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Taking Kota’s hand, I drag her behind me through the mob of obnoxious spectators chanting my nickname, down the hall, and back into the locker room. I close and lock the door before the Matthews siblings even get the chance to enter.
Eyes on hers, I begin removing my gloves, tape, and gauze. It’d be easier and quicker to just cut it all off, but I reuse my gloves.
It’s quieter in here, almost too quiet. Why isn’t she laying into me?
“You gonna say something?” I have to finally ask.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know. If you’re mad at me or…” Is there another possibility?
Please let there be another possibility.
“Well, I have every fucking reason to be. You lied to me!”
“Not…technically.”
Quick as a whip, she bites out, “Excuse me?”
If I had to pick between hearing Kota say those two words like that again or another one of Borys’s fists to the face, I’d choose the latter. Every time.
“I didn’t technically lie. I told you I fight a lot and I told you I was going to work. Technically, both are true.”
“You told me you worked graveyard.”
“Graveyard just means working late at night. Which…it’s night.”
“So this is what you…do? This is your work? Your job?”
I give a shrug-nod-headshake combination. “I mean, yeah. Basically.”
“You still lied by omission, Khaos. You weren’t honest with me about this.” She gestures at the door behind me before flicking her fingers at me dismissively. “You’re no better than Guy.”
“Excuse me?” My tone isn’t half as lethal as hers was. Still sharp as a pin, just not a dagger.
“He omitted the truth, too.”
“He stuck his dick in another girl. Repeatedly.”
“Why do you have to say it like that?”
“Because it’s the truth!” I can’t believe she’d compare me to that douchey little fuckhead. He has a mullet! He wears boat shoes! He’s a cheating piece of shit!
“The point isn’t what he hid, it’s that he was hiding something at all. Just like you.”
“I hid this for your protection. He hid his affair…” I sneer the word. “…for his.”
“My protection?”
“Yes. Yours. This place is a sinkhole of immorality.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To get my cut.” Why the fuck else would I sign up to get my head bashed in by a guy outside my weight class?
“Do you like it?” she asks in disbelief.
The tape and gauze get dropped in the garbage bin before I take my gloves over to my bag, switching them out for a towel to wipe up my face. Everything is tender and the towel comes away red. Shit. I can only imagine what I look like to Kota right now.
