Chapter 96: Opportunities? [FIXED!]
Darren drained half the water bottle in one pull and felt the cool travel down through the heat still sitting in his chest from the session.
His feet were light.
That was the thing that surprised him every time after a proper spar — the contradiction of it. The body had been through something genuinely demanding and yet the aftermath carried this specific lightness, like the weight that usually lived in his legs had been burned off along with everything else. He rolled his shoulders once, felt the pleasant resistance of muscles that had been used correctly, and started gathering his gear.
The equipment told its own story.
His wraps had seen better days — the fabric thinning at the knuckle points, the elasticity reduced to something closer to a crutch than actual support.
The gloves were worse. Good technique had covered for the deficit tonight but technique only compensated so far, and the session had shown him exactly where the gaps were. His combinations were landing softer than they should because the padding absorbed impact inconsistently, throwing off the feedback loop between his hand and the target.
He needed proper gear before the next session.
He left the gym as the evening settled into the streets.
The sports shop was a fifteen minute walk from the gym, narrow frontage, the kind of independent retailer that stocked the specific things the big chains didn’t bother with. It was later than ideal — past seven, the shop running on its extended weekday hours — but the door was open and the lights were on and that was sufficient.
Darren went in wearing his singlet, gym bag over one shoulder, still carrying the warmth of the session on his skin.
The scars drew glances.
They always did. He had made peace with that years ago — the geography of his torso was what it was, a record of a period he had survived and didn’t need to explain to strangers. He moved through the stared without a second thought.
He found the wraps first — proper ones, the kind with structured thumb loops and consistent tension. He checked the length, tested the material between his fingers. Then the gloves. He went through three pairs before finding weight and wrist support he was satisfied with, pressing into the padding methodically, checking the stitching at the seams.
He added a mouthguard to the basket.
Checked his phone while he waited for the counter to clear.
[7:23 PM.]
He kissed his teeth and put the phone away. He had two more stops before home — food and a pharmacy — and neither of them was going to get easier the later it got.
He moved toward the counter.
That was when he noticed the figure.
Not immediately — the awareness built at the edge of his vision, spotting something familiar in his periphera vision.
Aisle three when he was in aisle one. Near the entrance when he was at the counter.
"Same face since the gym," Darren thought.
His previous life had installed certain sensors that civilian existence never fully uninstalled. Pattern recognition. The specific awareness of being followed in a space.
He had learned the difference between someone who happened to be going the same direction and someone who was maintaining a consistent distance.
This was the second one.
He paid without changing his pace or his expression, took the bag from the counter, and walked toward the exit with the unhurried movement of a man going about his evening.
He hit the pavement and turned sharp left.
The figure followed, confirming he was indeed being followed.
Darren stopped and turned around in the same movement — quick, clean, the pivot of someone who had done this before.
The figure walked directly into him.
Or rather, directly into the wall of Darren’s chest, which was considerably more substantial than anticipated based on the approach angle. The figure stepped back and looked up.
The man was compact — 5" 6 at most, he was lean and looked like someone Darren could snap in half.
He had stern eyes and it was the kind thay belonged to people who had spent time in high-pressure environments.
He didn’t look frightened.
That detail registered immediately.
"Can I help you with something?" Darren said.
The man held his gaze without adjusting. "You’re quite perceptive." He tilted his head slightly. "That kind of instinct isn’t trained in a conventional gym. It comes from a different kind of experience."
Darren said nothing.
"My name isn’t important right now," the man continued. "What’s important is that we’ve been looking for a specific kind of fighter. Tonight confirmed what the footage suggested." He reached into his jacket and produced a card, holding it out with two fingers. "We’re looking for fighters with your profile. Raw, adaptable, capable of reading and adjusting mid-situation."
Darren took the card.
Clean design. A company name he didn’t immediately recognise, a contact number, a single line of text beneath it that described the organisation in terms deliberately broad enough to mean several different things.
He looked up.
The man was already moving.
"Give us a call," he said over his shoulder, without turning around. "We don’t approach people twice."
Darren watched him cross the street and disappear around the corner with the unhurried pace of someone who had delivered the message and considered the job complete.
He looked at the card again.
Then he put it in his pocket and went to find food.
-
The house was quiet when Mrs. Harriet arrived home.
It was quiet — a large, well-appointed space that absorbed sound without returning it, the kind of silence that came from emptiness of being alone.
But not for long, because she had an unexpected guest in the form of her husband. However, Mrs. Harriet wasn’t home when he had arrived.
Richard’s luggage met her at the entrance of the house.
Two pieces — the dark leather set she recognised, one upright and one carry-on before dropping it at the doorway.
She looked at them for a moment, then looked toward the living room.
He was standing at the window with his jacket off, looking at the garden as he hadn’t seen them in a while but this was not nostalgia but because he was lost in thought.
He turned when he heard her.
They looked at each other across the room.
No particular warmth. No distance either. Just two people registering each other’s presence with the neutrality of a shared life that had long since moved past the stage of performing feelings it didn’t have.
"You’re back," she said.
"I am," Richard said. "The merger moved faster than anticipated."
She nodded and went to the kitchen.
She had made osso buco that afternoon — this meal required time and attention, braised veal shanks with a gremolata she’d prepared from scratch, served over saffron risotto that had taken forty minutes of patient stirring.
She had cooked it for herself, or told herself she had. The truth was she had made some for the next day as she rarely had time.
She warmed it on the stove because she could tell Richard had just arrived. Give or take, three minutes before he entry.
Richard appeared in the kitchen doorway twenty minutes later, showered, changed into a linen shirt and dark trousers. He was fifty-three and carried it well — the kind of man whose features had settled into something more defined with age rather than less. She had found him attractive once. That felt like something that belonged in a different Chapter.
He sat at the kitchen island and she placed the bowl in front of him.
He looked at it. "You cooked."
"I had some time."
He picked up the fork. Ate without ceremony. She poured herself a glass of wine and remained standing at the counter because sitting implied a conversation she wasn’t sure either of them wanted to have.
"Poland next week," he said between bites.
"How long?"
"Ten days. Possibly two weeks depending on how the acquisition reads once I’m in the room."
She nodded.
He continued to eat without further ado.
She drank her wine.
The kitchen was warm from the cooking and the window above the sink showed the garden in the evening dark.
"Arthur will brief me tomorrow," Richard said.
She kept her expression exactly where it was. "Good."
"Anything I should know before then?" Richard asked but it wasn’t un an accusatory tone.
She looked at him across the counter — at the steady, handsome face of a man she had built something real and significant with and had somehow ended up living alongside rather than with.
"Nothing that requires your attention," she said.
"That is good to hear," Richard responded.
He finished the osso buco and placed the fork down and told her it was good.
She said thank you and then he went to bed.
She stood in the kitchen alone with her wine and the residual warmth of a meal she had cooked for no particular reason and listened to the house settle back into its silence.