Page 171 of Repairing the Wreckage

“It’s gonna be like this for the next couple of months,” Remy says to me after breakfast. “Surprised you don’t have to do a press tour to promote the fight.”

If I thought he’d been furious when I told him about what happened at the reunion show, it was nothing compared to when we watched it. They sensationalized the big “fight” between Molly and Kiki, including several slow-motion replays of Molly’s fist flying through the air.

He’s been a bit sharp with me since then.

I set my phone on the table. “I have to go down to the city for something mid-week,” I admit. “But nothing else out of town is on the schedule until I leave for Vegas. The company hosting it is going to send out a camera crew at some point to film me training.”

“That’ll be fun.” He rolls his eyes. “I hope you told Jerry before the announcement was made.”

I nod once. “I did. He was cool with it.”

“Good.” He lifts his chin. “Why don’t you come up to The Castle with me later?”

“You’re not hosting anything this weekend, are you?”

“No. But you keep saying you want to fix things up there. Let’s go. Start making a list of what needs to be done.”

“Molly’s going to be here in a few hours.” I pick up my phone and check for a text from her.

He groans. “Then let’s go now before you two disappear into your lair of love all weekend.”

“Lair of love?” I snort. “I guess it could be worse. There’s no disappearing. We’ve got that thing at the bar tomorrow night.”

Finally free of the show’s restraints, Remy, Vapor, and Eraser insisted on throwing a party to officially “welcome” me home.

“That’ll be a couple of hours max.” He walks out of the dining room. “Let’s go. And maybe bring your sparring gloves too,” he says over his shoulder.

Immediately suspicious, I clear my plates from the table and jog downstairs to find my gloves.

* * *

The Castle needs more work than I realized. I have a notebook with half the pages dedicated to lists of supplies we’ll need by the time we finish our walk-through.

“Told you it would be expensive,” Remy says. “We might be better off leveling the place and starting over.” He walks over to the duffel bag he brought with him and dropped off near the octagon-shaped cage in the center of the main room. “Now, what we really need to do is evaluate the cage.”

“Evaluate how?” Wary of the shift in Remy’s mood, I circle to the other side of the cage and grab my backpack off the steps.

“I think you know how.” Remy strips off his shirt, dropping it on top of the bag.

Ahhh, I should’ve known this was coming. Still, I can’t help fucking with him. “How? You planning to give me a lap dance or something?”

He slips on his gloves and stares at me.

All right. I’ve been getting back to the gym. Slowly starting training again. I might not be quite where I was before my fight with Naptime, but I’ve got this.

I find my gloves and wriggle my fingers into them.

Remy’s feral smile raises the hairs on the back of my neck. He really thinks he’s gonna win here, huh?

I lift my shirt over my head and hop up the stairs into the cage.

“Let’s do it, bro.” I tap my gloves together. They’re made for sparring, with more padding than what we’d wear in an actual match. Still won’t feel good to get smashed with one. I bounce on my toes in the center of the cage, trying to pump myself up.

I didn’t expect this today. But that’s always been part of training. You never know when you might encounter a fight. Always be ready.

Remy enters the cage with his hands up, already guarding his face.

“No ground rules?” I ask.

---