The bag thunders against his elbows like a second heartbeat. Sweat slips down Zelos’s spine in clean, relentless lines; the gym is all concrete, rubber, and the metallic hum of old fluorescents that never stop buzzing. He’s wrapped tight, knuckles, wrists, the ritual sequence he won’t break, and he moves in that brutal economy that came from years of repetition: jab, cross, hook; clinch, knee; reset. Leon’s voice cuts the air in short, precise slices.

“Chin down. Hands up. Again.”

Zelos pivots, drives the left hand, catches the return on his forearm. The pad smack is crisp, perfect, empty. Focus. Keep your feet under you. Don’t let the mind run. But the mind is already out on Grand Central Parkway in the evening heat, already under the dark of a velvet curtain and a house of held breath. He’d seen it last night at two a.m., thumb scrolling on muscle memory: a clean graphic, white serif on black, Lyra Ballet Company presents: The Red Thread, three nights only at the Smith Center.

He bought the ticket before even finishing the post. Front orchestra. The receipt hit his email, digital ticket glowing blue in the screen light like a dare. He ordered long-stemmed roses wrapped in black paper with a satin ribbon, leaving the card blank because anything he wrote felt like stepping into a trap. You go, you keep your mouth in check, you look her in the eyes and you don’t make it a war zone. He set the delivery for backstage pick-up. Slept two hours. Woke at four with adrenaline bitter on his tongue like metal.

“Again.”

The mitts slap. He’s late on the slip, just half a beat, just enough for Leon to grunt in disgust and step back. Zelos feels the old rope of patience inside him pull taut. He rolls his shoulders, shakes out his arms, takes a breath through his teeth. He tries to anchor in the room: the Scents, leather, sanitizer, old chalk; the sounds, ropes whip, someone grunts under a barbell, a distant jump rope ticks back time.

“You’re somewhere else,” Leon says, flat. No question in it.

“I’m here,” Zelos answers, voice low, gravel-edged, the kind that doesn’t need volume to fill space. He leans forward a fraction the way he does when he wants to take a pocket of air away from another man. “Hold the mitts. Let’s go.”

“You’re here like a man who thinks he can coast three days before a title fight.” Leon’s eyes narrow. “You want the belt or you want a story about almost?”

He’s baiting you. Don’t bite. You know what he’s doing, he’s always done it. Zelos flexes his hands inside the wraps, opens and closes until the knuckles ache. “I’m not coasting. I’m cutting distractions.”

Leon snorts. “Cutting? You’re bleeding focus. Your head’s not on the canvas. It’s” —he flicks a hand, dismissive— “out in the city. On some... performance.”

The word hits like a slap, not because it’s wrong but because it’s careless. Zelos’s jaw ticks; he sets his feet again. “You want rounds or you want to talk?”

“Rounds,” Leon says, snapping the left mitt out. “Show me you want them.”

Zelos fires. The combinations come cleaner, faster; he drives into the clinch on instinct, knees landing with that dull meat sound that turns stomachs. He hears Leon grunt approval, hears it and still feels that other pulse—stage lights, white rosin on black floor, the line of {{user}}’s back he could pick out blindfolded. Don’t think about her partner’s hands. Don’t you— The thought flares, sharp and bright, and in that flare he’s late again, a fraction, enough for Leon to drop his hands entirely.

“Enough,” Leon says. The word lands heavier than a punch. He rips the mitts off, tosses them onto the ring apron. “You want to play tourist, go. I’m not going to feed you to Saturday for a joke.” He steps back, the dismissal in every part of him. “We’re done.”

“Leon—”

“Coach,” Leon snaps, and the old correction digs under Zelos’s ribs like a thumb. “You call me coach in here. And you show up like a fighter or you get the hell out.”

The gym goes still, tension pulled tight in the air. A jump rope stops; someone averts their gaze. Zelos draws in two steady breaths, eyes on his taped hands, the sweat-dark lines mapping every fight and round behind him. One slow nod. “Fine.” He strips the wraps in ritual order, tucks them away, and steps down from the ring without another glance. You keep your damn head. You don’t say what you want to say. Saturday’s still Saturday. Tonight is hers.

---

Backstage smells different from the gym, powder and hairspray, warm bodies, flowers dying beautifully in buckets. The corridors are narrow and painted a tired neutral that makes the bouquets look louder. He’s in a black hoodie, cap backward, the roses cradled in the crook of his arm, black paper and red petals like a threat dressed for church. Security eyed him, recognized him, Vegas is a web like that, and let him pass with a shrug that said don’t make me regret this, Myrmidon.

He doesn’t look for her first. He makes himself look at the walls, the stage pins, the taped signs with names and arrows, the stretching shadows moving like a second cast behind flats. You do not run. You walk. You will not be the man she left here. He adjusts the hoodie zipper. He flexes his hands. He catches his cap with two fingers and settles it again, a useless ritual he can’t break.

Then he sees her. {{user}}.

There. There you are. Christos.

She’s with her partner. Zelos clocks him without letting his gaze stick: height, reach, the shape of his hands, the way he stands close. That old rage lights, primitive and easy. Don’t. Don’t you—breathe. He rolls his shoulders back and finds the center he fights from. The roses rustle. He starts forward, each step measured and clean.

The partner notices him first. People always do when a man like Zelos enters a hallway and Zelos lets his eyes meet the man’s for a single steady beat. He doesn’t bare his teeth; he doesn’t lift his chin. He just lets the message sit there in the line of his shoulders and the slow set of his mouth. Back off. Then he takes the last two steps to her and the hallway closes to a thread.

“Koukla,” he says, quiet but filling the space. Gravel threads through his voice, doing the work volume might for other men. He leans in slightly—his habit when he means to claim the air—and the scent of her stage-sweat and powder strikes like a sharp memory. The roses lift between them, black paper indecent around the red. “For you.”

Without glancing at her partner again, he extends a hand, palm up, fingers warm from the hoodie cuff. You keep your hands open. You keep them soft. You don’t grip what you’re not owed. His thumb brushes the heel of her hand—just enough to anchor him to the moment, not to the ache of months. A slow exhale escapes, punctuated by a single tongue click.

“I’m not here to make a scene,” he says, eyes on {{user}} and nowhere else. “I’m not here to fuck up your night. I watched your show and I kept my mouth shut the whole time. You get me?” His mouth wants to tell her everything, the way his chest felt too tight during the pas de deux, the way the last lift made something in him break and set again. He swallows it. He keeps it clean. “I bought a ticket like everybody else. I waited like everybody else.”

A small shift runs through Zelos, a fighter’s adjustment—more balance than movement. “I’m three days out from the belt and all I can think about is you walking off that stage.” The tone stays low; it doesn’t need volume. “So I’m going to say this once, and then I’ll get out of your way.”

Silence hangs for a half-second while he makes space for the words, choosing them like a combination he can’t afford to throw wrong. His thumb brushes against his palm to kill the urge to pace.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Zelos says, the first edge of humility dragged over gravel. A humorless breath escapes, almost a laugh. “But I owe you an apology for the last time. For all the times.” His head tilts, eyes steady. “I’m working on the anger. Not talking about it. Doing it. I—” the Greek curse slips out, soft and frustrated re gamoto—“I’m not good at speeches.” A short huff follows, shaking it off. “I’m good at showing. If you give me one minute—just one—I’ll prove I can stand in front of you without trying to win anything.”

He lifts the roses a little, an offer, not a demand. The hallway light cuts a hard line across his eyes; the gold in them runs hot. “Tell me to go, I go.” He leans in the smallest fraction, not enough to crowd, just enough to let her hear how the words sit in his chest. “Or give me that minute, Koukla.” He nods once, slow, deliberate. “Right now.”