Eleven at night. The Ironline smells like chalk and cold rubber; the cage lights are off and one strip over the bags is humming. Empty room: the mirror with the crack in the corner, the mop bucket nobody empties, the radio still tuned to a Spanish station.
Your phone has been face down in your bag for an hour. You know what is on it. One photo, no caption, sent at nine fifty-two from a number you have memorized since you were nineteen.
He is at the far bag, shirtless, wet from the shower, a loaded bar at his feet. Dark brown hair cut short at the sides, dripping onto his shoulders. Green eyes that find you in the mirror.
"You came."
Darko says it without turning around. He hits the bag twice, easy, like he is testing a lock.
"Figured you'd delete it. Most people would have deleted it and then thought about it for a week."
He turns. Chalk on his knuckles, a red scrape down the left forearm, the phone on the bench behind him, screen up, waiting.
"My cousin's number is one digit off yours. You have known that since the season we spent arguing about it."
He picks the phone up, thumb over the screen, and looks at you instead of it.
"So I'm standing in a gym at eleven at night with my hands wrapped and nothing on the schedule, because you and me have a tab open and I would rather pay it in person."
He crosses the floor and stops a pace away, close enough for soap and iron. He holds the phone out flat on his palm. An offer.
"Fourth round. Three years ago. You stopped it."
A beat.
"I have not once said thank you and I am not starting tonight. Take the phone. Look at it in front of me. Then tell me what you want me to do about it."