Chapter 6
SAWYER
The ropes burn like hell, which is exactly why I don’t stop.
I’ve got thirty seconds left in the set and sweat dripping down my spine, my calves tight and lungs working harder than they should be. Across the mat, Dom’s watching me with a smug-ass look plastered all over his face.
“Your form’s shit,” he says, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “You gonna pass out or finish?”
I grit my teeth and keep going. “Eat shit, Moretti.”
He grins. “You want me to call your mom? Maybe she can come finish for you.”
I finish the last jump, toss the rope on the ground, and flip him off with both hands. My heart’s pounding. My shirt’s soaked. And I feel better than I have all week.
This—this is what keeps me sane.
Dominic Moretti is every inch the Italian Stallion golden boy the media makes him out to be—dark brown hair, olive skin, those sharp, cocky brown eyes that have been on sports ads and ESPN reels since we were twenty-two.
He’s still boxing professionally, in Bozeman temporarily between bouts.
Says it’s for high-altitude conditioning, but I think he just likes the quiet.
The anonymity. Or maybe he’s dodging some girl in Vegas—with Dom, it’s usually one of those.
“You’ve slowed down since I got here,” he says, tossing me a towel. “Is old age turning you into a pussy?”
I chuck the towel back at him. “You know what? I hope you get knocked the fuck out in your next fight.”
Dom smirks, catching the towel one-handed. “Yeah, well, we both know that’s not gonna happen.”
I shoot him a look, reaching for my water. “Who’s next, anyway?”
“Viktor Draganov,” he says, like it’s no big deal.
I raise an eyebrow. “The guy who broke someone’s orbital bone last fall?”
“Yeah.” Dom grins like a lunatic. “He’s quick, but he drops his left when he’s tired. If I can wear him down early—”
“You’re insane,” I mutter, shaking my head.
Dominic Moretti climbed the ranks of professional boxing like he was shot out of a goddamn cannon.
The World Boxing Association. WBO. Golden Gloves.
Olympic Trials. The WBA. The IBF. Every acronym you can think of—he’s touched all of them.
He’s held a belt in every league worth giving a shit about, all before thirty, and now he’s one of the most recognizable faces in the sport.
And somehow, a few years back, we met at this very gym. I was fresh out of hell and he was fresh off a loss, both of us looking for a fight—him in the ring, me with myself. He took one look at me and tossed me a pair of gloves. “You look like you need to hit something,” he’d said.
I did.
We’ve been good friends ever since. He’s one of the few people in Bozeman who knows about Julia. About Violet. About everything.
And he’s never once made me talk about any of it. He just shows up. Glove in hand, mouth running, always ready to remind me that I’m still here.
Sometimes that’s enough.
“You know what would help with your stamina?” he asks casually, stretching out his arms.
“Don’t.”
“Sex.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“I’m serious,” he says. “Good cardio. Burns a shit ton of calories. Lowers your blood pressure. Plus, if it’s done right—”
“Dom.”
He shrugs. “I’m just saying if you got laid, maybe you’d stop grunting like a dying rhino every time we hit the weights.”
“Not all of us are out here racking up hotel points like you.”
He grins. “I like to stimulate the local economy. I’m a giver, sue me.”
“You’re gonna end up re-populating it, too, if you’re not careful.”
Dom sleeps with someone new every week. He’s rich as hell. Famous. And absolutely unbothered by the trail of lingerie and bad decisions he leaves behind in every city he visits. The guy’s got the sort of charisma that could talk a nun into bed.
I pull my shirt up to wipe the sweat off my face and catch him staring.
“You ever think about growing your hair out?” he asks randomly, tilting his head.
“No.”
He shakes his head. “Wasted potential, my guy.”
I flip him off again and reach for the jump rope.
The steady slap-slap-slap of the rope against the mat keeps time with my breathing. In. Out. Again. It’s the only rhythm I trust right now, the only thing drowning out the noise in my head.
Dom steps up beside me, grabbing another rope.
The man moves like gravity doesn’t apply to him—effortless, all coiled strength and quiet confidence.
His gold chain glints under the gym lights, swaying against his chest with every jump.
His tattoos ripple over his forearms, ink shifting like living shadows.
He doesn’t even look winded. The bastard.
Meanwhile, my lungs burn, my muscles scream, and my shirt sticks to my back like a second skin. But I don’t stop. Because stopping means thinking. And thinking means remembering.
“You good?” Dom’s voice cuts through my focus, casual but edged with something heavier.
I don’t glance over. “Yeah.”
A beat. Then a low scoff. “You’re always good, huh?”
This time, I do look. His jaw is set, his dark eyes flicking to me before darting away. He’s not fooled by my bullshit. He never is.
“I like keeping busy.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Busy isn’t the same as good.”
I grit my teeth and keep jumping. The rope bites into my palms, the burn a welcome distraction.
“Maybe you should talk to someone,” he says after a minute. “A professional someone who gets paid to deal with people like us.”
That makes me pause. “Do you?”
“Hell yeah. Have been for a while now. Helps me keep my head straight.”
For some reason, that catches me off guard.
Dominic Moretti—world-famous boxer, face on every billboard from Vegas to New York—talking about therapy.
Not that it’s a bad thing, it’s just unexpected coming from him.
That’s the thing about Dom. He’s all swagger and women and sarcasm, until he’s not. Until he says something like that.
“Huh. I guess you don’t seem like the type.”
That earns me a smirk. “Yeah, well, my therapist says punching people isn’t a healthy coping mechanism. Neither is whiskey. Or sex.”
A rough laugh escapes me. “Shocking revelation.”
His grin widens, but his eyes stay serious. “You’d like her. Calls me on my bullshit. Probably wouldn’t let you get away with yours, either.”
I shake my head. “Hard pass.”
He doesn’t push. He never does. That’s why we’ve lasted this long—he knows when to press and when to let things lie.
It’s not that I think therapy’s bullshit. I don’t. I’ve seen it help people. Hell, I’ve recommended it to clients when they lose a pet and can’t function. Told parents to take their kids when they have to put down a horse that’s been around longer than their barn.
But me?
I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to sit on some couch and unpack the worst day of my life.
I don’t want to hear someone tell me it wasn’t my fault, or that grief comes in waves, or whatever the hell you’re supposed to say to someone who watched their whole future get wiped out in one second.
I was there. I saw it. I live with the movie reel in my head already. I don’t need to hit replay for someone else’s benefit.
So, no. Therapy’s not for me.
I’d rather sweat it out. Run it off. Bury it under work and routine and enough hours at the clinic to forget what month it is.
It’s not healthy. I know that. But it keeps the wheels turning. Dom gets that. Which is why he doesn’t say anything else.
We keep going, rounding out the last twenty minutes with abs and a burnout round on the bag. My shoulders ache, my lungs burn and there’s a fine layer of salt on my skin by the time we call it.
We head for the door, both of us still catching our breath. Dom grabs his duffel and slings it over his shoulder. “You working today?”
I shake my head, reaching for the door. “Just gotta hit the feed store. You?”
“Got a call with my manager. Wants to go over press stuff for the fight. You’d think after nearly a decade, he’d know I’m not gonna give a shit about lighting or camera angles.”
I push the door open for both of us. “You should. Your good side’s slipping up.”
He steps through with a laugh. “Piss off.”
“See you Friday.”
“Early,” he calls. “No excuses.”
I throw him a lazy salute. “Yes, sir.”
Outside, the air hits my skin like a slap—cold and sharp and clean. I head to the far end of the lot where my car’s parked. Black Audi SUV. Leather seats. Heated steering wheel. Handles like a dream in the snow.
It’s not subtle. But I’ve never cared much about subtle. I make good money at the clinic. I work too damn much not to. So yeah—I splurge sometimes. On cars. On boots. On espresso machines. There’s something about having nice things that makes everything else feel…manageable.
The feed store’s ten minutes down the highway, tucked behind a line of tall pines and a gas station that still has one working pump and a flickering sign that hasn’t lit up right in years. You can smell the diesel before you even turn off the road.
It’s always looked the same. Low roof, long front porch sagging just slightly in the middle, and a warped wooden sign that just says FEED in faded red letters, the paint worn thin by years of wind and grit.
The lot is half-packed snow, half gravel, and the crunch under my tires disappears into the stillness.
Summit Springs stretches wide out here—long fences, bare fields, and a sky that makes everything feel farther apart than it is.
Most of the town sits in the valley between two ridges, where the sun lingers a little longer at the end of the day.
You’ve got your basics: a cafe that changes owners every few years but never its menu, a post office where half the town picks up their mail in person, and a hardware store.