by Lily Zante
“Do you know who did it?”
I nod. “I have an idea. I’m pretty sure it was Gerry.”
She doesn’t sound surprised at this, and simply nods. “I never did like him.”
“Neither did Eli.”
“Does Eli know?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“You didn’t tell him?”
“I haven’t had the chance to. I went to see him, a few days after the story broke, after his win, but he didn’t want me around. He hates me, and I understand his anger. He told me to get lost. Actually, he told me to fuck off.”
I try to read Nina’s face to see if I can glean any information from her, but she gives me nothing. “Athena showed up, and he slammed the door in my face,” I tell her. And still she gives me nothing. “I guess they got back together again?”
Because she says nothing, I take her silence for confirmation that they did. I take a sip of my coffee but it tastes really bitter.
“I didn’t know you had all this going on.”
“There’s no reason why you would know.”
“It can’t be easy, working with that man.”
“I’m thinking of leaving. Looking for a job somewhere else. I can’t stand him, and we stay out of one another’s way, but I feel out of place there. I never felt as if I belonged anyway. It’s complicated, but that’s the gist of it.” No need to tell her that Merv hates me more than ever, and that the rest of my work colleagues, even though they know nothing about the intimate photos, hate that Eli and I were together.
I’m not liked at all.
She stares back at me. It’s almost as if she feels sorry for me. “Did your boss punish Gerry?”
“Who, Merv?” I wish. “No. As far as he’s concerned, Gerry did the right thing.”
“But what about the photos?”
“I’m not sure Merv believes it was Gerry. Or maybe he does and he wants to pretend it wasn’t. I don’t think Gerry actually took the pictures, I think he got someone to take them for him because he’d have the right contacts to do that kind of dirty work, but what does it matter now? I’m the new girl, and they despise me because my dad pulled some strings and got me the job. There’s nothing I can do.”
“What about your dad?”
I run my fingers around the rim of the coffee cup, taking some comfort in the warmth. “We haven’t spoken since then. I’ve left him messages, but he’s not ready to talk, I guess.” I exhale loudly, because this is helping me. I’ve had nobody to talk to or confide in about any of this. Nina is the first. Saying it out loud gets that stuff off my chest. “I’m going to give him some time.”
“Sounds like you’ve had a rough time of it as well.”
I look up and attempt a smile, but it doesn’t quite form, because I’m suddenly not feeling so great. “I’m sorry for all the hurt I caused you and Eli. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to hurt him. I didn’t write those things in that article. Gerry did. He put them in behind my back. My mistake was to tell Gerry. I don’t even know why I did, but I did and the damage has been done. If I hadn’t told Gerry those things, he wouldn’t have known to print them.”
“Whichever way it happened, you abused Elias’s trust, Harper. He’s never opened up to anyone like that before.”
Every precious moment Eli and I spent together magnifies and comes alive in my head. Everything he told me, every kiss he gave, every touch he excited me with. Everything.
I had hoped time would lessen the impact of having had him in my life, so that it would be easier to forget about him, but it hasn’t. And I haven’t forgotten anything about him.
Eli captivated me from the first time I set eyes on him, and he continues to do that even now.
“I’m sorry. I can’t ever tell you how much I regret doing what I did.”
Nina looks around because a couple of new customers have arrived. “Did you want to order something, or do you need more time?”
“I’ll just sit here a while, if that’s okay with you?”
“It’s perfectly fine.” She peers at my coffee cup. “A refill? Or something else?”
“I’m fine for now. Thanks.”
Maybe I’m desperate for her to forgive me, but her voice seems softer, and she’s not as cold as she has been. Hopefully she sees my side of things. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you for convincing me to go to the fight, but, thanks. I’m glad I went,” she says, getting up from her seat. “I’ll never forget that night.”
I swallow. I’ll never forget that night either. “I knew how much it would mean to Eli to have you there.”
“I should be able to pay you back soon.”
I shrug. “There’s no hurry. You can pay a little at a time, if it makes things easier.” The tension in her face eases some more.
“That’s really kind of you. Thanks.” She turns to walk away, then stops and turns around. “Don’t be a stranger.”
I nod and wonder what that means. I like Nina. I can see us being friends. I could have seen us being friends, but that’s as unlikely as me and Gerry ever going out for a drink again.
Work is beyond dismal. Thankfully, Merv hasn’t mentioned the photos again, but he barely acknowledges me. He has me researching a local story about a woman who’s house is overrun with cats. It’s a far cry from what I’d been working on with Eli.
Even though I’ve told Merv about my suspicions about Gerry and the photos, he’s done nothing. I’m not too surprised, but I am disappointed. Merv and Gerry go back a long way. They will stick together no matter what, and it’s only Eli and me who got hurt in all this.
The photos are in the past and nobody cares about the consequences. Merv and Gerry won’t care that I lost Eli and my father.
I still call and leave messages on my father’s phone. I’ve told him numerous times that I’m sorry he had to see those photos, and I’ve told him that I want to meet him and explain, but he never calls back. I’m not sure what I’m going to explain. I was madly in lust with Eli when those photos were taken. I was even falling in love with him, and I would have done anything for him.
I still would.
I have no regrets.
If I met my father, I probably won’t mention Eli, unless my father brings the subject up, but it doesn’t seem as if I’ll get a chance to do that anytime soon. I want to meet with him because, as interfering and as protective as he can be, and as much as his girlfriend irritates me, he’s still my father and I still love him.
My mom doesn’t know any of this, and I’d rather keep her out of the loop. But my dad is the one I have more regular contact with, and with all my relationships in such a mess, I feel lonely. I have my usual circle of friends, but I’ve been out of touch with them ever since I started my assignment with Eli. I don’t feel up to explaining what’s been going on since I last saw them, and so, I’ve kept a low profile as far as they’re concerned.
So here I am. I no longer have my family, work colleagues, friends or lover in my life.
It sucks.
This is what life has been for Eli and Nina, and why they are so close. I can see now how I waded in and messed things up for them.
As I sit here and remember Eli, a knot of guilt sticks in my throat.
I still think of him every single day.
I still miss him.
Most days now it feels as if New York didn’t happen. The fight at The Garden was a dream. He and I being together in his hotel room was something that happened in an alternate universe.
I was at the highest of highs with him that weekend, and I fell to the lowest of lows not long after.
Each day I pick myself up and carry on because there’s nothing more I can do. I can’t get Eli back, and he now has Athena to keep him company.
I have no hopes about salvaging anything, because I’ve lost him forever.
Chapter Forty-Seven
ELI
* * *
Fame is a bitch. Having had a taste of it, I’d gladly go back
to my old life where no one knew me. But it has its advantages, and I’m trying to focus on those. Garrison has a taste for it though, and he’s missing it. He wants a rematch.
Lou and Tommy have been tossing around some dates, but my head isn’t in that space at the moment.
Things have come out—it doesn’t affect anyone else, but it affects me. I start to wake up again at night. Start to remember those days. I’m on edge, and restless, and I don’t feel like a champion so much even though I’m in all the papers, and magazines, and on TV.
Tommy talks about crazy sums of money. I have an insane sum of money to my name now. I’m on TV. Lou tells me to take it easy for a few weeks. I’ve proved myself. We’re in no hurry for the rematch. McNeilly’s Gym is doing well. Membership is going through the roof. He and Ernesto have had to turn people away. I don’t want to train in a gym that’s packed full of people.
Santos laughs and says I can afford a kickass house now, with its own gym and pool, and I won’t have to come here anymore.
But I want to come here. I want the gym to be like it was before. I don’t like the fame. I hate being recognized when I’m at the diner. I hate being mobbed.
I want things to be like they were just before the fight. I had everything then. Hope, and a dream, and the motivation to fight for my dream. It was also a time when Nina didn’t know about Swain, and I would give anything to have that be the case again.
I also had Harper in my life, back then when I could trust her.
At least things are returning to some degree of normality again. The welcome home parade the city threw for me was insane.
Athena would like to think she’s won her way back to me, but I keep her at bay. It confuses the heck out of her, especially after I let her come with me to all the events, and everyone thinks we’re together. I thought the belt would make me feel worthy, and it did, for a couple of days, but I found out that it’s all temporary. It doesn’t last. That feeling—the glory, the rapture, the adulation—they don’t make you happy forever. It’s fleeting.
The new publicist Lou hired for me—at Tommy’s suggestion—said that the quickest and best way to have people forget the stuff they read about me was to be seen with a girlfriend. I had to show everyone that I was just a regular guy, with a regular girlfriend and happy as anything, and that’s why Athena was back in my life.
It sucked that she showed up on my doorstep when Harper came to see me, because Harper will think we’re together. At first, I liked that it hurt her. I could see the anguish on her face when Athena came over with her overnight bag, as if she was going to spend a few days with me. She wasn’t. She came over to show me and Nina some of her outfits because she was worried she wouldn’t look the part of a heavyweight champion’s girlfriend.
The fuck she is my girlfriend. That girl gives herself so many ideas, her head will explode if she’s not careful.
It’s a charade I’m happy to put on for now. Athena does it because she thinks it’s a way back into my life.
It’s not.
After Harper’s betrayal, I’m not ready to let anyone into my life for a long time.
Nina tells me to listen and do as I’m told. She wants me to ride the success train for as long as I can. I’m getting so many requests for endorsements and deals that the money is just flooding in. Lou’s talking about a rematch in the next six to nine months.
I don’t know how much longer I can keep the Athena-girlfriend charade up for, but the publicist is adamant that I do, at least until the next rematch. I don’t understand why I still need to pretend I have a girlfriend.
“Nobody wants to know you’re still carrying that baggage around,” Lou tells me. By ‘that baggage,’ I assume he means all the things that make up my past.
I can’t shift them. They’ll always be a part of me, but I feel as if a weight has been lifted with it all coming out into the open.
I never expected that to be the case, but the decision was made for me—by Harper and Gerry. I’ve found though, that not having to hide it has freed me.
The only thing I regret is Nina knowing, because I never wanted her to hurt the way I’ve been hurting.
I’ve told her she can give up working at the diner and pursue every single course in the A-Z of night school courses, but she is adamant she doesn’t want to change a thing.
Things will change though.
I can afford nice apartments for both of us. I quite like the look of where Harper lives. Maybe something like that. Maybe not near her though. I’m trying to put her behind me, but it hasn’t been easy.
I’ve done my morning run, and I head over to the diner for some breakfast. It’s still early enough for it to not to be packed full of people, and I much prefer it like that. I also like that they’ve taken the lights off. Frankie, the owner, said he wanted to give the place some ‘pizzazz’, knowing that people would come because they knew my sister works here and that I’m often here.
It has been a crazy month.
I pull the door wide open, and find myself staring directly into Harper’s face.
That, right there, is like a defibrillator to my heart.
Shit.
We stare at one another in total shock. Her lips part slightly, and I can’t tell if it’s because she’s surprised, or if it’s because she’s about to say something.
I don’t want to hear it, so I step aside and look away, hoping that she’ll get the hint and move on.
She does.
I should feel okay, because, I tell myself, I’m over her. But I don’t feel so great. I feel as if I slapped her just now, and I would never, ever do that to a woman. But that’s what this feels like.
It’s going to take some time, I tell myself as I find a place at my usual booth. Nina’s tending to a few customers, so I sit back and try to get over the shock of seeing Harper.
“Good morning,” my sister says, coming over with her pot of coffee. She pours me a steaming hot cup. The bitter coffee aroma sails into my nose, zinging my nerves wide awake.
“Hey.”
She tilts her head. “Did you… did you see Harper? She just left.”
I nod. “The usual, please.” I tell her. Scrambled eggs on toast without the yolks.
“You did see her,” Nina concludes, given my reply.
“What was she doing here?” I ask, purely out of curiosity, and not because I care. Honestly, she knows I hang out here, and if she understood what I told her, she would stay away. She has stayed away up until now, and we haven’t seen each other for a while, so I’m curious to know what the hell she was doing here now. She doesn’t even work around here. Ernesto was good to her, so maybe she’s still in touch with him, who knows?
“I owe her some money.”
I bite my lower lip. “For what?”
“For the ticket to New York. To see you fight.”
“You never said you needed money.” We’ve discussed the fight and that weekend numerous times, so why is this the first time Nina’s mentioned that she owes Harper money? It never occurred to me to ask Nina if she was okay with money. Things have been nuts for me ever since the win, but I really need to take time out and sort out my finances, and make sure Nina is okay financially, too.
“It was a surprise. Harper insisted I go. She said it would mean the world to you. I would’ve told you this, but we’ve avoided discussing her lately, haven’t we?”
She walks over to the serving hatch and passes my order to the kitchen, then comes back.
“You need to buy a place,” I tell her. “And I’m going to help you out with money.”
“Don’t you want to know how she is?” my sister asks, bringing the conversation back to Harper again.
I stare back at her. “No. She’s dead to me.”
Nina sits down and clasps her hands in front of her. “So you don’t want to know about the photos Gerry took?”
I shake my head. But I’m curious. Because I don’t put anything past that ginger dude.
&n
bsp; We sit in silence for a while. She’s testing me, but I can sit through this and say nothing.
“Intimate photos of you and Harper together.”
I sit up. “Say what?” Now my brain is rushing into overdrive. We only had a few times like that. And that fucker wasn’t at the training camp. “What photos?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. She didn’t tell me.”
I frown. “Where are they?”
“The photos?”
“Yes, the photos,” I reply with irritation.
Infuriatingly, Nina gets up and walks over to the other customers, and pours them some more coffee. Then she stands around doing her waitressing thing—chatting and smiling and being friendly. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here with my anger simmering.
What photos? It was either at the hotel in New York, or at my apartment. But other than the articles Harper wrote about me, there have been no intimate photos printed anywhere. I’m perplexed.
While I’m still trying to figure it out, Nina comes over with my breakfast, only I’ve lost my appetite, even though I need to eat. Lou’s warned me that Garrison wants revenge. He needs to save face because my win has been a huge upset for him.
My glory was his downfall. People are saying that he’s past his prime, that he doesn’t have his golden touch, that he’s all mouth and no punch.
The Tank is going to come back on me hard, and I intend to do the same. I’m not a one-hit wonder, and I intend to be here for the long-term.
I push my plate away because I can’t face food right now. I need to know what goddamn photos Nina’s talking about.
“Where are the photos?” I repeat when Nina sits down again.
“You said she’s dead to you.”
“She is. But if they’re intimate photos, I need to know where they were taken and who took them.”
“She thinks it was Gerry.”
I almost grunt with surprise. “Gerry?”
“Yes. That asshole.”
Fuck that. “Gerry?” I shake my head. “How the hell was that dude able to take photos of us?”
