She cringes.
“Go on, I’m not going to freak out.” I rattle my tequila glass at her.
She laughs. “Okay, look, I don’t know what’s going on, but yes, you’re different. I wish you’d tell me why, but you’ve made it pretty clear it’s not up for discussion.”
“What’s so different? I’m doing everything I’ve always done.”
“Yeah,” she says. “But…” She grabs the bottle of tequila off the table and holds it up. “Okay, this. This would never have happened a week from the fight before.”
I stare at her, stuck. “Yeah, okay.”
“And you’re distant. You’re nice. You teach your classes. But you practically run off the floor at the end of class. You used to hang out. And your training is great, but it’s also kind of obsessive.”
“Obsessive?”
“I was driving home Saturday night and saw the lights on in the MMA room at three in the morning. You should have been getting your sleep and recovering. And you run all the time. It’s like you can’t stop. You do know this isn’t a fucking marathon, right? You’re obviously going through something. He’s concerned about it. And yes, I am too. Are you afraid? Do you think you’re going to get hurt again?”
I sigh and stare at the floor. I don’t want to lie to Laila, and shit, could I use a good talk about it with a girl, but I can’t. I can’t break my word to Brooklyn, even though I’m not with her. I can’t risk that Laila will tell her close friend who will tell their close friend who will sell it to a magazine. I do trust Laila, but if I don’t have the self-control to shut up, how can I expect her to?
That leaves me with no idea how to answer her. I don’t want to be distant. I don’t want to deal with this alone, but I can’t even tell her I can’t tell her without risking she’ll figure it out. It’s not that big of a jump. I give her the best truth I can.
“I just don’t have this in me anymore. I want to coach. I wanted to be Brooklyn’s coach. I wanted to help her get the belt, not fight her for it. I liked things the way they were.”
Laila spins and crosses her legs on the couch to face me completely, looking excited to finally have something to work with. “Then why the fuck are you doing this? Why are you changing everything if you liked the way it was?”
I shake my head. “Because Brooklyn wants to fight me, and changing everything is the only way I can squeeze some good out of it.” God, I hope this isn’t too much information. This could all be true in a universe in which we’ve never been more than friends, right? “I’m her only loss, and a rematch with me is the only way she gets another title shot this fast. Giving her this fight is more than I could ever give as her coach.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Laila says. “And even if it were, what are you planning to do? Lay down for her so all her dreams come true?”
“Of course not. I’m giving her the opportunity. The win is on her.”
“Part of you wants to lose, though, doesn’t it?”
“No,” I say firmly, and Laila’s face floods with relief. She’s not crazy to think it. I asked myself the same thing. I do want Brooklyn to win the title, but not from me, and there’s no way in hell I’m putting my body through what Brooklyn would do with a freebie.
“I’m one fight away from retiring undefeated and being set for life,” I say. “I’m not laying down. I still represent this gym, and Jin, and you, and my students, and myself. Brooklyn would never want it handed to her anyway. She’d be furious, actually. I’m going in there to win. I just wish what we could have achieved together meant more than one stupid loss to her.”
“Easy for a person with no losses to say.” Laila’s sly smile hits just the right note to make us both break into laughter, and God, does that feel good.
“She said that too, but fuck you both.” I laugh. “If I had one loss and it was to Jin I wouldn’t care in the least.”
“I hear you, but I don’t know what you’re so damn sad about.” She downs the rest of her drink. “She wanted it, and it’s your ticket out in one measly fight. It’s a win-win. And once you crush her and retire, she’ll come asking for your help just like she did the first time.”
She’s not going to come back, but Laila’s point stands. For the first time, I can kind of wrap my head around that idea, that it’s a win-win. The fight benefits us both, and the relationship was going to crash at some point anyway. We’re not exchanging a future together for a fight. We never had a future. It’s what Brooklyn suggested already, but I couldn’t hear it.
“You’re right,” I say. “I shouldn’t feel like shit about this. It was her idea.”
“She wanted it, she’s going to get it.” Laila slaps my chest, a little rowdy from the tequila. I laugh and pour her another but cut myself off. She’s right that getting drunk in training, especially this close to the end of it is not something I’d normally be okay with. If I stop now, I’ll be able to look myself in the mirror tomorrow and still get after it one last time before weight cuts.
“Hey, where’s your belt?”
I shake my head and laugh. “Oh God, why?”
“Just answer the question.”
“In the display case in the MMA room.”
“No, that’s a replica for display. Where’s yours?” I’m a little impressed she knows that, and I reward her by pointing at the closet. She yanks open the door and stands on her tiptoes to pull it down from the highest shelf. “Jesus, Bauer, in the fucking closet getting dusty? You’re a mess.”
She brushes it off, moves everything except our glasses off the table and sets it down in front of me. “I want this in your line of sight until the fight. You got it? You earned it, and you don’t owe that to anybody.”
“That’s really not necessary.”
“Don’t push me, Eden. I swear to God I’ll make you wear it.”
“Okay, okay. Plain sight.”
She sits next to me just as the fighters on the screen start lighting each other up in a staggering exchange.
“Oh shit!” We both lean forward, barely even on the couch. The young guy in red lands a hook that finally puts his opponent’s lights out, and Laila and I are both yelling at the screen just as a knock sounds on the door. We lock eyes, confused and surprised. It’s at my actual room door, not the building door, which means it must be Jin telling us to shut the hell up. Laila does that math at the same time and we both fall into silent giggles. Or maybe he’s coming to make peace. That’ll be short-lived if he sees I’m drinking.
“Hide that,” I whisper as I point at the bottle. Laila scrambles to do it while I walk to the door. Once she’s shoved it all into a cabinet, I open the door. But it isn’t Jin.
Chapter Thirty
Not even the smallest fraction of me is ready to see her there. Brooklyn, in all her devastating sexiness, in my doorway. At twelve o’clock at night. It short-circuits my brain, and I can’t seem to make a sound come out of my frozen mouth. Her eyes bounce between me and Laila half a dozen times, and she looks just as paralyzed. I’m guessing Laila is too, because she’s not saying a damn word either.
“What’re you doing here?” I finally manage.
Brooklyn’s gaze is still jumping around the room, from me to Laila to the belt on the table to the fights on the television, and she’s not saying a word. Laila finally appears at my side, and I’m just glad someone has recovered the ability to move.
“Hey, Brooklyn,” she says. “It’s good to see you.”
Brooklyn’s eyes switch from being glued to Laila, to repelled by her, and she locks on to me. “I want to talk about the fight.”
I thought I would become a normal, functioning person again once she spoke, but I was wrong. It’s like the entire room is in the vacuum of space being sucked into the timelessness of a black hole.
“I’ll just take off and let you two talk,” Laila says. I finally come out of my trance enough to turn to her.
“You’re not driving, are you?”
“Yeah,
but I’m not far at all. I’ll be okay.”
“No way,” I say. “Nuh-uh.”
“Really, I’m fi—”
“Laila,” I say sternly.
“Okay, okay. I’ll walk.”
“Nope.”
She groans. “Fine, I’ll get a Lyft, okay? Don’t worry about it. You two just…” She gestures between us. “Whatever, talk.”
“Promise,” I say.
She raises her right hand in an overly animated gesture. “I solemnly swear to get a Lyft home.”
“Thank you.”
“Yep. See you tomorrow.” She kisses me on the cheek. “Night, Brooklyn.” Laila squeezes past Brooklyn in the space Brooklyn makes for her, a space not quite big enough to qualify as polite. Once she passes through the second doorway into the main gym space, I motion for Brooklyn to come inside. Brooklyn holds eye contact for a second that feels extra heavy, then comes in. I almost ask her how she got in, but remember how training ended and realize we never so much as turned the lights off, let alone locked up.
“You want to talk about the fight?”
“What did I just walk in on?” She maintains a normal volume, but there’s anger simmering through it.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
I scoff, cross my arms, and look away from her, an automatic reaction popping with attitude I can’t seem to control. “What do you care? I’m single. Remember?”
“Yeah, I remember.” Brooklyn scratches the back of her head, drawing my attention to her hair. Her curls are starting to grow out a little more to create a kind of shaggy look while the sides are freshly shaved despite her wearing that a little longer too. She’s wearing a sleeveless hoodie, a look that’s always inexplicably made me crazy. The way it’s showing off her tattoos isn’t helping matters. “So, what? Are you two just playing around or are you a thing?”
Once the accusatory tone leaves her voice, I hear pain, and as much as I want to tell her my personal life is none of her fucking business anymore, I know it won’t feel as good as it seems like it will.
“Look, it’s not what it looks like,” I say.
“You’re in your place you never let anyone see with a beautiful woman getting drunk in the middle of the night, but there’s nothing going on?”
“Two friends watching the fights and having a few drinks at the end of a long and fucked up day of training.”
“She kisses you on the cheek now, huh?”
“What are you doing here, Brooklyn?”
“I just wanted to…” She paces around the room, suddenly having a hard time with eye contact. Then she turns back abruptly. “I knew you two were hot for each other. Didn’t I say it?”
“Brooklyn,” I say sternly. “I don’t owe you an explanation, but I gave you one. Don’t call me a liar.”
“You’re right.” She raises her hands. “Sorry. I just didn’t expect you to have company.”
I probably wouldn’t do much better if I saw Brooklyn with another woman, but Brooklyn isn’t in the same place I am, so what is this? Some kind of bruised ego at the mere notion I could move on from her?
“What about the fight, Brook—”
“I don’t want to do it.” She spits it out like it’s a parasite she has to get rid of.
“You…” I pause and touch my forehead. “You what?”
“I don’t want to do it. I don’t think I can.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
It feels like there are actual moving parts in my brain and they’re all breaking down at once. It’s such a mindfuck I start to laugh, but it’s not funny. Whatever it is, it’s not funny.
“You’re the one who wanted to do this.”
“I know, Eden.”
“I asked you not to do this. I told you I couldn’t. I told you it would be too hard, but you needed to win. You needed your legacy.”
She stares at the floor. I pause to let her respond, but she doesn’t.
“What’s the game here?” I ask. “You trying to confuse me to death?”
She steps closer. “No. I fucked up, Eden. You were right. I don’t want to fight you. I don’t ever want to hurt you.”
“What happened to ‘it’s just business’?”
“I’m an idiot.”
I dip my head to the side, surprised and amused despite myself. “Kind of.” I smirk at her. When she smiles back, the pressure in the room releases and I catch a full breath, but this is a mess. “It’s a week away, Brooklyn. It’s too late.”
“I could fake an injury or something.”
It sounds like an idea for a second, but it would get out. Speculatively at the very least, which could still hit hard. “It’d have to be documented.”
“How hard can it be to break something?”
“You’re a professional athlete,” I say. “We’re not breaking your bones on purpose.”
“Well, I’ll just eat the fallout and back out then,” she says. I don’t know how seriously to take her or how the hell she’d explain such a thing.
“They think it’s going to be one of their biggest fights ever. It’s too late to change your mind unless you want to seriously fuck your career, and I know you don’t want to do that.”
“Of course I don’t want to do that,” she says. “I want to go back in time and undo that whole shitty conversation and change it so that when you tell me it’s an awful idea, I don’t destroy everything, but that’s not where we are. We’re here, and I don’t know what else to do. I can’t handle you thinking I don’t give a shit about you. I don’t need to beat you. I thought I did, but I don’t.”
I sigh. “You’re seriously thinking about backing out? You understand what that would mean for you?”
“It means I may have a shot at you not hating me forever,” she says. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you.”
“Oh, Brooklyn, what are you doing to me.” I turn away and take a deep breath. “I can’t let you do that. It’ll kill your career.” I turn back to her. “I know you care, okay? I know I meant something to you, and I don’t hate you. I can handle it. Just do the fight. Go back to thinking of it as us doing our jobs.”
“I can do that, but I need you to understand something.” She steps forward, closer than I expected, within a casual boundary. The urge to back away is automatic, but my feet don’t move. She has me under a spell, a familiar whirlwind feeling that leaves me floating and a little dizzy. There’s a palpable heat of energy hovering over her warm skin. It’s like the space between us is humming more and more violently the closer we get until it’s screaming at us to touch. And then there’s her steady, intense eyes. It’s like she won’t stop until she’s sucked out every ounce of my strength.
“What, Brooklyn?” I whisper.
“It’s not, ‘you meant something to me,’ and it’s not, ‘I care about you.’” She touches my face. “It’s more than that. I love you too, Eden. I should have said it back.” She leans in slowly. I have all day to stop her, but I can’t. She kisses me, her lips landing sure and hot, sweet and sensual at once. A shock of desire floods my body, and I open my mouth to her without thinking. Her arms wrap around me, her hands on my back pulling me tight to her body, fitting me against her. It feels like it’s been so long, but also no time at all. Her tongue slides between my lips, and I can’t stop the soft moan that sounds in my chest. She holds me to her tightly as the kiss takes over. Her palms move up my stomach, and I smile at the shudder that runs through her arms.
She steps forward, pushing me gently toward the bed, and finally my brain starts to function again, if in a fog.
“Brooklyn, wait,” I say, breathless.
“Please no,” she whispers.
“What about your family?”
She exhales long and slow. “It’s the same.” Her voice is so heavy. I’d give anything to take that sound out of it.
“What are you going to do?”
There’s a sh
een of tears across her eyes, but it never grows, never spills over. “I still can’t tell them, Eden. It would kill them.”
“What about you? Don’t you want to be free?”
“Of course, I do,” she says, a little agitated.
“Don’t you want to be able to answer your phone without panicking they’ll hear me? Or go to a restaurant without wondering if anyone’s taking pictures? Or live together one day?”
“Yes, I want all of that,” she says. “But I’d rather live without that than them.”
I touch her face, trying to make her look at me. “I love your family, but this will strangle you, Brooklyn.”
“It’s not that bad. You’re exaggerating. We saw each other every day. You said you weren’t asking me to come out. You said—”
“I know what I said, and I meant it. I don’t need you to come out right now. It doesn’t even have to be soon. I just need to know you’re going to one day. What kind of life can we have if you don’t?”
“I can’t promise that.” She says it strong and flat. Final.
“Never?”
“I’m sorry, Eden.”
I close my eyes to try to keep the tears at bay. “I’m sorry too.”
“Why can’t we just have this?”
“Because we’ll go crazy, Brooklyn. The best-case scenario is that we live separately forever, you smile while your dad calls me a dyke behind my back, we see each other in the gaps, I spend birthdays and Christmas and funerals alone, and you spend yours without me. That’s the version where things go to plan. The way the press is talking about us, it’s more likely we eventually get caught. Part of me wants to let that happen so I can have you, but I can’t do that to you if it’s not what you want.”
She pulls away and faces the other direction, putting her hands on her head. I feel like I can see her adding it all up, considering our fame, how close by her family always seems to be, scanning my assessment and getting angrier as she does.
“Jesus, so that’s it?” she says.
“That’s up to you.”
“No, it isn’t,” she snaps. “I can’t fucking tell them.” She punctuates each word, overflowing with anger that I’m not grasping it. “This is the price to be with you? I can’t fight for the title and I have to turn my back on my family? It’s too fucking much, Eden.”
The Clinch Page 22
