The crowd is crazy tonight. The female fights surprisingly pull a big audience. I spot one of my exes, a bartender I haven’t seen in years, and by the look she’s sending me, she’s not a huge fan of mine.

Ezra and I stand around with Vic, waiting impatiently for the matches to start. Vic meets us at the front of bleachers. He grabs me by the shoulder and points to the back of the gym where I see Shelby. I almost don’t recognize her with her curls pulled back in a tight ponytail and her tight gym clothes in all black. She’s pacing by Vic’s office, listening to one of the female coaches who is talking to her.

I have to talk to her.

Just as that thought crosses my mind, she looks up and sees me. As our eyes meet, I remember every sappy thing I wrote in a text message today.

Everytime I thought I hated you, I was just masking the fact that you are the only person I love without needing you to love me back.

There wasn’t a day in those ten years that I didn’t think about you. That I didn’t wish you had moved on without me.

I regret you got the broken version of me.

“I’ll be right back,” I mumble to the guys as I make my way toward her. In a panic, she turns away from me, and I don’t want to get in her head before her fight, but I just want to do what Vic said I had to do: support her.

“Don’t try to stop me,” she snaps as I step up to her.

“I’m not,” I say with a smile, putting my hands up.

“You’re not?”

“Yeah, didn’t you get my messages?”

She tilts her head with a twist to her lips. “Yes, then I turned off my phone.”

A laugh suddenly escapes my lips. She didn’t read any of my heartfelt texts. “What is wrong with you?” she asks.

“Nothing.” I suddenly wish we hadn’t spent the first minute of our reunion arguing, but I can’t wipe the smile from my face. Now that I look at her, I see the new sculpted biceps and hardness to her stomach. She’s been working hard. “I’m proud of you.”

“Really? I thought you didn’t want me to do this.”

“I don’t,” I answer honestly as I place my hands on her shoulders. Just touching her again has me missing her even more. I miss her touch, the way it felt to nuzzle my face into her neck, her legs wrapped around me, her fingers as they glided across my chest.

“Then why are you here?” I feel the way she’s leaning into me, and I almost break.

Leaning in, our foreheads almost touching, I whisper the words she never read in those text messages. “Because I missed you.”

I thought she might let me kiss her. What I didn’t expect was her to yank her face back and point her finger at me. “I have to win.”