Tuesday Tales - Hardly

Hi everyone! Welcome to Tuesday Tales!
I am done with Death Do Us Part and it is set for release July 23rd. Yay!!
So we are taking a quick stop with Ezekiel Hallow in Featherweight (Hallow Brothers 6). This week’s word prompt is “hardly”.
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Fighting in the old veteran’s hall beat the arena they were in before. Here they were safe. The vampires and other creatures that wanted them dead hadn’t discovered them yet. Those that did never managed to make their way home. Harry, the organizer of the fights, never questioned why the Hallows wanted to switch the occasional bulb in the lighting rig with an ultraviolet one. He bought their story that it illuminated the cage that much better.
It was probably for the best he didn’t. None of them were prepared to tell them who they were or what he was dealing with. They hardly believed it most of the time themselves.
They stopped at the curtain and waited for Ezekiel to be announced. Tonight he was in the blue corner. He smiled to himself. He liked that. The Hallows typically found themselves in the red corner. It felt like they were the bad guys there. And, out of the seven brothers, he would be the last considered as the bad guy. He was accused of being the family goodball instead.
He’d be far more goofy if he could get some sleep.
A upbeat rap song blasted through the hall enough to shake the rafters overhead. Ezekiel bounced off the ball of his foot and stormed to the chain link cage in the middle of the crowd. He didn’t have to look if Josiah and Micah were behind them. They always had his back.
He popped the mouthguard between his teeth at the official’s command then raised his arms for the pat down. Once the official was satisfied, he turned to Josiah. The oldest Hallow rubbed petroleum jelly over his face as he barked out commands. Ezekiel gave each of his brothers a hug before ascending the steel steps into the cage.
He squinted through the hot lights as the music changed to a twangy country western song. He strained to watch the fighter approach with his team. He had heard of the guy before but never met him. And maybe he fanboyed over the dude. He had his shit together tonight. It was one thing to admire him from afar. He wasn’t going to get his ass kicked by him though.
Ezekiel hopped from one foot to the other as he waited for his opponent to go through the same rituals he did. Once the fighter was in the steel structure with him, the door was closed.
The announcer strode to the center of the mat. “Now for your main event, a fight for the Featherweight belt. In the blue corner from Northern Minnesota, Ezekiel Hallow. And in the red corner, from Des Moines, Iowa, Cael Dawson.”
“He’s a wrestler,” Micah warned through the chain link over the crowd.
“And you deducted that by his blond hair and pearly whites?” Josiah countered.
“Cael. Iowa. Call it an educated guess.”