CHAPTER SIX MILWAUKEE MADE #2
Competitors started seated, climbed twenty-five feet, struck a bell, descended under control, and repeated. Tyler moved like he skated: fast, economical, never wasting tension. He reached the bell before anyone else completed the first ascent.
On the second climb, his arms began to burn. He looked down.
Brock stood beneath the adjacent rope, pulling upward through brute force. His back widened with each reach. Legs locked around the rope. He was slower but relentless.
Tyler struck the bell and descended.
He won by three seconds.
Brock landed beside him.
“Two requests,” Tyler said.
“You planning to spend them?”
Tyler’s gaze traveled over Brock’s heaving chest. “Eventually.”
The weighted carry belonged to Brock. A three-hundred-pound yoke rested across each competitor’s shoulders for forty meters. Tyler lifted his and moved quickly, but the steel frame swayed around turns. Brock settled beneath the load and marched as if the weight had insulted his family.
He crossed five seconds ahead.
The announcer declared the captains tied in individual wins.
The scoreboard placed them two points behind the firefighters after three events. Tyler studied the totals while a producer tried to hurry him toward the break tent.
“Truck pull changes it,” Brock said.
“Only if both of us finish under thirty seconds.”
“Then both of us do.”
One firefighter overheard and laughed. “Hockey players always this confident?”
Tyler studied the four walking rescue vehicles. “Only when people are watching.”
The firefighter offered a chalked hand. “Make us work for it.”
Brock shook first. Tyler followed.
Competition without contempt felt new. Nobody needed an opponent diminished. Every athlete on the floor had chosen public strain, possible failure, and cold air against bare skin because victory would send money somewhere useful.
Tyler looked toward the children’s section. The boy from the community rink held a handmade sign: STRONG ENOUGH TO SHARE.
The words steadied him more effectively than any insult.
During the break, a trainer rubbed chalk into their palms beneath the sponsor tent. Cameras remained close. Tyler sat on a folding table while Brock stood between his knees, drinking water.
The position looked incidental.
It was not.
Brock’s broad back blocked the nearest camera. Tyler placed one chalked hand on his waist.
“You’re aroused,” Tyler said quietly.
“Observation or request?”
“Complaint.”
“You started it on the platform.”
“You took off your shirt.”
“So did five other men.”
“I wasn’t looking at them.”
Brock’s body moved closer between Tyler’s knees. “I know.”
Tyler felt the physical answer through both pairs of shorts. His hand tightened on Brock’s side.
“Cameras,” the trainer warned without looking up.
Tyler released him.
Brock turned toward the broadcast crew with an innocent expression and an obvious problem he concealed by holding his water bottle at waist level.
The truck pull came next.
A black Frost promotional truck weighed twelve thousand pounds. Athletes wore harnesses and dragged it thirty meters using a fixed rope. Wind had begun to carry flakes of snow through the rail yard.
Tyler went first for the captains.
The harness tightened across his chest and hips. At the horn, he leaned until his body formed a hard angle with the ground. The truck refused to move.
He drove again.
Tires rolled.
The crowd began chanting his name with each step. His calves burned. The rope tore at his chalked hands. He fixed his eyes on Brock beyond the line.
Brock shouted the rhythm.
“Drive. Hold. Again.”
Tyler obeyed until the bumper crossed at twenty-nine seconds.
Brock took the harness.
Tyler checked every strap himself. His fingers passed across Brock’s chest, around his waist, and along the broad muscles of his back under the practical excuse of safety.
“Too tight?” Tyler asked.
“Not remotely.”
“Shame.”
Brock gripped the rope.
The horn sounded.
He pulled.
Nothing about his technique was elegant. His body became a single line of force. Thighs drove, shoulders strained against the harness, and every scar across his torso tightened. Tyler ran backward near the truck, calling distance.
Brock crossed in twenty-seven seconds.
The captains moved into first place overall.
One event remained.
The partner relay had four stages. One athlete carried the other for thirty meters. They switched for a backward resistance drag. Then came a tandem sled push and a final fifty-yard sprint while linked by a heavy chain.
The lighter partner usually rode first.
Tyler stepped toward Brock. “Don’t enjoy this.”
“Impossible.”
Brock lifted him against his chest.
The position was not a fireman’s carry. Event rules required the carried athlete to remain in front so both team numbers stayed visible for cameras. Tyler locked both arms around Brock’s shoulders and both legs around his waist.
Their bare chests pressed together.
The crowd screamed approval.
“This was marketing’s idea,” Tyler said through his smile.
“Youth hockey.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Hold tighter.”
Tyler did.
The horn sounded.
Brock ran.
Each stride drove their bodies together. Tyler felt the strength of Brock’s arms beneath his thighs, the heat of his chest, and the unmistakable physical reaction between them. Tyler’s own arousal pressed back through the thin fabric of their shorts.
Brock’s breathing changed.
“Professional,” Tyler said near his ear.
“You’re wrapped around me.”
“For charity.”
Brock crossed the line and lowered him.
Tyler’s knees nearly failed for reasons unrelated to fatigue.
The resistance drag required Tyler to face forward with a rope around his waist while Brock sat on a weighted sled behind him. Including plates, the load exceeded four hundred pounds.
Tyler leaned into the rope.
“Move me,” Brock called.
Tyler drove.
His first step barely shifted the sled. He lowered his center, found traction, and pulled again. Brock’s full weight followed inch by inch. Every muscle in Tyler’s legs and back burned. The crowd blurred beyond effort.
Brock’s voice reached him.
“Ten meters.”
Tyler pulled.
“Five.”
The rope cut into his waist. His vision narrowed.
“Come on, Hayes.”
Tyler crossed the line and collapsed to one knee.
Brock left the sled, caught him beneath both arms, and lifted him upright.
“Still with me?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Good.”
They attacked the tandem sled together. Shoulders aligned beneath one steel bar, they drove in rhythm. The firefighters held a narrow lead in the next lane. The football players followed close behind.
At the chain sprint, Tyler took the front.
“Match me,” he told Brock.
“Always.”
They ran.
Tyler’s speed pulled the chain tight. Brock increased his stride. For one dangerous second, their rhythms fought. Then Brock adjusted and the chain slackened between them.
They crossed together half a step ahead of the firefighters.
The Frost captains had won.
Snow fell harder as confetti cannons fired black and white into the air. Tyler bent with hands on his knees. Brock caught him around the shoulders, drawing him upright for the cameras.
The announcer presented a check large enough to fund every promised rink.
Children from the youth program climbed onto the platform. Tyler and Brock knelt among them for photographs, still shirtless, exhausted, and trying to conceal physical reactions the cold had not erased.
One small girl flexed both arms between them.
Tyler copied her pose. Brock did too.
The resulting photograph appeared on every Milwaukee sports page before they reached the loft.
Leaving took another hour.
The network positioned them beneath hot lights for a live interview while snow melted across their shoulders. The host replayed the partner carry on a screen behind them in slow motion.
“That is remarkable trust,” she said. “Brock, what made you confident you could carry Tyler at full speed?”
Brock glanced at the image of Tyler locked around him. “He knows how to hold on.”
The audience laughed.
Tyler kept his broadcast smile. “Brock is strongest when someone tells him where to go.”
“And Tyler is happiest when he gets to do the telling.”
More laughter. The exchange would become another viral clip by evening.
The host turned serious. “You are very different athletes and very different public figures. Why does this partnership work?”
Tyler expected Brock to offer a safe line about complementary skills. Instead, Brock looked directly at him.
“He doesn’t ask me to be less strong so he can feel stronger,” Brock said.
The honest answer disarmed Tyler.
“And Lawson never mistakes speed for running away,” Tyler added.
Silence held for one second before the host recovered.
At the edge of the stage, Miss Alvarez stood with children from the community rink. They accepted the first ceremonial check. Brock knelt to speak with them while Tyler followed, the televised competition suddenly reduced to the promise inside one leaking building.
“When does work start?” the girl with purple laces asked.
“Monday,” Tyler said.
The producer looked surprised. Tyler had already called his foundation during the break and committed matching funds on the condition that construction begin immediately.
Brock learned this at the same moment as everyone else.
His gaze met Tyler’s over the child’s helmet.
There were cameras everywhere, so Brock could not touch him the way he wanted.
Tyler felt it anyway.
They entered through the garage carrying the trophy between them.
Tyler set it on the kitchen island beside the ledger.
“We both won,” Brock said.
“One command each.”
“Cancel out?”
“Never.”
Tyler opened to their signed agreement and tapped the final clause.
NAKED WRESTLING.
Brock looked toward the gym.
“Rules?”
“Pin for five seconds wins. Frost ends it. No strikes. No using injuries.” Tyler pointed at Brock’s bruised ribs. “Those are protected.”
“Your rope burn?”
“Protected.”
“Everything else?”
Tyler pulled his competition pants down and stepped out of them. “Available.”
Brock’s response became immediately visible.
He removed his own clothes without looking away.
They entered the gym naked.