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I step closer to him. “I’m glad you’re my family.”
His hand lifts to the side of my face, and he presses his lips to mine in a soft kiss.
“Moon and stars, Tiger.”
“Moon and stars, Mitchell.”
FORTY
The Vegas sky is full of stars, and the bright moon illuminates the bare desert around us.
And Luca won’t shut the fuck up about it.
Apparently it’s a Waning Gibbous moon and he’s obsessing over the fact that it symbolizes a time for gratitude and looking inwards to reevaluate goals. I get it, it’s the perfect night for it. We just had our weigh-in and made weight, and LFA is tomorrow night. I’m beyond grateful for where I am right now, and if we win this fight, it could mean so much for our future.
But he’s been talking about this fucking moon for almost twenty minutes now.
“And,” Luca says, taking the last bite of his meal as we sit on the hood of the car we rented, “during this phase of the moon, you can expect personal growth since you become so self-aware.” He looks at me as I lie back on the hood. “I may have to take a look back and see how your growth has coincided with the moon phases. That would be a cool experiment.”
I run a hand over my face with a sigh. “Do whatever you need to do, but please just shut the fuck up.”
He chuckles as he lies back on the hood beside me. “Would you rather be looking at the moon and listening to me, or watching Mulan?”
I turn my head to look at him. “Trick question. I know we’re doing both.”
He smiles widely. “See? Growth.”
With a sigh, I turn back to the starry sky. My eyes roam over the dense clusters of stars, and it’s crazy to think that we’re just a short distance outside the city. The desert is empty and quiet, and it’s the perfect place to take a moment and prepare for everything that is going to happen tomorrow, in the biggest fight of our lives so far.
We’re both quiet as we look up at the sky, and my eyes slowly trace over the moon and the stars.
“It’s all so big, isn’t it?” Luca asks quietly.
And I know he’s not talking about the sky.
I nod, keeping my eyes up. “Yeah.” My mind travels back to the weigh-in this evening, and how busy and huge it was. There were cameras everywhere, reporters wanting to interview us, and everything felt so official and important.
“I can’t believe we’re here,” Luca says as he turns his head to look at me. “We actually did it.”
I roll my head towards him, meeting his eyes. “We did.”
He smiles softly. “Next up, UFC…”
A smile makes its way onto my lips as well as I stare back at him, and the moonlight highlights his eyes so I can see the excitement in them.
And I feel it in me too. Making it to the UFC has been my goal ever since I became serious about MMA. I was desperate to escape a life I didn’t want, and MMA gave me everything I was looking for. I threw myself into training, and it was all that mattered. Nothing was going to distract me from achieving my dream.
Until this fucker came along.
He challenged me, distracted me, pissed me off and made me question everything about myself. But he also made me a better fighter and taught me how to live, and love.
Now, I’m taking the final step to reach my goal. And I can’t imagine doing it without him.
“How are we going to celebrate our wins, Tiger?” he asks with a sparkle in his eye.
“I’m sure you have ideas,” I say, bracing myself for whatever those will be.
Luca chuckles, turning back to the sky. “I mean, we’re in Vegas,” he says. “So, drinking, fucking, gambling, catch a little Cirque du Soleil…” He turns his head to me again. “But we’re not getting married.”
