Page 77 of Mean Machine

Thorne grabbed his mike first. “Hopefully he’s going to spend a few minutes memorising his face—it won’t look the same for quite a while after they pick him up from the canvas.”

Brooklyn turned towards Thorne, who still didn’t meet his gaze. “There’s no bloody way you knock me out.”

“Pound for pound, I’m a much harder puncher than Mr Mean Machine here. Now that his masters are no longer giving him the whip regularly, he won’t be able to cope with the pain.”

Now Brooklyn was off his chair, and Joseph immediately moved to get between them. “There’s one man in this room who likes a spot of whipping, and it’s not bloody me!”

Thorne grinned and only half turned his head, as if it was enough to keep Brooklyn in the corner of his eyes. “Let’s keep things PG in this room, Mr Marshall. Much like your punches.” He stood, smiled at the chuckling journalists. “Ladies and gentlemen, I hope to see you all at my party tomorrow evening.”

His exit was unhurried, while Joseph eyed Brooklyn warily to ensure he wasn’t going to jump over the tables and go after him. Of course he wasn’t, but he also wasn’t going to sit back down now that Thorne had effectively ended the press conference. Thorne’s sense of theatrics was definitely good—end it all on a high note and make it appear dignified, with matters unresolved and hanging in the air instead of appearing as if he’d flounced off.

“To the room?” Joseph asked under his breath.

Brooklyn nodded, collected himself, and was glad when his crew gathered around him to get him out of the conference area of the hotel and up to his room. The hotel was close enough to Madison Square Garden that Brooklyn could have jogged to the venue without breaking a sweat. Just the name of the venue was magic, though inside, it was smaller than he’d imagined it. Almost twenty thousand seats, Joseph had said, with tickets costing up to a thousand dollars for seats close enough to almost get sprayed with sweat when a blow connected.

Every single one sold out months ago.

Joseph pretty much herded him to his suite—once on the reserved floor, his various crew members fell away to their own rooms, until it was only Brooklyn and Joseph in the huge suite, and the first thing Joseph did was march to the kitchen. He returned with two very large bottles of water and pushed both against Brooklyn’s chest. “Drink.”

Brooklyn obeyed, set one bottle down in one of the chairs in the living room, opened the other one, and took a few mouthfuls.

“Now, what you do with the rest of the evening is none of my business,” Joseph said. “You want to fuck somebody, go ahead.”

Brooklyn almost spit out his water. “You know Nathaniel couldn’t make it.” Seemed there had been a work thing he couldn’t get away for long enough to jet across the Atlantic both ways, though Brooklyn suspected that was partly a white lie to cover up the fact that the media circus had unnerved Nathaniel more than he’d wanted to admit.

Joseph gave him that cool, even look that said Brooklyn was being deliberately dense right now. “If it helps you relax and focus, you could get a pro or two after the massage. My only rule is you need a full night’s sleep.”

“What happened to ‘Sex makes legs weak’?”

“That’s someRockyshit.” Joseph huffed. “Did Les believe that bullshit?”

“Ali did. He didn’t fuck for six weeks before a fight.”

“Hate to break it to you, but you’re not Ali, white boy, and that sex thing is an old wives’ tale.” Joseph nodded towards the door. “Pretty sure the hotel clerks can recommend an agency or something. I’d get it sorted, but I’d need to know your preferred gender. Or genders.”

They’d never got close enough that Brooklyn had any idea whether Joseph had an issue with his sexuality. Not a comment about sex, not a word about Nathaniel or how the media worked the sexuality angle. With Les, there had been this weird thing between them—maybe ultimately possessiveness, an attempt to control—but Joseph was all business. No need to control, punish, or force Brooklyn. He was more than willing to do what Joseph told him to because Cash trusted Joseph and Joseph had proved to be a man of integrity. He simply seemed to accept the fact that Brooklyn had been married to a woman and now dated a man.

And as Joseph had brought it up: this was the ultimate freedom, wasn’t it—go with a prostitute or two and choose them like food from a menu because his trainer had told him it might relax him? Carte blanche. No judgement.

But the truth was, he hadn’t dated anybody else. Hadn’t slept with anybody but Nathaniel. Had actively avoided any temptation, though of course he still saw how attractive some people were, both men and women, but the interest had stayed academic. He’d been too focused on getting ready for this.

Even with all the opportunity in the world, he wasn’t interested. He’d be interested if Nathaniel were here, but he also understood that the man couldn’t be at his beck and call. He had no interest in a stranger—hadn’t since his trial at least. He’d been a shit husband before, and hormone-stupid even before that, only too happy to get himself into trouble any chance he got. Now that he had a choice, that choice was Nathaniel. Maybe that was “growing up;” maybe the years paying for his impulsiveness had changed him on some fundamental level. Maybe people did actually change.

“That’s a lot of thinking.” Joseph raised his eyebrows.

“I’m good, Coach.” Brooklyn took another mouthful of water. “I think I’ll have a long bath, dinner, and see if I can work out how to find anything good on the telly.”

“Let me know if you change your mind.”

“Yeah.” Brooklyn smiled, in part to shift the pensive feeling. “Thanks for getting me ready.”

“We’ll see if you’re ready tomorrow, but I think you did good.” Again, Joseph would never tell him he was proud of him—they respected each other, and that never needed to be said.

Brooklyn gathered up his water bottles when Joseph had left and went to run himself a bath. He tossed in the contents of a couple bottles of bath gel the hotel provided, stripped to his underwear, and sat on the toilet, watching the water run. He scrolled through the few contacts on his phone, then dialled Nathaniel’s number.

“Hey, Brooklyn, how are you?” Street noise and wind in the background, and Nathaniel’s breath sounded as if he were walking somewhere briskly. “I’m on the way home right now after a late meeting.”

“Just did the weigh-in. Nobody got hurt.”

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