Clayton closed his eyes. The familiar, throbbing headache at the base of his skull—a
permanent resident since his deployment—flared up with a vengeance. He hated violence.
He loathed it with every fiber of his being.
He had spent his entire twenties drowning in an ocean of it. As a Navy SEAL officer, he
hadn't just committed acts of violence; he had orchestrated them on a grand scale. He had
commanded men, sent boys younger and braver than Trent Larson into dusty, mud-brick
compounds where the air smelled of cordite, burning plastic, and voided bowels. He had
pulled the trigger, he had called in the airstrikes, he had held bleeding friends as their eyes
went glassy and vacant.
He had spent the last eight years of his life in absolute isolation, trying to scrub that
cold, calculating, lethal part of his brain out with endless manual labor, silence, and the
unforgiving sun of the wheat fields. He just wanted to grow things. He wanted to watch life
spring from the dirt, to counteract the death he had sown.
But the tractor needed an alternator. Without the tractor, the wheat died. Without the
wheat, the bank took the farm. Without the farm, he had nothing left to anchor him to the
world of the living.
Clayton set the sweating glass down. It made a dull, heavy *thud* on the wet wood. He
reached up with a grease-stained hand and rubbed the back of his thick neck, feeling the
tight, coiled muscles there like steel cables under his skin.
He didn't feel heroic. He didn't feel a surge of righteous indignation or a desire to teach a
bully a lesson. He just felt deeply, profoundly tired.
"Hold my drink, Rusty," Clayton said quietly.
Rusty's eyes widened, but he didn't argue. He just slowly pulled the glass behind the bar.
The crowd naturally parted with a low, rippling murmur of confusion as Clayton
stepped away from the sticky floor of the bar area and approached the edge of the blue
foam mats.
He didn't vault over the makeshift duct-tape rope barrier to show off his athleticism. He
didn't puff out his chest, or glare, or beat his fists together. He awkwardly, slowly lifted one
stiff leg over the rope, then the other, looking exactly like an exhausted man stepping over a
low wire fence to check on a stray, stubborn calf.
Trent stopped his aggressive shadowboxing mid-combination. He dropped his taped
hands to his hips, a wide, mocking smirk cutting across his tanned face. He looked Clayton
up and down, taking in the muddy, steel-toed work boots, the oil-stained, unbranded shirt,
the slight, defeated stoop in his broad posture.
"You lost, old man?" Trent asked loudly, projecting his voice so the entire room could
hear.
The crowd snickered. A few drunken voices yelled out insults, calling Clayton a dirt-
kicker and telling him to get back to his cows.
"I heard five hundred," Clayton said. His voice barely carried over the mechanical whir
of the massive industrial fans. He still didn't look Trent in the eye. Instead, he looked down
at the silver duct tape holding the blue mats together. It was peeling at the corners,
gathering dirt and hair in its sticky adhesive.
"You got a death wish, farmer?" Trent laughed, taking a bold, intimidating step closer. He
invaded Clayton's personal space, trying to establish dominance, trying to force the older
man into eye contact.
Up close, the smell of Trent was overwhelming. Spearmint chewing gum, raw
adrenaline, and an offensive amount of cologne. His pupils were blown wide, high on the
energy of the crowd and his own perceived invincibility.
"I hit hard, pops," Trent whispered harshly, dropping the theatrical voice for a moment.
"I'm not going to go easy on you just because you got dirt on your jeans and you look like
you haven't slept in a week."
Clayton didn't respond to the taunt. He slowly, methodically reached down and began
untying the thick, mud-caked laces of his work boots. He pulled them off one by one,
placing them neatly, parallel to each other, just outside the perimeter of the ring. He peeled
off his thick, gray wool socks next, tucking them into the boots.
His bare feet stepped onto the squishy foam mats. They were pale, scarred, with thick,
yellowed calluses built up on the heels and balls from years of walking barefoot on uneven
furrows and gravel driveways.
"Just ring the bell, Trent," Clayton said mildly, finally looking up. But he still didn't look
at Trent's eyes. He looked at Trent's chest, right at the solar plexus, his gaze unfocused,
taking in the entirety of Trent's body mechanics rather than making an emotional
connection through eye contact.
Rusty walked heavy-footed to the edge of the mat, holding a thick, impressive wad of