Right away, though, I knew something was different. This wasn't the Natalia I'd spent those precious, sweet, wild, hot nights with - this Natalia had a hard, weary look on her face, like she was about to fall over from the strain of whatever she was going through and she probably had no plans or wherewithal to get back up again. "Is this – are you – I thought you were leaving town. I guess your plans changed?” I couldn’t keep my heart from twisting painfully at the realization that she was still here in town, and hadn’t bothered to clue me in.
Natalia, gorgeous, flustered Natalia, took a deep breath, and then stepped to the side, gesturing for me to come in. "Saying my plans changed is an understatement.” She gestured to the familiar open gym inside, its well-worn punching bags just waiting for abuse. “I am the new owner.'"
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
I walked in, surveying the place. It was all familiar, of course, but now that I wasn’t here to work out, I was looking at it through new eyes. The original exposed brick stretched from wall to wall, and what looked like the original four-panel huge windows let in blocks of slightly dusty light that stretched across the floor and illuminated the whole place, throwing the center of the vast room in comparative shadow. Which wasn’t bad, because the shadow gave the competition-size boxing ring just the right dramatic lighting. Brick structural support columns framed the corners of the ring, and against them leaned boxing dummies and racks holding an assortment of gloves, weights, and resistance bands. At intervals throughout the rest of the space hung punching backs, more dummies, and chin-up bars. I let out a low whistle.
"Your father handed this over to you? Tali, I had no idea that was going to happen."
She motioned for me to follow her down the hallway directly to the right, where it looked like there were several office doors. "Neither did I, last time we... um... saw each other." I loved the color of Natalia's cheeks when she blushed - dusty rose that colored her high cheekbones gorgeously. "I thought I was home for a visit, but a lot has changed. Of course, I’d worked at the gym for a week here or there, but that was only the front desk. Teaching classes. But as far as the business end, I’m lost. Which is why I'm here, dressed like an idiot, waiting for some stupid stuffy suit who's going to try to sell me millions of dollars’ worth of insurance that I don't need. But I promised my brothers I'd meet with this stupid Kennedy person, so... here I am." She'd gotten so worked up saying all that I could swear I saw a sheen of sweat begin on her upper brow. God, she was gorgeous.
"So what the hell are you doing here?" Her question broke through my thoughts. "I mean... how did you find me?" she amended, sounding a little guilty. That was the Tali I knew. Abrasive, sure, but never cruel. Not to me, anyway.
"Well, as happy as I am to see you, I'm afraid that I am that stupid Kennedy person," I said, sheepishly. "I'm an associate at Kennedy and Sousa, and I'm here to assess your insurance policies.
The hallway was illuminated by a bare hanging Edison bulb, and I winced inwardly at the hazard that was for the people who actually had to use the hallway on a regular basis. I resisted pulling out a notepad to note it. Natalia let her head fall back at the news I'd just dealt her and her throat emitted a long, gravelly "Ugh."
"Happy to see you too," I quipped.
"I'm not sure whether I'm annoyed or relieved. Annoyed, because this is not how I'd prefer to spend my time with you, Ethan Anderson. But relieved because, if you don't mind, I'm going to get out of this stupid jacket and these torture heels."
I let out a harsh laugh. "Mind? Not in the slightest."
She nodded, stepping out of the heels and leaving them in the hallway, and shrugging out of her jacket as she walked into the first door to our left. "Step into my office, stuffy Kennedy suit who I'm very glad to see."
And, just like any other time she asked me to do something, I did exactly what Natalia Ortiz wanted.
Chapter 7
Natalia
One of the reasons I loved spending time with Ethan was that he looked at me like I was a snack to be devoured while also being worthy of his worship.
Maybe he looked at every girl he'd ever slept with like that. All I knew was that when I was with him, I felt like I was the only woman he had ever had in his life. The only woman he ever wanted to have.
It turned out that even when he saw me at my most awkward, in Sarah’s skirt suit and heels, trying desperately to look like I had a handle on my life, he looked at me in exactly the same way.
And now, apparently, I was supposed to have a conversation with him about insurance for my business - which still sounded completely crazy - while I had no idea what I was talking about.
"You were only here for a few days," Ethan said as I guided him into my office. It was only lit by a floor lamp and a desk lamp, the light coming from the bulbs a bit too yellow to make anyone look good or feel comfortable. The chairs were getting old, as evidenced by the cracked vinyl that let a puff of half-shredded foam escape from the pad. Ethan didn't seem to notice. God, he was so professional. So nice. So grown-up. So exactly the opposite of everything that I was.
I tried to suppress a sigh at the thought as I motioned for him to sit, then moved to the other side of the metal desk. The laptop I'd just bought myself at a shiny minimalist store downtown was the first I'd had since college. That first computer I’d owned had been basically falling apart by the time I'd ditched it for my adventures traveling around the world, chasing the latest thrill. Every time I couch surfed or slept under the stars, I thought to myself how I'd probably never need a personal computer again, and felt really smug about it.
Well, it turned this wasn't the first time in the last few months my assumptions about life would smack me in the face. About how my mom would live forever, basically. About how I'd be able to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it, never depending on any person, place, or thing. About how I wouldn't be tied down by responsibility. About how I'd never have to be a grown up.
If anything said grown up it was this stupid, itchy suit, combined with the fact that I was sitting across from the man who had given me the best orgasms I'd ever had, discussing insurance.
"So, I mean, if you wouldn't mind my asking," Ethan said in that infuriatingly cautious way he had of asking everything, "How exactly do you own this business when just four days ago you were still a nomad?"
I saw pain flicker in his features, and I felt bad about that. I really did. "I didn't lie to you," I rushed to explain. "Life sort of comes at you fast."
He sat back in the chair, which creaked against his weight, which just reminded me of his weight pinning me to a bed. Waiting for me to say more. Waiting like he had all the time in the world, like he’d gladly wait until I finally spilled all my closely kept secrets to him, like he knew I would.
"You know my mom passed away," I said, pushing the words out in a rush, trying to dodge the pain of them as I did. He just nodded, his mouth turning down in that soft sympathetic frown I'd grown so used to seeing from everyone I'd ever known before my mom had died. "Well, she and my dad built this gym and kept it going strong since I was little. It's what put food on our table and me and two of my brothers through college. It's everything we have. Everything he has."
"So isn't your dad the one who owns it?"
"Technically," I said, half annoyed and half embarrassed by the previous reality of this whole situation, "Only my dad and my four brothers owned it. You're looking at what was, until three days ago, ‘The Knockout Brothers Gym’. Now it's just ‘The Knockout.’ And it's fiftypercent mine."
His eyes went wide, and I rushed to explain. "You know that I have nothing else going on. No real plans. Nothing I own. No... relationship." I let my eyes flash to his, checking for hurt there. I wasn't sure whether I saw it. "My brothers all have lives. Only three of them live here in Philly. They all have jobs, families... other things they have to do. And only one of them has a business degree. Interestingly enough, I have one too."
'That's right!" Ethan sa
id, snapping his fingers. "I remember now."
"Yeah," I confirmed. "And you might have realized by now that I don't really half-ass anything. So I graduated cum laude. Even though I've never run a business, and the only thing I've ever accomplished is checking off destinations on a map and items on a crazy-person bucket list, my dad is really proud of that 3.8 GPA. My brothers too. They all seem to think it translates into some ability to actually run a business. So here I am."
"You don't seem so confident," Ethan said, leaning forward in his seat. Something about the way his upper arms strained against his shirt had me feeling the slightest bit dizzy.
"Well, would you be?" I practically yelled at him, throwing my hands in the air. This was the first time I had let myself crack on this issue since the family sit-down three days ago. Something about being a room with Ethan made me feel open. Vulnerable.
"If I were me, no. But if I were you, having never even thought about running a business… yeah, I get it. But you’re going to do great. I can just tell. "
I could have jumped across the desk to hug him in that moment. It was dumb, and he was wrong, but the fact that one person who wasn't related to me, who knew me a little bit, could say that...well, it helped. "I guess I do know enough to be alarmed at the insurance coverage this business had previously," I said, ruffling through the shallow drawer that held all my most immediately important papers. My fingers located a yellowing manila folder that held a few sheets of paper, some of them pink carbon-copies. That was how old this insurance policy was.
Ethan took the folder and gingerly flipped through the papers. He gave a low whistle. "Natalia, this insurance agency went out of business five years ago. I could probably find the original policy, but... I'm not going to lie, you seriously need an upgrade. With us, or with someone else, but your coverage is very shaky, if what I’m seeing is the whole picture."
I rolled my eyes. "Obviously. And my brother Alejandro’s assistant recommended your agency, so I called you. Help." He stared at me blankly for a second, so I added, "Please," feeling my cheeks blush. The last time I had said that word to him, it had nothing to do with insurance or business arrangements or anything other than how I felt in that moment, begging him to make me come.
If he was half as good at insurance as he was at making me scream in bed, The Knockout Gym was in wonderful hands.
He spent a few more minutes looking over the papers, his lips moving gently as he read over them to himself. Watching him, I bit my lip. It was hard not to remember the expert way his mouth worked me over. How it made me feel - cherished and desired all at once. I squeezed my legs together. Of all things, I couldn't be thinking about that now.
"Okay," he nodded. "You have basic liability on the premises, which covers up to ten thousand dollars. That means if some guy clips his chin on the pull-up bar and gives himself a concussion, or one of the punching bags swings back and knocks him on the ground, or, hell, if a ceiling tile falls out and breaks his collarbone, goes to the hospital, and sues you for the bill...."
"This insurance is only covering ten grand. Which means a gurney and a bottle of water."
"And maybe an aspirin," Ethan agreed. "That is if you drive him to the hospital yourself. If he takes an ambulance, you're already halfway to ruined."
Dammit, Papá. Was it that hard to keep this stuff up to date?
I knew as soon as I thought it, though, that we probably couldn't really afford more. This gym needed more than the maintenance my parents were able to give it for the last fifteen years. Times were changing, and if I wanted to keep my family business, which was now my business, functional and profitable, I had to make some changes.
Just thinking about it made my neck feel hot. I was glad I'd taken the suit jacket off. My hand went to unbutton the top button - maybe two - of this ridiculous, stiff button-up.
Ethan's brows furrowed together and he stood up, wrapping the fingers of one of his big, beautiful hands around the frame of that half-ruined chair and swinging it around so that it sat next to mine.
"It's okay. This is going to be fine. Insurance has changed a lot and I think you'll be surprised at how affordable it can be. Okay? I'm just going to get my laptop and ask you some questions. We'll get through this together."
Something about the tall, steady presence of his body right across from mine actually did help to calm me. It was confusing, of course, that most other times Ethan's body made me feel anything but calm. I worried at my bottom lip between my teeth, nodding. That word echoed through my mind - together - as something I knew should have made me want to bolt, even though I knew that bolting was the absolute best thing I could do.
So, instead, summoning more strength than had ever been required to take stunt-driving lessons or go cliff diving, or even to run with the bulls, I took my seat again, smoothing my skirt, swallowing hard, and trying not to think about how my life had changed for the boring and gotten so completely terrifying all at the same time.
Ethan's computer was a heavy-duty business model, and he explained while it booted up that half of his visits were at construction sites. "This building is beautiful," he commented. "Nothing beats the old construction. Exposed brick and piping makes this a Philly treasure. Honestly."
"Are you a real-estate agent in your spare time?" I asked. Ethan's lips twitched, and I was grateful he'd understood that I was joking. At least, mostly.
"Well, actually, I got kind of obsessed with it a while back when I was buying my house."
My heart stuttered. "You bought. A house?" As simple as the concept was, my brain was having trouble putting it together with someone my age. Someone I'd had pretty inventive and very, very good sex with not too long ago. "I mean... you own that house?" Of course I knew he had a house. I'd slept with him in it. On its kitchen counter and in its shower, too.
He just smiled, then laughed gently. "How about if we talk about what a lame old geezer I am after I finish doing my lame old geezer job with you here and we get your insurance squared away, huh?"
"Point taken," I said, allowing myself a wry smile.
For the next completely exhausting half hour, Ethan fired questions at me about The Knockout. It was sort of embarrassing how many of them I had to guess the answers to, or had no answers to whatsoever. Ethan, in return, assured me that it was perfectly normal and fine for me to have no clue about anything insurance-related for my own business, even though I was pretty sure that was a lie.
Ethan wasn't a good liar. His nervous laugh gave him away every time, which I'd learned that time he said he didn’t mind spicy food and then almost wept when I fed him Arturo’s arroz con pollo with lots of pique and watched his eyes water and his tongue smack against the roof of his mouth. He'd nervous-laughed all the way through the half-hour recovery period for that.
We spent the next hour going through all the questions in his little insurance checklist. Everything from the cost of gym equipment and how much of it we’d need to replace in any given year to the average number of injuries sustained into the gym went into the equation. Ethan explained that because the rate at which people in this area attended gyms remained pretty steady from year to year, that would improve my rate; the fact that this was an old building, on the other hand, would increase our rates. When he started to ask me questions about business plans – our goals for advertising, possible expansion, and continuing member acquisition – I could practically feel my head start to spin.
“Not to be a pain,” I said, rubbing my temples, “but maybe we could revisit these questions once I’ve had a chance to tackle the business plan. Right now, I just have a bunch of messy notes in my sorry excuse for a bullet journal.”
The corner of his mouth tugged up. “You keep a bullet journal?”
“It sounded like a good idea, but I’m failing pretty hard at it,” I admitted. “I already forgot which colors are supposed to go with which categories, and I made a mistake on the calendar page.”
“Gotcha. Yes, of course. Business que
stions are getting tabled, which is fine. They’re relatively minor. Now, the next thing we need to talk about is insurance for you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Specifically, life insurance. If something were to happen to you, it would impact the business significantly. We need to make sure that, in the event of your untimely death, the business would have enough cash coming in to mitigate the shock.”
It was like he’d thrown a bucket of cold water at my face. Even more jarring was that he was just sitting there waiting for my response, like instead of talking about my gruesome, sudden death, he had asked me if I wanted fries with my order.
“I mean… I don’t plan on dying,” I said, throwing out a nervous chuckle.
Ethan tilted his head, looking at me like I’d just brayed like a donkey. “Nobody plans on dying. But you, especially…”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” All of a sudden, the safe feeling he’d given me felt like it had transformed into a knife being held at my throat.
“You know what I’m saying, Natalia. It’s like you’re asking for it.”
Tears pricked at my eyes, though for the life of me I didn’t know why. He wasn’t wrong. I liked to sky dive, and run with bulls, and drive cars too fast. The way he said it, though, made it sound like by doing those things I’d be trying to hurt the business.
“Okay, I’m sorry. That was rude,” he said, leaning forward and covering one of my hands with one of his. “I know you’re trying to get your feet under you. We’ll talk about it next time we meet, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.” I shook my head, trying to re-center myself. Ethan was a professional, just trying to help me out. This was business, and it was stupid to get emotional over matter-of-fact discussions. So I took a deep breath in and closed my eyes, re-centering myself.
“I’ll just start the file on you, and the gym itself then, okay? It’s a few pages long, and then there are some long forms for the gym’s property info like taxes, licenses, and all that. We can fill them out together, if you want.” There was an apology in his voice, and I decided to accept it.
Just Let Go Page 4
