“Maybe you’ll be yelling a lot too when you start coaching,” I said.

I hadn’t been sure how serious I was, but Hunter took me at my word. “Yeah, maybe.”

He seemed to be lost in thought as we walked to the entrance, so I kept my mouth shut. We got to the glass door, opened it, and went inside.

My first impression centered on how rundown the place was. The second was that it reminded me a lot of Hunter’s gym in Studsen. Bigg’s had some more recent music, maybe, and there seemed to be more wrestling, but that was about it. The two places were pretty close.

Hunter began surveying our surroundings the instant we were inside. Seemingly in a trance, he made his way past the unoccupied front desk and to the entrance to the gym area, where the sound of leather hitting leather could be heard.

When we walked in, the pungent smell of disinfectant practically punched me in the face. How on earth were they using so much of the stuff? I looked around and saw a bucket in the corner. Holy cow.

Hunter seemed unfazed by the smell or anything else. His eyes scanned the room, taking in all the activities being performed.

There were almost a dozen people in all working out in various stations. To our right we found a series of small and big punching bags being hit by fighters of various sizes. To our left were a couple of mats. One of them was in use, and the two wrestlers seemed to be drilling a move where one of them would try to grab the other guys legs and the other guy tried to stop him from getting a good grip.

“What are they doing over there?” I asked Hunter.

Hunter looked over briefly. “Takedown defense,” he answered, before screwing up his face in skepticism. “Kinda.”

I watched as the guy attempting the takedown was successful and nodded. Logical enough name. When I turned to ask Hunter what he meant by “kinda,” I saw he had turned his attention to the room’s centerpiece.

It was the sparring ring. The thing looked even older than the one in Bigg’s. Its ropes were fraying on the far side especially, the wood along the side was chipped, and it even looked like the floor was slightly uneven. Nevertheless, two fighters—who looked to be about sixteen—were in the ring with helmets, fighting each other under the instruction of a third man. I didn’t need to be told the third man was Clint.

He wore a pressed, crisp maroon polo and had his nearly white hair cropped close to his head. His tall, thin frame bounced around the mat like that of a young man, and his voice barked instructions with startling intensity. If I had to guess, I would say he was in his late sixties, if only because I couldn’t imagine him being any older given how spry he was.

One of the boxers appeared to make him so irritated he pulled him aside and stepped in his place, showing him the correct footwork. He threw some practice punches on the other fighter and had the other fighter throw some punches back to demonstrate the technique.

“Son, you can throw ‘em faster,” he barked. “You won’t hit me.”

The other fighter obliged, though Clint was right. He wasn’t getting touched.

“Alright,” he bellowed in his raspy voice. “Again.”

He backed up and watched them. After another couple of minutes of sparring, he finally acknowledged us. “You the guy on the phone?” he called, keeping his back to us.

I looked to Hunter, who had been observing carefully. “Yeah,” he answered.

Clint turned to us now for a moment, looking over his shoulder. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Hunter nodded but said nothing, since Clint had already turned back to the action in the ring. He appeared to be a man of few words.

The fighters took a break a few minutes later, and Clint got down from the ring to greet us. After introductions and some handshakes, he got right to business. “So what can I do for you?” he asked.

Hunter pursed his lips for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, I just wanted to check the place out and see if there was anything I might be able to help with.”

“Did you now?” Clint asked, his eyebrows raised and a small smirk on his face. “Find anything? Been meanin’ to get that ring painted up . . .”

His tone was skeptical bordering on humorous, but Hunter soldiered on. I had always admired his ability to let it roll off his back when someone wasn’t taking him seriously. “I was actually just watching those two kids wrestle,” he replied.

The smirk left Clint’s face and was replaced by his previous seriousness. “And?”

“I think I could probably help them out.”

Clint squinted. “You mean coach them?”

Hunter nodded. “Yeah. Their technique has a lot of holes, and I figure with the way the fight game’s going these days you’re going to have a lot of kids who wanna do MMA. If you wanna do mixed martial arts, you better have good wrestling or someone is gonna take you down and kick your ass. Doesn’t matter how good your boxing is if you’re on your back.”

“I’ve seen some of this cage fighting stuff,” Clint said, definitely interested now. “You know all that, then?”

Hunter smiled. “Yeah, I know it.”

“How do I know you know it?”

I pursed my lips. Was Hunter going to have to fight again?

“Got anyone here you think could wrestle me?” Hunter asked.

The air left my lungs. It looked like he would.

“Right now?”

“Why not?”

Clint shrugged and looked around. “What do you weigh?”

“About two-ten.”

“Alright. Only guy I have is Yevgeny, but he’s probably closer to two-fifty and knows his wrestling. If you really want to, have at it.”

My eyebrows shot up. Did he say two-fifty? That was like NFL football player big. I grabbed Hunter’s arm to tell him I didn’t think this was a good idea, but I was too late.

“Yeah,” Hunter said. “Let’s do it.”

My stomach dropped. We all went over to one of the free wrestling mats, then Clint went to go get Yevgeny from where he was working on a punching bag. The boxers working around the gym got wind of what was going on and gathered round the mat before Yevgeny had even arrived.

Yevgeny finally came, followed closely by Clint. Yevgeny was a college-aged guy about the same age as me and Hunter, and enormous. He wasn’t anywhere near as ripped as Hunter was, but he was bigger. The white undershirt he wore was at least a double XL and it still fit tight around his arms. His short hair sat atop a thick brow, and his expression signaled nothing but confidence.

Hunter had taken off his sweatshirt and was now wearing an undershirt and jeans. He seemed to be sizing Yevgeny up, undisturbed by what he saw.

“Hunter,” I whispered, grabbing his arm. “Do you think think this is a good idea?”

He patted my hand and gently freed himself from my grasp. “Yeah, it’ll be fine. It’s just a friendly spar and it’s wrestling so they’re not gonna hit me. I meant what I said when I told you I’m serious about taking care of myself. We won’t get too rough.”

I hesitated, but I didn’t say anything else. It didn’t make me happy, but I couldn’t set limits for Hunter. I had to let him make his own choices.

With a final smile back at me, Hunter stepped onto the mat and waited for Yevgeny to do the same. Yevgeny stepped on with a wry smile on his face.