After the Bell

Two fighters. One qualifier slot. And a wall between their apartments thin enough to hear everything.

Elias Morrow has been building toward the Eastern Regional qualifier for seven months. He doesn't do distractions. He doesn't do people. He does the work, tracks the numbers, and keeps his walls exactly where he put them.

Then the man in 4A moves in at 10:47 on a Wednesday night.

Marco Vela is everything Elias catalogues in the first two seconds: same weight class, same gym, same target. A rival, then. Easy to define. Easier to file away.

Except Marco is his new sparring partner. And they're evenly matched in a way that feels like a problem, because you can't spar with someone for sixteen sessions without getting inside their head. You learn where they go under pressure. What they do when they're scared. How they move when they've stopped performing.

Marco isn't scared of much. And Elias is starting to remember what it feels like to want something that isn't on the schedule.

The walls of the Foundry apartment building are thin. Brewer only sends one fighter to the qualifier. And Elias, who counts everything, who accounts for every variable, has made one significant miscalculation: he thought he could keep this to data.

He can't.

After the Bell is an MM romance featuring rivals-to-lovers, forced proximity, thin walls, fighting men, and a slow-burn that burns fast once it starts. Explicit heat scenes. No cheating. HEA guaranteed.

MM romance. No cheating. HEA guaranteed.