Epilogue Max
One year later
I bounce on the balls of my feet, bringing my leather gloves up defensively and not breaking eye contact with Kyle.
He circles me like a panther, light and strong, no trace of hesitation or pain on his face.
You wouldn’t know he was lying in a hospital bed battered and broken this time a year ago; the only reminder is a nasty scar on his leg which, ironically, was one of his more minor injuries.
He snaps out a lightning-fast jab that I barely slip, countering with a right hook that gets him right in the ribs.
It took me months to be able to spar with him without holding back again—too scared of tapping a rib that was only partially healed and hurting him again, or somehow breaking his arm in two like I’m the fucking Terminator.
Kyle got so pissed off with me that he backed me into the corner of the ring one quiet afternoon and told me he’d knock me out himself if I didn’t start hitting him back like a real alpha.
When all that did was turn me on, he followed through on his threat by nearly taking my head off with a brutal punch that finally convinced me he wasn’t going to shatter into a thousand pieces at the next strong breeze.
Now, he barely blinks when my fist lands in his ribs. He just grins through his mouthguard, his eyes flashing with that competitive spark that’s always got me riled up, although nowadays it’s in a very different way from before.
“That all you got?” he laughs, moving in closer, getting so close I can smell the subtle change in his scent as it morphs into something fractionally darker when his eyes fall on the purple mark on my neck that he refreshed last night.
He’s wearing a matching one over his own scent gland, and the thrill of seeing him with it still hasn’t worn off. I’m not sure it ever will.
It had been an instant giveaway that something had happened between us when I walked into the gym the day after Kyle’s rut ended.
Marcus had given me a sly smile like he knew all along, and Levi had walked up to me, taken one look at my neck and said, “So you and Kyle finally fucked, oui? About fucking time.” Then he’d walked away nonchalantly, leaving everyone else open-mouthed.
Honestly, it saved me a lot of awkward conversations.
“I’m pacing myself, dumbass,” I grin, aiming another jab at Kyle and cursing when he dodges it easily and hooks his arm around me, trapping me in a clinch that forces our foreheads together. “Don’t want to blow my load too soon.”
“Usually that’s your specialty,” he taunts, his arms still locked around me, that wicked grin doing things to me that I shouldn’t be entertaining the thought of at the gym. At work.
I wonder how quiet the locker room is.
“Hey, lovebirds! Break it up or get a room!”
A gruff voice echoes across the gym. Kyle doesn’t let go immediately, but he shifts so we can both glance over the top rope. Marcus is standing at the edge of the ring with a clipboard tucked under his arm, looking grumpier than usual. Dylan is beside him, shaking his head with a smile.
“Some of us have actual fighters who need to use the ring for real sparring,” Marcus grunts, crossing his thick arms.
“We are using it for real sparring,” Kyle says indignantly, although he releases his hold on me, spitting out his mouthguard.
We head back to the locker room side by side, arms brushing easily.
The gym members we pass don’t bat an eyelid—they never did, really.
It was controversial when Marcus and Alex went public, and slightly shocking when everyone started figuring out that Dyl and Levi were more than just slightly-too-intense rivals, but by the time Kyle and I got together, another alpha/alpha couple was old news.
We were such a package deal from the start that half the gym apparently assumed we were a couple already.
The Foundry was the easy part—the outside world, not so much.
Marcus was right about that part, unfortunately, but luckily we’re two six-foot alpha boxers, and people are more likely to mumble something unkind under their breath than attempt to start anything with us; that’s not a fight that anyone’s winning.
The noise of the gym drops away in the locker room, the air in here still and smelling faintly of shower gel and pine cleaning solution. Kyle sits heavily on the bench and starts unlacing his shoes.
I step between his knees before he can pull his socks off, reaching down to lift his chin and tilt his face to meet mine.
“Hmm?” he hums, smiling faintly, his chest still rising and falling from the workout. He smells like sweat and hazelnuts.
“You gave me a run for my money today,” I grin, running my thumb softly over the rough stubble on his jaw. “Your arm okay? Ribs feel fine?”
I know the answer, but I still have to ask, and Kyle indulges me every time.
“Perfect,” he sighs, nuzzling his face into my hand, suddenly a softer version of the alpha who’s always had so much bravado, the version that only I get to see. “We going home?”
Home is our apartment. Formerly Kyle’s, but I’d moved in before his rut pheromones had had a chance to fade.
We never had a conversation about it—we didn’t need to after we’d confessed how much we both missed living in each other’s pockets—but Kyle had a shiny new set of keys waiting for me on the kitchen counter when I came back from work the next day, and I handed in my formal notice to my old landlord the day after that.
“Yeah,” I say, running my hand through his mussed hair one last time before stepping back to give him space. “Let’s shower at the apartment. I think Marcus might pop a blood vessel if he walks in on us again.”
“As if he and Alex haven’t desecrated that shower more times than any of us even know,” he says, lifting his shirt over his head and grinning when he catches me admiring his broad, defined chest.
“That’s exactly why we all came to the agreement,” I say. “No communal shower activities. Not anymore. Besides, I’m planning to do things to you that I don't want either of us to have to keep quiet for.”
Kyle gets changed in record time after that.
Ten minutes later, dressed in loose sweatpants and worn-out t-shirts, we walk out the front doors of the gym into the cool evening air. The sun is setting behind the city skyline, painting the clouds in deep shades of gold and burnt orange.
Kyle tosses his gym bag into the bed of my truck and leans back against the passenger side door, waiting while I dig my keys out.
He looks relaxed, all that restless alpha tension that used to sit in his shoulders when we were just two straight guys chasing omegas all but disappeared.
I never noticed it was there, until one day I looked over at him and realized it was gone.
“What do you want for dinner?” I ask, unlocking the truck and sliding into the driver’s seat.
“I’ll cook steak,” he says, climbing into the passenger side and switching on the radio, “if you do those roast potatoes you make.”
“I made those two nights ago.”
“And they were fucking great,” he says, punching my shoulder hard enough that it would rattle anyone else, but I don’t flinch. “Make ‘em again.”
“You're spoiled,” I mutter, but I'm already planning the grocery run in my head.
“Yep,” Kyle says brightly, and then he leans over the console and kisses me right on the mouth, not caring that we’re in the middle of a commercial parking lot, or that some of the gym’s regulars are walking past the truck as they head out.
He just presses his lips against mine, a growl rumbling deep in his chest, his scent thickening.
“Shower first, though. A long, long shower.”
“You fucking animal,” I murmur.
“As if you aren’t.”
“Not as much as you,” I lie.
Kyle laughs and slaps my thigh, turning up the radio and stretching out in the passenger seat as I crank the engine and pull out into the road, heading home.
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