Page 66 of Split Decision

"I know."

"And you have unfinished business."

"I have a conversation I've been carrying for two months," I say. "Things I went to say in February and didn't. Things I should have said a long time ago."

Travis nods slowly. He's quiet for a long moment.

"I think you should go," he says.

"It's complicated."

"It's always complicated with you two." He says it without judgment. "That doesn't mean you shouldn't go."

I look at him across the small room.

"Travis."

"I know," he says. Again, without being asked.

He stands, and the silence between us feels like something acknowledged and gently settled. He's managed his own emotions about this situation with more grace than most men, and I won't embarrass either of us by pretending I don't recognize that.

"Thank you," I say. "For everything. This whole tour."

"You don't have to thank me for being your friend," he says simply. "That's what it was."

He heads back toward the front of the bus.

I sit in my small bedroom with the Southwest going dark outside the window and think about what I'm going to say when I finally say it.

I have until Phoenix to figure it out.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

LUKE

Brandon calls on a Wednesday afternoon, which is unusual. He always calls on Tuesdays.

I'm between sessions—thirty minutes of recovery before Mack runs the afternoon combination work—when the phone buzzes on the bench beside my water bottle. I look at it for a second before I pick up.

"Got a minute?" Brandon says.

"I've got thirty. What's going on?"

I can hear him moving to a more private place. Adoor closing. The acoustic shift of a man who has decided the conversation requires a room.

"Marin has the preliminary outcome from the Commission's internal review," he says. "It came through this afternoon."

I set the water bottle down. "Tell me."

He does. He tells it carefully—the way he tells things he's already run through a filter, which I've been noticing more often lately. The Commission has enough to escalate. Not revoke, not yet, but escalate—which means enough to leak, which means enough to become a story before the scheduled fight, which means the fight becomes the story rather than the record.

"What are the conditions for closing it?" I ask.

A pause. "Sustained public separation from anyone currently under active regulatory inquiry."

I look at the gym wall. "She means Andi."

"Yes."