Page 22 of Sealed in Ink

“Not quite that long.” I keep rolling my shoulders, thinking of the last night at the house, staying in my room, leaving in the morning, and not seeing Mary again since I inked her skin. I told Brad I had to start camp early. He understood. Of course, he did. He’s a good friend, unlike me. “I need to focus more.”

Marquis paces up and down with me, constantly trying to keep himself in my eyeline. “All you are is focus, Rust! You have nothing else. You are a focus machine. I’ve never had a fighter who can focus like you. Focusmore, Rust Hadley? You? That has to be a joke. You’re spitting poison in my ears.”

I nod to Mitch. “Let’s go again.”

“No, no, no.” Marquis waves his finger. “You’re not going to overtrain becauseyoufailed tofocus. You need to rest your body. Rest your mind. You’ll try harder tomorrow.”

“Lay off, coach. My wrist is hurting from holding those pads.”

“He’s right, though,” I tell Mitch. “I could’ve hit you harder, quicker, less distance, less telegraphed.”

“Thank you, yes, yes,” Marquis says. “You listen, Mr. Cage. This is how you get into the top fifteen and get a title shot. Notmy wrist hurts.”

“Coach,” Mitch chuckles. “Some folks might call you a bully.”

“Never to my face!” he declares, leaving the cage as he twirls his mustache.

“He looks like a villain when he does that,” Mitch says, taking out his man bun and toweling down his blond hair. He’s a light heavyweight, one weight class down from me, but he’s big since he water-cuts twenty pounds every fight. “I meant it about my wrists, bro.”

“He’s an ass, but he’s right,” I say. “It’s the mind, Mitch. It’s what I’m always telling you. The mind has to be one hundred percent focused on the task. Completely consumed by it.”

“It’s the heavyweight championship,” Mitch says in a confused tone. “Cain’s got the only win on you. What else are you thinking about?”

I grind my teeth. Besides what happened to me as a kid, I’ve never had a secret. That wasn’t a secret, really, because it’s just not worth talking about. No drama. This is different.

“Nothing,” I grunt, leaving the cage.

“You seen this shit?” Brad says on speakerphone. We chat like this fairly often, but sometimes, we’ll do video, too. Lately, I’ve made an excuse every time, not wanting to look at him or have him look at me. Just speaking to him is enough to make me feel wrong.Feel. I’ll never be the cold bastard I was before.

My woman has changed me. Notmy woman. Fuck.

“What is it?” I ask, watching the video recording of this morning’s grappling session, spotting severalobviousandavoidableerrors in positioning.

“Cain’s Instagram story.”

“I never watch that stuff.”

“It’s ridiculous.”

I swipe on my phone and open the app. I rarely even check it. I have a social media manager who shows up now and thendemanding photos to post on a staggered timeline, but that’s it. Finding Cain’s page, I click on his story.

Cain Cruz fills the screen, a large Mexican-American man with a black handlebar mustache and a thick neck, with weirdly childish, mischievous eyes. He’s sitting at a bar, wearing a cowboy hat. When he speaks, it’s in a unique mixture of a Texan and Mexican accent.

“Now you listen here, Rust. I dominated your ass once, and I was going easy. The simple fact is, you felt weak, boy. Weak andsoft. When I’m done ragdolling you around the cage, they’ll need a goddang body bag, and that’s afact.”

The story ends. I shrug. “It’s just talk, Brad.”

“It’s like he thinks you’re the same fighter you were back then.”

Usually, it gives me that content reaction when Brad starts defending me. It’s like we’re blood brothers, warriors against the rest of the world, the two kids who met at the lake and got the Cross back. But now, afterthat night, it’s all wrong.

“You were a blue belt back then, right?” he says.

“Yeah.”

“You’re a purple now. Almost brown.”

“Four stripes, yeah,” I tell him, “but don’t worry about belts too much. A purple can tap a black. Hell, even a blue can tap a black if he’s athletic, strong, and naturally talented. Cain is a white belt. He never trained Jiujutsu, just wrestling and MMA grappling.”

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