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That he ran away and hasn’t spoken to me since.

But how do I say any of that? How do I explain that I’m hung up on a man I’m supposed to hate? A man who’s so deep in the closet he can’t see daylight? A man who looked at me with terror in his eyes and whispered stay away from me like I was the most dangerous thing he’d ever faced?

“Nothing to talk about,” I hear myself say.

Victor just nods. “When you’re ready.”

I kissed Zane Butler, he ran away, and I can’t stop thinking about the sounds he made against that wall.

Yeah. Not ready to talk about that.

Unfortunately, keeping my mouth shut about Zane isn’t an option. Every interview comes back to him.

The draw has ignited massive interest in a rematch. Sports media won’t shut up about it. ESPN, MMA Fighting, Barstool—every outlet wants interviews with both fighters. The narrative they’re pushing is irresistible: two evenly matched warriors, unfinished business, a rivalry for the ages.

They have no idea how right they are.

I do my obligations. Keep it professional. Don’t mention Zane beyond standard promotional talk. I’ve got my media training down pat after years of this—smile, give them quotable soundbites, redirect when questions get too personal.

But every single interviewer finds a way to ask: “What’s really going on between you and Butler? The tension seems personal.”

You have no idea.

“Just two competitors who want to prove they’re the best,” I say with a practiced smile.

It feels like ash in my mouth.

The worst is the joint promotional content—video packages that splice together footage of both of us. I have to watch Zane’s interviews to prepare for questions about them, which means I have to see his face, hear his voice, witness the careful way he constructs every answer to reveal nothing real.

In one clip, an interviewer asks him about the post-fight confrontation rumors. Someone saw us disappear into the medical area together. Someone noticed Zane leaving through a side door looking “rattled.”

“Just getting checked out after a hard fight,” Zane says smoothly. His expression is perfectly controlled. “Rivera’s a tough opponent. Nothing more to it than that.”

Nothing more to it.

I watch that clip four times, looking for cracks in his armor. Looking for any sign that he’s struggling as much as I am.

His mask doesn’t slip once.

Midnight finds me in bed, phone in hand, doom-scrolling through Zane’s social media like a pathetic stalker.

He’s posted nothing personal. Just promotional content from Ironside—training clips that show nothing of his face, his eyes, what he’s really feeling. Reposted graphics about upcoming events. Nothing I can use to tell how he’s doing.

I click on his Instagram story. A boomerang of him hitting mitts with his coach. The caption reads: Levels.

Arrogant asshole.

But even through the phone screen, something seems off. His movements are technically perfect—they always are—but there’s no fire behind them. He’s going through the motions.

I scroll through older tagged photos, comparing them to his recent posts. Six months ago, there were occasional glimpses of personality. A photo with a genuine smile at some charity event. A candid shot someone tagged him in where he’s laughing at something off-camera.

Those moments have disappeared from his own posts. His feed is sterile now. Professional. Empty.

You’re miserable. I can see it.

Against my better judgment, I pull up YouTube and search for his recent interviews. There’s one from two days ago—some sports podcast I’ve never heard of.

Zane sits in front of a generic backdrop, answering questions with that polished media voice he’s perfected. But I’ve spent enough time studying this man—in the octagon, in press conferences, in the moments before everything went sideways—to notice what others might miss.