"Eli!  Eli, look over here!"

"Mr. Thompson, do you have a moment to give a statement to the Vegas Sun Times?"

"Champ!  Come on and give us a pose."

Eli fought back a yawn and plastered on a smile, pausing to let a few of the politer photographers get pictures.  It was almost 11 o'clock in New York and he'd been going since before dawn, packing up the last of his things and vacating the temporary rooms that he kept during off season training.  His left knee was cramping on him.  Every time he flew, the seats got smaller.

"Gentlemen," Kim said, herding him through the crowded casino with a professional smile, "we are literally headed to a press conference.  You can get your photos there."

Watching her part the tide of people, Eli was careful to angle his shoulders to fit in the gap she left.  The casino was loud enough that he could barely hear himself think, drowning out the calls of the few reporters who were trying to provoke a less wholesome reaction from him.  The security here was tight and well trained, but the crowd kept pushing in, his rumpled suit brushing against people here and there.  It made him feel too big in his skin, and he focused on the red soles of Kim's heels so that he didn't have to see any of the disappointed faces.

"I promise we'll make this quick," Kim said, falling back to talk to him without moving her lips, stretched wide in her signature smile.  She'd been his publicist for ten years, and he still found himself intimidated by the violently red lipstick she wore.  He'd asked her once what it was called, and she'd looked him right in the eye and told him it was the blood of her enemies.  He wasn't sure she'd been joking.

Eli had been on a plane for hours, and in a taxi before that.  He was rumpled and tired, and his eyes felt like there was sand up underneath them.  Walking behind Kim's immaculate form made him feel like a troll out of some old-fashioned fairy tale.

The press conference room looked like every other press conference room he'd been in; organization and sponsor logos plastered everywhere.  It was comforting in its familiarity.  Even the reporters were familiar; faces and bland professional suits blending together in a mind-numbing backdrop.

Walking up to the podium, Kim tapped the mic a few times.  "I know it's late, and everyone wants to get to the buffet and slots," she said, the reporters responding with a polite laugh.

Eli felt like his collar was about to choke him.  He'd put on muscle again; it was time to get more shirts tailored.  Smoothing a hand down the front of the suit, he tried futilely to smooth out some of the creases.

"We'll take a few questions tonight, and the rest will have to wait for next week when the Championship opens officially."  The reporters nodded, a few hands going up as she stepped back.

Eli bit his cheek to keep from yawning again.  The podium here was just as expensive and attractive as the one in New York, but Eli was careful to put his hands down gently as he stepped up to it.  He'd learned the hard way that things in Vegas weren't always what they seemed.  His first fight in town, he'd been so nervous he'd cracked the cheap wood right down the center with a single too-tight grip.  The crowd had loved it.  Eli had been mortified.

"How do you think you're going to do in the fights this year?" the first reporter asked.  He was younger, and Eli vaguely recognized him as being from ESPN.  "You're the first omega to hold the title, and you've made history by holding it three years running.  Do you think you'll keep that streak going this year?"

Eli clenched his teeth hard enough that they ached.  Ten years ago, he would have flexed his arm and burst the cheap suit, asking the reporter what being an omega had to do with anything.  This suit was expensive; the heavy wool wouldn't tear with a satisfactory ripping noise like polyester.  He knew better than to let them provoke him now, anyway.

"I always fight to win," he said.  "The Championship is just like any other fight."

The guy opened his mouth to say more, but another reporter jumped in.  "Bit more high profile, isn't it?" she asked, leaning forward in her seat.  "How do you handle the stress of being in the spotlight so much?"

Her smile was friendly, encouraging him to trust her.  He didn't, but he was grateful.  She could have made the question all about his omega status.  He couldn't remember having seen her around before, but he made a mental note to get her on Kim's list if she wasn't strictly local.

"I work out a lot," he said with a genuine, if tired, smile in return.  "I interact with my fans, and I remember that I have opportunities every day that I wouldn't have otherwise."

"You're very involved with your fans."

"That's not a question," he said, "but yes, I am.  My fans are the reason that I'm here.  Whenever I'm too tired to keep going, inside the ring and out of it, my fans give me all the energy I need."

There was a moment of jockeying as a couple of reporters tried to ask their questions at the same time.  Kim flicked her fingers, and they fell in line like magic.

"There are rumors," an older man said, "that you and Alexei Kuznetsov are dating.  How will that affect your upcoming match?”

Eli barely managed to turn his eye roll into a quick scan of the room.  "If we were dating," he said, carefully, "it might be an issue, but Alexei and I haven't even been in the same city for at least four months.  Not even for my birthday.  If we were dating," he added, pursing his lips thoughtfully, "I'd say he's a terrible boyfriend."

A wave of chuckles flowed across the room, and the reporter looked annoyed.

"Are you seeing anyone currently?" another reporter asked but before Eli could answer, the older man jumped back in.

"Who'd want to date an omega who looks like the Incredible Hulk?" he said, loud enough to carry.  "Can you imagine the kids?"

Eli's stomach clenched, bile rising in the back of his throat.  Behind him, Kim was already stepping forward but the reporters were like piranhas.  All it would take was for one of them to smell weakness and they'd all come after him.  "I'm not father material," he said through his teeth, forcing his grimace into something that more closely resembled a self-deprecating smile.  "And no, I am not seeing anyone currently."

"That's all we have time for today, folks.  We'll see you all at the fight," Kim said, stepping up to the podium.  The room got very loud, reporters shouting questions and talking over one another to be heard.

"What about Richard Blake?  Is it true that the increased security is due to a past history of violent interactions?"

"Can you comment on the match line-up?  You're friendly with two of your competitors, will that make it difficult to fight them?"

"Do you have anything to say about the allegations of corruption in the National Boxing Organization?"

Smiling like it was her job, Kim hooked her arm through his and dragged him away from the podium.  She weighed a third what he did, but she had a force of will that was in a class of its own.  "I'm so sorry.  I'll make sure that he's banned from your conferences from now on."

"That'll look bad," he said, letting her pull him through a drab employee corridor toward the casino floor.

"Don't care," she said.  "If we let him get away with it, then it'll be open season on your status, just like in the beginning."  She stalked ahead as one of the casino employees held a door for them.  The sound of the slot machines was deafening, echoing around the concrete hallway.  "Besides, he's an asshole."

Eli burst into laughter as he stepped out onto the bustling casino floor.  He was greeted by a blinding burst of camera flashes.

"Eli! Eli!"

"Jesus, do these people not sleep?" Kim muttered, but Eli smiled, blinking spots out of his eyes.

"They're not reporters, Kim.  Look."  He gestured at the two kids near the front who were holding a little poster between them.  It was covered in finger paints and gently shedding a pile of glitter onto the ugly carpet.

Kim groaned.  "Natalie will have my head if you don't get some rest tonight, Eli."  Eli ignored her, weaving between the machines to crouch in front of the kids.  "Five minutes," she hissed through her teeth, smiling broadly.  "I'm giving you five minutes."  Pulling out her phone, she stationed herself nearby.

Eli crossed his fingers behind his back and nodded at her.

"I can see that, you know," she said, shaking her head.  He just smiled and posed for another picture.

There were dozens of fans waiting in the little area between two banks of slots.  As Eli took pictures and signed things, more fans accumulated.  He signed a little boy's cast and a little girl's rag doll, took pictures with teens who were too cool to be excited, and exchanged handshakes with a few men his own age.

"Okay, guys," Kim said a while later, "we really need to get the Champ to bed now.  He's got a long day of training ahead of him, and we all want him at his best for the fight next week."  She waded into the crowd, her voice pitched high to cut through all the disappointed groans.  Her fingernails were like claws when she caught hold of his arm, pulling him to his feet.

He didn't resist.  She'd been more patient than he'd honestly expected, and he knew better than to push his luck.  He waved to the crowd as she maneuvered him toward the elevators.

"I said five minutes."  Her smile never wavered as she led him out of the crowd.  "How is it that five minutes always turns into an hour with you?"

"I can't disappoint the kids, Kim," he said, blinking wide eyes at her.

"You're ridiculous," she said, sticking her tongue out at him.  "Natalie is going to kill us both."

He had a room in the exclusive penthouse section, so the elevator was separated from the rest of the bank.  They climbed into it, the spotless chrome interior reflecting the flashing advertisements playing on the screen embedded in one wall.  There were no buttons.

Kim swiped a keycard without even looking up from her phone.  "I'm letting hotel security know that you're in for the evening but, if you can't sleep, there's a car on standby to take you whichever buffet you want."

"I'm probably going to just sleep," he said, automatically bracing her with one hand as the elevator slowed to a stop.  Her waist fit easily into the curve of his hand, and he was careful not to apply any pressure, feeling too big and ungainly all of a sudden.

"Whatever you want," she said with a shrug, stepping onto the polished marble tile of the penthouse lobby.  There were only six doors on this particular stretch of hallway, a cheerful spray of fresh flowers on the table contrasting oddly with the abstract modern art hung on the walls.  "Natalie will be here early tomorrow morning.  She and I will take the bedrooms down here," she added, swiping her card and breezing into the suite.  Eli followed more slowly, taking in the enormous room.

The entry was a two-story unit, marble on marble on ultra-white paint, so pristine and sterile that it could have been used as an operating room.  The light fixture overhead was a modernist contortion of glass and metal, sparkling in the warm yellow light of sunset that softened the edges and made it more welcoming.

It was nothing like the one-bedroom house that Eli had grown up in, the kitchen stove full of mice because the power had been cut again.  It gave him that same twist in his gut, like he didn't belong here either.

There was a wall of windows directly across the wide living room, and Eli walked over to it, bracing his hand against the cool glass.  The desert was beautiful, mountains in the distance on fire as the sun scorched the flat sands and threw them into sharp relief against the deep purple of coming night.

"I'm going to bed," Kim said behind him.  "Don't stay up too late."

He grunted, staring past her reflection in the glass.  Down below, the hotel pool was emptying out as the encroaching shadows sucked the warmth out of the day.  It had always amazed him that the same dusty streets that topped a hundred and ten degrees during the day could plummet to the sixties at night.

He liked it though, the contrast.  People loved the desert.  Not just the lights and glamor of Vegas, but Phoenix and Taos, desert towns that swung like a drunken pendulum between two extremes every day.

Staring at his hand, pressed against the glass, he sighed.  It seemed a little arrogant to say he was like the desert, too poetic for a guy who got hit upside the head for a living.  It didn't stop him from thinking it.  Boxing could be poetry, too.  The twist of muscle and sinew, the dance of bodies, skin painted with blood and sweat and bruises.

Eli loved boxing.  He loved the skill, the burn of muscles, the ache of a good hit.  He hated the fights.  It had become a requirement now to throw mud at your opponents, to curse them and fling slurs like they were just water balloons that washed away, painless.  Even worse, the press had gotten involved, poking and prodding to make everything more interesting, to be the one who got the scoop and in return made some giant monster of a man snap.  Anger sold a lot of papers.

He smiled mirthlessly at his reflection in the window, reminded of a plaque he'd seen in the airport gift shop.  'I love my job,' it had read, ' but it's the people I can't stand.'

Running a hand over his short hair, Eli sighed and headed up the stairs for a shower and some sleep.