leave it there.
“You do now,” I say.
She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t move away either.
Across the room, Eli is watching us. Cruz is watching Eli watching us. Dante is watching Cruz. And Theo, glittering and impossible, is watching all of us with the expression of a man who sees a story before anyone else has even opened the damned book..
I take a long drink of my beer.
It’s going to be a long night.