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I went to Cappy’s.
The bell over the gym door jangled when I stepped inside, and the familiar smell hit me—sweat, rubber mats, leather, chalk. It slid over my skin like a second shirt, settling into all the places firefighting usually lived.
Just past noon and it was already humming. A couple of guys hit heavy bags near the back. Two kids in shin guards worked low kicks on each other in the cage, a coach shouting corrections. Someone was skipping rope up front, the snap-snap-snap steady as a metronome.
My ribs protested every breath, my eyebrow throbbed, and still… part of me relaxed.
Yeah. This was bad.
It was like a compulsion. Almost like vacuuming.
I’d watched Chloe mess up my dish towels on purpose this morning and felt something inside me itch to straighten them. To fix them. To make the lines neat again.
Now, standing here, I felt the same itch.
Only this time it wanted contact. Pain. A problem I could hit back.
Jesus Christ.
Didn’t Chloe have an ounce of self-preservation? She needed to run as far and as fast from me as possible, for fuck’s sake. What kind of man promises his wife he’s done with something and then shows up to do it again before the tape’s even set?
A stupid one. That’s what kind.
I found Cappy near the ring, adjusting the ropes while he watched the kids work. He didn’t look surprised to see me.
He laughed, loud and short. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite midlife crisis.”
“Morning to you, too,” I said.
He gave me a once-over, taking in the bruise, the way I held myself. “You here to sit on an ice pack and watch, or you planning to do something dumber?”
“Set me up with another round,” I said. “Couple days from now. I’ll be fine by then.”
He stared at me like I’d grown a second head. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m serious.”
“Yeah, that’s what worries me.” He shook his head. “You’re straddling a line, Post. Used to be you came in here to train. Get sharp for the job. Now you look like you’re using it to chew yourself up from the inside.”
“I can handle it,” I said, the same useless words I’d thrown at Holbrook.
Cappy snorted. “That what your ribs say? Your face? How about your wife?”
My jaw clenched. “Chloe’s not—”
“Don’t,” he cut in. “You’re the one who told me she moved out. You’re the one who said you weren’t sleeping. That you felt like you were going to fly apart unless something hit you first.”
He pointed a thick finger at my chest.
“This place doesn’t exist so you can self-destruct where I have to mop you off the mat. I like you, kid, but I like you breathing more. You want a fight, go deal with whatever the hell’s going on at home.”
I looked away, jaw grinding.
“Go home,” he said more quietly. “You’re benched here same as you probably are at the station. You don’t like it, tough. Live long enough to be pissed about it.”
I knew he was right.
I also knew I wasn’t going home. Not yet.
